Circumstances mold character, but character masters circumstances.
No true life anywhere needs despair because its surroundings are
uncongenial or depressing. A writer finds this lesson in the first
flowers of spring, of which he says:
But among what uncongenial surroundings these new flowers have
come! Gray, sunless skies, chilling winds, the frosts, the
lingering traces of the snow--these are the things which the new
flowers see with their opening eyes; courageous flowers indeed
to creep forth into a wintry world like this!
If these flowers can brave the trials of the winds and cold and sullen
sky, and still smile upon the sun, so can human lives, however bare and
difficult their lot.
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