The difference between men consists for the most part in intelligence, conduct, and energy.  The best character never works by chance, but is under the influence of virtue, prudence, and forethought.

There are, of course, many failures in the world.  The man who looks to others for help, instead of relying on himself, will fail.  The man who is undergoing the process of perpetual waste, will fail.  The miser, the scrub, the extravagant, the thriftless, will necessarily fail.  Indeed, most people fail because they do not deserve to succeed.  They set about their work in the wrong way, and no amount of experience seems to improve them.  There is not so much in luck as some people profess to believe.  Luck is only another word for good management in practical affairs.  Richelieu used to say that he would not continue to employ an unlucky man,—­in other words, a man wanting in practical qualities, and unable to profit by experience; for failures in the past are very often the auguries of failures in the future.

Some of the best and ablest of men are wanting in tact.  They will neither make allowance for circumstances, nor adapt themselves to circumstances:  they will insist on trying to drive their wedge the broad end foremost.  They raise walls only to run their own heads against.  They make such great preparations, and use such great precautions, that they defeat their own object,—­like the Dutchman mentioned by Washington Irving, who, having to leap a ditch, went so far back to have a good run at it, that when he came up he was completely winded, and had to sit down on the wrong side to recover his breath.

In actual life, we want things done, not preparations for doing them; and we naturally prefer the man who has definite aims and purposes, and proceeds in the straightest and shortest way to accomplish his object, to the one who describes the thing to be done, and spins fine phrases about doing it.  Without action, words are mere maundering.

The desire for success in the world, and even for the accumulation of money, is not without its uses.  It has doubtless been implanted in the human heart for good rather than for evil purposes.  Indeed the desire to accumulate, forms one of the most powerful instruments for the regeneration of society.  It provides the basis for individual energy and activity.  It is the beginning of maritime and commercial enterprise.  It is the foundation of industry, as well as of independence.  It impels men to labour, to invent, and to excel.

No idle nor thriftless man ever became great.  It is amongst those who never lost a moment, that we find the men who have moved and advanced the world,—­by their learning, their science, or their inventions.  Labour of some sort is one of the conditions of existence.  The thought has come down to us from pagan times, that “Labour is the price which the gods have set upon all that is excellent.”  The thought is also worthy of Christian times.