ment, by official regulation, or even by social compact. Only recently one important section of the working world has been agitated by a question of nine or ten hours of toil to the labouring man's days. There are some men whose work is never done, either because their calling is one which forbids limitation of hours, or because their minds are of so active, so restless a nature, that they cannot suffer themselves to lie fallow. A medical practitioner, for example, can never call an hour of the day or of the night his own. Literary men, too, work at all hours, early and late: there is no limitation to the labours of the imagination. As long as there is a subject to be found, there is work to be done. But the larger number of workmen go forth every day after breakfast, and return before dinner or before supper, spending from six to ten hours at their apportioned work. From ten to four is the ordinary work-time at the public offices, from nine to five at private mercantile establishments, and from nine to seven, or still later, at shops, where the work to be done is not of a kind to make any serious inroads upon body or on brain. Much has been said recently about the tendency of the age towards overwork. Heaven knows that I would protest against the age, if I believed that such were its tendency. Excessive competition may generate such results. But I do not think that, generally speaking, we are overworked. Perhaps what we want most is a little better distribution of our time. If I had the management of any number of men and women, and the disposal of their time, I would rather give them an extra hour's work every day, so as to afford them a half-holiday in the week, and a week or two's holiday in every year, than that they should go without their holidays. I am convinced that I should find, on the 31st of December, that I had gained some good work and that they had gained some good health by the arrangement.

About the hour of the day at which head-work can most profitably be done there are varying opinions. The more common voice would seem to incline towards the dictum that "the morning is the best time for work," but I am not disposed to accept this as a general proposition. I speak, of course, of volunteer work, which is bound by no especial laws. The ordinary affairs of life must be transacted in business hours, according to official chronology from ten to four; but I cannot help thinking that the work which makes the most noise in the world, is not done in office-hours. Continual interruptions at that time make sustained head-work difficult, if not impossible. There are few men occupying an important position in an "office," public or private, who do not carry their work home with them, and perform that part of it which demands the most thought, in the quietude of their own studies. Others do supplementary work, write books or articles, or solve mighty problems in science. Others again, having no official labours, choose their own time for literary labour or scientific research. To all of these, it must often have been a question, whether it is better to work early or late. I have said that the general verdict is in favour of the former; and on the whole, I think rightly. If

a man is blest with a regular occupation, demanding the mid-day period, he is necessitated to take his principal meal in the evening. If he works out of office-hours, he must work before breakfast or after dinner. To work after dinner, he must work late, by candle-light, at a time when he ought to be setting bedwards. Young men may do this, but few men past forty can work after dinner. If you can work at all at night, one hour at that time is worth any two in the morning. The house is hushed, the brain is clear, the distracting influences of the day are at an end. You have not to disturb yourself with thoughts of what you are about to do, or what you are about to suffer. You know that there is a gulf between you and the affairs of the outside world, almost like the chasm of death; and that you need not take thought of the morrow until the morrow has come. There are few really great thoughts, such as the world will not willingly let die, that have not been conceived under the quiet stars. Why, then, do I speak in praise of morning work? It has its inevitable drawbacks. That the brain is clearer then than at other times is the merest theory, propounded by those who have not worked early or late. It is a time, too, of expectation: you feel that you are drifting into the cares and anxieties of the day, and it is difficult to distract your mind from what is to come. Moreover, the before-breakfast period must always be brought to an abrupt close. With the inevitable eight o'clock come the postman and the hot-water; and the disturbing business of the day has commenced. But at night you only drift into deeper silence and quicker inspiration. If the right mood is upon you, you write on; if not, your pillow awaits you. Why, then, I say, do I write in favour of early work? Partly, because after-dinner labour is often physically impossible, and, when possible, sometimes detrimental; and, partly, because few men can call their evenings their own. The claims of society and of the family circle are not to be resisted. The evening hours are the social hours, and it is right that we should devote them to intercourse with our fellows. But we can always rely upon our mornings. Nobody disputes with us the possession of them. And if we cannot do so much as at night, we are sure of being able to do something.

And a great deal may be done, too, in little odd chinks and crevices of time-spare half-hours, of which many men take no account. I have not much faith in the story of the gentleman who wrote a great work on jurisprudence at odd times, while he was waiting for his wife to go out with him. Jurisprudence is not exactly the subject to be treated of by snatches in this way. But much useful work, nevertheless, may come out of these little odds and ends, which we are wont to throw idly away. There are few who have not desultory work for desultory hours. Letters may be written, which otherwise would obtrude themselves upon us, and break in upon our sustained labour. Notes may be made. Papers may be arranged. I know a man who devotes these fragments of time to the correction of the press, and is seldom without a proof-sheet in his pocket. At all sorts of odd times the pencil and the proof are produced: at railway stations, wait

ing for the train; at hotels, waiting for dinner; on the deck of a steamer; in the waiting-room of a minister; in all sorts of places, and in all possible circumstances, you may see him with a proof in his hand. It is a wise thing, too, to carry about a note-book in one's pocket. Every public writer knows that he loses many of his best ideas, because they sprout up, unannounced and unexpected, at strange times, and are not stereotyped on the memory. He should always have the means of writing at hand. I know some men who make copious notes on the backs of letters, on the margins of their Bradshaws, on the fly-leaves of their guide-books-and forget them almost as soon as they are made. Scattered memoranda of this kind are sure not to turn up when they are wanted. But a recognized memorandum-book is an aide-de-camp never off duty-you may turn to it when you will.

