ittle beneficial to my health. The
motives which excited me to write, and the objects which I hoped to
accomplish, were of a nature calculated to cheer the mind, and to give
the animal spirits a salutary impulse. I am persuaded that, if I had
suffered my time to pass away with little or no employment, my health
would have been still more impaired, my spirits depressed, and perhaps
my life considerably shortened."

Of Lord Jeffrey, who was a very hard-working man, it is said that one of
his cures for a headache was to sit down and clear up a deep legal
question.

The cases of Pascal, Dr. Johnson, Channing, and others, will doubtless
occur to the reader. It will suffice here to mention one more,--that of
William of Orange, whose vigorous, comprehensive, and untiring intellect
through a long course of years wielded and shaped the destinies of
England, and enabled him, if not to make a more brilliant page in
history, yet to leave a more enduring monument in human institutions
than any other man of his age. Macaulay thus graphically describes him:
"The audacity of his spirit was the more remarkable, because his
physical organization was unusually delicate. From a child he had been
weak and sickly. In the prime of manhood, his complaints had been
aggravated by a severe attack of small-pox. He was asthmatic and
consumptive. His slender frame was shaken by a constant hoarse cough. He
could not sleep unless his head was propped by several pillows, and
could scarcely draw his breath in any but the purest air. Cruel
headaches frequently tortured him. Exertion soon fatigued him. The
physicians constantly kept up the hopes of his enemies by fixing some
date beyond which, if there were anything certain in medical science, it
was impossible that his broken constitution could hold out. Yet, through
a life which was one long disease, the force of his mind never failed,
on any great occasion, to bear up his suffering and languid body."

Let the weak and feeble of body, therefore, take courage of heart; and
let the robust student be admonished that he cannot excuse _all_ his
inactive days upon the ground of indisposition.

Fatigue is an enemy which every hard-working brain knows of; but it is
an enemy, not of the workman, but only of the taskmaster. The student
may resort to what healthful contrivances he pleases to avoid fatigue;
but when it appears, he should not excuse himself, but yield to its
impulse. He should learn to distingui