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An Iron Will

Orison Swett Marden

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Title: An Iron Will

Author: Orison Swett Marden

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[Illustration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,

American Philosopher, Statesman, Diplomatist, and Author.

_b. Boston, 1706; d. Philadelphia, 1790_.]

AN IRON WILL

_By_ ORISON SWETT MARDEN

AUTHOR OF "PUSHING TO THE FRONT," ETC.

WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF

ABNER BAYLEY

_ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS_

New York:

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

1901

BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY.

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AN IRON WILL.

CHAPTER I.

TRAINING THE WILL.

"The education of the will is the object of our existence," says

Emerson.

Nor is this putting it too strongly, if we take into account the human

will in its relations to the divine. This accords with the saying of J.

Stuart Mill, that "a character is a completely fashioned will."

In respect to mere mundane relations, the development and discipline of

one's will-power is of supreme moment in relation to success in life. No

man can ever estimate the power of will. It is a part of the divine

nature, all of a piece with the power of creation. We speak of God's

fiat "_Fiat lux_, Let light be." Man has his fiat. The achievements of

history have been the choices, the determinations, the creations, of the

human will. It was the will, quiet or pugnacious, gentle or grim, of men

like Wilberforce and Garrison, Goodyear and Cyrus Field, Bismarck and

Grant, that made them indomitable. They simply would do what they

planned. Such men can no more be stopped than the sun can be, or the

tide. Most men fail, not through lack of education or agreeable personal

qualities, but from lack of dogged determination, from lack of dauntless

will.

"It is impossible," says Sharman, "to look into the conditions under

which the battle of life is being fought, without perceiving how much

really depends upon the extent to which the will-power is cultivated,

strengthened, and made operative in right directions." Young people need

to go into training for it. We live in an age of athletic meets. Those

who are determined to have athletic will-power must take for it the kind

of exercise they need.

This is well illustrated by a report I have seen of the long race from

Marathon in the recent Olympian games, which was won by the young Greek

peasant, Sotirios Loues.

A STRUGGLE IN THE RACE OF LIFE.

There had been no great parade about the training of this champion

runner. From his work at the plough he quietly betook himself to the

task of making Greece victorious before the assembled strangers from

every land. He was known to be a good runner, and without fuss or bustle

he entered himself as a competitor. But it was not his speed alone,

out-distancing every rival, that made the young Greek stand out from

among his fellows that day. When he left his cottage home at Amarusi,

his father said to him, "Sotiri, you must only return a victor!" The

light of a firm resolve shone in the young man's eye. The old father was

sure that his boy would win, and so he made his way to the station,

there to wait till Sotiri should come in ahead of all the rest. No one

knew the old man and his three daughters as they elbowed their way

through the crowd. When at last the excitement of the assembled

multitude told that the critical moment had arrived, that the racers

ads:

were nearing the goal, the old father looked up through eyes that were a

little dim as he realized that truly Sotiri was leading the way. He

_was_ "returning a victor." How the crowd surged about the young peasant

when the race was fairly won! Wild with excitement, they knew not how to

shower upon him sufficient praise. Ladies overwhelmed him with flowers

and rings; some even gave him their watches, and one American lady

bestowed upon him her jewelled smelling-bottle. The princes embraced

him, and the king himself saluted him in military fashion. But the young

Sotirios was seeking for other praise than theirs. Past the ranks of

royalty and fair maidenhood, past the outstretched hands of his own

countrymen, past the applauding crowd of foreigners, his gaze wandered

till it fell upon an old man trembling with eagerness, who resolutely

pushed his way through the excited, satisfied throng. Then the young

face lighted, and as old Loues advanced to the innermost circle with

arms outstretched to embrace his boy, the young victor said, simply:

"You see, father, I have obeyed."

MENTAL DISCIPLINE.

The athlete trains for his race; and the mind must be put into training

if one will win life's race.

"It is," says Professor Mathews, "only by continued, strenuous efforts,

repeated again and again, day after day, week after week, and month

after month, that the ability can be acquired to fasten the mind to one

subject, however abstract or knotty, to the exclusion of everything

else. The process of obtaining this self-mastery--this complete command

of one's mental powers--is a gradual one, its length varying with the

mental constitution of each person; but its acquisition is worth

infinitely more than the utmost labor it ever costs."

"Perhaps the most valuable result of all education," it was said by

Professor Huxley, "is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have

to do when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the

first lesson which ought to be learned, and, however early a man's

training begins, it is probably the last lesson which he learns

thoroughly."

DOING THINGS ONCE.

When Henry Ward Beecher was asked how it was that he could accomplish so

much more than other men, he replied:

"I don't do more, but less, than other people. They do all their work

three times over: once in anticipation, once in actuality, once in

rumination. I do mine in actuality alone, doing it once instead of three

times."

This was by the intelligent exercise of Mr. Beecher's will-power in

concentrating his mind upon what he was doing at a given moment, and

then turning to something else. Any one who has observed business men

closely, has noticed this characteristic. One of the secrets of a

successful life is to be able to hold all of our energies upon one

point, to focus all of the scattered rays of the mind upon one place or

thing.

CENTRALIZING FORCE.

The mental reservoir of most people is like a leaky dam which we

sometimes see in the country, where the greater part of the water flows

out without going over the wheel and doing the work of the mill. The

habit of mind-wandering, of worrying about this and that,

"Genius, that power which dazzles mortal eyes,

Is oft but Perseverance in disguise."

Many a man would have been a success had he connected his fragmentary

efforts. Spasmodic, disconnected attempts, without concentration,

uncontrolled by any fixed idea, will never bring success. It is

continuity of purpose alone that achieves results.

LEARNING TO SWIM.

The way to learn to run is to run, the way to learn to swim is to swim.

The way to learn to develop will-power is by the actual exercise of

will-power in the business of life. "The man that exercises his will,"

says an English essayist, "makes it a stronger and more effective force

in proportion to the extent to which such exercise is intelligently and

perseveringly maintained." The forth-putting of will-power is a means of

strengthening will-power. The will becomes strong by exercise. To stick

to a thing till you are master, is a test of intellectual discipline and

power.

DR. CUYLER.

"It is astonishing," says Dr. Theodore Cuyler, "how many men lack this

power of 'holding on' until they reach the goal. They can make a sudden

dash, but they lack grit. They are easily discouraged. They get on as

long as everything goes smoothly, but when there is friction they lose

heart. They depend on stronger personalities for their spirit and

strength. They lack independence or originality. They only dare to do

what others do. They do not step boldly from the crowd and act

fearlessly."

THE BIG TREES.

What is needed by him who would succeed in the highest degree possible

is careful planning. He is to accumulate reserved power, that he may be

equal to all emergencies. Thomas Starr King said that the great trees of

California gave him his first impression of the power of reserve. "It

was the thought of the reserve energies that had been compacted into

them," he said, "that stirred me. The mountains had given them their

iron and rich stimulants, the hills had given them their soil, the

clouds had given their rain and snow, and a thousand summers and winters

had poured forth their treasures about their vast roots."

No young man can hope to do anything above the commonplace who has not

made his life a reservoir of power on which he can constantly draw,

which will never fail him in any emergency. Be sure that you have stored

away, in your power-house, the energy, the knowledge that will be equal

to the great occasion when it comes. "If I were twenty, and had but ten

years to live," said a great scholar and writer, "I would spend the

first nine years accumulating knowledge and getting ready for the

tenth."

"I WILL."

"There are no two words in the English language which stand out in

bolder relief, like kings upon a checker-board, to so great an extent as

the words 'I will.' There is strength, depth and solidity, decision,

confidence and power, determination, vigor and individuality, in the

round, ringing tone which characterizes its delivery. It talks to you of

triumph over difficulties, of victory in the face of discouragement, of

will to promise and strength to perform, of lofty and daring enterprise,

of unfettered aspirations, and of the thousand and one solid impulses by

which man masters impediments in the way of progression."

As one has well said: "He who is silent is forgotten; he who does not

advance falls back; he who stops is overwhelmed, distanced, crushed; he

who ceases to become greater, becomes smaller; he who leaves off gives

up; the stationary is the beginning of the end--it precedes death; to

live is to achieve, to will without ceasing."

Be thou a hero; let thy might

Tramp on eternal snows its way,

And through the ebon walls of night,

Hew down a passage unto day.

_Park Benjamin_.

CHAPTER II.

THE RULERS OF DESTINY.

There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,

Can circumvent, or hinder, or control

The firm resolve of a determined soul.

Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great;

All things give way before it soon or late.

What obstacle can stay the mighty force

Of the sea-seeking river in its course,

Or cause the ascending orb of day to wait?

Each well-born soul must win what it deserves.

Let the fool prate of luck. The fortunate

Is he whose earnest purpose never swerves,

Whose slightest action or inaction serves

The one great aim.

_Ella Wheeler Wilcox_.

There is always room for a man of force.--_Emerson_.

The king is the man who can.--_Carlyle_.

