Orison Swett Marden

“ His neighbors jeered at him as a madman, one who put his plain duty aside for the gratification of what seemed to their dull minds merely a whim. His poor wife could hardly be blamed for reproaching him. She could neither understand nor sympathize with his hopes and fears, while she knew that if he followed his trade, he could at least save his family from want. It was a trying time for both of them. But who ever heard tell of an artist, inventor, discoverer, or genius of any kind being deterred by poverty, abuse, ridicule, or obstacles of any kind from the pursuit of an ideal! ”

“ Envious artists look from one to the other with questioning eyes, but the question remains unanswered. No triumphant sculptor comes forward to claim the wondrous creation as the work of his brain and hand. Heralds, in thunder tones, repeat, "Who is the sculptor of this group?" No one can tell. It is a mystery. Is it the work of the gods? or—and, with bated breath, the question passes from lip to lip, "Can it have been fashioned by the hand of a slave?" ”

“ Lincoln's rise from the poorest of log cabins to the White House, to be president of the greatest republic in the world, is one of the most inspiring stories in American biography. Yet he was not a genius, unless a determination to make the most of one's self and to persist in spite of all hardships, discouragements, and hindrances, be genius. He made himself what he was—one of the noblest, greatest, and best of men—by sheer dint of hard work and the cultivation of the talents that had been given him. ”

“ We smile at the idea of a youth who never knew fear, who even as a little child had never been frightened by the imaginary terrors of night, the darkness of the forest, or the cries of the wild animals which inhabited it.
Yet it is actually true that there was born at Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk, England, on September 29, 1758, a boy who never knew what fear was. This boy's name was Horatio Nelson,—a name which his fearlessness, ambition, and patriotism made immortal. ”

“ Every stroke of the chisel is guided by the ideal behind the blow.
Look at this easy-going, pleasure-loving youth who takes up the mallet and smites the chisel with careless, thoughtless blows. His mind is filled with images of low, sensual pleasures; the passing enjoyment of the hour is everything to him; his work, the future, nothing. He carries in his heart, perhaps, the bestial motto of the glutton, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die;" ”

“ Phidias, one of the greatest sculptors, if not the greatest the world has known, who "formed a new style characterized by sublimity and ideal beauty," is there. Near him is Sophocles, the greatest of the tragic poets. Yonder we catch a glimpse of a face and form that offers the most striking contrast to the manly beauty of the poet, but whose wisdom and virtue have brought Athens to his feet. It is the "father of philosophy," Socrates. With his arm linked in that of the philosopher, we see—but why prolong the list? All Greece has been bidden to Athens to view the works of art. ”

“ Effort to do better was the motto of his life, and he never permitted a day to pass without making some advance in his profession. Though often too poor to buy the marble in which to embody his conceptions, he for many years lived up to a resolution made about this time, never to close his eyes at night without having produced some design.
What wonder that at twenty-five this noble youth, whose incessant toil had perfected genius, was the marvel of his age! ”

“ With infinite care he chisels each line and curve. Every stroke is true.
Months stretch into years, and still we find the sculptor at work. Time has given greater precision to his touch, and the skill of the youth, strengthened by noble aspirations and right effort, has become positive genius in the man. If he has not attained the ideal that haunted him, he has created a form so beautiful in its clear-cut outlines, so imposing in the majesty of its purity and strength, that the beholder involuntarily bows before it.
THE MARBLE WAITETH. WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH IT? ”

“ You will lose your place; or, supposing you to retain it, what are you but a clerk for life? And your prospects as a lawyer are good enough to encourage you to go on. Go on, and finish your studies; you are poor enough, but there are greater evils than poverty; live on no man's favor; what bread you do eat, let it be the bread of independence; pursue your profession, make yourself useful to your friends and a little formidable to your enemies, and you have nothing to fear."
How fortunate Webster as to have at this point in his career so wise and far-seeing a friend! ”

“ It came during the gold fever, which raged with such intensity from 1849 to 1851, when the wildest stories were afloat of the treasures that were daily being dug out of the earth in California. The brain of the sturdy youth, whose Scotch and Puritan blood tingled for some broader field than the village store and his father's farm in Stockbridge, New York, was haunted by the tales of adventure and fortune wafted across the continent from the new El Dorado. ”

“ But, successful as he was in his editorial venture, Edison's best love was given to chemistry and electricity, which latter subject he had begun to study with his usual ardor. And well it was for the world when the youth of sixteen gave up train and newspaper work, that no poverty, no difficulties, no ridicule, no "hard luck," none of the trials and obstacles he had to encounter in after life, had power to chill or discourage the genius of the master inventor of the nineteenth century. ”

“ With one such drop," he continued, turning to Ali Hafed, "you could buy many farms like yours; with a handful you could buy a province, and with a mine of diamonds you could purchase a whole kingdom."
The company parted for the night, and Ali Hafed went to bed, but not to sleep. All night long he tossed restlessly from side to side, thinking, planning, scheming how he could secure some diamonds. The demon of discontent had entered his soul, and the blessings and advantages which he possessed in such abundance seemed as by some malicious magic to have utterly vanished. ”

“ With the fire of genius burning in his dark eyes, a youth works with feverish haste on a group of wondrous beauty.
But why is this master artist at work, in secret, in a cellar where the sun never shone, the daylight never entered? I will tell you. Creon, the inspired worker, the son of genius, is a slave, and the penalty of pursuing his art is death.
When the Athenian law debarring all but freemen from the exercise of art was enacted, Creon was at work trying to realize in marble the vision his soul had created. ”

