ted to study, to
reading and writing? Not more than three hours a day; and, when
Parliament is sitting, not always that. But then, during these three
hours, I have given my whole attention to what I was about.'"

S. T. Coleridge possessed marvelous powers of mind, but he had no
definite purpose; he lived in an atmosphere of mental dissipation which
consumed his energy, exhausted his stamina, and his life was in many
respects a miserable failure. He lived in dreams and died in reverie.
He was continually forming plans and resolutions, but to the day of his
death they remained simply resolutions and plans.

He was always just going to do something, but never did it. "Coleridge
is dead," wrote Charles Lamb to a friend, "and is said to have left
behind him above forty thousand treatises on metaphysics and
divinity--not one of them complete!"

Every great man has become great, every successful man has succeeded,
in proportion as he has confined his powers to one particular channel.

Hogarth would rivet his attention upon a face and study it until it was
photographed upon his memory, when he could reproduce it at will. He
studied and examined each object as eagerly as though he would never
have a chance to see it again, and this habit of close observation
enabled him to develop his work with marvelous detail. The very modes
of thought of the time in which he lived were reflected from his works.
He was not a man of great education or culture, except in his power of
observation.

With an immense procession passing up Broadway, the streets lined with
people, and bands playing lustily, Horace Greeley would sit upon the
steps of the Astor House, use the top of his hat for a desk, and write
an editorial for the "New York Tribune" which would be quoted far and
wide.

Offended by a pungent article, a gentleman called at the "Tribune"
office and inquired for the editor. He was shown into a little
seven-by-nine sanctum, where Greeley, with his head close down to his
paper, sat scribbling away at a two-forty rate. The angry man began by
asking if this was Mr. Greeley. "Yes, sir; what do you want?" said the
editor quickly, without once looking up from his paper. The irate
visitor then began using his tongue, with no regard for the rules of
propriety, good breeding, or reason. Meantime Mr. Greeley continued to
write. Page after page was dashed off in the most impetuous style,
with no change of features and without his p