"Arise therefore, and be doing, and the Lord be with thee."
--l CHRONICLES xxii. 16.
"Work as if thou hadst to live for aye;
Worship as if thou wert to die to-day."--TUSCAN PROVERB.
"C'est par le travail qu'on regne."--LOUIS XIV
"Blest work! if ever thou wert curse of God,
What must His blessing be!"--J. B. SELKIRK.
"Let every man be OCCUPIED, and occupied in the highest
employment of which his nature is capable, and die with the
consciousness that he has done his best"--Sydney Smith.
WORK is one of the best educators of practical character. It evokes
and disciplines obedience, self-control, attention, application, and
perseverance; giving a man deftness and skill in his special calling,
and aptitude and dexterity in dealing with the affairs of ordinary life.
Work is the law of our being--the living principle that carries men and
nations onward. The greater number of men have to work with their hands,
as a matter of necessity, in order to live; but all must work in one way
or another, if they would enjoy life as it ought to be enjoyed.
Labour may be a burden and a chastisement, but it is also an honour and
a glory. Without it, nothing can be accomplished. All that is great in
man comes through work; and civilisation is its product. Were labour
abolished, the race of Adam were at once stricken by moral death.
It is idleness that is the curse of man--not labour. Idleness eats the
heart out of men as of nations, and consumes them as rust does iron.
When Alexander conquered the Persians, and had an opportunity of
observing their manners, he remarked that they did not seem conscious
that there could be anything more servile than a life of pleasure, or
more princely than a life of toil.
When the Emperor Severus lay on his deathbed at York, whither he
had been borne on a litter from the foot of the Grampians, his final
watchword to his soldiers was, "LABOREMUS" [we must work]; and nothing
but constant toil maintained the power and extended the authority of the
Roman generals.
In describing the earlier social condition of Italy, when the ordinary
occupations of rural life were considered compatible with the highest
civic dignity, Pliny speaks of the triumphant generals and their men,
returning contentedly to the plough. In those days the lands were tilled
by the hands even of generals, the soil exulting beneath a ploughshare
crowned with laurels, and guided by a husbandman graced with triumphs:
"IPSORUM TUNC MANIBUS IMPERATORUM COLEBANTUR AGRI: UT FAS EST CREDERE,
GAUDENTE TERRA VOMERE LAUREATO ET TRIUMPHALI ARATORE." [131] It was only
after slaves became extensively employed in all departments of industry
that labour came to be regarded as dishonourable and servile. And so
soon as indolence and luxury became the characteristics of the ruling
classes of Rome, the downfall of the empire, sooner or later, was
inevitable.
There is, perhaps, no tendency of our nature that has to be more
carefully guarded against than indolence. When Mr. Gurney asked an
intelligent foreigner who had travelled over the greater part of the
world, whether he had observed any one quality which, more than another,
could be regarded as a universal characteristic of our species, his
answer was, in broken English, "Me tink dat all men LOVE LAZY." It is
characteristic of the savage as of the despot. It is natural to men to
endeavour to enjoy the products of labour without its toils. Indeed,
so universal is this desire, that James Mill has argued that it was
to prevent its indulgence at the expense of society at large, that the
expedient of Government was originally invented. [132]
Indolence is equally degrading to individuals as to nations. Sloth never
made its mark in the world, and never will. Sloth never climbed a hill,
nor overcame a difficulty that it could avoid. Indolence always failed
in life, and always will. It is in the nature of things that it
should not succeed in anything. It is a burden, an incumbrance, and a
nuisance--always useless, complaining, melancholy, and miserable.
Burton, in his quaint and curious, book--the only one, Johnson says,
that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to
rise--describes the causes of Melancholy as hingeing mainly on Idleness.
"Idleness," he says, "is the bane of body and mind, the nurse of
naughtiness, the chief mother of all mischief, one of the seven deadly
sins, the devil's cushion, his pillow and chief reposal.... An idle dog
will be mangy; and how shall an idle person escape? Idleness of the
mind is much worse than that of the body: wit, without employment, is a
disease--the rust of the soul, a plague, a hell itself. As in a standing
pool, worms and filthy creepers increase, so do evil and corrupt
thoughts in an idle person; the soul is contaminated.... Thus much I
dare boldly say: he or she that is idle, be they of what condition they
will, never so rich, so well allied, fortunate, happy--let them have
all things in abundance and felicity that heart can wish and desire, all
contentment--so long as he, or she, or they, are idle, they shall never
be pleased, never well in body or mind, but weary still, sickly still,
vexed still, loathing still, weeping, sighing, grieving, suspecting,
offended with the world, with every object, wishing themselves gone or
dead, or else carried away with some foolish phantasie or other." [133]
Burton says a great deal more to the same effect; the burden and lesson
of his book being embodied in the pregnant sentence with which it winds
up:--"Only take this for a corollary and conclusion, as thou tenderest
thine own welfare in this, and all other melancholy, thy good health of
body and mind, observe this short precept, Give not way to solitariness
and idleness. BE NOT SOLITARY--BE NOT IDLE." [134]
The indolent, however, are not wholly indolent. Though the body may
shirk labour, the brain is not idle. If it do not grow corn, it will
grow thistles, which will be found springing up all along the idle
man's course in life. The ghosts of indolence rise up in the dark, ever
staring the recreant in the face, and tormenting him:
"The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices,
Make instrument to scourge us."
