Your mind becomes dull; you pass your hand wearily over
your eyes; you don't know what is the matter with you and say so.
Overwork, over-stimulation, and the worry these produce are what is
the matter with you.
There are lawyers in every town who day by day and year by year find
that they have to work harder to understand a case or master a
precedent than they did the year before. Whereas formerly they could
get the point of a precedent by reading it over once, they must now
read it over four or five times. You usually find them the victims of
ceaseless toil without rest, of that destroying fretfulness which
brain-fag brings, and of some flogger of exhausted nerves, such as
coffee in excess.
Do not work late at night. It is a fictitious clearness of mind that
comes to the midnight toiler. This also grows into a habit. Conform to
Nature. Go to bed early. Get up early, and do your fine and original
work in the morning. It will be hard for you to form the habit, but
after you have done it you will be amazed at the comparatively immense
nervous power you possess in the morning hours.
In trying a case before a jury, never be trivial. Do not bandy gibes,
no matter how witty you may know yourself to be in repartee.
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