Part 17

The one hour here unappropriated is absorbed in the "all to Heaven." Sir Matthew Hale, another eminent name in jurisprudence, studied sixteen hours a day for the first two years after he commenced the law, but almost brought himself to the grave thereby, though of a strong constitution, and he afterwards came down to eight hours; but he would not advise anybody to so much,--believing that six hours a day, with constancy and attention, were sufficient, and adding, that "a man must use his body as he would his horse and his stomach, not tire him at once, but rise with an appetite."[136] Here is at once example and warning.

[136] Roscoe, Lives of Eminent British Lawyers: Notes, pp. 413, 414.

Sleep is the most exacting of masters; it must be obeyed. Couriers slumber on their horses; soldiers drop asleep on the field of battle, even amidst the din of war. In that famous retreat of Sir John Moore, English soldiers are said to have slept while still moving. Ambition and the pride of victory yield to sleep. Alexander slept on the field of Arbela, and Napoleon on the field of Austerlitz. Bereavement and approaching death are forgotten in sleep. The convict sleeps in the few hours before his execution. According to Homer, sleep overcomes even the gods, excepting Jupiter alone. Its beneficence is equal to its power; nor has this ever been pictured more wonderfully than in those agonized words of Macbeth, where he says,--

"Macbeth does murther sleep, the innocent sleep,-- Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleave of care, The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast."

The rule of sleep is not the same for all. There are some with whom its requirements are gentle: a few hours will suffice. But such cases are exceptional. The Jesuits have done much for education, but on this question they seem to have failed. In settling the system for their college at Clermont, they followed their physicians in a rigid rule. The latter reported that five hours were sufficient, six abundant, and seven as much as a youthful constitution could bear without injury. On the other hand, Cobbett, whose experience of life was as thorough as his diligence, says expressly: "Young people require more sleep than those that are grown up: there must be the number of hours, and that number cannot well be on an average less than eight; and if it be more in winter-time, it is all the better."[137] George the Third thought otherwise, at least for men. A tradesman, whom he had asked to call on him at eight o'clock in the morning, arriving behind the hour, the King said, "Oh! the great Mr. B.! What sleep do you take, Mr. B.?" "Why, please your Majesty, I am a man of regular habits; I usually take eight hours." "Eight hours!" said the King; "that's too much, too much. Six hours' sleep is enough for a man, seven for a woman, and eight for a fool,--Mr. B., eight for a fool." The opinions of physiologists would probably incline with Mr. B., the tradesman, contrary to this royal authority.

[137] Advice to Young Men, p. 33.

It is impossible to lay down any universal rule with regard to the proper portion of time for sleep. Each constitution of body has its own habits; nor can any rule be drawn from the lives of the most industrious, except of economy of time, according to the capacity of each person. The great German scholar Heyne, who has shed such lustre on classical learning, in the order of his early studies allowed himself, for six months, only two nights' sleep in a week. The eccentric Robert Hill, of England, who passed his life as a tailor, but by persevering labor made rare attainments in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, was accustomed to sit up very late into the night, or else to rise by two or three o'clock in the morning, that he might find time for reading without prejudice to his trade, and although of a weakly constitution, he accustomed himself to do very well with only two or three hours of sleep in the twenty-four, and he lived to be seventy-eight. But this is a curiosity rather than an example. Such also is the story of the Roman Emperor Caligula, who slept only three hours. In the list of men sleeping only four hours is Frederick of Prussia, John Hunter, the surgeon, Napoleon, and Alexander von Humboldt. That gallant cavalier and accomplished historian, renowned for genius and misfortune, Sir Walter Raleigh, was accustomed, even under the pressure of his arduous career, to devote four hours daily to reading and study, while he allowed only five for sleep. Probably all of us, in our own personal experience, have known men of study and labor who, in the ardor of their pursuit, have foregone what is thought the ordinary sleep, being late to bed and early to rise, reducing the night to a narrow isthmus of time. Others there are with a vivacity of industry which acts with intensity and rapidity, requiring long periods of repose. I cannot forget that Judge Story, the person who has accomplished more than any one within the circle of my individual observation, whose life--now, alas! closed by death--was thickly studded with various labors as judge, professor, and author, is a high example of what may be wrought by wakeful diligence, without denying the body any refreshment of repose. His habit, during the years of his greatest intellectual activity, was to retire always at ten o'clock and to rise at seven,--allowing nine hours for sleep. The tradesman of George the Third might have sought shelter with him from the royal raillery.

