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who flatten their heads, in obedience to custom; but are these checks upon physical growth half so contemptible as those put in civilized countries upon intellectual by the despotism of public opinion? Are we entitled to contemn the South-Sea Islander, who tattoos his face, while we bow slavishly to customs in dress that not only disfigure the person, but are destructive to health and comfort, and do every act with mental reference to "Mrs. Grundy," saying of her, as Cob did of Bobadil, "I do honor the very flea of her dog"? Mr. J. S. Mill, in his work on 66 Liberty," says, truly, that in this age the man who dares to think for himself and to act independently, does a service to the race. "Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has always been proportioned to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time."

CHAPTER VII.

ORIGINALITY IN AIMS AND METHODS.

"The powers of man have not been exhausted. Nothing has been done by him that cannot be better done. There is no effort of science or art that may not be exceeded; no depth of philosophy that cannot be deeper sounded; no flight of imagination that may not be passed by strong and soaring wing."

Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much. There is at this moment for you an utterance brave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias, or trowel of the Egyptians, or the pen of Moses or Dante, but different from all these. — R. W. EMERSON.

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(LOSELY connected with self-reliance is another prerequisite to success, namely, originality in one's aims and methods, or the avoidance of imitation. For this purpose, it is well to cultivate some specialty. Find some new want of society, some fertile source of profit or honor, some terra incognita of business, whose virgin soil is yet unbroken, and there stick and grow. Specialties are the open sesame to wealth; therefore, whatever you deal in, whether groceries or speeches, bricks or law arguments, must be, or seem to be, phenomenal. Whether above or below mediocrity, they should be unique and exceptional. Byron satirizes certain namby-pamby rhymes as "so middling, bad were better"; and the sarcasm applies to all things that are "tolerable, and therefore not to be endured." That many-headed monster, the public, like the dervishes who replenished Aladdin's exchequer, requires, in this sensational age, to be forcibly struck before it will part with its silver. To get rid of your wares, whether material, or immaterial, dry goods or professional advice, silks and calicoes or "mouthfuls of spoken wind," you must get your name into everybody's ears, and into everybody's mouth; and to do this, there's nothing like a specialty.

Alexandre, of Paris, made "kid" gloves his specialty, and now his trade-mark imparts to manufactured ratskins a value incommunicable by any other talisman. William and Robert Chambers devoted their energies to the production of cheap books and periodicals, and their wealth is counted by millions. Faber has fabricated pencils till he has literally made his mark in every land, and proved the truth of the aphorism, "Quisque suæ fortunæ faber." The genius of the great Dr. Brandreth ran to pills and internal improvements, and now his name and fame are as intimately and immortally connected with the alimentary canal as Clinton's with the Erie. Mason gave his whole soul to the invention of good blacking, and now his name shines like a pair of boots to which it has been applied. Herring has salamandered himself into celebrity, and Tobias has ticked his way to fame and fortune. Stewart has made bales of dry-goods his stepping-stones to the proud position of a millionnaire, becoming at once the Croesus and the Colossus of the trade; and Bonner, advertising by the acre, and tracking genius where Ever-ett goes, has discovered a new way of reaping golden harvests from the overworked soil of journalism.

The extent to which originality-a little thinking-may enable one who has a specialty to coin money in his business, was strikingly illustrated some years ago in the brass-clock business. One of the oldest and most noted manufacturers, wishing to keep his name perpetually before the public, contrived to do so by a succession of improvements, many of them exceedingly slight, which he invariably made known through the newspapers. Sometimes he added a new cog, or wheel or two, or altered the arrangement of the old ones; sometimes the case was slightly remodelled. Now, the face was painted in a very striking manner; and, next, an added hammer was made to strike. This month his clocks were made to run eight days; the next, fifteen; then, thirty-one, or only four-and-twenty hours. No matter how trifling the change, it was invariably blazoned in all the leading public prints. By this artifice he created a ready market for all his manufactures,

and became the most celebrated clock-maker in the land, though all the while scarcely a step was taken in the invention of a new principle or even in the improvement of an old one.

Mix brains, then, with your business, if you would succeed, as Opie, the painter, did with his colors. Throw open the windows of your mind to new ideas, and keep, at least, abreast of the times, if possible, ahead of them. Nothing is more fatal to self-advancement than a stupid conservatism, or servile imitation. In these days of intense competition, if you would achieve a high success you must think for yourself, and, above all, cultivate pliableness and versatility. The days when a man could get rich by plodding on, without enterprise and without taxing his brains, have gone by. Mere industry and economy are not enough; there must be intelligence and original thought. Quick-witted Jacks always get ahead of the slow-witted giants. Whatever your calling, inventiveness, adaptability, promptness of decision, must direct and utilize your force; and if you cannot find markets, you must make them. In business, you need not know many books, but you must know your trade and men; you may be slow at logic, but you must dart at a chance like a robin at a worm. You may stick to your groove in politics and religion; but in your business you must switch into new tracks, and shape yourself to every exigency. We emphasize this matter, because in no country is the red-tapist so out of place as here. Every calling is filled with bold, keen, subtle-witted men, fertile in expedients and devices, who are perpetually inventing new ways of buying cheaply, underselling, or attracting custom; and the man who sticks doggedly to the old-fashioned methods who runs in a perpetual rut — will find himself outstripped in the race of life, if he is not stranded on the sands of popular indifference. Keep, then, your eyes open and your wits about you, and you may distance all competitors; but ignore all new methods, and you will find yourself like a lugger contending with an ocean racer.

Although the Americans are famous the world over for their inventiveness, yet there is no people on whose cranium the

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organ of imitation is so prominent as on ours. We are not the only people who "run everything into the ground"; but we certainly do it more generally, and with greater rapidity, than any other nation on the globe. No matter what branch of business is started, — from the manufacture of pills or matches to that of sewing-machines or watches, from the ice-trade to the traffic in guano or Japanese goods, the moment business is discovered to be profitable, it is rushed into by thousands and tens of thousands, till a reaction follows, and it is ruined. How many times have we seen the lumbering business, both East and West, from a state of ordinary activity, which yielded a handsome profit to those engaged in it, swelled to enormous proportions, prices raised, lands changing owners at fast rising rates, thousands plunging into it who hardly knew hemlock from pine, new sawmills going up on every mill-site, and old ones running day and night, — the market glutted, when suddenly the bubble burst, bankrupting all concerned ! How many times have we seen the ship-building business swell and collapse with the same suddenness and disaster! Men who did not know halyards from shrouds, or a jibboom from a tiller, have again and again taken up their investments in stocks and mortgages, even borrowed money on accommodation paper, in their mad haste to share in the fabulous profits made by navigation. So with other branches of business; at one time the tide sets toward the raising of morus multicaulis,

at another, the heads of the entire community are turned by reports of gold-mines, and, at another, by the fortunes made out of wool or oil. To-day some shrewd Yankee starts a “gift” bookstore, and immediately all the newspapers in the land are flooded with advertisements of gift enterprises. To-morrow another sharp Yankee conceives the idea of a "dollar store"; and, the hit proving a lucky one, there is instantly a stampede from all the other branches of trade to the "dollar-store" business, till it is so overdone as to be worthless.

The same tendency to avail ourselves of other men's wits is seen in the names of our hotels, of which some, as Tremont,

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