xactly fitted the
occasion. "It is an ill mason that rejects any stone."

Webster was once urged to speak on a subject of great importance, but
refused, saying he was very busy and had no time to master the subject.
"But," replied his friend, "a very few words from you would do much to
awaken public attention to it." Webster replied, "If there be so much
weight in my words, it is because I do not allow myself to speak on any
subject until my mind is imbued with it." On one occasion Webster made
a remarkable speech before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard, when
a book was presented to him; but after he had gone, his "impromptu"
speech, carefully written out, was found in the book which he had
forgotten to take away.

Demosthenes was once asked to speak on a great and sudden emergency,
but replied, "I am not prepared." In fact, it was thought by many that
Demosthenes did not possess any genius whatever, because he never
allowed himself to speak on any subject without thorough preparation.
In any meeting or assembly, when called upon, he would never rise, even
to make remarks, it was said, without previously preparing himself.

Alexander Hamilton said, "Men give me credit for genius. All the
genius I have lies just in this: when I have a subject in hand I study
it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. I explore it in all its
bearings. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort which I
make the people are pleased to call the fruit of genius; it is the
fruit of labor and thought." The law of labor is equally binding on
genius and mediocrity.

Nelaton, the great surgeon, said that if he had four minutes in which
to perform an operation on which a life depended, he would take one
minute to consider how best to do it.

"Many men," says Longfellow, "do not allow their principles to take
root, but pull them up every now and then, as children do flowers they
have planted, to see if they are growing." We must not only work, but
also wait.

"The spruce young spark," says Sizer, "who thinks chiefly of his
mustache and boots and shiny hat, of getting along nicely and easily
during the day, and talking about the theater, the opera, or a fast
horse, ridiculing the faithful young fellow who came to learn the
business and make a man of himself because he will not join in wasting
his time in dissipation, will see the day, if his useless life is not
earlier blasted by vicious indulgences, when he will be gl