We are told in one of Aesop’s fables how the hare
and the tortoise once agreed to run a race against each other. The swift footed
hare ridiculed as preposterous the idea that he could possibly be beaten by his
opponent. At the beginning of the race he started off at a great speed and soon
left the tortoise far behind. Presently, looking round and finding that his
adversary was out of sight, he thought he might as well lie down and have a
sleep, and did so. Meanwhile the tortoise had been plodding steadily on. After a
long time he came up to the place where the hare was sleeping, and went on past
his adversary until he was near the goal. At this point the hare, waking up,
saw the tortoise within a few yards of the winning post. He made a desperate
effort to get there before him but was unable to overtake him in time to save
the race. The moral of the story is that steady perseverance is more successful
than short outbursts of fitful energy.
We often see this truth illustrated in the
competitions of students at schools and colleges, and in the severer struggles
of later life. A young student of remarkable talents commence the year at
college with a firm resolution to work fifteen hours a day and so outstrip all
his competitors. For some time he keeps his resolution, until he begins to feel
the exhaustion that is the natural result of his extravagant exertions. He
then begins to reflect how much he is in advance of other students, and thinks
he may indulge in a rest to recruit his exhausted powers. The rest is so agreeable
that he prolongs it until when he compares notes with his friends, he is
astounded to find that those who have been working steadily for a moderate
amount of hours every day, are now well in front of him.
In later life, also, we find as a generally rule,
that steady persevering men produce greater results than those who world
however energetically, by fits and starts. It is doubtful, however. Whether
this rule can be applied to the majority of famous authors. No doubt many
instances, even from this class of men, may be quitted in its support. Mr.
Beck ford at the age of twenty worked continuously for three days and two nights,
at the end of which time l finished the brilliant novel called bathe. But he
was punished for his neglect of the laws of health by a severe illness, and
remainder of his long life produced no literary work of great value. Byron
composed his finest poems with wonderful rapidity, while he felt under the sway
of inspiration. But his poetry suffered: and all, critics are agreed that his
poems would have been much finer than they are if he had the patience to
perfect them by .mistaking revision.
In the case of men of extraordinary and irregular
genius, it is difficult to conceive that they could have produced greater works
by binding themselves down to the observance of methodical rules in the
distribution of their time. On the other hand there are other men of great
talents, nay, of the highest geniuses, who, like Kant, the German
meta physician, have found that steady lobar for a fixed number of hours every
day by no means checked the flow of inspiration.