Evening star., 1900-10-01
MADE STRONG BY WILL POWER.
Many Military Heroes Have beeI
Delicate in Physique.

Delicate in Physique.
From the London Express.
The soldier is so often looked upon as
being the embodiment of strength, health
and activity that 1t may be something new
to learn that many celebrated generals
have as boys been anything but robust or
noted for the virtues just mentioned.
Lord Roberts is the most signal example
of this AS a lad he was SO delicate that
when he went out to India on his frst Voy-
age there as a soldier 1t was generally
supposed by his most intimate rrlends ana
re.atives that his life would necessarily be
short, so pale and delicate was he we
have several independent accounts of how
the crew of the ship and some of his mess
mates pitied the tender-looking young An
glo-Indian and prophesied that an early
grave would be his
But the Indian climate, his native clim-
ate, too, set him up and worked wonders
in him. How have those prophets OF evii
been falsifed by what we in our time see
and know today!
The Duke of Wellington was not at All
strong when lad, and his mother was
often much concerned about his heaitn.
At Eton he got the reputation OF pelns
rather silent, taciturn, somewhat suilen
youth But 1t is generally believed now
that this was as much due to his delicate
health as to any individual characteristics
of his own temperament.
knocking about and rough-and-tumble life
that some of his Eton friends enjoyed at
that time and they were not slow to make
him aware of the fact.
Rochefort Mcguire, whose recent adVen-
lures in Kimberley and help to the garri-
son have made his name more known
even than before the siege, was almost
"gtyen up when q boy, so poor was his
general health.
His destined career had to be changed
for no other reason than that his health
would not stand it. and he had to go out
to the Cape in order to seek that health
which seemed to be denied him in Engltnd
Happily he found 1t there, and found for
tune. too, at the same time; so he, at any
rate, cannot now bemoan his fate.
Mcguire found at the Cape man still
more influential than he himself was to
become, a man who also had had to leave
England and the prospect OF being clergy
man owing to his weak state of health
This man had once been intended for
parson, like his father, and would have
perhaps ended his days as country vicar
had not bad health stepped in and made
him give up that idea and set out Tor cape
Colony. Then his health became renewed
and today the whole world knows Cecil
Rhodes almost as well as it knows any
body.
Rhodes may well be called a soldier" as
regards fighting, for, though not military
man by profession, he was always willing
to take any share of fighting that came
along his way, and his advice to doubtful
to "be like me and sit tight will not be
readily forgotten. 1t was said that Kruger
had such opinion of Cecil Rhodes Tight
ing powers that he proposed to put him
into a cage when Kimberley was taken.
but 1t may be also said that Rhodes would
have shown the Beers no small amount of
resistance first before he had thus allowed
himself to be taken, for he is by instinct a
fighting man to the very bone.
Hayelock was never very strong and as
boy he was decidedly on the dark side of
health. Even when man his pale face
was general subject of remark among his
followers But they all knew his worth and
courage when the time OF trial came.
Perhaps no civilian in this century was
more a born fighter than was Lord Byron.
had he been able to become a real soldier,
but he was kept back from that by his de-
| formity and constant bad health. Yet he
| went forth manfully to help the Greeks In
| their struggles for independence against the
Turks and perished at Missolonghi
The present kaiser has never been ro-
bust man. and as a lad was still more deli
cate. His deformed arm always gave him