title: The secret of success;
text: V * * * o 9p ' -s s & °^ s <4± \ > £ 9* o ^ ^ V 1 ^ ^ • ^o* «*<k c? ^o< -"W ^<* : J"%> ' ^ o, ^ - A cu <& cu At \V ^ ^vd< r ^ \> „ < * o „ ^> V \> „ v * o „ <£> \> . ^ > ^( <- -V w * r Mk % % # /^K <£ ^ - & % V J? ^ % ^ ° ^iA /*y+ &'■*+ £ °^ 6'q. y ^ « c ^^ v //«/A^ ^_# «jA3CA'o % >** -'^W/ THE SECRET OF SUCCESS OR HOW TO GET ON IN THE WORLD WITH SOME REMARKS UPON TRUE AND FALSE SUCCESS, AND THE ART OF MAKING THE BEST USE OF LIFE W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS AUTHOR OF '"ENGLISH PARTY LEADERS," "THE BIRD WORLD, " MEMORABLE BATTLES IN ENGLISH HISTORY," ETC. M American Edition Edited by P. G„ H. ' The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well. — H. W. Longfellow NEW YORK G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS l82 FIFTH AVENUE 1879 c> 1879. V v : of m%*\tf£Z r ^' u , \\ M Copyright by G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 1879 *?/ PREFACE IT must be admitted at the outset, that in the following pages I have no exclusive, peculiar, or wonderful " Secret " to unfold. If there be a royal road to knowledge, I know of none to success, and I make no pretensions to have discovered a shorter or easier path than before existed. The reader who takes up this book in the hope of learning some new way of Money-making, some fresh exposition of the gospel of Getting- on, may find himself disappointed. I do indeed profess to set forth the Secret of Success ; but it is a secret which has always been known to the successful. And then, again, the "Suc- cess " to which I seek to direct the reader's attention is no novel form of worldly prosperity, no extraordinary phase of fortune, but rather the acquisition of "a sound mind in a sound body," the complete culture of the physical, moral and intellectual faculties of the individual. It is true that I have not neglected the ordinary meaning which the world gives to "success," nor do I wish to contend that competent means for the wholesome enjoyment of life is not a very reasonable and proper object for a man's energies. But I have endeavored to realize for the word a wider and higher significance, and to IV PREFACE. deal with it as representing the development of mind, soul and body — the living, so far as is possible to man, a " perfect life." This is the only " success " which secures happiness. The materialistic "success," — the "success" of the great specu- lator, the millionaire — is too frequently a deplorable failure. " I confess," says Mr. Hillard, " that increasing years bring with them an increasing respect for men who do not succeed in life, as these words are commonly used." Men who do not succeed in life, as the Croesuses of society succeed, are the men who work for the good of their fellows, the men who endow the world with the masterpieces of art and literature, the men who in the happiness of others find their own happi- ness. It is well that the reader, whatever pursuit or calling he may adopt, should do his best in it ; that is a matter of duty and honor which cannot be conscientiously neglected. It is told of a certain merchant-prince of Boston, that, on one occasion, he reprimanded for slovenly work a mechanic who had known him when in a very humble position. " I tell you what, Billy Gray," exclaimed the man, "I shan't stand such words from you. Why, I can remember when you were nothing but a drummer in a regiment!" "And so I was," retorted the merchant ; "so I was a drummer ; but didn't I drum well, eh? — didn't I drum well?" Now, to my thinking, this " drumming well " is the true, the genuine success. I hold that " success in life " is doing one's duty as well as it can be done in whatever may be one's position ; not for the sake of the reward that may accompany it, and yet not despising or refusing that reward when it comes. In this kind of success there is a pure and permanent pleasure, wholly unknown to PREFACE. V those for whom Success is synonymous with Mammon. The steadfast striving for this loftier success can never be without a happy issue. As Dr. Donne says :-— " We are but farmers of ourselves ; yet may, If we can stock ourselves and thrive, uplay Much, much good treasure for the great rent-day." If virtue be its own best recompense, so is the love of knowl- edge. The habit of diligent application, the habit of temperate living, the habit of high thinking, ever carries in itself a bless- ing. The cultivation of such habits is the Secret of Success ; and it is a secret which lies within the reach of all of us, if we will but use our opportunities and our means aright. Count Hamilton said of Richelieu, that " this great man commanded little armies, and little armies did great things." Let not the reader be discouraged if his means be small ; he may accom- plish great things with them if he once lay firm