Be firm; one constant element of luck
Is genuine, solid, old Teutonic pluck.
_Holmes_.

Success in most things depends on knowing how long it takes to
succeed.--_Montesquieu_.


The power to hold on is characteristic of all men who have accomplished
anything great; they may lack in some other particular, have many
weaknesses or eccentricities, but the quality of persistence is never
absent from a successful man. No matter what opposition he meets or what
discouragement overtakes him, drudgery cannot disgust him, obstacles
cannot discourage him, labor cannot weary him; misfortune, sorrow, and
reverses cannot harm him. It is not so much brilliancy of intellect, or
fertility of resource, as persistency of effort, constancy of purpose,
that makes a great man. Those who succeed in life are the men and women
who keep everlastingly at it, who do not believe themselves geniuses,
but who know that if they ever accomplish anything they must do it by
determined and persistent industry.

Audubon after years of forest life had two hundred of his priceless
drawings destroyed by mice.

"A poignant flame," he relates, "pierced my brain like an arrow of fire,
and for several weeks I was prostrated with fever. At length physical
and moral strength awoke within me. Again I took my gun, my game-bag, my
portfolio, and my pencils, and plunged once more into the depths of the
forests."