ch we learn far
more than from the safe seclusion of the study or the cloister.

Contact with others is also requisite to enable a man to know himself.
It is only by mixing freely in the world that one can form a proper
estimate of his own capacity. Without such experience, one is apt to
become conceited, puffed-up, and arrogant; at all events, he will remain
ignorant of himself, though he may heretofore have enjoyed no other
company.

Swift once said: "It is an uncontroverted truth, that no man ever made
an ill-figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who
mistook them." Many persons, however, are readier to take measure of the
capacity of others than of themselves. "Bring him to me," said a certain
Dr. Tronchin, of Geneva, speaking of Rousseau--"Bring him to me, that I
may see whether he has got anything in him!"--the probability being that
Rousseau, who knew himself better, was much more likely to take measure
of Tronchin than Tronchin was to take measure of him.

A due amount of self-knowledge is, therefore, necessary for those who
would BE anything or DO anything in the world. It is also one of the
first essentials to the formation of distinct personal convictions.
Frederic Perthes once said to a young friend: "You know only too well
what you CAN do; but till you have learned what you CANNOT do, you will
neither accomplish anything of moment, nor know inward peace."

Any one who would profit by experience will never be above asking for
help. He who thinks himself already too wise to learn of others, will
never succeed in doing anything either good or great. We have to keep
our minds and hearts open, and never be ashamed to learn, with the
assistance of those who are wiser and more experienced than ourselves.

The man made wise by experience endeavours to judge correctly of the
thugs which come under his observation, and form the subject of his
daily life. What we call common sense is, for the most part, but the
result of common experience wisely improved. Nor is great ability
necessary to acquire it, so much as patience, accuracy, and
watchfulness. Hazlitt thought the most sensible people to be met with
are intelligent men of business and of the world, who argue from what
they see and know, instead of spinning cobweb distinctions of what
things ought to be.

For the same reason, women often display more good sense than men,
having fewer pretensions, and judging of things naturally, by the
involun