courage is dignified and graceful. The worst manners in the world are
those of persons conscious "of being beneath their position, and trying
to conceal it or make up for it by style." It takes courage for a young
man to stand firmly erect while others are bowing and fawning for praise
and power. It takes courage to wear threadbare clothes while your
comrades dress in broadcloth. It takes courage to remain in honest
poverty when others grow rich by fraud. It takes courage to say "No"
squarely when those around you say "Yes." It takes courage to do your
duty in silence and obscurity while others prosper and grow famous
although neglecting sacred obligations. It takes courage to unmask your
true self, to show your blemishes to a condemning world, and to pass for
what you really are.

CHAPTER XV.

WILL-POWER.

In the moral world there is nothing impossible if we can bring
a thorough will to do it.
--W. HUMBOLDT.

It is firmness that makes the gods on our side.
--VOLTAIRE.

Stand firm, don't flutter.
--FRANKLIN.

People do not lack strength they lack will.
--VICTOR HUGO.

Perpetual pushing and assurance put a difficulty out of
countenance and make a seeming difficulty give way.
--JEREMY COLLIER.

When a firm, decisive spirit is recognized, it is curious to
see how the space clears around a man and leaves him room and
freedom.
--JOHN FOSTER.

"Do you know," asked Balzac's father, "that in literature a man must be
either a king or a beggar?" "Very well," replied his son, "_I will be a
king._" After ten years of struggle with hardship and poverty, he won
success as an author.

"Why do you repair that magistrate's bench with such great care?" asked
a bystander of a carpenter who was taking unusual pains. "Because I wish
to make it easy against the time when I come to sit on it myself,"
replied the other. He did sit on that bench as a magistrate a few years
later.

"_I will be marshal of France and a great general_," exclaimed a young
French officer as he paced his room with hands tightly clenched. He
became a successful general and a marshal of France.

"There is so much power in faith," says Bulwer, "even when faith is
applied but to things human and earthly, that let a man but be firmly
persuaded that he is born to do some day, what at the moment seems
impossible, and it is fifty to one but what he does it before he d