some time get the essays
of Elia and turn to the paper on roast pig, and read it, and you will
enjoy it immensely. At last Charles Lamb was released from his duties
in the India office, he went home and wrote a letter and said to his
friend,--he was so excited with the fact that now he was free,--he
said, "For L10,000 I would not labor ten years longer in that old
India office. The best thing anybody can do is nothing, and next to
nothing, perhaps, go to work." And he went out to do nothing. He had
nothing more to do. Two years after that he says, "Any work is a
hundred times better than no work at all. The sun looks down on no
forlorner creature than me with nothing to do."

Toil is necessary, labor is necessary for our happiness, as well as
our prosperity. But I do not want you to overwork, and I believe you
do wrong when you do. Just for a little while, while you are getting
this knowledge, you must be willing perhaps to overwork; do not
overwork, do not overstrain yourself. You can break your brains as
easily as you can your back, and every now and then you hear of some
young fellow who breaks his back. Don't break your back, and your
neck, and your brain, and don't forget, just for the sake of getting
ahead a little faster and making a little more money. Remember that
your life and happiness are worth more than a few dollars. I say that
because I know that some of you would be tempted to overwork, but I
want to say alongside of it, another thing that I believe you cannot
forget, and that is this, that there is an element in true life and in
true service which dollars do not pay for. There is an element that is
higher and finer which we usually think of when we think of the
faithful performance of our work, the work allotted to us and the
faithful keeping of business secrets that are intrusted to us. There
is something finer than that. It would be supposed that the men of the
learned profession were the men who work for something beside money.
The doctor must respond to a call no matter whether it comes from the
poorest home, or the richest home. There is something in the
professional relation to society that lifts a man up to a point where
he dare not work simply for money. The minister must go, and it makes
no difference where the call comes from or what time of the night or
day a call comes, and he goes without asking anything about what is to
return to him. The lawyer will stand up in court and take a case and