er to secure my credit and character as a tradesman, I
took care not only to be in _reality_ industrious and frugal,
but to avoid the appearances to the contrary. I dressed plain,
and was seen at no places of idle diversion. I never went out
a fishing or shooting; a book, indeed, sometimes debauched me
from my work, but that was seldom, was private, and gave no
scandal; and to show that I was not above my business, I
sometimes brought home the paper I purchased at the stores
through the streets on a wheelbarrow.--FRANKLIN.

Given, a man with moderate intellect, a moral standard not
higher than the average, some rhetorical affluence and great
glibness of speech, what is the career in which, without the
aid of birth or money, he may most easily attain power and
reputation in English society? Where is the Goshen of
mediocrity in which a smattering of science and learning will
pass for profound instruction, where platitudes will be
accepted as wisdom, bigoted narrowness as holy zeal, unctuous
egoism as God-given piety? Let such a man become an
evangelical preacher; he will then find it possible to
reconcile small ability with great ambition, superficial
knowledge with the prestige of erudition, a middling morale
with a high reputation for sanctity.--GEORGE ELIOT.

Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the
Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,--
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim
unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
LOWELL.

Thus I live in the world rather as a spectator of mankind
than as one of the species, by which means I have made myself
a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artisan,
without ever meddling with any practical part in life. I am
very well versed in the theory of a husband or a father, and
can discern the errors in the economy, business, and
diversions of others better than those who are engaged in
them; as standers-by discover blots, which are apt to escape
those who are in the game. I never espoused any party with
violence, and am resolved to observe an exact neutrality
b