The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1884-08-29
N B
Work Preserves the Health Idleness
Weakens It.

NAo AGa4k 40xGA00A
Weakens It.
Philadelp hia Bulletin. g.
Ericsson, the veteran inventor, was
eighty-one years old yesterday. He is
i'll excellent health, and works, tits said,
sixteen hours a day, thus proving an
exception to the general rule that old
men are incapable of great exertion.
But perhaps this general rule, like
many others that are received without
question, is a fallacy. Perhaps it
might be fairly asserted that busy men
live longer than idle men: that work
is, after all, the true elixir of life.
Many noteworthy instances where
longevity comedies with remarkable
mental activity will easily occur to the
reader.
Was not Sophocles more than ninety
when, to prove that he was not in his
~dotage-as his heirs claimed, in order
to get his money-he wrote one of his
greatest tragedies? Did not Humboldt
do more work at fourscore than many
bright men do at forty? Goethe, as
every n knows, died with pen in
hand at the age of eighty-two. Won
Rank, the foremost of living historians,
has just published another volume of
his Universal History; he will be eigh-
ty-nine years old next December. Car
lyle and Emerson lost none oftheir Wig
or until they reached three score years
and ten.
And to-day, who imagines that Oil
yer Wendell Holmes, already on the
verge of seventy five, is old? Long
fellow did some of his best work shortly
before his death, at seventy-ive, and
Whittier is now two years older than
that. The vast energies, whose sum in
many directions are known as Victor
Hugo, show no signs of decrepitude,
although it is more than eighty-tw
years since Victor Hugo was born,
Historians, it may be remarked, have
usually been longlived.
Voltaire died at "a, Thierry and
Michelet at rs; Mignet and Guizot OF
81. George Bancroft is now 81, and
George Tichnor lived to be so. In
public life we have had several recent
q vi SICthU llGuM lOSt pOWGI lOE
craftsmanship did not diminish through
age. Gladstone is nearly rs, and Pal
merston was Prime Minister at the time
of his death, two days before he had
completed his eighty-first year. BEN
famine Franklin in the last century,
lived to be "a.
These instances suffice to show that
there are constitutions which not only
can bear, but which actually need the
stimulus of hard work up to a very adj
vanced period. OF course, on the other
hand, might be cited the remarkable
men who died young, but even from
their experience the fact might be
brought out, not that they were killed
by overwork, but by irrational work.
Usually, as in the case of Keats, early
death is the result of chronic disease.
Shelley, who is always mentioned among
those who lives stretched but q span,
was drowned a%ccidently, and there is
good reason to believe that but for this
he would have lived to old age, because
he was physically strong.
Raphael, Mozart, Byron, Burns and
Schubert succumed just at an age when
most men reach their prime, but Unjust
not be forgotten that the last three un-
dermined their health by excuses.
Shakespeare, Napoleon, Caesar and Bee
thoven, recognized as the unrivaled gi-
ants in their respective departments,
died at between fifty and sixty.
But on the other hand Michel Angelo.
than whom no man ever expended more
energy upon his vast achievements,
lived to be ninety, and Titan WAS ninety
nine. Tits evident, therefore, that while
no strict law can be established, there is
a relation between longevity and labor.
Work preserves the health, while idle
ness tends to weaken il.