ics of human affairs, two
qualities were essential to greatness--Power and Promptitude. One man
might have both, another power without promptitude, another promptitude
without power. We must all feel the common sense of this, and can
readily see how it applies to a general in the field, to a pilot in a
storm, to a sportsman, to a fencer, to a debater. It is the same with an
operating surgeon at all times, and may be at any time with the
practitioner of the art of healing. He must be ready for what are called
emergencies--cases which rise up at your feet, and must be dealt with on
the instant,--he must have power and promptitude.

It is a curious condition of mind that this requires: it is like
sleeping with your pistol under your pillow, and it on full cock; a
moment lost and all may be lost. There is the very nick of time. This is
what we mean by presence of mind; by a man having such a subject at his
finger ends; that part of the mind lying nearest the outer world, and
having to act on it through the bodily organs, through the will--the
outposts must be always awake. It is of course, so to speak, only a
portion of the mind that is thus needed and thus available; if the whole
mind were forever at the advanced posts, it would soon lose itself in
this endeavor to keep it. Now, though the thing needed to be done may be
simple enough, what goes to the doing of it, and to the being at once
ready and able to do it, involves much: the wedge would not be a wedge,
or do a wedge's work, without the width behind as well as the edge in
front. Your men of promptitude without genius or power, including
knowledge and will, are those who present the wedge the wrong way. Thus
your extremely prompt people are often doing the wrong thing, which is
almost always worse than nothing. Our vague friend who bit "Yarrow's"
tail instead of "the Chicken's," was full of promptitude; as was also
that other man, probably a relative, who barred the door with a boiled
carrot; each knew what was needed--the biting the tail, the barring the
door; both erred as to the means--the one by want of presence of mind,
the other by lack of mind itself. We must have just enough of the right
knowledge and no more; we must have the habit of using this; we must
have self-reliance, and the consentaneousness of the entire mind; and
what our hand finds to do, we must do with our might as well as with it.
Therefore it is that this master act of the man, under some sudden