failed and were derided
at first, and only succeeded by dint of great labour and application.
At one time Sir James Graham had almost given up public speaking in
despair. He said to his friend Sir Francis Baring: "I have tried it
every way--extempore, from notes, and committing all to memory--and
I can't do it. I don't know why it is, but I am afraid I shall never
succeed." Yet, by dint of perseverance, Graham, like Disraeli, lived
to become one of the most effective and impressive of parliamentary
speakers.

Failures in one direction have sometimes had the effect of forcing the
farseeing student to apply himself in another. Thus Prideaux's failure
as a candidate for the post of parish-clerk of Ugboro, in Devon, led to
his applying himself to learning, and to his eventual elevation to the
bishopric of Worcester. When Boileau, educated for the bar, pleaded his
first cause, he broke down amidst shouts of laughter. He next tried the
pulpit, and failed there too. And then he tried poetry, and succeeded.
Fontenelle and Voltaire both failed at the bar. So Cowper, through his
diffidence and shyness, broke down when pleading his first cause, though
he lived to revive the poetic art in England. Montesquieu and Bentham
both failed as lawyers, and forsook the bar for more congenial
pursuits--the latter leaving behind him a treasury of legislative
procedure for all time. Goldsmith failed in passing as a surgeon; but
he wrote the 'Deserted Village' and the 'Vicar of Wakefield;' whilst
Addison failed as a speaker, but succeeded in writing 'Sir Roger de
Coverley,' and his many famous papers in the 'Spectator.'

Even the privation of some important bodily sense, such as sight or
hearing, has not been sufficient to deter courageous men from zealously
pursuing the struggle of life. Milton, when struck by blindness, "still
bore up and steered right onward." His greatest works were produced
during that period of his life in which he suffered most--when he was
poor, sick, old, blind, slandered, and persecuted.

The lives of some of the greatest men have been a continuous struggle
with difficulty and apparent defeat. Dante produced his greatest work in
penury and exile. Banished from his native city by the local faction
to which he was opposed, his house was given up to plunder, and he was
sentenced in his absence to be burnt alive. When informed by a friend
that he might return to Florence, if he would consent to ask for pardon
and abso