The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1884-09-27
LONGEVITY AND LABOR.
Work Preserves the Health, Idleness Weak


Work Preserves the Health, Idleness Weak
II.
Philadelphia Bulletin.
Ericsson, the veteran inventor, was
eighty-one years old yesterday. He is
in excellent health, and works, it is
said, sixteen hours day, thus proving
an exception to the general rule that
old men are incapable of great exer-
ton. But perhaps this general rule,
like many others that are received
without question, is fallacy Perhaps
it might be fairly asserted that busy
work is, after all, the true elixir of life
Many noteworthy instances where lon
gevity comedies with remarkable men,
tai 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 tragediesp Did not Humboldt
do more work at four score than many
bright men at forty? Goethe, as every
one knows, died with pen in hand at
the age of eighty-two. Won Ranke, the
foremost of living historians, has just
published another volume of his Uni
versal History; he will be eighty-nine
years old next December. Carlyle and
Emerson lost none of their vigor until
they reached three score years and ten.
And, to-day, who imagines that Oliver
Wendell Holmes, already on the verge
of seventy-fve, is old? Longfellow did
some of his best work shortly before his
death, at seventy-five, and Whittier is
now two years older than that. The
vast energies, whose sum in many di-
rections are known as Victor Hugo,
snow no signs of decrepitude, although |
it is more than eighty-two years since
Victor Hugo was born. Historians, it |
may be remarked, have usually been
long-lived.
Voltaire died at "a. Thierry and |
Michelet at rs; Mignet and Guizot at
81. George Bancroft is now "a, and
George Tichnor lived to be 80. In pub
lie life we have had several recent ex-
amples of great men whose power for
craftsmanship did not dimish 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
jamin Franklin, in the last century,
lived to be 3d.
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 very adj
vanced period. Of course, on the
other hand, might be cited the remark
able 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 al s
ways mentioned among those whose /
lives stretched but a span, was drown
ed accidentally, and there is good rea- t
son to believe that but for this he I
would have lived to old age, because S
he was physically strong.
Raphael, Mozart, Byron, Burns and t
Schubert succumbod Just at an age c
when most men reach their prime, but I
it must not be forgotten that the last G
three undermined their health by ex- t
cesses. Shakespeare, Napoleon, Caesar r
and Beethoven, recognized as the I'M u
rivalled giants in their respective de- a
partments, died between fifty and six h
ty. But on the other hand, Michael V
Angelo, than whom no man ever ex- b
pended more energy on his vast achiev-
ments, lived to be ninety, and Titan
was ninety-two. 1t is evident, there
lore, that while no strict law can be
there is relation be-
,ween longevity and labor. Work pre-
serves the health, while idleness tends
% weaken it. !