Wisdom & Empowerment: The Orison Swett Marden Edition (18 Books in One Volume). Orison Swett Marden
said Dr. Cuyler, "and I find that the chief difference between the successful and the failures lies in the single element of staying power. Permanent success is oftener won by holding on than by sudden dash, however brilliant. The easily discouraged, who are pushed back by a straw, are all the time dropping to the rear—to perish or to be carried along on the stretcher of charity. They who understand and practice Abraham Lincoln's homely maxim of 'pegging away' have achieved the solidest success."
"When a man has done his work," says Ruskin, "and nothing can any way be materially altered in his fate, let him forget his toil, and jest with his fate if he will, but what excuse can you find for willfulness of thought at the very lime when every crisis of fortune hangs on your decisions? A youth thoughtless, when all the happiness of his home forever depends on the chances or the passions of the hour! A youth thoughtless, when the career of all his days depends on the opportunity of a moment! A youth thoughtless, when his every action is a foundation-stone of future conduct, and every imagination a foundation of life or death! Be thoughtless in any after years, rather than now—though, indeed, there is only one place where a man may be nobly thoughtless, his deathbed. Nothing should ever be left to be done there."
The Duke of Wellington became so discouraged because he did not advance in the army that he applied for a much inferior position in the customs department, but was refused. Napoleon had applied for every vacant position for seven years before he was recognized, but meanwhile he studied with all his might, supplementing what was considered a thorough military education by researches and reflections which in later years enabled him easily to teach the art of war to veterans who had never dreamed of his novel combinations.
Reserves which carry us through great emergencies are the result of long working and long waiting. Collyer declares that reserves mean to a man also achievement,—"the power to do the grandest thing possible to your nature when you feel you must, or some precious thing will be lost,—to do well always, but best in the crisis on which all things turn; to stand the strain of a long fight, and still find you have something left, and so to never know you are beaten, because you never are beaten." Every defeat is a Waterloo to him who has no reserves.
He only is independent in action who has been earnest and thorough in preparation and self-culture. "Not for school, but for life, we learn;" and our habits—of promptness, earnestness, and thoroughness, or of tardiness, fickleness, and superficiality—are the things acquired most readily and longest retained.
"One who reads the chronicles of discoveries is struck with the prominent part that accident has played in such annals. For some of the most useful processes and machinery the world is indebted to apparently chance occurrences. Inventors in search of one object have failed in their quest, but have stumbled on something more valuable than that for which they were looking. Saul is not the only man who has gone in search of asses and found a kingdom. Astrologers sought to read from the heavens the fate of men and the fortune of nations, and they led to a knowledge of astronomy. Alchemists were seeking for the philosopher's stone, and from their efforts sprung the science of chemistry. Men explored the heavens for something to explain irregularities in the movements of the planets, and discovered a star other than the one for which they were looking. A careless glance at such facts might encourage the delusion that aimless straying in bypaths is quite as likely to be rewarded as is the steady pressing forward, with fixed purpose, towards some definite goal.
"But it is to be remembered that the men who made the accidental discoveries were men who were looking for something. The unexpected achievement was but the return for the toil after what was attained. Others might have encountered the same facts, but only the eye made eager by the strain of long watching would be quick to note the meaning. If vain search for hidden treasure has no other recompense, it at least gives ability to detect the first gleam of the true metal. Men may wake at times surprised to find themselves famous, but it was the work they did before going to sleep, and not the slumber, that gave the eminence. When the ledge has been drilled and loaded and the proper connections have been made, a child's touch on the electric key may be enough to annihilate the obstacle, but without the long preparation the pressure of a giant's hand would be without effect.
"In the search for truth and the shaping of character the principle remains the same as in science and literature. Trivial causes are followed by wonderful results, but it is only the merchantman who is on the watch for goodly pearls who is represented as finding the pearl of great price."
To vary the language of another, the three great essentials to success in mental and physical labor are Practice, Patience, and Perseverance, but the greatest of these is Perseverance.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
LONGFELLOW.
CHAPTER X.
CLEAR GRIT.
I shall show the cinders of my spirits
Through the ashes of my chance.
SHAKESPEARE.
What though ten thousand faint,
Desert, or yield, or in weak terror flee!
Heed not the panic of the multitude;
Thine be the captain's watchword,—Victory!
HORATIUS BONAR.
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 hear
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.
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.
DRYDEN.
There's a brave fellow! There's a man of pluck!
A man who's not afraid to say his say,
Though a whole town's against him.
LONGFELLOW.
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.—GOLDSMITH.
Attempt the end and never stand to doubt;
Nothing's so hard but search will find it out.
HERRICK.
The barriers are not yet erected which shall say to aspiring talent, "Thus far and no farther."—BEETHOVEN.
"Friends and comrades," said Pizarro, as he turned toward the south, after tracing with his sword upon the sand a line from east to west, "on that side are toil, hunger, nakedness, the drenching storm, desertion, and death; on this side, ease and pleasure. There lies Peru with its riches; here, Panama and its poverty. Choose, each man, what best becomes a brave Castilian. For my part, I go to the south." So saying, he crossed the line and was followed by thirteen Spaniards in armor. Thus, on the little island of Gallo in the Pacific, when his men were clamoring to return to Panama, did Pizarro and his few volunteers resolve to stake their lives upon the success of a desperate crusade against the powerful empire of the Incas. At the time they had not even a vessel to transport them to the country they wished to conquer. Is it necessary to add that all difficulties yielded at last to such resolute determination?