A strong, defiant purpose is many-handed, and lays hold of whatever is

near that can serve it; it has a magnetic power that draws to itself

whatever is kindred.--_T.T. Munger_.

What is will-power, looked at in a large way, but energy of character?

Energy of will, self-originating force, is the soul of every great

character. Where it is, there is life; where it is not, there is

faintness, helplessness, and despondency. "Let it be your first study to

teach the world that you are not wood and straw; that there is some iron

in you." Men who have left their mark upon the world have been men of

great and prompt decision. The achievements of will-power are almost

beyond computation. Scarcely anything seems impossible to the man who

can will strongly enough and long enough. One talent with a will behind

it will accomplish more than ten without it, as a thimbleful of powder

in a rifle, the bore of whose barrel will give it direction, will do

greater execution than a carload burned in the open air.

"THE WILLS, THE WON'TS, AND THE CAN'TS."

"There are three kinds of people in the world," says a recent writer,

"the wills, the won'ts, and the can'ts. The first accomplish everything;

the second oppose everything; the third fail in everything."

The shores of fortune, as Foster says, are covered with the stranded

wrecks of men of brilliant ability, but who have wanted courage, faith,

and decision, and have therefore perished in sight of more resolute but

less capable adventurers, who succeeded in making port.

Were I called upon to express in a word the secret of so many failures

among those who started out with high hopes, I should say they lacked

will-power. They could not half will: and what is a man without a will?

He is like an engine without steam. Genius unexecuted is no more genius

than a bushel of acorns is a forest of oaks.

Will has been called the spinal column of personality. "The will in its

relation to life," says an English writer, "may be compared at once to

the rudder and to the steam engine of a vessel, on the confined and

related action of which it depends entirely for the direction of its

course and the vigor of its movement."

Strength of will is 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 and holds. 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 man who would

forge to the front in this competitive age must be a man of prompt and

determined decision.

A TAILOR'S NEEDLE.

It is in one of Ben Jonson's old plays: "When I once take the humor of a

thing, I am like your tailor's needle--I go through with it."

This is not different from Richelieu, who said: "When I have once taken

a resolution, I go straight to my aim; I overthrow all, I cut down all."

And in business affairs the counsel of Rothschild is to the same effect:

"Do without fail that which you determine to do."

Gladstone's children were taught to accomplish _to the end_ whatever

they might begin, no matter how insignificant the undertaking might be.

WHAT IS WORSE THAN RASHNESS

It is irresolution that is worse than rashness. "He that shoots," says

Feltham, "may sometimes hit the mark; but he that shoots not at all can

never hit it. Irresolution is like an ague; it shakes not this nor that

limb, but all the body is at once in a fit."

The man who is forever twisting and turning, backing and filling,

hesitating and dawdling, shuffling and parleying, weighing and

balancing, splitting hairs over non-essentials, listening to every new

motive which presents itself, will never accomplish anything. But the

positive man, the decided man, is a power in the world, and stands for

something; you can measure him, and estimate the work that his energy

will accomplish.

Opportunity is coy, is swift, is gone, before the slow, the unobservant,

the indolent, or the careless can seize her. "Vigilance in watching

opportunity," said Phelps, "tact and daring in seizing upon opportunity;

force and persistence in crowding opportunity to its utmost of possible

achievement--these are the martial virtues which must command success."

"The best men," remarked Chapin, "are not those who have waited for

chances, but who have taken them; besieged the chance; conquered the

chance; and made chance the servitor."

Is it not possible to classify successes and failures by their various

degrees of will-power? A man who can resolve vigorously upon a course of

action, and turns neither to the right nor to the left, though a

paradise tempt him, who keeps his eyes upon the goal, whatever distracts

him, is sure of success.

"Not every vessel that sails from Tarshish will bring back the gold of

Ophir. But shall it therefore rot in the harbor? No! Give its sails to

the wind!"

CONSCIOUS POWER.

"Conscious power," says Melles, "exists within the mind of every one.

Sometimes its existence is unrealized, but it is there. It is there to

be developed and brought forth, like the culture of that obstinate but

beautiful flower, the orchid. To allow it to remain dormant is to place

one's self in obscurity, to trample on one's ambition, to smother one's

faculties. To develop it is to individualize all that is best within

you, and give it to the world. It is by an absolute knowledge of

yourself, the proper estimate of your own value."

"There is hardly a reader," says an experienced educator, "who will not

be able to recall the early life of at least one young man whose

childhood was spent in poverty, and who, in boyhood, expressed a firm

desire to secure a higher education. If, a little later, that desire

became a declared resolve, soon the avenues opened to that end. That

desire and resolve created an atmosphere which attracted the forces

necessary to the attainment of the purpose. Many of these young men will

tell us that, as long as they were hoping and striving and longing,

mountains of difficulty rose before them; but that when they fashioned

their hopes into fixed purposes aid came unsought to help them on the

way."

DO YOU BELIEVE IN YOURSELF?

The man without self-reliance and an iron will is the plaything of

chance, the puppet of his environment, the slave of circumstances. Are

not doubts the greatest of enemies? If you would succeed up to the limit

of your possibilities, must you not constantly hold to the belief that

you are success-organized, and that you will be successful, no matter

what opposes? You are never to allow a shadow of doubt to enter your

mind that the Creator intended you to win in life's battle. Regard every

suggestion that your life may be a failure, that you are not made like

those who succeed, and that success is not for you, as a traitor, and

expel it from your mind as you would a thief from your house.

There is something sublime in the youth who possesses the spirit of

boldness and fearlessness, who has proper confidence in his ability to

do and dare.

The world takes us at our own valuation. It believes in the man who

believes in himself, but it has little use for the timid man, the one

who is never certain of himself; who cannot rely on his own judgment,

who craves advice from others, and is afraid to go ahead on his own

account.

It is the man with a positive nature, the man who believes that he is

equal to the emergency, who believes he can do the thing he attempts,

who wins the confidence of his fellow-man. He is beloved because he is

brave and self-sufficient.

Those who have accomplished great things in the world have been, as a

rule, bold, aggressive, and self-confident. They dared to step out from

the crowd, and act in an original way. They were not afraid to be

generals.

There is little room in this crowding, competing age for the timid,

vacillating youth. He who would succeed to-day must not only be brave,

but must also dare to take chances. He who waits for certainty never

wins.

"The law of the soul is eternal endeavor,

That bears the man onward and upward forever."

"A man can be too confiding in others, but never too confident in

himself."

Never admit defeat or poverty. Stoutly assert your divine right to hold

your head up and look the world in the face; step bravely to the front

whatever opposes, and the world will make way for you. No one will

insist upon your rights while you yourself doubt that you have any.

Believe you were made for the place you fill. Put forth your whole

energies. Be awake, electrify yourself; go forth to the task. A young

man once said to his employer, "Don't give me an easy job. I want to

handle heavy boxes, shoulder great loads. I would like to lift a big

mountain and throw it into the sea,"--and he stretched out two brawny

arms, while his honest eyes danced and his whole being glowed with

conscious strength.

[Illustration: CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN,

English Naturalist.

_b. Shrewsbury, 1809; d. Down, 1882_.]

The world in its heart admires the stern, determined doer. "The world

turns aside to let any man pass who knows whither he is going." "It is

wonderful how even the apparent casualties of life seem to bow to a

spirit that will not bow to them, and yield to assist a design, after

having in vain attempted to frustrate it."

"The man who succeeds," says Prentice Mulford, "must always in mind or

imagination live, move, think, and act as if he gained that success, or

he never will gain it."

"We go forth," said Emerson, "austere, dedicated, believing in the iron

links of Destiny, and will not turn on our heels to save our lives. A

book, a bust, or only the sound of a name shoots a spark through the

nerves, and we suddenly believe in will. We cannot hear of personal

vigor of any kind, great power of performance, without fresh

resolution."

CHAPTER III.

FORCE OF WILL IN CAMP AND FIELD.

Oh, what miracles have been wrought by the self-confidence, the

self-determination of an iron will! What impossible deeds have been

performed by it! It was this that took Napoleon over the Alps in

midwinter; it took Farragut and Dewey past the cannons, torpedoes, and

mines of the enemy; it led Nelson and Grant to victory; it has been the

great tonic in the world of discovery, invention, and art; it has helped

to win the thousand triumphs in war and science which were deemed

impossible.

The secret of Jeanne d'Arc's success was not alone in rare decision of

character, but in the seeing of visions which inspired her to

self-confidence--confidence in her divine mission.

It was an iron will that gave Nelson command of the British fleet, a

title, and a statue at Trafalgar Square It was the keynote of his

character when he said, "When I don't know whether to fight or not, I

always fight."

It was an iron will that was brought into play when Horatius with two

companions held ninety thousand Tuscans at bay until the bridge across

the Tiber had been destroyed--when Leonidas at Thermopylae checked the

mighty march of Xerxes--when Themistocles off the coast of Greece

shattered the Persian's Armada--when Caesar finding his army hard pressed

seized spear and buckler and snatched victory from defeat--when

Winkelried gathered to his breast a sheaf of Austrian spears and opened

a path for his comrades--when Wellington fought in many climes without

ever being conquered--when Ney on a hundred fields changed apparent

disaster into brilliant triumph--when Sheridan arrived from Winchester

as the Union retreat was becoming a route and turned the tide--when

Sherman signaled his men to hold the fort knowing that their leader was

coming.