Pursuing these inquiries as to the arrangement of the day, we find the precept, if not the example, uniform with regard to early rising as propitious to health and intellectual exertion. The old saw, "Early to bed and early to rise," imprints the lesson upon the mind of childhood. The magnificent period of Milton sounds in our ears: "My morning haunts are where they should be, at home,--not sleeping, or concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast, but up and stirring,--in winter often ere the sound of any bell awake men to labor or to devotion,--in summer as oft with the bird that first rouses, or not much tardier, to read good authors or cause them to be read, till the attention be weary or memory have its full fraught,--then with useful and generous labors preserving the body's health and hardiness, to render lightsome, clear, and not lumpish obedience to the mind, to the cause of religion, and our country's liberty."[138] Sir Walter Scott is less stately in his tribute to the morning, but he agrees with Milton: "The half-hour between waking and rising has all my life proved propitious to any task which was exercising my invention. When I got over any knotty difficulty in a story, or have had in former times to fill up a passage in a poem, it was always when I first opened my eyes that the desired ideas thronged upon me. This is so much the case, that I am in the habit of relying upon it, and saying to myself, when I am at a loss, 'Never mind, we shall have it at seven o'clock to-morrow morning.' If I have forgot a circumstance, or a name, or a copy of verses, it is the same thing."[139] In this equal dedication to the morning Milton and Scott are alike, but how unlike in all else! Milton's testimony is like an anthem; Scott's like an affidavit.

[138] Apology for Smectymnuus: Prose Works, Vol. I. p. 220.

[139] Diary: Lockhart's Life of Scott, Chap. VII. Vol. VI. p. 227.

Notwithstanding these great examples and the prevailing precept, it may be doubted if the student can be weaned from those habits which lead him to continue his vigils far into the watches of the night. From time immemorial he has been said to "consume the midnight oil," and productions marked by peculiar care are proverbially reputed to "smell of the lamp," never to breathe the odor of the morning. An ingenious inquirer might be inclined to trace in different writers, particularly in poets, the distinctive influence of the hours they devoted to labor, and, perhaps, to find in Milton and Scott the freshness and vivid colors of the rosy-fingered dawn, and in Schiller and Byron the sombre shade and sickly glare of the lamp. Whatever the result of such speculations, which might be moralized by example, the midnight lamp will ever be regarded as the symbol of labor. In the wonders it has wrought it yields only to the far-famed lamp of Aladdin. They who confess themselves among "the slaves of the lamp" say that there is an excitement in study, increasing as the work proceeds, which flames forth with new brightness at the close of the day and in the stillness of those hours when the world is wrapped in sleep and the student is the sole watcher. The heavy clock seems to toll the midnight hour in the church-belfry for him alone, and, as he catches its distant vibrations, he thinks that he hears the iron hoof of Time come sounding by. All interruptions are ended, and he is in closer companionship with his books and studies. He holds converse face to face with the spirits of the mighty dead, while the learned page and glowing verse become vocal with inspiring thought. The poet speaks to him with richer melodies, and the soul responds in new and more generous resolves.

It is not for me on this occasion to interpose any judgment on a question which comes within the precincts of physiology. My present purpose is accomplished, if I teach the husbandry of time. To this end I have adduced authority and example. But there are other considerations which enforce the lesson with persuasive power.

In the employment of time will be found the sure means of happiness. The laborer living by the sweat of his brow, and the youth toiling in perplexities of business or study, sighs for repose, and repines at the law which ordains the seeming hardship of his lot. He seeks happiness as the end and aim of life, but he does not open his mind to the important truth that occupation is indispensable to happiness. He shuns work, but he does not know the precious jewel hidden beneath its rude attire. Others there are who wander over half the globe in pursuit of what is found under the humblest roof of virtuous industry, in the shadow of every tree planted by one's own hand. The poet has said,--

"The best and sweetest far are toil-created gains."

But this does not disclose the whole truth. There is in useful labor its own exceeding great reward, without regard to gain.

The happiness found in occupation is the frequent theme of the moralist, but nobody has illustrated it with more power than Luther in his Table-Talk, where he presents an image of the human mind which has always seemed to me one of the most striking in the whole range of literature. Let me give it in the strong and fibrous diction of the ancient translation from the original Latin.

"The heart of an humane creature is like a mill-stone in a mill: when corn is shaked thereupon, it runneth about, rubbeth and grindeth it to meal; but if no corn bee present (the stone nevertheless running still about), then it rubbeth and grindeth it self thinner, and becometh less and smaller: even so the heart of an humane creature will bee occupied; if it hath not the works of its vocation in hand to bee busied therein, then cometh the Divel and shooteth thereinto tribulations, heavie cogitations and vexations, as then the heart consumeth it self with melancholie, insomuch that it must starv and famish."[140] That it may not starve and famish, it must be supplied with something to do; and its happiness will be in proportion to the completeness with which all its faculties are brought into activity.

