You have bluffed your way through ticklish situations; that I know. 
    You are looking back on troubles past and gone;
  Now, turn the tables, and as you have fought and won before,
    Just BLUFF YOURSELF to keep on holding on! 
      (Try it once.)
  Just bluff YOURSELF to keep on—­holding on.

  Don’t worry if the roseate hues of life are faded out,
    Bend low before the storm and wait awhile. 
  The pendulum is bound to swing again and you will find
    That you have not forgotten how to smile. 
      (That’s the truth!)
    That you have not forgotten how to smile.

Everard Jack Appleton.

From “The Quiet Courage.”

[Illustration:  JOHN KENDRICK BANGS]

WILL

Warren Hastings resolved in his boyhood that he would be the owner of the estate known as Daylesford.  This was the one great purpose that unified his varied and far-reaching activities.  Admire him or not, we must at least praise his pluck in holding to his purpose—­a purpose he ultimately attained.

  You will be what you will to be;
    Let failure find its false content
  In that poor word “environment,”
    But spirit scorns it, and is free.

  It masters time, it conquers space,
    It cowes that boastful trickster Chance,
  And bids the tyrant Circumstance
    Uncrown and fill a servant’s place.

  The human Will, that force unseen,
    The offspring of a deathless Soul,
  Can hew the way to any goal,
    Though walls of granite intervene.

  Be not impatient in delay,
    But wait as one who understands;
  When spirit rises and commands
    The gods are ready to obey.

  The river seeking for the sea
    Confronts the dam and precipice,
  Yet knows it cannot fail or miss;
    You will be what you will to be!

Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

From “Poems of Power.”

THE GAME

Lessing said that if God should come to him with truth in one hand and the never-ending pursuit of truth in the other, and should offer him his choice, he would humbly and reverently take the pursuit of truth.  Perhaps it is best that finite beings should not attain infinite success.  But however remote that for which they seek or strive, they may by their diligence and generosity make the very effort to secure it noble.  In doing this they earn, as Pope tells us, a truer commendation than success itself could bring them.  “Act well thy part; there all the honor lies.”

  Let’s play it out—­this little game called Life,
    Where we are listed for so brief a spell;
  Not just to win, amid the tumult rife,
    Or where acclaim and gay applauses swell;
  Nor just to conquer where some one must lose,
    Or reach the goal whatever be the cost;
  For there are other, better ways to choose,
    Though in the end the battle may be lost.