All great leaders have been inspired with a general belief. In
nine cases out of ten, failure is born of unbelief. Tennyson
sings, “Faith and unfaith can ne’er be equal powers.” To be a
great leader and so always master of the situation, one must
of necessity have been a great thinker in action. An eagle was
never yet hatched from a goose’s egg. Dante speaks in bitter
sarcasm of Branca d’Oria, whom he placed among the dead, when
he says, “He still eats and sleeps and puts on clothes.” In
a case of great emergency, it took a certain general in our
army several days to get his personal baggage ready. Sheridan
rode into Winchester without even a change of stockings in his
saddle-bags.--JAMES T. FIELDS.
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