[140] Dr. Martin Luther's Divine Discourses at his Table, etc., translated out of the High Germane into the English Tongue by Capt. Henrie Bell, London, 1652: Chap. XXXVII., _Of Tribulation and Temptation_, p. 397.

It is according to God's Providence that there should be pleasure in the exercise of all the powers with which we are blessed. There is pleasure in seeing the sights and catching the sounds of Nature. There is pleasure in the exercise of the limbs, even in extending an arm or moving a muscle. Higher degrees of pleasure are allotted to the exercise of the higher faculties. There is pleasure in the acquisition of knowledge,--pleasure in the performance of duty,--pleasure in all the labors by which we promote our own progress,--pleasure higher still in those by which we promote the progress of others.

If this be so,--and surely it will not be doubted,--then is it our duty to regulate our habits so as to cultivate all the faculties, to the end that Time shall yield its choicest fruits. When I speak of all the faculties, I mean all those which enter into and form the character created in the image of God, not merely those which minister to the selfish ends of life. There are faculties for business; there are others which open to us the avenues of knowledge,--others which connect us by chains soft as silk, but strong as iron, to the social and domestic circle,--others still which reveal to us, in vistas of infinite variety and inconceivable extension, our duties to God and man. Nor can any one reasonably persuade himself that he has done his whole duty, and employed his time to the best purpose, who has neglected any of these, although he may have sacrificed much to the others. Success in business will not compensate for neglect of general culture; nor will attendance on "the stated preaching of the gospel" atone for a want of interest in the great charities of life, in the education of the people, in the sufferings of the poor, in the sorrows of the slave.

There is a tendency to absorption by one pursuit or one idea, against which we must especially guard. The mere man of business is "a man of one idea,"[141] and his solitary idea has its root in no generous or humane desires, but in selfishness. He lives for himself alone. He may send his freights to the most distant quarters of the earth, and receive therefrom returning argosies, but his real horizon is restricted to the narrow circle of his own personal interests; nor does his worldly nature, elated by the profits of cent per cent, see with eye of sympathy, in cotton sold or sugar bought, the drops of blood falling from the unhappy slaves out of whose labor they were wrung. In the mere man of business the individual is lost in the profession or calling, thinking only of that, and caring little for other things of life. He is known by the character that business impresses upon him. He is untiring in its pursuit, but with no true progress, for each day renews its predecessor. Benevolence calls, but he is deaf, or satisfies his conscience by a dole of money. Literature exhibits her charms, but he is insensible. And innocent recreation makes her pleasant appeal, but he will not listen. He is absorbed, engrossed, filled in every vein by the "one idea" of business with new methods of adding to his increasing gains, as the mouth of the money-seeking Crassus was filled by the Parthians with molten gold.

[141] At the date of this Lecture the Abolitionist was constantly taunted, especially by business men, as "the man of one idea."

We learn to deride the pedant who sacrifices everything to the accumulation of empty learning, which he displays at all times, as a peddler his wares. The image of Dominie Sampson, in Scott's novel of "Guy Mannering," is a happy scarecrow to frighten us from his "one idea." But the merchant whose only talk is of markets, the farmer whose only talk is of bullocks, and the lawyer whose only talk is of his cases, are all Dominie Sampsons in their way. They have all missed that completeness and harmony of development essential to the balance of the faculties and to the best usefulness. They have become richer in this world's goods; but they have sacrificed what money cannot supply,--a general intelligence, an independence of calling or position, and a catholic, liberal spirit. In the prejudices engendered by exclusive devotion to a single pursuit, they have lost one of the most important attributes of man,--the power to receive and appreciate truth.

It is a common saying, handed down with reverence in my own profession, where it is attested at once by Bacon and by Coke, that "every man owes a debt to his profession." If by this is meant that every man should seek to elevate his profession, and to increase its usefulness, the saying is a truism, although valuable as at least one remove from individual selfishness. But is it not too often construed so as to exclude exertion in any other walk, or to serve as a cloak for indifference to other things? Important as this debt may be,--and I will not disparage it,--not for this alone are we sent into the world. There are other debts which must not be postponed. Man was not thus fearfully and wonderfully made,--the cunningest pattern of excelling Nature,--endowed with infinite faculties,--traversing with the angels the blue floor of Heaven,--ranging with light from system to system of the Universe,--descending to the earth and receiving in bountiful largess all its hoarded treasures,--girdling the globe with the peaceful embrace of commerce,--imposing chains even upon the lawless sea,--making the winds and elements do his bidding,--summoning to his company all that is and all that has been the good and great of all times, exemplars of truth, liberty, and virtue, all the grand procession of history,--formed to throb at every deed of generosity and self-sacrifice, and to send forth his sympathies wider and sweeter than any south-wind blowing over beds of violets, until they reach the most distant sufferer,--formed for the acquisition of knowledge and of science,--gifted to enjoy the various feast of letters and art, the breathing canvas and marble, the infinite many-choired voices of all the sons of genius who have written or spoken, the beauty of mountain, field, and river, the dazzling drapery of the winter snow, the glory of sunset, the blushing of the rose,--man was not made with all these capacities, looking before and after, spanning the vast outstretched Past, penetrating the vaster unfathomable Future, with all its images of beauty, merely to follow a profession or a trade, merely to be a merchant, a lawyer, a mechanic, a soldier.

