Great souls care only for what is great, and to the
spirit which hovers in the sight of the Infinite, any sort of artifice
seems a disgraceful puerility.
March 19, 1868.--What we call little things are merely the causes of
great things; they are the beginning, the embryo, and it is the point of
departure which, generally speaking, decides the whole future of an
existence. One single black speck may be the beginning of a gangrene, of
a storm, of a revolution. From one insignificant misunderstanding hatred
and separation may finally issue. An enormous avalanche begins by the
displacement of one atom, and the conflagration of a town by the fall of
a match. Almost everything comes from almost nothing, one might think.
It is only the first crystallization which is the affair of mind; the
ultimate aggregation is the affair of mass, of attraction, of acquired
momentum, of mechanical acceleration. History, like nature, illustrates
for us the application of the law of inertia and agglomeration which is
put lightly in the proverb, "Nothing succeeds like success." Find the
right point at starting; strike straight, begin well; everything depends
on it. Or more simply still, provide yourself with good luck--for
accident plays a vast part in human affairs. Those who have succeeded
most in this world (Napoleon or Bismarck) confess it; calculation is not
without its uses, but chance makes mock of calculation, and the result
of a planned combination is in no wise proportional to its merit.
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