Better to stem with heart and hand
The roaring tide of life, than lie
Unmindful, on its flowing strand,
Of God’s occasions drifting by.
Better with naked nerve to bear
The needles of this goading air,
Than in the lap of sensual ease forego
The Godlike power to do, the Godlike aim to know.
The man who seeks easy things will never make much of his life. One who is afraid of hard work will never achieve anything worth while. In an art gallery, before a great painting, a young artist said to Ruskin, “Ah! If I could put such a dream on canvas!” “Dream on canvas!” growled the stern old critic. “It will take ten thousand touches of the brush on the canvas to put your dream there.” No doubt many beautiful dreams die in the brains and hearts of artists, for want of energy to make them realities. On the tomb of Joseph II of Austria, in the royal cemetery at Vienna, is this pitiable epitaph, prepared by direction of the king himself, “Here lies a monarch who, with the best intentions, never carried out a single plan.”
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