ott wrote the conclusion to "An Old-Fashioned Girl" with
her left hand in a sling, one foot up, head aching, and no voice. She
proudly writes in her diary, "Twenty years ago I resolved to make the
family independent if I could. At forty, that is done. Debts all
paid, even the outlawed ones, and we have enough to be comfortable. It
has cost me my health, perhaps." She earned two hundred thousand
dollars by her pen.

Mrs. Frank Leslie often refers to the time she lived in her carpetless
attic while striving to pay her husband's obligations. She has fought
her way successfully through nine lawsuits, and has paid the entire
debt. She manages her ten publications entirely herself, signs all
checks and money-orders, makes all contracts, looks over all proofs,
and approves the make-up of everything before it goes to press. She
has developed great business ability, which no one dreamed she
possessed.

Garfield said, "If the power to do hard work is not talent, it is the
best possible substitute for it." The triumph of industry and grit
over low birth and iron fortune in America, this land of opportunity,
ought to be sufficient to put to shame all grumblers over their hard
fortune and those who attempt to excuse aimless, shiftless, successless
men because they have no chance.

The fear of ridicule and the dread of humiliation often hinder one from
taking decisive steps when it is plainly a duty, so that courage is a
very important element of decision. In a New England academy a pupil
who was engaged to assist the teacher was unable to solve a problem in
algebra. The class was approaching the problem, and he was mortified
because, after many trials, he was obliged to take it to the teacher
for solution. The teacher returned it unsolved. What could he do? He
would not confess to the class that he could not solve it, so, after
many futile attempts, he went to a distant town to seek the assistance
of a friend who, he believed, could do the work. But, alas! his friend
had gone away, and would not be back for a week. On his way back he
said to himself, "What a fool! am I unable to perform a problem in
algebra, and shall I go back to my class and confess my ignorance? I
can solve it and I will." He shut himself in his room, determined not
to sleep until he had mastered the problem, and finally he won success.
Underneath the solution he wrote, "Obtained Monday evening, September
2, at half past eleven o'clock, after