ld
have passed his whole life in the study and practice of business."

It was characteristic of Sir Walter Scott to entertain the highest
respect for able men of business; and he professed that he did not
consider any amount of literary distinction as entitled to be spoken of
in the same breath with a mastery in the higher departments of practical
life--least of all with a first-rate captain.

The great commander leaves nothing to chance, but provides for every
contingency. He condescends to apparently trivial details. Thus, when
Wellington was at the head of his army in Spain, he directed the precise
manner in which the soldiers were to cook their provisions. When in
India, he specified the exact speed at which the bullocks were to be
driven; every detail in equipment was carefully arranged beforehand. And
thus not only was efficiency secured, but the devotion of his men, and
their boundless confidence in his command. [1315]

Like other great captains, Wellington had an almost boundless capacity
for work. He drew up the heads of a Dublin Police Bill [13being still the
Secretary for Ireland], when tossing off the mouth of the Mondego,
with Junot and the French army waiting for him on the shore. So Caesar,
another of the greatest commanders, is said to have written an essay
on Latin Rhetoric while crossing the Alps at the head of his army.
And Wallenstein when at the head of 60,000 men, and in the midst of
a campaign with the enemy before him, dictated from headquarters the
medical treatment of his poultry-yard.

Washington, also, was an indefatigable man of business. From his boyhood
he diligently trained himself in habits of application, of study, and of
methodical work. His manuscript school-books, which are still preserved,
show that, as early as the age of thirteen, he occupied himself
voluntarily in copying out such things as forms of receipts, notes of
hand, bills of exchange, bonds, indentures, leases, land-warrants, and
other dry documents, all written out with great care. And the habits
which he thus early acquired were, in a great measure, the foundation of
those admirable business qualities which he afterwards so successfully
brought to bear in the affairs of government.

The man or woman who achieves success in the management of any great
affair of business is entitled to honour,--it may be, to as much as the
artist who paints a picture, or the author who writes a book, or the
soldier who wins a battle.