liant effect at a dash, will only produce
a blotch.

Sedulous attention and painstaking industry always mark the true
worker. The greatest men are not those who "despise the day of small
things," but those who improve them the most carefully. Michael
Angelo was one day explaining to a visitor at his studio what he had
been doing to a statue since a previous visit. "I have retouched this
part--polished that--softened this feature--brought out that muscle--
given some expression to this lip, and more energy to that limb."
"But these are trifles," remarked the visitor. "It may be so,"
replied the sculptor, "but recollect that trifles make perfection,
and perfection is no trifle." So it was said of Nicolas Poussin, the
painter, that the rule of his conduct was, that "whatever was worth
doing at all was worth doing well;" and when asked, late in life, by
his friend Vigneul de Marville, by what means he had gained so high a
reputation among the painters of Italy, Poussin emphatically
answered, "Because I have neglected nothing."

Although there are discoveries which are said to have been made by
accident, if carefully inquired into it will be found that there has
really been very little that was accidental about them. For the most
part, these so-called accidents, have only been opportunities,
carefully improved by genius. The brilliantly colored soap-bubbles
blown through a common tobacco-pipe--though "trifles light as air" in
most eyes--suggested to Dr. Young his beautiful theory of
"interferences," and led to his discovery relating to the diffraction
of light. Although great men are popularly supposed only to deal with
great things, men such as Newton and Young were ready to detect the
significance of the most familiar and simple facts; their greatness
consisting mainly in their wise interpretation of them.

The difference between men consists, in a great measure, in the
intelligence of their observation. The Russian proverb says of the
nonobservant man, "He goes through the forest and sees no firewood."
"The wise man's eyes are in his head," says Solomon, "but the fool
walketh in darkness." "Sir," said Johnson on one occasion, to a fine
gentleman just returned from Italy, "some men would learn more in the
Hampstead stage than others in the tour of Europe." It is the mind
that sees as well as the eye. Where unthinking gazers observe
nothing, men of intelligent vision penetrate into the very fibre of
the phenomena presen