e other, "Why, Tom, we haven't pulled the
anchor up yet." And thus it is with those who are anchored to
something of which they are not conscious, perhaps, but which impedes
their efforts, even though they do their very best.

"A youth thoughtless, when all the happiness of his home forever
depends on the chances or the passions of an hour!" exclaims Ruskin.
"A youth thoughtless, when his every act is a foundation-stone of
future conduct, and every imagination a fountain of life or death! Be
thoughtless in any after years, rather than now,--though, indeed, there
is only one place where a man may be nobly thoughtless,--his deathbed.
No thinking should ever be left to be done there."

Sir James Paget tells us that a practised musician can play on the
piano at the rate of twenty-four notes a second. For each note a nerve
current must be transmitted from the brain to the fingers, and from the
fingers to the brain. Each note requires three movements of a finger,
the bending down and raising up, and at least one lateral, making no
less than seventy-two motions in a second, each requiring a distinct
effort of the will, and directed unerringly with a certain speed, and a
certain force, to a certain place.

Some can do this easily, and be at the same time busily employed in
intelligent conversation. Thus, by obeying the law of habit until
repetition has formed a second nature, we are able to pass the
technique of life almost wholly over to the nerve centers, leaving our
minds free to act or enjoy.

All through our lives the brain is constantly educating different parts
of the body to form habits which will work automatically from reflex
action, and thus is delegated to the nervous system a large part of
life's duties. This is nature's wonderful economy to release the brain
from the drudgery of individual acts, and leave it free to command all
its forces for higher service.

Man's life-work is a masterpiece or a botch, according as each little
habit has been perfectly or carelessly formed.

It is said that if you invite one of the devil's children to your home
the whole family will follow. So one bad habit seems to have a
relationship with all the others. For instance, the one habit of
negligence, slovenliness, makes it easier to form others equally bad,
until the entire character is honeycombed by the invasion of a family
of bad habits.

A man is often shocked when he suddenly discovers that he is considered
a l