It is doubtful whether a man who, by a stroke or two of the pen, can flutter the innocent dovecots of the Exchange, is, by virtue of that power, any happier than the humble farmer whose year’s income may be straitened by one night’s rain. Far in advance of wealth, in estimating what meed of fortune has fallen to any man’s lot, should be placed health, upon the state of which our welfare so largely depends, and the preservation of which is so nearly contingent upon the method of life we adopt. Riches without health do not bring with them the capacity for their enjoyment; and yet how many of us waste the latter in the pursuit of the former! The merchant who rises early and toils till a late hour at his desk in the sunless city office for the sake of amassing money, has generally advanced far beyond middle age before his object is attained, and finds then that he has lost the faculty of enjoyment. Leisure has become a weariness to him; the pursuits for which he once coveted it have lost their attraction for him; the studies he once desired opportunities to follow up, have lost their interest; he has no longer the robust health and bodily strength demanded for the sports and pastimes which once seemed to him to make life worth living. Without the accustomed occupation, the day is a blank; he must still journey to the office, still add sovereign to sovereign, and take what comfort is possible from the reflection that another may perhaps spend them, and that they may serve to keep in ease and idleness one who never worked for them—a poor and second-hand solace, indeed, for no man yet ever started life with the intention of acquiring wealth for the sole benefit of his successor. The proper image of such a man, wearing out his days in the dull monotonous round of business, is the ass in the great hollow wheel of the water-well in Carisbrooke Castle, which walks for ever up-hill, but which never advances, and never rises, and the end of whose labour is to draw water that others may drink it. With numerically unimportant exceptions, we have all to toil for our living; and it is probable that that man is most truly described as fortunate who at the outset in life has chosen work in which he can take pleasure. To labour during the best hours of the day in hatred or contempt of the task, for the sake of the few hours of leisure that are thereby earned, will in the long-run weaken the moral fibre and lower the vitality; and those hours of leisure will probably be wasted when won. But he who has been fortunate enough to find work for his hands to do which will bring him food and shelter, and in which at the same time his soul can rejoice, will lay aside his task with a spirit fresh for a new study, a new enterprise, or with a zest for innocent and healthy enjoyment.