While the young man who has been well trained at home, who appreciates good manners, good morals, and good books, will derive immense advantage in acquiring that quick discernment, that intuitive apprehension of the rights and of the pleasure of others, and that nice tact, which characterize the highest style of merchants,—­he who has not been thus prepared will be more than likely to mistake brusquerie for manliness, and brutality for the sublime of independence.  As in a great house there are vessels unto honor and also unto dishonor, so in the purlieus of the dry-goods trade there are gentlemen who would honor and adorn any society, and also men whose manners would shame Hottentots,—­whose language, innocent of all preference for Worcester or Webster, a terror to all decent ideas, like scarecrows in corn-fields, is dressed in the cast-off garments of the refuse of all classes.

Success in retailing does not necessarily qualify a man to succeed in the dry-goods jobbing-business.  The game is played on a much larger scale; it includes other chances, and demands other qualifications, natural and acquired.  Instances are not wanting of men who, in the smaller towns, had made to themselves a name and acquired an honorable independence, sinking both capital and courage in their endeavors to manage the business of a city-jobber.

It should be well remembered, that, while it is not indispensable to success in the jobbing-business that each partner should be an expert in every department of the business, in buying, selling, collecting, paying, and book-keeping, it is absolutely necessary that each should be such in his own department,—­and that the firm, as a unit, should include a completely competent man for each and every one of these departments.  The lack of the qualities which are indispensable to any one of these may, and probably will, prove an abyss deep enough to ingulf the largest commercial ship afloat.

Finally, to avoid disappointment, the man who would embark in the dry-goods trade should make up his mind to meet every variety of experience known to mortals, and to be daunted by nothing.  He will assuredly find fair winds and head winds, clear skies and cloudy skies, head seas and cross seas as well as stern seas.  A wind that justifies studding-sails may change, without premonition, to a gale that will make ribbons of top-sails and of storm-sails.  The best crew afloat cannot preclude all casualties, or exclude sleepless nights and cold sweats now and then; but a quick eye, a cool head, a prompt hand, and indomitable perseverance will overcome almost all things.

THE OLD HOMESTEAD.

  The wet trees hang above the walks
  Purple with damps and earthish stains,
  And strewn by moody, absent rains
  With rose-leaves from the wild-grown stalks.

  Unmown, in heavy, tangled swaths,
  The ripe June-grass is wanton blown;
  Snails slime the untrodden threshold-stone,
  Along the sills hang drowsy moths.