ary; a Gibbon, who
can plod for twenty years on the "Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire;" a Mirabeau, who can struggle on for forty years before he has
a chance to show his vast reserve, destined to shake an empire; a
Farragut, a Von Moltke, who have the persistence to work and wait for
half a century for their first great opportunities; a Garfield, burning
his lamp fifteen minutes later than a rival student in his academy; a
Grant, fighting on in heroic silence, when denounced by his brother
generals and politicians everywhere; a Field's untiring perseverance,
spending years and a fortune laying a cable when all the world called
him a fool; a Michael Angelo, working seven long years decorating the
Sistine Chapel with his matchless "Creation" and the "Last Judgment,"
refusing all remuneration therefor, lest his pencil might catch the
taint of avarice; a Titian, spending seven years on the "Last Supper;"
a Stephenson, working fifteen years on a locomotive; a Watt, twenty
years on a condensing engine; a Lady Franklin, working incessantly for
twelve long years to rescue her husband from the polar seas; a Thurlow
Weed, walking two miles through the snow with rags tied around his feet
for shoes, to borrow the history of the French Revolution, and eagerly
devouring it before the sap-bush fire; a Milton, elaborating "Paradise
Lost" in a world he could not see, and then selling it for fifteen
pounds; a Thackeray, struggling on cheerfully after his "Vanity Fair"
was refused by a dozen publishers; a Balzac, toiling and waiting in a
lonely garret, whom neither poverty, debt, nor hunger could discourage
or intimidate; not daunted by privations, not hindered by
discouragements. It wants men who can work and wait.

When a young lawyer Daniel Webster once looked in vain through all the
law libraries near him, and then ordered at an expense of fifty dollars
the necessary books, to obtain authorities and precedents in a case in
which his client was a poor blacksmith. He won his cause, but, on
account of the poverty of his client, only charged fifteen dollars,
thus losing heavily on the books bought, to say nothing of his time.
Years after, as he was passing through New York city, he was consulted
by Aaron Burr on an important but puzzling case then pending before the
Supreme Court. He saw in a moment that it was just like the
blacksmith's case, an intricate question of title, which he had solved
so thoroughly that it was to him now