"So God created man in his own image; in the image of God created he him." The image of God is in the soul, and the young must take heed that it is not effaced by the neglect of any of the trusts they have received. They must bear in mind that there are debts other than to their profession or business, which, like gratitude, it will ever be their pleasure, "still paying, still to owe,"--which can be properly discharged only by the best employment of all the faculties with which they are blessed,--so that life shall be improved by culture and filled with works for the good of man.

In no respect would I weaken any just attachment to the business of one's choice. Goethe advised every one to read daily a short poem; and in the same spirit would I refine and elevate business by the chastening influence of other pursuits, by enlarging the intelligence, by widening the sphere of observation and interest, by awakening new sympathies.

In the faithful husbandry of time, in the aggregation of all its particles of golden sand, is the first stage of individual progress. With the living spirit of industry, the student will find his way easy. Difficulties cannot permanently obstruct his resolute career. He will remember "rare Ben Jonson," one of England's admired and most learned bards, working as a bricklayer with a trowel in his hand and a book in his pocket,--Burns, wooing his muse as he followed the plough on the mountain-side,--the beloved German Jean Paul, composing his earliest works by the music of the simmering kettles in his mother's humble kitchen,--and Franklin, while a printer's boy, straitened by small means, beginning those studies and labors which make him an example to mankind.

Seek, then, occupation; seek labor; seek to employ all the faculties, whether in study or conduct,--not in words only, but in deeds also, mindful that "words are the daughters of Earth, but deeds are the sons of Heaven." So shall you eat of that fabled fruit growing on the banks of the river of Delight, whereby men gain a blessed course of life without one moment of sadness. So shall your days be filled with usefulness,--

"And when old Time shall lead you to your end, Goodness and you fill up one monument."

There is a legend of Friar Roger Bacon, so conspicuous in what may be called the mythology of modern science, which enforces the importance of seizing the present moment; nor could I hope to close this appeal with anything better calculated to impress upon all the lesson I have sought to teach. With wizard skill he had succeeded in constructing a brazen head, which, by unimaginable contrivance, after unknown lapse of time, was to speak and declare important knowledge. Weary with watching for the auspicious moment, which had been prolonged through successive weeks, he had sought the refreshment of sleep, leaving his man Miles to observe the head, and to awaken him at once, if it should speak, that he might not fail to interrogate it. Shortly after he had sunk to rest, the head spake these words, _Time is_. But the foolish guardian heeded them not, nor the commands of his master, whom he allowed to slumber unconscious of the auspicious moment. Another half-hour passed and the head spake the words, _Time was_, which Miles still heeded not. Another half-hour passed, and the head spake yet other words, _Time is past_, and straightway fell to the earth, shivered in pieces, with a terrible crash and strange flashes of fire, so that Miles was half dead with fear; and his master awoke to behold the workmanship of his cunning hand and the hopes he had builded thereupon shattered, while the voice from the brazen throat still sounded in his ears, TIME IS PAST!

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE LATE JOHN PICKERING.

ARTICLE IN THE LAW REPORTER OF JUNE, 1846.

It was a remark of Lord Brougham, illustrated by his own crowded life, that the complete performance of all the duties of an active member of the British Parliament might be joined to a full practice at the bar. The career of the late Mr. Pickering illustrates a more grateful truth: that the mastery of the law as a science and the constant performance of all the duties of a practitioner are not incompatible with the studies of the most various scholarship,--that the lawyer and the scholar may be _one_. He dignified the law by the successful cultivation of letters, and strengthened the influence of these elegant pursuits by becoming their representative in the concerns of daily life and in the labors of his profession. And now that this living example of excellence is withdrawn, we feel a sorrow which words can only faintly express. We would devote a few moments to the contemplation of what he did and what he was. The language of exaggeration is forbidden by the modesty of his nature, as it is rendered unnecessary by the multitude of his virtues.

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