nt or will bring it.

"For this end we subject ourselves to many sacrifices; for its gain we
are willing to confine ourselves and employ our minds and bodies in
duties which, for their own sakes, are irksome; and if we do not throw
the whole force of our natures into the effort to gain this, it is that
we do not possess the requisite patience, self-command, and penetration
where we may direct our efforts.

"I am constantly longing for wealth; the wide difference between my
wishes and the means of gratifying them at my command keeps me in
perpetual disquiet. It would bring me comfort and luxury which I
cannot now obtain; it would give me more congenial employment and
associates; it would enable me to cultivate my mind and exert to a
fuller extent my powers; it would give me the ability to minister to
the comfort and enjoyment of those whom I love most, and, therefore, it
is my principal object in life to obtain wealth, or at least more of it
than I have at present.

"Whether this is right or wrong, I do not now consider; but that it is
so I am conscious. When I look behind at my past life I see that I
have made little or no progress, and am disquieted; when I consider my
present, it is difficult to see that I am moving toward it at all; and
all my comfort in this respect is in the hope of what the future may
bring forth.

"And yet my hopes are very vague and indistinct, and my efforts in any
direction, save the beaten track in which I have been used to earn my
bread, are, when perceptible, jerky, irregular, and without
intelligent, continuous direction.

"When I succeed in obtaining employment, I am industrious and work
faithfully, though it does not satisfy my wishes. When I have nothing
to do, I am anxious to be in some way labouring toward the end I wish,
and yet from hour to hour I cannot tell at what to employ myself.

"To secure any given result it is only necessary to rightly supply
sufficient force. Some men possess a greater amount of natural power
than others and produce quicker and more striking results; yet it is
apparent that the abilities of the majority, if properly and
continuously applied, are sufficient to accomplish much more than they
generally do.

"The hours which I have idled away, though made miserable by the
consciousness of accomplishing nothing, had been sufficient to make me
master of almost any common branch of study. If, for instance, I had
applied myself to the practice of boo