Clear Grit : Part 5

Architects of Fate: Steps to Success and Power
By Orison Swett Marden

(Page 14 of 20)

One of the greatest preachers of modern times, Lacordaire, failed again and again. Everybody said he would never make a preacher, but he was determined to succeed, and in two years from his humiliating failures he was preaching in Notre Dame to immense congregations.

The boy Thorwaldsen, whose father died in the poor-house, and whose education was so scanty that he had to write his letters over many times before they could be posted, by his indomitable perseverance, tenacity, and grit, fascinated the world with the genius which neither his discouraging father, poverty, nor hardship could suppress.

William H. Seward was given a thousand dollars by his father to go to college with; this was all he was to have. The son returned at the end of the freshman year with extravagant habits and no money. His father refused to give him more, and told him he could not stay at home. When the youth found the props all taken out from under him, and that he must now sink or swim, he left home moneyless, returned to college, graduated at the head of his class, studied law, was elected Governor of New York, and became Lincoln's great Secretary of State during the Civil War.

Louisa M. Alcott wrote the conclusion to "An Old-Fashioned Girl" with her left hand in a sling, one foot up, head aching, and no voice. She proudly writes 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." She earned two hundred thousand dollars by her pen.

Mrs. Frank Leslie often refers to the time she lived in her carpetless attic while striving to pay her husband's obligations. She has fought her way successfully through nine lawsuits, and has paid the entire debt. She manages her ten publications entirely herself, signs all checks and money-orders, makes all contracts, looks over all proofs, and approves the make-up of everything before it goes to press. She has developed great business ability, which no one dreamed she possessed.

Garfield said, "If the power to do hard work is not talent, it is the best possible substitute for it." The triumph of industry and grit over low birth and iron fortune in America, this land of opportunity, ought to be sufficient to put to shame all grumblers over their hard fortune and those who attempt to excuse aimless, shiftless, unsuccessful men because they have no chance.

The fear of ridicule and the dread of humiliation often hinder one from taking decisive steps when it is plainly a duty, so that courage is a very important element of decision. In a New England academy a pupil who was engaged to assist the teacher was unable to solve a problem in algebra. The class was approaching the problem, and he was mortified because, after many trials, he was obliged to take it to the teacher for solution. The teacher returned it unsolved. What could he do? He would not confess to the class that he could not solve it, so, after many futile attempts, he went to a distant town to seek the assistance of a friend who, he believed, could do the work. But, alas! his friend had gone away, and would not be back for a week. On his way back he said to himself, "What a fool! am I unable to perform a problem in algebra, and should I go back to my class and confess my ignorance? I can solve it and I will." He shut himself in his room, determined not to sleep until he had mastered the problem, and finally he won success. Underneath the solution he wrote, "Obtained Monday evening, September 2, at half past eleven o'clock, after more than a dozen trials that have consumed more than twenty hours of time."

During a winter in the war of 1812, General Jackson's troops, not provided for and starving, became mutinous and were going home. But the general set the example of living on acorns; then rode before the rebellious line and threatened with death the first mutineer that should try to leave.

The race is not always to the swift, the battle is not always to the strong. Horses are sometimes weighted or hampered in the race, and this is taken into account in the result. So in the race of life the distance alone does not determine the prize. We must take into consideration the hindrances, the weights we have carried, the disadvantages of education, of breeding, of training, of surroundings, of circumstances. How many young men are weighted down with debt, with poverty, with the support of invalid parents or brothers and sisters, or friends? How many are fettered with ignorance, hampered by inhospitable surroundings, with the opposition of parents who do not understand them? How many a round boy is hindered in the race by being forced into a square hole? How many are delayed in their course because nobody believes in them, because nobody encourages them, because they get no sympathy and are forever tortured for not doing that against which every fiber of their being protests, and every drop of their blood rebels? How many have to feel their way to the goal, through the blindness of ignorance and lack of experience? How many go bungling along from the lack of early discipline and drill in the vocation they have chosen? How many have to hobble along on crutches because they were never taught to help themselves, but to lean upon a father's wealth or a mother's indulgence? How many are weakened for the journey of life by self-indulgence, by dissipation, by "life-sappers;" how many are crippled by disease, by a weak constitution, by impaired eyesight or hearing?

When the prizes of life should be awarded by the Supreme Judge, who knows our weaknesses and frailties, the distance we have run, the weights we have carried, the handicaps, will all be taken into account. 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. The poor wretch who has plodded along against unknown temptations, the poor woman who has buried her sorrows in her silent heart and sewed her weary way through life, those who have suffered abuse in silence, and who have been unrecognized or despised by their fellow-runners, will often receive the greater prize.

"The wise and active conquer difficulties,
By daring to attempt them: sloth and folly
Shiver and sink at sight of toil and hazard,
And make the impossibility they fear."

Tumble me down, and I will sit
Upon my ruins, smiling yet:
Tear me to tatters, yet I'll be
Patient in my necessity:
Laugh at my scraps of clothes, and shun
Me as a feared infection:
Yet scare-crow like I'll walk, as one
Neglecting thy derision. - Robert Herrick.

Copyright, 1895 by Orison Swett Marden.
All Rights Reserved.