History furnishes thousands of examples of men who have seized occasions

to accomplish results deemed impossible by those less resolute. Prompt

decision and whole-souled action sweep the world before them. Who was

the organizer of the modern German empire? Was he not the man of iron?

NAPOLEON AND GRANT.

"What would you do if you were besieged in a place entirely destitute of

provisions?" asked the examiner, when Napoleon was a cadet.

"If there were anything to eat in the enemy's camp, I should not be

concerned."

When Paris was in the hands of a mob, and the authorities were

panic-stricken, in came a man who said, "I know a young officer who can

quell this mob."

"Send for him."

Napoleon was sent for; he came, he subjugated the mob, he subjugated the

authorities, he ruled France, then conquered Europe.

May 10, 1796, Napoleon carried the bridge at Lodi, in the face of the

Austrian batteries, trained upon the French end of the structure. Behind

them were six thousand troops. Napoleon massed four thousand grenadiers

at the head of the bridge, with a battalion of three hundred carbineers

in front. At the tap of the drum the foremost assailants wheeled from

the cover of the street wall under a terrible hail of grape and

canister, and attempted to pass the gateway to the bridge. The front

ranks went down like stalks of grain before a reaper; the column

staggered and reeled backward, and the valiant grenadiers were appalled

by the task before them. Without a word or a look of reproach, Napoleon

placed himself at their head, and his aids and generals rushed to his

side. Forward again over heaps of dead that choked the passage, and a

quick run counted by seconds only carried the column across two hundred

yards of clear space, scarcely a shot from the Austrians taking effect

beyond the point where the platoons wheeled for the first leap. _The

guns of the enemy were not aimed at the advance. The advance was too

quick for the Austrian gunners_. So sudden and so miraculous was it all,

that the Austrian artillerists abandoned their guns instantly, and their

supports fled in a panic instead of rushing to the front and meeting the

French onslaught. This Napoleon had counted on in making the bold

attack.

What was Napoleon but the thunderbolt of war? He once journeyed from

Spain to Paris at seventeen miles an hour in the saddle.

"Is it _possible_ to cross the path?" asked Napoleon of the engineers

who had been sent to explore the dreaded pass of St. Bernard.

"Perhaps," was the hesitating reply, "it is within the limits of

_possibility_."

"_Forward, then_."

Yet Ulysses S. Grant, a young man unknown to fame, with neither money

nor influence, with no patrons or friends, in six years fought more

battles, gained more victories, captured more prisoners, took more

spoils, commanded more men, than Napoleon did in twenty years. "The

great thing about him," said Lincoln, "is cool persistence."

"DON'T SWEAR--FIGHT."

When the Spanish fire on San Juan Hill became almost unbearable, some of

the Rough Riders began to swear. Colonel Wood, with the wisdom of a good

leader, called out, amid the whistle of the Mauser bullets: "Don't

swear--fight!"

In a skirmish at Salamanca, while the enemy's guns were pouring shot

into his regiment, Sir William Napier's men became disobedient. He at

once ordered a halt, and flogged four of the ringleaders under fire. The

men yielded at once, and then marched three miles under a heavy

cannonade as coolly as if it were a review.

When Pellisier, the Crimean chief of Zouaves, struck an officer with a

whip, the man drew a pistol that missed fire. The chief replied:

"Fellow, I order you a three days' arrest for not having your arms in

better order."

The man of iron will is cool in the hour of danger.

"I HAD TO RUN LIKE A CYCLONE."

This was what Roosevelt said about his pushing on up San Juan Hill ahead

of his regiment: "I had to run like a cyclone to stay in front and keep

from being run over."

The personal heroism of Hobson, or of Cushing, who blew up the

"Albemarle" forty years ago, was but the expression of a magnificent

will power. It was this which was the basis of General Wheeler's

unparalleled military advancement: a second lieutenant at twenty-three,

a colonel at twenty-four, a brigadier-general at twenty-five, a

major-general at twenty-six, a corps commander at twenty-seven, and a

lieutenant-general at twenty-eight.

General Wheeler had sixteen horses killed under him, and a great number

wounded. His saddle equipments and clothes were frequently struck by the

missiles of the enemy. He was three times wounded, once painfully. He

had thirty-two staff officers, or acting staff officers, killed or

wounded. In almost every case they were immediately by his side. No

officer was ever more exposed to the missiles of death than Joseph

Wheeler.

What is this imperial characteristic of manhood, an iron will, but that

which underlies all magnificent achievement, whether by heroes of the

"Light Brigade" or the heroic fire-fighters of our great cities?

CHAPTER IV.

WILL POWER IN ITS RELATION TO HEALTH AND DISEASE.

There is no doubt that, as a rule, great decision of character is

usually accompanied by great constitutional firmness. Men who have been

noted for great firmness of character have usually been strong and

robust. As a rule it is the strong physical man who carries weight and

conviction. Take, as an example, William the Conqueror, as he is

pictured by Green in his history:

"The very spirit of the sea-robbers from whom he sprang seemed embodied

in his gigantic form, his enormous strength, his savage countenance, his

desperate bravery. No other knight under heaven, his enemies confessed,

was William's peer. No other man could bend William's bow. His mace

crashed through a ring of English warriors to the foot of the standard.

He rose to his greatest heights in moments when other men despaired. No

other man who ever sat upon the throne of England was this man's match."

Or, take Webster. Sydney Smith said: "Webster is a living lie; because

no man on earth can be as great as he looks." Carlyle said of him: "One

would incline at sight to back him against the world." His very physique

was eloquent. Men yielded their wills to his at sight.

The great prizes of life ever fall to the robust, the stalwart, the

strong,--not to a huge muscle or powerful frame necessarily, but to a

strong vitality, a great nervous energy. It is the Lord Broughams,

working almost continuously one hundred and forty-four hours; it is the

Napoleons, twenty hours in the saddle; it is the Franklins, camping out

in the open air at seventy; it is the Gladstones, firmly grasping the

helm of the ship of state at eighty-four, tramping miles every day, and

chopping down huge trees at eighty-five,--who accomplish the great

things of life.

To prosper you must improve your brain power; and nothing helps the

brain more than a healthy body. The race of to-day is only to be won by

those who will study to keep their bodies in such good condition that

their minds are able and ready to sustain that high pressure on memory

and mind, which our present fierce competition engenders. It is health

rather than strength that is now wanted. Health is essentially the

requirement of our time to enable us to succeed in life. In all modern

occupations--from the nursery to the school, from the school to the shop

or world beyond--the brain and nerve strain go on, continuous,

augmenting, and intensifying.

As a rule physical vigor is the condition of a great career. Stonewall

Jackson, early in life, determined to conquer every weakness he had,

physical, mental, and moral. He held all of his powers with a firm hand.

To his great self-discipline and self-mastery he owed his success. So

determined was he to harden himself to the weather that he could not be

induced to wear an overcoat in winter. "I will not give in to the cold,"

he said. For a year, on account of dyspepsia, he lived on buttermilk and

stale bread, and wore a wet shirt next his body because his doctor

advised it, although everybody else ridiculed the idea. This was while

he was professor at the Virginia Military Institute. His doctor advised

him to retire at nine o'clock; and, no matter where he was, or who was

present, he always sought his bed on the minute. He adhered rigidly

through life to this stern system of discipline. Such self-training,

such self-conquest, gives one great power over others. It is equal to

genius itself.

"I can do nothing," said Grant, "without nine hours' sleep."

What else is so grand as to stand on life's threshold, fresh, young,

hopeful, with a consciousness of power equal to any emergency,--a master

of the situation? The glory of a young man is his strength.

Our great need of the world to-day is for men and women who are good

animals. To endure the strain of our concentrated civilization, the

coming man and woman must have an excess of animal spirits. They must

have a robustness of health. Mere absence of disease is not health. It

is the overflowing fountain, not the one half full, that gives life and

beauty to the valley below. Only he is healthy who exults in mere animal

existence; whose very life is a luxury; who feels a bounding pulse

throughout his body; who feels life in every limb, as dogs do when

scouring over the field, or as boys do when gliding over fields of ice.

II.

Yet in spite of all this, in defiance of it, we know that an iron will

is often triumphant in the contest with physical infirmity.

"Brave spirits are a balsam to themselves:

There is a nobleness of mind that heals

Wounds beyond salves."

"One day," said a noted rope-walker, "I signed an agreement to wheel a

barrow along a rope on a given day. A day or two before I was seized

with lumbago. I called in my medical man, and told him I must be cured

by a certain day; not only because I should lose what I hoped to earn,

but also forfeit a large sum. I got no better, and the doctor forbade my

getting up. I told him, 'What do I want with your advice? If you cannot

cure me, of what good is your advice?' When I got to the place, there

was the doctor protesting I was unfit for the exploit. I went on, though

I felt like a frog with my back. I got ready my pole and my barrow, took

hold of the handles and wheeled it along the rope as well as I ever did.

