been ignored," said an opponent, "simply because he is utterly lacking in self-assertion. He has a positive talent for effacing himself." "Why, sir," said John C. Calhoun in Yale College when a fellow student ridiculed his intense application to study; "I am forced to make the most of my time, that I may acquit myself creditably when in Congress." A laugh greeted this speech, when he exclaimed, "Do you doubt it? I assure you if I were not convinced of my ability to reach the national capital as a representative within the next three years, I would leave college this very day!" "What does Grattan say of himself?" said Curran, repeating the question of the egotistical Lord Erskine; "nothing. Grattan speak of himself! Why, sir, Grattan is a great man! Torture, sir, could not wring a syllable of self-praise from Grattan; a team of six horses could not drag an opinion of himself out of him! Like all great men, he knows the strength of his reputation, and will never condescend to proclaim its march like the trumpeter of a puppet show. Sir, he stands on a national altar, and it is the business of us inferior men to keep up the fire and incense. You will never see Grattan stooping to do either the one or the other." What seems to us disagreeable egotism in others is often but a strong expression of confidence in their ability to attain. Great men have usually had great confidence in themselves. Wordsworth felt sure of his place in history, and never hesitated to say so. Dante predicted his own fame. Kepler said it did not matter whether his contemporaries read his books or not. "I may well wait a century for a reader since God has waited 6000 years for an observer like myself." "Fear not," said Julius Cæsar to his pilot frightened in a storm; "thou bearest Cæsar and his good fortunes." Egotism, so common in men of rank, may be a necessity. Nature gives man large hope lest he falter before reaching the high mark she sets for him. So she has overloaded his egotism, often beyond the pleasing point, to make sure that he will persist in pushing his way upward. Self-confidence indicates reserve power. It may show that one feels equal to the occasion. Morally considered, it is usually safe to trust those who can trust themselves, but when a man suspects his own integrity, it is time he was suspected by others. Moral degradation always begins at home. Did not Napoleon I., when he was a poor sub-lieutenant, believe that within him lay capacities enough to shake a world ? In this busy world, men have no time to hunt about in obscure corners for retiring merit. They prefer to take a man at his own estimate until he proves himself unworthy. The world admires courage and manliness, and despises a young man who goes about "with an air of perpetual apology for the unpardonable sin of being in the world." "If a man possesses the consciousness of what he is," said Schelling, "he will soon also learn what he ought to be; let him have a theoretical respect for himself, and a practical will soon follow." A person under the firm persuasion that he can command resources virtu. ally has them. "Humility is the part of wisdom, and is most becoming in men," said Kossuth; "but let no one discourage self-reliance; it is, of all the rest, the greatest quality of true manliness." Froude wrote: "A tree must be rooted in the soil before it can bear flowers or fruit. A man must learn to stand upright upon his own feet, to respect himself, to be independent of charity or accident. It is on this basis only that any superstructure of intellectual cultivation worth having can possibly be built." A youth should have that self-respect which lifts him above meanness, and makes him independent of slights and snubs. Never chase a lie. Let it alone, and it will run itself to death. "I can work out a good character much faster than any one can lie me out of it," said Lyman Beecher. "There is a kind of elevation which does not depend on fortune," says La Rochefoucauld. "It is a certain air which distinguishes us, and seems to destine us for great things; it is a price which we imperceptibly set on ourselves. By this quality we usurp the deference of other men, and it puts us, in general, more above them than birth, dignity, or even merit itself.” "It is only shallow-minded pretenders," said Webster, "who make either distinguished origin a matter of personal merit, or obscure origin a matter of personal reproach. A man who is not ashamed of himself need not be ashamed of his early condition. It did happen to me to be born in a log-cabin, raised amid the snowdrifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early that, when the smoke first rose from its rude chimney and curled over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence of white man's habitation between it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada. "Its remains still exist; I make it an annual visit. I carry my children to it, and teach them the hardships endured by the generations before them. I love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affections, and the narrations and incidents which mingle with all I know of this primitive family abode. I weep to think that none who then inhabited it are now among the living; and if ever I fail in affectionate veneration for him who raised it, and defended it against savage violence and destruction, cherished all domestic comforts beneath its roof, and through the fire and blood of seven years' revolutionary war shrunk from no toil, no sacrifice to serve his country, and to raise his children to a condition better than his own, may my name and the name of my posterity be blotted from the memory of mankind." "I have studied all my law books," said Curran, pleading, "and cannot find a single case where the principle contended for by the opposing counsel is established." "I suspect, sir," interrupted Judge Robinson, who owed his position to his authorship of several poorly written, but sycophantic and scurrilous pamphlets, "I suspect that your law library is rather contracted." "It is true, my lord, that I am poor," said the young lawyer calmly, looking the judge steadily in the face; "and the circumstance has rather curtailed my library. My books are not numerous, but they are select, and I hope have been perused with proper dispositions. I have prepared myself for this high profession rather by the study of a few good books, than by the composition of a great many bad ones. I am not ashamed of my poverty, but I should be of my wealth, could I stoop to acquire it by servility and corruption. If I rise not to rank, I shall at least be honest. And should I ever cease to be so, many an example shows me that an ill-acquired elevation, by making me the more conspicuous, would only make me the more universally and the more notoriously contemptible." Judge Robinson never again sneered at the young barrister. "Self-reliance is a grand element of character," says Michael Reynolds. "It has won Olympic crowns and Isthmian laurels; it confers kinship with men who have vindicated their divine right to be held in the world's memory." Self-confidence and self-respect give a sense of power which nothing else can bestow. The weak, the leaning, the dependent, the vacillating the undecided, "Know not, nor ever can, the generous pride |