Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1872-04-11
Helena, Montana, Thursday, April II, 1872.
The Secret of Success.

"To succeed" says Emerson, lone must
enter cordially into the game and whirl with
the whirling world" Nothing of importance
is ever achieved without a fixed determina-
ton, coupled with definite plan of action,
from the very commencement of the enter
prise, whatever it may be. Hence to conquer
success, one must set out in life with some def
mite purpose. More than half the failures in
life are directly attributable to a want of con-
centrated effort and well directed diligence; !;
for without these two great essentials, every
scheme, however big with promise it may
appear, will in the end prove only an abortion
and failure.
1t would be well for all croakers against
fortune and bad luck to remember these facts,
lest haply it be found to be a fault of their
own. There are beings of such inconstant
variety of purpose, subjects to such fits and
starts, slaves to such passing humors, that
their miscarriages result as naturally from
their own lack of sobriety as the downfall of
an unsupported body proceeds from its own
gravity. There are lives so crowded with
unfortunate parenthesis, that their real intent
and meaning is not discoverable. In true
warfare there must always be a steadfast pur-
pose. Resolutions must incarnate themselves
in actions; mental plans and projects must
not be repudiated in actual practice.
People who are constitutionally tired, who
nave d dNcISlOH W dCtlNlty, LnuSt Uc
content to repose in the valleys, as it keeps
the lungs in motion to go up hill. People
who regard labor in the abstract with
smiling affabilty, but in the concrete with
ferocious disdain, need never expect to outwit
Dame Fortune with any such sort of flattering
coquetry; she is too sharp-witted to mistake
semblance for reality. Although seemingly
capricious; fluttering up and down in her
moods of benignity, or impudence; in the
main. she awards her bOunties IN exact pro-
portion to the faithfulness with which we
pursue the ordinary means allotted for their
acquisition. To succeed. one must entertain
an irrepressible expectation of success; a
bright-eyed confidence in the result of heroic
effort; an uplifting energy, that scorns to halt
until rewarded; patient consistency of pur-
pose, that takes no account of difficulties; a
determination so emphatic, as to wrest victory
out of the very jaws of defeat; the magnetic
fervor and enthusiasm of such nature bears
on its front the unmistakable indices of sue
cess. The men who succeed are the men
who erpect to succeed; the men who fail, are
the men to whom success would have been
an overwhelming surprise. Success is too
'well-bred to rush headlong where least ex-
pected, but it has a traditional regard for
cordial invitations to stay.
They whose efforts are but the floating
debris of mere accident who have, now and
then, violent spasm of activity, deserve to
be in perpetual eclipse-and they generally
get their deserts. Their skyis suddenly gilded
with bright glints of promise, and magma
tion, with cruel artifice, pictures golden har-
vest, just at hand; but it proves but the mir
age of an unwarranted enthusiasm, plunging
its victims ''from the rapture of rainbow to
the remorse of a sewer;' and they move on,
garrulous with regrets and perennial lamenta-
tiOns.