rk or starve," is nature's motto,--and it is written on the stars and
the sod alike,--starve mentally, starve morally, starve physically. It
is an inexorable law of nature that whatever is not used, dies. "Nothing
for nothing," is her maxim. If we are idle and shiftless by choice, we
shall be nerveless and powerless by necessity.

The mottoes of great men often give us glimpses of the secret of their
characters and success. "Work! work! work!" was the motto of Sir Joshua
Reynolds, David Wilkie, and scores of other men who have left their mark
upon the world. Voltaire's motto was "Toujours au travail" (always at
work). Scott's maxim was "Never be doing nothing." Michael Angelo was a
wonderful worker. He even slept in his clothes ready to spring to his
work as soon as he awoke. He kept a block of marble in his bedroom that
he might get up in the night and work when he could not sleep. His
favorite device was an old man in a go-cart, with an hour-glass upon it,
bearing this inscription: "Ancora imparo" (still I'm learning). Even
after he was blind he would ask to be wheeled into the Belvidere, to
examine the statues with his hands. Cobden used to say, "I'm working
like a horse without a moment to spare." It was said that Handel, the
musician, did the work of a dozen men. Nothing ever daunted him. He
feared neither ridicule nor defeat. Lord Palmerston worked like a slave,
even in his old age. Being asked when he considered a man in his prime,
he replied, "Seventy-nine," that being his own age. Humboldt was one of
the world's great workers. In summer he arose at four in the morning for
thirty years. He used to say work was as much of a necessity as eating
or sleeping. Sir Walter Scott was a phenomenal worker. He wrote the
"Waverley Novels" at the rate of twelve volumes a year. He averaged a
volume every two months during his whole working life. What an example
is this to the young men of to-day, of the possibilities of an earnest
life! Edmund Burke was one of the most prodigious workers that ever
lived.

George Stephenson used to work at meal time, getting out loads of coal
while the miners were at dinner in order that he might earn a few extra
shillings to buy a spelling-book and an arithmetic. His associates
thought he was very foolish, and asked him what good it would do to
learn to read and cipher. He told them he was determined to improve his
mind; so he studied whenever he could snatch a minute before the
engine's fir