e that never relaxes, the eye that never blenches, the
thought that never wanders,--these are the masters of victory.
--BURKE.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
--LONGFELLOW.

"How long did it take you to learn to play?" asked a young man of
Geradini. "Twelve hours a day for twenty years," replied the great
violinist. Layman Beecher's father, when asked how long it took him to
write his celebrated sermon on the "Government of God," replied, "About
forty years."

"If you will study a year I will teach you to sing well," said an
Italian music teacher to a pupil who wished to know what can be hoped
for with study; "if two years, you may excel. If you will practice the
scale constantly for three years, I will make you the best tenor in
Italy; if for four years, you may have the world at your feet."

Perceiving that Caffarelli had a fine tenor voice and unusual talent, a
teacher offered to give him a thorough musical education free of charge,
provided the pupil would promise never to complain of the course of
instruction given. The first year the master gave nothing but the
scales, compelling the youth to practice them over and over again. The
second year it was the same, the third, and the fourth, the conditions
of the bargain being the only reply to any question in relation to a
change from such monotonous drill. The fifth year the teacher introduced
chromatics and thorough bass, and, at its close, when Caffarelli looked
for something more brilliant and interesting, the master said: "Go, my
son, I can teach you nothing more. You are the first singer of Italy and
of the world." The _mastery_ of scales and diatonics gave him power to
sing anything.

"Keep at the helm," said President Porter; "steer your own ship, and
remember that the great art of commanding is to take a fair share of the
work. Strike out. Assume your own position. Put potatoes in a cart,
over a rough road, and the small ones go to the bottom."

"Never depend upon your genius," said John Ruskin, in the words of
Joshua Reynolds; "if you have talent, industry will improve it; if you
have none, industry will supply the deficiency."

"The only merit to which I lay claim," said Hugh Miller, "is that of
patient research--a merit in which whoever wills may rival or surpass
me; and this humble faculty of patience when rightly developed