very fond of poetry and music when young, but after devoting his
life to science, he was surprised to find Shakespeare tedious. He said
that, if he were to live his life again, he would read poetry and hear
music every day, so as not to lose the power of appreciating such
things.

God asks no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice. You
_must_ take it. The only choice is _how_.

"When I found I was black," said Dumas, "I resolved to live as if I were
white, and so force men to look below my skin."

In the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society is a
prospectus used by Longfellow in canvassing, on one of the blank leaves
of which are the skeleton stanzas of "Excelsior," which he was evidently
evolving as he trudged from house to house.

"Disregarding the honors that most men value and looking to the truth,"
said Plato, "I shall endeavor in reality to live as virtuously as I can;
and, when I die, to die so. And I invite all other men to the utmost of
my power; and you, too, I invite to this contest, which, I affirm,
surpasses all contests here."

"Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and
singly toward an object, and in no measure obtained it?" asked Thoreau.
"If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated? Did ever a man try
heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no
advantage in them,--that it was a vain endeavor?"

"O if the stone can only have some vision of the temple of which it is
to be a part forever," exclaimed Phillips Brooks, "what patience must
fill it as it feels the blows of the hammer, and knows that success for
it is simply to let itself be wrought into what shape the master wills."

Man never reaches heights above his habitual thought. It is not enough
now and then to mount on wings of ecstasy into the infinite. We must
habitually dwell there. The great man is he who abides easily on heights
to which others rise occasionally and with difficulty. Don't let the
maxims of a low prudence daily dinned into your ears lower the tone of
your high ambition or check your aspirations. Hope lifts us step by step
up the mysterious ladder, the top of which no eye hath ever seen. Though
we do not find what hope promised, yet we are stronger for the climbing,
and we get a broader outlook upon life which repays the effort. Indeed,
if we do not follow where hope beckons, we gradually slide down the
ladder in despair. Strive ever to be a