"The wise and active conquer difficulties,
By daring to attempt them; sloth and folly
Shiver and sink at sight of toil and hazard,
And make the impossibility they fear."
"I can't, it is impossible," said a foiled lieutenant, to Alexander. "Begone," shouted the conquering Macedonian, "there is nothing impossible to him who will try."
Were I called upon to express in a word the secret of so many failures among those who started out in life with high hopes, I should say unhesitatingly, they lacked will-power. They could not half will. What is a man without a will? He is like an engine without steam, a mere sport of chance, to be tossed about hither and thither, always at the mercy of those who have wills. I should call the strength of will the test of a young man's possibilities. Can he will strong enough, and hold whatever he undertakes with an iron grip? It is the iron grip that takes the strong hold on life. What chance is there in this crowding, pushing, selfish, greedy world, where everything is pusher or pushed, for a young man with no will, no grip on life? "The truest wisdom," said Napoleon, "is a resolute determination." An iron will without principle might produce a Napoleon; but with character it would make a Wellington or a Grant, untarnished by ambition or avarice.
"The undivided will
'T is that compels the elements and wrings
A human music from the indifferent air."
CHAPTER XXVI
SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES
Victories that are easy are cheap. Those only are worth having which come as the result of hard fighting.—BEECHER.
Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.—WASHINGTON IRVING.
"I have here three teams that I want to get over to Staten Island," said a boy of twelve one day in 1806 to the innkeeper at South Amboy, N. J. "If you will put us across, I'll leave with you one of my horses in pawn, and if I don't send you back six dollars within forty-eight hours you may keep the horse."