CHAPTER VII.
FOUNDATION STONES.
In all matters, before beginning, a diligent preparation should be made.
-- CICERO.
How great soever a genius may be, ...

certain it is that he will never shine in his full lustre, nor shed the full influence he is capable of, unless to his own experience he adds that of other men and other ages.
-- BOLINGBROKE.
It is for want of the little that human means must add to the wonderful capacity for improvement, born in man, that by far the greatest part of the intellect, innate in our race, perishes undeveloped and unknown.
-- EDWARD EVERETT.
If any man fancies that there is some easier way of gaining a dollar than by squarely earning it, he has lost his clue to his way through this mortal labyrinth and must henceforth wander as chance may dictate.
-- HORACE GREELEY.
What we do upon some great occasion will probably depend on what we already are; and what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline.
-- H.

P.LIDDON.
Learn to labor and to wait.
-- LONGFELLOW.
"What avails all this sturdiness ?" asked an oak tree which had grown solitary for two hundred years, bitterly handled by frosts and wrestled by winds.

"Why am I to stand here useless?
My roots are anchored in rifts of rocks; no herds can lie down under my shadow; I am far above singing birds, that seldom come to rest among my leaves; I am set as a mark for storms, that bend and tear me; my fruit is serviceable for no appetite; it had been better for me to have been a mushroom, gathered in the morning for some poor man's table, than to be a hundred-year oak, good for nothing." While it yet spoke, the axe was hewing at its base.

It died in sadness, saying as it fell, "Weary ages for nothing have I lived." The axe completed its work.