Page:The stuff of manhood (1917).djvu/48

 public orator, from some one of the great states of the republic, to bless the sight once more of that venerated pair who shaped his beginnings, and planted the small seeds of his future success. Small seeds, you may have thought, of meanness; but now they have grown up and blossomed into a large-minded life, a generous public devotion, and a free benevolence to mankind.

"And just here, I am persuaded, is the secret, in no small degree, of the very peculiar success that has distinguished the sons of Connecticut, and, not least, those of Litchfield County, in their migration to other states. It is because they have gone out in the wise economy of a simple, homespun training, expecting to get on in the world by merit and patience, and by a careful husbanding of small advances; secured in their virtue by just that which makes their perseverance successful. For the men who see the great in the small, and go on to build the great by small increments, and so form a character of integrity before God and men, as solid and massive as the outward successes they conquer. The great men who think to be great in general, having yet nothing great in particular, are a much more windy affair."

Every one ought to roughen life by friendships that will bring into it those influences which are not naturally in our daily associations and will carry us into contact with men and women who