A WOMAN WITH A PURPOSE.
PURPOSE ESSENTIAL TO SUCCESS—BIRTH AND PARENTAGE OF CAROLINA CORRADI—HER MOTHER'S PRESCIENCE—PREPARATION FOR FUTURE CAREER—DEVOTED WORK IN BEHALF OF DEAD KINDRED.
Few people have accomplished anything in this life worth mentioning who have not had a definite purpose in view, to which every faculty of their mind and body is made to bend. People without a purpose abound on every hand, with nothing in appearance to distinguish them from their fellows except a kind of mental or physical inertia or a fickleness of disposition, causing them to flit about from one pursuit to another, as a butterfly does from flower to flower. Their personal lack of purpose may not be apparent to the casual observer, especially if they be sufficiently under the influence of strong-minded, decisive friends, who furnish the purpose for them, and manipulate them as if they were human automatons.
Some people seem to be born with a purpose, or—more properly speaking—with a disposition to form a purpose, and adhere to it. They are not only possessed of energy, but of the power of concentration, the ability to apply themselves to the one particular purpose before them until they succeed.
Lacking a purpose—either innate or acquired—people are apt to drift aimlessly through life, like an abandoned boat upon the ocean, subject to every wind that blows and every current that flows. With conditions favorable, they may float on indefinitely, even as derelicts at sea have been known to do for years without meeting with any serious obstruction. Their course may be so serene, and so attended with good fortune, that observers may be almost forced to the conclusion that they have a charmed existence. The real test of their constancy and endurance comes to the mechanical derelicts when storms beset them and breakers loom up before them, and to their human prototypes when obstacles are encountered that only a strong mind can cope with, and when no friendly support is at hand, to lean upon. The weak and vacillating then flounder in uncertainty, so lacking in self-confidence as to be absolutely unable to formulate and execute any purposeful plan, while the strong-minded, resolute, self-reliant people carefully lay their plans, and then proceed to fulfill them.
Of course the majority of human derelicts are unwilling to admit that their failure to succeed is due to any fault of theirs. They prefer to believe that they are the victims of chance, or ill-luck, or lack of opportunity. Many of them have no desire to work, and others, if not really lazy, have no pride or interest in the work they do, and are therefore very indifferent workmen, and seldom retain a job long after getting it.
Occasionally a person is found who has sufficient mental grasp to devise, and executive ability to carry out a number of purposes simultaneously, and those who are specially successful in material affairs are sometimes called "Napoleons of finance." More frequently, however, the diffusion of energy due to following too many purposes results in failure. Many of the more conspicuous financial failures are made by persons who fairly bristle with purposes. They are like the ambitious but unwise blacksmith who had so many irons in the fire at once that he either had to slight his work on all or allow some to become overheated and spoiled.
It is infinitely more creditable to have one purpose, and accomplish it successfully, than a number and succeed only indifferently.
The story of which the foregoing is a prelude is not that of a "Napoleon of finance" or even of a Hetty Green in success in material matters, but of that of a very humble, but altogether worthy woman, whose aspirations are spiritual rather than material.
Examples from the ranks of the humble are more apt to be helpful to the great mass of the people than those taken from other classes, as what the wealthy and highly educated classes accomplish is apt to be attributed to their more favored station in life, and therefore not to be emulated by the poor, illiterate and obscure.