Dr. Pye Smith, one of the ablest of our physicians,
has been asserting, in a lecture delivered at the Royal College of Physicians on March 31st, that we do not, in the medical meaning of the phrase, live faster than our fathers; that we do not waste our strength and our vital powers more freely; and that we compliment and pity ourselves in relation to the pace at which we live, without due cause. He points out how much easier travelling is than it used to be, how much less anxiety we have to get over in the way of dangers on the road, how much the hardships of life are diminished, how much the conveniences and appliances necessary for the transaction of all our hardest tasks have increased. All this is true; but is.it true that this smoothing- away of the frictions of life decreases the pressure P Surely it is the number of the distractions and pulls in opposite directions, the crowding of our engagements, efforts, and of our more or less incompatible endeavours, which measures the strain of life. Difficult things done slowly, take less out of men than a multitude of easier things done in a hurry.
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