than the acquisition of wealth, it would only be necessary to follow the rule by which some people guide their conduct in life, viz. "Get money, honestly if you can; but if you can't get it honestly, get it." Want of honesty and morality may in some isolated instances be no bar to acquiring mere wealth, but generally would be, more particularly in the case of employ

ees.

The same may be said of punctuality. Punctuality is a habit which indicates a great deal more than the simple facts of being at business in good time, keeping an appointment punctually, or making payments promptly; it is an indication of character, and as such should be carefully cultivated. It is, perhaps, quite unnecessary to lay stress upon the need of maintaining a character for honesty, sobriety, morality, and punctuality by those who are ambitious to rise to important positions in life.

There are, however, elements of character more subtle, less easy to cultivate, and yet which have tremendous influence in fixing the stratum of society to which a man is ultimately to rise or fall. Two of these are self-respect and thrift. With regard to self-respect it cannot be too strongly impressed that the chief means of gaining the respect of others is to respect one's self. But there is danger in both directions. Want of self-respect will soon bring one down, no matter how favorable other circumstances may be ; but in guarding against it, and it must be guarded against at all hazards, it is possible to go to the other extreme, and the production will be conceit and snobbery. There is, however, plenty of distance between Scylla and Charybdis; the one must be avoided, and it is well not to go too near the other. The moment self-respect becomes a negative quality there is great risk to the career, while as a positive quantity it may develop and increase considerably before it becomes injurious to success. By those whose standard of self-respect is low any higher standard than their own will be immediately dubbed conceit, and therefore judgment is required to fix the lines between want of self-respect and self-esteem carried to excess. This zone, for it cannot be described as a line, must not be fixed for us by others, but by ourselves, and the taunt of conceit must not be too readily taken to heart, for to carry self

respect too far is certainly to err in the right direction.

Another item of character which plays an important part in moulding the future is one's ideas regarding" standard of comfort" and expenditure. If a man makes up his mind to practise thrift, and if he considers that word a synonym for meanness, stinginess, and shabbiness, in order to save money, he has very little knowledge of the world. "Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves" is advice ill-suited to the requirements of modern life. Judicious ex. penditure has probably made more fortunes than saving and economy have; and even among those whose incomes are not large and whose resources are limited (clerks in banks and similar institutions, men in business, or budding professional men) the expenditure of a disproportionately large part of income on appearances, not personal appearance only, is frequently one of the very best investments that could be made with the money. Extravagance is not judicious expenditure, and usually indicates a weak point in one's character. A man who has no other merit will frequently rely upon reckless expenditure to obtain for him the character for liberality and the good opinion of his fellows.

The foregoing brief summary is perhaps sufficient to show to how large an extent success is dependent upon character. But a good character is hardly an active cause of success, although it is a condition necessary to success. Everybody is expected to be honest, sober, punctual, moral, and to possess self-respect; and, strictly speaking, there is no comparative or superlative of these qualities in their positive form. If one man is less honest than another, the former must be at least slightly dishonest. If a man is not very honest, he is not an honest man at all; and if not very sober, his sobriety becomes a negative quantity at once. But if honesty and sobriety are not active causes of success, on the other hand dishonesty, intemperance, and want of self-respect are very active causes of failure, and may exist in every state and stage from positive to superlative.

It would be impossible within the limits. of a magazine article to dwell at length upon each item of the component parts of the four classes into which the elements of success have been divided; indeed, to do so would probably result in a réchauffé of

stale platitudes. Having briefly glanced at the value of character, we now come to ability.

"Forti nihil difficile" was the adopted motto of Lord Beaconsfield, a man who rose to a very high pinnacle of fame and success by means principally of his abilities; not altogether by his abilities, for even the circumstance of being placed in a sphere in which he had the opportunity of distinguishing himself was not entirely due to his inherent merits, and so becomes luck. "To the strong nothing is difficult," was his somewhat conceited motto, and there is truth in the assertion; therefore it would be useful to the aspirants to success to know who are "the strong." What constitutes this strength which renders nothing difficult? It is special knowledge. "The strong" are those who have that knowledge, and who are not handicapped with adverse circumstances beyond their own control.

It must not be assumed that knowledge is a synonym for scholastic attainments. Scholastic attainments form a most valuable help to success, but it is well known that mere scholars, as a general rule, are not successful men of the world. The branch of knowledge which contributes most to success is that which Lord Beaconsfield possessed, a knowledge of men and of the ways of the world; and it could easily be shown by examples that when scholars have achieved success it has been because they have possessed some of the other elements of ability.

The constituent parts of ability for the purpose of advancing one's self in the world are natural talent, education or acquired ability, energy, discretion, address and manners, and self-assertion.

Natural talent is an accident of birth, and is undoubtedly a kind of luck, but it is also inherent merit. Natural talent seldom contributes to success except when it is cultivated, and when it is applied in a direction where it is appreciated, and when the person who possesses it knows how to let those to whom it is of value know that he does possess it. The process of cultivation of natural talent is called education, and it is only when education has made considerable progress that it is possible to discover what natural talents one possesses, and whether or not they are such as to be worth placing reliance upon to ensure a successful career.

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Talent, cultivated or uncultivated, if it is only of average quality, is financially of little value. It becomes of value when it is above the average, and its value then will be found to increase in a geometrical rather than an arithmetical progression. It is in this respect like diamonds or pearls, the relative values of large and small being out of all proportion to size, every increase in size adding to the price in a much greater ratio until, like the Koh-i-noor and other historical gems, they become of almost priceless value. So it is with talent and skill. A man may have a talent for music, and may have bestowed upon it considerable cultivation. Up to a point it will only afford recreation to himself and pleasure to his friends, and at the same time be of very little market value, even though a not very wide gulf divides him from professionals receiving fabulous sums for their services.

Special professional skill or knowledge has proportionally very much greater value than average knowledge. In professions like those of law and medicine, there is so much ground to cover and so much knowledge to acquire, that it is almost impossible in a lifetime to master every branch of the study, and to keep pace with the new Acts, judicial interpretations, or medical discoveries which each year produces. To attempt to master the whole would usually result in general knowledge and skill of only average quality. It is the specialist who makes a reputation and a fortune. The great secret of professional success is to possess some branch of the skill or knowledge in a greater degree than the average of those in the profession, and if possible beyond all others. It is better for the individual, and certainly better for humanity, that a medical man, for instance, should devote himself heart and soul to the investigation and study of someparticular form of disease, and thereby add to pre-existing knowledge, and be himself in request because of his special skill.

It goes without saying that those who have natural talents and education have an advantage over those who have not, other things being equal. It is because other things are not equal that men of education sometimes fail to succeed, and are pushed aside in the race of life by others whose scanty information and moderate attainments are compensated for by energy, discretion, and self-assertion.