Page:Self-help with illustrations of conduct and perseverance (IA selfhelpwithillu00smiliala).pdf/192

 round of his patients. Dr. Darwin composed nearly all his works in the same way while driving about in his "sulky" from house to house in the country,—writing down his thoughts on little scraps of paper, which he carried about with him for the purpose. Hale wrote his 'Contemplations' while travelling on circuit. Dr. Burney learnt French and Italian while travelling on horseback from one musical pupil to another in the course of his profession. Kirke White learnt Greek while walking to and from a lawyer's office; and we personally know a man of eminent position who learnt Latin and French while going messages as an errand-boy in the streets of Manchester.

Daguesseau, one of the great Chancellors of France, by carefully working up his odd bits of time, wrote a bulky and able volume in the successive intervals of waiting for dinner, and Madame de Genlis composed several of her charming volumes while waiting for the princess to whom she gave her daily lessons. Elihu Burritt attributed his first success in self-improvement, not to genius, which he disclaimed, but simply to the careful employment of those invaluable fragments of time called "odd moments." While working and earning his living as a blacksmith, he mastered some eighteen ancient and modern languages, and twenty-two European dialects.

What a solemn and striking admonition to youth is that inscribed on the dial at All Souls, Oxford—"Pereunt et imputantur"—the hours perish, and are laid to our charge. Time is the only little fragment of Eternity that belongs to man; and, like life, it can never be recalled. "In the dissipation of worldly treasure," says Jackson of Exeter,