Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1884-09-19
come and establish an expensive court
again,
I.nnrnritr and Labor.

Ericsson, the veteran inventor, is
eighty-one years old, Is in excellent
health, and works, it is said, sixteen
hours a day, thus proving an exception
to the general rule that the old men are
incapable of great exertion. But per-
hsps this general rule, like many Others
that are received without question, is
fallacy. Perhaps it might be fairly as
serted that busy men live longer than
idle men; that work is, after all, the true
elixir of life. Many noteworthy instan-
ces where longevity comedies with re-
markable mental activity will easily oc-
cur 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 tnoney-he
wrote one of his greatest tragedies Did
not Humboldt do more work at four
score than many bright men do at fortyl
Goethe, as every one knows, died with
pen in hand at the age of eighty-two.
Won Rankc, the foremost of all living
historians, has Just published another
volume of his universal 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-five, is old9 Long.
fellow 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 directions are known as Victor
Hugo, show no signs of decrepitude, al
though 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 eighty-four (;
Thierry and Michilet at seventy-six;
Mignet and Guizot at eighty-seven.
George Bancroft is now eighty-four, and
George Ticknor lived to be eighty.
Gladstone is nearly seventy-five, and Pal
merston was prime minister at the time
of his death, two days before he had
completed his eighty-tirst year. Benja-
min Franklin, in the last century, lived
to be eighty-four.
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 ad-
vanced period. Of course, on the other
hand, might be cited the remarkable men
who died young, but even from their ex-
perience the fact might be brought out,
not that they were killed by over-work,
but by irrational work Usually, as in
the case of Keats, early death is the re-
suit of chronic disease. Shelley, who is
always mentioned among those whose
lives stretched but span, was drowned
accidentally, and there is good reason to
believe that but for this he would have
lived to old age, because he was physi
cally strong. Raphael, Mozart, Byron,
Burns, and Schubert succumbed just at ar
age when most men reach their prime
but it must not be forgotten that the last
three undermined their health by excess
es. Shakespeare, Napoleon, Caesar anc
Beethoven, recognized as the unrivaled
giants in their respective departments
died at between fifty and sixty. But on
the other hand, Michel Angelo, thar
whom no man ever expended more en-
ergy upon his vast achievements, lived tt
be ninety, and Titan was ninety-nine
1t is evident, therefore, that while nc
strict law can be established, there is {
relation between longevity and labor
Work preserves the health, while idle
ness tends to weaken it.-Phil0delphiC
| Bulletin,