generally have no excuse for irregularity. They have not to wait for moods and impulses, for the afflatus or inspiration which is so capricious with men whose business is all of the brain and none of the hand. They are therefore expected, and justly expected, to be promptly at their posts, ready always to attend to the business of buying and selling, giving professional advice, or whatever other duties belong to their calling; and it is evident that of two such men of equal talents, the one who is always at his desk or shop at the striking of the clock cannot fail to secure the greater number of cus tomers. To all the habits we have named should be added, lastly, that of despatch. The other qualities upon which we have insisted are of more vital importance; but when this is added, it puts the keystone to the arch of a business character. Many professional men, traders, and artisans do their work thoroughly, accurately, and punctually, who fail just here. They have never caught the knack of doing it quickly. Hardly anything is more characteristic of a first-class workman than the brisk, expeditious way in which he executes any job intrusted to him. Of course, quickness should always be secondary to thoroughness. Nothing can atone for the lack of completeness and accuracy. True despatch is not a smart and facile activity, which skims over a subject lightly, or dashes off a job perfunctorily, satisfied with imperfect work provided it is done speedily. It is a quickness which follows from thorough knowledge and the highest skill, from the perfection of a method which takes everything at the right time, and applies to it the needed resources. It is the triumph of experience and system. To the energetic, systematic man it matters not how complex a business is. The more it tasks his faculties, the more does it evoke his latent powers, so that to do increases the capacity of doing, and a large amount of work is done with greater ease than a small amount by a slow man. - It is an inestimable advantage when to a habit of despatch is added the gift of readiness, the ability to use all one's resources instantly and at the right moment. We say "gift," because the ready man is born, not made. No amount of cultivation will enable a man to say and do the best things on the spur of the moment, to dash off a masterly newspaper or review article on some memorable event immediately after it occurs, or to take instant advantage of an enemy's blunder, like Napoleon or Marlborough. Readiness is a natural tact or intuition, an inspiration, a kind of presence of mind which enables one to meet a crisis, parry a thrust, strike a blow, or say the right word, in the very "nick of time," without reflection or delay. In war, politics, journalism, at the bar and in the Senate, in social intercourse, it is a great power. In all kinds of tongue-fence · - the close hand-to-hand encounter of intellects, where the home thrust is often so suddenly given it is indispensable. It is not the amount of knowledge, the number of facts or statistics which a man has in his cranium, that makes him a dangerous antagonist, but his ability to marshal them and bring them to bear instantly upon any point. So, too, in business pursuits, the ready man, other things being equal, is pre-eminently the successful man. The Americans, as a people, have no lack of readiness. Collectively considered, we do not want dash and élan. Our intellectual resources, such as they are, are usually at our command, and we can concentrate them with wonderful quickness in any exigency. Still, there are not a few of us who find ourselves at times in the condition of Artemus Ward in respect to oratory: "I have the gift of oratory," said the Maine Yankee, "but I have n't it about me." How often an opportunity occurs to a young lawyer, or other professional man, to make a reputation by a single speech or other intellectual effort, if he were only ready! If he could have a little time for preparation, a day or a few hours only, he would acquit himself brilliantly. But time never is given; and because he cannot act now, at the very crisis, he loses the golden opportunity forever. To achieve any rare success in this world, we must be semper parati, with our wits always about us. We must think and act as quickly and wisely in an emergency as did Baron Munchausen, who, being once threatened at the same moment by a crocodile and a tiger, disposed of both his assailants by stepping aside and allowing the tiger to jump down the crocodile's throat. It is not enough, after the game has flown, that we might have brought it down, if our guns had been cocked and loaded. "What a scathing reply I might have made to Smith about Darwinism!' is the regretful reflection of Jones, as he retires heated and discomfited from a contest with Smith on the subject of natural selection. What capital things we might say and don't! . . . . When we are alone, we invent the happiest of retorts; the most unanswerable arguments flash upon us without an effort on our part; we feel that we have more weapons in our mental armory than Brown ever dreamed of; yet, somehow, when Brown attacks us suddenly, we cannot bring our twelve-pounder to bear upon him before he has shot us through and through with his ready little revolver. We of the superior metal find ourselves spiked, so to speak. The fact is, we lack readiness." It was so, if we may credit Fuller, with Ben Jonson in his "wit-combats" with Shakespeare. The two were "like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war. Master Jonson, like the former, was built far higher in learning; solid, but slow in his performances. Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantages of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention.” A powerful encouragement to the formation of business habits is found in the fact that, once formed, they operate spontaneously. The wonderful accuracy of the forest-bred Indian in detecting and describing the number and character of a party who have preceded him through the woods, and the certainty with which he will determine the time since they left any particular spot, have often astonished white men, who could perceive no signs upon which to found an opinion. Yet the red man rarely blunders, for he has schooled his senses into unerring habits of nice and accurate observation. But, because it is a habit, he is not obliged to force his mind; it is his pleasure, and forms one of the charms of forest life, to watch every indented leaf, every faint footprint, every minute and barely perceptible sign that some one has gone before him. So when a merchant has acquired the habit of watching the markets, studying the laws of demand and supply, ascertaining the probability of a financial crisis, and looking after all the other details of his business, it becomes a pleasurable excitement instead of a wearisome effort. Indeed, the very habits of nice order and observation which require the most painstaking care to form them, often become a hobby, at last, which one delights to ride as much as a child his rocking-horse. It is notorious that those persons who have reached the highest eminence in the law were disgusted with it at first. Lord Somers told Addison that, having been obliged to search among old musty records, the task which was inexpressibly irksome at first became at last so very pleasant that he preferred it to reading Virgil or Cicero, though classical literature had been his constant delight. To sum up all, what is business but habit, the soul of which is regularity? Like the fly-wheel upon a steam-engine, it is this principle which keeps the motion of life steady and unbroken, distributing the force equally over all the work to be performed. But such habits as we have commended are not to be formed in a day, nor by a few faint resolutions. Not by accident, not by fits and starts, being one moment in a paroxysm of attention, and the next falling into the sleep of indifference, are they to be attained, but by steady, persistent effort. Above all, it is necessary that they should be acquired in youth; for then do they cost the least effort. Like letters cut in the bark of a tree, they grow and widen with age. Once attained, they are a fortune of themselves; for their possessor has disposed thereby of the heavy end of the load of life; all that remains he can carry easily and pleasantly. On the other hand, bad habits, once formed, will hang forever on the wheels of enterprise, and in the end will assert their supremacy, to the ruin and shame of their victim. CHAPTER XIII. SELF-ADVERTISING. The pious and just honoring of ourselves may be thought the radical moisture and fountain-head from whence every laudable and worthy enterprise issues forth. - MILTON. I know that I am censured of some conceit of my ability or worth; but I pray your Majesty impute it to my desire, possunt quia posse videntur. · LORD BACON to JAMES I. Although men are accused for not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of. - SWIFT. On ne vaut que ce qu'on veut valoir. - LA BRUYÈRE. SHA HALL a man be his own trumpeter? or, relying on his merits, shall he aim to be rather than to seem qualified for his business, and leave the world to find out the fact for itself? This is a question which confronts every man at the very outset of his career. How the world has answered it we need not say. The mythologists tell us that Minerva threw away the flute when she found that it puffed up her cheeks; but if in this age men cast away the flute, it is to use a more potent instrument of puffing, by blowing their own trumpets. This instrument, it is almost universally agreed, should be of brass. Not only in trade, but in all the professions, self-trumpeting is now acknowledged to be the great talisman of success, and the man who can blow his horn the longest and loudest is regarded as the most likely to reach the pinnacle of riches and respectability, if not of honor. The old-fashioned modes of securing patronage or custom, by strict integrity and quiet attention to one's business, are scouted on all hands. Merit is voted 66 a slow coach," and modesty a humbug. A writer in one of our most popular magazines goes so far as to assert that a tinge of charlatanism |