intellect and integrity, but with an
incapacity of understanding any intellect or conscience radically
differing from his own. Mr. Choate's argument, as far as the facts and
the law were concerned, was through in an hour. Still he went on
speaking. Hour after hour passed, and yet he continued to speak with
constantly increasing eloquence, repeating and recapitulating, without
any seeming reason, facts which he had already stated and arguments
which he had already urged. The truth was, as I gradually learned, that
he was engaged in a hand-to-hand--or rather in a brain-to-brain and a
heart-to-heart--contest with the foreman, whose resistance he was
determined to break down, but who confronted him for three hours with
defiance observable in every rigid line of his honest countenance. 'You
fool!' was the burden of the advocate's ingenious argument. 'You
rascal!' was the phrase legibly printed on the foreman's incredulous
face. But at last the features of the foreman began to relax, and at the
end the stern lines melted into acquiescence with the opinion of the
advocate, who had been storming at the defences of his mind, his heart,
and his conscience for five hours, and had now entered as victor. The
verdict was 'Not guilty.'"

"He who would do some great thing in this short life must apply himself
to the work with such a concentration of his forces as, to idle
spectators, who live only to amuse themselves, looks like insanity."

It is generally thought that when a man is said to be dissipated in his
habits he must be a drinking man, or a gambler, or licentious, or all
three; but dissipation is of two kinds, coarse and refined. A man can
dissipate or scatter all of his mental energies and physical power by
indulging in too many respectable diversions, as easily as in habits of
a viler nature. Property and its cares make some men dissipated; too
many friends make others. The exactions of "society," the balls,
parties, receptions, and various entertainments constantly being given
and attended by the _beau monde_, constitute a most wasting species of
dissipation. Others, again, fritter away all their time and strength in
political agitations, or in controversies and gossip; others in idling
with music or some other one of the fine arts; others in feasting or
fasting, as their dispositions and feelings incline. But the man of
concentration of purpose is never a dissipated man in any sense, good or
bad. He has no time to devote