in the world arises from the fact that men do not sufficiently understand their own aims. They have undertaken to build a tower, and spend no more labor on the foundation than would be necessary to erect a hut."

Not only is decision necessary, but promptness also, without which decision loses half its value. "Is Philip at Paris?" asked Charles V., after his son, the King of Spain, had gained the decisive victory over the French at Quentin. He estimated Philip's temper by his own. When Ledyard was asked by the African Association when he would be ready to start for Africa, he replied, "To-morrow morning.” A similar answer was made by Sir Colin Campbell, when asked when he would set. out to lead the British army to India. It was the promptness of Blucher that won for him the cognomen of "Marshal Forward" throughout the Prussian army. Again, besides promptness, tenacity of decision is indispensable to him who would. make his mark in the world, or achieve any rare success. All the men whose names have been blazoned on the scroll of fame have been distinguished by their firm adherence to their purposes, by the nescit vox missa reverti, which has made their spoken word like an oath. When a certain commissary-general complained to the Duke of Wellington that Sir Thomas Picton had declared that he would hang him if the rations for that general's division were not forthcoming at a certain hour, the Duke replied, "Ah! did he go so far as that? Did he say he'd hang you?" "Yes, my lord." "Well, if General Picton said so, I have no doubt he will keep his word; you'd better get up the rations in time." When a man of iron will is thus known to be so tenacious in his adherence to his resolution that, once declared, it is like a decree of fate, there is no limit to the good or bad results he may accomplish. Such a will draws men and things after it as a boat does the drift in its wake. that to oppose its possessor would be as futile as

"To wound the loud winds, or, with bemocked-at stabs,

To kill the still closing waters."

Men feel

Some forty years ago murder was so rife in Havana that it

seemed literally to be cultivated as one of the fine arts, to use De Quincey's phrase; and the city, if less libidinous, was probably more blood-stained than Sodom or Gomorrah. Yet, in a short time, by the vigor and decision of one man, this hideous state of things was entirely changed; and through Havana then, as through England under Alfred, or through Geneva now, the most gently nurtured woman could walk at midnight with a female attendant, unscared and unharmed. One night a murder was committed, and Tacon, the Chief of Police, heard in the morning that the perpetrator was still at large. He summoned the prefect of the department in which the crime was committed. "How is this, sir? a man murdered at midnight, and the murderer not yet arrested?" "May it please your Excellency, it is impossible. We do not even know who it is." Tacon saw the officer was lying. "Hark you, sir. Bring me this murderer before night, or I'll garrote you to-morrow morning." The officer knew his man, and the assassin was forthcoming.

Prepare yourselves for the world as the athletæ used to do for their exercises; oil your mind and your manners to give them the necessary suppleness and flexibility; strength alone will not do. CHESTERFIELD.

"The churl in spirit, howe'er he veil
His want in forms, for fashion's sake,

Will let his coltish nature break

At seasons through the gilded pale."

The courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest to the grateful and appreciating heart. It is the picayune compliments which are the most appreciated; far more than the double ones which we sometimes pay. - HENRY CLAY.

A

MONG the qualities of mind and heart which conduce to worldly success, there is no one the importance of which is more real, yet which is so generally underrated at this day by the young, as courtesy, that feeling of kindness, of love for our fellows, which expresses itself in pleasing manners. Owing to that spirit of self-reliance and self-assertion, and that contempt for the forms and conventionalities of life, which our young men are trained to cherish, they are too apt to despise those delicate attentions, those nameless and exquisite tendernesses of thought and manner, that mark the true gentleman. Yet history is crowded with examples showing that, as in literature, it is the delicate, indefinable charm of style, not the thought, which makes a work immortal, as a dull actor makes Shakespeare's grandest passages flat and unprofitable, while a Kean enables you to read them "by flashes of lightning," so it is the bearing of a man toward his fellows which oftentimes, more than any other circumstance, promotes or obstructs his advancement in life. We may complain, if

we will, that our fellow-men care more for form than substance, for the superficies than the solid contents of a man; but the fact remains, and it is the clew to many of the seeming anomalies and freaks of fortune which surprise us in the matter of worldly prosperity.

No doubt there are a few men who can look beyond the husk or shell of a fellow-being- his angularities, awkwardness, or eccentricity to the hidden qualities within; who can discern the diamond, however incrusted; but the majority are neither so sharp-eyed nor so tolerant, and judge a person by his appearance and demeanor more than by his substantial character. Daily experience shows that civility is not only one of the essentials of high success, but that it is almost a fortune of itself, and that he who has this quality in perfection, though a blockhead, is almost sure to get on where, without it, even men of high ability fail. "Give a boy address and accomplishments," says Emerson," and you give him the mastery of palaces and fortunes wherever he goes; he has not the trouble of earning or owning them; they solicit him to enter and possess.' Among strangers a good manner is the best letter of recommendation; for a great deal depends upon first impressions, and these are favorable or unfavorable according to a man's bearing, as he is polite or awkward, shy or self-possessed. While coarseness and gruffness lock doors and close hearts, courtesy, refinement, and gentleness are an "open sesame at which bolts fly back and doors swing open. The rude, boorish man, even though well meaning, is avoided by all. Even virtue itself is offensive when coupled with an offensive manHawthorne, himself a shy man, used to say: "God may forgive sins, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth." Manners, in fact, are minor morals, and a rude man is generally assumed to be a bad man. "You had better," wrote Chesterfield to his son, "return a dropped fan genteelly than give a thousand pounds awkwardly; and you had better refuse a favor gracefully than grant it clumsily. . . . All your Greek can never advance you from secretary to envoy, or from

ner.

envoy to ambassador; but your address, your air, your manner, if good, may."

What a man says or does is often an uncertain test of what he is. It is the way in which he says or does it that furnishes the best index of his character. It is by the incidental expression given to his thoughts and feelings by his looks, tones, and gestures, rather than by his deeds or words, that we prefer to judge him, for the simple reason that the former are involuntary. One may do certain deeds from design, or repeat certain professions by rote; honeyed words may mask feelings of hate, and kindly acts may be performed expressly to veil sinister ends; but the "manner of the man " is not so easily controlled. The mode in which a kindness is done often affects us more than the deed itself. The act itself may have been prompted by one of many questionable motives, as vanity, pride, or interest; the warmth or coldness with which the person who has done it asks you how you do, or grasps your hand, is less likely to deceive. The manner of doing anything, it has been truly said, is "that which marks the degree and force of our internal impression; it emanates most directly from our immediate or habitual feelings; it is that which stamps its life and character on any action; the rest may be performed by an automaton.” A favor may be conferred so grudgingly as to prevent any feeling of obligation, or it may be refused so courteously as to awaken more kindly feelings than if it had been ungraciously granted.

Hazlitt observes truly that an author's style is not less a criterion of his understanding than his sentiments. "The same story told by two different persons shall, from the difference of the manner, either set the table in a roar, or not relax a fea

...

ture in the whole company. One of the most pleasant and least tiresome of our acquaintance is a humorist, who has three or four quaint witticisms and proverbial phrases, which he always repeats over and over, so that you feel the same amusement with less effort than if he had startled his hearers with a succession of original conceits. Another friend of ours, who