igor, is, perhaps, first felt in the
weakened or debilitated power of decisions.

Nothing will give greater confidence, and bring assistance more quickly
from the bank or from a friend, than the reputation of promptness. The
world knows that the prompt man's bills and notes will be paid on the
day, and will trust him. "Let it be your first study to teach the
world that you are not wood and straw; that there is some iron in you."
"Let men know that what you say you will do; that your decision, once
made, is final,--no wavering; that, once resolved, you are not to be
allured or intimidated."

Some minds are so constructed that they are bewildered and dazed
whenever a responsibility is thrust upon them; they have a mortal dread
of deciding anything. The very effort to come to immediate and
unflinching decision starts up all sorts of doubts, difficulties, and
fears, and they can not seem to get light enough to decide nor courage
enough to attempt to remove the obstacle. They know that hesitation is
fatal to enterprise, fatal to progress, fatal to success. Yet somehow
they seem fated with a morbid introspection which ever holds them in
suspense. They have just energy enough to weigh motives, but nothing
left for the momentum of action. They analyze and analyze, deliberate,
weigh, consider, ponder, but never act. How many a man can trace his
downfall in life to the failure to seize his opportunity at the
favorable moment, when it was within easy grasp, the nick of time,
which often does not present itself but once!

It was said that Napoleon had an officer under him who understood the
tactics of war better than his commander, but he lacked that power of
rapid decision and powerful concentration which characterized the
greatest military leaders perhaps of the world. There were several
generals under Grant who were as well skilled in war tactics, knew the
country as well, were better educated, but they lacked that power of
decision which made unconditional surrender absolutely imperative
wherever he met the foe. Grant's decision was like inexorable fate.
There was no going behind it, no opening it up for reconsideration. It
was his decision which voiced itself in those memorable words in the
Wilderness, "I propose to fight it out on these lines if it takes all
summer," and which sent back the words "unconditional surrender" to
General Buckner, who asked him for conditions of capitulation, that
gave the first confi