with the name of Thompson on it, thinking it
might be useful some day!"

Definiteness of aim is characteristic of all true art. He is not the
greatest painter who crowds the greatest number of ideas upon a single
canvas, giving all the figures equal prominence. He is the genuine
artist who makes the greatest variety express the greatest unity, who
develops the leading idea in the central figure, and makes all the
subordinate figures, lights, and shades point to that center and find
expression there. So in every well-balanced life, no matter how
versatile in endowments or how broad in culture, there is one grand
central purpose, in which all the subordinate powers of the soul are
brought to a focus, and where they will find fit expression. In nature
we see no waste of energy, nothing left to chance. Since the shuttle
of creation shot for the first time through chaos, design has marked
the course of every golden thread. Every leaf, every flower, every
crystal, every atom even, has a purpose stamped upon it which
unmistakably points to the crowning summit of all creation--man.

Young men are often told to aim high, but we must aim at what we would
hit. A general purpose is not enough. The arrow shot from the bow
does not wander around to see what it can hit on its way, but flies
straight to the mark. The magnetic needle does not point to all the
lights in the heavens to see which it likes best. They all attract it.
The sun dazzles, the meteor beckons, the stars twinkle to it, and try
to win its affections; but the needle, true to its instinct, and with a
finger that never errs in sunshine or in storm, points steadily to the
North Star; for, while all the other stars must course with untiring
tread around their great centers through all the ages, the North Star,
alone, distant beyond human comprehension, moves with stately sweep on
its circuit of more than 25,000 years, for all practical purposes of
man stationary, not only for a day, but for a century. So all along
the path of life other luminaries will beckon to lead us from our
cherished aim--from the course of truth and duty; but let no moons
which shine with borrowed light, no meteors which dazzle, but never
guide, turn the needle of our purpose from the North Star of its hope.

CHAPTER XIII

THE TRIUMPHS OF ENTHUSIASM.

The labor we delight in physics pain.--SHAKESPEARE.

The only conclusive evidence of a man's sincerity is that he gives
himsel