True happiness is never found in torpor of the faculties, [135] but in
their action and useful employment. It is indolence that exhausts, not
action, in which there is life, health, and pleasure. The spirits may
be exhausted and wearied by employment, but they are utterly wasted by
idleness. Hense a wise physician was accustomed to regard occupation as
one of his most valuable remedial measures. "Nothing is so injurious,"
said Dr. Marshall Hall, "as unoccupied time." An archbishop of Mayence
used to say that "the human heart is like a millstone: if you put wheat
under it, it grinds the wheat into flour; if you put no wheat, it grinds
on, but then 'tis itself it wears away."
Indolence is usually full of excuses; and the sluggard, though unwilling
to work, is often an active sophist. "There is a lion in the path;" or
"The hill is hard to climb;" or "There is no use trying--I have tried,
and failed, and cannot do it." To the sophistries of such an excuser,
Sir Samuel Romilly once wrote to a young man:--"My attack upon your
indolence, loss of time, &c., was most serious, and I really think that
it can be to nothing but your habitual want of exertion that can be
ascribed your using such curious arguments as you do in your defence.
Your theory is this: Every man does all the good that he can. If a
particular individual does no good, it is a proof that he is incapable
of doing it. That you don't write proves that you can't; and your want
of inclination demonstrates your want of talents. What an admirable
system!--and what beneficial effects would it be attended with, if it
were but universally received!"
It has been truly said, that to desire to possess, without being
burdened with the trouble of acquiring, is as much a sign of weakness,
as to recognise that everything worth having is only to be got by paying
its price, is the prime secret of practical strength. Even leisure
cannot be enjoyed unless it is won by effort. If it have not been earned
by work, the price has not been paid for it. [136]
There must be work before and work behind, with leisure to fall back
upon; but the leisure, without the work, can no more be enjoyed than a
surfeit. Life must needs be disgusting alike to the idle rich man as to
the idle poor man, who has no work to do, or, having work, will not do
it. The words found tattooed on the right arm of a sentimental beggar
of forty, undergoing his eighth imprisonment in the gaol of Bourges
in France, might be adopted as the motto of all idlers: "LE PASSE M'A
TROMPE; LE PRESENT ME TOURMENTE; L'AVENIR M'EPOUVANTE;"--[13The past has
deceived me; the present torments me; the future terrifies me]
The duty of industry applies to all classes and conditions of society.
All have their work to do in the irrespective conditions of life--the
rich as well as the poor. [137] The gentleman by birth and education,
however richly he may be endowed with worldly possessions, cannot but
feel that he is in duty bound to contribute his quota of endeavour
towards the general wellbeing in which he shares. He cannot be satisfied
with being fed, clad, and maintained by the labour of others, without
making some suitable return to the society that upholds him. An honest
highminded man would revolt at the idea of sitting down to and enjoying
a feast, and then going away without paying his share of the reckoning.
To be idle and useless is neither an honour nor a privilege; and though
persons of small natures may be content merely to consume--FRUGES
CONSUMERE NATI--men of average endowment, of manly aspirations, and of
honest purpose, will feel such a condition to be incompatible with real
honour and true dignity.
"I don't believe," said Lord Stanley [13now Earl of Derby] at Glasgow,
"that an unemployed man, however amiable and otherwise respectable, ever
was, or ever can be, really happy. As work is our life, show me what you
can do, and I will show you what you are. I have spoken of love of one's
work as the best preventive of merely low and vicious tastes. I will
go further, and say that it is the best preservative against petty
anxieties, and the annoyances that arise out of indulged self-love. Men
have thought before now that they could take refuge from trouble and
vexation by sheltering themselves as it were in a world of their own.
The experiment has, often been tried, and always with one result. You
cannot escape from anxiety and labour--it is the destiny of humanity....
Those who shirk from facing trouble, find that trouble comes to them.
The indolent may contrive that he shall have less than his share of the
world's work to do, but Nature proportioning the instinct to the work,
contrives that the little shall be much and hard to him. The man who has
only himself to please finds, sooner or later, and probably sooner than
later, that he has got a very hard master; and the excessive weakness
which shrinks from responsibility has its own punishment too, for where
great interests are excluded little matters become great, and the
same wear and tear of mind that might have been at least usefully and
healthfully expended on the real business of life is often wasted
in petty and imaginary vexations, such as breed and multiply in the
unoccupied brain." [138]
Even on the lowest ground--that of personal enjoyment--constant useful
occupation is necessary. He who labours not, cannot enjoy the reward of
labour. "We sleep sound," said Sir Walter Scott, "and our waking
hours are happy, when they are employed; and a little sense of toil is
necessary to the enjoyment of leisure, even when earned by study and
sanctioned by the discharge of duty."
It is true, there are men who die of overwork; but many more die of
selfishness, indulgence, and idleness. Where men break down by overwork,
it is most commonly from want of duly ordering their lives, and neglect
of the ordinary conditions of physical health. Lord Stanley was probably
right when he said, in his address to the Glasgow students above
mentioned, that he doubted whether "hard work, steadily and regularly
carried on, ever yet hurt anybody."
Then, again, length of YEARS is no proper test of length of LIFE. A
man's life is to be measured by what he does in it, and what he feels in
it. The more useful work the man does, and the more he thinks and feels,
the more he really lives. The idle useless man, no matter to what extent
his life may be prolonged, merely vegetates.
