insure success.

Would you, for instance, be rich: Do you think that single point worth
the sacrificing everything else to? You may then be rich. Thousands have
become so from the lowest beginnings, by toil, and patient diligence,
and attention to the minutest article of expense and profit. But you
must give up the pleasures of leisure, of a vacant mind, of a free,
unsuspicious temper. If you preserve your integrity, it must be a
coarse-spun and vulgar honesty. Those high and lofty notions of morals
which you brought with you from the schools must be considerably
lowered, and mixed with the baser alloy of a jealous and worldly-minded
prudence. You must learn to do hard if not unjust things; and for the
nice embarrassments of a delicate and ingenuous spirit, it is necessary
for you to get rid of them as fast as possible. You must shut your heart
against the Muses, and be content to feed your understanding with plain,
household truths. In short, you must not attempt to enlarge your ideas,
or polish your taste, or refine your sentiments; but must keep on in one
beaten track, without turning aside either to the right hand or to the
left. "But I cannot submit to drudgery like this: I feel a spirit above
it." 'Tis well: be above it then; only do not repine that you are
not rich.

Is knowledge the pearl of price? That too may be purchased--by steady
application, and long solitary hours of study and reflection. Bestow
these, and you shall be wise. "But" (says the man of letters) "what a
hardship is it that many an illiterate fellow who cannot construe the
motto of the arms on his coach, shall raise a fortune and make a figure,
while I have little more than the common conveniences of life." _Et tibi
magni satis_!--Was it in order to raise a fortune that you consumed the
sprightly hours of youth in study and retirement? Was it to be rich that