When I got to the end I wheeled it back again, and when this was done I

was a frog again. What made me that I could wheel the barrow? It was my

reserve will."

"What does he know," asks the sage, "who has not suffered?" Did not

Schiller produce his greatest tragedies in the midst of physical

suffering almost amounting to torture? Handel was never greater than

when, warned by palsy of the approach of death, and struggling with

distress and suffering, he sat down to compose the great works which

have made his name immortal in music. Beethoven was almost totally deaf

and burdened with sorrow when he produced his greatest works. Milton

writing "Who best can suffer, best can do," wrote at his best when in

feeble health, and when poor and blind.

"... Yet I argue not

Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot

Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer

Right onward."

The Rev. William H. Milburn, who lost his sight when a child, studied

for the ministry, and was ordained before he attained his majority. He

has written half a dozen books, among them a very careful history of the

Mississippi Valley. He has long been chaplain of the lower house of

Congress.

Blind Fanny Crosby, of New York, was a teacher of the blind for many

years. She has written nearly three thousand hymns, among which are:

"Pass Me not, O Gentle Saviour," "Rescue the Perishing," "Saviour More

than Life to Me," and "Jesus keep Me near the Cross."

"The truest help we can render one who is afflicted," said Bishop

Brooks, "is not to take his burden from him, but to call out his best

energy, that he may be able to bear."

What a mighty will Darwin had! He was in continual ill health. He was in

constant suffering. His patience was marvellous. No one but his wife

knew what he endured. "For forty years," says his son, "he never knew

one day of health;" yet during those forty years he unremittingly forced

himself to do the work from which the mightiest minds and the strongest

constitutions would have shrunk. He had a wonderful power of sticking to

a subject. He used almost to apologize for his patience, saying that he

could not bear to be beaten, as if it were a sign of weakness.

Bulwer advises us to refuse to be ill, never to tell people we are ill,

never to own it ourselves. Illness is one of those things which a man

should resist on principle. Do not dwell upon your ailments nor study

your symptoms. Never allow yourself to be convinced that you are not

complete master of yourself. Stoutly affirm your own superiority over

bodily ills. We should keep a high ideal of health and harmony

constantly before the mind.

Is not the mind the natural protector of the body? We cannot believe

that the Creator has left the whole human race entirely at the mercy of

only about half a dozen specific drugs which always act with certainty.

There is a divine remedy placed within us for many of the ills we

suffer. If we only knew how to use this power of will and mind to

protect ourselves, many of us would be able to carry youth and

cheerfulness with us into the teens of our second century. The mind has

undoubted power to preserve and sustain physical youth and beauty, to

keep the body strong and healthy, to renew life, and to preserve it from

decay, many years longer than it does now. The longest-lived men and

women have, as a rule, been those who have attained great mental and

moral development. They have lived in the upper region of a higher life,

beyond the reach of much of the jar, the friction, and the discords

which weaken and shatter most lives.

Every physician knows that courageous people, with indomitable will, are

not half as likely to contract contagious diseases as the timid, the

vacillating, the irresolute. A thoughtful physician once assured a

friend that if an express agent were to visit New Orleans in the

yellow-fever season, having forty thousand dollars in his care, he would

be in little danger of the fever so long as he kept possession of the

money. Let him once deliver that into other hands, and the sooner he

left the city the better.

Napoleon used to visit the plague hospitals even when the physicians

dreaded to go, and actually put his hands upon the plague-stricken

patients. He said the man who was not afraid could vanish the plague. A

will power like this is a strong tonic to the body. Such a will has

taken many men from apparent death-beds, and enabled them to perform

wonderful deeds of valor. When told by his physicians that he must die,

Douglas Jerrold said: "And leave a family of helpless children? I won't

die." He kept his word, and lived for years.

CHAPTER V.

THE ROMANCE OF ACHIEVEMENT UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

What doth the poor man's son inherit?

Stout muscles, and a sinewy heart,

A hardy frame, a hardier spirit!

King of two hands he does his part

In every useful toil and art:

A heritage it seems to me,

A king might wish to hold in fee.

_Lowell_.

Has not God given every man a capital to start with? Are we not born

rich? He is rich who has good health, a sound body, good muscles; he is

rich who has a good head, a good disposition, a good heart; he is rich

who has two good hands, with five chances on each. Equipped? Every man

is equipped as only God could equip him. What a fortune he possesses in

the marvellous mechanism of his body and mind. It is individual effort

that has achieved everything worth achieving.

THE FUN OF THE LITTLE GAME.

A big Australian, six feet four, James Tyson, died not long since, with

a property of $25,000,000, who began life as a farm hand. Tyson cared

little for money. He used to say of it:

"I shall just leave it behind me when I go. I shall have done with it

then, and it will not concern me afterwards. But," he would add, with a

characteristic semi-exultant snap of the fingers, "the money is nothing.

It was the little game that was the fun."

Being asked, "What was the little game?" he replied with an energy of

concentration peculiar to him: "_Fighting the desert_. That has been my

work. I have been fighting the desert all my life, and I have won. I

have put water where was no water, and beef where was no beef. I have

put fences where there were no fences, and roads where there were no

roads. Nothing can undo what I have done, and millions will be happier

for it after I am long dead and forgotten."

Has not self-help accomplished about all the great things of the world?

How many young men falter, faint, and dally with their purpose because

they have no capital to start with, and wait and wait for some good luck

to give them a lift. But success is the child of drudgery and

perseverance. It cannot be coaxed or bribed; pay the price, and it is

yours. A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring success from

inhospitable surroundings, is the price of all great achievements.

CONQUERORS OF FORTUNE.

Benjamin Franklin had this tenacity of purpose in a wonderful degree.

When he started in the printing business in Philadelphia, he carried his

material through the streets on a wheelbarrow. He hired one room for his

office, work-room, and sleeping-room. He found a formidable rival in the

city and invited him to his room. Pointing to a piece of bread from

which he had just eaten his dinner, he said:

"Unless you can live cheaper than I can, you cannot starve me out."

It was so that he proved the wisdom of Edmund Burke's saying, that "He

that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill:

our antagonist is our helper."

The poor and friendless lad, George Peabody, weary, footsore, and

hungry, called at a tavern in Concord, N.H., and asked to be allowed to

saw wood for lodging and breakfast. Yet he put in work for everything he

ever received, and out-matched the poverty of early days.

Gideon Lee could not even get shoes to wear in winter, when a boy, but

he went to work barefoot in the snow. He made a bargain with himself to

work sixteen hours a day. He fulfilled it to the letter, and when from

interruption he lost time, he robbed himself of sleep to make it up. He

became a wealthy merchant of New York, mayor of the city, and a member

of Congress.

COMMERCIAL COURAGE.

The business affairs of a gentleman named Rouss were once in a

complicated condition, owing to his conflicting interests in various

states, and he was thrown into prison. While confined he wrote on the

walls of his cell:

"I am forty years of age this day. When I am fifty, I shall be worth

half a million; and by the time I am sixty, I shall be worth a million

dollars."

He lived to accumulate more than three million dollars.

"The ruin which overtakes so many merchants," says Whipple, "is due not

so much to their lack of business talent as to their lack of business

nerve."

Cyrus W. Field had retired from business with a large fortune when he

became possessed with the idea that by means of a cable laid upon the

bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, telegraphic communication could be

established between Europe and America. He plunged into the undertaking

with all the force of his being. It was an incredibly hard contest: the

forests of Newfoundland, the lobby in Congress, the unskilled handling

of brakes on his Agamemnon cable, a second and a third breaking of the

cable at sea, the cessation of the current in a well-laid cable, the

snapping of a superior cable on the Great Eastern--all these availed not

to foil the iron will of Field, whose final triumph was that of mental

energy in the application of science.

FOUR NEW YORK JOURNALISTS.

To Horace Greeley, the founder of the "Tribune," I need not allude; his

story is or ought to be in every school-book.

James Brooks, once the editor and proprietor of the "Daily Express," and

later an eminent congressman, began life as a clerk in a store in Maine,

and when twenty-one received for his pay a hogshead of New England rum.

He was so eager to go to college that he started for Waterville with his

trunk on his back, and when he was graduated he was so poor and plucky

that he carried his trunk on his back to the station as he went home.

When James Gordon Bennett was forty years old he collected all his

property, three hundred dollars, and in a cellar with a board upon two

barrels for a desk, himself his own typesetter, office boy, publisher,

newsboy, clerk, editor, proofreader, and printer's devil, he started the

"New York Herald." He did this, after many attempts and defeats in

trying to follow the routine, instead of doing his own way. Never was

any man's early career a better illustration of Wendell Phillips'

dictum: "What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first

steps to something better."

