uman will, joined to the Divine, that whatever we wish to be
seriously, and with a true intention, that we become." While this is
not strictly true, yet there is a deal of truth in it.

It is men like Mirabeau, who "trample upon impossibilities;" like
Napoleon, who do not wait for opportunities, but make them; like Grant,
who has only "unconditional surrender" for the enemy, who change the
very front of the world. "We have but what we make, and every good is
locked by nature in a granite hand, sheer labor must unclench."

What cares Henry L. Bulwer for the suffocating cough, even though he
can scarcely speak above a whisper? In the House of Commons he makes
his immortal speech on the Irish Church just the same.

"I can't, it is impossible," said a foiled lieutenant, to Alexander.
"Be gone," shouted the conquering Macedonian, "there is nothing
impossible to him who will try."

Were I called upon to express in a word the secret of so many failures
among those who started out in life with high hopes, I should say
unhesitatingly, they lacked will-power. They could not half will.
What is a man without a will? He is like an engine without steam, a
mere sport of chance, to be tossed about hither and thither, always at
the mercy of those who have wills. I should call the strength of will
the test of a young man's possibilities. Can he will strong enough,
and hold whatever he undertakes with an iron grip? It is the iron grip
that takes the strong hold on life. What chance is there in this
crowding, pushing, selfish, greedy world, where everything is pusher or
pushed, for a young man with no will, no grip on life? "The truest
wisdom," said Napoleon, "is a resolute determination." An iron will
without principle might produce a Napoleon; but with character it would
make a Wellington or a Grant, untarnished by ambition or avarice.

"The undivided will
'T is that compels the elements and wrings
A human music from the indifferent air."

CHAPTER IV.

SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

Victories that are easy are cheap. Those only are worth having which
come as the result of hard fighting.--BEECHER.

Man owes his growth chiefly to that active striving of the will, that
encounter with difficulty, which we call effort; and it is astonishing
to find how often results that seemed impracticable are thus made
possible.--EPES SARGENT.

I know no such unquestionable badge and ensign of a sovereign mind as
th