ot.

"Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife," Hawthorne.

"Henry Wadsworth Longfellow," Higginson.

"James Russell Lowell," Greenslet.

"Life of Francis Parkman," Farnham.

"Edgar Alien Poe," Woodberry.

Autobiography of Joseph Jefferson.

"Walt Whitman," Perry.

"Life and Letters of Whittier," Pickard.

"James Russell Lowell and His Friends," Hale.

"George Washington," Wilson.

Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.

"Story of My Life," Helen Keller.

"Autobiography of a Journalist," Stillman.

"Autobiography of Seventy Years," Hoar.

"Life of Thomas Bailey Aldrich," Greenslet.

"Life of Alice Freeman Palmer," Palmer.

"Personal Memoirs," Grant.

"Memoirs," Sherman.

"Memoirs of Ralph Waldo Emerson," Cabot.

"Sidney Lanier," Mims.

"Life of J. Fenimore Cooper," Lounsbury.

The books enumerated have been selected as examples of the best in
their respective classes. Even those books of fiction chosen,
primarily, for entertainment, are instructive and educational. Whether
the reader's taste runs to history, biography, travel, nature study, or
fiction, he may select any one of the books named in these respective
classifications and be assured of possessing a volume worthy of reading
and ownership.

It is the author's hope and desire that the list of books he has given,
limited as it is, may prove of value to those seeking self-education,
and that the books may encourage the disheartened, stimulate ambition,
and serve as stepping stones to higher ideals and nobler purposes in
life.

CHAPTER LXV

WHY SOME SUCCEED AND OTHERS FAIL

Life's highway is strewn with failures, just as the sea bed is strewn
with wrecks.

A large percentage of those who embark in commercial undertakings fail,
according to the records of commercial agencies.

Why do men fail? Why do adventures into business, happily launched,
terminate in disastrous wreck?

Why do the few succeed and the many fail? Some failures are relative
and not absolute; a partial success is achieved; a success that goes
limping along through life; but the goal of ambition is unreached, the
heart's desire unattained.

There are so many elements that enter into business that it is
impossible to more than indicate them. Health, natural aptitude,
temperament, disposition, a right start and in the right place,
hereditary traits, good judgment, common sense, level-headedness, etc.,
are all factors which enter into one's chance of success