You see I knew that the work must be
accomplished, and that if I were over-tired I could not do it well."
The work, instead of fatiguing, had evidently refreshed her.
If that same woman had insisted, as many have in similar cases, that
she had no time to think of herself; or if such care had seemed to
her selfish, her work could not have been done as well, she would
have ended it tired and jaded, and would have declared to
sympathizing friends that it was "impossible to do a work like that
without being all tired out," and the sympathizing friends would
have agreed and thought her a heroine.
A well-known author, who had to support his wife and family while
working for a start in his literary career, had a commercial
position that occupied him every day from nine to five. He came home
and dined at six, went to bed at seven, slept until three, when he
got up, made himself a cup of coffee, and wrote until he breakfasted
at eight. He got all the exercise he needed in walking to and from
his outside work and was able to keep up this regular routine, with
no loss of health, until he could support his family comfortably on
what he earned from his pen. Then he returned to ordinary hours.
A brain once roused will take a man much farther than his strength;
if this man had come home tired and allowed himself to write far
into the night, and then, after a short sleep, had gone to the
indispensable earning of his bread and butter, the chances are that
his intellectual power would have decreased, until both publishers
and author would have felt quite certain that he had no power at
all.
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