The early teachers of Christianity ennobled the lot of toil by their
example. "He that will not work," said Saint Paul, "neither shall he
eat;" and he glorified himself in that he had laboured with his hands,
and had not been chargeable to any man. When St. Boniface landed in
Britain, he came with a gospel in one hand and a carpenter's rule in the
other; and from England he afterwards passed over into Germany, carrying
thither the art of building. Luther also, in the midst of a multitude of
other employments, worked diligently for a living, earning his bread by
gardening, building, turning, and even clockmaking. [139]
It was characteristic of Napoleon, when visiting a work of mechanical
excellence, to pay great respect to the inventor, and on taking his
leave, to salute him with a low bow. Once at St. Helena, when walking
with Mrs. Balcombe, some servants came along carrying a load. The
lady, in an angry tone, ordered them out of the way, on which Napoleon
interposed, saying, "Respect the burden, madam." Even the drudgery
of the humblest labourer contributes towards the general wellbeing of
society; and it was a wise saying of a Chinese Emperor, that "if there
was a man who did not work, or a woman that was idle, somebody must
suffer cold or hunger in the empire."
The habit of constant useful occupation is as essential for the
happiness and wellbeing of woman as of man. Without it, women are apt to
sink into a state of listless ENNUI and uselessness, accompanied by sick
headache and attacks of "nerves." Caroline Perthes carefully warned her
married daughter Louisa to beware of giving way to such listlessness. "I
myself," she said, "when the children are gone out for a half-holiday,
sometimes feel as stupid and dull as an owl by daylight; but one must
not yield to this, which happens more or less to all young wives. The
best relief is WORK, engaged in with interest and diligence. Work, then,
constantly and diligently, at something or other; for idleness is the
devil's snare for small and great, as your grandfather says, and he says
true." [1310]
Constant useful occupation is thus wholesome, not only for the body, but
for the mind. While the slothful man drags himself indolently through
life, and the better part of his nature sleeps a deep sleep, if not
morally and spiritually dead, the energetic man is a source of activity
and enjoyment to all who come within reach of his influence. Even any
ordinary drudgery is better than idleness. Fuller says of Sir Francis
Drake, who was early sent to sea, and kept close to his work by his
master, that such "pains and patience in his youth knit the joints of
his soul, and made them more solid and compact." Schiller used to say
that he considered it a great advantage to be employed in the discharge
of some daily mechanical duty--some regular routine of work, that
rendered steady application necessary.
Thousands can bear testimony to the truth of the saying of Greuze, the
French painter, that work--employment, useful occupation--is one of the
great secrets of happiness. Casaubon was once induced by the entreaties
of his friends to take a few days entire rest, but he returned to
his work with the remark, that it was easier to bear illness doing
something, than doing nothing.
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! I will 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."
[1311]
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. [1312] 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" [13Life without learning is death]. Voltaire's motto was,
"TOUJOURS AU TRAVAIL" [13Always at work]. The favourite maxim of Lacepede,
the naturalist, was, "VIVRE C'EST VEILLER" [13To 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" [13The ox used to the
plough]. The name of VITA-LIS [13Life 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 IS work,
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.
Coleridge has truly observed, that "if the idle are described as killing
time, the methodical man may be justly said to call it into life and
moral being, while he makes it the distinct object not only of the
consciousness, but of the conscience. He organizes the hours and gives
them a soul; and by that, the very essence of which is to fleet and to
have been, he communicates an imperishable and spiritual nature. Of
the good and faithful servant, whose energies thus directed are thus
methodized, it is less truly affirmed that he lives in time than that
time lives in him. His days and months and years, as the stops and
punctual marks in the record of duties performed, will survive the wreck
of worlds, and remain extant when time itself shall be no more." [1313]
It is because application to business teaches method most effectually,
that it is so useful as an educator of character. The highest working
qualities are best trained by active and sympathetic contact with others
in the affairs of daily life. It does not matter whether the business
relate to the management of a household or of a nation. Indeed, as we
have endeavoured to show in a preceding chapter, the able housewife must
necessarily be an efficient woman of business. She must regulate and
control the details of her home, keep her expenditure within her means,
arrange everything according to plan and system, and wisely manage and
govern those subject to her rule. Efficient domestic management implies
industry, application, method, moral discipline, forethought,
prudence, practical ability, insight into character, and power of
organization--all of which are required in the efficient management of
business of whatever sort.
Business qualities have, indeed, a very large field of action. They mean
aptitude for affairs, competency to deal successfully with the practical
work of life--whether the spur of action lie in domestic management,
in the conduct of a profession, in trade or commerce, in social
organization, or in political government. And the training which gives
efficiency in dealing with these various affairs is of all others the
most useful in practical life. [1314] Moreover, it is the best discipline
of character; for it involves the exercise of diligence, attention,
self-denial, judgment, tact, knowledge of and sympathy with others.
Such a discipline is far more productive of happiness as well as useful
efficiency in life, than any amount of literary culture or meditative
seclusion; for in the long run it will usually be found that practical
ability carries it over intellect, and temper and habits over talent. It
must, however, he added that this is a kind of culture that can only be
acquired by diligent observation and carefully improved experience. "To
be a good blacksmith," said General Trochu in a recent publication, "one
must have forged all his life: to be a good administrator one should
have passed his whole life in the study and practice of business."
