The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1901-04-18
ma. Shopper year, in advau CO
Six Months 80 cents.

have discontented desire for some
thing and wish to crafty it. But it is
happiness that all are seeking. 1 do
not say that the things 1 have men
toned will make you happy, but if you
think they will you will never really
be satisfied until you have tried them
and felt the result. Now let US take
the first two for example, wealth and
power. Do you think it is an easy
thing to rise from obscurity to the
possession of wealth or power in this
world? Suppose we say that you be-
lieve one of these will make you happy,
and therefor you are going to try to
get it. Do you realize there are mil
lions of people striving to grasp the
same object you are after? And each
one of them will ruthlessly trample
under foot any who stand between him
and his beloved desire, whether it be
you or me, or anyone else.
Life is one great battle and only
those who possess certain qualities can
triumph in it. Only the fttest will
survive. Therefor if when leaving
here you are going to try and make
yourself wealthy or powerful, or
famous, remember that you are about
to engage in a great battle in which
millions are competing against you;
thousands of whom are far wiser, far
stronger and more able to win than
you are. Therefor you must have some
kind of system, for whatever man
engages in he must systematic or he
will fail. This is an absolute certainty.
He must have certain maxims or laws
to which he can always resort when
undecided. If he cannot win under
these conditions he can never win.
You ask. are there any such rules,
and can they be applied to every case?
There are, and they can be applied tc
any trade or profession. You ask was
any man ever successful under them?
l say to you no man was ever really
successful without them. Then comes
the question, what are they? Here
they are: concentration, system, per-
severance. What mean by concentra-
ton is to devote your energies to one
object; wealth and wealth alone, or
power and power alone. Do not divide
your energies. 1t weakens them. The
human machine is so constructed that
man must be specialist along one
line to succeed, do away with details as
much as possible Details waste time,
and time is everything, as Napoleon
said. Never 60 around corner when
you can cut across. Be brief and
concise. "Life is short and time is
fleeting" Perseverance is determina-
tion to succeed Don't give up, keep
at it. "The constant dripping water
wears away the hardest stone" Who
ever possessed these qualities and sue
ceeded? Napoleon. No peasant in
Europe worked harder than this man.
He often went for weeks at time
under terrible strain, scarcely s'eeping
or eating. A process that would have
undermined an ordinary constitution.
Before the battle of LEIPZIG he did not
sleep for four days and nights; after it
he lay down and slept twenty-seven
hours. He had wonderful faculty of
recuperatiOn. No man can make a
mistake in choosing this great emperor
for model to map his life career by.
Who is more worthy of it than the man
who was once master of Europe? Who
rushed vast armies across the Alps and
conquered Rome and Italy? Whose
troops chaunted their songs against the
night winds of the Egyptian deserts?
Who stood within the shadow of the
pyramids and said: "rwenty centuries
look down upon you?" Who saw the
sunrise of Jena, Wagram, Austerlitz!
The eventide of that terrible march to
Moscow, when the greatest army the
world has ever seen went in and only
10000 came out. His was the bloody
twilight of LEIPZIG and the sullen night
of Waterloo.
Such character only appears once
or twice in the course of twenty cen
turies. The vast fabric he built has
crumbled to pieces, but the builder is
yet living in the minds of men. If
anything, he is more famous today
than he was a hundred years ago. One
can now look at France and say as has
been said of Rome:
sand 10! the night the Empires course is run;
A gloomy shr0ud enf0lds her. once so fair;
What though single star shines here and there!
And bl!nks and vaunts itself to be sum-"
LEO.