cession,- first the habits, and secondly the in ward principle of order. One who should feel himself to be over-exciteable in the transaction of business, would do well to retard himself mechanically, "And by the body's action teach the mind" for the body is a handle to the mind in these as in other particulars. Thus he should never suffer himself to write in a hurried hand, but make a point of writing neatly and clearly whatever may be his haste, which practice will of itself secure to him some degree of patience and composure. The arrangement, tyeing up, and docketing of such papers as are before him, is a business which he should undertake himself, and not leave to his secretary; for a man cannot methodize the subject-matter of his business, without at the same time methodizing his own mind. Nor let him suppose that his time is thrown away on these light operations, but rather consider them as needful intermissions of labour; for to an active mind under high pressure there is hardly any rest by day, but that which is obtained through an easy engagement of the attention in a mechanical kind of employment. With a view to promote through calmness orderliness,—and with higher views also, though these have respect to the man rather than exclusively to the statesman,-it were to be wished that he should set apart from business, not only a sabbatical day in each week, but if it be possible a sabbatical hour in each day. I do not here refer to his devotional exercises exclusively, but to the advantage which he may derive from quitting the current of busy thoughts, and cutting out for himself in each day a sort of cell for reading or meditation, a space re sembling one of those bights' or incurvations in the course of a rapid stream (called by the Spaniards resting-places) where the waters seem to tarry and repose themselves for a while. This, if it were only by exercising the statesman's powers of self-government, of intention and remission in business, of putting the mind on and taking it off, would be a practice well paid; for it is to these powers that he must owe his exemption from the dangers to mind, body and business, of continued nervous excitement: But to a statesman of a high order of intellect, such intermissions of labour will yield a further profit; they will tend to preserve in him some remains of such philosophic or meditative faculties as may have been set aside by public life. One who shall have been deeply imbued in his early years with the love of meditative studies, will find that in any such hour of tranquillity which he shall allow himself, the recollection of them will spring up in his mind with a light and spiritual emanation, in like manner (to resume the similitude) as a bubble of air springs from the bottom of the stayed waters Ingenii redeunt fructus, aliique labores, "Et vitæ pars nulla perit; quodcunque recedit Claudian. Theod. Paneg. G 82 CHAPTER XII. CONCERNING CERTAIN POINTS OF PRACTICE. As fast as papers are received, the party who is to act upon them should examine them so far as to ascertain whether any of them relate to business which requires immediate attention, and should then separate and arrange them. But once so arranged, so that he knows to what subject of what urgency each paper or bundle relates, he should not again suffer himself to look at a paper or handle it, except in the purpose and with the determination to go through with it and dispatch the affair. For the practice of looking at papers and handling them without disposing of them, not only wastes the time so employed, but breeds an undue im |