g the splendor of his single eye."

"Never study on speculation," says Waters; "all such study is vain. Form
a plan; have an object; then work for it; learn all you can about it,
and 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 is like the conduct of the woman who bought at auction a brass
door-plate with the name of Thompson on it, thinking it might be useful
some day!"

"I resolved, when I began to read law," said Edward Sugden, afterward
Lord St. Leonard, "to make everything I acquired perfectly my own, and
never 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;
but at the end of twelve months my knowledge was as fresh as on the day
it was acquired, while theirs had glided away from their recollection."

"Very often," says Sidney Smith, "the modern precept of education is,
'Be ignorant of nothing.' But my advice is, have the courage to be
ignorant of a great number of things, that you may avoid the calamity of
being ignorant of all things."

"Lord, help me to take fewer things into my hands, and to do them well,"
is a prayer recommended by Paxton Hood to an overworked man.

"Many persons seeing me so much engaged in active life," said Edward
Bulwer Lytton, "and as much about the world as if I had never been a
student, have said to me, 'When do you get time to write all your books?
How on earth do you contrive to do so much work?' I shall surprise you
by the answer I made. The answer is this--I contrive to do so much work
by never doing too much at a time. A man to get through work well must
not overwork 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, and in the various business of life; and in addition to all
this, I have published somewhere about sixty volumes, some upon subjects
requiring much special research. And what time do you think, as a
general rule, I have devoted to study, to reading, and writing? Not more
than three hours a day; and, when Parliament