LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

died primarily from starvation it is believed; his
wife, in rags, was in despair over her husband’s
folly; Palissy himself was worn to a skeleton by
privation, and he gave his clothes to his assistant
because he was unable to pay him in money; he
was despised by his neighbors for what they con-
sidered his suicidal obstinacy; he was always
hoping, but always failing. At last success came.
He did discover the secret of one of the great in-
dustries of the world. Then he was made “ Ber-
nard of the Tuileries,” he received the patronage
of kings and emperors, he wrote books, he opened
a school of philosophy, and he was honored by the
disciples of art and science everywhere. Had he

ELIAS HOWE, JR.

been living in ease and luxury, he would perhaps
have never made those long, weary efforts; but in
his poverty, he was ever saying to himself: “If I
find out the secrets of pottery, my wife and chil-
dren wiil live in plenty. Now it is starvation—
by and by, it shall be wealth and fame.”

George Stephenson, unable to read the alphabet
till he was eighteen, working in the coal pits for
six pence a day, and mending the boots and patch-
ing the clothes of his fellow workmen in the even-
ings to earn a few extra pennies that he might
attend a night school, is another good illustration
of what a poor and ignorant boy may become.
Never idle, never above doing the commonest

 

295

work, never an ale drinker, as was the custom
among miners, he showed the fine quality of his
nature by giving the first money which he ever
earned, one hundred and fifty dollars, to his blind
father, that he might pay his debts.

When he became an engineer, and projected a
railroad between Manchester and Liverpool, the
people said, “He is a madman! His ‘roaring
steam engine’ will set the houses on fire with its
sparks, the smoke will pollute the air, and carriage-
makers and coachmen will starve for want of work.”
The excitement following his public proposals was
intense. For three days he was questioned by a
large committee of the Houseof Commons. This
was one of the questions: “If a cow gets on the
track in the way of an engine travelling ten miles
an hour, will it not be an awkward situation?”

Very soberly answered George Stephenson, but
with a twinkle in his eye: “ Yes, varry awkward
indeed for the coo!”

One Government Inspector said that if a loco-
motive ever went ten miles an hour, he “ would
undertake to eat a stewed engine wheel for his
breakfast.” Stephenson’s “ Rocket,” a clumsy
engine, but a wonder at the time, and now to be
seen at the Kensington museum, made the trial
trip at an average speed of fourteen miles an hour,
and so the Inspector had the opportunity of keep-
ing his promise. During the next ten years, being
employed to open up railroads in every direction,
Stephenson became wealthy and renowned, the
friend of Sir Robert Peel, the owner of a large
country seat, and the pride of England. He de-
clined the honor of knighthood. His famous son
Robert said of him, “ His example and his char-
acter made me the man I am.”

Charles Goodyear, of New Haven, Conn., for
eleven_years struggling to make India rubber of
practical use, imprisoned for debt, pawning his.
clothes and his wife’s trinkets, his children gather-
ing sticks in the fields when he was no longer able
to buy wood for fires to melt his rubber, often
with neither food nor fire in the house, once with a
child dead and no means to bury it, and five others
nearly starving — this great inventor furnishes an-
other instance of heroic struggle. He was derided
by his friends; one would say to another: “If
you see a man with an India rubber cap, an India
rubber coat, India rubber shoes, and an India rub-
ber purse in his pocket, with not a cent in it—
that is Charles Goodyear!” But these same
friends lived to see his vulcanized rubber applied
to five hundred uses, to see sixty thousand persons
annually producing eight million dollars worth of
merchandise from it. It surely shall be counted
no mean part of a great success that the daily wel-

‘fare of thousands of people is involved and pro-

vided for—that daily work and daily wages are
secured for multitudes.
Elias Howe’s life, like the others, is the old fairy