Fewer and fewer grew the moments of recreation and of exercise.

The demands of society were narrowed down to the smallest limits, and even then but grudgingly attended to.

It was no longer a mere pleasure, it was a positive necessity, to go to bed as early as possible in order to be up and at work on the morrow betimes.
(*) "Read this carefully, and tell me if there are any mistakes in it." (**) "Here is a draft I have made for you.

Read it.

I should think this would do." The important and exacting business of government, which became at last the dominating preoccupation in Albert's mind, still left unimpaired his old tastes and interests; he remained devoted to art, to science, to philosophy, and a multitude of subsidiary activities showed how his energies increased as the demands upon them grew.