"All subjects are difficult," was the reply, "to a man who desires to do well." "But yours, I fear, is impossible," said Trollope.

"You have no right to say so till I have finished my picture," protested the artist.
"Tell Louisa to stick to her teaching; she can never succeed as a writer." When her father delivered the rejected manuscript of a story sent to James T.Fields, editor of the _Atlantic Monthly_, with the above message, Miss Alcott said, "Tell him I _will_ succeed as a writer, and some day I shall write for the _Atlantic_." Not long after she sent an article to the _Atlantic_ and received a check for $50.

With the money she said she bought "a second hand carpet for the parlor, a bonnet for her sister, shoes and stockings for herself." Her father was calling upon Longfellow some time after this, when Longfellow took the _Atlantic_, and said, "I want to read to you Emerson's fine poem upon Thoreau's flute." Mr.Alcott interrupted him with delight and said, "My daughter Louisa wrote that." "Men talk as if victory were something fortunate," says Emerson.

"_Work is victory._ Wherever work is done victory is obtained.

_There is no chance and no blanks._ You want but one verdict; if you have your own, you are secure of the rest.