when he comes
before the court his mind is fresh and sparkling with clear ideas and
varied knowledge poured into his brain from every mountain-peak of
inspiration in all the world of human thought. He brings to the
service of his client not only a study of his case and an
understanding of the grand science of the law, but the vivifying,
vitalizing power of all the great minds in all the realms of
intellect.

If you say you have no time for all this, the answer is: If that is
true, you have no time to be a great lawyer. You have the time, if you
will use it. A little less lingering at the club, an economy of hours
here and there--this will give you time, and to spare. Of course if
you would rather "loaf" than be great, if you hunger rather after the
flesh-pots than the lawyer's wreaths, this advice is not for you.

Do not use intoxicants. Even beware of coffee; it is one of the most
powerful nerve and brain stimulants. The coffee habit is as easily
formed, and as remorseless, as the alcohol habit. After a while, if
excessively used, it produces its sure result; your faculties have
been sharpened by this intellectual emery-wheel until the edges begin
to crumble. Your mind becomes dull; you pass your hand wearily over
your eyes; you don't know what is the matter with you and say so.
Overwork, over-stimulation, and the worry these produce are what is
the matter with you.

There are lawyers in every town who day by day and year by year find
that they have to work harder to understand a case or master a
precedent than they did the year before. Whereas formerly they could
get the point of a precedent by reading it over once, they must now
read it over four or five times. You usually find them the victims of
ceaseless toil without rest, of that destroying fretfulness which
brain-fag brings, and of some flogger of exhausted nerves, such as
coffee in excess.

Do not work late at night. It is a fictitious clearness of mind that
comes to the midnight toiler. This also grows into a habit. Conform to
Nature. Go to bed early. Get up early, and do your fine and original
work in the morning. It will be hard for you to form the habit, but
after you have done it you will be amazed at the comparatively immense
nervous power you possess in the morning hours.

In trying a case before a jury, never be trivial. Do not bandy gibes,
no matter how witty you may know yourself to be in repartee. The jury,
and even the court, may laugh, but t