"If I had not been so great an invalid," said Dr.Darwin to a friend, "I should not have done nearly so much work as I have been able to accomplish." So Dr.Donne, speaking of his illnesses, once said: "This advantage you and my other friends have by my frequent fevers is, that I am so much the oftener at the gates of Heaven; and by the solitude and close imprisonment they reduce me to, I am so much the oftener at my prayers, in which you and my other dear friends are not forgotten." Schiller produced his greatest tragedies in the midst of physical suffering almost amounting to torture.

Handel was never greater than when, warned by palsy of the approach of death, and struggling with distress and suffering, he sat down to compose the great works which have made his name immortal in music.

Mozart composed his great operas, and last of all his 'Requiem,' when oppressed by debt, and struggling with a fatal disease.

Beethoven produced his greatest works amidst gloomy sorrow, when oppressed by almost total deafness.

And poor Schubert, after his short but brilliant life, laid it down at the early age of thirty-two; his sole property at his death consisting of his manuscripts, the clothes he wore, and sixty-three florins in money.