II.

Yet in spite of all this, in defiance of it, we know that an iron will
is often triumphant in the contest with physical infirmity.

"Brave spirits are a balsam to themselves:
There is a nobleness of mind that heals
Wounds beyond salves."

"One day," said a noted rope-walker, "I signed an agreement to wheel a
barrow along a rope on a given day. A day or two before I was seized
with lumbago. I called in my medical man, and told him I must be cured
by a certain day; not only because I should lose what I hoped to earn,
but also forfeit a large sum. I got no better, and the doctor forbade my
getting up. I told him, 'What do I want with your advice? If you cannot
cure me, of what good is your advice?' When I got to the place, there
was the doctor protesting I was unfit for the exploit. I went on, though
I felt like a frog with my back. I got ready my pole and my barrow, took
hold of the handles and wheeled it along the rope as well as I ever did.
When I got to the end I wheeled it back again, and when this was done I
was a frog again. What made me that I could wheel the barrow? It was my
reserve will."

"What does he know," asks the sage, "who has not suffered?" Did not
Schiller produce his greatest tragedies in the midst of physical
suffering almost amounting to torture? Handel was never greater than
when, warned by palsy of the approach of death, and struggling with
distress and suffering, he sat down to compose the great works which