CAUSES OF SUCCESS. 1 3 



CHAPTER II. 



CAUSES OF SUCCESS. 



From the lukewarm to the earnest, from fail- 

 ure to success. Some years ago, one cold slate- 

 colored morning towards the end of March 

 ("hunch-weather," as I have heard it termed In 

 Lincolnshire, because, I suppose, a sense of starva- 

 tion has a tendency to set one's back up), I re- 

 ceived a note from a Nottingham mechanic^ 

 inviting me to assist in a judicial capacity at an 

 exhibition of Roses, given by working men, which 

 was to be held on Easter Monday. Not having at 

 the time a Rose in my possession, although, to my 

 shame be it spoken, I had ample room and ap- 

 pliances, and knowing, moreover, that all the con- 

 servatories of the neighborhood were in a like 

 destitute and disgraceful condition, it never oc- 

 curred to me that the tiny glass houses, which I 

 had seen so often on the hills near Nottingham, 

 could be more honorably utilized or worthily oc- 

 cupied, and I threw down the letter on my first 

 impulse as a hoax, and a very poor one. Hoaxes, 

 I have observed, are not what they used to be 

 when I took an active part in them ; and, more- 



