_THE COURAGE THAT FACES OBSTACLES_
"YOU may expect to spend the rest of your days tied to your chair."
Theodore Roosevelt's physician made this disconcerting announcement to
his patient a few weeks before his death.
How would the courageous man receive an announcement like that? How
would you receive it?
Let the words spoken in reply by the lion-hearted Roosevelt never be
forgotten by others who struggle with difficulties:
"All right! I can work and live that way, too!"
Surely the triumphant words justified the characterization made by
Herman Hagedorn of this colossal worker:
"He was frail; he made himself a mountain of courage."
At a dinner given to celebrate the worthy achievement of a public man, a
guest spoke of him to a companion at table.
"No wonder he has been so well. Everything is in his favor: he is young,
he is brilliant, he is in good health."
"In good health?" was the answering comment. "Where did you get that?
For years he has been in wretched health; many a night he was unable to
sleep except he knelt on the floor by the bedside and stretched himself
from his waist across the bed. But it is not strange that you did not
know, he has said nothing of his ailments; he is so full of courage
himself that he makes everyone around him courageous."
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