It was characteristic of Sir Walter Scott to entertain the highest
respect for able men of business; and he professed that he did not
consider any amount of literary distinction as entitled to be spoken of
in the same breath with a mastery in the higher departments of practical
life--least of all with a first-rate captain.
The great commander leaves nothing to chance, but provides for every
contingency. He condescends to apparently trivial details. Thus, when
Wellington was at the head of his army in Spain, he directed the precise
manner in which the soldiers were to cook their provisions. When in
India, he specified the exact speed at which the bullocks were to be
driven; every detail in equipment was carefully arranged beforehand. And
thus not only was efficiency secured, but the devotion of his men, and
their boundless confidence in his command. [1315]
Like other great captains, Wellington had an almost boundless capacity
for work. He drew up the heads of a Dublin Police Bill [13being still the
Secretary for Ireland], when tossing off the mouth of the Mondego,
with Junot and the French army waiting for him on the shore. So Caesar,
another of the greatest commanders, is said to have written an essay
on Latin Rhetoric while crossing the Alps at the head of his army.
And Wallenstein when at the head of 60,000 men, and in the midst of
a campaign with the enemy before him, dictated from headquarters the
medical treatment of his poultry-yard.
Washington, also, was an indefatigable man of business. From his boyhood
he diligently trained himself in habits of application, of study, and of
methodical work. His manuscript school-books, which are still preserved,
show that, as early as the age of thirteen, he occupied himself
voluntarily in copying out such things as forms of receipts, notes of
hand, bills of exchange, bonds, indentures, leases, land-warrants, and
other dry documents, all written out with great care. And the habits
which he thus early acquired were, in a great measure, the foundation of
those admirable business qualities which he afterwards so successfully
brought to bear in the affairs of government.
The man or woman who achieves success in the management of any great
affair of business is entitled to honour,--it may be, to as much as the
artist who paints a picture, or the author who writes a book, or the
soldier who wins a battle. Their success may have been gained in the
face of as great difficulties, and after as great struggles; and where
they have won their battle, it is at least a peaceful one, and there is
no blood on their hands.
The idea has been entertained by some, that business habits are
incompatible with genius. In the Life of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, [1316]
it is observed of a Mr. Bicknell--a respectable but ordinary man, of
whom little is known but that he married Sabrina Sidney, the ELEVE of
Thomas Day, author of 'Sandford and Merton'--that "he had some of
the too usual faults of a man of genius: he detested the drudgery of
business." But there cannot be a greater mistake. The greatest geniuses
have, without exception, been the greatest workers, even to the extent
of drudgery. They have not only worked harder than ordinary men, but
brought to their work higher faculties and a more ardent spirit. Nothing
great and durable was ever improvised. It is only by noble patience and
noble labour that the masterpieces of genius have been achieved.
Power belongs only to the workers; the idlers are always powerless. It
is the laborious and painstaking men who are the rulers of the world.
There has not been a statesman of eminence but was a man of industry.
"It is by toil," said even Louis XIV., "that kings govern." When
Clarendon described Hampden, he spoke of him as "of an industry and
vigilance not to be tired out or wearied by the most laborious, and
of parts not to be imposed on by the most subtle and sharp, and of a
personal courage equal to his best parts." While in the midst of his
laborious though self-imposed duties, Hampden, on one occasion, wrote
to his mother: "My lyfe is nothing but toyle, and hath been for many
yeares, nowe to the Commonwealth, nowe to the Kinge.... Not so much
tyme left as to doe my dutye to my deare parents, nor to sende to them."
Indeed, all the statesmen of the Commonwealth were great toilers;
and Clarendon himself, whether in office or out of it, was a man of
indefatigable application and industry.
The same energetic vitality, as displayed in the power of working, has
distinguished all the eminent men in our own as well as in past
times. During the Anti-Corn Law movement, Cobden, writing to a friend,
described himself as "working like a horse, with not a moment to spare."
Lord Brougham was a remarkable instance of the indefatigably active and
laborious man; and it might be said of Lord Palmerston, that he worked
harder for success in his extreme old age than he had ever done in the
prime of his manhood--preserving his working faculty, his good-humour
and BONHOMMIE, unimpaired to the end. [1317] He himself was accustomed to
say, that being in office, and consequently full of work, was good for
his health. It rescued him from ENNUI. Helvetius even held, that it is
man's sense of ENNUI that is the chief cause of his superiority over the
brute,--that it is the necessity which he feels for escaping from its
intolerable suffering that forces him to employ himself actively, and is
hence the great stimulus to human progress.
Indeed, this living principle of constant work, of abundant occupation,
of practical contact with men in the affairs of life, has in all times
been the best ripener of the energetic vitality of strong natures.
Business habits, cultivated and disciplined, are found alike useful in
every pursuit--whether in politics, literature, science, or art. Thus, a
great deal of the best literary work has been done by men systematically
trained in business pursuits. The same industry, application, economy
of time and labour, which have rendered them useful in the one sphere of
employment, have been found equally available in the other.
