Want of Success.

The young physician frequently complains of "want of appreciation." He has a very fine opinion of himself, but the people will not take him at his supposed value. He stumbles in business, and instead of picking himself up, and making a stronger effort, he lies still and bemoans his fate.

So too the older physician jogs on in the old rut for fear that the new thing presented will not serve his purpose; he has learned a routine, and pursues it year by year without hope of anything better. If he makes an effort and fails, he drops back to his treadmill with an exclamation of distrust. To all these we recommend the words of Disraeli, in his recent address at Glasgow:

"There comes to the young man the period of disappointment and despondency. To publish poems which no one will read, to make speeches to which no one will listen, after reveries of leading armies and directing councils, to find yourself on your entrance into the business of life incapable of influencing the conduct of an ordinary individual—all this is bitter. But all depends upon how the lesson is received. A weak spirit will not survive this catastrophe of his self-love. He will sink into chronic despondency, and without attempting to rally he will pass through life as a phantom, and be remembered as an old man only by the golden promise of his deceptive youth. But a man of sense will accept these consequences, however apparently mortifying, with courage and candor. He will dive into his own intelligence, he will analyze the circumstances of his failure, he will discriminate how much was occasioned by indigenous deficiencies, and how much may be attributed to external and fortuitous circumstances. And in this severe introspection he may obtain that self-knowledge he requires; his failures may he the foundation of his ultimate success; and in this moral and intellectual struggle he may discover the true range of his powers, and the right bent of his character and capacity."

The Eclectic Medical Journal, Vol. XXXIV, 1874, was edited by John M. Scudder, M.D.