St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1900-09-01
! STRONG BY WILL POWER.
Many Military Heroes Have Bees
Delicate In Physique When
They We're Young.

The soldier is so often looked upon al
being the. embodiment of strength
health and activity that it may bs
something new to learn that many eel
ebrated generals have as boys been any
thing but robust or noted for the vir
tues just mentioned, says the Londor
Express.
Lord Roberts is the most signal ex.
ample of this AS lad he was SO deli
cate that when he went out to India or
his first voyage there as soldier it was
generally supposed by his most init
mate friends and relatives that his Life
would necessarily be short, SO pale anc
delicate was he. We have several inde
pendent accounts of how the crew o1
the ship and some of his messmates
pitied the tender-lo oking young Anglo
indian and prophesied that an early
grave would be his.
But the Indian climate, his native
climate, too, set him sp and worked
wonders in him. How have those
prophets of evil been falsified by what
we in our time see and know to-day!
The duke of Wellington was not at al
strong when a lad and his mother was
often much concerned about his health.
At Elton he got the reputation of being
rather a silent. taciturn, so1SeWhat
sullen youth. But it is generally be
ieyed now that this was. as much due
to his delic8te health asSto any in
dividual ehara eteristics of his own tenn
permanent.
Arthur Wellesley could not stand the
knocking about and rough md tumble
life that some of his Eton friends en-
.joyed at that time, and, they. were not
slow to make him aware of the fact.
Rochefort Mcguire, whose recent ad-
ventures in Kimberley and help to the
garrison have made his name more
known even than before the siege, was
almost sgiven up when a boy, SO poor
was. his general health.
His destined career had to be changed
for no otherreason 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 England. Happily he foundiit there,
and found fortune, too, at the same
time; SO he, t any rate, cannot now be
moan his fate.
Mcguire found at the Cape man still
more influential than he himself waste
become, man who also had had to
leave England and the prospect of be
ing clergyman owing to his weak
u q j. rr1, u ,,,a ', had onea
been intended for a 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 for Cape
Colony Then his health became re-
newed and to-day the whole world
knows Cecil Rhodes almost as well as
it knows anybody.
Rhodes may well be called "sol-
der" as regards fighting, for, though
not a military man by profession, he
was always willing to take any share of
fighting that came along his way, and
his advice to doubtful Britonsf during
the late crisis IN kimberley. to 'be like
me and sit tight" will not be readily
forgotten. 1t was said that Kruger
had such an opinion of Cecil Rhodes
fighting powers that he proposed to
put him into a cage when Kimberley
was taken, but it may be also said that
Rhodes would have shown the Beers
no small amount of resistance first be-
fore he had thus allowed himself to be
taken, for he is by instinct fighting
man to the very bone.
Havelock was never very strong and
as q boy he was decidedly on the dark
side of health. Even when a man his
pale face was a general subject of re-
mark 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 deformity and by constant
bad health. Yet he went forth man
fully to help the Greeks in their strug-
'glesfor independence against the Turks
and perished al Missolonghi.
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