1875:] Longevity of Brain-Workers. 435 
greenhouse is to limitless expansion in the free air. In the 
successful brain-worker worry is transferred into work; in 
the muscle-worker, work too often degrades into worry. 
Brain-work is the highest of all antidotes to worry; and the 
brain-working classes are therefore less distressed about many 
things, less apprehensive of indefinite evil, and less disposed 
to magnify minute trials, than those who live by the labour 
of the hands. To the happy brain-worker, life is a long 
vacation ; while the muscle-worker often finds no joy in his 
daily toil, and very little inthe intervals. Scientists, physi- 
cians, lawyers, clergymen, orators, statesmen, literati, and 
merchants, when successful, are happy in their work, without 
reference to the reward, and continue to work in their 
special callings long after the necessity has ceased. Where 
is the hod carrier that finds joy in going up and down a 
ladder ; and, from the foundation of the globe until now, how 
many have been known to persist in ditch-digging, or sewer- 
laying, or in any mechanical or manual calling whatsoever, 
after the attainment of independence? Good fortune gives 
good health. Nearly all the money of the world is in the 
hands of brain-workers ; to many, in moderate amounts, it 
is essential to life, and in large or comfortable amount it 
favours long life. Longevity is the daughter of luxury. Of 
the many elements that make up happiness, mental organi- 
sation, physical health, fancy, friends,* and money—the last 
is, for the average man, greater than any other, except the 
first. Loss of money costs more lives than the loss of 
friends, for it is easier to find a friend than a fortune. Al- 
most all muscle-workers are born, live, and die poor. To 
live on the slippery path that lies between extreme poverty 
on one side, and the gulf of starvation on the other; to take 
continual thought of to-morrow, without any good result of 
such thought; to feel each anxious hour that the dreary 
treadmill by which we secure the means of sustenance for a 
hungry household may, without warning, be closed by any 
number of forces, over which one has no control; to double 
and triple all the horrors of want and pain, by anticipation 
and rumination,—such is the life of the muscle-working 
classes of modérn civilised society ; and when we add to this 
the cankering annoyance that arises from the envying of the 
fortunate brain-worker who lives in ease before his eyes, we 
* Ido not here refer to accumulated wealth exclusively, but to income or 
sufficient amount to purchase comforts and luxury. Many persons (and 
notably successful professional men), live out their days in comfort and 
luxury, although they never succeed in accumulating fortunes; to them, their 
reputation is wealth and capital. - 
