Strength Among Yourself

True grit always commands respect. The world admires a person who never flinches form unexpected difficulties, who calmly, patiently, and courageously grapples with their fate. It is that quality which achieves, and everybody admires achievement. In the strife of parties and principles, backbone without brains will carry against brains without backbone. You can not, by tying an opinion to a man or woman's tongue, make him the representative of that opinion; at the close of any battle for principles, his or her name will be found neither among the dead nor among the wounded, but among, the missing.

Pure grit is that element of character which enables a man or woman to clutch his aim with an iron grip, and keep the needle of his purpose to the star of his hope. The man of grit carries in his very presence a power which controls and commands. It inspires a sublime audacity and a heroic act, it does not come by fits and starts, it is a part of life. It is unfortunate for a young person to start out in business life with a weak, yielding disposition, with no resolution or backbone to mark his own course and stick to it. With no ability to say "NO," with an emphasis obliging this person by investing in hopeless speculation, and, rather than offend a friend, endorsing a questionable note.

Mean natures always feel a sort of terror before great natures. As a rule, pure grit, character, has the right of way. In the presence of men permeated with grit and sound in character, meanness and baseness slink out of sight. Many are uncomfortable, dishonesty trembles, hypocrisy is uncertain. Grit is a permanent, solid quality, which enters into the very structure, the very tissues of the constitution.

Many of our Generals in the Civil War exhibited heroism; they were "plucky," and often displayed great determination, but Grant had pure "GRIT," in the most concentrated form. He could not be moved from his base, he was self-centered, immovable. An individual is spared necessity of declaring himself, for his grit speaks in his every act.

When the prizes of life are finally awarded, the distance we have run, the weights we have carried, the handicaps, will all be taken into account. Not the distance we have run, but the obstacles we have overcome, the disadvantages under which we have made the race, will decide our prizes. The poor wretch who has plodded along against unknown temptations, the heart and sewed her weary way through life, those who have suffered abuse in silence, and who have been unrecognized or despised by their fellow-runners, will often receive the greater prize.