TALENT.—It is a common cry that those who succeed best in life are the dullest people, and that talent is too fine a quality for common pursuits. There cannot be a greater fallacy than this. It may be true that some decidedly stupid people succeed through the force of a dogged resolution, which hardly any man of superior genius could have submitted to. But I am disposed to dispute, in a great measure, the existence of talent, where I do not find it at once productive of superior address in ordinary affairs, and attended by a magnanimity which elevates the possessor above all paltry and vicious actions. The genius which only misleads its possessor from the paths of prudence, or renders him a ridiculous and intolerable member of society, is too much allied to Bedlam to be taken into account; and in reality, there is nowhere so much of what is called genius as in the madhouses.[6] The imputation of dulness to a man who has prospered in life, will be found by impartial inquirers, in nine cases out of ten, to be a mere consolatory appliance to the self-love of one who has neither had the talent nor the morality to prosper in life himself. Let every man, then, who possesses this gift, rejoice in it with all his heart, and seek by every means to give it proper guidance and direction. APPLICATION is another of the indispensable requisites. Detached efforts, though they may individually be great, can never tell so well in the aggregate as a regular and constant exertion, where the doings of one day fortify and improve the doings of the preceding, and lead on with certainty to the better doings of the next. It is not economical to work by fits and starts; more exertion is required, by that system, for a certain end, than what is necessary in the case of a continuous effort, and thus the irregular man is apt to fall far behind his rivals. Men of ability are apt to despise application as a mean and grubbing qualification—which is only a piece of overweening self-love on their part, and likely to be the very means of frustrating all the proper results of their ability. On the other hand, the industrious man is apt to despair for want of ability—not seeing that the clever fellows are liable to the weakness we describe, which causes them to be constantly giving way in the race to mere plodders. Besides, while few faults are more common than an over-estimation of one’s self, it is equally obvious that many men only discover their abilities by chance, and that all of us possess latent powers, which might be turned to good account, if we only knew and had confidence in them. No man, therefore, should be too easily dashed on the subject of his abilities. He should try, and, with the aid of a persevering industry, he may do wonders such as he never dreamt of.