piece of glebe-land without a
genius for mechanical inventions, or stand behind a counter without
a large benevolence of soul, what would become of the commercial and
agricultural interests of this great (and once flourishing) country?--I
would not be understood as saying that there is not what may be called
a genius for business, an extraordinary capacity for affairs, quickness
and comprehension united, an insight into character, an acquaintance
with a number of particular circumstances, a variety of expedients, a
tact for finding out what will do: I grant all this (in Liverpool and
Manchester they would persuade you that your merchant and manufacturer
is your only gentleman and scholar)--but still, making every allowance
for the difference between the liberal trader and the sneaking
shopkeeper, I doubt whether the most surprising success is to be
accounted for from any such unusual attainments, or whether a man's
making half a million of money is a proof of his capacity for thought
in general. It is much oftener owing to views and wishes bounded but
constantly directed to one particular object. To succeed, a man should
aim only at success. The child of Fortune should resign himself into the
hands of Fortune. A plotting head frequently overreaches itself: a mind
confident of its resources and calculating powers enters on critical
speculations, which in a game depending so much on chance and unforeseen
events, and not entirely on intellectual skill, turn the odds greatly
against any one in the long run. The rule of business is to take what
you can get, and keep what you have got; or an eagerness in seizing
every opportunity that offers for promoting your own interest, and a
plodding, persevering industry in making the most of the advantages
you have already obtained, are the most effectual as well as the safest
ingredients in the composition of the mercantile character. The world
is a book in which the _Chapter of Accidents_ is none of the least
considerable; or it is a machine that must be left, in a great measure,
to turn itself. The most that a worldly-minded man can do is to stand at
the receipt of custom, and be constantly on the lookout for windfalls.
The true devotee in this way waits for the revelations of Fortune as
the poet waits for the inspiration of the Muse, and does not rashly
anticipate her favours. He must be neither capricious nor wilful. I have
known people untrammelled in the ways of business, but with