The Excellence of Misfortune 



energy was not for a bauble. To despair is to 

 call Mother Earth a fraud. Why should any 

 one despair? 



A thousand things are hidden still 

 And not a hundred known. 



There is enough to do to keep happily busy 

 during your remaining, rightly directed years. 

 There is no firmer foundation than a blunder; 

 no more hopeful remark than, "I see where I 

 made a mistake." No other sight has such edu- 

 cational value. We can build on it and feel 

 safe; but not all the superstructures of callow 

 confidence have withstood Time's buffetings. 



"I am struck," writes Thoreau, "by the fact 

 that the more slowly trees grow at first, the 

 sounder they are at the core, and I think the 

 same is true of human beings. We do not wish 

 to see children precocious, making great strides 

 in their early years, like sprouts producing a 

 soft and perishable timber; but better if they 

 expand slowly at first, as if contending with 

 difficulties, and so are solidified and perfected. 

 Such trees continue and expand with nearly 

 equal rapidity to an extreme old age." 



The world owes no man a living. He is only 

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