Thurlow Weed, who was a journalist for fifty-seven years, strong,

sensible, genial, tactful, and of magnificent physique, who did so much

to shape public policy in the Empire State, tells a most romantic story

of his boyhood:--

"I cannot ascertain how much schooling I got at Catskill, probably less

than a year, certainly not a year and a half, and this was when I was

not more than five or six years old. I felt a necessity, at an early

age, of trying to do something for my own support.

"My first employment was in sugar-making, an occupation to which I

became much attached. I now look with great pleasure upon the days and

nights passed in the sap-bush. The want of shoes (which, as the snow was

deep, was no small privation) was the only drawback upon my happiness. I

used, however, to tie pieces of an old rag carpet around my feet, and

got along pretty well, chopping wood and gathering up sap. But when the

spring advanced, and bare ground appeared in spots, I threw off the old

carpet encumbrance and did my work barefoot.

"There is much leisure time for boys who are making maple sugar. I

devoted this time to reading, when I could obtain books; but the farmers

of that period had few or no books, save their Bibles. I borrowed books

whenever and wherever I could.

"I heard that a neighbor, three miles off, had borrowed from a still

more distant neighbor a book of great interest. I started off, barefoot,

in the snow, to obtain the treasure. There were spots of bare ground,

upon which I would stop to warm my feet. And there were also, along the

road, occasional lengths of log-fence from which the snow had melted,

and upon which it was a luxury to walk. The book was at home, and the

good people consented, upon my promise that it should be neither torn

nor soiled, to lend it to me. In returning with the prize, I was too

happy to think of the snow or my naked feet.

"Candles were then among the luxuries, not the necessaries, of life. If

boys, instead of going to bed after dark, wanted to read, they supplied

themselves with pine knots, by the light of which, in a horizontal

position, they pursued their studies. In this manner, with my body in

the sugar-house, and my head out of doors, where the fat pine was

blazing, I read with intense interest the book I had borrowed, a

'History of the French Revolution.'"

Weed's next earning was in an iron foundry at Onondaga:

"My business was, after a casting, to temper and prepare the molding

'dogs,' myself. This was night and day work. We ate salt pork and rye

and Indian bread, three times a day, and slept on straw in bunks. I

liked the excitement of a furnace life."

When he went to the "Albany Argus" to learn the printing business he

worked from five in the morning till nine at night.

FROM HUMBLEST BEGINNINGS.

The more difficulties one has to encounter, within and without, the

more significant and the higher in inspiration his life will be.--_Horace

Bushnell_.

The story of Weed and of Greeley is not an uncommon one in America. Some

of the most eminent men on the globe have struggled with poverty in

early life and triumphed over it.

The astronomer Kepler, whose name can never die, was kept in constant

anxieties; and he told fortunes by astrology for a livelihood, saying

that astrology, as the daughter of astronomy, ought to keep her mother.

All sorts of service he had to accept; he made almanacs and worked for

any one who would pay him.

Linnaeus was so poor when getting his education that he had to mend his

shoes with folded paper, and often had to beg his meals of his friends.

During the ten years in which he made his greatest discoveries, Isaac

Newton could hardly pay two shillings a week to the Royal Society of

which he was a member. Some of his friends wanted to get him excused

from this payment, but he would not allow them to act.

Humphry Davy had but a slender chance to acquire great scientific

knowledge, yet he had true mettle in him, and he made even old pans,

kettles, and bottles contribute to his success, as he experimented and

studied in the attic of the apothecary store where he worked.

George Stephenson was one of eight children whose parents were so poor

that all lived in a single room. George had to watch cows for a

neighbor, but he managed to get time to make engines of clay, with

hemlock sticks for pipes. At seventeen he had charge of an engine, with

his father for fireman. He could neither read nor write, but the engine

was his teacher, and he a faithful student. While the other hands were

playing games or loafing in liquor shops during the holidays, George was

taking his machine to pieces, cleaning it, studying it, and making

experiments in engines. When he had become famous as a great inventor of

improvements in engines, those who had loafed and played called him

lucky.

It was by steadfastly keeping at it, by indomitable will power, that

these men won their positions in life.

"We rise by the things that are under our feet;

By what we have mastered of good or gain."

TALENT IN TATTERS.

Among the companions of Sir Joshua Reynolds, while he was studying his

art at Rome, was a fellow-pupil of the name of Astley. They made an

excursion, with some others, on a sultry day, and all except Astley took

off their coats. After several taunts he was persuaded to do the same,

and displayed on the back of his waistcoat a foaming waterfall. Distress

had compelled him to patch his clothes with one of his own landscapes.

James Sharpies, the celebrated blacksmith artist of England, was very

poor, but he often rose at three o'clock to copy books he could not buy.

He would walk eighteen miles to Manchester and back after a hard day's

work, to buy a shilling's worth of artist's materials. He would ask for

the heaviest work in the blacksmith shop, because it took a longer time

to heat at the forge, and he could thus have many spare minutes to study

the precious book, which he propped up against the chimney. He was a

great miser of spare moments, and used every one as though he might

never see another. He devoted his leisure hours for five years to that

wonderful production, "The Forge," copies of which are to be seen in

many a home. It was by one unwavering aim, carried out by an iron will,

that he wrought out his life triumph.

"That boy will beat me one day," said an old painter as he watched a

little fellow named Michael Angelo making drawings of pot and brushes,

easel and stool, and other articles in the studio. The barefoot boy did

persevere until he had overcome every difficulty and become the greatest

master of art the world has known. Although Michael Angelo made himself

immortal in three different occupations,--and his fame might well rest

upon his dome of St. Peter as an architect, upon his "Moses" as a

sculptor, or upon his "Last Judgment" as a painter,--yet we find by his

correspondence, now in the British Museum, that when he was at work on

his colossal bronze statue of Pope Julius II., he was so poor that he

could not have his younger brother come to visit him at Bologna, because

he had but one bed in which he and three of his assistants slept

together. Yet

"The star of an unconquered will

Arose in his breast,

Serene, and resolute and still,

And calm and self-possessed."

CONCENTRATED ENERGY.

The struggles and triumphs of those who are bound to win is a

never-ending tale. Nor will the procession of enthusiastic workers cease

so long as the globe is turning on its axle.

Say what we will of genius, specialized in a hundred callings, yet the

fact remains that no amount of genius has ever availed upon the earth

unless enforced by will power to overcome the obstacles that hedge about

every one who would rise above the circumstances in which he was born,

or become greater than his calling. Was not Virgil the son of a porter,

Horace of a shopkeeper, Demosthenes of a cutler, Milton of a money

scrivener, Shakespeare of a wool stapler, and Cromwell of a brewer?

[Illustration: THURLOW WEED,

American Journalist and Politician.

_b. Cairo, N.Y., 1797; d. New York, 1882_.]

Ben Jonson, when following his trade of a mason, worked on Lincoln's Inn

in London with trowel in hand and a book in his pocket. Joseph Hunter

was a carpenter in youth, Robert Burns a plowman, Keats a druggist,

Thomas Carlyle and Hugh Miller masons. Dante and Descartes were

soldiers. Cardinal Wolsey, Defoe, and Kirke White were butchers' sons.

Faraday was the son of a hostler, and his teacher, Humphry Davy, was an

apprentice to an apothecary. Kepler was a waiter boy in a German hotel,

Bunyan a tinker, Copernicus the son of a Polish baker. They rose by

being greater than their callings, as Arkwright rose above mere

barbering, Bunyan above tinkering, Wilson above shoemaking, Lincoln

above rail-splitting, and Grant above tanning. By being first-class

barbers, tinkers, shoemakers, rail-splitters, tanners, they acquired the

power which enabled them to become great inventors, authors, statesmen,

generals. John Kay, the inventor of the fly-shuttle, James Hargreaves,

who introduced the spinning-jenny, and Samuel Compton, who originated

mule-spinning, were all artisans, uneducated and poor, but were endowed

with natural faculties which enabled them to make a more enduring

impression upon the world than anything that could have been done by the

mere power of scholarship or wealth.

It cannot be said of any of these great names that their individual

courses in life would have been what they were, had there been lacking a

superb will power resistless as the tide to bear them upward and onward.

Let Fortune empty her whole quiver on me,

I have a soul that, like an ample shield,

Can take in all, and verge enough for more;

Fate was not mine, nor am I Fate's:

Souls know no conquerors.

_Dryden_.

CHAPTER VI.

STAYING POWER.

"Never give up, there are chances and changes,

Helping the hopeful, a hundred to one;

And, through the chaos, High Wisdom arranges

Ever success, if you'll only hold on.

Never give up; for the wisest is boldest,

Knowing that Providence mingles the cup,

And of all maxims, the best, as the oldest,

Is the stern watchword of 'Never give up!'"

Be firm; one constant element of luck

Is genuine, solid, old Teutonic pluck.

_Holmes_.

Success in most things depends on knowing how long it takes to

succeed.--_Montesquieu_.

