as certain to carry everything before them, when they appear. Only they never do appear." who are always very "promising" because they never do more than promise.

The world is full of such men,

It is said that when John C. Calhoun was in Yale College he was ridiculed by his fellow-students for his intense application to study. "Why, sir," he replied, "I am forced to make the most of my time, that I may acquit myself creditably when in Congress." A laugh followed, when he exclaimed, “Do you doubt it? I assure you, if I were not convinced of my ability to reach the national capital as a representative within the next three years, I would leave college this very day!" Let every young man thus have faith in himself, and take earnestly hold of life, scorning all props and buttresses, all crutches and life-preservers. Let him believe, with Pestalozzi, that no man in God's earth is either willing or able to help any other man. Let him strive to be a creator, rather than an inheritor, to bequeath, rather than to borrow. Instead of wielding the rusted sword of valorous forefathers, let him forge his own weapons, and, conscious of the God in him and the Providence over him, let him fight his own battles with his own good lance. Instead of sighing for an education, capital, or friends, and declaring that, "if he only had these, he would be somebody," let him remember that, as Horace Greeley says, he is looking through the wrong end of the telescope; that, if he only were somebody, he would speedily have all the boons whose absence he is bewailing. Instead of being one of the foiled potentialities, of which the world is so full, — one of the subjunctive heroes, who always might, could, would, or should do great things, but whose not doing great things is what nobody can understand, — let him be in the imperative mood, and do that of which his talents are indicative. This lesson of self-reliance once learned and acted on, and every man will discover within himself, under God, the elements and capacities of usefulness and honor.

We have dwelt at some length on the virtue which is the

subject of this chapter, because it is one which, though nowhere easy to practise, is especially difficult to attain in communities like our own, where there is much social tyranny. Americans boast fondly of their independence; yet nowhere, perhaps, is "Mrs. Grundy" more feared than here. Both men and women are, to a great extent, the moral slaves of the set or circle to which they belong; and it is only the heroic few who dare to step out into the air of freedom, where they may speak "their ain thought" instead of another's. In almost every

section except the extreme West, there is an unconscious conspiracy among the members of society against each other's individuality. Custom dictates our amusements, the furniture of our houses, our modes of living, the style of our garments, and the education of our children. It tells us what we shall eat, drink, wear, when we shall go to bed and get up, what we shall give to benevolent objects, where we shall spend the summer months, and almost what we shall think. James Russell Lowell observes, not more wittily than truly, that the code of society is stronger with most persons than that of Sinai, and many a man who would not scruple to thrust his fingers in his neighbor's pocket, would forego green peas rather than use his knife as a shovel. Doubtless this state of things has its compensations. Nowhere else are men combined so easily for good purposes, - nowhere built so easily into social structures, lasting or temporary, and thousands made to act as one man; yet is it not evident that we gain these advantages at a fearful cost,

by too great sacrifices of individual power and individual character? Are we not too often chipped and chiselled into a dreary uniformity of thought and speech? Are we not apt to become like bricks in a wall, or marbles in a bag? In the watch-factories at Elgin and Waltham watches are made interchangeably, so that a hundred may be taken into pieces and thrown into a heap, and the parts put together again at random. This is a good thing in watches, but who likes to see the same dull monotony in men and women?

We pity the Chinese who cramp their feet, and the Indians

who flatten their heads, in obedience to custom; but are these checks upon physical growth half so contemptible as those put in civilized countries upon intellectual by the despotism of public opinion? Are we entitled to contemn the South-Sea Islander, who tattoos his face, while we bow slavishly to customs in dress that not only disfigure the person, but are destructive to health and comfort, and do every act with mental reference to "Mrs. Grundy," saying of her, as Cob did of Bobadil, "I do honor the very flea of her dog"? Mr. J. S. Mill, in his work on "Liberty," says, truly, that in this age the man who dares to think for himself and to act independently, does a service to the race. "Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has always been proportioned to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time."

CHAPTER VII.

ORIGINALITY IN AIMS AND METHODS.

"The powers of man have not been exhausted. Nothing has been done by him that cannot be better done. There is no effort of science or art that may not be exceeded; no depth of philosophy that cannot be deeper sounded; no flight of imagination that may not be passed by strong and soaring wing." Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too

. much. There is at this moment for you an utterance brave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias, or trowel of the Egyptians, or the pen of Moses or Dante, but different from all these. - R. W. EMERSON.

CLOSELY

LOSELY connected with self-reliance is another prerequisite to success, namely, originality in one's aims and methods, or the avoidance of imitation. For this purpose, it is well to cultivate some specialty. Find some new want of society, some fertile source of profit or honor, some terra incognita of business, whose virgin soil is yet unbroken, and there stick and grow. Specialties are the open sesame to wealth; therefore, whatever you deal in, whether groceries or speeches, bricks or law arguments, must be, or seem to be, phenomenal. Whether above or below mediocrity, they should be unique and exceptional. Byron satirizes certain namby-pamby rhymes as so middling, bad were better"; and the sarcasm applies to all things that are "tolerable, and therefore not to be endured." That many-headed monster, the public, like the dervishes who replenished Aladdin's exchequer, requires, in this sensational age, to be forcibly struck before it will part with its silver. To get rid of your wares, whether material, or immaterial, dry goods or professional advice, silks and calicoes 66 or mouthfuls of spoken wind," - you must get your name into everybody's ears, and into everybody's mouth; and to do this, there's nothing like a specialty.

—

Alexandre, of Paris, made "kid" gloves his specialty, and now his trade-mark imparts to manufactured ratskins a value incommunicable by any other talisman. William and Robert Chambers devoted their energies to the production of cheap books and periodicals, and their wealth is counted by millions. Faber has fabricated pencils till he has literally made his mark in every land, and proved the truth of the aphorism, “Quisque suæ fortunæ faber." The genius of the great Dr. Brandreth ran to pills and internal improvements, and now his name and fame are as intimately and immortally connected with the alimentary canal as Clinton's with the Erie. Mason gave his whole soul to the invention of good blacking, and now his name shines like a pair of boots to which it has been applied. Herring has salamandered himself into celebrity, and Tobias has ticked his way to fame and fortune, Stewart has made bales of dry-goods his stepping-stones to the proud position of a millionnaire, becoming at once the Croesus and the Colossus of the trade; and Bonner, advertising by the acre, and tracking genius where Ever-ett goes, has discovered a new way of reaping golden harvests from the overworked soil of journalism.

The extent to which originality—a little thinking-may enable one who has a specialty to coin money in his business, was strikingly illustrated some years ago in the brass-clock business. One of the oldest and most noted manufacturers, wishing to keep his name perpetually before the public, contrived to do so by a succession of improvements,

them exceedingly slight, through the newspapers.

- many of which he invariably made known Sometimes he added a new cog, or

wheel or two, or altered the arrangement of the old ones; sometimes the case was slightly remodelled. Now, the face was painted in a very striking manner; and, next, an added hammer was made to strike. This month his clocks were made to run eight days; the next, fifteen; then, thirty-one, or only four-and-twenty hours. No matter how trifling the change, it was invariably blazoned in all the leading public prints. By this artifice he created a ready market for all his manufactures,