CHAPTER II.

THE RULERS OF DESTINY.

There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,

Can circumvent, or hinder, or control

The firm resolve of a determined soul.

Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great;

All things give way before it soon or late.

What obstacle can stay the mighty force

Of the sea-seeking river in its course,

Or cause the ascending orb of day to wait?

Each well-born soul must win what it deserves.

Let the fool prate of luck. The fortunate

Is he whose earnest purpose never swerves,

Whose slightest action or inaction serves

The one great aim.

_Ella Wheeler Wilcox_.

There is always room for a man of force.--_Emerson_.

The king is the man who can.--_Carlyle_.

A strong, defiant purpose is many-handed, and lays hold of whatever is

near that can serve it; it has a magnetic power that draws to itself

whatever is kindred.--_T.T. Munger_.

What is will-power, looked at in a large way, but energy of character?

Energy of will, self-originating force, is the soul of every great

character. Where it is, there is life; where it is not, there is

faintness, helplessness, and despondency. "Let it be your first study to

teach the world that you are not wood and straw; that there is some iron

in you." Men who have left their mark upon the world have been men of

great and prompt decision. The achievements of will-power are almost

beyond computation. Scarcely anything seems impossible to the man who

can will strongly enough and long enough. One talent with a will behind

it will accomplish more than ten without it, as a thimbleful of powder

in a rifle, the bore of whose barrel will give it direction, will do

greater execution than a carload burned in the open air.

"THE WILLS, THE WON'TS, AND THE CAN'TS."

"There are three kinds of people in the world," says a recent writer, "the wills, the won'ts, and the can'ts. The first accomplish everything;

the second oppose everything; the third fail in everything."

The shores of fortune, as Foster says, are covered with the stranded

wrecks of men of brilliant ability, but who have wanted courage, faith,

and decision, and have therefore perished in sight of more resolute but

less capable adventurers, who succeeded in making port.

Were I called upon to express in a word the secret of so many failures

among those who started out with high hopes, I should say they lacked

will-power. They could not half will: and what is a man without a will?

He is like an engine without steam. Genius unexecuted is no more genius

than a bushel of acorns is a forest of oaks.

Will has been called the spinal column of personality. "The will in its

relation to life," says an English writer, "may be compared at once to

the rudder and to the steam engine of a vessel, on the confined and

related action of which it depends entirely for the direction of its

course and the vigor of its movement."

Strength of will is 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 and holds. 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 man who would

forge to the front in this competitive age must be a man of prompt and

determined decision.

A TAILOR'S NEEDLE.

It is in one of Ben Jonson's old plays: "When I once take the humor of a thing, I am like your tailor's needle--I go through with it."

This is not different from Richelieu, who said: "When I have once taken a resolution, I go straight to my aim; I overthrow all, I cut down all."

And in business affairs the counsel of Rothschild is to the same effect: "Do without fail that which you determine to do."

Gladstone's children were taught to accomplish _to the end_ whatever they might begin, no matter how insignificant the undertaking might be.

WHAT IS WORSE THAN RASHNESS

It is irresolution that is worse than rashness. "He that shoots," says

Feltham, "may sometimes hit the mark; but he that shoots not at all can

never hit it. Irresolution is like an ague; it shakes not this nor that

limb, but all the body is at once in a fit."

The man who is forever twisting and turning, backing and filling,

hesitating and dawdling, shuffling and parleying, weighing and

balancing, splitting hairs over non-essentials, listening to every new

motive which presents itself, will never accomplish anything. But the

positive man, the decided man, is a power in the world, and stands for

something; you can measure him, and estimate the work that his energy

will accomplish.

Opportunity is coy, is swift, is gone, before the slow, the unobservant,

the indolent, or the careless can seize her. "Vigilance in watching opportunity," said Phelps, "tact and daring in seizing upon opportunity; force and persistence in crowding opportunity to its utmost of possible achievement--these are the martial virtues which must command success." "The best men," remarked Chapin, "are not those who have waited for chances, but who have taken them; besieged the chance; conquered the chance; and made chance the servitor."

Is it not possible to classify successes and failures by their various

degrees of will-power? A man who can resolve vigorously upon a course of

action, and turns neither to the right nor to the left, though a

paradise tempt him, who keeps his eyes upon the goal, whatever distracts

him, is sure of success.