Most of the early English writers were men of affairs, trained to
business; for no literary class as yet existed, excepting it might
be the priesthood. Chaucer, the father of English poetry, was first a
soldier, and afterwards a comptroller of petty customs. The office was
no sinecure either, for he had to write up all the records with his
own hand; and when he had done his "reckonings" at the custom-house, he
returned with delight to his favourite studies at home--poring over his
books until his eyes were "dazed" and dull.
The great writers in the reign of Elizabeth, during which there was such
a development of robust life in England, were not literary men according
to the modern acceptation of the word, but men of action trained in
business. Spenser acted as secretary to the Lord Deputy of Ireland;
Raleigh was, by turns, a courtier, soldier, sailor, and discoverer;
Sydney was a politician, diplomatist, and soldier; Bacon was a laborious
lawyer before he became Lord Keeper and Lord Chancellor; Sir Thomas
Browne was a physician in country practice at Norwich; Hooker was the
hardworking pastor of a country parish; Shakspeare was the manager of a
theatre, in which he was himself but an indifferent actor, and he seems
to have been even more careful of his money investments than he was
of his intellectual offspring. Yet these, all men of active business
habits, are among the greatest writers of any age: the period of
Elizabeth and James I. standing out in the history of England as the era
of its greatest literary activity and splendour.
In the reign of Charles I., Cowley held various offices of trust and
confidence. He acted as private secretary to several of the royalist
leaders, and was afterwards engaged as private secretary to the Queen,
in ciphering and deciphering the correspondence which passed between her
and Charles I.; the work occupying all his days, and often his nights,
during several years. And while Cowley was thus employed in the royal
cause, Milton was employed by the Commonwealth, of which he was the
Latin secretary, and afterwards secretary to the Lord Protector. Yet, in
the earlier part of his life, Milton was occupied in the humble vocation
of a teacher. Dr. Johnson says, "that in his school, as in everything
else which he undertook, he laboured with great diligence, there is no
reason for doubting" It was after the Restoration, when his official
employment ceased, that Milton entered upon the principal literary work
of his life; but before he undertook the writing of his great epic,
he deemed it indispensable that to "industrious and select reading"
he should add "steady observation" and "insight into all seemly and
generous arts and affairs." [1318]
Locke held office in different reigns: first under Charles II. as
Secretary to the Board of Trade and afterwards under William III. as
Commissioner of Appeals and of Trade and Plantations. Many literary
men of eminence held office in Queen Anne's reign. Thus Addison
was Secretary of State; Steele, Commissioner of Stamps; Prior,
Under-Secretary of State, and afterwards Ambassador to France; Tickell,
Under-Secretary of State, and Secretary to the Lords Justices of
Ireland; Congreve, Secretary of Jamaica;, and Gay, Secretary of Legation
at Hanover.
Indeed, habits of business, instead of unfitting a cultivated mind for
scientific or literary pursuits, are often the best training for them.
Voltaire insisted with truth that the real spirit of business and
literature are the same; the perfection of each being the union of
energy and thoughtfulness, of cultivated intelligence and practical
wisdom, of the active and contemplative essence--a union commended by
Lord Bacon as the concentrated excellence of man's nature. It has been
said that even the man of genius can write nothing worth reading in
relation to human affairs, unless he has been in some way or other
connected with the serious everyday business of life.
Hence it has happened that many of the best books, extant have been
written by men of business, with whom literature was a pastime rather
than a profession. Gifford, the editor of the 'Quarterly,' who knew the
drudgery of writing for a living, once observed that "a single hour of
composition, won from the business of the day, is worth more than the
whole day's toil of him who works at the trade of literature: in the one
case, the spirit comes joyfully to refresh itself, like a hart to the
waterbrooks; in the other, it pursues its miserable way, panting and
jaded, with the dogs and hunger of necessity behind." [1319]
The first great men of letters in Italy were not mere men of letters;
they were men of business--merchants, statesmen, diplomatists, judges,
and soldiers. Villani, the author of the best History of Florence, was
a merchant; Dante, Petrarch, and Boccacio, were all engaged in more or
less important embassies; and Dante, before becoming a diplomatist, was
for some time occupied as a chemist and druggist. Galileo, Galvani,
and Farini were physicians, and Goldoni a lawyer. Ariosto's talent
for affairs was as great as his genius for poetry. At the death of his
father, he was called upon to manage the family estate for the benefit
of his younger brothers and sisters, which he did with ability and
integrity. His genius for business having been recognised, he was
employed by the Duke of Ferrara on important missions to Rome and
elsewhere. Having afterwards been appointed governor of a turbulent
mountain district, he succeeded, by firm and just governments in
reducing it to a condition of comparative good order and security. Even
the bandits of the country respected him. Being arrested one day in the
mountains by a body of outlaws, he mentioned his name, when they at once
offered to escort him in safety wherever he chose.
It has been the same in other countries. Vattel, the author of the
'Rights of Nations,' was a practical diplomatist, and a first-rate man
of business. Rabelais was a physician, and a successful practitioner;
Schiller was a surgeon; Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderon, Camoens,
Descartes, Maupertius, La Rochefoucauld, Lacepede, Lamark, were soldiers
in the early part of their respective lives.
In our own country, many men now known by their writings, earned their
living by their trade. Lillo spent the greater part of his life as a
working jeweller in the Poultry; occupying the intervals of his leisure
in the production of dramatic works, some of them of acknowledged power
and merit. Izaak Walton was a linendraper in Fleet Street, reading much
in his leisure hours, and storing his mind with facts for future use in
his capacity of biographer. De Foe was by turns horse-factor, brick and
tile maker, shopkeeper, author, and political agent.
