decrease, as further experience shows you the numerous modes of failure,
the thousand tender points in which you may be assailed by the world
without.

Be assured that your only hope of safety is in an early and persevering
struggle, accompanied by faith in final victory,--without that who can
have strength for conflict? Do not treat your boasted intellect so
depreciatingly as to doubt its power of giving you successful aid in
your triumph over difficulties. What has been done may be done
again,--why not by you?

Nothing is more interesting (and also imposing) than to see a strong
mind evidently struggling against, and obtaining a victory over, the
shyness of its animal nature. The appreciative observer pays it, at the
same time, the involuntary homage which always attends success, and the
still deeper respect due to those who having been thus "Cæsar unto
themselves,"[64] are also sure, in time, to conquer all external things.

In conclusion, I must remind you that your life has, as yet, flowed on
in a smooth and untroubled course, so that you cannot from experience be
at all aware of the much greater future necessity there may be for those
habits of self-control which I am now urging upon you. But though no
overwhelming shocks, no stunning surprises, have, as yet, disturbed the
"even tenor of your way," it cannot be always thus. Alas! the time must
come when sorrows will pour in upon you like a flood, when you will be
called upon for rapid decisions, for far-sighted and comprehensive
arrangements, for various exercises of the coolest, calmest judgment, at
the very moment that present anguish and anxiety for the future are
raising whirlwinds of clouds around your mental vision. If you are not
now acquiring the power of self-control in minor affairs by managing