hold upon the Secret of Success. It may be objected to the present volume that it follows in the track of worthy predecessors, such as the evergreen " Pur- suit of Knowledge under Difficulties," by Mr. Craik, and the admirable " Self-Help, " by Mr. Smiles. To some extent, no doubt, it traverses the same ground. On the other hand, it devotes a considerable space to illustrations from the depart- ments of ''business" and "commerce" — departments which have hitherto, at least for such purposes, been comparatively overlooked ; and it pursues more than one course of inquiry which previous writers have scarcely glanced at. Another and obvious objection is, that it says nothing absolutely new ; that it repeats truths which have become the commonplaces of VI PREFACE. moralists and the stock-in-trade of our social teachers. But truths of so much importance cannot be too frequently en- forced. Their repetition may impress minds which have not been impressed before, and they may be accompanied with fresh examples or presented in newer forms, so as to arrest the atten- tion of the careless, or suggest to the thoughtful new lines of reflection. I have done what I could in this direction. While availing myself of the best of the illustrations collected by my predecessors, I have gathered a very large number from addi- tional sources ; and accumulated in these pages the results of the reading and observation of many years. So that, to the question which concerns every young man so closely, " How am I to get on in the world ? " I hope I have furnished a tolerably exhaustive and not altogether unsatisfactory reply. The keynote of that reply may be found in the words of a great writer : — " It is no man's business whether he has genius or not ; work he must, whatever he is, but quietly and steadily, and the natural and unforced results of such work will be always the things that God meant him to do, and will be his best. No agonies nor heartrendings will make him to do any better ! If he be a great man, they will be great things ; if he be a small man, small things ; but always, if thus peacefully done, good and right ; always, if restlessly and ambitiously done, false, hollow and despicable." And again : — ''While in all things that we see or do, we are to desire perfection, and strive for it. We are nevertheless not to set the meaner thing in its narrow accomplishment above the nobler thing in its mighty progress ; not to esteem smooth minuteness above shattered majesty ; not to prefer mean victory to honorable PREFACE. VII defeat ; not to lower the level of our aim, that we may the more surely enjoy the complacency of success." Though I have not thought it my duty or my province to encroach upon the work of the teachers of religion. I have not forgotten that the happiness of the Other Life depends upon the way in which Success in this life is achieved or understood. I have not forgotten that the spiritual side of our complex humanity needs watchful and assidious cultivation as much as its intellectual or moral. Sir George Mackenzie was of opinion that irreligious men could never make good states- men ; " for none are such," he says " save they who from a principle of conviction or persuasion (say rather a religious sense of duty) manage public affairs to the advantage of those who employ them." I fancy the rule may be universally ap- plied ; and that men indifferent to religious considerations can- not make good artists, good poets, good members of society. Finally, I offer this book to my young readers in the sincere desire that it may be of practical benefit to them ; that it may help to encourage, to stimulate, to warn : that it may quicken them to a sense of life's value as a period of preparation ; that it may open up to them the path to a true, a real, and a lasting Success. They who still stand at the point of departure may surely profit by the counsel of the feeblest traveller who has performed a considerable portion of the journey, and been taught by experience its trials, difficulties and dangers. W. H. Davenport Adams. CONTENTS. Time and Its Uses  verance 75 Business Habits 10 1 Business Men and Business Notes .  motto for a man like me." — Edmund Burke. ** What men most covet, wealth, distinction, power, Are baubles nothing 1 worth ; they only serve To rouse us up, as children at the school Are roused up to exertion ; our reward Is in the race we run, not in the prize." — Rogers. '* Men must know that in this theatre of human life it remaineth only to God and the angels to be lookers-on." — Lord Bacon. " A sacred burden is the life ye bear ; Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly ; Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly. Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin, But onward, upward, till the goal ye win." — Frances Anne Kemble. • " There is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works. In idleness alone is there perpetual despair." — Carlyle. " Pitch thy behavior low, thy projects high, So shalt thou humble and magnanimous be. Sink not in spirit ; who aimeth at the sky Shoots higher much than he that means a tree." — George Herbert. " When all is holiday, there are no holidays." — Charles Lamb. " Seek not proud riches, but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly ; yet have no abstract or friarly contempt of them." — Lord Bacon. 2 KEY NOTES. ** On ne vaut que ce qu'on veut savoir." — La Bruylre. ** * What shall I do to gain eternal life ? Discharge aright The simple dues with which each day is rife ? Yea, with thy might. Ere perfect scheme of action thou devise Life will be fled, While he who ever acts as conscience cries. Shall live though dead." —Schiller. " A high degree of moral principle is in itself a necessary qualification in a post of trust and responsibility, and it is usually associated with a culti- vated and improved state of the intellectual faculties." — Sir Henry Taylor. CHAPTER I. TIME AND ITS USES. " He lives long that lives well ; and time mis-spent is not lived, but lost." — Thomas Fuller. " Not on flowery beds, nor under shade Of canopy reposing, heaven is won." — Dante. " For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these, ' It might have been ! ' " —y. G. Whittier. " How dull it is to pause, to make an end. To rust unburnished, not to shine in use ! As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains : but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things." — Tennyson, " Thrift of time will repay you in after-life with a usury of profit beyond your most sanguine dreams ; while the waste of it will make you dwindle, alike in intellectual and moral stature, beyond your darkest reckonings," — Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone. CHAPTER I. TIME AND ITS USES, THE commodity of which every man has the least, and, generally speaking, wastes the most, is Time. When we consider how small is the portion allotted to each of us, we cannot but wonder at the carelessness with which men expend it. Of all the trite themes touched by moralists and poets, the tritest is the shortness of life. Life, we are told, is a bubble, a shifting dream, a thing of nought, evanescent as a morning mist, uncertain as a young maid's promise, brittle as a reed ; and yet men proceed to deal with it as if it were inex- haustible as the widow's cruse of oil, as if it were as sure and stable as the foundations of the everlasting hills. There is something very curious and very pitiable in this. When we see the waste of time which goes on around us, we cannot but marvel whether the teaching of sages and divines, and the les- sons of centuries of experience, have been of any avail ; whether men have even yet learned to realize how precious a thing it is, how solemn a responsibility it brings with it, how great a trust it puts into their hands. Does this waste arise from want of thought, or from want of a sense of duty ? The two causes are closely connected, and may very well exert a ° TIME AND ITS USES. combined influence. It is difficult to believe that the great majority of time wasters are inspired by feelings of reckless- ness and desperation ; are in a feverish hurry to consume as rapidly and as waywardly as possible the precious treasure committed to their charge. Their folly is doubtless due to an unwillingness or an inability to reflect, and to the absence of high purposes and lofty motives. In most cases they have not been taught how to value time or how to use it. What they should do with that which is their real wealth, our children never learn. We provide them with instruction in the "vari- ous branches of a polite education ; " we open up to them the regions of art and science ; we guide them sedulously in the flowery paths of literature ; but we do not teach them how to employ and economize their time. We don't impress upon them the value of the minutes : " Take care of the minutes, and the days will take care of themselves." It is astonishing how much " raw material " is allowed to run to waste in every school. Precious quarters of an hour are thrown aside which might be turned to excellent account ; and thus the young grow accustomed to a thoughtless and unprofitable expendi- ture. They find, too frequently, the same waste at home. Time is squandered before and after meals, in the morning, in the evening, up-stairs and down-stairs, in the bedroom, and the dining-room, and the drawing-room ; and at the end of each day the burden is, " This should have been done, and has been left undone ; that should have been remembered and has been forgotten ; but never mind, we'll make up for lost time to-morrow ! " Yes, to-morrow ! We venture to say that no other word in our language has to answer for so much sin and folly, for so many broken vows, so many blighted hopes, TIME AND ITS USES. 7 so many neglected duties, so many wrecked lives. For the worst of it is, " to-morrow " never comes. It is always " to- day " and " yesterday." The yesterday we can never recall ; can never take up and absorb into to-day. When once it is dead, let it lie. There is nothing more to be done but to shed a tear on its grave, and turn to the to-day. Some people, be it said, waste a good deal of time in grieving over the time they waste. In other words, they spend the day in fretting over the useless yesterday. It is said of the Emperor Titus that when he had done no good deed in the course of a day he would exclaim, " Perdidi diem ! " The lament was natural ; but be it remembered he did not wait until the morrow to make it, and he did not fail to turn the " to-day " to better account by pro- fessing his regret over the yesterday that had gone out so blankly. We desire to advocate a constant recollection of the inestimable value of " minutes," but not a vain yearning after those that can never be recovered. Men become great and good just as they understand how to make use of their time.* The most brilliant genius avails its possessor nothing if he do not seize his opportunities ; and opportunities never occur to the spendthrift. The hours he wastes may be the very hours that would have insured his success. Therefore it is that, at the outset of the present volume, we seek to enforce on its readers the necessity of economising time, of turning every minute to the best advan- tage. That seems to us the very first lesson to be learned by * In his last hours the American merchant, Gideon Lee, specially enjoined upon his sons, speaking to them with all the authority of experience, to "fill up the measure of time." " Be always employed profitably," he said, "in doing good, in building up ; aim to promote the good of yourselves and of society. No one can do much good without doing some harm, but you will do less harm by striving to do good. Be industrious, and be honest." 8 TIME AND ITS USES. a young man who honestly desires to do his duty towards his God and his neighbor. Let him not trouble himself about his talents or his means ; he can at least say, with the celebrated Italian, that " Time is his estate," and his first care must be to understand its proper cultivation. We think it is Horace Mann who suggests that most young men (and, we fear, too many of riper years) might daily put forth some such melan- choly notice as the following : " Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each one worth sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever." Gone forever ! in these words lies the sting of the moralist. Bitter jest ! What more deplorable sight can there be than that too common one of the unfortunate who has lost (in other words, wasted) a " golden hour" at the beginning of the day, and for the rest of the twenty-four is fruitlessly endeavoring to overtake it ? * Why, it is gone irrevocably ; like the empire of the Pharaohs, like the wisdom of the Chal- deans, like the old man's youth, like last year's summer sun- shine. It would be easier to rebuild the temple-palaces of Karnak than to recover it. And hence it happens that people are incessantly complaining of want of time. It is astonishing how much good not done is idly attributed to this cause. We know persons who, according to their own account, would sur- pass John Howard in philanthrophy if they had but the time ; would visit the sick, and relieve the poor, and comfort the widow and the fatherless in their affliction, if they had but the time. There are others who would become modern Maglia- becchis by virtue of their erudition ; would carve out for * As Lord Chesterfield said of the Duke of Newcastle. " His Grace loses an hour in the morning, and is looking for it all the rest of the day." METHOD MAKES TIME. 9 themselves a way to fame or fortune, would benefit the world by their discoveries in science or art, if they had but the time. Listen to their complaints, and you would believe that every moment is charged with some imperative duty or necessary occupation ; that it is want of time, and not its misuse, that throws them so hopelessly out of the world's race. The truth is, that Method makes Time. The old adage runs, " A place for everything, and everything in its place." It would be wiser to say, " A time for everything, and every- thing in its time." If we mix and muddle our hours as some men mix and muddle their papers, no good result can be anticipated. A careful apportionment of the hours is the first step towards a successful employment of them. We do not ask the reader to enthral himself in an intolerable bondage. Time must be