Samuel Richardson successfully combined literature, with business;
writing his novels in his back-shop in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street,
and selling them over the counter in his front-shop. William Hutton, of
Birmingham, also successfully combined the occupations of bookselling
and authorship. He says, in his Autobiography, that a man may live half
a century and not be acquainted with his own character. He did not know
that he was an antiquary until the world informed him of it, from having
read his 'History of Birmingham,' and then, he said, he could see
it himself. Benjamin Franklin was alike eminent as a printer and
bookseller--an author, a philosopher and a statesman.
Coming down to our own time, we find Ebenezer Elliott successfully
carrying on the business of a bar-iron merchant in Sheffield, during
which time he wrote and published the greater number of his poems; and
his success in business was such as to enable him to retire into the
country and build a house of his own, in which he spent the remainder
of his days. Isaac Taylor, the author of the 'Natural History of
Enthusiasm,' was an engraver of patterns for Manchester calico-printers;
and other members of this gifted family were followers of the same
branch of art.
The principal early works of John Stuart Mill were written in the
intervals of official work, while he held the office of principal
examiner in the East India House,--in which Charles Lamb, Peacock the
author of 'Headlong Hall,' and Edwin Norris the philologist, were also
clerks. Macaulay wrote his 'Lays of Ancient Rome' in the War Office,
while holding the post of Secretary of War. It is well known that the
thoughtful writings of Mr. Helps are literally "Essays written in the
Intervals of Business." Many of our best living authors are men holding
important public offices--such as Sir Henry Taylor, Sir John Kaye,
Anthony Trollope, Tom Taylor, Matthew Arnold, and Samuel Warren.
Mr. Proctor the poet, better known as "Barry Cornwall," was a barrister
and commissioner in lunacy. Most probably he assumed the pseudonym for
the same reason that Dr. Paris published his 'Philosophy in Sport made
Science in Earnest' anonymously--because he apprehended that, if known,
it might compromise his professional position. For it is by no means an
uncommon prejudice, still prevalent amongst City men, that a person who
has written a book, and still more one who has written a poem, is
good for nothing in the way of business. Yet Sharon Turner, though an
excellent historian, was no worse a solicitor on that account; while the
brothers Horace and James Smith, authors of 'The Rejected Addresses,'
were men of such eminence in their profession, that they were selected
to fill the important and lucrative post of solicitors to the Admiralty,
and they filled it admirably.
It was while the late Mr. Broderip, the barrister, was acting as a
London police magistrate, that he was attracted to the study of natural
history, in which he occupied the greater part of his leisure. He wrote
the principal articles on the subject for the 'Penny Cyclopaedia,'
besides several separate works of great merit, more particularly
the 'Zoological Recreations,' and 'Leaves from the Notebook of a
Naturalist.' It is recorded of him that, though he devoted so much of
his time to the production of his works, as well as to the Zoological
Society and their admirable establishment in Regent's Park, of which
he was one of the founders, his studies never interfered with the real
business of his life, nor is it known that a single question was ever
raised upon his conduct or his decisions. And while Mr. Broderip devoted
himself to natural history, the late Lord Chief Baron Pollock devoted
his leisure to natural science, recreating himself in the practice
of photography and the study of mathematics, in both of which he was
thoroughly proficient.
Among literary bankers we find the names of Rogers, the poet; Roscoe, of
Liverpool, the biographer of Lorenzo de Medici; Ricardo, the author of
'Political Economy and Taxation; [1320] Grote, the author of the 'History
of Greece;' Sir John Lubbock, the scientific antiquarian; [1321] and
Samuel Bailey, of Sheffield, the author of 'Essays on the Formation and
Publication of Opinions,' besides various important works on ethics,
political economy, and philosophy.
Nor, on the other hand, have thoroughly-trained men of science and
learning proved themselves inefficient as first-rate men of business.
Culture of the best sort trains the habit of application and industry,
disciplines the mind, supplies it with resources, and gives it freedom
and vigour of action--all of which are equally requisite in the
successful conduct of business. Thus, in young men, education and
scholarship usually indicate steadiness of character, for they imply
continuous attention, diligence, and the ability and energy necessary to
master knowledge; and such persons will also usually be found possessed
of more than average promptitude, address, resource, and dexterity.
Montaigne has said of true philosophers, that "if they were great in
science, they were yet much greater in action;... and whenever they have
been put upon the proof, they have been seen to fly to so high a pitch,
as made it very well appear their souls were strangely elevated and
enriched with the knowledge of things." [1322]
At the same time, it must be acknowledged that too exclusive a devotion
to imaginative and philosophical literature, especially if prolonged in
life until the habits become formed, does to a great extent incapacitate
a man for the business of practical life. Speculative ability is one
thing, and practical ability another; and the man who, in his study, or
with his pen in hand, shows himself capable of forming large views of
life and policy, may, in the outer world, be found altogether unfitted
for carrying them into practical effect.
