PART II.

THE APPLICATION


Are you seeking for greatness, O brother of mine,
As the full, fleeting seasons and years glide away?
If seeking directly and for self alone,
The true and abiding you never can stay.
But all self forgetting, know well the law,
It's the hero, and not the self-seeker, who's crowned.
Then go lose your life in the service of others,
And, lo! with rare greatness and glory 'twill abound.

Is it your ambition to become great in any particular field, to attain
to fame and honor, and thereby to happiness and contentment? Is it your
ambition, for example, to become a great _orator_, to move great masses
of men, to receive their praise, their plaudits? Then remember that
there never has been, there never will, in brief, there never can be a
truly great orator without a great _purpose_, a great cause behind him.
You may study in all the best schools in the country, the best
universities and the best schools of oratory. You may study until you
exhaust all these, and then seek the best in other lands. You may study
thus until your hair is beginning to change its color, but this of
itself will _never_ make you a great orator. You may become a demagogue,
and, if self-centred, you inevitably will; for this is exactly what a