his servant, and not he the slave of time. But he should be guided by certain fixed rules, and allow of no causeless deviation from them. One man will be found to accomplish in a day as much as another man accomplishes in a week. Inquiry will show that the difference is due not so much to greater power of intellect, or greater quickness of apprehension, as to better application of time. The successful man never talks of " leisure," because he never has any. He has for every hour its proper task. It is only the idler who has leisure ; leisure for small talk, for idle pleasures, for trivial amusements, for hopes and fears and regrets. He has so much leisure that he never has any time for work ! There is such an element of expansion in leisure that, unless carefully repressed and limited, it will before long absorb a man's whole life. Like the monster that Frankenstein created, it soon defies the con- trol of its master. Leisure ! How in this busy human life of IO TIME AND ITS USES. ours can any serious mind find space for it ? Unhappy is he who has " an hour or two" to spare. We may be sure that he has never learned the value of time, nor the necessity of econo- mising it. The world owes much to the men who have made the best of every minute. Such men have been its leaders of thought, its great discoverers, its poets, its essayists, its doers of good. They have known how to utilize those odd half-hours and spare quarters which ordinary persons treat with so little considera- tion. They have never suffered a minute to pass without levying toil upon it. As Cuvier rolled in his carriage from place to place, he read and thought ; and the sum of that read- ing and thinking swelled his researches in " Comparative Anat- omy." While walking to and from the dusty office, where he occupied a stool of a lawyer's clerk, Henry Kirke White ac- quired a knowledge of Greek. Dr. Mason Good's excellent translation of the great metaphysical poem of Lucretius was composed during his daily journeys to his numerous patients. A German physician in the same way contrived to commit to memory the " Iliad " of Homer. Sir Matthew Hale, while trav- elling as judge on circuit, prepared his thoughtful and well- weighed " Contemplations." Dr. Darwin's curious scientific poems were jotted down on little bits of paper as his carriage conveyed him from house to house. These men acted on the poet's admonition : — " Think nought a trifle, though it small appear; Small sands the mountain, moments make the year, And trifles, life." When those trifles are minutes, wise men pick them up. Hugh Miller, while laboring as a stone-mason, made such good use of his, that he learned to write a style of remarkable fluency and ' ' NE VER BE UN EM PL YED. " 1 1 vigor. The Chancellor d'Aguesseau translated the Greek Tes- tament in the quarters of an hour which his wife wasted before dinner. Elihu Burritt, the "learned blacksmith," improved to such good purpose the odds and ends of time that fell to his disposal, as to gain a mastery of eighteen languages and twenty- two dialects. Equally expert in the utilization of unconsidered moments was the late Charles Kingsley, whose multifarious knowledge was acquired by his tact in seizing on every oppor- tunity. Robertson of Brighton was also a stern economist of time, and vigilantly looked after those "spare minutes " which most of us throw away without a pang of remorse. Franklin's hours of study were stolen from the time that should have been given to meals and sleep ; and though we do not recommend the practice, we think better of it than of the habit of stealing the too long time for meal and sleep from the hours that should be devoted to work. " We are now old," said Pierre Nicole to Arnaul • " is it not time to rest ? " *' Rest ! " was the grave re- ply ; " have we not all eternity to rest in ? " This has been the principle of conduct of all great thinkers and doers. They have methodised and economised their time, so as to get out of it the most thay could ; knowing that rest was not for time but for eternity. They have suffered nothing to pass by unheeded. They have anticipated or remembered the language of Goethe '. — " Do not wait for extraordinary opportunities, but make use of common situations. A long-continued walk is better than a short flight." " Never be unemployed," says John Wesley ; "never be triflingly employed, never while away time," an admirable maxim, if not too sternly enforced ; if not converted into an oppressive law. We add this caution, because whole- some recreation may sometimes be the best way of employing 12 TIME AND ITS USES. "an odd quarter of an hour." We are recommending the economy of time, but we are not unwilling that that economy- should include a rational amount of mental refreshment. We are the enemies of leisure, but we do not want