e harvest, each man would soon have become the leading
man in his town, county, and district, and would have remained so
until the end of his days; for the harvest was nearly theirs. They did
not understand that while it takes a long time to prepare the soil and
sow the seed, and let it grow to maturity, the ripening of the harvest
comes in a few golden days.

It is true that there are exceptions to the above rule--the rule of
abiding, of standing fast. But the exception is justified only when
you have made so many definite, tangible, and public failures in your
old home that there is absolutely no possibility of further hope. Of
course, if you are a man of lion heart and lion power, this is another
matter. Any place on earth is a fit field for achievement by these
savages of enterprise.

I know one of these who won a fortune, and lost it; won another, and
again lost; and who, finally, with judgments and executions showering
upon him, set his face to a new land and resolved again to conquer
fortune or die. He conquered--of course he conquered--and is now worth
many millions. But if you look into his kindly but deadly blue eye,
and consider the tragic and premature whiteness of his hair, and take
in the whole resistless and compelling personality of the man, you
will see why _he_ succeeded.

We are all familiar with the stirring history of a certain great
American master of millions who is now about sixty-five years of age,
and has amassed his wealth since he was fifty. He had failed, and
failed often, before that time--failed once humiliatingly and
irretrievably, so the ordinary man would say. So the ordinary man did
say, and say hard and often.

The details of his early catastrophes are not worth while here. The
point is that they did not affect him except to make him stronger.
They were the Thor-like blows with which Fate forged the
unconquerableness of this man. For unconquerable he has become.

He has carried through daring plans; he has brought great financial
institutions that opposed him to their knees; from the throne of his
audacity he has dictated terms to boards of trade, and made the
princes of the houses of commercial royalty his servants.

But if you look at his brow of power, at the merciless and yet
delicate and sensitive lips, you will become conscious of why he
succeeded--why he must eventually have succeeded anywhere. But such a
man is no example for you unless you are such a man yourself--and