There seems to be this terrible alternative put to every man on
entering the world, /conquer or be conquered/. It is what the waves
say to the swimmer, "Use me or drown"; what gravity says to the
babe, "Use me or fall"; what the winds say to the sailor, "Use me
or be wrecked"; what the passions say to every one of us, "Drive
or be driven." Time in its dealings with us says plainly enough,
"Here I am, your master or your servant." If we fail to make a
good use of time, time will not fail to make a bad use of us. The
miser does not use his money, so his money uses him; men do not
govern their ambition, and so are governed by it. . . .
These considerations are valuable chiefly for their analogical
import. They indicate a larger truth. Man grows by conquering
his limitations--by subduing new territory and occupying it. He
commences life on a very small capital; his force yet lies outside
of him, scattered up and down in the world like his wealth--in
rocks, in trees, in storms and flood, in dangers, in difficulties,
in hardships,--in short, in whatever opposes his progress and puts
on a threatening front. The first difficulty overcome, the first
victory gained, is so much added to his side of the scale--so much
reinforcement of pure power.
I have said elsewhere that Mr.
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