oning, and remember only that he became emperor
because he had courage to endure starvation; that lesson at least from
his career can harm no one. Choose the example of a woman, for
variety's sake. George Eliot was quite content to scrub furniture,
make cheese and butter, and sweep carpets until she arrived at ripe
womanhood. She felt her own extraordinary power; but she never repined
at the prospect of spending her life in what is lightly called
domestic drudgery. The Shining Ones oftenest walk in lowly places and
utter no sound of mourning. She was nearing middle age before she had
an opportunity of gaining that astonishing erudition which amazed
professed students, and, had she not chanced to meet Mr. Spencer, our
greatest philosopher, she would have lived and died unknown. She never
questioned the decrees of the Power that rules us all, and, when she
suddenly took her place as one of the first living novelists, she
accepted her fame and her wealth humbly and simply. Till her last day
she remembered her bitter years of frustration and failure, and the
meanest of mortals had a share of her holy sympathy; she gained her
unexampled conquest by resolutely treading down despair, and her brave
story should cheer the many girls who find life bleak and joyless.
George Eliot was prepared to bear the worst that could befall her, and
it was her frank and gentle acceptance of the facts of life that
brought her joy in the end. We must also remember such people as
Arkwright, Stephenson, Thomas Edwards the naturalist, and Heine the
poet. Arkwright saw his best machinery smashed again and again; but
his bull-dog courage brought him through his trouble, and he
surmounted opposition that would have driven a weakling to exile and
death. Stephenson feared that he would never conquer the great morass
at Chat Moss, and he knew that, if he failed, his reputation would
perish. He never allowed himself to show a tremor, and he won. Poor
Edwards toiled on, in spite of hunger, poverty, and chill despair; he
received one knock-down blow after another with cheery gallantry, and
old age had clutched him before his relief from grinding penury came;
but nothing could daunt him, and he is now secure. Heine lay for seven
years in his "mattress grave;" he was torn from head to foot by the
pangs of neuralgia; one of his eyes was closed, and at times the lid
of the other had to be raised in order that he might see those who
visited him. Let those who hav