Without that Spirit, though the land should rise to gorgeous heights of moneyed wealth by perfecting its science of material production and commercial organization, the West would be poor and mean, a body without a soul.
Therefore, of all the proud ambitions of the West, the proudest is to keep that noble Spirit strong.
The Spirit has hours of weakness, but it soon revives, to proclaim with the strength of a giant refreshed—
“In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
“It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll.
I am the master of my fate,