The answer they received was, that Cervantes had borne
arms in the service of his country, and was now old and poor.
'What!" exclaimed one of the Frenchmen, "is not Senor Cervantes in
good circumstances? Why is he not maintained, then, out of the
public treasury?" "Heaven forbid!" was the reply, "that his
necessities should be ever relieved, if it is those which make him
write; since it is his poverty that makes the world rich!" (4)
It is not prosperity so much as adversity, not wealth so much as
poverty, that stimulates the perseverance of strong and healthy
natures, rouses their energy and developes their character. Burke
said of himself: "I was not rocked, and swaddled, and dandled into
a legislator. 'NITOR IN ADVERSUM' is the motto for a man like
you." Some men only require a great difficulty set in their way
to exhibit the force of their character and genius; and that
difficulty once conquered becomes one of the greatest incentives
to their further progress.
It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they
much oftener succeed through failure. By far the best experience
of men is made up of their remembered failures in dealing with
others in the affairs of life. Such failures, in sensible men,
incite to better self-management, and greater tact and self-
control, as a means of avoiding them in the future. Ask the
diplomatist, and he will tell you that he has learned his art
through being baffled, defeated, thwarted, and circumvented,
far more than from having succeeded.
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