Practicality How to Acquire It (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1916. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IH NATIONS AND PEOPLES WITH THE PRACTICAL SENSE When you are at the seashore, on the edge of the ocean covered with tumbling waves, you reflect to yourself: "All these waves are alike and yet each one of them has its own peculiarity. Each has its own shape, its color, its destiny. Those I see now are not the same waves that broke here yesterday, will not be those that will break here to-morrow, and yet, when I behold this sea, when I return here years hence, perhaps, I shall certainly find the same wonderful vista of tossing waters on which the sunshine glitters by day and the moon plays by night." Men are like the waves of the sea. They are all alike and yet no two are the same. Go from one beach to another and the aspect of the sea will change. In one place it will be clearer, more placid, more beautiful. In another it will be more somber and more threatening. In still another it will be coquettish and capricious. And, in speaking of it, you will say: "The sea at X, the sea at Y, the sea at Z, the sea at T, ' and none of these will be for you the same sea. They will all be different seas, quite unlike each other. Nevertheless, those natural basins which we term harbors or beaches constitute the boundaries of that great ocean which covers threefourths of the globe, and just as the land is essentially land so is the sea essentially sea. There is only one ocean. But this mysterious being, this sea, has certain defects and certain good qualities, and in certain parts of its vast expanse we find repeated the same defects, the same good qualities, the same aspects. This is an image of humanity. All human beings belong to the great family of mankind, but among these beings there are defects and qualities, there are certain natural defects which one finds r...