aying "No," with emphasis that can not be
mistaken. Learn to meet hard times with a harder will, and more
determined pluck. The nature which is all pine and straw is of no use
in times of trial, we must have some oak and iron in us. The goddess
of fame or of fortune has been won by many a poor boy who had no
friends, no backing, or anything but pure grit and invincible purpose.

A good character, good habits, and _iron industry_ are impregnable to
the assaults of the ill luck that fools are dreaming of. There is no
luck, for all practical purposes, to him who is not striving, and whose
senses are not all eagerly attent. What are called accidental
discoveries are almost invariably made by those who are looking for
something. A man incurs about as much risk of being struck by
lightning as by accidental luck. There is, perhaps, an element of luck
in the amount of success which crowns the efforts of different men; but
even here it will usually be found that the sagacity with which the
efforts are directed and the energy with which they are prosecuted
measure pretty accurately the luck contained in the results achieved.
Apparent exceptions will be found to relate almost wholly to single
undertakings, while in the long run the rule will hold good. Two
pearl-divers, equally expert, dive together and work with equal energy.
One brings up a pearl, while the other returns empty-handed. But let
both persevere and at the end of five, ten, or twenty years it will be
found that they succeeded almost in exact proportion to their skill and
industry.

"Varied experience of men has led me, the longer I live," says Huxley,
"to set less value on mere cleverness; to attach more and more
importance to industry and physical endurance. Indeed, I am much
disposed to think that endurance is the most valuable quality of all;
for industry, as the desire to work hard, does not come to much if a
feeble frame is unable to respond to the desire. No life is wasted
unless it ends in sloth, dishonesty, or cowardice. No success is
worthy of the name unless it is won by honest industry and brave
breasting of the waves of fortune."

Has luck ever made a fool speak words of wisdom; an ignoramus utter
lectures on science; a dolt write an Odyssey, an Aeneid, a Paradise
Lost, or a Hamlet; a loafer become a Girard or Astor, a Rothschild,
Stewart, Vanderbilt, Field, Gould, or Rockefeller; a coward win at
Yorktown, Wagram, Waterloo, or Richmond; a c