Page:Percival Lowell - an afterglow.djvu/39



period of possibilities. Then it is that the mind is open, plastic to impressions which at the same time it is most potent to retain. . ..

"Plasticity of mind is the premise to possibility of performance. To retain it longest is the great essential to success. For the ability to succeed has been defined as not having to stop till you get there. In this more than in any other one quality does the great man differ from his fellows: in the gift of perpetual youth. We are told that the good die young; our regret being father to the thought. But certain it is that the great die young even though they pass the Psalmist's limit of three score and ten. The plasticity of their mental makeup is the elixir of life poor Ponce de Leon sought in vain.

"This possibility confronts all of us at the threshold of our career. Not that we are all born with like endowment nor that we all can attain it later. But we can all approach nearer our goal by keeping it constantly before us through the procession of the years. Especially important is it, then, at the start to set one's mind and ambition on that which is best. In the trenchant, if trivial, words of an Ivy orator of years ago at Harvard to his classmates: 'Fellows, don't be content to sit on the fence; sit on the roof. And remember that climbing there does not safely consist in leaps and bounds but in throwing one's heart upward and then persistently pursuing it step by step.'"