he son of a neighbor, who was then at West Point, stating
that he had failed in examination and was coming home. I got the butter,
took it home, and, without waiting for breakfast ran to the office of
the congressman for our district. 'Mr. Hamer,' I said, 'will you
appoint me to West Point?' 'No, ---- is there, and has three years to
serve.' 'But suppose he should fail, will you send me?' Mr. Hamer
laughed. 'If he don't go through, no use for you to try, Uly.' 'Promise
me you will give me the chance, Mr. Hamer, anyhow.' Mr. Hamer promised.
The next day the defeated lad came home, and the congressman, laughing
at my sharpness, gave me the appointment. Now," said Grant, "it was my
mother's being without butter that made me general and president." But
he was mistaken. It was his own shrewdness to see the chance, and the
promptness to seize it, that urged him upward.

"There is nobody," says a Roman Cardinal, "whom Fortune does not visit
once in his life; but when she finds he is not ready to receive her, she
goes in at the door, and out through the window." Opportunity is coy.
The careless, the slow, the unobservant, the lazy fail to see it, or
clutch at it when it has gone. The sharp fellows detect it instantly,
and catch it when on the wing.

The utmost which can be said about the matter is, that circumstances
will, and do combine to help men at some periods of their lives, and
combine to thwart them at others. Thus much we freely admit; but there
is no fatality in these combinations, neither any such thing as "luck"
or "chance," as commonly understood. They come and go like all other
opportunities and occasions in life, and if they are seized upon and
made the most of, the man whom they benefit is fortunate; but if they
are neglected and allowed to pass by unimproved, he is unfortunate.

"Charley," says Moses H. Grinnell to a clerk born in New York City,
"take my overcoat tip to my house on Fifth Avenue." Mr. Charley takes
the coat, mutters something about "I'm not an errand boy. I came here to
learn business," and moves reluctantly. Mr. Grinnell sees it, and at the
same time one of his New England clerks says, "I'll take it up." "That
is right, do so," says Mr. G., and to himself he says, "that boy is
smart, he will work," and he gives him plenty to do. He gets promoted,
gets the confidence of business men as well as of his employers, and is
soon known as a successful man.

The youth who starts out in life determine