than to scratch around in all the anxieties of a retail business.  Many men who would make very respectable Presidents of the United States could not successfully run a retail grocery store.  The anxieties of the grocery would wear them out.  For consider the varied ability that the grocery requires-the foresight about the markets, to take advantage of an eighth per cent. off or on here and there; the vigilance required to keep a “full line” and not overstock, to dispose of goods before they spoil or the popular taste changes; the suavity and integrity and duplicity and fairness and adaptability needed to get customers and keep them; the power to bear the daily and hourly worry; the courage to face the ever-present spectre of “failure,” which is said to come upon ninety merchants in a hundred; the tact needed to meet the whims and the complaints of patrons, and the difficulty of getting the patrons who grumble most to pay in order to satisfy the creditors.  When the retail grocer wakens in the morning he feels that his business is not going to come to him spontaneously; he thinks of his rivals, of his perilous stock, of his debts and delinquent customers.  He has no “Constitution” to go by, nothing but his wits and energy to set against the world that day, and every day the struggle and the anxiety are the same.  What a number of details he has to carry in his head (consider, for instance, how many different kinds of cheese there are, and how different people hate and love the same kind), and how keen must be his appreciation of the popular taste.  The complexities and annoyances of his business are excessive, and he cannot afford to make many mistakes; if he does he will lose his business, and when a man fails in business (honestly), he loses his nerve, and his career is ended.  It is simply amazing, when you consider it, the amount of talent shown in what are called the ordinary businesses of life.

It has been often remarked with how little wisdom the world is governed.  That is the reason it is so easy to govern.  “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” does not refer to the discomfort of wearing it, but to the danger of losing it, and of being put back upon one’s native resources, having to run a grocery or to keep school.  Nobody is in such a pitiable plight as a monarch or politician out of business.  It is very difficult for either to get a living.  A man who has once enjoyed the blessed feeling of awaking every morning with the thought that he has a certain salary despises the idea of having to drum up a business by his own talents.  It does not disturb the waking hour at all to think that a deputation is waiting in the next room about a post-office in Indiana or about the codfish in Newfoundland waters—­the man can take a second nap on any such affair; but if he knows that the living of himself and family that day depends upon his activity and intelligence, uneasy lies his head.  There is something so restful and easy about public business!