great affair of business is entitled to honour,--it may be, to as
much as the artist who paints a picture, or the author who writes
a book, or the soldier who wins a battle. Their success may have
been gained in the face of as great difficulties, and after as
great struggles; and where they have won their battle, it is at
least a peaceful one, and there is no blood on their hands.

The idea has been entertained by some, that business habits are
incompatible with genius. In the Life of Richard Lovell
Edgeworth, (16) it is observed of a Mr. Bicknell--a respectable
but ordinary man, of whom little is known but that he married
Sabrina Sidney, the ELEVE of Thomas Day, author of 'Sandford and
Merton'--that "he had some of the too usual faults of a man of
genius: he detested the drudgery of business." But there cannot
be a greater mistake. The greatest geniuses have, without
exception, been the greatest workers, even to the extent of
drudgery. They have not only worked harder than ordinary men, but
brought to their work higher faculties and a more ardent spirit.
Nothing great and durable was ever improvised. It is only by
noble patience and noble labour that the masterpieces of genius
have been achieved.

Power belongs only to the workers; the idlers are always
powerless. It is the laborious and painstaking men who are the
rulers of the world. There has not been a statesman of eminence
but was a man of industry. "It is by toil," said even Louis XIV.,
"that kings govern." When Clarendon described Hampden, he spoke
of him as "of an industry and vigilance not to be tired out or
wearied by the most laborious, and of parts not to be imposed on
by the most subtle and sharp, and of a personal courage equal to