Law of Success (21st Century Edition)

PROFITING BY FAILURE 887

successful people of the day-the people he met through the introduc-

tions made by Andrew Carnegie. Those questionnaires had represented

Hill's fifteen years of research, to that time, on the philosophy of success.

As with all of his adversities and defeats, Napoleon recovered and

carried on, proving once again and without questian that his lessons to

readers are truly based on experience.

BLESSINGS IN DISGUISE

I used to hate my enemies. But that was before I learned how well
they were serving me by keeping me everlastingly on the alert lest
some weak spot in my character provide an opening through which
they might damage me.
In view of what I have learned of the value of enemies, if I had
none I would feel it my duty to create a few. They would discover my
defects and point them out to me, whereas my friends, if they saw my
weaknesses at all, would say nothing about them.
Of all Joaquin Miller's poems, none expressed a nobler thought
than did this one:

('All honor to him who shall win a prize/'

The world has cried for a thousand years;

But to him who tries, and who fails, and dies,

I give great honor, and glory, and tears.

Give glory and honor and pitiful tears

To all who fail in their deeds sublime;

Their ghosts are many in the van oj years,

They were born with Time, in advance oj Time.

Dh, great is the hero who wins a name;

But greater many, and many a time,

Some pale~faced fellow who dies in shame

And lets God finish the thought sublime.