every hour to be spent in exactly the same way, and at exactly the same expenditure of brain-power. A man should be always learn- ing : but not unfrequently he may learn most when least think- ing of it. "Every kind of knowledge," it has been justly said, "comes into play some time or other; not only that which is systematic and methodised, but that which is fragmentary, even the odds and ends, the merest rag or tag of information. Single facts, anecdotes, expressions, recur to the mind, and, by the power of association, just in the right place. Many of these are laid in during what we think our idlest days. All that fund of matter which is used allusively in similitudes or illustrations is collected in diversions from the path of hard study. He will do best in this line whose range has been the widest and freest. A man may study so much by rule as to lose all this, just as one may ride so much in the highway as to know nothing that is off the road." The occupations of our childhood are frequently found to color and influence our later life. As Cowley puts it, they are like letters engraved on the bark of a young tree, which grow and enlarge as the tree does. Watt sits by the fireside, with eyes intent upon the cover of the tea-kettle uplifted by the expansive force of steam, and receives an impulse and an impression which guide him in his after pursuits, until he gives to the world his great gift of the steam-engine. The boy Smeaton climbs to the roof-ridge of his father's barn to erect upon it the tiny wind-mill he has modelled, foreshadowing, as OCCUPATIONS OF CHILDHOOD. 1 3 it were, the boldness of invention which produced the Eddy- stone lighthouse. Conington, at the age of six, sleeps with his Bible under his pillow, that he may begin to read it as soon as he wakes. Two years later he amuses himself by comparing different editions of Virgil. When he reaches thirteen he exhausts his pocket-money in buying a copy of Sotheby's Homer. The late Professor Mozley displays the " controver- sial spirit in the nursery," and as the advocate of free-will, disputes with his nurse, whom he considers to have been led away by a sophistical curate. At thirteen he writes to his mother : — " I have gone into Lucretius, a book full of odd opinions and deistical notions. In short, he is called the deistical poet ; but as many of his opinions have long ago been refuted, you need be in no fear of my getting them into my head, especially as many of them seem to be absurd." Tournefort leaves his college class, and wanders into the lone meadows, gathering their plants and flowers. with what mingled desire and apprehension he was wont to look at the precious book, until the morning sunshine had touched and illuminated it, when, seizing it hastily, he would carry it off in triumph to some leafy nook in the vicarage gar- den, and plunge delightedly into its maze of marvels and enchantments. It is recorded of Dr. Johnson that in his boy- hood, believing that his brother had hidden some apples beneath a large folio which reposed among the dust and cobwebs of an upper shelf in his father's shop, he clambered thither to effect a capture. The apples were not forthcoming, but the folio, which proved to be the works of Petrarch, attracted his atten- tion, and its perusal awoke in him his dormant literary tastes. That the child is father of the man was shown by the early occupations of Macaulay. He was only eight years old when his mother wrote of him ; — " He gets on wonderfully in all branches of his education, and the extent of his reading, and of the knowledge he has derived from it, are truly astonish- ing. * * To give you some idea of the activity of his mind I will mention a few circumstances. * * He took it into his head to write a compendium of universal history about a year ago, and he really contrived to give a tolerably con- nected view of the leading events from the creation to the present time, filling about a quire of paper. He told me one day that he had been writing a paper, which Henry Daly (a friend of his father's) was to translate into Malabar, to per- suade the people of Travancore to embrace the Christian re- ligion. On reading it, I found it to contain a very clear idea of the leading facts and doctrines of that religion, with some strong arguments for its adoption. He was so fired with read- ing Scott's 'Lay' and 'Marmion,' the former of which he got SIR WILLIAM JONES. I 5 entirely, and the latter almost entirely, by heart, merely from his delight in reading them, that he determined on writing a poem in six cantos, which he called the * Battle of Cheviot.' After he had finished about three of the cantos of about '120 lines each, which he did in a couple of days, he became tired of it. I make no doubt he would have finished his design, "but, as he was proceeding with it, the