constant succession of tests. The stronger you are the more easily you will sustain these shocks, and you can only gain strength by welcoming criticism and recognising when it is true instead of ignoring it. The strong man thrives on criticism and opposition. The more he gets of them the more they enable him to strengthen himself, and he becomes strong because he uses them for his own purposes, while the weak man ignores them.

The greatest hindrance to ability is idleness. There are degrees of idleness. Not only are the loafers idle, but the man who wastes his time and effort is an idler also. If you delay until to-morrow something which you can do to-day, you deprive to-morrow of some of its power. If you waste time over work which you need not do, you deprive yourself of the power of achievement, which can come from well-directed action alone. The director of a vast organisation once said to me: "It is the continual effort which tells." Spasmodic bursts of energy do not accomplish so much in the end as the steady work which utilises every moment to make it productive of the fullest advantage.

Do not be content to aim high and to map out the road you must travel to reach your goal. You must map out painfully every foot of the way. This means that you must plan out your work for each day so that it may play its due part in ministering

to your progress. of each day to make a list of things which must be done on the morrow, and to be sure that when the morrow comes these things are done. By doing this you will make sure of progress instead of leaving it to chance. The fool trusts to luck, and leaves his work to take care of its own results. The wise man takes no chances. He plans ahead, and though things may not turn out just as he expects he makes his progress inevitable.

It is a good plan at the end

Days are made up of moments, and the day's work is made up of countless tasks. See that each moment is spent in profitable labour, and when you have finished one piece of work let your motto be, "What is the next thing?"

Business is not all of life, and these rules apply to life generally. Plan out your mental progress in the same way. If you want to be well read, make a list of books and see that you read them in a specified time, instead of reading haphazard. Read for a purpose, and have a definite end in view, and you will enjoy your reading all the more and obtain from it all that you want, which is education. Whatever study you take up, to develop the talents which give you pleasure, treat it in the same systematic fashion. It is better to give five minutes a day regularly to mind-improvement than to devote longer periods to it at intervals.

What is worth doing is worth doing well, and if a thing is not worth doing you ought not to waste time over it at all. Do everything as perfectly as you can, do everything for some purpose, and while you add to life's pleasures you will derive the unspeakable satisfaction of progress, which only comes from patient labour faithfully performed for the love of the working.

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CHAPTER XIV

USING YOUR FOUR EYES

To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, religion—all in one.”

OF

RUSKIN.

F late years one of the most impressive features of the theatre has been the splendour of its scenic effects. A new era has been inaugurated which at its inception left the spectator amazed with delight. The effects of dawn and sunset are reproduced on the stage with such fidelity that they stir up emotions within us, aided by the art of the actor and the witchery of music, that often affect us more strongly than the real manifestations of the wonders of Nature which are going on around us every day. In the theatre these things are forced upon our attention, and we realise their beauty, while the infinitely greater beauty of the real thing is unnoticed. People talk of the ineffable splendour of a sunrise on the mountains. A man once told me that the most magnificent sight he ever saw was a sunrise on the Straits of Gibraltar, when the sun literally rose up out of the sea, and little by little tinged the heavens and the waters with a

myriad diverse colours, sparkling, scintillating and blending into the majesty and wonder of the dawn.

We see with delight poor images of these things at the theatre, and do not heed them as they are spread before us across the wide spaces of earth and sky and water day by day. "Eyes have we, and we see not," because we have not trained our eyes to see. Suppose, for one moment, that the sky had always been grey and overcast since you were born, and that one summer evening a wind sprang up and the clouds dispersed, revealing the majesty of the firmament of stars and all the wonders of the heavens. Should you not realise that a miracle had happened? Yet how often do you look up and see with discerning eyes this inspiring and uplifting spectacle?

All the gifts of Nature are to be had for the asking. They are your right, but, like all gifts worth having, they must be striven for. You must train your eye to look for them and your brain to hear and understand. Then you will see how the earth can take on the form of Paradise, and will hear in its sounds the harmonies of heaven.

People grumble at the rain. They put up their umbrellas and with eyes fixed on the ground before them plod steadily on, complaining of the inconvenience. Look up! See how the reflection of the lamps on the wet roads paints a fairy picture that