Page:Stanwood Pier--Harding of St Timothys.djvu/191

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"And you are saving and serving the state—this little state of St. Timothy's—when you are building your own character. For when you are building your own character, you are—though you may not know it—helping some friend to build his. And character is the only thing that counts. Without character, muscles are nothing; brains are nothing; and though you had 'the front of Jove himself, an eye like Mars, to threaten and command,' and had not character, some homely, puny-looking dwarf, who has what you lack, may arise at any moment and upset you."

He sat down; and after a moment of stillness, which attested the impression that his speech had made, the applause broke out. And Harry, applauding with the others, knew that his own clever little speech, over which he had so hopefully toiled, was already buried and forgotten.

But it was no longer this knowledge which