etermination of the injured General?

Did things _adjust themselves_ 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, fought while he reorganized his men, and snatched
victory from defeat?--when Winkelried gathered to his heart a sheaf of
Austrian spears, thus opening a path through which his comrades pressed
to freedom?--when for years Napoleon did not lose a single battle in
which he was personally engaged?--when Wellington fought in many climes
without ever being conquered?--when Ney, on a hundred fields, changed
apparent disaster into brilliant triumph?--when Perry left the disabled
_Lawrence_, rowed to the _Niagara_, and silenced the British
guns?--when Sheridan arrived from Winchester just as the Union retreat
was becoming a rout, and turned the tide by riding along the
line?--when Sherman, though sorely pressed, signaled his men to hold
the fort, and they, knowing that their leader was coming, held it?

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.

True, there has been but one Napoleon; but, on the other hand, the Alps
that oppose the progress of the average American youth are not as high
or dangerous as the summits crossed by the great Corsican.

Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. _Seize common occasions
and make them great_.

On the morning of September 6, 1838, a young woman in the Longstone
Lighthouse, between England and Scotland, was awakened by shrieks of
agony rising above the roar of wind and wave. A storm of unwonted fury
was raging, and her parents could not hear the cries; but a telescope
showed nine human beings clinging to the windlass of a wrecked vessel
whose bow was hanging on the rocks half a mile away. "We can do
nothing," said William Darling, the light-keeper. "Ah, yes, we must go
to the rescue," exclaimed his daughter, pleading tearfully with both
father and mother, until the former replied: "Very well, Grace, I will
let you persuade me, though it is against my better judgment." Like a
feather in a whirlwind the little boat was to