N RASHNESS

It is irresolution that is worse than rashness. "He that shoots," says
Feltham, "may sometimes hit the mark; but he that shoots not at all can
never hit it. Irresolution is like an ague; it shakes not this nor that
limb, but all the body is at once in a fit."

The man who is forever twisting and turning, backing and filling,
hesitating and dawdling, shuffling and parleying, weighing and
balancing, splitting hairs over non-essentials, listening to every new
motive which presents itself, will never accomplish anything. But the
positive man, the decided man, is a power in the world, and stands for
something; you can measure him, and estimate the work that his energy
will accomplish.

Opportunity is coy, is swift, is gone, before the slow, the unobservant,
the indolent, or the careless can seize her. "Vigilance in watching
opportunity," said Phelps, "tact and daring in seizing upon opportunity;
force and persistence in crowding opportunity to its utmost of possible
achievement--these are the martial virtues which must command success."
"The best men," remarked Chapin, "are not those who have waited for
chances, but who have taken them; besieged the chance; conquered the
chance; and made chance the servitor."

Is it not possible to classify successes and failures by their various
degrees of will-power? A man who can resolve vigorously upon a course of
action, and turns neither to the right nor to the left, though a
paradise tempt him, who keeps his eyes upon the goal, whatever distracts
him, is sure of success.

"Not every vessel that sails from Tarshish will bring back the gold of
Ophir. But shall it therefore rot in the harbor? No! Give its sails to
the wind!"

CONSCIOUS POWER.

"Conscious power," says Melles, "exists within the mind of every one.
Sometimes its existence is unrealized, but it is there. It is there to
be developed and brought forth, like the culture of that obstinate but
beautiful flower, the orchid. To allow it to remain dormant is to place
one's self in obscurity, to trample on one's ambition, to smother one's
faculties. To develop it is to individualize all that is best within
you, and give it to the world. It is by an absolute knowledge of
yourself, the proper estimate of your own value."

"There is hardly a reader," says an experienced educator, "who will not
be able to recall the early life of at least one young man whose
childhood was spent in poverty, and who, in boyhood, exp