Speculative ability depends on vigorous thinking--practical ability on
vigorous acting; and the two qualities are usually found combined in
very unequal proportions. The speculative man is prone to indecision:
he sees all the sides of a question, and his action becomes suspended in
nicely weighing the pros and cons, which are often found pretty nearly
to balance each other; whereas the practical man overleaps logical
preliminaries, arrives at certain definite convictions, and proceeds
forthwith to carry his policy into action. [1323]
Yet there have been many great men of science who have proved efficient
men of business. We do not learn that Sir Isaac Newton made a worse
Master of the Mint because he was the greatest of philosophers. Nor were
there any complaints as to the efficiency of Sir John Herschel, who held
the same office. The brothers Humboldt were alike capable men in all
that they undertook--whether it was literature, philosophy, mining,
philology, diplomacy, or statesmanship.
Niebuhr, the historian, was distinguished for his energy and success as
a man of business. He proved so efficient as secretary and accountant
to the African consulate, to which he had been appointed by the Danish
Government, that he was afterwards selected as one of the commissioners
to manage the national finances; and he quitted that office to undertake
the joint directorship of a bank at Berlin. It was in the midst of
his business occupations that he found time to study Roman history, to
master the Arabic, Russian, and other Sclavonic languages, and to
build up the great reputation as an author by which he is now chiefly
remembered.
Having regard to the views professed by the First Napoleon as to men
of science, it was to have been expected that he would endeavour to
strengthen his administration by calling them to his aid. Some of his
appointments proved failures, while others were completely successful.
Thus Laplace was made Minister of the Interior; but he had no sooner
been appointed than it was seen that a mistake had been made. Napoleon
afterwards said of him, that "Laplace looked at no question in its true
point of view. He was always searching after subtleties; all his ideas
were problems, and he carried the spirit of the infinitesimal calculus
into the management of business." But Laplace's habits had been formed
in the study, and he was too old to adapt them to the purposes of
practical life.
With Darn it was different. But Darn had the advantage of some practical
training in business, having served as an intendant of the army in
Switzerland under Massena, during which he also distinguished himself as
an author. When Napoleon proposed to appoint him a councillor of state
and intendant of the Imperial Household, Darn hesitated to accept the
office. "I have passed the greater part of my life," he said, "among
books, and have not had time to learn the functions of a courtier." "Of
courtiers," replied Napoleon, "I have plenty about me; they will never
fail. But I want a minister, at once enlightened, firm, and vigilant;
and it is for these qualities that I have selected you." Darn complied
with the Emperor's wishes, and eventually became his Prime Minister,
proving thoroughly efficient in that capacity, and remaining the same
modest, honourable, and disinterested man that he had ever been through
life.
Men of trained working faculty so contract the habit of labour that
idleness becomes intolerable to them; and when driven by circumstances
from their own special line of occupation, they find refuge in other
pursuits. The diligent man is quick to find employment for his leisure;
and he is able to make leisure when the idle man finds none. "He hath no
leisure," says George Herbert, "who useth it not." "The most active or
busy man that hath been or can be," says Bacon, "hath, no question, many
vacant times of leisure, while he expecteth the tides and returns of
business, except he be either tedious and of no despatch, or lightly and
unworthily ambitious to meddle with things that may be better done by
others." Thus many great things have been done during such "vacant times
of leisure," by men to whom industry had become a second nature, and who
found it easier to work than to be idle.
Even hobbies are useful as educators of the working faculty. Hobbies
evoke industry of a certain kind, and at least provide agreeable
occupation. Not such hobbies as that of Domitian, who occupied
himself in catching flies. The hobbies of the King of Macedon who made
lanthorns, and of the King of France who made locks, were of a more
respectable order. Even a routine mechanical employment is felt to be
a relief by minds acting under high-pressure: it is an intermission of
labour--a rest--a relaxation, the pleasure consisting in the work itself
rather than in the result.
But the best of hobbies are intellectual ones. Thus men of active
mind retire from their daily business to find recreation in other
pursuits--some in science, some in art, and the greater number in
literature. Such recreations are among the best preservatives against
selfishness and vulgar worldliness. We believe it was Lord Brougham
who said, "Blessed is the man that hath a hobby!" and in the abundant
versatility of his nature, he himself had many, ranging from literature
to optics, from history and biography to social science. Lord Brougham
is even said to have written a novel; and the remarkable story of the
'Man in the Bell,' which appeared many years ago in 'Blackwood,' is
reputed to have been from his pen. Intellectual hobbies, however, must
not be ridden too hard--else, instead of recreating, refreshing, and
invigorating a man's nature, they may only have the effect of sending
him back to his business exhausted, enervated, and depressed.
Many laborious statesmen besides Lord Brougham have occupied their
leisure, or consoled themselves in retirement from office, by the
composition of works which have become part of the standard literature
of the world. Thus 'Caesar's Commentaries' still survive as a classic;
the perspicuous and forcible style in which they are written placing
him in the same rank with Xenophon, who also successfully combined the
pursuit of letters with the business of active life.
When the great Sully was disgraced as a minister, and driven into
retirement, he occupied his leisure in writing out his 'Memoirs,'
in anticipation of the judgment of posterity upon his career as a
statesman. Besides these, he also composed part of a romance after the
manner of the Scuderi school, the manuscript of which was found amongst
his papers at his death.
Turgot found a solace for the loss of office, from which he had been
driven by the intrigues of his enemies, in the study of physical
science. He also reverted to his early taste for classical literature.
