same. Those who are already in the profession must take their chances."

In this joke of the newspapers there is a sound philosophy. Men of purpose
never overcrowd. The crowd is around the foot of the staircase waiting for
the elevator.

The old traveller, Rafinesque, tells us that when he was a boy he read the
voyages of Captain Cook, Le Vaillant, Pallas, and Bougainville, and "my
soul was fired to be a great traveller like them, and so I became such," he
adds shortly.

If you say to yourself: "I will be a traveller, a statesman, an engineer;"
if you never unsay it; if you bend all your powers in that direction; if
you take advantage of all helps that come in your way and reject all that
do not, you will sometime reach your goal. For the world turns aside to let
any man pass who knows whither he is going.

"Why should we call ourselves men," said Mirabeau, "unless it be to succeed
in everything, everywhere. Say of nothing: 'This is beneath me,' nor feel
that anything is beyond your power, for nothing is impossible to the man
who can will."

Do not say that I am expecting too much of the effects of a firm
resolution, that I give advice which would lead to failure. For the man who
will fail will never take a resolution. Those among you whom fate has cut
out to be nobodies are the ones who will never try!

Even harmless pleasures hurt if they win you from your purpose. Lorimer's
old merchant writes to his son at Harvard: "You will meet fools enough in
the day without hunting up the main herd at night." This plain business