to--Pembroke--Street to--morrow;
to--morrow.' The morrow found him, and so did the detectives, dead."

"To-morrow." It is the devil's motto. All history is strewn with its
brilliant victims, the wrecks of half-finished plans and unexecuted
resolutions. It is the favorite refuge of sloth and incompetency.

"Strike while the iron is hot," and "Make hay while the sun shines,"
are golden maxims.

Very few people recognize the hour when laziness begins to set in.
Some people it attacks after dinner; some after lunch; and some after
seven o'clock in the evening. There is in every person's life a
crucial hour in the day, which must be employed instead of wasted if
the day is to be saved. With most people the early morning hour
becomes the test of the day's success.

A person was once extolling the skill and courage of Mayenne in Henry's
presence. "You are right," said Henry, "he is a great captain, but I
have always five hours' start of him." Henry rose at four in the
morning, and Mayenne at about ten. This made all the difference
between them. Indecision becomes a disease and procrastination is its
forerunner. There is only one known remedy for the victims of
indecision, and that is prompt decision. Otherwise the disease is
fatal to all success or achievement. He who hesitates is lost.

A noted writer says that a bed is a bundle of paradoxes. We go to it
with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret. We make up our minds
every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning
to keep it late.

Yet most of those who have become eminent have been early risers.
Peter the Great always rose before daylight. "I am," said he, "for
making my life as long as possible, and therefore sleep as little as
possible." Alfred the Great rose before daylight. In the hours of
early morning Columbus planned his voyage to America, and Napoleon his
greatest campaigns. Copernicus was an early riser, as were most of the
famous astronomers of ancient and modern times. Bryant rose at five,
Bancroft at dawn, and nearly all our leading authors in the early
morning. Washington, Jefferson, Webster, Clay, and Calhoun were all
early risers.

Daniel Webster used often to answer twenty to thirty letters before
breakfast.

Walter Scott was a very punctual man. This was the secret of his
enormous achievements. He rose at five. By breakfast-time he had, as
he used to say, broken the neck of the day's work. Writing t