“Do not scatter your powers.—Engage in one kind of business only, and stick to it faithfully until you succeed, or until you conclude to abandon it. A constant hammering on one nail will generally drive it home at last, so that it can be clinched. When a man’s undivided attention is centered on one object, his mind will continually be suggesting improvements of value, which would escape him if his brain were occupied by a dozen different subjects at once. Many a fortune has slipped through men’s fingers by engaging in too many occupations at once.

“Engage proper employees.—Never employ a man of bad habits when one whose habits are good can be found to fill his situation. I have generally been extremely fortunate in having faithful and competent persons to fill the responsible situations in my business; and a man can scarcely be too grateful for such a blessing. When you find a man unfit to fill his station, either from incapacity or peculiarity of character or disposition, dispense with his services, and do not drag out a miserable existence in the vain attempt to change his nature. It is utterly impossible to do so, ‘You cannot make a silk purse,’ &c. He has been created for some other sphere; let him find and fill it.”

If you wish to succeed in society, and be known as a man who converses well, you must cultivate your memory. Do not smile and tell me that this is a gift, not an acquirement. It is true that some people have naturally a more retentive memory than others, but those naturally most deficient may strengthen their powers by cultivation.

Cultivate, therefore, this glorious faculty, by storing and exercising it with trains of imagery. Accustom yourselves to look at any natural object, and then consider how many facts and thoughts may be associated with it—how much of poetic imagery and refined combinations. Follow out this idea, and you will find that imagination, which is too often in youth permitted to build up castles in the air, tenantless as they are unprofitable, will become, if duly exercised, a source of much enjoyment. I was led into this train of thought while walking in a beautiful country, and seeing before me a glorious rainbow, over-arching the valley which lay in front. And not more quickly than its appearance, came to my remembrance an admirable passage in the “Art of Poetic Painting,” wherein the author suggests the great mental advantage of exercising the mind on all subjects, by considering—

And while thus thinking, I remembered that the ingenious author has instanced the rainbow as affording a variety of illustrations, and capable, in the imagery which it suggests, of numerous combinations. Thus:

THE HUES OF THE RAINBOW

Tinted the green and flowery banks of the stream;
Tinged the white blossoms of the apple orchards;
Shed a beauteous radiance on the grass;
Veiled the waning moon and the evening star;
Over-arched the mist of the waterfall;
Reminded the looker-on of peace opposed to turbulence.
And illustrated the moral that even the most beautiful things of earth must pass away.

Every book you read, every natural object which meets your view, may be the exercise of memory, be made to furnish food both for reflection and conversation, enjoyment for your own solitary hours, and the means of making you popular in society. Believe me, the man who—“saw it, to be sure, but really forgot what it looked like,” who is met every day in society, will not be sought after as will the man, who, bringing memory and fancy happily blended to bear upon what he sees, can make every object worthy of remark familiar and interesting to those who have not seen it.

If you have leisure moments, and what man has not? do not consider them as spare atoms of time to be wasted, idled away in profitless lounging. Always have a book within your reach, which you may catch up at your odd minutes. Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence. If you can give fifteen minutes a day, it will be felt at the end of the year. Thoughts take up no room. When they are right they afford a portable pleasure, which one may travel or labor with without any trouble or incumbrance.