54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



and natural philosopher," was a person of splendid physique " who out- 

 stripped all the youth of the city in feats' of strength and horseman- 

 ship/' and who was "zealous in labor above all men, with a strength 

 more than human." 



Michelangelo was almost as ascetic in his habits as a monk and he 

 labored with " furious " intensity, with chisel and brush, up to his 

 seventieth year, when he still had energy left to plan and carry forward 

 such great architectural works as St. Peter's. Even in his last year he 

 is described as " healthy above all things," notwithstanding the storm 

 and stress of adverse circumstances against which he had to contend 

 throughout life. 



It was said of Titian that his death from plague came (at the age 

 of ninety-nine) as a surprise to his friends, since he lived " a life so 

 strong and resisting that it seemed able to withstand all the assaults 

 of time." 



Eubens lived sparingly and was devoted to horseback riding. 

 Despite bodily care he suffered from attacks of gout, so common in that 

 age. It was not, however, until in his fifty-seventh year, when his 

 attacks became more severe, that he had to adopt the use of the mahl 

 stick in painting, a utensil which few painters have sufficient nerve 

 control to do without at any time. The fact that " not the remotest 

 trace of approaching old age, not the slightest failing of mind or skill, 

 can be detected even in his latest works " testifies that he had not 

 declined up to his sixty-third year. 



Of Turner, the last of this sextette of artists, we know that his 

 health was perfectly sound, that he walked his twenty miles or more a 

 •day with ease, often sketching as he walked. He could work fifteen 

 hours at a stretch without weariness, and his digestion was so vigorous 

 that all extremes of living were alike to him. He " worked harder and 

 produced more than any artist of whom we have any record." As 

 Hamerton said, " Man is an intelligence served by organs and few 

 intelligences have been better or more regularly served than Turner. 

 His nervous system was so sound that he could work anywhere and 

 everywhere." At the age of sixty-seven he had an illness, but it was 

 not until seventy that we " are sure that he declined as an artist, . . . 

 when his health and with it, in a degree, his mind, failed suddenly." 



Among musicians we have no trouble in selecting the greatest. All 

 others stand on a lower plane than Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. 

 Those who mark the physical imperfections of men of genius will at 

 once say that Bach was blind and Beethoven deaf. Bach did become 

 blind at sixty-eight, after such severe use as perhaps no other eyes ever 

 received, and Beethoven (strange fate) did become deaf, his affliction 

 beginning at twenty-eight years. This terrible defect undoubtedly 



