HINDRANCES AND HELPS 



THE ARGUMENT 



IT will be perceived by the reader who has 

 been kind enough to follow me thus far, 

 that this book neither professes to be 

 wholly practical, nor yet wholly fanciful. It 

 is — if I may use a professional expression — 

 the fruit from a graft of the fanciful, set upon 

 the practical; and this is a style of grafting 

 which is of more general adoption in the world 

 than we are apt to imagine. Commercial life 

 is not wholly free from this easy union, — nor 

 yet the clerical. All speculative forays, whether 

 in the southern seas or on the sea of meta- 

 physics, are to be credited to the graft Fancy ; 

 and all routine, whether of ledger or of liturgy, 

 go to the stock-account of the Practical. Nor 

 is the last necessarily always profit, and the 

 other always loss. There are, I am sure, a 

 great many Practical failures in the world, and 

 the number of fanciful successes is unbounded. 

 I have endeavored more especially to meet 



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