"Here, as everywhere in the field of man's life, there enters that element of sacrifice without which no real achievement is possible. To secure a great end, one must be willing to pay a great price. The exact adjustment of achievement to sacrifice makes us aware, at every step, of the invisible spiritual order with which all men are in every kind of endeavour. If the highest skill could be secured without long and painful effort, it would be wasted through ignorance of its value, or misused through lack of education; but a man rarely attains great skill without undergoing a discipline of self-denial and work which gives him steadiness, restraint, and a certain kind of character. The giving up of pleasures which are wholesome, the turning aside from fields which are inviting, the steady refusal of invitations and claims which one would be glad to accept or recognise, invest the power of concentration with moral quality, and throw a searching light on the nature of genuine success. "To do one thing well, a man must be willing to hold all other interests and activities subordinate; to attain the largest freedom, a man must first bear the cross of self-denial." Concentration FEBRUARY 8 "Strive constantly to concentrate yourself; never dissipate your powers; incessant activity, of whatever kind, leads finally to bankruptcy." GOETHE. "All impatience disturbs the circulation, scatters force, makes concentration difficult if not impossible." C. B. NEWCOMB. "They have great powers, and they waste them pitifully, for they have not the greatest power,--the power to rule the use of their powers." F. W. ROBERTSON. "Concentration is the secret of strength." EMERSON. Readiness FEBRUARY 9 "To know how to be ready--a great thing--a precious gift,--and one that implies calculation, grasp and decision. To be always ready, a man must be able to cut a knot, for everything cannot be untied; he must know how to disengage what is essential from the detail in which it is enwrapped, for everything cannot be equally considered; in a word, he must be able to simplify his duties, his business, and his life. To know how to be ready, is to know how to start. "It is astonishing how all of us are generally cumbered up with the thousand and one hindrances and duties which are not such, but which nevertheless wind us about with their spider threads and fetter the movement of our wings. It is the lack of order which makes us slaves; the confusion of to-day discounts the freedom of to-morrow.