As full ears load and lay corn so does too much fortune bend and break the mind. It deserves to be considered, too, as another advantage, that affliction moves pity and reconciles our enemies; but prosperity provokes envy and loses us even our friends. Again, adversity is a desolate and abandoned state, and, as rats and mice forsake a tottering house, so do the generality of men forsake him who is cast down by adversity. As a consequence, he who has never known adversity is but half acquainted with others or with himself, and can not be expected to put forth full measure of his powers.
The patient conquest of difficulties which rise in the regular and legitimate channels of business and enterprise is not only essential in securing the ultimate prosperity which you seek, but it is requisite to prepare your mind for enjoying your prosperity. Every-where in human experience, as frequently as in nature, hardship is essential to ultimate success. That magnificent oak was detained twenty years in its upward growth while its roots took a great turn around a bowlder, by which the tree was anchored to withstand the storms of centuries. They who are eminently prosperous, or who achieve greatness or even notoriety in any pursuit, must expect to make enemies. Whoever becomes distinguished is sure to be a mark for the malicious spite of those who, not deserving success themselves, are galled by the merited triumph of the more worthy. Moreover, the opposition which originates in such despicable motives is sure to be of the most unscrupulous character, hesitating at no iniquity, descending to the shabbiest littleness. Opposition, if it is honest and manly, is not in itself undesirable. It is the whetstone by which a highly tempered nature is polished and sharpened. Uninterrupted prosperity shows us but one side of the world. For, as it surrounds us with friends who will tell us only our merits, so it silences those enemies from whom alone we can learn our defects.
Trifles
It is to the contempt of details that many men may trace the cause of their present misfortune. The world is full of those who languish, not from a lack of talents, but because, in spite of their many brilliant parts, they lack the power of properly estimating the value of trifles. Their souls fire with lofty conceptions of some work to be achieved, their minds warm with enthusiasm as they contemplate the objects already attained; but when they begin to put the scheme into execution they turn away in disgust from the dry minutiæ and vulgar drudgery which are requisite for its accomplishment. Such men bewail their fate. Failing to do the small tasks of life, they have no calls to higher ones, and so complain of neglect.
As the universe itself is composed of minute atoms, so it is little details, mere trifles, which go to make success in any calling. Attention to details is an element of effectiveness which no reach of plan, no loftiness of design, no enthusiasm of purpose can dispense with. It is this which makes the difference between the practical man, who pushes his thoughts to a useful result, and the mere dreamer. If we would do much good in the world we must be willing to do good in little things, in little acts of benevolence one after another; speaking a timely and good word here, doing an act of kindness there, and setting a good example always. We must do the first good thing we can, and then the next. This is the only way to accomplish much in one's lifetime. He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do any thing.
The disposition of mankind is to despise the little incidents of every-day life. This is a lamentable mistake, since nothing in this life is really small. In the complicated and marvelous machinery of circumstances it is absolutely impossible to decide what would have happened as to some event if the smallest deviation had taken place in the march of those that preceded them. In a factory we may observe the revolving wheel in one room and in another, many yards distant, the silk issuing from the loom, rivaling in its tints the colors of the rainbow. There are many events in our lives, the distance between which was much greater than that between the wheel and ribbon, yet the connection was much closer. It is, indeed, strange on what petty trifles the crises of life are decided. A chance meeting with some friend, an unexpected delay in some business venture, may be the source from which you date the rise of good or ill fortune.