The power to hold on is characteristic of all men who have accomplished

anything great; they may lack in some other particular, have many

weaknesses or eccentricities, but the quality of persistence is never

absent from a successful man. No matter what opposition he meets or what

discouragement overtakes him, drudgery cannot disgust him, obstacles

cannot discourage him, labor cannot weary him; misfortune, sorrow, and

reverses cannot harm him. It is not so much brilliancy of intellect, or

fertility of resource, as persistency of effort, constancy of purpose,

that makes a great man. Those who succeed in life are the men and women

who keep everlastingly at it, who do not believe themselves geniuses,

but who know that if they ever accomplish anything they must do it by

determined and persistent industry.

Audubon after years of forest life had two hundred of his priceless

drawings destroyed by mice.

"A poignant flame," he relates, "pierced my brain like an arrow of fire,

and for several weeks I was prostrated with fever. At length physical

and moral strength awoke within me. Again I took my gun, my game-bag, my

portfolio, and my pencils, and plunged once more into the depths of the

forests."

All are familiar with the misfortune of Carlyle while writing his

"History of the French Revolution." After the first volume was ready for

the press, he loaned the manuscript to a neighbor, who left it lying on

the floor, and the servant girl took it to kindle the fire. It was a

bitter disappointment, but Carlyle was not the man to give up. After

many months of poring Over hundreds of volumes of authorities and scores

of manuscripts, he reproduced that which had burned in a few minutes.

PROCEED, AND LIGHT WILL DAWN.

The slightest acquaintance with literary history would bring to light a

multitude of heroes of poverty or misfortune, of men and women perplexed

and disheartened, who have yet aroused themselves to new effort at every

new obstacle.

It is related by Arago that he found under the cover of a text book he

was binding a short note from D'Alembert to a student:

"Go on, sir, go on. The difficulties you meet with will resolve

themselves as you advance. Proceed; and light will dawn, and shine with

increasing clearness on your path."

"That maxim," said Arago, "was my greatest master in mathematics."

Had Balzac been easily discouraged he would have hesitated at the words

of warning given by his father:

"Do you know that in literature a man must be either a king or a

beggar?"

"Very well," was the reply, "_I will be a king_."

His parents left him to his fate in a garret. For ten years he fought

terrible battles with hardship and poverty, but won a great victory at

last. He won it after producing forty novels that did not win.

Zola's early manhood witnessed a bitter struggle against poverty and

deprivation. Until twenty he was a spoiled child; but, on his father's

death, he and his mother began the battle of life in Paris. Of his dark

time, Zola himself says:

"Often I went hungry for so long, that it seemed as if I must die. I

scarcely tasted meat from one month's end to another, and for two days I

lived on three apples. Fire, even on the coldest nights, was an

undreamed-of luxury; and I was the happiest man in Paris when I could

get a candle, by the light of which I might study at night."

Samuel Johnson's bare feet at Oxford showed through the holes in his

shoes, yet he threw out at his window the new pair that some one left at

his door. He lived for a time in London on nine cents a day. For

thirteen years he had a hard struggle with want. John Locke once lived

on bread and water in a Dutch garret, and Heyne slept many a night on a

barn floor with only a book for his pillow. It was to poverty as a thorn

urging the breast of Harriet Martineau that we owe her writings.

There are no more interesting pages in biography than those which record

how Emerson, as a child, was unable to read the second volume of a

certain book, because his widowed mother could not afford the amount

(five cents) necessary to obtain it from the circulating library.

"Poor fellow!" said Emerson, as he looked at his delicately-reared

little son, "how much he loses by not having to go through the hard

experiences I had in my youth."

It was through the necessity laid upon him to earn that Emerson made his

first great success in life as a teacher. "I know," he said, "no such

unquestionable badge and ensign of a sovereign mind as that tenacity of

purpose, which, through all change of companions or parties or fortunes,

changes never, bates no jot of heart or hope, but wearies out opposition

and arrives at its port."

"SHE CAN NEVER SUCCEED."

Louisa Alcott earned two hundred thousand dollars by her pen. Yet, when

she was first dreaming of her power, her father handed her a manuscript

one day that had been rejected by Mr. Fields, editor of the "Atlantic,"

with the message:

"Tell Louisa to stick to her teaching; she can never succeed as a

writer."

"Tell him I _will_ succeed as a writer, and some day I shall write for

the 'Atlantic.'"

Not long after she wrote for the "Atlantic" a poem that Longfellow

attributed to Emerson. And there came a time when she wrote in her

diary:

"Twenty years ago I resolved to make the family independent if I could.

At forty, that is done. Debts all paid, even the outlawed ones, and we

have enough to be comfortable. It has cost me my health, perhaps."

"I TRAMPLE ON IMPOSSIBILITIES":

So it was said by Lord Chatham. "Why," asked Mirabeau, "should we call

ourselves men, unless it be to succeed in everything everywhere?"

"It is all very well," said Charles J. Fox, "to tell me that a young man

has distinguished himself by a brilliant first speech. He may go on

satisfied with his first triumph; but show me a young man who has not

succeeded at first, and has then gone on, and I will back that man to do

better than those who succeeded at the first trial." Cobden broke down

completely the first time he appeared on a platform in Manchester, and

the chairman apologized for him; but he did not give up speaking until

every poor man in England had a larger, better, and cheaper loaf. Young

Disraeli sprung from a hated and persecuted race, pushed his way up

through the middle classes and upper classes, until he stood self-poised

upon the topmost round of political and social power. At first he was

scoffed at, ridiculed, rebuffed, hissed from the House of Commons; he

simply said, "The time will come when you will hear me." The time did

come, and he swayed the sceptre of England for a quarter of a century.

How massive was the incalculable reserve power of Lincoln as a youth; or

of President Garfield, wood-chopper, bell-ringer, and sweeper-general in

college!

PERSISTENT PURPOSE.

We hear a great deal of talk about genius, talent, luck, chance,

cleverness, and fine manners playing a large part in one's success.

Leaving out luck and chance, all these elements are important factors.

Yet the possession of any or all of them, unaccompanied by a definite

aim, a determined purpose, will not insure success. Men drift into

business. They drift into society. They drift into politics. They drift

into what they fondly and but vainly imagine is religion. If winds and

tides are favorable, all is well; if not, all is wrong. Stalker says:

"Most men merely drift through life, and the work they do is determined

by a hundred different circumstances; they might as well be doing

anything else, or they would prefer to be doing nothing at all." Yet

whatever else may have been lacking in the giants of the race, the men

who have been conspicuously successful have all had one characteristic

in common--doggedness and persistence of purpose.

It does not matter how clever a youth may be, whether he leads his class

in college or outshines all the other boys in his community, he will

never succeed if he lacks this essential of determined persistence. Many

men who might have made brilliant musicians, artists, teachers, lawyers,

able physicians or surgeons, in spite of predictions to the contrary,

have fallen short of success because deficient in this quality.

Persistency of purpose is a power. It creates confidence in others.

Everybody believes in the determined man. When he undertakes anything

his battle is half won, because not only he himself, but every one who

knows him, believes that he will accomplish whatever he sets out to do.

People know that it is useless to oppose a man who uses his

stumbling-blocks as stepping-stones; who is not afraid of defeat; who

never, in spite of calumny or criticism, shrinks from his task; who

never shirks responsibility; who always keeps his compass pointed to the

north star of his purpose, no matter what storms may rage about him.

The persistent man never stops to consider whether he is succeeding or

not. The only question with him is how to push ahead, to get a little

farther along, a little nearer his goal. Whether it lead over mountains,

rivers, or morasses, he must reach it. Every other consideration is

sacrificed to this one dominant purpose.

The success of a dull or average youth and the failure of a brilliant

one is a constant surprise in American history. But if the different

cases are closely analyzed we shall find that the explanation lies in

the staying power of the seemingly dull boy, the ability to stand firm

as a rock under all circumstances, to allow nothing to divert him from

his purpose.

THREE NECESSARY THINGS.

"Three things are necessary," said Charles Sumner, "first, backbone;

second, backbone; third, backbone."

A good chance alone is nothing. Education is nothing without strong and

vigorous resolution and stamina to make one accomplish something in the

world. An encouraging start is nothing without backbone. A man who

cannot stand erect, who wabbles first one way and then the other, who

has no opinion of his own, or courage to think his own thought, is of

very little use in this world. It is grit, it is perseverance, it is

moral stamina and courage that govern the world.

At the trial of the seven bishops of the Church of England for refusing

to aid the king to overthrow the Protestant faith, it was necessary to

watch the officers at the doors, lest they send food to some juryman,

and aid him to starve the others into an agreement. Nothing was allowed

to be sent in but water for the jurymen to wash in, and they were so

thirsty they drank it up. At first nine were for acquitting, and three

for convicting. Two of the minority soon gave way; the third, Arnold,

was obstinate. He declined to argue. Austin said to him, "Look at me. I

am the largest and the strongest of the twelve; and before I will find

such a petition as this libel, here will I stay till I am no bigger than

a tobacco pipe." Arnold yielded at six in the morning.

SUCCESS AGAINST ODDS.

