ambition as in science are apt to become narrow and one-sided. Darwin was very fond of poetry and music when young, but after devoting his life to science, he was surprised to find Shakespeare tedious. He said that, if he were to live his life again, he would read poetry and hear music every day, so as not to lose the power of appreciating such things.

God asks no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice. You must take it. The only choice is how.

When I found I was black," said Dumas, "I resolved to live as if I were white, and so force men to look below my skin."

In the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society is a prospectus used by Longfellow in canvassing, on one of the blank leaves of which are the skeleton "Excelsior, stanzas of "" which he was evidently evolving as he trudged from house to house.

"Disregarding the honors that most men value and looking to the truth," said Plato, "I shall endeavor in reality to live as virtuously as I can; and, when I die, to die so. And I invite all other men to the utmost of my power; and you, too, I invite to this contest, which, I affirm, surpasses all contests here."

Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and singly

toward an object, and in no measure obtained it?" asked Thoreau. "If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated? Did ever a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no advantage in them,—that it was a vain endeavor?"

"O if the stone can only have some vision of the temple of which it is to be a part forever," exclaimed Phillips Brooks, "what patience must fill it as it feels the blows of the hammer, and knows that success for it is simply to let itself be wrought into what shape the master wills."

Man never reaches heights above his habitual thought. It is not enough now and then to mount on wings of ecstasy into the infinite. We must habitually dwell there. The great man is he who abides easily on heights to which others rise occasionally and with difficulty. Don't let the maxims of a low prudence daily dinned into your ears lower the tone of your high ambition or check your aspirations. Hope lifts us step by step up the mysterious ladder, the top of which no eye hath ever seen. Though we do not find what hope promised, yet we are stronger for the climbing, and we get a broader outlook upon life which repays the effort. Indeed, if we do not follow where hope beckons, we gradually slide down the ladder in despair. Strive ever to be at the top of your condition. A high standard is absolutely necessary.

CHAPTER XX.

'SAND."

I shall show the cinders of my spirits
Through the ashes of my chance.

-SHAKESPEARE.

Perseverance is a virtue

That wins each god-like act, and plucks success E'en from the spear-proof crest of rugged danger. —WILLIAM HARVARD.

Never say "Fail" again.-RICHELIEU.

It is the one neck nearer that wins the race and shows the blood; the one pull more of the oar that proves the "beefiness of the fellow," as Oxford men say; it is the one march more that wins the campaign; the five minutes' more persistent courage that wins the fight. Though your force be less than another's, you equal and out-master your opponent if you continue it longer and concentrate it more.-SMILES.

"I know no such unquestionable badge and ensign of a sovereign mind as that tenacity of purpose which, through all changes of companions, or parties, or fortunes, changes never, bates no jot of heart or hope, but wearies out opposition and arrives at its port."

"Well done, Tommy Brooks!" exclaimed his teacher in pleased surprise when the dunce of the school spoke his piece without omitting a single word. The other boys had laughed when he rose, for they expected a bad failure. But when the rest of the class

had tried, the teacher said Tommy had done the best of all, and gave him the prize. "And now tell me," said she, "how you learned the poem so well."

"Please, ma'am, it was the snail on the wall that taught me how to do it," said Tommy. At this the other pupils laughed aloud, but the teacher said: You need not laugh, boys, for we may learn much from such things as snails. How did the snail teach you, Tommy?"

"I saw it crawl up the wall little by little," replied the boy. "It did not stop nor turn back, but went on, and on; and I thought I would do the same with the poem. So I learned it little by little, and did not give up. By the time the snail reached the top of the wall, I had learned the whole poem.

"I may here impart the secret of what is called good and bad luck," said Addison. "There are men who, supposing Providence to have an implacable spite against them, bemoan in the poverty of old age the misfortunes of their lives. Luck forever runs against them, and for others. One with a good profession lost his luck in the river, where he idled away his time a-fishing. Another with a good trade perpetually burnt up his luck by his hot temper, which provoked all his employes to leave him. Another with a lucrative business lost his luck by amazing diligence at everything but his own business. Another who steadily followed his trade, as

steadily followed the bottle. Another who was honest and constant to his work, erred by his perpetual misjudgment, he lacked discretion. Hundreds lose their luck by indulging sanguine expectations, by trusting fraudulent men, and by dishonest gains. A man never has good luck who has a bad wife. I never knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings and strictly honest, who complained of his bad luck. A good character, good habits, and iron industry are impregnable to the assaults of the ill luck that fools are dreaming of. But when I see a tatterdemalion creeping out of a grocery late in the forenoon with his hands stuck into his pockets, the rim of his hat turned up, and the crown knocked in, I know he has had bad luck,— for the worst of all luck is to be a sluggard, a knave, or a tippler."

"You have a difficult subject," said Anthony Trollope at Niagara Falls, to an artist who had attempted to draw the spray of the waters. "All subjects are difficult, was the reply, "to a man who desires to do well." "But yours, I fear, is impossible,' said Trollope. You have no right to say so till I have finished my picture," protested the artist.

"Tell Louisa to stick to her teaching; she can never succeed as a writer." When her father delivered the rejected manuscript of a story sent to James T. Fields, editor of