inutes, half hours,
unexpected holidays, gaps "between times," and chasms of waiting for
unpunctual persons, achieves results which astonish those who have not
mastered this most valuable secret.

"All that I have accomplished, expect to, or hope to accomplish," said
Elihu Burritt, "has been and will be by that plodding, patient,
persevering process of accretion which builds the ant-heap--particle by
particle, thought by thought, fact by fact. And if ever I was actuated
by ambition, its highest and warmest aspiration reached no further than
the hope to set before the young men of my country an example in
employing those invaluable fragments of time called moments."

"I have been wondering how Ned contrived to monopolize all the talents of
the family," said a brother, found in a brown study after listening to
one of Burke's speeches in Parliament; "but then I remember; when we were
at play, he was always at work."

The days come to us like friends in disguise, bringing priceless gifts
from an unseen hand; but, if we do not use them, they are borne silently
away, never to return. Each successive morning new gifts are brought,
but if we failed to accept those that were brought yesterday and the day
before, we become less and less able to turn them to account, until the
ability to appreciate and utilize them is exhausted. Wisely was it said
that lost wealth may be regained by industry and economy, lost knowledge
by study, lost health by temperance and medicine, but lost time is gone
forever.

"Oh, it's only five minutes or ten minutes till mealtime; there's no time
to do anything now," is one of the commonest expressions heard in the
family. But what monuments have been built up by poor boys with no
chance, out of broken fragments of time which many of us throw away! The
very hours you have wasted, if improved, might have insured your success.

Marion Harland has accomplished wonders, and she has been able to do this
by economizing the minutes to shape her novels and newspaper articles,
when her children were in bed and whenever she could get a spare minute.
Though she has done so much, yet all her life has been subject to
interruptions which would have discouraged most women from attempting
anything outside their regular family duties. She has glorified the
commonplace as few other women have done. Harriet Beecher Stowe, too,
wrote her great masterpiece, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," in the midst of
pressing household c