rates.

In the charming and precious letters of Victor Jacquemont, a man whose
life was dedicated to culture, and who not only lived for it, but died
for it, there is a passage about the intellectual labors of Germans,
which takes due account of the expenditure of time. "Comme j'etais
etonne," he says, "de la prodigieuse variete et de l'etendue de
connaissances des Allemands, je demandai un jour a l'un de mes amis,
Saxon de naissance et l'un des premiers geologues de l'Europe, comment
ses compatriotes s'y prenaient pour savoir tant de choses. Voici sa
reponse, a peu pres: 'Un Allemand (moi excepte qui suis le plus
paresseux des hommes) se leve de bonne heure, ete et hiver, a cinq
heures environ. Il travaille quatre heures avant le dejeuner, fumant
quelquefois pendant tout ce temps, sans que cela nuise a son
application. Son dejeuner dure une demi-heure, et il reste, apres, une
autre demi-heure a causer avec sa femme et a faire jouer ses enfants.
Il retourne au travail pour six heures; dine sans se presser; fume une
heure apres le diner, jouant encore avec ses enfants; et avant de se
coucher il travaille encore quatre heures. Il recommence tous les jours,
ne sortant jamais.--Voila,' me dit mon ami, 'comment Oersted, le plus
grand physicien de l'Allemagne, en est aussi le plus grand medecin;
voila comment Kant le metaphysicien etait un des plus savants astronomes
de l'Europe, et comment Goethe, qui en est actuellement le premier
litterateur, dans presque tous les genres, et le plus fecond, est
excellent botaniste, mineralogiste, physicien.'"[2]

Here is something to encourage, and something to discourage you at the
same time. The number of hours which these men have given in order to
become what they were, is so great as to be past all possibility of
imitation by a man occupied in business. It is clear that, with your
counting-house to occupy you during the best hours of every day, you can
never labor for your intellectual culture with that unremitting
application which these men have given for theirs. But, on the other
hand, you will perceive that these extraordinary workers have hardly
ever been wholly dedicated to one pursuit, and the reason for this in
most cases is clear. Men who go through a prodigious amount of work feel
the necessity for varying it. The greatest intellectual workers I have
known personally have varied their studies as Kant and Goethe did, often
taking up subjects of the most opposite kinds, as fo