"Not every vessel that sails from Tarshish will bring back the gold of Ophir. But shall it therefore rot in the harbor? No! Give its sails to

the wind!"

CONSCIOUS POWER.

"Conscious power," says Melles, "exists within the mind of every one.

Sometimes its existence is unrealized, but it is there. It is there to

be developed and brought forth, like the culture of that obstinate but

beautiful flower, the orchid. To allow it to remain dormant is to place

one's self in obscurity, to trample on one's ambition, to smother one's

faculties. To develop it is to individualize all that is best within

you, and give it to the world. It is by an absolute knowledge of

yourself, the proper estimate of your own value."

"There is hardly a reader," says an experienced educator, "who will not

be able to recall the early life of at least one young man whose childhood was spent in poverty, and who, in boyhood, expressed a firm

desire to secure a higher education. If, a little later, that desire

became a declared resolve, soon the avenues opened to that end. That

desire and resolve created an atmosphere which attracted the forces

necessary to the attainment of the purpose. Many of these young men will

tell us that, as long as they were hoping and striving and longing,

mountains of difficulty rose before them; but that when they fashioned

their hopes into fixed purposes aid came unsought to help them on the

way."

DO YOU BELIEVE IN YOURSELF?

The man without self-reliance and an iron will is the plaything of

chance, the puppet of his environment, the slave of circumstances. Are

not doubts the greatest of enemies? If you would succeed up to the limit

of your possibilities, must you not constantly hold to the belief that

you are success-organized, and that you will be successful, no matter

what opposes? You are never to allow a shadow of doubt to enter your

mind that the Creator intended you to win in life's battle. Regard every

suggestion that your life may be a failure, that you are not made like

those who succeed, and that success is not for you, as a traitor, and

expel it from your mind as you would a thief from your house.

There is something sublime in the youth who possesses the spirit of boldness and fearlessness, who has proper confidence in his ability to

do and dare.

The world takes us at our own valuation. It believes in the man who

believes in himself, but it has little use for the timid man, the one

who is never certain of himself; who cannot rely on his own judgment,

who craves advice from others, and is afraid to go ahead on his own

account.

It is the man with a positive nature, the man who believes that he is

equal to the emergency, who believes he can do the thing he attempts,

who wins the confidence of his fellow-man. He is beloved because he is

brave and self-sufficient.

Those who have accomplished great things in the world have been, as a

rule, bold, aggressive, and self-confident. They dared to step out from

the crowd, and act in an original way. They were not afraid to be

generals.

There is little room in this crowding, competing age for the timid,

vacillating youth. He who would succeed to-day must not only be brave,

but must also dare to take chances. He who waits for certainty never

wins.

"The law of the soul is eternal endeavor, That bears the man onward and upward forever."

"A man can be too confiding in others, but never too confident in

himself."

Never admit defeat or poverty. Stoutly assert your divine right to hold

your head up and look the world in the face; step bravely to the front

whatever opposes, and the world will make way for you. No one will

insist upon your rights while you yourself doubt that you have any.

Believe you were made for the place you fill. Put forth your whole energies. Be awake, electrify yourself; go forth to the task. A young man once said to his employer, "Don't give me an easy job. I want to

handle heavy boxes, shoulder great loads. I would like to lift a big mountain and throw it into the sea,"--and he stretched out two brawny arms, while his honest eyes danced and his whole being glowed with

conscious strength.

[Illustration: CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN,

English Naturalist.

_b. Shrewsbury, 1809; d. Down, 1882_.]

The world in its heart admires the stern, determined doer. "The world

turns aside to let any man pass who knows whither he is going." "It is

wonderful how even the apparent casualties of life seem to bow to a

spirit that will not bow to them, and yield to assist a design, after

having in vain attempted to frustrate it."

"The man who succeeds," says Prentice Mulford, "must always in mind or imagination live, move, think, and act as if he gained that success, or

he never will gain it."

"We go forth," said Emerson, "austere, dedicated, believing in the iron

links of Destiny, and will not turn on our heels to save our lives. A

book, a bust, or only the sound of a name shoots a spark through the

nerves, and we suddenly believe in will. We cannot hear of personal

vigor of any kind, great power of performance, without fresh

resolution."