HIS LIFE AND WORK 



style and grandeur that it is still remembered 

 by the neighbors. "She loved to drive fast," 

 said one old lady; "and I was much impressed 

 as a little girl with the startling way in which 

 her horses would come clattering and dancing 

 up to the door." 



Thus there was in the McCormick home the 

 spiritual and imaginative element that was 

 vital to the development of a man whose whole 

 life was a battle against the prejudices and "im- 

 possibilities" of the world. Cyrus McCormick 

 was predestined, we may legitimately say, by 

 the conditions of his birth, to accomplish his 

 great work. From his father he had a specific 

 training as an inventor; from his mother he 

 had executive ability and ambition; from his 

 Scotch-Irish ancestry he had the dogged tenacity 

 that defied defeat; and from the wheat-fields 

 that environed his home came the call for the 

 Reaper, to lighten the heavy drudgery of the 

 harvest. 



[25] 



