ecial business and calling, an

wo hares is sure

s arrow to th

feeble, or h

ow

, that is, of one great overmastering purpose, overshadowing a

nything is to do only on

e of the most valuable of intell

es steadily by continuance

hing often proves superior

of the donkey engine; "it whistled like

n whistle and puff and pull, but they don't go anywhe

enemy's ranks he would mass his men and hurl them upon the enemy like an avalanche until he made a breach. What a lesson of the power of concentratio

nted to say, and said it. It was the same with all his plans; what he wanted to do, he did. He always hit the bull's eye. His great success in war was due largely to his definite

separately are all right; but they are powerless to collect them, to concentrate them upon a single object. They lack the burning glass of a purpose, to focalize upon one spot the separate rays of their abil

d failure. The sun might blaze out upon the earth forever without burning a hole in it or setting anything on fire

e in his life to act as a burning glass to collect the brilliant rays of his intellect, by which he might have dazzled the world. Mos

and had persisted without faltering until he had acquired a perfect control over it; that he could now confine it to any subject as long as he pleased, without wandering even for a moment; that it wa

d American chemist; "but I have learned that if I wish ever to make

ire. "He fixes his eye on something ahead, and no matter what rises upon the right or the left he never sees it.

e, Thurlow Weed would treat the same subject in a few words in the Albany Eveni

rief; for it is with words as with sunbeams-th

see with your own eyes the Carthaginian sutlers gathering up the rings of the Roman knights after the battle of Cann?, and heaping them into bushels, and to be so intimately present at the actions you are reading of, that when

you will be sure to succeed. What I mean by studying on speculation is that aimless learning of things because they may be useful some day; which

ever go on to a second reading till I had entirely accomplished the first. Many of the competitors read as much in a day as I did in a week; b

nt of nothing.' But my advice is, have the courage to be ignorant of a great num

hands, and to do them well," is a prayer rec

rwork himself; or, if he do too much to-day, the reaction of fatigue will come, and he will be obliged to do too little to-morrow. Now, since I began really and earnestly to study, which was not till I had left college, and was actually in the world, I may perhaps say that I have gone through as large a course of general reading as most men of my time. I have traveled much and I have seen much; I have mixed much in politics, an

st of that life. Not what we would like, but what we

ld be concentrated upon the one business upon which a man has embarked. He should never scatter his shot. It is a poor business which will not yield better returns for increased capital than any outside investment. No man or set of men or corporation can manage

s ball so as to kill the lion crouching yonder, ready to spring upon me. My wishes are all right, and I hop

l, so it is a necessary ingredient of the dream of Parnassus that it should embody itself in a form of surpassing brilliance. What distinguishes Milton from the crowd of youthful literary aspirants, audax juventa, is his constancy of resolve. He not only nourished through manhood the dream of youth, keeping under the importunate instincts which carry off most ambitions in middle li

states whose tone of thought, religion, manners and interest "were in harmony with those of Prussia." "To attain this end," he once said in conversation, "I would b

elf somewhere, to prevent constant interruptions. He accordingly took a room in the Bible house, where he worked

bout as an apprentice for a place where he could go to school evenings. Through all his career in various branches of business he

he feels that he has not persuaded or mastered. Upon them he now concentrates his power, summing up the facts, setting forth anew and more forcibly the principles, urging upon them his view of the case with a more and more intense action of his mind upon theirs, until one only is left. Like the blow of a hammer, continually repeated unt

epeating and recapitulating, without any seeming reason, facts which he had already stated and arguments which he had already urged. The truth was, as I gradually learned, that he was engaged in a hand-to-hand-or rather in a brain-to-brain and a heart-to-heart-contest with the foreman, whose resistance he was determined to break down, but who confronted him for three hours with defiance observable in every rigid line of his honest countenance.

elf to the work with such a concentration of his forces as, to idle

d its cares make some men dissipated; too many friends make others. The exactions of "society," the balls, parties, receptions, and various entertainments constantly being given and attended by the beau monde, constitute a most wasting species of dissipation. Others, again, fritter away all their time and strength in political agitations, or in controversies and gossip; others i