Yes, to this thought I hold with firm persistence;

The last result of wisdom stamps it true:

He only earns his freedom and existence

Who daily conquers them anew.

_Goethe_.

"It is interesting to notice how some minds seem almost to create

themselves," says Irving, "springing up under every disadvantage, and

working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand

obstacles." Opposing circumstances create strength. Opposition gives us

greater power of resistance. To overcome one barrier gives us greater

ability to overcome the next. History is full of examples of men and

women who have redeemed themselves from disgrace, poverty, and

misfortune, by the firm resolution of an iron will.

Success is not measured by what a man accomplishes, but by the

opposition he has encountered, and the courage with which he has

maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds. Not the distance we

have run, but the obstacles we have overcome, the disadvantages under

which we have made the race, will decide the prizes.

"It is defeat," says Henry Ward Beecher, "that turns bone to flint, and

gristle to muscle, and makes men invincible, and formed those heroic

natures that are now in ascendency in the world. Do not, then, be afraid

of defeat. You are never so near to victory as when defeated in a good

cause."

Governor Seymour of New York, a man of great force and character, said,

in reviewing his life: "If I were to wipe out twenty acts, what should

they be? Should it be my business mistakes, my foolish acts (for I

suppose all do foolish acts occasionally), my grievances? No; for, after

all, these are the very things by which I have profited. So I finally

concluded I should expunge, instead of my mistakes, my triumphs. I could

not afford to dismiss the tonic of mortification, the refinement of

sorrow; I needed them every one."

"Every condition, be it what it may," says Channing, "has hardships,

hazards, pains. We try to escape them; we pine for a sheltered lot, for

a smooth path, for cheering friends, and unbroken success. But

Providence ordains storms, disasters, hostilities, sufferings; and the

great question whether we shall live to any purpose or not, whether we

shall grow strong in mind and heart, or be weak and pitiable, depends on

nothing so much as on our use of the adverse circumstances. Outward

evils are designed to school our passions, and to rouse our faculties

and virtues into intenser action. Sometimes they seem to create new

powers. Difficulty is the element, and resistance the true work of man.

Self-culture never goes on so fast as when embarrassed circumstances,

the opposition of men or the elements, unexpected changes of the times,

or other forms of suffering, instead of disheartening, throw us on our

inward resources, turn us for strength to God, clear up to us the great

purpose of life, and inspire calm resolution. No greatness or goodness

is worth much, unless tried in these fires."

[Illustration: BENJAMIN DISRAELI

(Earl of Beaconsfield),

English Statesman and Novelist.

_b. London, 1804; d. London, 1881_.]

Better to stem with heart and hand

The roaring tide of life, than lie,

Unmindful, on its flowery strand,

Of God's occasions drifting by!

Better with naked nerve to bear

The needles of this goading air,

Than in the lap of sensual ease forego

The godlike power to do, the godlike aim to know.

_Whittier_.

CHAPTER VII.

THE DEGREE OF "O.O."

When Moody first visited Ireland he was introduced by a friend to an

Irish merchant who asked at once:

"Is he an O.O.?"

"Out and Out"--that was what "O.O." stood for.

"Out and Out" for God--that was what this merchant meant. He indeed is

but a wooden man, and a poor stick at that, who is decided in everything

else, but who never knows "where he is at" in all moral relations, being

religiously nowhere.

The early books of the Hebrews have much to say about "The Valley of

Decision" and the development of "Out and Out" moral character.

Wofully lacking in a well-balanced will power is the man who stands side

by side with moral evil personified, in hands with it, to serve it

willingly as a tool and servant.

Morally made in God's image, what is more sane, more wholesome, more

fitting, for a man than his rising up promptly, decidedly, to make the

Divine Will his own will in all moral action, to take it as the supreme

guide to go by? It is the glory of the human will to coincide with the

Divine Will. Doing this, a man's Iron Will, instead of being a malignant

selfish power, will be useful in uplifting mankind.

God has spoken, or he has not spoken. If he has spoken, the wise will

hear.

We search the world for truth; we cull

The good, the pure, the beautiful,

From graven stone and written scroll,

From all the flower-fields of the soul:

And, weary seekers of the best,

We come back laden from our quest,

To find that all the sages said

Is in the BOOK our mother read.

_Whittier_.

O earth that blooms and birds that sing,

O stars that shine when all is dark!

In type and symbol thou dost bring

The Life Divine, and bid us hark,

That we may catch the chant sublime,

And, rising, pass the bounds of time;

So shall we win the goal divine,

Our immortality.

_Carrol Norton_.

THE MARDEN

INSPIRATIONAL BOOKS

Be Good to Yourself

Every Man a King

Exceptional Employee

Getting On

He Can Who Thinks He Can

How to Get What You Want

Joys of Living

Keeping Fit

Love's Way

Making Life a Masterpiece

Miracle of Right Thought

Optimistic Life

Peace, Power, and Plenty

Progressive Business Man

Pushing to the Front

Rising in the World

Secret of Achievement

Self-Investment

Selling Things

Training for Efficiency

Victorious Attitude

Woman and the Home

Young Man Entering Business

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An Iron Will

Good Manners

Economy

Ambition

Do it to a Finish

Opportunity

Cheerfulness

Character

Thrift

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I Had a Friend

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Uplifting to Humanity

"I assure you that the present and future generations must look upon

such a work as most uplifting to humanity."

CHARLES FRANCIS, _Charles Francis Press,

New York City_.

Fresh Efforts after Reading

"No one will fail to put forth fresh and better directed efforts to work

to the front after reading the book."

_Good Health_.

The Ladder of Success

"The author writes with a purpose in view; that purpose is found on the

topmost rungs of the ladder of success. In order to find the purpose the

reader must ascend this ladder. The rest is easy."

_Chamber of Commerce Bulletin_ (_Portland, Ore_.).

A Wise Investment

"Any one who employs labor where it requires character and intelligence

would make a wise investment by presenting his employees a copy of this

book. It has been some time since I have read a more wholesome,

inspiring, and fascinating volume."

J.J. COLE, in _Christian Standard_.

Brimful of Anecdote and Illustration

"The book is not all theory and principle. It is brimful of the anecdote

and illustration from actual business life which gives vigor and

acceptance to the writer's ideas."

_Christian Advocate_.

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY

Opinions and Reviews of Dr. Marden's

The Secret of Achievement

Exasperating

"'The Secret of Achievement' is one of those exasperating books which

you feel you ought to present to your young friends, yet find yourself

unwilling to part with." WILLIAM B. WARREN, _Former President Boston

University_.

Art of Putting Things

"I have studied Dr. Marden's books with deep interest. He has the art of

putting things; of planting in the mind convictions that will live. I

know of no works that contain equal inspiration for life."

HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH.

A Great Service

"I thoroughly feel that you are rendering a great service to young men

and women in America and throughout the world."

REV. R.S. McARTHUR, D.D., _New York City_.

The Difference

"'Pushing to the Front' is a great book and 'Rising in the World' is a

magnificent book, but 'The Secret of Achievement' is a superb book."

Success against Odds

"This volume contains a series of stimulating anecdotes and advice

showing how energy, force of well-directed will, application, lofty

purpose, and noble ideals serve to win success even against the greatest

odds. Many a young man will draw inspiration from it which will aid him

in making his life work a success."

_School Journal_.

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY

PRESS REVIEWS OF

The Young Man Entering Business

"A readable volume

on a substantial topic, which discusses actual questions. The counsel of

an experienced person."

_Pittsburgh Post_.

Abounds in Specific Advice

"We can easily conceive that a young man who gets this book into his

hands may, in after life, date his success from reading it. It is sound,

wholesome, stimulating. The treatment is concrete. It abounds in

specific advice and telling illustration."

_Southern Observer_.

Stimulates and Encourages

"Packed as it is with sensible, practical counsels, this volume can be

cordially recommended to stimulate and encourage young men starting out

in business life."

_Brooklyn Times_.

A Necessity to Earnest Young Men

"There is such a thing as the science of success. Dr. Marden has made a

study of it. He writes in simple, attractive style. He deals with facts.

The book should be in the hands of every earnest young man."

_Christian Advocate_.

Entertaining as Well as Helpful

"So interwoven with personal incident and illustration that it is an

entertaining as well as a helpful book."

_Christian Observer_.

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY

Opinions of

The Miracle of Right Thought

Dr. Sheldon Leavitt says:

"I wish to state that I am unusually well pleased with Dr. Marden's

'Miracle of Right Thought.' It is the best work of the author."

Ralph Waldo Trine says:

"This is one of those inspiring, reasonable and valuable books that are

bringing new life and new power to so many thousands all over our

country and all over the world to-day."

"You have formulated a philosophy

which must sooner or later be universally accepted. Your book shows how

the right mental attitude helps one in the realization of every laudable

ambition, and the value of cultivating a bright, self-reliant habit of

thought. I congratulate you on it."

G.H. SANDISON, _Editor, The Christian Herald_.

