"What matters it that a lonely, dissipated man has lain down in sorrow to rise no more! The world cannot stop to weep over the remains of the departed one it has trampled upon. Those whose business it is can take them on one side, lay them away under the green sod out of sight, shed a tear perhaps, and pass on until their turn comes to lay down wearily, go to sleep, and be laid away. The world chides, the world laughs, but it takes no cognizance of the grief-- "'That inward breaks and shows no cause without, _Why_ the man dies.' "Yet there is but the difference of a point in the game between the victim and the hero. The cards are the same, or the victim, perhaps, _may_ hold the best trumps, but he plays recklessly, loses his point, loses his game, loses all! On such slight things does human destiny hinge. The hero has all his resources at command--his game dimly outlined. He knows his winning cards, and he plays them skilfully. "Every point tells. Nothing is left to chance that can be accomplished by foresight. He wins the game. He wins the prizes. He has the mastery of life. The world takes off its hat to him. Fortune and people smile upon him. Not that he is better than others--very likely he is not so good. But the world counts results. Becky Sharp is not a model, but Becky Sharp is a power. The world does not like her in the abstract, but it likes her dinners, it courts her smiles, it fawns upon her, it showers its good things upon her, all because _she has mastered it_. Becky Sharp is not a model. Her aims are unworthy, and her means unscrupulous; but she reads us a lesson in fact, in foresight, in energy, in the subtle art of making the most of limited resources. So long as life is a game, it is worth studying. The difference between playing it well and playing it ill is the difference between light and darkness, between joy and desolation, between life and death." Even at that early and immature time of his life, Willard Glazier had thought much upon this subject--examples of the disjointed successes of all unplanned and unmethodical careers having been brought too frequently into close proximity to his own door, not to have made an impression upon his inquiring mind. Hence, at the very threshold of his life as a teacher, he resolved to have plan and purpose clearly defined in everything he did. CHAPTER X. THE SOLDIER SCHOOL-MASTER.