thought struck him of writing an heroic poem to be called ' Olaus the Great, or the Conquest of Mona,' in which, after the manner of Virgil, he might intro- duce in prophetic song, the future fortunes of the family j among others, those of the hero who aided in the fall of the tyrant of Mysore, after having long suffered from his tyranny ; and of another of his race who had exerted himself for the deliverance of the wretched Africans. He has just begun it. He has composed I know not how many hymns." Such was Macaulay in his childhood, and such he was in his manhood. No man ever economised his time more wisely, or more dili- gently sought every opportunity of adding to his accumulation of knowledge. In nearly every book on this subject that has come under our notice, the example of Sir William Jones, the famous Ori- ental scholar, has been adduced : and trite as it is, its force of application is such that we are disposed to revive it in these pages. To such good purpose did he use his minutes, so few did he waste, that before he was twenty years of age he had acquired a complete acquaintance with Greek and Latin, Ital- ian, Spanish and Portuguese, and had also made considerable progress in Arabic and Persian. His successful economy of time and his ceaseless pursuit of knowledge eventually ele- vated him to a seat in the Supreme Court of Indian judicature. l6 TIME AND ITS USES. His biographers have remarked with interest how carefully he allotted to each hour the work appropriate for it, how precise he was in his methodical division of labor. The great lawyer of James I's reign, Sir Edward Coke, had portioned out his days as follows : — *' Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six, Four spent in prayer, the rest on Nature fix." Sir William adopted a distribution much more earnestly to be commended : — *' Seven hours to law, to soothing slumbers seven, Ten to the world allot, and all to Heaven. The reader will not be displeased with the wise and discrimin- ating remarks which the career of the distinguished Orientalist suggested to Lord Jeffrey : — "From the very commencement," he says, "he appears to have taxed himself very highly ; and having in early youth set before his eyes the standard of a noble and accomplished char- acter in every department of excellence, he seems never to have lost sight of this object of emulation, and never to have remitted his exertions to elevate and conform himself to it in every particular. Though born in a condition very remote from affluence, he soon determined to give himself the educa- tion of a finished gentleman, and not only to cultivate all the elegance and refinement implied in that appellation, but to carry into the practice of an honorable profession all the lights and ornaments of philosophy and learning, and, extending his ambition beyond the attainment of mere literary or professional eminence, to qualify himself for the management of public affairs, and to look forward to the higher rewards of patriot- ism, virtue and political skill. " TIME IS MONEY." 1 7 " The perseverance and exemplary industry," — continues Lord Jeffrey, — " with which he labored to carry out his magnificent plan, and the distinguished success attending the accomplish- ment of all that part of it which the shortness of his life per- mitted him to execute, afford an instructive lesson to all who may be inclined by equal diligence to deserve an equal reward. The more we learn, indeed, of the early history of those who have bequeathed a great name to posterity, the more shall we be persuaded that no substantial or per- manent excellence can ever be attained without much pains, labor, and preparation, and that extraordinary talents are less necessary to the most brilliant success than perseverance and application." " Time is money," says the proverb. If some people we know were of the same opinion, how careful they would be of it ! But it is also happiness, and peace of mind, and the fulfil- ment of the Divine commission intrusted to us at birth. It is, in truth, the chief good upon earth, if we do but know how to make it so. For, be it remembered, time is exactly what we make it ; in the hands of the wise, a blessing ; in the hands of the foolish, a curse ; in the hands of the wise, a preparation for life eternal ; in the hands of the foolish, a preparation for the condemnation that is everlasting. To you it is much ; to your neighbor it is naught. He is as anxious to throw it away as you (we hope) are anxious to cultivate it to the greatest advan- tage. Ah, if all of us did but know what it is, what it signifies, what it might be, how we should watch over every grain in the hour-glass ! How great would be our activity, how solicitous our labor, how profound our consciousness of duty ! How we should aspire to avail ourselves of each passing moment ! 