cemeteries
there are rows on rows of unknown bodies of our soldiers,--men who
did a work and put a meaning to their lives; for the mother and the
townsmen say, "He died in the war." But the men and women whose
lives are aimless reverse their fates. Our _bodies_ are known, and
answer in this world to such or such a name,--but as to our inner
_selves_, with real and awful meaning our walking bodies might be
labeled, "An unknown man sleeps here!"

Now, since it is concentration that prevents this tragedy of
failure, and since this concentration always involves drudgery,
long, hard, abundant, we have to own again, I think, that that is
even more than what I called it first,--our chief school-master;
besides that, drudgery is the gray Angel of Success. The main
secret of any success we may hope to rejoice in is in that angel's
keeping. Look at the leaders in the profession, the "solid" men in
business, the master-workmen who begin as poor boys and end by
building a town in which to house their factory hands; they are
drudges of the single aim. The man of science, and to-day more than
ever, if he would add to the world's knowledge, or even get a
reputation, must be, in some one branch at least, a plodding
specialist. The great inventors, Palissy at his pots, Goodyear at
his rubber, Elias Howe at his sewing-machine, tell the
secret,--"One thing I do." The reformer's secret is the same. A
one-eyed, grim-jawed folk the reformers are apt to be: one-eyed,
grim-jawed, seeing but the one thing, never letting go, they have
to be, to start a torpid nation. All these men as doers of the
single thing drudge their way to their success. Even so must we,
would we win ours. The foot-loose man is _not_ the enviable man. A
wise man will be his own necessity and bind himself to a task, if
by early wealth or foolish parents or other lowering circumstances
he has lost the help of an outward necessity.

Again, then, I say, Let us sing a hallelujah and make a fresh
beatitude: _Blessed be Drudgery!_ It is the one thing we cannot
spare.

III

This is a hard gospel, is it not? But now there is a pleasanter
word to briefly say. To lay the firm foundations in ourselves, or
even to win success in life, we _must_ be drudges. But we _can_ be
_artists_, also, in ou