you have done has been done in vain. This is a matter of great moment;
for out of every ten, who undertake this task, there are, perhaps, nine
who abandon it in despair; and this, too, merely for the want of
resolution to overcome the first approaches of weariness. The most
effectual means of security against this mortifying result is to lay
down a rule to write or to read a certain fixed quantity _every day_,
Sunday excepted. Our minds are not always in the same state; they have
not, at all times, the same elasticity; to-day we are full of hope on
the very same grounds which, to-morrow, afford us no hope at all: every
human being is liable to those flows and ebbs of the mind; but, if
reason interfere, and bid you _overcome the fits of lassitude_, and
almost mechanically to go on without the stimulus of hope, the buoyant
fit speedily returns; you congratulate yourself that you did not yield
to the temptation to abandon your pursuit, and you proceed with more
vigour than ever. Five or six triumphs over temptation to indolence or
despair lay the foundation of certain success; and, what is of still
more importance, fix in you the _habit of perseverance_.

47. If I have bestowed a large portion of my space on this topic, it has
been because I know, from experience as well as from observation, that
it is of more importance than all the other branches of book-learning
put together. It gives you, when you possess it thoroughly, a real and
practical superiority over the far greater part of men. How often did I
experience this even long before I became what is called an author! The
_Adjutant_, under whom it was my duty to act when I was a Serjeant
Major, was, as almost all military officers are, or at least _were_, a
very illiterate man, perceiving that every sentence of mine was in the
same form and manner as sentences in _print_, became shy of letting me
see pieces of _his_ writing. The writing of _orders_, and other things,
therefore, fell to me; and thus, though no nominal addition was made to