he decided to study sixteen hours a day and turn his lemon of ignorance into a
lemonade of knowledge. By doing that, he transformed himself from a local politician
into a national figure and made himself so outstanding that The New York Times called
him "the best-loved citizen of New York".
I am talking about Al Smith.
Ten years after Al Smith set out on his programme of political self-education, he was the
greatest living authority on the government of New York State. He was elected Governor
of New York for four terms-a record never attained by any other man. In 1928, he was
the Democratic candidate for President. Six great universities-including Columbia and
Harvard-conferred honorary degrees upon this man who had never gone beyond grade
school.
Al Smith himself told me that none of these things would ever have come to pass if he
hadn't worked hard sixteen hours a day to turn his minus into a plus.
Nietzsche's formula for the superior man was "not only to bear up under necessity but to
love it".
The more I have studied the careers of men of achievement the more deeply I have
been convinced that a surprisingly large number of them succeeded because they
started out with handicaps that spurred them on to great endeavour and great rewards.
As William James said: "Our infirmities help us unexpectedly."
Yes, it is highly probable that Milton wrote better poetry because he was blind and that
Beethoven composed better music because he was deaf.
Helen Keller's brilliant career was inspired and made possible because of her blindness
and deafness.
If Tchaikovsky had not been frustrated-and driven almost to suicide by his tragic
marriage-if his own life had not been pathetic, he probably would never have been able
to compose his immortal "Symphonic Pathetique".
If Dostoevsky and Tolstoy had not led tortured lives, they would probably never have
been able to write their immortal novels.
"If I had not been so great an invalid," wrote the man who changed the scientific concept
of life on earth-"if I had not been so great an invalid, I should not have done so much
work as I have accomplished." That was Charles Darwin's confession that his infirmities
had helped him unexpectedly.
The same day that Darwin was born in England another baby was born in a log cabin in
the forests of Kentucky. He, too, was helped by his infirmities. His name was Lincoln-
Abraham Lincoln. If he had been reared in an aristocratic family and had had a law
degree from Harvard and a happy married life, he would probably never have found in
the depths of his heart the haunting words that he immortalised at Gettysburg, nor the
sacred poem that he spoke at his second inauguration-the most beautiful and noble
phrases ever uttered by a ruler of men: "With malice toward none; with charity for all ..."
Harry Emerson Fosdick says in his book, The Power to See it Through; "There is a
Scandinavian saying which some of us might well take as a rallying cry for our lives:
'The north wind made the Vikings.' Wherever did we get the idea that secure and
pleasant living, the absence of difficulty, and the comfort of ease, ever of themselves