Page:Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son.djvu/296

Rh the shortest way to the top, but it's usually the safest way.

Life isn't a spurt, but a long, steady climb. You can't run far up-hill without stopping to sit down. Some men do a day's work and then spend six lolling around admiring it. They rush at a thing with a whoop and use up all their wind in that. And when they're rested and have got it back, they whoop again and start off in a new direction. They mistake intention for determination, and after they have told you what they propose to do and get right up to doing it, they simply peter out.

I've heard a good deal in my time about the foolishness of hens, but when it comes to right-down, plum foolishness, give me a rooster, every time. He's always strutting and stretching and crowing and bragging about things with which he had nothing to do. When the sun rises, you'd think that he was making all the light, instead of all the noise; when the farmer's wife throws the