GETTING ON IN THE WORLD.

CHAPTER I.

SUCCESS AND FAILURE.

Let every man be occupied, and occupied in the highest employment of which his nature is capable, and die with the consciousness that he has done his best. SYDNEY SMITH.

Men must know that in this theatre of man's life it remaineth only to God and angels to be lookers-on. - BACON.

Toil alone could not have produced the "Paradise Lost" or the "Principia." The born dwarf never grows to the middle size. - REV. R. A. WILLMOTT.

The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, without a thought of fame. - HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

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IN attending a concert in one of our large cities, did you ever

observe the wide chasm that separates the first and second violinists of the orchestra? One is all pomp, fire, bustle, enthusiasm, energy. Now waving his bow high in the air, he silently guides the harmony; now rapidly tapping on the rest-board, he hurries the movement; and again, bringing the violin to his shoulder, he takes the leading strain, and high above the crash of sound, above the shrill blast of the trumpet, the braying of horns, the ear-piercing notes of the fife, the sobbing of oboes, the wailing of violoncellos, and all the thunders of the orchestra, are heard, distinct and clear, the shrieking notes of the first violin. Dressed in unimpeachable broadcloth, with kids and linen of immaculate purity, stamping his feet, wagging his head, nodding earnestly to the right and to the left, and beating time with mad energy, he enters heart and

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soul into the music, oblivious of all things else; and all because he is the leader, and plays the first violin. Standing by his side, but upon a lower platform, and before a lower music-rest, is a patient, careworn man, who saws quietly on the strings, with the air rather of the hired laborer than of the enthusiast. His eye you never see in a fine frenzy rolling, glancing from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, nor does his facile hand run off in roulades of melody; he never wags his head, nor stamps his foot, nor labors to wreak his thoughts upon expression; but steadily and conscientiously he pours a rich undercurrent of harmony into the music, which few hear, fewer care for, but without which, losing the charm of contrast, it would be as dreary as the droning of a bagpipe, as monotonous as a picture which is all lights and no shadows. With his eye fixed on the notes, he scrapes away with diligence, not with enthusiasm; he is moved, not by the inspiration of a master, but by the reflection that he is exchanging his notes for dollars, and that, with each quaver, he earns so much bread and butter for his family. Yet this automaton — this musical machine, that plays its part so mechanically, with apparently as little interest in the result as Babbage's calculating-machine in the solution of a mathematical problem- may have been endowed by nature with as much genius and fire as that thundering Jupiter of the orchestra, the leader; but, alas! he plays second fiddle.

The world is an orchestra, and men are players. All of us are playing some part in the production of life's harmony, some wielding the baton, and fired by the sympathy of lookerson; others feeling that they are but second fiddles, humbled by conscious inferiority, and drudging on as the treadmill horse plods through his monotonous task. Our object will be, in this series of papers, to show the reason of this inequality, and especially how, whether one plays first or second fiddle, or is gifted with talents that qualify him only to strike the cymbals or beat the drum, he may magnify his calling, and act well his part, "where all the honor lies."

We purpose, in this volume, to discuss the subject of success in life; or, in other words, to answer the question which every young man, as he enters upon his career of self-dependence, is likely to ask of himself or others, "How shall I get on in the world?" The theme is as old as the human race, yet, though volumes have been written on it, it is still new to each successive generation, and assuming, as it does, new phases with the ceaseless changes in society, must be inexhaustible. Out of the thousand topics which it offers for consideration, we shall select only those of vital interest, just notions of which are indispensable to every young man who would act well his part in the great drama of life. To the mass of men, and especially to those who are about embarking on the voyage of active life, no theme can be of deeper interest than this. A man sailing on that voyage has been compared to a vessel of war leaving port under sealed orders. He knows not, but as the ways of Providence are disclosed, to what ports he must go, or on what seas he must sail. The dangers of the voyage—the sunken reefs, the icebergs, or the stormy capes, which may be his ruin-are unknown. Through perilous storms and treacherous calms must he steer his unknown course, nor is there any exact chart laid down for the voyage. No man ever sailed over exactly the same route that another sailed over before him; every man who starts on the ocean of life arches his sails to an untried breeze. Like Coleridge's mariner, “he is the first that ever burst into that lonely sea."

In looking about among the circle of our acquaintances, we are surprised to see how few have made the voyage successfully, that fewer still have reached the ports for which they sailed. Many a shallop, which sailed out of harbor noiselessly and unnoticed, has anchored at last safely in port; many a noble argosy, freighted with precious hopes, and launched with streamers flying, amid the salvos of artillery and the huzzas of thousands, has sunk beneath the waves. To what impotent conclusions, indeed, do young men of brilliant parts frequently come! What becomes of the foremost boy at the academy,