y,
sometimes feel as stupid and dull as an owl by daylight; but one must
not yield to this, which happens more or less to all young wives. The
best relief is WORK, engaged in with interest and diligence. Work, then,
constantly and diligently, at something or other; for idleness is the
devil's snare for small and great, as your grandfather says, and he says
true." [1310]

Constant useful occupation is thus wholesome, not only for the body, but
for the mind. While the slothful man drags himself indolently through
life, and the better part of his nature sleeps a deep sleep, if not
morally and spiritually dead, the energetic man is a source of activity
and enjoyment to all who come within reach of his influence. Even any
ordinary drudgery is better than idleness. Fuller says of Sir Francis
Drake, who was early sent to sea, and kept close to his work by his
master, that such "pains and patience in his youth knit the joints of
his soul, and made them more solid and compact." Schiller used to say
that he considered it a great advantage to be employed in the discharge
of some daily mechanical duty--some regular routine of work, that
rendered steady application necessary.

Thousands can bear testimony to the truth of the saying of Greuze, the
French painter, that work--employment, useful occupation--is one of the
great secrets of happiness. Casaubon was once induced by the entreaties
of his friends to take a few days entire rest, but he returned to
his work with the remark, that it was easier to bear illness doing
something, than doing nothing.

When Charles Lamb was released for life from his daily drudgery of
desk-work at the India Office, he felt himself the happiest of men. "I
would not go back to my prison," he said to a friend, "ten years longer,
for ten thousand pounds." He also wrote in the same ecstatic mood to
Bernard Barton: "I have scarce steadiness of head to compose a letter,"
he said; "I am free! free as air! I will live another fifty years....
Would I could sell you some of my leisure! Positively the best thing
a man can do is--Nothing; and next to that, perhaps, Good Works." Two
years--two long and tedious years passed; and Charles Lamb's feelings
had undergone an entire change. He now discovered that official, even
humdrum work--"the appointed round, the daily task"--had been good for
him, though he knew it not. Time had formerly been his friend; it had
now become his enemy. To Bernard Barton he again wrote: