THE WORK OF THE CULTIVATED.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.']
SIE,—I doubt very much if what is usually called the working class has the remotest idea how hard is the work done, for fully thirty years of their life, by the great middle and upper-middle class,—the successful merchants, lawyers, doc- tors, engineers, clergy, &c. From the age of nineteen I began work at 9 a.m., and was constantly working until 8, 9, or 10 p.m. At the age of twenty-three I went to the East, where I was practically my own master. In the summer months I was always at work at 5 a.m., and all the year round at daylight. I had stated times for meals and exercise, read everything worth reading which appeared, made much music, was actively engaged in public business, wrote much for the Press, conducted the affairs of one Society, which in- volved a great multiplicity of detail, and found time for everything. If this were said in any spirit of boast, it would be vain and impertinent, and I desire to say that nothing can be further from my intention than to leave any such im- pression. But I wish to enforce this,—that the harder men determine to work, the more time they find for a thousand things that half-employed men never find time to do, and thus they contrive to pack into life five or ten or twenty times the enjoyment and usefulness of a mere eight-hours man.—I am,
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