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heart should storm the gates of learning with such enthusiasm as
belonged to Milton or Epictetus. The Roman slave had one leg broken
and twisted by a cruel master, but in his enthusiasm for knowledge he
used the dim light of his cell for copying the thoughts of great
authors, and lay awake at night reflecting upon the problems of life
and death with man's mysterious nature, and so made himself immortal
by his devotion to the truth. For the student, enthusiasm is indeed "a
god within." Ignorance is want of mental animation. The scientist
tells us the Patagonians sleep eighteen hours each day, with a
tendency to doze through the other six. Their minds are unable to make
any kind of movement, and the chief once told Sir John Lubbock that he
would love to talk were it not that large ideas made him very sleepy.

But it is all in vain that man has reason or learning or imagination
if these talents lie sleeping. Not long ago the ruins of an old temple
were discovered in Rome. When the spade had turned up the soil, lo,
seeds long hidden awakened to cover the soil with rich verdure. For
2,000 years these germs had slept, waiting for the day of warmth and
quickening. Thus each faculty of man is latent, until some powerful
enthusiasm passes over it. Indeed, mental power is not in the
multitude of knowledge acquired, but in the powerful enthusiasms that
drive the informed soul along some noble path. Power is not in the
engine, but in the steam that pounds the piston; and the soul is a
mechanism driven forward by those motives called enthusiasm for
learning or influence or wealth. Success might be defined as a full
casting of the heart into some worthy cause.

It is high time that our young men should recognize that prosperity
and wealth are won only when the mind moves enthusiastically along the
pathway of industry. Our young men have been deeply injured by the
fact that now and then some one stumbles upon sudden wealth, or by
accident gains great treasure. But for every one such fortunate
person, there are ten thousand who have failed of success for want of
a purposeful enthusiasm.

The Persians have a strange story of the Golconda diamond mines. Once
Ali Hafed sat with his wife looking out upon the river that flowed
through their farm. Soon their children came through the trees
bringing with them a traveler. In confidence the stranger showed Ali
Hafed a diamond that shone like a drop of condensed sunshine. He told
his host