When Charles Lamb was released for life from his daily drudgery of desk-work at the India Office, he felt himself the happiest of men. "I would not go back to my prison," he said to a friend, "ten years longer, for ten thousand pounds." He also wrote in the same ecstatic mood to Bernard Barton: "I have scarce steadiness of head to compose a letter," he said; "I am free! free as air! Iwill live another fifty years.... Would I could sell you some of my leisure! Positively the best thing a man can do is--Nothing;and next to that, perhaps, Good Works." Two years--two long and tedious years passed; and Charles Lamb's feelings had undergone an entire change. He now discovered that official, even humdrum work --"the appointed round, the daily task"--had been good for him, though he knew it not. Time had formerly been his friend; it had now become his enemy. To Bernard Barton he again wrote: "I assure you, NO work is worse than overwork; the mind preys on itself--the most unwholesome of food. I have ceased to care for almost anything.... Never did the waters of heaven pour down upon a forlorner head. What I can do, and overdo, is to walk. I am a sanguinary murderer of time. But the oracle is silent."No man could be more sensible of the practical importance of industry than Sir Walter Scott, who was himself one of the most laborious and indefatigable of men. Indeed, Lockhart says of him that, taking all ages and countries together, the rare example of indefatigable energy, in union with serene self-possession of mind and manner, such as Scott's, must be sought for in the roll of great sovereigns or great captains, rather than in that of literary genius. Scott himself was most anxious to impress upon the minds of his own children the importance of industry as a means of usefulness and happiness in the world. To his son Charles, when at school, he wrote:- "I cannot too much impress upon your mind that LABOUR is the condition which God has imposed on us in every station of life; there is nothing worth having that can be had without it, from the bread which the peasant wins with the sweat of his brow, to the sports by which the rich man must get rid of his ENNUI.... As for knowledge, it can no more be planted in the human mind without labour than a field of wheat can be produced without the previous use of the plough. There is, indeed, this great difference, that chance or circumstances may so cause it that another shall reap what the farmer sows; but no man can be deprived, whether by accident or misfortune, of the fruits of his own studies; and the liberal and extended acquisitions of knowledge which he makes are all for his own use. Labour, therefore, my dear boy, and improve the time. In youth our steps are light, and our minds are ductile, and knowledge is easily laid up; but if we neglect our spring, our summers will be useless and contemptible, our harvest will be chaff, and the winter of our old age unrespected and desolate." (11)Southey was as laborious a worker as Scott. Indeed, work might almost be said to form part of his religion. He was only nineteen when he wrote these words:- "Nineteen years! certainly a fourth part of my life; perhaps how great a part! and yet I have been of no service to society. The clown who scares crows for twopence a day is a more useful man; he preserves the bread which I eat in idleness." And yet Southey had not been idle as a boy--on the contrary, he had been a most diligent student. He had not only read largely in English literature, but was well acquainted, through translations, with Tasso, Ariosto, Homer, and Ovid. He felt, however, as if his life had been purposeless, and he determined to do something. He began, and from that time forward he pursued an unremitting career of literary labour down to the close of his life--"daily progressing in learning," to use his own words--"not so learned as he is poor, not so poor as proud, not so proud as happy."The maxims of men often reveal their character. (12) That of Sir Walter Scott was, "Never to be doing nothing." Robertson the historian, as early as his fifteenth year, adopted the maxim of "VITA SINE LITERIS MORS EST" (Life without learning is death).
Voltaire's motto was, "TOUJOURS AU TRAVAIL" (Always at work). The favourite maxim of Lacepede, the naturalist, was, "VIVRE C'ESTVEILLER" (To live is to observe): it was also the maxim of Pliny.
When Bossuet was at college, he was so distinguished by his ardour in study, that his fellow students, playing upon his name, designated him as "BOS-SUETUS ARATRO" (The ox used to the plough).
The name of VITA-LIS (Life a struggle), which the Swedish poet Sjoberg assumed, as Frederik von Hardenberg assumed that of NOVA-LIS, described the aspirations and the labours of both these men of genius.
We have spoken of work as a discipline: it is also an educator of character. Even work that produces no results, because it ISwork, is better than torpor,--inasmuch as it educates faculty, and is thus preparatory to successful work. The habit of working teaches method. It compels economy of time, and the disposition of it with judicious forethought. And when the art of packing life with useful occupations is once acquired by practice, every minute will be turned to account; and leisure, when it comes, will be enjoyed with all the greater zest.
