DUTY WITH ILLUSTRATIONS OF COURAGE, PATIENCE, & ENDURANCE BY SAMUEL SMILES, LL.D. PREFACE. WENTY-FOUR years since, I wrote "Self-Help." It was published three years later, in 1859. The writing of that book was occasioned by an apparently slight circumstance. I had delivered a few lectures at Leeds to some young men, in a place that had been used as a temporary cholera hospital. I endeavoured to point out to them that their happiness and well-being in after life depended very much upon themselves-upon their diligent self-culture, self-discipline, and self-control; and, above all, upon the honest and upright performance of individual duty, which constitutes the glory of manly character. The results were more satisfactory than I could have expected. I found that many of these young men, as they grew up into manhood, were chosen to fill positions of trust, responsibility, and usefulness; and some of them were pleased to attribute some measure of their honest success in life to their endeavours to work up to the spirit of the lessons which they had received from their instructor. I was thus led to prepare the memoranda for a book on the same subject; for books reach much farther than spoken words. I prepared the work in my leisure evening moments, after the hours of business were over. I entitled |