VIII 



SELF KNOWLEDGE 



ELIHU BURRITT, "the learned blacksmith "- 

 himself a marvellous example of the power 

 of application used to deliver a lecture en- 

 titled "Poets made, not born." All the arguments of 

 the preceding chapter might be said to sustain this 

 thesis. But it would be absurd to deny that, after all, 

 every man is born with certain limitations, no less 

 than with certain capacities. Not every man, if he 

 were to labor assiduously from childhood, could learn to 

 paint the "Last Supper " or the "Last Judgment " or 

 to write " Hamlet " or "Faust." The man that tips 

 the scale at one hundred and twenty pounds must not 

 enter the athletic arena with a Hackenschmidt, a Gotch, 

 or a Jeffries; and the mind has its definite limitations 

 no less than the body, even though they be less tangible. 



With wisdom, then, may we heed the symbolic 

 warning of the Greek sculptor Eunus, who is said to 

 have graven near an altar not Hope merely but also 

 Nemesis, "the former that thou mayest have hope, 

 the latter that thou mayest not hope too much." 



Of similar import was the symbolism of the old 

 Greek temple that bore over its successive doors the 

 legend "Be brave; Be Brave; Be Brave"; but, as a 

 curious anti-climax, over the last door "Be not too 

 Brave." And there was sound philosophy in the seem- 



