They have commonly passed the first half of life in the gross darkness of indigent humility,--overlooked, mistaken, condemned by weaker men,--thinking while others slept, reading while others rioted, feeling something within them that told them they should not always be kept down among the dregs of the world.

And then, when their time has come, and some little accident has given them their first occasion, they have burst out into the light and glory of public life, rich with the spoils of time, and mighty in all the labors and struggles of the mind." Malibran said: "If I neglect my practice a day, I see the difference in my execution; if for two days, my friends see it; and if for a week, all the world knows my failure." Constant, persistent struggle she found to be the price of her marvelous power.
"If I am building a mountain," said Confucius, "and stop before the last basketful of earth is placed on the summit, I have failed." "Young gentlemen," said Francis Wayland, "remember that nothing can stand day's work." America will never produce any great art until our resources are developed and we get more time.

As a people we have not yet learned the art of patience.

We do not know how to wait.

Think of an American artist spending seven, eight, ten, and even twelve years on a single painting as did Titian, Michael Angelo and many of the other old masters.