“Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off,” says the Bible, yet that is precisely what we are doing when we smile at the sally of some envious dealer about the “luck” of our grocer—­that “nothing succeeds as well as success.”  But the landlord goes on renting his store-room, and thanking his stars that the fools are not all dead yet.  Do not desire a position two grades ahead of you.  The one that is next to you is your proper goal.  Over the shoulder of the companion who holds it you can get many a glance long before your chance comes to do the work, and, even then, what looked so very easy to you before it came your turn to do it, will now “shoot light horrors through you.”  In a large measure people are bought at their own prices.  If they are worth those figures, their fortune is made.  A celebrated painter was once asked how he mixed his colors.  He replied that

HE “MIXED THEM WITH BRAINS.”

Mix brains with your business.  Like the opium or chloral slave you will be able to endure a larger quantity each day, and the effect will not be darkness and death, but light and life.  Simply because you think you can do a thing is no great sign you can do it.  You must have brains and probabilities in your favor.  You must absolutely have done something very nearly like it.  I never saw a more signal instance of the general self-conceit of the race than in the experience of a young man who once sold a little rubber reed which he laid on his tongue, and with which

HE MOCKED ALL KINDS OF BIRDS.

After seeing him do it, the crowd would gather about in great herds, with their “quarters” high in the air, anxious to purchase, and just as sure they could do the same thing as the eight o’clock man that he can get a crowd into his store.  I do not remember a solitary instance where a purchaser ever acquired the least facility in imitating the sounds of birds, and I have been tempted to believe the “machine” was a “dummy” by which the salesman conveyed to the gaping crowd the hope of acquiring his wonderful art.  Do not, in the journey of life, attempt impossible stages of travel because they look easy at the start.  Stop at each inn which the experience of years has shown to be necessary for your continued comfort.  But never, on any account, lie down between the inns, for the outlaws called Failure and Discredit will fall upon you and work your destruction.  “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave.”  “In the morning sow thy seed.”  “Let us crown our selves with rosebuds before they be withered.”

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COMPANIONS.