he practice of the domestic virtues, were so many parts of the
schooling which was to make a poet.
Bismarck adopted it as the aim of his public life "to snatch Germany
from Austrian oppression," and to gather round Prussia, in a North
German Confederation, all the states whose tone of thought, religion,
manners and interest "were in harmony with those of Prussia." "To attain
this end," he once said in conversation, "I would brave all
dangers--exile, the scaffold itself. What matter if they hang me,
provided the rope with which I am hung binds this new Germany firmly to
the Prussian throne?"
It is related of Greeley that, when he was writing his "American
Conflict," he found it necessary to conceal himself somewhere, to
prevent constant interruptions. He accordingly took a room in the Bible
house, where he worked from ten in the morning till five in the
afternoon, and then appeared in the sanctum, seemingly as fresh as ever.
Cooper Institute is the evening school which Peter Cooper, as long ago
as 1810, resolved to found some day, when he was looking about as an
apprentice for a place where he could go to school evenings. Through all
his career in various branches of business he never lost sight of this
object; and, as his wealth increased, he was pleased that it brought
nearer the realization of his dream.
"See a great lawyer like Rufus Choate," says Dr. Storrs, "in a case
where his convictions are strong and his feelings are enlisted. He saw
long ago, as he glanced over the box, that five of those in it were
sympathetic with him; as he went on he became equally certain of seven;
the number now has risen to ten; but two are still left whom he feels
that he has not persuaded or mastered. Upon them he now concentrates his
power, summing up the facts, setting forth anew and more forcibly the
principles, urging upon them his view of the case with a more and more
intense action of his mind upon theirs, until one only is left. Like the
blow of a hammer, continually repeated until the iron bar crumbles
beneath it, his whole force comes with ceaseless percussion on that one
mind till it has yielded, and accepts the conviction on which the
pleader's purpose is fixed. Men say afterward, 'He surpassed himself.'
It was only because the singleness of his aim gave unity, intensity, and
overpowering energy to the mind."
"The foreman of the jury, however," said Whipple, "was a hard-hearted,
practical man, a model of business
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