ever encroached upon the hours of the night. He
gives the following account of his day, as he employed it at the age of
thirty-two: "Three pages of history after breakfast (equivalent to five
in small quarto printing), then to transcribe and copy for the press, or
to make my selections and biographies, or what else suits my humor, till
dinner-time. From dinner till tea, I write letters, read, see the
newspaper, and very often indulge in a siesta, for sleep agrees with me,
and I have a good substantial theory to prove that it must; for as a man
who walks much requires to sit down and rest himself, so does the brain,
if it be the part most worked, require its repose. Well, after tea I go
to poetry, and correct and rewrite and copy till I am tired, and then
turn to anything else till supper." At the age of fifty-five, his life
varied but little from this sketch. When it is said that his breakfast
was at nine, after a little reading, his dinner at four, tea at six, and
supper at half past nine, and that the intervals, except the time
regularly devoted to a walk, between two and four, and a short sleep
before tea, were occupied with reading and writing, the outline of his
day during those long seasons when he was in full work will have been
given. After supper, when the business of the day seemed to be over,
though he generally took a book, he remained with his family, and was
ready to enter into conversation, to amuse and to be amused. During the
several years that he was partially employed upon the life of Dr. Bell,
he devoted two hours before breakfast to it in the summer, and as much
time as there was daylight for during the winter months, that it might
not interfere with the usual occupations of the day. Of himself, at the
age of sixty, at a time when he was thus engaged every morning at work
away from his home, he says: "I get out of bed as the clock strikes
six, and shut the house door after me as it strikes seven. After two
hours' work, home to breakfast; after which my son engages me till about
half past ten, and, when the post brings no letters that interest or
trouble me, by eleven I have done with the newspaper, and can then set
about what is properly the business of the day. But I am liable to
frequent interruptions, so that there are not many mornings in which I
can command from two to three unbroken hours at the desk. At two I take
my daily walk, be the weather what it may, and when the weather permits,
with a b