inst
the inroad of any evil habit; for the character is always weakest at
that point at which it has once given way; and it is long before a
principle restored can become as firm as one that has never been
moved. It is a fine remark of a Russian writer, that "Habits are a
necklace of pearls: untie the knot, and the whole unthreads."

Wherever formed, habit acts involuntarily and without effort; and it
is only when you oppose it, that you find how powerful it has become.
What is done once and again, soon gives facility and proneness. The
habit at first may seem to have no more strength than a spider's web;
but, once formed, it binds us with a chain of iron. The small events
of life, taken singly, may seem exceedingly unimportant, like snow
that falls silently, flake by flake; yet accumulated, these
snowflakes form the avalanche.

Self-respect, self-help, application, industry, integrity--all are of
the nature of habits, not beliefs. Principles, in fact, are but the
names which we assign to habits; for the principles are words, but
the habits are the things themselves: benefactors or tyrants,
according as they are good or evil. It thus happens that as we grow
older, a portion of our free activity and individuality becomes
suspended in habit; our actions become of the nature of fate; and we
are bound by the chains which we have woven around ourselves.

It is indeed scarcely possible to overestimate the importance of
training the young to virtuous habits. In them they are the easiest
formed, and when formed, they last for life; like letters cut on the
bark of a tree, they grow and widen with age. "Train up a child in
the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."
The beginning holds within it the end; the first start on the road of
life determines the direction and the destination of the journey.
Remember, before you are five-and-twenty you must establish a
character that will serve you all your life. As habit strengthens
with age, and character becomes formed, and turning into a new path
becomes more and more difficult. Hence, it is often harder to unlearn
that to learn; and for this reason the Grecian flute-player was
justified who charged double fees to those pupils who had been taught
by an inferior master. To uproot and old habit is sometimes a more
painful thing, and vastly more difficult, than to wrench out a tooth.
Try and reform an habitually indolent, or improvident, or drunken
person, a