Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1884-09-20
LOngeviS and Labor.

Ericsson, the veteran inventor, is
eighty-one years gold, is in excellent
health, and WORKS, it is said, sixteen
hours day, thuSproving an exception
to the general ruE that the old men are
incapable of greet exertion. But per-
haps this general gule. like many others
that are received Eyithout question, is a
fallacy. PerhapsSit might be fairly as
serted that busy Anen live longer than
idle men; that wCNk is, after all, the true
elixir of life. May noteworthy instan-
ces where longeETty comedies with re-
markable mental zctivity will easily oc-
cur to the rcadeEs Was not Sophocles
more than ninety ahen, to prove that he
was not in his tsotage-as his heirs
claimed, in order 30 get his money-he
wrote one of his gsSatest tragedies Did
not Humboldt de- more work at four
score than MANY hight men do at forty2
Goethe, as every .kne knows, died with
pen in hand at the age of eighty-two.
on Ranke, the &slemost of all living
historians, has itsst published another
volume of his uniSsrsal history; he will
be eightv-nine yeafs old next December.
CARLYLE and Emerfdn lost none of their
vigor until they retched three score years
and ten. And. ..a-day, who imagines
that Oliver Wendell Holmes, already on
the verge of severty-five, is oldG Long
fellow did some o, his best work shortly
before his DEATH Sat seventy-five, and
Whittier is now kNo years older than
that. The vast eAergies, whose sum IN
MANY directions are known as Victor
Hugo, show no sissIs of decrepitude, al
though it is more Chan eighty two years
since Victor Hugo was born. Historians,
it may be remarked. have usually been
long-lved. VoltaiSn died at eighty-four;
Thierry and MiCgrilet at seventy six I;
Mignet and Guihot at eighty-seven.
George Bancroft issnow eighty -four, and
George Ticknor Aived to be eighty.
Gladstone is nearls5seventy-fiv and Pal
merston was prime; minister at the time
of his death, twcs days before he had
completed his eighty first year. Benja-
min Franklin, In TIE last century, lived
to.be eighty-four
These instances Ssuffice to show that
there are constitutions which not only
can bear, but whik.h actually need the
stimulus of hard Cork up to very adj
vanced period. OE course, on the other
hand. might be citS6 the remarkable men
who died young, bot even from their ex-
perience the fact rSsght be brought out,
not that they weresailled by over-work,
but by irrational Sork. Usually, as IN
the case of Keats, saarly death is the re-
suit of chronic disessse. Shelley, who Is
always mentioneds IamOng those whose
lives stretched nutEa span. was drowned
accidentally, and there is good reason to
believe that but feA this he would have
lived to old AGE, because he was physi-
cally strong. RaESeal, Mozart, Byron,
Burns, and Schubert just at an
age when most MA reach their prime,
but il must not be Sorgotten that the last
three undermined eaeir health by excess
es. Shakespeare, Napoleon, Cesar and
| Beethoven, recognized as the unrivaled
chants in their respective departments,
died at between fifHs and sixty. But on
| the other hand. Eichel Angelo, than
whona no man ev6 expended more en-
ergy upon his vast 4shievements. lived to
be ninety, and Tiinn was ninety mine
r Il evident. therefore. that while no
strict law can be established, there 10 .
relation between longevity and labor.
| Work preserves tba health, while IDLE
| ness tends to weaRsen i. Phsta0ssphza
/ Bulletin.