A pin is a very little thing in an article of dress, but the way in which it is put into the dress often reveals to you the character of the wearer.  A shrewd fellow was once looking out for a wife, and was on a visit to a family of daughters with this object.  The fair one, of whom he was partially enamoured, one day entered the room in which he was seated with her dress partially unpinned, and her hair untidy:  he never went back.  You may say, such a fellow was “not worth a pin;” but he was really a shrewd fellow, and afterwards made a good husband.  He judged of women as of men—­by little things; and he was right.

A druggist advertised for an assistant, and he had applications from a score of young man.  He invited them all to come to his shop at the same time, and set them each to make up a pennyworth of salts into a packet.  He selected the one that did this little thing in the neatest and most expert manner.  He inferred their general practical ability from their performance of this smallest bit of business.

Neglect of little things has ruined many fortunes and marred the best of enterprises.  The ship which bore home the merchant’s treasure was lost because it was allowed to leave the port from which it sailed with a very little hole in the bottom.  For want of a nail the shoe of the aide-de-camp’s horse was lost; for want of the shoe, the horse was lost; for want of the horse, the aide-de-camp himself was lost, for the enemy took him and killed him; and for want of the aide-de camp’s intelligence, the army of his general was lost:  and all because a little nail had not been properly fixed in a horse’s shoe!

“It will do!” is the common phrase of those who neglect little things.  “It will do!” has blighted many a character, blasted many a fortune, sunk many a ship, burnt down many a house, and irretrievably ruined thousands of hopeful projects of human good.  It always means stopping short of the right thing.  It is a makeshift.  It is a failure and defeat.  Not what “will do,” but what is the best possible thing to do,—­is the point to be aimed at!  Let a man once adopt the maxim of “It will do,” and he is given over to the enemy,—­he is on the side of incompetency and defeat,—­and we give him up as a hopeless subject!

M. Say, the French political economist, has related the following illustration of the neglect of little things.  Once, at a farm in the country, there was a gate enclosing the cattle and poultry, which was constantly swinging open for want of a proper latch.  The expenditure of a penny or two, and a few minutes’ time, would have made all right.  It was on the swing every time a person went out, and not being in a state to shut readily, many of the poultry were from time to time lost.  One day a fine young porker made his escape, and the whole family, with the gardener, cook, and milkmaid, turned out in quest of the fugitive.  The gardener was the first to discover the pig, and in leaping a ditch