about him: it was reserved for this
remarkable character, late in life, to be snatched from obscurity,
raised to supreme command at a supreme moment, and intrusted with the
destiny of a nation. The great leaders of his party were made to stand
aside; the most experienced and accomplished men of the day, men like
Seward, and Chase, and Sumner, statesmen famous and trained, were sent
to the rear, while this strange figure was brought by unseen hands to
the front, and given the reins of power.

_There is no open door to the temple of success_. Everyone who enters
makes his own door, which closes behind him to all others, not even
permitting his own children to pass.

Not in the brilliant salon, not in the tapestried library, not in ease
and competence, is genius born and nurtured; but often in adversity and
destitution, amidst the harassing cares of a straitened household, in
bare and fireless garrets. Amid scenes unpropitious, repulsive,
wretched, have men labored, studied, and trained themselves, until they
have at last emanated from the gloom of that obscurity the shining
lights of their times; have become the companions of kings, the guides
and teachers of their kind, and exercised an influence upon the thought
of the world amounting to a species of intellectual legislation.

"What does he know," said a sage, "who has not suffered?" Schiller
produced his greatest tragedies in the midst of physical suffering
almost amounting to torture. Handel was never greater than when,
warned by palsy of the approach of death, and struggling with distress
and suffering, he sat down to compose the great works which have made
his name immortal in music. Mozart composed his great operas, and last
of all his "Requiem," when oppressed by debt and struggling with a
fatal disease. Beethoven produced his greatest works amidst gloomy
sorrow, when oppressed by almost total deafness.

Perhaps no one ever battled harder to overcome obstacles which would
have disheartened most men than Demosthenes. He had such a weak voice,
and such an impediment in his speech, and was so short of breath, that
he could scarcely get through a single sentence without stopping to
rest. All his first attempts were nearly drowned by the hisses, jeers,
and scoffs of his audiences. His first effort that met with success
was against his guardian, who had defrauded him, and whom he compelled
to refund a part of his fortune. He was so discouraged by his defea