IN CONCLUSION
denial, of united action; and knowing, too, what weak men seldom know, how to obey—no man of all those thirty-two would need any urging. He would drive himself, and every ounce of himself, with wellnigh superhuman energy, over every inch of all that long five miles till he crossed the finish-line.
Not the least interesting feature in the study of these great men has been, not their inordinate craving and capacity for ceaseless hard work upon problems of serious difficulty; not the courage and tenacity of purpose that held on after all others had given up all hope; so much as good, sane, sound sense, a body that did instantly just what that sense bid it do; and an utter absence of conceit. "Before honor is humility," applies conspicuously to almost every one of them. Cicero may have taken off his hat whenever he heard his name mentioned; and perhaps Napoleon. But who else? It seemed as if they had reached such intellectual heights, and saw with so much wider range of vision how much they did not know, that it bred in them true modesty, and a simplicity that was charming.
And does it not now become more clear how the bodies of these giants helped them in their life-work; and how, without unusual vigor and lasting power, they could never have done what they did? And if these physical resources were so potent a factor in their success; are they not in any man's who much surpasses his fellows?
Every one knows some youth, or young man, of rare promise—many a parent has a son whom he believes to be such—but his body—well, it does not look as if his stay here would be long. No equilibrium between mind and body there.
Is there no help? If only some way could be found to make that body hale, strong, enduring; so that, push
463
