Jackson, early in life, determined to conquer every weakness he had,
physical, mental, and moral. He held all of his powers with a firm hand.
To his great self-discipline and self-mastery he owed his success. So
determined was he to harden himself to the weather that he could not be
induced to wear an overcoat in winter. "I will not give in to the cold,"
he said. For a year, on account of dyspepsia, he lived on buttermilk and
stale bread, and wore a wet shirt next his body because his doctor
advised it, although everybody else ridiculed the idea. This was while
he was professor at the Virginia Military Institute. His doctor advised
him to retire at nine o'clock; and, no matter where he was, or who was
present, he always sought his bed on the minute. He adhered rigidly
through life to this stern system of discipline. Such self-training,
such self-conquest, gives one great power over others. It is equal to
genius itself.

"I can do nothing," said Grant, "without nine hours' sleep."

What else is so grand as to stand on life's threshold, fresh, young,
hopeful, with a consciousness of power equal to any emergency,--a master
of the situation? The glory of a young man is his strength.

Our great need of the world to-day is for men and women who are good
animals. To endure the strain of our concentrated civilization, the
coming man and woman must have an excess of animal spirits. They must
have a robustness of health. Mere absence of disease is not health. It
is the overflowing fountain, not the one half full, that gives life and
beauty to the valley below. Only he is healthy who exults in mere animal
existence; whose very life is a luxury; who feels a bounding pulse
throughout his body; who feels life in every limb, as dogs do when
scouring over the field, or as boys do when gliding over fields of ice.