1 8 TIME AND ITS USES. How keen would be our regret if conscience could speak to us of days wasted and opportunities neglected ! In commenting on the importance of thrift in regard to time, it would be easy to lay down a few practical and familiar rules for the benefit of the young adventurer in life's chequered career. As, for instance : — One thing at a time.* Do at once what ought to be done at once. Never put off till to-morrow what ought to be done to-day. Never leave to another that which you can do yourself. More haste, worse speed. Stay a little that we may make an end the sooner. But more is to be learned from example than precept ; and the lives of great men, or of men good and great, will prove of higher and more lasting value to the student than the most pre- cious fragments of proverbial philosophy. Show me a man who has attained to eminence or excellence, and you show me a man who has economised his time. Show me a man who has benefited the world by his wisdom, or his country by his patriotism, or his neighborhood by his philanthropy, and you show me a man who has made the best of every minute. In business, the men who have attained success are the men who have known the importance of method, the men who have appreciated the potentiality of time. Of Tours, the wealthy New Orleans shipowner, it is said that " he was as methodical and regular as a clock, and that his neighbours were in the habit of judging of the time of day by his movements." Of William Gray, the Boston merchant, who owned at one time upwards of sixty large ships, we read that for upwards of fifty * So the Rev. Robert Cecil said, " The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once." REAL WORKERS. 19 years he arose at dawn, and was ready for the work of the day before others had roused from their slumbers. These are the men who make prize of the world and all it has to give ; these are the men who have coined minutes into hours and hours in- to days. These are the men who are always doing much in order that they may be able to do a little more I CHAPTER II. AIMS IN LIFE. " Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed ; be anything else, and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing," — Sydney Smith. " The crowning fortune of a man is to be born with a bias to some pur- suit which finds him in employment and happiness." — R. W. Emerson. " That man is but of the lower part of the world that is not brought up to business and affairs." — Owen Felthom. " It \s an uncontroverted truth that no man ever made an ill figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them." — Dean Swift. " I have never known an individual, least of all an individual of genius, healthy or happy without a profession, i. e., some regular employment. which does not depend on the will of the moment, and which can be carried on so far mechanically that an average quantum only of health, spirits, and intellectual exertion are requisite to its faithful discharge." — S. T. Coleridge. CHAPTER II. AIMS IN LIFE. "T^THAT shall I be?" is the question that a young v f man necessarily proposes to himself, — and " What shall we make of him ? " is the question his parents or guard- ians propose for him — at that eventful epoch when, taking a farewell look at the rose-garden of his youth, he prepares to enter the wilderness of the " wide world." In a different sense from any intended by Madame de Stael, the first step is the only difficulty {/est le premier pas qui coute). It is a step that can seldom be retraced with safety or advantage. It is a step that decides the future fate of him who takes it, and hence it also decides his success or failure. We are speaking, of course, of those who are compelled to adopt some profession or avocation as a means of livelihood, and not of the gilded youth who are bred in the lap of affluence, and for whom stern necessity has no laws. True it is that even these favored chil- dren of fortune, if they take a right view of life and its duties, will fix upon a career, and sedulously follow it ; but in their case a mistake is of less importance, and can more easily be remedied. On the other hand, for the majority it is indis- pensable that they should labor by brain or hand, and, there- 24 AIMS IN LIFE. fore, it is a vital matter for them to choose the species of labor best adapted to their talents and character. Horace advises an author, in selecting a subject for his muse, to be careful that it does not lie beyond his measure ; that he does not attempt to bend the bow of Ulysses, or to carry on his shoul- ders a burden fit only for an Ajax. It is not less essential to the success of the young adventurer, and, we may add, to his health of mind and tranquility of heart, that the calling which he chooses should be within the range of his capabilities. 