at;
but that it is just honestly, earnestly living the everyday simple
life. It is by the exercise of the common everyday virtues; it is by
trying to do everything one does to a complete finish; it is by trying
to be scrupulously honest in every transaction; it is by always ringing
true in our friendships, by holding a helpful, accommodating attitude
toward those about us; by trying to be the best possible citizen, a
good, accommodating, helpful neighbor, a kind, encouraging father; it
is by all these simple things that we attain success.

There is no great secret about success. It is just a natural
persistent exercise of the commonest every-day qualities.

We have seen people in the country in the summer time trampling down
the daisies and the beautiful violets, the lovely wild flowers in their
efforts to get a branch of showy flowers off a large tree, which,
perhaps, would not compare in beauty and delicacy and loveliness to the
things they trampled under their feet in trying to procure it.

Oh, how many exquisite experiences, delightful possible joys we trample
under our feet in straining after something great, in trying to do some
marvelous thing that will attract attention and get our names in the
papers! We trample down the finer emotions, we spoil many of the most
delicious things in life in our scrambling and greed to grasp something
which is unusual, something showy that we can wave before the world in
order to get its applause.

In straining for effect, in the struggle to do something great and
wonderful, we miss the little successes, the sum of which would make
our lives sublime; and often, after all this straining and struggling
for the larger, for the grander things, we miss them, and then we
discover to our horror what we have missed on the way up--what
sweetness, what beauty, what loveliness, what a lot of common, homely,
cheering things we have lost in the useless struggle.

Great scientists tell us that the reason why the secrets of nature have
been hidden from the world so long is because we are not simple enough
in our methods of reasoning; that investigators are always looking for
unusual phenomena, for something complicated; that the principles of
nature's secrets are so extremely simple that men overlook them in
their efforts to see and solve the more intricate problems.

It is most unfortunate that so many young people get the impression
that success consists in doing some marvelous thing