When Beethoven was examining the work of Moscheles, he found written at
the end, "Finis, with God's help." He wrote under it, "Man, help
yourself."

A young man stood listlessly watching some anglers on a bridge. He was
poor and dejected. At length, approaching a basket filled with fish,
he sighed, "If now I had these I would be happy. I could sell them and
buy food and lodgings." "I will give you just as many and just as
good," said the owner, who chanced to overhear his words, "if you will
do me a trifling favor." "And what is that?" asked the other. "Only
to tend this line till I come back; I wish to go on a short errand."
The proposal was gladly accepted. The old man was gone so long that
the young man began to get impatient. Meanwhile the fish snapped
greedily at the hook, and he lost all his depression in the excitement
of pulling them in. When the owner returned he had caught a large
number. Counting out from them as many as were in the basket, and
presenting them to the youth, the old fisherman said, "I fulfil my
promise from the fish you have caught, to teach you whenever you see
others earning what you need to waste no time in foolish wishing, but
cast a line for yourself."

A white squall caught a party of tourists on a lake in Scotland, and
threatened to capsize the boat. When it seemed that the crisis had
really come, the largest and strongest man in the party, in a state of
intense fear, said, "Let us pray." "No, no, my man," shouted the bluff
old boatman; "_let the little man pray. You take an oar._"

The grandest fortunes ever accumulated or possessed on earth were and
are the fruit of endeavor that had no capital to begin with save
energy, intellect, and the will. From Croesus down to Rockefeller the
story is the same, not only in the getting of wealth, but also in the
acquirement of eminence; those men have won most who relied most upon
themselves.

"The male inhabitants in the Township of Loaferdom, in the County of
Hatework," says a printer's squib, "found themselves laboring under
great inconvenience for want of an easily traveled road between Poverty
and Independence. They therefore petitioned the Powers that be to levy
a tax upon the property of the entire county for the purpose of laying
out a macadamized highway, broad and smooth, and all the way down hill
to the latter place."

"Every one is the artificer of his own fortune," says Sallust.

Man is not merely the archi