It often cowes enemies and dispels at the start opposition to one's undertakings which would otherwise be formidable.
"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as if you could not hold on a minute longer," said Harriet Beecher Stowe, "never give up then, for that's just the place and time that the tide'll turn." "Never despair," says Burke, "but if you do, work on in despair." Once when Marshal Ney was going into battle, looking down at his knees which were smiting together, he said, "You may well shake; you would shake worse yet if you knew where I am going to take you." "Go it, William!" an old boxer was overheard saying to himself in the midst of a fight; "at him again!--never say 'die'!" A striking incident is related of the early experience of George Law, who, in his day, was one of the most conspicuous financiers and capitalists of New York City.

When he was a young man he went to New York, poor and friendless.

One day he was walking along the streets, hungry, not knowing where his next meal would come from, and passed a new building in course of erection.

Through some accident one of the hod carriers fell from the structure and dropped dead at his feet.

Young Law, in his desperation, applied for the job to take the dead man's place, and the place was given him.