• Author: Unknown
• Editor: B-7413
• Newspaper: The Umpire volume 6
• Page Number:
• Date: 10 3 1917
• Tags:
• advice

SUCCESS WON BY REPEATED FEFFORTS

Nowhere in literature is there to be found a more misleading passage than that in which Shakespeare mskes Brutus say to Cassius: “There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. For on such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.” Undoubtedly he does well who is able to take the first current as it serves the first opportunity that is offered them for advancing toward success. But if for any reason this tide goes out not bearing his barque upon it, then let him recall to mind that no tide goes out that does not again come in, and that one’s life is no more of necessity bound to failure by missing the tide than would the sailing of a ship be permanently stopped because it failed to make sail on any particular tide; or for that matter, even though it perchance missed several tides there is always to follow another tide that will prove available, if we make it so. For some tide is bound to lead to success if we persevere.

If we look about us we will see that many of the world’s most effective and successful workers have taken tides which served them best at the most propitious time in middle life. One of our prominent authors wrote the best of his novels after his fiftieth year. And as the old salt says, ‘‘some ships best catch the wind in the morning, some at noon, some atenight, but all manage to make the voyage and reach port safely at last.” So it is well to bear in mind that failure would often outnumber success if every one were to believe that he could make use of only a particular tide.

It can not be disputed thatpractical knowledge, seasoned by repeated trials, is better than our first efforts in any line,snd one may be much better equipped for gaining success when he makes repeated endeavors to accomplish a desired end than if he weakly grasps the first thing that may happen along. The greatest success has been won after repeated failures, and one ought not in the least to feel discouraged because their first efforts are unfruitful. If we stand fast in our desires to accomplish an object of good, there need be no doubt of ultimate success. For it is certain that ‘‘for him who aspires, and for him who loves, life may lead through thorns, but it never stops in the desert.”