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In the long, sleepless nights which followed his mother's death, when grief held his soul in iron claws, he had fled from the melancholy image of the deceased to his books. Like a mole he burrowed his way through the dark theories, and when his head buzzed and his body became exhausted from the exciting brain-work, he would cry out to himself, "Her last hope shall not be disappointed!"
The more imaginative paid no attention to mere detail, but circulated the most startling rumors as to the excessive amount of brain-work Mopsey Dowd was doing on the new play, which was to be his masterpiece, and to far surpass anything Buffalo Bill or Sixteen-string Jack ever wrote.
In those long days of trench warfare and stationary lines it was boredom that was the worst malady of the mind; a large, overwhelming boredom to thousands of men who were in exile from the normal interests of life and from the activities of brain-work; an intolerable, abominable boredom, sapping the will-power, the moral code, the intellect; a boredom from which there seemed no escape except by death, no relief except by vice, no probable or possible change in its dreary routine.
It has been seen that the provisions and menagerie expenses alone exceed $30,000, and it must be remembered that the most difficult part, the brain-work, the knowledge without which the whole would be a failure is furnished the society by its council entirely free. The collection of living animals is the finest in existence, and is daily increasing.
Brain-work and stomach-work interfere with each other if attempted together. The digestion of a dinner calls force to the stomach, and temporarily slows the brain. The experiment of trying to digest a hearty supper, and to sleep during the process, has sometimes cost the careless experimenter his life.
Hence, all that feverish editorial brain-work over this pretended wrong, and that amount of printer's ink and paper thus used were simply wasted upon, what never occurred, or that which was only a usual, honest effort to do our duty with fidelity.
Each night he went home fagged and weary; but each morning saw him return to it with undaunted spirit. Human nature, however, is exhaustible. The influence of a strong mind over a strong body is great, but it is nevertheless limited. The Beacon had reached a large circulation, but its slave was worn out. Two years without a holiday two years of hurried, hard brain-work had left their mark.
There wasn't much brain-work in that log, I'm sure. June 27 makes a better showing, when all is told: First of all, to-day, was a flying-fish on deck; fried it in butter. 133 miles on the log. For slip, off, and for current, on, as per guess, about equal let it go at that. Latitude by observation at noon, 10 degrees 25' S.
If the evening be spent in conversation, or mere lounging over books, the supper will not be needed, and will prove, if taken, only a burden; but if, as has already been said, it be spent in actual brain-work, the tremendous and unusual strain on the whole nervous system, occasioned by the destruction of nerve-cells, must be made good, or those organs most intimately connected with the nervous system and the sources of life, will be sure to suffer.
Too much brain-work is just as bad as too much toil; the misuse of the pen carries just as severe a penalty as the misuse of the hoe. And it is a great satisfaction to realize that the thinking world has reached a point where these propositions do not have to be proven. There was a time when Spencer regretted that he had not been sent to college, instead of being set to work.
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