ready to take the impression of the first lazy wish that comes over you.
No, your brain says resolutely, "I will arise," and lo! a victory!--and
no small one either. In this way, true firmness is made. It is a growth.
Beware of the insects which beset the lordly tree, withering its leaves
and driving its sap into the earth.
"Let us put a cable under the ocean," says Cyrus Field. "Tarry a while,"
says Slow. "Let us put the cities within actual speaking distance!" say
Bell, and Gray and Edison. "Tarry a while," says Slow. "Let us print
thirty thousand newspapers in an hour, and give them out of the press
folded, and pasted, and cut!" say Potter, and Hoe, and Kahler. "Tarry a
while" says Slow. And yet, in spite of Slow and Sleepyhead, wonders have
accumulated upon wonders, until the Arabian Nights and Gulliver's
Travels are only the creations of a poor fancy, while the intimations
which the future affords us stagger the understanding and make us almost
idolatrous in our admiration of the quiet, keen-acting men who have
dared out into fairy-land and returned laden like the spies coming from
Canaan.
Our whole history is one of discipline. And what has it made of us? A
nation that has sung