The Sun.
London, England, 1849-05-29 00:00:00

~ NIL DESPERANDUM."

(From Eliza Cook's Journal)
A word in season, how good it is ! and right good
and seasonable are those old maxims, which, with

emphatic brevity, give courage to the desponding, and
new vigour to the weary, when homilies and exhor-
tations are powerless. We could readily enumerate
a hundred or more such
" Jewels five words long,
That on the stretched forefinger of old Time
Sparkle for ever."
Perhaps not one of them, excellent though the
others may be, has so much virtue and efficacy as this
hopeful ejaculation—Zil desperandum. The lot of
man is disappointment, but his worst enemy is de-
spair. Resolute confidence, when all other means
fail, may often avert danger, and overcome difficulty;
nay, more, it may convert the bane into a blessing.
We learn this in our infancy. What says the Nur-

sery Rhyme ?
" Tender-handed touch a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains."

Bulwer has truthfully observed, that the most
valuable characteristic of fame is the laborious and
long-continued struggle which it almost invariably
imposes upon its votaries. Similarly excellent is the
discipline of disappointment. If life were exempt
from trial, the sterner virtues—fortitude, patience,
courage, and perseverance, would be uncalled for.
Sybarite ease might abound, but Roman excellence
would be wanting; life might be luxurious, but men
would be worthless. It is a bitter truth, perhaps, but
sorrow and suffering are a man's best teachers, and to
render their teaching efficacious, they must be en-
countered by steady, enduring resolution.
Humbled, but not conquered,—disappointed, but
not dismayed, we must bend before the blast, only to
rise again with new energy. .Nil desperandum must
be the watchword cherished in our hearts, even when
its utterance would sound like mockery.
Look at history—and history is a teacher second
only to experience. Who are the men great in their
own generation, and honcured by the homage of pos-
terity ? Who are the men at whose histories our
hearts burn, and our eyes glisten ? The men who
were ignorant of the word despair. Was that baleful
influence felt by the Genoese, whose untiring faith
won a world from the unknown ? Nil desperandum
was the motto of Columbus, as with weary feet,
but undrooping heart, he travelled from court to
court, vainly soliciting aid for the discovery of a new
hemisphere ; and in that most anxious hour when
defeat seemed imminent in the moment of victory,
when the perils of the voyage were surmounted, and
the land of America, all hut within sight, the sailors'
courage failed, and declaring the prcject a delusion,
they insisted upon abandoning the mighty enterprise,
desperandum ! exclaimed Columbus. His life
was menaced by the mutineers, but hope still urged
him on. " Give me three days," he cried ; and be-
fore three days had passed, he had, with " a grand
step," trod the shores of the New World.
All ages tell the same tale. When the armed
thousands of Xerxes threatened the annihilation of
Greece, Nil desperandum ! cried Leonidas, although
the cry seemed madness, and with three hundred
followers he encountered the Persian hosts. The dead
bodies of the Grecian heroes strewed the battle-plain
of Thermopylae ; but, the Persian host retreated, and
the salvation of Greece was achieved.
Volumes might be filled with similar examples of
perseverance, and difficulty, and hope, in the jaws of
destruction • for the history of these virtues is the
history of all the great and good that has ever been
accomplished. It is easier to say what a man may do
than what he may not, if he put his shoulder to the
wheel with a hopeful resolution. Who, for example,
would not have ridiculed the presumption of that

gipsy-tinker who, while repairing the grate at a
wealthy painter's house, was captivated by the beauty ,
of the painter's daughter, and demanded the lady of •
her father. Doubtless, the painter thought to con-
vince the youth of the folly of his suit, by declaring
that the lady should only be the bride of a greater
painter than her father. Did the gipsy youth hang
his head in despair ? Nil desperandum I he cried, as
he flung aside the
_pincers and seized the palette.
Years after, that painter's daughter actually became
iiis
titlewoif wife,
iannglar a still the list of Spanish artists the
lario, and perpetuates
gitPhsY)
(then attests the genius of So-
perseverance.
Then, faint not, drooping
e memory of his triumphant
suffer men have alreadyt
undergone.hearts !
Tahlel
veryyou noo
diffi-
culties which threaten overwhelm you, brave souls
Struggle have already surmounted.
rn ond
flee.
while breath
turn animates you. Cowards alone and
life
o
To give up is to lose. The battle resembles
the stone of Sisyphus; it must be fought up-bill. If
we relax for one moment in our exertions, we do not
stand still—we fall back. All the past labour avails
nothing ; and the despairing man is crushed by the
difficulties he should have, and might have sur-
mounted.
There are, it must be admitted (and the admission
should cover us all w ith the blush of shame), there
are many impediments thrown in the path of the
struggling and the poor, by the faulty constitutions
of society, and by the sins of individuals. Not in our
lauded England is a fair day's wages always the meed
of a fair day's work. Nevertheless, to every indi-
vidual yielding to despair, we say " Hope on a little
longer, brave heart ! Three days more and land may
be in view !" Moreover, the fortitude and the
resolution necessary to bear the storm, will go more
than half-way towards surmounting it.
Corneille says, "To conquer without peril is to
triumph without glory." But with all due deference
for the opinion of Corneille, we should rather say
that, without peril is no triumph at all.
" In the sweat of thy face, thou shalt eat bread."
Such was the edict which imposed upon man the lot
of labour, and promised for that labour a recompense ;
and to this hour the promise has been verified.
Without labour nothing great can be achieved, while
with labour all things may be done. Let every
honest heart cry shame on all who infringe the