So far as either happiness or success is concerned it makes no difference, in nine cases out of ten, what business or profession a young man adopts, so that it is suitable to his education and social position. The rare exceptions are where there is some strong natural bent or aptitude; and even then the pursuit of it is more likely to bring enjoyment than money. Men are about equally fitted by nature for all the ordinary avocations of life, and the choice of a business is less important than is generally believed. That is not where the secret of success and happiness lies. It lies in learning to practice one’s trade or profession as an art, to like it for its own sake, to derive a considerable portion of our pleasure from its pursuit, to have, as the French say, our heart in it, _Avoir le cœur au métier_. But how is this possible, one will ask, with the drudgery of the counting house, or the mill, or the harvest field, or the Court of Quarter Sessions? It is possible with any avocation, if one will take the trouble to think about it as one of the manifold branches of human industry, to study its relations to other branches and to the lives and fates of human beings, to try to improve it, and to learn its attractions for those who do like it, and endeavor to enter into their feelings. Every occupation has some such attractions and some such possibilities. Those who are willing to see and seize them are those who derive both solid enjoyment and substantial rewards from their work. Another secret lies in the cultivation of a sort of analogy or harmony between our mental disposition and the occurrences and surroundings in which our obligatory labor places us. This is quite within our own power to effect by the voluntary control of our thoughts. Why busy our imaginations and disturb our minds with dreaming of the pleasures of foreign travel when we know we have to stay at home and work ten hours a day? Far better occupy ourselves with the interests around us and the easily attainable pleasures within our reach. Have no fear that this course is narrowing or lowering. There are no nobler games than those which can be played on any village lawn, and the hyssop on your garden wall, could you read it, would teach you the laws of all organic nature. The considerations which should have weight in the choice of avocation are less those of capacity or inclination, since these differ little and can readily be cultivated, than those referred to on an earlier page which relate to health, bodily and mental. It is not necessary to be very clever to succeed in business; only a little more clever than those around you. But it is necessary to have your health; for in the struggle for bread, the weak are thrust to the wall without remorse. No one who chooses wisely will select a business which will aggravate an hereditary or acquired malady. It is more satisfactory to be honor-man of a lower class, than come in at the tail-end of a higher one.