down my odd thoughts, then, I say, and these shall make the book. If they make not a good book, nor an interesting one, I can only regret it, consoling myself with the reflection that there must at least be found people enough on the same plane with it to compensate the publisher; and he satisfied, I am sure I should be. One cannot expect everybody to be his friends, or that overmany people should be able even to find half an hour's entertainment in his company. The book, then, is to be the odd thoughts of odd hours. Neander, or the village optimist, as you may find it. If it shall please you to sit down with me, we can at least compare "life thoughts."

SUCCESS.

HE whole secret of a man's success in life,"

"THE

said a lecturer at a college commencement, "is to be found in three words,-Choose, Begin, Stick ;" and in his conclusions he was, I am convinced, about right.

A man engaged in a calling for which he has neither predilection nor talent has, in his pursuit, simply a life of toil: no ambition inspires him, neither does satisfaction in what he accomplishes cheer him; the life employment of an individual should constitute the pleasure of the life, thus overcoming the first, greatest, and generally most lasting drawback,-the retardation of friction.

To know what one may like, and what he shall continue to like, should be felt to be of vital consequence, so far as the selection of a pursuit is concerned; and from the necessities of the relations of "short lives with long arts," it is seen to be a matter which, in its settlement, should have as little delay as possible. For some, happily, this question is settled by the nature of their organization, some one faculty having development in that excess which makes to the ruling passion or inclination all others subservient. Thus, we would say of Buffon that he was born a naturalist; or of Leon, the delineator of Sappho, that he was made by nature a painter; of Dædalus, that he grew an architect. Lionardo, the Italian, as a child exhibited such power

in art, that when, in a picture of Christ's Baptism, he painted for his preceptor the figure of an angel, Verocchio threw down his brush and declared, in his chagrin, that he would never take it up again, "for that a child had excelled him." Titian, when in pinafores, made fame by creating pictures from the expressed juice of flowers. Murillo, as a boy, was an artist whose works never lacked sale. The genius of Amerighi was so near the surface, that a single month at color-grinding with a Milan artist converted him into Caravaggio.

Genius, such as these exampled, is temperament; physiologically speaking, this is certainly the right name to call it by,—and men so constituted can no more be else than what they come out than may the worm of the cocoon save itself from becoming the butterfly, or than may men of large viscera deny their lymphatic relations, or the man of nerve repudiate activity.

But, intellectually speaking, the majority of men are without temperaments, or, if not this, they are at least not sufficiently one-sided to have the peculiarity remark itself. For all, however, there are points about even these stronger than other points,—parts which will endure the stress of burdens better than other parts. These are the men that "choosing" concerns.

HOW SHALL SUCH MEN CHOOSE?

If a man might select to go to some particular place led to by various ways, he naturally desires to take that one which may be most in consonance with his habits and inclinations. Now, if to him all the roads be alike

unknown, he may only inform himself concerning their various attractions by two means: either he may learn of others who have journeyed over the roads, or, otherwise, he must travel each for himself. The first of these would, without doubt, be the most time-saving. The second, however, seems, by common consent, in America at least, to be the adopted way. It is, I suppose, in obedience to the injunction, "Try all things, and hold fast that which is good." This latter plan has, without doubt, its advantages, which none may dispute. It has, however, unfortunately been allowed to consume the whole life of many a man. Whatever may be the manner of the choice, such choice would seem important or unimportant as the man is with or without temperament.

SUCCESS.

A wise choice in occupation always, and to every character of individual, considers the length and breadth of a work. It has often enough come even to my own observation to see grand men stranded by having started their boats in a wrong direction, running up stream, with the water growing shallower and shallower, instead of down towards the river and towards the sea. One of the finest minds among my acquaintances lies high and dry upon a carpenter's bench. Had his boat been started right, it would to-day have been on the highest and most vital wave of the ocean of metaphysics. I have seen shopkeepers measuring tape, bound in tape,-bound as fast as was Laocoon in the folds of the serpents, and being crushed as hastily out of

the joys of living,—who, had their business been to measure the lines of the universe, would have invented planispheres with Hipparchus, or taught the principles of trigonometrical calculations with Ptolemy.

BEGIN.

This is the second word in the secret of our lecturer. A choice, however good it may be, is, of course, to no purpose without a beginning of work. Some persons are good enough in the making of the choice, but they are all bad in the making of a beginning; without a beginning there can be no middle or end to a thing.

The time that a man shall begin a thing may be a matter of circumstances; thus, I once knew a young man who had to struggle through five years of labor in a blacksmith's shop before money sufficient could be saved to buy the tickets matriculating him into a medical school. Doctor Samuel Jackson, so long the eminent Professor of Physiology in the University of Pennsylvania, sold medicine behind the counter of the apothecary until forty years old. A famous publisher, whose choice was the ownership of a great newspaper, had to toil twenty years as office-boy, clerk, printer, and book-maker, before his work could be commenced. But a time to begin that may be recognized by everybody is, "The earliest time possible." Nothing is more adverse to success than putting a thing off; not only does it shorten the span of life, but it shortens and debilitates the nature of a man. He who acts on the political motto of Talleyrand is apt to find to-morrow a day that never arrives. Just this moment there comes