beings seem to have attained to absolute perfection have for the most part been things comparatively frivolous,—­accomplishments which certainly were not worth the labor and the time which it must have cost to master them.  Thus, M. Blondin has probably made as much of himself as can be made of mortal, in the respect of walking on a rope stretched at a great height from the ground.  Hazlitt makes mention of a man who had cultivated to the very highest degree the art of playing at rackets, and who accordingly played at rackets incomparably better than any one else ever did.  A wealthy gentleman, lately deceased, by putting his whole mind to the pursuit, esteemed himself to have reached entire perfection in the matter of killing otters.  Various individuals have probably developed the power of turning somersets, of picking pockets, of playing on the piano, jew’s-harp, banjo, and penny trumpet, of mental calculation in arithmetic, of insinuating evil about their neighbors without directly asserting anything, to a measure as great as is possible to man.  Long practice and great concentration of mind upon these things have sufficed to produce what might seem to tremble on the verge of perfection,—­what unquestionably leaves the attainments of ordinary people at an inconceivable distance behind.  But I do not call it making the most of a man, to develop, even to perfection, the power of turning somersets and playing at rackets.  I call it making the most of a man, when you make the best of his best powers and qualities,—­when you take those things about him which are the worthiest and most admirable, and cultivate these up to their highest attainable degree.  And it is in this sense that the statement is to be understood, that no one is made the most of.  Even in the best, we see no more than the rudiments of good qualities which might have been developed into a great deal more; and in very many human beings, proper management might have brought out qualities essentially different from those which these beings now possess.  It is not merely that they are rough diamonds, which might have been polished into blazing ones,—­not merely that they are thoroughbred colts drawing coal-carts, which with fair training would have been new Eclipses:  it is that they are vinegar which might have been wine, poison which might have been food, wild-cats which might have been harmless lambs, soured miserable wretches who might have been happy and useful, almost devils who might have been but a little lower than the angels.  Oh, the unutterable sadness that is in the thought of what might have been!

Not always, indeed.  Sometimes, as we look back, it is with deep thankfulness that we see the point at which we were (we cannot say how) inclined to take the right turning, when we were all but resolved to take that which we can now see would have landed us in wreck and ruin.  And it is fit that we should correct any morbid tendency to brood upon the fancy of how much better we might have been, by remembering