"The primary education of the phonograph was comical in the extreme. To hear those grave and reverend signors, rich in scientific honors, patiently reiterating:
Mary had a little lamb,
A little lamb, lamb, lamb,
and elaborating that point with anxious gravity, was to receive a practical demonstration of the eternal unfitness of things."
Milton, when blind, old and poor, showed a royal cheerfulness and never "bated one jot of heart or hope, but steered right onward."
Dickens' characters seemed to possess him, and haunt him day and night until properly portrayed in his stories.
At a time when it was considered dangerous to society in Europe for the common people to read books and listen to lectures on any but religious subjects, Charles Knight determined to enlighten the masses by cheap literature. He believed that a paper could be instructive and not be dull, cheap without being wicked. He started the Penny Magazine, which acquired a circulation of 200,000 the first year. Knight projected the Penny Cyclopedia, the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, Half-Hours With the Best Authors, and other useful books at a low price. His whole adult life was spent in the work of elevating the common people by cheap, yet wholesome, publications. He died in poverty, but grateful people have erected a noble monument over his ashes.
Demosthenes roused the torpid spirits of his countrymen to a vigorous effort to preserve their independence against the designs of an ambitious and artful prince, and Philip had just reason to say he was more afraid of that man than of all the fleets and armies of the Athenians.
Horace Greeley was a hampered genius who never had a chance to show himself until he started the Tribune, into which he poured his whole individuality, life and soul.
Emerson lost the first years of his life trying to be somebody else. He finally came to himself and said: "If a single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the whole world will come round to him in the end." "Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful we must carry it with us or we find it not." "The man that stands by himself the universe stands by him also." "Take Michael Angelo's course, 'to confide in one's self and be something of worth and value.'" "None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone."
Many unknown writers would make fame and fortune if, like Bunyan and Milton and Dickens and George Eliot and Scott and Emerson, they would write their own lives in their MSS., if they would write about things they have seen, that they have felt, that they have known. It is life thoughts that stir and convince, that move and persuade, that carry their very iron particles into the blood. The real heaven has never been outdone by the ideal.