In point of industry, sustained and
indefatigable industry, he had no equal, and has never since had but
one. One thing is to be specially noted as one of the chief and
indispensable causes of his success. _He had no vices_. He never drank
to excess, nor gormandized, nor gambled, nor even smoked, nor in any
other way wasted the vitality needed for a long and tough grapple with
adverse fortune. What he once wrote of himself in the early Herald was
strictly true:
"I eat and drink to live,--not live to eat and drink. Social
glasses of wine are my aversion; public dinners are my
abomination; all species of gormandizing, my utter scorn and
contempt. When I am hungry, I eat; when thirsty, drink. Wine
or viands taken for society, or to stimulate conversation,
tend only to dissipation, indolence, poverty, contempt, and
death."
This was an immense advantage, which he had in common with several of
the most mischievous men of modern times,--Calhoun, Charles XII.,
George III., and others. Correct bodily habits are of themselves such
a source of power, that the man who has them will be extremely likely
to gain the day over competitors of ten times his general worth who
have them not.
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