d, your Honor," said Mr. Paine, "with the defendant's
acquittal. He has been tried by a jury of his _peers_"--On another
occasion, Mr. Paine was making a legal argument before an eminent judge,
when he was interrupted by the latter, who said: "Mr. Paine, you know
that that is not law." "I know it, your Honor," replied the advocate,
with a deferential bow; "but it _was_ law till your Honor just spoke."
From 1849 to 1862, Mr. Paine was a member of the Board of Trustees of
Waterville College. In 1851, he was elected member of the Maine
Historical Society, and also of the American Academy. In 1854, his Alma
Mater conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.
In the relation of marriage, Mr. Paine has been very happy. In May.
1837, he was united to Miss Lucy E. Coffin, of Newburyport, a lady of
rare endowments, both of head and heart.
Few men have started in a professional career with a more vigorous and
elastic constitution than Mr. Paine's. Endowed with an iron frame and
nerves of _lignum vitae_, he very naturally felt in youth that his
fund of physical energy was inexhaustible; but, like thousands of other
professional men in this fiery and impatient age, he finds himself in
the autumn of his life afflicted with bodily ills, which he feels that
with reasonable care he might have escaped. Toiling in his profession
year after year from January to December, with no recreation, no summer
vacation, no disposition to follow the wise advice of Horace to
Torquatus,--
rebus omissis
Atria servantem postico falle clientem,
--working double tides, and crowding the work of eighty years into
forty, Mr. Paine finds that, large as was his bank account with Nature,
he has been overdrawing it for years, and that he has now to repay these
drafts with compound interest. The lesson he would have young
professional men learn from his experience, is, that they should account
no time or money wasted, that contributes in any way to their physical
health,--that gives tone to the stomach, or development to the muscles.
Let them understand that, though suffering does not follow instantly
upon the heels of transgression, yet Nature cannot be outraged with
impunity. Though a generous giver she is a hard bargainer, and a most
accurate bookkeeper, whose notice not the eighth part of a cent escapes;
and though the items with which she debits one, taken singly are
seemingly insignificant, and she seldom brings in "that li
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