There are hundreds of thousands of people in this country to-day who have splendid ambitions, who have made resolutions to carry out those ambitions, but who are cowering victims of doubt, which keeps them from making a start. They are just waiting. They are unable to make a beginning while this monster stands at the door of their resolution. They are afraid to burn their bridges behind them, to commit themselves to their purpose.
At the very outset of your career make up your mind that you are going to be a conqueror in life, that you are going to be the king of your mental realm, and not a slave to any treacherous enemy, that you will choose the wisest course, no matter how forbidding or formidable the difficulties in the way, that you will take the turning which points toward the goal of your ambition, no matter who or what may bar your onward path. Don't let doubt balk your efforts. Don't let it paralyze your beginning and make you a pigmy so that you will not half try to make good when you have a waiting giant in you. Confidence, self-assurance, self-faith—these are the great friends which will kill the traitor doubt.
CHAPTER IV
MAKING DREAMS COME TRUE
"Every great soul of man has had its vision and pondered it, until the passion to make the dream come true has dominated his life."
"You will be what you will to be;
Let failure find its false content
In that poor world 'environment,'
But spirit scorns it, and is free.
. . . . . . .
"The human Will, that force unseen,
The offspring of a deathless Soul,
Can hew a way to any goal,
Though walls of granite intervene."
Washington, in a letter written when he was but twelve years old, said: "I shall marry a beautiful woman; I shall be one of the wealthiest men in the land; I shall lead the army of my colony; I shall rule the nation which I help to create."
General Grant, in his "Memoirs," says that as a boy at West Point, he saw General Scott seated on his horse, reviewing the cadets, and something within him said, "Ulysses, some day you will ride in his place and be general of the army."
Every one knows how those boyish visions were realized by the mature men.