"It's true, that some men work themselves to death, but that is a small number compared to those who die from violating the laws of health; and death from excessive activity is far preferable to death from rust. The spirits may be exhausted by employment, but they are utterly destroyed by idleness. Burton, in his old book, sums up the causes of depression and reduces them to two, solitariness and idleness. Now when Charles Lamb was set free from the desk job which he was chained to for years, was in ecstasy and joy. He said, "I would not go back to my prison for ten years longer, for a million dollars. I am free! free as air! I will live another fifty years! Positively the best thing a man can do is nothing!"

Two weary years passed, and Lamb's feelings had undergone a complete change. He found that leisure, though a pleasant garment to look at, is a very bad one to wear. He found that his humdrum task the seemingly dreary drudgery of desk-work, was a blessing in disguise. He wrote his friend and said, "I assure you having no work is worse than overwork; the mind preys on itself, the most unwholesome of food. I have ceased to care for almost anything." How many like him, cursed with too much leisure, take too much of something else to make their gloom deeper and their misfortunes more! Colton observes that boredom has made more gamblers than greed, more drunkards than thirst, and more suicides than despair." William Matthews.