“ Had the little Scotch lad, Ferguson, allowed the busy brain to go to sleep while he tended sheep on the hillside, instead of calculating the position of the stars by the help of a string of beads, he would never have become a famous astronomer.
"Labor vanquishes all,"—not in constant, spasmodic, or ill-directed labor, but faithful, unremitting, daily effort toward a well-directed purpose. Just as truly as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, so is eternal industry the price of noble and enduring success. ”

“ Endowed as he was with all the qualities that make a man truly great, Lincoln's own life teaches above all other things the lesson he drew from that of Henry Clay. Is there in all the length and breadth of the United States to-day a boy so poor as to envy Abraham Lincoln the chances of his boyhood? The story of his life has been told so often that nothing new can be said about him. Yet every fresh reading of the story fills the reader anew with wonder and admiration at what was accomplished by the poor backwoods boy. ”

“ Lest he should forget that Time's wings are swift and noiseless, and so rapidly bear our to-days to the Land of Yesterday, John Ruskin, philosopher, philanthropist, and tireless worker though he was, kept constantly before his eyes on his study table a large, handsome block of chalcedony, on which was graven the single word "To-day." Every moment of this noble life was enriched by the right use of each passing moment.
A successful merchant, whose name is well-known throughout our country, very tersely sums up the means by which true success may be attained. ”

“ Clad in a homespun tow shirt, shrunken, butternut-colored, linsey-woolsey pantaloons, battered straw hat, and much-mended jacket and shoes, with ten dollars in his pocket, and all his other worldly goods packed in the bundle he carried on his back, Horace Greeley, the future founder of the New York Tribune, started to seek his fortune in New York.
A newspaper had always been an object of interest and delight to the little delicate, tow-haired boy, and at the mature age of six he had made up his mind to be a printer. His love of reading was unusual in one so young. ”

“ The great demand is on people's hearts rather than on their purses. In the matter of kindness we can all afford to be generous whether we have money or not. The schoolboy may give it as freely as the millionaire. No one is so driven by work that he has not time, now and then, to say a kind word or do a kind deed that will help to brighten life for another. If the prime minister of England, William E. Gladstone, could find time to carry a bunch of flowers to a little sick crossing-sweeper, shall we not be ashamed to make for ourselves the excuse, "I haven't time to be kind"? ”

“ As the years go by, and youth merges into manhood, the sculptor's hand becomes more unsteady. One false blow follows another in rapid succession. The formless marble takes on distorted outlines. Its whiteness has long since become spotted. The sculptor, with blurred vision and shattered nerves, still strikes with aimless hand, carving deep gashes, adding a crooked line here, another there, soiling and marring until no trace of the virgin purity of the block of marble which was given him remains. ”

“ But if a fellow has to grub away ten or twelve hours out of the twenty-four, what time is left to do anything for one's self?"
How much spare time had Elihu Burritt, "the youngest of many brethren," as he himself quaintly puts it, born in a humble home in New Britain, Connecticut, reared amid toil and poverty? Yet, during his father's long illness, and after his death, when Elihu was but a lad in his teens, with the family partially dependent upon the work of his hands, he found time,—if only a few moments,—at the end of a fourteen-hour day of labor, for his books. ”

“ The soul of little Ole Bull had always been attuned to melody, from the time when, a toddling boy of four, he had kissed with passionate delight the little yellow violin given him by his uncle. How happy he was, as he wandered alone through the meadows, listening with the inner ear of heaven-born genius to the great song of nature. ”

“ Farther back than the memory of the grandfathers and grandmothers of some of my young readers can go, there lived in a historic town in Massachusetts a brave little lad who loved books and study more than toys or games, or play of any kind. The dearest wish of his heart was to be able to go to school every day, like more fortunate boys and girls, so that, when he should grow up to be a man, he might be well educated and fitted to do some grand work in the world. ”

“ Lincoln got his first glimpse of the world beyond Indiana when he worked for several months as a ferryman and boatman on the Ohio River, at Anderson Creek. He saw the steamers and vessels of all kinds sailing up and down the Ohio, laden with produce and merchandise, on their way to and from western and southern towns. He came in contact with different kinds of people from different states, and thus his views of the world and its people became a little more extended, and his longing to be somebody and to do something worth while in the world waxed stronger daily. ”

“ By this time Abraham himself could make an impromptu speech on any subject with which he was at all familiar, good enough to win the applause of the Indiana farmers.
So, his boyhood days, rough, hard-working days, but not devoid of fun and recreation, passed. Abraham did not love work any more than other country boys of his age, but he never shirked his tasks. Whether it was plowing, splitting rails, felling trees, doing chores, reaping, threshing, or any of the multitude of things to be done on a farm, the work was always well done. ”

“ His perfected steam engine was the wonder of the age. Sir James Mackintosh placed him "at the head of all inventors in all ages and nations." "I look upon him," said the poet Wordsworth, "considering both the magnitude and the universality of his genius, as, perhaps, the most extraordinary man that this country ever produced."
Wealthy beyond his desires,—for he cared not for wealth,—crowned with the laurel wreath of fame, honored by the civilized world as one of its greatest benefactors, the struggle over, the triumph achieved, on August 19, 1819, he lay down to rest. ”

“ Boys and girls who have free access to libraries and reading rooms, and can buy the best works of great authors, sometimes for a few cents, can hardly imagine the difficulties which beset the little farmer boy in trying to get the book he wanted.
Did he get the dictionary? Oh, yes. You remember he had said, "I must." After thinking and thinking how he could get the money to buy it, a bright idea flashed across his mind. The bushes in the fields about the farm seemed waiting for some one to pick the ripe whortle-berries. ”