hannel, and gave orders for his mighty host to defile
toward the Danube. Vast and various as were the projects fermenting in
his brain, however, he did not content himself with giving the order,
and leaving the elaboration of its details to his lieutenants. To
details and minutiae which inferior captains would have deemed too
microscopic for their notice, he gave such exhaustive attention that
before the bugle had sounded for the march he had planned the exact
route which every regiment was to follow, the exact day and hour it was
to leave that station, and the precise moment when it was to reach its
destination. These details, so thoroughly premeditated, were carried
out to the letter, and the result of that memorable march was the
victory of Austerlitz, which sealed the fate of Europe for ten years.

When a noted French preacher speaks in Notre Dame, the scholars of
Paris throng the cathedral to hear his fascinating, eloquent, polished
discourses. This brilliant finish is the result of most patient work,
as he delivers but five or six sermons a year.

When Sir Walter Scott visited a ruined castle about which he wished to
write, he wrote in a notebook the separate names of grasses and wild
flowers growing near, saying that only by such means can a writer be
natural.

The historian, Macaulay, never allowed a sentence to stand until it was
as good as he could make it.

Besides his scrapbooks, Garfield had a large case of some fifty
pigeonholes, labeled "Anecdotes," "Electoral Laws and Commissions,"
"French Spoliation," "General Politics," "Geneva Award,"
"Parliamentary Decisions," "Public Men," "State Politics," "Tariff,"
"The Press," "United States History," etc.; every valuable hint he
could get being preserved in the cold exactness of black and white.
When he chose to make careful preparation on a subject, no other
speaker could command so great an array of facts. Accurate people are
methodical people, and method means character.

"Am offered 10,000 bushels wheat on your account at $1.00. Shall I
buy, or is it too high?" telegraphed a San Francisco merchant to one in
Sacramento. "No price too high," came back over the wire instead of
"No. Price too high," as was intended. The omission of a period cost
the Sacramento dealer $1,000. How many thousands have lost their
wealth or lives, and how many frightful accidents have occurred through
carelessness in sending messages!

"The accurate boy is always the