g as a day laborer in a
quarry.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, as we have already observed, was so earnest a
believer in the force of industry that he held that all men might
achieve excellence if they would but exercise the power of assiduous
and patient working. He held that drudgery lay on the road to genius,
and that there was no limit to the proficiency of an artist except
the limit of his own painstaking. He would not believe in what is
called inspiration, but only in study and labor. "Excellence," he
said, "is never granted to man but as the reward of labor. If you
have great talents, industry will improve them; if you have but
moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency. Nothing is
denied to well-directed labor; nothing is to be obtained without it."
Sir Fowell Buxton was an equal believer in the power of study; and he
entertained the modest idea that he could do as well as other men if
he devoted to the pursuit double the time and labor that they did. He
placed his great confidence in ordinary means and extraordinary
application.

"I have known several men in my life," says Dr. Ross, "who may be
recognized in days to come as men of genius, and they were all
plodders, hard-working _intent_ men. Genius is known by its works;
genius without works is a blind faith, a dumb oracle. But meritorious
works are the result of time and labor, and cannot be accomplished by
intention or by a wish . . . Every great work is the result of vast
preparatory training. Facility comes by labor. Nothing seems easy,
not even walking, that was not difficult at first. The orator whose
eye flashes instantaneous fire, and whose lips pour out a flood of
noble thoughts, startling by their unexpectedness and elevating by
their wisdom and truth, has learned his secret by patient repetition,
and after many bitter disappointments."

Thoroughness and accuracy are two principal points to be aimed at in
study. Francis Horner, in laying down rules for the cultivation of
his mind, placed great stress upon the habit of continuous
application to one subject for the sake of mastering it thoroughly;
he confined himself with this object to only a few books, and
resisted with the greatest firmness "every approach to a habit of
desultory reading." The value of knowledge to any man consists, not
in its quantity, but mainly in the good uses to which he can apply
it. Hence a little knowledge of an exact and perfect character is
always found more val