To what is good I open the doors of my being, and
jealously shut them against what is bad. Such is the force of this
beautiful and wilful conviction, it carries itself in the face of all
opposition. I am never discouraged by absence of good. I never can be
argued into hopelessness. Doubt and mistrust are the mere panic of
timid imagination, which the steadfast heart will conquer, and the
large mind transcend.

As my college days draw to a close, I find myself looking forward with
beating heart and bright anticipations to what the future holds of
activity for me. My share in the work of the world may be limited; but
the fact that it is work makes it precious. Nay, the desire and will
to work is optimism itself.

Two generations ago Carlyle flung forth his gospel of work. To the
dreamers of the Revolution, who built cloud-castles of happiness, and,
when the inevitable winds rent the castles asunder, turned
pessimists--to those ineffectual Endymions, Alastors and Werthers,
this Scots peasant, man of dreams in the hard, practical world, cried
aloud his creed of labor. "Be no longer a Chaos, but a World. Produce!
produce! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal fraction of a
product, produce it, in God's name! 'Tis the utmost thou hast in thee;
out with it, then. Up, up! whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it
with thy whole might. Work while it is called To-day; for the Night
cometh wherein no man may work."

Some have said Carlyle was taking refuge from a hard world by bidding
men grind and toil, eyes to the earth, and so forget their misery.
This is not Carlyle's thought. "Fool!" he cries, "the Ideal is in
thyself; the Impediment is also in thyself. Work out the Ideal in the
poor, miserable Actual; live, think, believe, and be free!" It is
plain what he says, that work, production, brings life out of chaos,
makes the individual a world, an order; and order is optimism.

I, too, can work, and because I love to labor with my head and my
hands, I am an optimist in spite of all. I used to think I should be
thwarted in my desire to do something useful. But I have found out
that though the ways in which I can make myself useful are few, yet
the work open to me is endless. The gladdest laborer in the vineyard
may be a cripple. Even should the others outstrip him, yet the
vineyard ripens in the sun each year, and the full clusters weigh
into his hand. Darwin could work only half an hour at a time; yet in
many diligent ha