Commerce, in our day, is the high road to wealth. You must begin at the bottom, and work your way up to the top. It is not talent that makes a man succeed in business, but the intense determination which carries a man through every obstacle till the desired end is attained. It was thus George Moore became a great man. The first elements in his character were simplicity and directness. He was prompt, energetic, precise; doing at once what he had to do. He never cavilled about trifles. There was no shuffling about him—no humbug. The only thing he could not tolerate was the drone. He held strong opinions on most subjects, and he adhered to them firmly. He never did anything by halves; he went into it body and soul, with the whole of his nature; he went straight to the point. When he had settled a thing he left it as something done; when two sides of a question were presented to him, he was quick to decide, and he was usually right in his decision. Dr. Smiles writes—“The successful merchant is not merely the man who is most fertile in commercial combinations, but the man who acts upon his judgment with the greatest promptitude.” Mr. Crampton, George Moore’s partner, says—“I never knew him make a mistake in judgment.” Another fact to be observed is, that it is the country lads who, as a rule, are the most successful. At first they fail in accuracy, and quickness, and promptitude. They are slow compared with town-bred boys. “The City boy,” writes Dr. Smiles, “scarcely grows up; he is rushed up; he lives amid a constant succession of excitements, one obliterating another. It is very different with the country boy; he is much slower in arriving at his maturity than the town boy, but he is greater when he reaches it; he is hard and uncouth at first, whereas the town boy is worn smooth by perpetual friction, like the pebbles in a running stream. The country boy learns a great deal, though he may seem to be unlearned; he knows a good deal about nature, and a great deal about men. He has had time to grow. His brainpower is held in reserve; hence the curious fact, that, in course of time, the country-bred boy passes the City-bred boy, and rises to the highest positions in London life. Look at all the great firms, and you will find that the greater number of the leading partners are those who originally were country-bred boys. The young man bred in the country never forgets his origin.” “There is,” says Rochefoucauld, “a country accent, not in his speech only, but in his thought, conduct, character, and manner of existing, which never forsakes him.”