4. There is scarce any difficulty that can not be overcome by perseverance. Trace any great mind to its culmination, and you will find that its ascent was slow, and by natural laws, and that its difficulties were such only as ordinary minds can surmount. Great results, whether physical or moral, are not often the offspring of giant powers. Genius is more frequently a curse than a blessing. Its possessor, relying upon his extraordinary gifts, generally falls into habits of indolence, and fails to collect the materials which are requisite to useful and magnificent effort. But there is a something which is sure of success; it is the determination which, having entered upon a career with full conviction that it is right, pursues it in calm defiance of all opposition. With such a feeling a man can not but be mighty. Toil does not weary, pain does not arrest him. Carrying a compass in his heart, which always points to one bright star, he allows no footstep to be taken which does not tend in that direction. Neither the heaving earthquake, nor the yawning gulf, nor the burning mountain can terrify him from his course; and if the heavens should fall, the shattered ruins would strike him on his way to his object. Show me the man who has this principle, and I care not to measure his blood, nor brains. I ask not his name nor his nation—I pronounce that his hand will be felt upon his generation, and his mind enstamped upon succeeding ages. This attribute is God-like. It may be traced throughout the universe. It has descended from the skies—it is the great charm of angelic natures. It is hardly to be contemplated, even in the demon, without admiration. It is this which gives to the warrior his crown, and encircles his brow with a halo that, in the estimation of a misjudging world, neither darkness, nor lust, nor blasphemy, nor blood can obscure. The bard of Mantua, to whose tomb genius in all ages makes its willing pilgrimage, never presents his hero in a more attractive light, than when he represents him, “_tot volvere casus_,” rolling his misfortunes forward, as a river bearing all opposition before it.