ordinary instances which appear in some degree to countenance this
assertion. Many men are remembered as authors, who seem to have owed the
permanence of their reputation rather to fortune than merit. They were
daring, and stepped into a niche that was left in the gallery of art or
of science, where others of higher qualifications, but of unconquerable
modesty, held back. At the same time persons, whose destiny caused them
to live among the elite of an age, have seen reason to confess that they
have heard such talk, such glorious and unpremeditated discourse, from
men whose thoughts melted away with the breath that uttered them, as the
wisest of their vaunted contemporary authors would in vain have sought
to rival.

The maxim however, notwithstanding these appearances, may safely be
pronounced to be a fallacious one. It has been received in various
quarters with the greater indulgence, inasmuch as the human mind is
prone in many cases to give a more welcome reception to seeming truths,
that present us at the first blush the appearance of falshood.

It must however be recollected that the human mind consists in the first
instance merely of faculties prepared to be applied to certain purposes,
and susceptible of improvement. It cannot therefore happen, that the
man, who has chosen a subject towards which to direct the energy of his
faculties, who has sought on all sides for the materials that should
enable him to do that subject justice, who has employed upon it his
contemplations by day, and his meditations during the watches of the
night, should not by such exercise greatly invigorate his powers. In
this sense there was much truth in the observation of the author who
said, "I did not write upon the subject you mention because I understood
it; but I understood it afterward, because I had written upon it."

The man who merely wanders through the fields of knowledge in search
of its gayest flowers and of whatever will afford him the most enviable
amusement, will necessarily return home at night with a very slender
collection. He that shall apply himself with self-denial and
an unshrinking resolution to the improvement of his mind, will
unquestionably be found more fortunate in the end.

He is not deterred by the gulphs that yawn beneath his feet, or the
mountains that may oppose themselves to his progress. He knows that the
adventurer of timid mind, and that is infirm of purpose, will never make
himself master of those