Take, again, the case of a man who is by circumstances shut off from work that he could do and longs to do for the large benefit of mankind,--the man who has a gift of teaching and is not allowed to teach, or who has the statesman's quality and finds no place in public affairs, or who, with any large executive and beneficent faculty, finds himself denied all opportunity of exercising it. For a faculty to be repressed is hard just in proportion as its quality is noble. A caged canary is hardly a painful sight, but a caged eagle stirs one with regret. And the world has such need of all noble talent; such exigent and hungry need of the true teacher, statesman, seer,--of the word of inspiration and the act of leadership! How shall one who feels in him the power and sees the need; who grasps in his hand the keen sickle, yet is held back, while before his eyes the fields are white with the harvest which threatens, unreaped, to perish,--how shall he reconcile himself to his lot? How escape the thought that he and all mankind are but playthings in the grasp of cruel and ironic fate? What, then, does the world most need of us? Is it wisdom, or statesmanship, or executive power? These things it greatly needs. But most of all it needs character. Most of all it needs that quality of personality which is moulded by the interplay of loyal will with the shifting course of outward event. For our wisest thoughts the world can very well wait, or do without them altogether; almost certainly some one else has thought them and said them. Our executive power to be added to the world's work,--it is but a fly's strength contributed to a steam-engine. One thing the universe asks of us, which no one else can give,--_ourselves_; our highest and fullest self. It is not what we do externally, but what we are, that measures our worth. The real and lasting value of a word or an act depends largely on the weight of character behind it. And in character no higher effect is wrought out than that which comes through endurance and heroic passivity. To stand long before closed doors of opportunity and keep serene; to see work waiting, see others working, and in patience and self-control to bide one's time,--that is more than to do any work; it is to be a man. The time comes when manhood finds itself to be power. A brook goes singing on its way, marking its course through forest and field with a track of beauty and freshened life. Men throw a dam across its path, and through many a long day its course is stopped and its waters silently accumulate. And the brook says, "Alas for my lost freedom and service! Alas for the rush and sparkle and joy of my cascades! Alas for the parched meadows, the unwatered ferns and mosses!" But the day comes when with a cataract leap it crosses its barrier; meadow and mosses and ferns revive; and now the stored power of the stream is turning great mills and grinding bread for men.