A Fifth Reader Author:Meredith Nicholson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: STRENGTH MALTBIE D. BABCOCK A boy taunted for failing in a prolonged attempt to answer a hard question said: "Well, I would rather try and fail than do ... more »as you did, sit still and do nothing." It was the boy's way of expressing what George Eliot meant when she said: "Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have striven good enough to be called a failure." Why grander? Because to plan to do something worth doing in this world, to be a producer and not a mere consumer, to endeavor to accomplish something for God and man, is a grand thing of itself; to carry out the idea by thought, counsel, prayer, labor, perseverance, is grander yet. Does a happy end crown the work— clear, unqualified success? Grandest of all, we say. But what of the fatal alternative? What if after all the plans come tears of disappointment? What if after all the pains and labor comes failure? Is all lost? By no means! The work may be a failure, but the worker stronger. The thing may not have been accomplished, but the man may be a more accomplished man. And so it is grander to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all, by so much as any iron that has known the hot puddling and tempering, and gained qualities of steel, is better than crude, raw ore. The roots of true success are well grown in the hearts of men who dare to fail. During the state convention in Springfield, Ohio, in 1858, Lincoln read his speech to twelve men in the library of the State House. "Too advanced," said all but Herndon. Lincoln rose, walked to and fro, stopped, and said: "Friends, I have thought about this matter a great deal, and have weighed the question well from all corners, and am thoroughly convinced the time has come when it should be uttered; and if I must go down becaus...« less