Is the

Indeed, small matter though it seem to be, I hold that every workman should look well to the implements of his calling. There is a proverb, which saith that "A bad workman complains of his tools." It may be so; but good workmen work better with good tools. To those who work with their hands, they are everything; to those who work with their heads they are of more account than may be supposed. "What are such gross material aids as these to the subtle agencies of the brain? flow of thought dependent upon the flow of ink from the pen?" I am not ashamed to answer that I think good pens, and good ink, and good paper are "material aids" in more senses than one. When the thick ink cakes in the pen, and the pen only scratches the fluffy paper, and your "fine Roman hand" is miserably transfigured into ungraceful and unintelligible hieroglyphics, is there no interruption to the flow of your thoughts? Do you never lose an idea whilst you are vainly endeavouring to embody it on paper? Is the fecundity of your imagination never checked by the disturbance of your temper? Is it nothing to work in ease and comfort, with all appliances and means to boot? Is it nothing to have an easy chair, and a spacious table, and a good expanse of carpet whereon to walk to and fro, between your throes of labour? Let no man despise these things. A good room in itself is no small matter. Work when you can with the window open. Let in as much fresh air as this treacherous climate will permit. Do not sit too long at a time. high standing desk whereby you may vary your attitude of labour; and when you are busy, receive visitors standing, if you wish to get rid of them soon.

Have a

And now I am reminded that something ought to be said about method in work. To be orderly and methodical is a great thing; but I cannot help thinking that I might as well exhort my friends to be tall, or strong, or handsome, as to be orderly and methodical. Order and method are gifts, as beauty and genius are. I do not underrate their value, but I fear that they are not to be acquired. There are different kinds of workmen-workmen who create, and workmen who methodize or arrange. I do not here speak of internal arrangement—the arrangement of the

That a great

Nothing is in Work is done,

different parts of an intellectual work-but of external or material order and arrangement. To arrange your ideas is one thing; to arrange your papers is another. Some of the best and most rapid workmen I know are, in respect of order of this kind, hopelessly deficient. deal of valuable time is lost in this way must be admitted. its right place. Papers are not to be found when wanted. and then mislaid; and more time is spent in endeavouring to find it than it would take to do it over again. But, after all, I am doubtful whether those who fold, and docket, and arrange, and have everything in such excellent order that they can find it at a moment's notice, do not spend more time in producing this state of things than the more careless workman loses by neglecting it. The men of order are seldom men of much creative genius. What they do, they do slowly; and they are commonly of more use in helping the real workmen than in doing work of their own. It is well for us that there are men of both kinds in the world. Until the ONE PERFECT WORKMAN vouchsafes to His creatures a diversity of qualities, a comprehensiveness of intelligence more nearly approaching His own, we must help one another, looking to our neighbour, in all humility, to make good our own deficiencies and to do that wherein we fail.

Yes, O friends and brother workmen, we must help one another. We are all of one Guild-Full-brain cannot do without Neat-hand, any more than Neat-hand can do without Full-brain. What poor, weak,

miserable creatures we are when we are left to ourselves! We want assistance at every turn of the road; at every quarter of an hour of the day. We think much of our own especial work, but how few, when we consider, are the things that we can do, how many the things that we cannot. Is our own work better than other men's work? Is it more essential to the happiness of mankind? Does it keep the world a-going more than our neighbour's? Not it. That stout fellow who has just brought the heavy luggage from the railway station-could I do that? Yet there is somebody-perhaps a whole family of somebodies, who cannot go to bed without that box. Is there any one thus dependent upon me for his night's comfort, or his morning's cleanliness? Perhaps it is my privilege sometimes to be of use in my own way. If I work hard I have a right to expect that reward, and to trust that I benefit some one. All true workmen are public benefactors. Let us not measure ourselves against others and ask who is greater, who less. The "toppling crags of duty" are before us all. Let us strive "with toil of heart, and knees, and hands" to scale them, so that we may be brought, with His good help

Neighbours.

THERE is one word in the English language which Englishmen are particularly proud of, and that is "home." Their pride in this word, and all it represents, is fostered by travelling; by observation, more or less hurried, or more or less prejudiced, of foreign manners; and even by foreigners themselves. It was only the other day, at a political lecture delivered in the middle of a morning concert by an Italian countess, that I was called upon to listen to the following words :—

"Home,' parole intraduisible; parce qu'elle renferme en elle tout ce qu'il y a de bon, de doux, et de tendre dans l'existence; parce qu'elle est le poème de toute une vie."

*

It is not for me to question such sentiments as these, or to wonder at the love my countrymen bear to this word. I have stated my opinions in this magazine with regard to dwellings, and no man who is as fastidious as I am in his taste for houses, can laugh at those who call home "the poem of a life." Although many houses are well filled with fathers, mothers, and children, without being worthy the name of homes, it is certain that houses, especially in England, must form the groundwork of such "poems." A feeling of this still prompts me to linger about these shells of humanity, and examine a few unnoticed disturbing elements to which they may possibly be subjected.

The house-the home-is entirely at the mercy of "next door," or "over the way," in spite of any Nuisances Removal Bill, and its attendant inspectors. The law is very powerful, or, if not powerful, is very meddling; but a certain democratic constitutional freedom of action is much stronger. An Englishman's house is his castle by custom, usage and right, and he may do a great deal with his castle before he is checked by the law.

There is the miser, or that eccentric, sometimes mad, sometimes obstinate, sometimes single-minded individual, whom we call a "miser," for want of a better title. Has anybody ever calculated what he may do in blighting a neighbourhood? Walk about London, from east to west, from north to south; go into those suburban districts attached to the metropolis which are little towns in themselves, and take note of all the scarecrow dwellings you may see about you. There are plenty to look at. Some of these belong to misers, others to madmen, and some are in the hands of chancery. The law, instead of protecting property-and particularly that most delicate class of property, investments in houses-is one of its

"Ideal Houses." Cornhill Magazine, No. 4, April, 1860.