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CHAPTER IX--MEN OF BUSINESS
"Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before
kings."--Proverbs of Solomon.
"That man is but of the lower part of the world that is not brought
up to business and affairs."--Owen Feltham
Hazlitt, in one of his clever essays, represents the man of
business as a mean sort of person put in a go-cart, yoked to a
trade or profession; alleging that all he has to do is, not to go
out of the beaten track, but merely to let his affairs take their
own course. "The great requisite," he says, "for the prosperous
management of ordinary business is the want of imagination, or of
any ideas but those of custom and interest on the narrowest scale."
{24} But nothing could be more one-sided, and in effect untrue,
than such a definition. Of course, there are narrow-minded men of
business, as there are narrow-minded scientific men, literary men,
and legislators; but there are also business men of large and
comprehensive minds, capable of action on the very largest scale.
As Burke said in his speech on the India Bill, he knew statesmen
who were pedlers, and merchants who acted in the spirit of
statesmen.
If we take into account the qualities necessary for the successful
conduct of any important undertaking,--that it requires special
aptitude, promptitude of action on emergencies, capacity for
organizing the labours often of large numbers of men, great tact
and knowledge of human nature, constant self-culture, and growing
experience in the practical affairs of life,--it must, we think, be
obvious that the school of business is by no means so narrow as
some writers would have us believe.
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