ts
that he determined to give up forever all attempts at oratory. One of
his auditors, however, believed the young man had something in him, and
encouraged him to persevere. He accordingly appeared again in public,
but was hissed down as before. As he withdrew, hanging his head in
great confusion, a noted actor, Satyrus, encouraged him still further
to try to overcome his impediment. He stammered so much that he could
not pronounce some of the letters at all, and his breath would give out
before he could get through a sentence. Finally, he determined to be
an orator at any cost. He went to the seashore and practised amid the
roar of the breakers with small pebbles in his mouth, in order to
overcome his stammering, and at the same time accustom himself to the
hisses and tumults of his audience. He overcame his short breath by
practising while running up steep and difficult places on the shore.
His awkward gestures were also corrected by long and determined drill
before a mirror.

Columbus was dismissed as a fool from court after court, but he pushed
his suit against an incredulous and ridiculing world. Rebuffed by
kings, scorned by queens, he did not swerve a hair's breadth from the
overmastering purpose which dominated his soul. The words "New World"
were graven upon his heart; and reputation, ease, pleasure, position,
life itself if need be, must be sacrificed. Threats, ridicule,
ostracism, storms, leaky vessels, mutiny of sailors, could not shake
his mighty purpose.

You can not keep a determined man from success. Place stumbling-blocks
in his way and he takes them for stepping-stones, and on them will
climb to greatness. Take away his money, and he makes spurs of his
poverty to urge him on. Cripple him, and he writes the Waverley Novels.

All that is great and noble and true in the history of the world is the
result of infinite painstaking, perpetual plodding, of common every-day
industry.

Roger Bacon, one of the profoundest thinkers the world has produced,
was terribly persecuted for his studies in natural philosophy, yet he
persevered and won success. He was accused of dealing in magic, his
books were burned in public, and he was kept in prison for ten years.
Even our own revered Washington was mobbed in the streets because he
would not pander to the clamor of the people and reject the treaty
which Mr. Jay had arranged with Great Britain. But he remained firm,
and the people adopted his opinion