We want friends, so we scheme and chase 'cross lots after strong people,
and lie in wait for good folks--or alleged good folks--hoping to attach
ourselves to them. The only way to secure friends is to be one.

And before you are fit for friendship you must be able to do without it.
That is to say, you must have sufficient self-reliance to take care of
yourself, and then out of the surplus of your energy you can do for
others. The man who craves friendship, and yet desires a self-centered
spirit more, will never lack for friends.

If you would have friends, cultivate solitude instead of society. Drink in
the ozone; bathe in the sunshine; and out in the silent night, under the
stars, say to yourself again and yet again, "I am a part of all my eyes
behold!" And the feeling will surely come to you that you are no mere
interloper between earth and sky; but that you are a necessary particle of
the Whole. No harm can come to you that does not come to all, and if you
shall go down, it can only be amid a wreck of worlds.

Thus by laying hold on the forces of the Universe, you are strong with
them. And when you realize this, all else is easy, for in your arteries
course red corpuscles, and in your heart there is the will to do and be.
Carry your chin in, and the crown of your head high. We are gods in the
chrysalis.

* * * * *

Thomas B. Macauley was small in stature; but he always carried his chin
well in and the crown of his head high.

It was said of Rubens that throughout his lifetime he kept success tied to