" Another
distinguished investigator in physical science has left it on
record that, whenever in the course of his researches he
encountered an apparently insuperable obstacle, he generally found
himself on the brink of some discovery. The very greatest things--
great thoughts, discoveries, inventions--have usually been nurtured
in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length
established with difficulty.
Beethoven said of Rossini, that he had in him the stuff to have
made a good musician if he had only, when a boy, been well flogged;
but that he had been spoilt by the facility with which he produced.
Men who feel their strength within them need not fear to encounter
adverse opinions; they have far greater reason to fear undue praise
and too friendly criticism. When Mendelssohn was about to enter
the orchestra at Birmingham, on the first performance of his
'Elijah,' he said laughingly to one of his friends and critics,
"Stick your claws into me! Don't tell me what you like, but what
you don't like!"
It has been said, and truly, that it is the defeat that tries the
general more than the victory. Washington lost more battles than
he gained; but he succeeded in the end. The Romans, in their most
victorious campaigns, almost invariably began with defeats.
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