"It is marked by sanctified common sense;

it is in line with the advance thought of to-day, and yet it is so

simple in statement that unlettered men and untrained youths can master

its best thoughts and translate them into their daily lives."

REV. R.S. MacARTHUR, D.D., _New York City_.

REV. F.E. Clark, President United Society

of Christian Endeavor, says:

"I regard 'The Miracle of Right Thought' as one of Dr. Marden's very

best books, and that is saying a great deal. He has struck the modern

note of the power of mind over bodily conditions in a fresh and most

interesting way, while he has not fallen into the mistake of some New

Thought writers of eliminating the personal God from the universe. No

one can read this book sympathetically, I believe, without being happier

and better."

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY

Selling Things

By ORISON SWETT MARDEN

A Book For Salesmen

"Deals with the training of salesmen and the necessary attributes to

make them successful. All phases of the subject are considered: clothes,

presence, ability to talk, persuasive powers, tact, helping and getting

the customer to buy."

_Bookseller_.

Will be Welcome

"A book that will be gladly welcomed by sales managers and salesmen in

every field."

_Philadelphia Public Ledger_.

Helps to Prosperity

"One of the best things that you have written, and ought to be in the

hands of every man who would call himself a salesman. There are many

points therein that will certainly help him to prosperity."

_Samuel Brill_.

A Masterful Work

"A masterful work and is filled from cover to cover with practical

usable information for young men and women. I consider this book one of

the best things you have done, and that is saying a great deal when the

excellence of your previous works is taken into consideration."

_Hudson Maxim_.

A Powerful Factor

"In our opinion, if 'selling' would be given more thought by such world

famous writers as you, it would be a powerful factor in the complete

revolution of business, and eliminate to a great extent the waste of

time, money and human life that is so recklessly thrown away under the

present ignorance of true salesmanship."

_N.A. Corking, Sales Mgr., Ford Motor Company_.

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY

OPINIONS OF

Rising in the World

"A storehouse of incentive,

a treasury of precious sayings; a granary of seed-thoughts capable,

under proper cultivation, of a fine character harvest."--EDWARD A.

HORTON.

"A stimulating book

which is pitched at a high note and rings true."--EDWIN M. BACON.

"Has all the excellences of style

and matter that gave to 'Pushing to the Front' its signal success. Dr.

Marden's power of pithy statement and pertinent illustration seems

inexhaustible."--W.F. WARREN, _Former President of Boston University_.

Touches the Springs of Life

"Dr. Marden has touched the springs of life and set forth with

marvellous and convincing power the results obtained by those inspired

by high resolves, lofty aspirations, and pure motives. No one can rise

from reading this book without cleaner desires, firmer resolutions, and

sublime ambition."--MYRON T. PRITCHARD, _Master of Everett School,

Boston_.

Its Immortal Possibilities

"Has the same iron in the blood, the same vigorous constitution, the

same sanguine temperament, the same immortal possibilities as 'Pushing

to the Front.'"--THOMAS W. BICKNELL, _Ex-U.S. Commissioner of

Education_.

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY

Letters to Dr. Marden concerning

Every Man a King

Success vs. Failure

"One of the most inspiring books I have ever read. I should like to

purchase a thousand and distribute them, as I believe the reading of

this book would make the difference between success and failure in many

lives."

CHAS. E. SCHMICK, _House of Representatives, Mass_.

Worth One Hundred Dollars

"I would not take one hundred dollars for your book, 'Every Man a King,'

if no other were available."

WILLARD MERRIAM, _New York City_.

Unfailing Optimism

"The unfailing note of optimism which rings through all your works is

distinctly sounded here."

W.E. HUNTINGTON, _Pres., Boston University_.

The Keynote of Life

"'Every Man a King' strikes the keynote of life. Any one of its chapters

is well worth the cost of the book."

E.J. TEAGARDEN, _Danbury, Conn_.

Simply Priceless

"I have just read it with tremendous interest, and I frankly say that I

regard it as simply priceless. Its value to me is immeasurable, and I

should be glad if I could put it in the hands of every intelligent young

man and woman in this country."

CHAS. STOKES WAYNE, _Chappaqua, N.Y._

Renewed Ambition

"I have read and re-read it with pleasure and renewed ambition. I shall

ever keep it near at hand as a frequent reminder and an invaluable

text-book."

H.H. WILLIAMS, _Brockton, Mass_.

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO., NEW YORK

The Victorious Attitude

By ORISON SWETT MARDEN

A Soul Doctor

"This book should be read by all discouraged people. It is a tonic--and

a moral bracer of the first order. Most of us need to have our

self-confidence stimulated, and Dr. Marden stimulates it. He is a soul

doctor."

_Richmond Times Dispatch_.

Buoyant and Breezy

"Full of fresh ideas couched in straightforward language. Buoyant,

breezy and highly stimulating.

_San Francisco Bulletin_.

A Wallet of Truth

"There is a crammed wallet of truth in your book. May it go forth to

inspire men with the fine courage of life."

_Edwin Markham_.

Excellent Advice

"The homely truths and excellent bits of advice contained is Dr.

Marden's book will make instructive reading. It is written in forcible

and easily understandable style."

_Buffalo Commercial_.

Cannot Fail to Help

"Clear, direct and vigorous in expression, and so uplifting and

wholesome in subject matter, that it cannot fail to be of help to many

people who are in need of just such advice."

_Des Moines Register_.

Nothing More Valuable

"One of the very best books that you ever produced. The book is like a

medicine to me. I commended it to our students put it in our library and

it has been in great demand. I know of nothing finer or more valuable

for young people who are struggling for an education."

_Rev. O.S. Krisbel, D.D._

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY

Letters to Dr. Marden concerning

He Can Who Thinks He Can

Will Do Amazing Good

"I believe 'He Can Who Thinks He Can,' comprising some of your

editorials, which appear akin to divine inspiration in words of cheer,

hope, courage and success, will do amazing good."

JAMES PETER, _Independence, Kas_.

Greatest Things Ever Written

"Your editorials on the subjects of self-confidence and self-help are

the greatest things ever written along that line."

H.L. DUNLAP, _Waynesburg, Pa_.

Gripping Power

"Presents the truth in a remarkably clear and forcible manner, with a

gripping power back of the writing. It is beautiful and inspiring."

C.W. SMELSER, _Coopertown, Okla_.

Beginning of My Success

"Your editorials have helped me mere than any other reading. The

beginning of my success was when I commenced to practise your

teachings."

BRUCE HARTMAN, _Honolulu, T.H._

Wishes to Reprint It

"I have been very much impressed by the chapter on 'New Thought, New

Life.' I would like to send a copy of it to two thousand of my

customers, giving due credit of course."

John D. MORRIS, _Philadelphia, Pa_.

Full of Light and Joy

"I have studied the subject of New Thought for ten years, but have never

seen anything so comprehensive, so full of light and joy, as your

treatment of it. When I think of the good it will do, and the thousands

it will reach, my heart rejoices."

LOUISE MARKSCHEFFEL, _Toledo, O_.

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO., NEW YORK

OPINIONS OF

The Joys of Living

In Every Sense Worth While

"A ringing call for a joyful life is just what this old world needs to

hear and to heed. A saner, wiser, more helpful book than this we have

rarely read.... In every sense well worth the while."

_The Examiner_.

Wholesome Reading

"The book makes wholesome reading. One lays it down with a resolve to

find more happiness in his life and a determination to live more in the

present."

_Springfield Republican_.

One of the Author's Best

"The author has been doing uniformly good work, work that has elicited

warmest commendations from leading men of the country. 'The Joys of

Living' is one of Dr. Marden's best books."

_Chicago Standard_.

More Such Teachers Wanted

"Give us more such teachers and writers, more such heralds of the new

and ever present kingdom of Good, of joy, of Opulence! Just read this

book yourself and you will change your whole mental attitude."

_The Truth-Seeker_.

A Book for the Nerve-worn

"The book is one that our rushing American world needs. If you feel

compassion for any nerve-worn, unhappy man or woman, tell them of this

message. Better still, send the book to some one who needs it."

_Portland Oregonian_.

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY

Press Reviews of Dr. Marden's

Be Good to Yourself

"The author is a wonder,--

one of the very best preachers, through the pen, of our time."

_Zion's Herald_.

"Just such a discussion of personality

as we all need. The titles of the chapters are appetizing and the advice

and lessons taught are good. It will help many a reader to understand

himself better."

_The Advance_.

"The kind counsel of a new book

by Orison Swett Marden, who says there are many people who are good to

others but not to themselves This is a fine volume from every point of

view."

_The Religious Telescope_.

"Of a thoroughly inspirational character,

these essays are calculated to awaken and sustain the right sort of

ambition and evolve a manly type of character. They are surcharged with

faith, optimism, and common sense."

_The Boston Herald_.

"Dr. Marden's friends,

who are to be found in all quarters of the globe, wait eagerly for such

advice as this, on how to be happy, hearty, and healthy."

_Seattle Post Intelligencer_.

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY

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