During his long journeys, and at nights when tortured by the gout, he
amused himself by making Latin verses; though the only line of his
that has been preserved was that intended to designate the portrait of
Benjamin Franklin:
"Eripuit caelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis."
Among more recent French statesmen--with whom, however, literature
has been their profession as much as politics--may be mentioned
De Tocqueville, Thiers, Guizot, and Lamartine, while Napoleon III.
challenged a place in the Academy by his 'Life of Caesar.'
Literature has also been the chief solace of our greatest English
statesmen. When Pitt retired from office, like his great contemporary
Fox, he reverted with delight to the study of the Greek and Roman
classics. Indeed, Grenville considered Pitt the best Greek scholar he
had ever known. Canning and Wellesley, when in retirement, occupied
themselves in translating the odes and satires of Horace. Canning's
passion for literature entered into all his pursuits, and gave a colour
to his whole life. His biographer says of him, that after a dinner at
Pitt's, while the rest of the company were dispersed in conversation, he
and Pitt would be observed poring over some old Grecian in a corner of
the drawing-room. Fox also was a diligent student of the Greek authors,
and, like Pitt, read Lycophron. He was also the author of a History
of James II., though the book is only a fragment, and, it must be
confessed, is rather a disappointing work.
One of the most able and laborious of our recent statesmen--with whom
literature was a hobby as well as a pursuit--was the late Sir George
Cornewall Lewis. He was an excellent man of business--diligent, exact,
and painstaking. He filled by turns the offices of President of the
Poor Law Board--the machinery of which he created,--Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Home Secretary, and Secretary at War; and in each he
achieved the reputation of a thoroughly successful administrator. In the
intervals of his official labours, he occupied himself with inquiries
into a wide range of subjects--history, politics, philology,
anthropology, and antiquarianism. His works on 'The Astronomy of the
Ancients,' and 'Essays on the Formation of the Romanic Languages,' might
have been written by the profoundest of German SAVANS. He took especial
delight in pursuing the abstruser branches of learning, and found
in them his chief pleasure and recreation. Lord Palmerston sometimes
remonstrated with him, telling him he was "taking too much out of
himself" by laying aside official papers after office-hours in order to
study books; Palmerston himself declaring that he had no time to read
books--that the reading of manuscript was quite enough for him.
Doubtless Sir George Lewis rode his hobby too hard, and but for his
devotion to study, his useful life would probably have been prolonged.
Whether in or out of office, he read, wrote, and studied. He
relinquished the editorship of the 'Edinburgh Review' to become
Chancellor of the Exchequer; and when no longer occupied in preparing
budgets, he proceeded to copy out a mass of Greek manuscripts at the
British Museum. He took particular delight in pursuing any difficult
inquiry in classical antiquity. One of the odd subjects with which he
occupied himself was an examination into the truth of reported cases of
longevity, which, according to his custom, he doubted or disbelieved.
This subject was uppermost in his mind while pursuing his canvass of
Herefordshire in 1852. On applying to a voter one day for his support,
he was met by a decided refusal. "I am sorry," was the candidate's
reply, "that you can't give me your vote; but perhaps you can tell me
whether anybody in your parish has died at an extraordinary age!"
The contemporaries of Sir George Lewis also furnish many striking
instances of the consolations afforded by literature to statesmen
wearied with the toils of public life. Though the door of office may
be closed, that of literature stands always open, and men who are at
daggers-drawn in politics, join hands over the poetry of Homer and
Horace. The late Earl of Derby, on retiring from power, produced his
noble version of 'The Iliad,' which will probably continue to be read
when his speeches have been forgotten. Mr. Gladstone similarly occupied
his leisure in preparing for the press his 'Studies on Homer,' [1324] and
in editing a translation of 'Farini's Roman State;' while Mr. Disraeli
signalised his retirement from office by the production of his
'Lothair.' Among statesmen who have figured as novelists, besides Mr.
Disraeli, are Lord Russell, who has also contributed largely to history
and biography; the Marquis of Normandy, and the veteran novelist,
Lord Lytton, with whom, indeed, politics may be said to have been his
recreation, and literature the chief employment of his life.
To conclude: a fair measure of work is good for mind as well as body.
Man is an intelligence sustained and preserved by bodily organs, and
their active exercise is necessary to the enjoyment of health. It is
not work, but overwork, that is hurtful; and it is not hard work that is
injurious so much as monotonous work, fagging work, hopeless work. All
hopeful work is healthful; and to be usefully and hopefully employed is
one of the great secrets of happiness. Brain-work, in moderation, is
no more wearing than any other kind of work. Duly regulated, it is as
promotive of health as bodily exercise; and, where due attention is paid
to the physical system, it seems difficult to put more upon a man than
he can bear. Merely to eat and drink and sleep one's way idly through
life is vastly more injurious. The wear-and-tear of rust is even faster
than the tear-and-wear of work.
But overwork is always bad economy. It is, in fact, great waste,
especially if conjoined with worry. Indeed, worry kills far more than
work does. It frets, it excites, it consumes the body--as sand and grit,
which occasion excessive friction, wear out the wheels of a machine.
Overwork and worry have both to be guarded against. For over-brain-work
is strain-work; and it is exhausting and destructive according as it is
in excess of nature. And the brain-worker may exhaust and overbalance
his mind by excess, just as the athlete may overstrain his muscles and
break his back by attempting feats beyond the strength of his physical
system.