But there are disappointments in life that succeed reasonable expectation; and these are the hardest of all to bear.I say the expectation is reasonable; and yet, very possibly, the bitterness of the disappointment comes from neglecting to consider the infirmity of all earthly things.It is hard when, not dreaming, but trying our best, we fail.It is hard to bear the burden and heat of the day, through all life's prime, and yet, with all our toil, to earn no repose for its evening hours.It is hard to accumulate a little gain, baptizing every dollar with our honest sweat, and then have it stricken from our grasp by the band of calamity or of fraud.It is hard, when we have placed our confidence in man's honor, or his friendship, to find that we are fools, and that we have been led in among rocks and serpents.And hard indeed is it to see those who were worthy our love and our faith drop by our side, and leave us alone.This dear child, the blossom of so many hopes, -- hard is it to see him die -- to fold all our expectation in his little shroud, and lay it away forever.We thought it had been he who should have comforted and blessed us, --in whose life we could have retraced the cycle of our own happiest experience, --whose unfolding faculties would have been a renewal of our knowledge, and his manhood not merely the prop but the refreshing of our age.This companion of our lot, -- this wedded wife of our heart, - why taken away now? She has shared our early struggles, and tempered our anxiety with cheerful assurance.She has tasted the bitterness; we thought she would have been a partner of the joy.She has borne our fretfulness, and helped our perplexity, and shed a serene light into our gloom; We thought she would have been with us when we could pay the debt of faithfulness; when the cares of business did not press and disturb us so.We thought it was she whose voice, sweet with the music of old, deep memories, would have consoled us far along; and that, in some calm evening of life, when all the tumult of the world was still, and we were ready to go, we should go -- not far apart -- gently to our graves.
Such are the plans that we lay out, saying of this thing and of that thing, "We trusted that it would have been so." But the answer has been disappointment.The old, ay, perhaps the most common lesson of life, is disappointment.
And now I ask, is it not an intended lesson? Evidently it comes in as an element in the Providential plan in which we are involved.For we see its disciplinary nature, --its wise and beneficial results in harmony with that Plan.Consider whether it is not the fact, that the entire discipline of life grows out of a succession of disappointments.That youthful dream, in which life has stretched out like a sunny landscape with purple mountain-chains --is it not well that it is broken up, and we strike upon rugged realities? Does not all the strength of manhood, and the power of achievement, and the glory of existence, depend upon these things which are not included in the young boy's vision of a happy world.Welcome, O! disappointment of our hope that life would prove a perpetual holiday.Welcome experience of the fact that blessing comes not from pleasure, but from labor! For in that experience alone was there ever anything truly great or good accomplished.We can conceive no possible way by which one can be made personally strong without his own effort; --no possible way by which the mind can be enriched and strengthened where it is lifted up, instead of climbing for itself; --no way, therefore, in which life could be at all a worthy achievement, if it were merely a plain of ease, instead of holding every ward of knowledge and of power under the guard of difficulty and the requisition of endeavor.
And it is equally true that the greatest successes grow out of great failures.In numerous instances the result is better that comes after a series of abortive experiences than it would have been if it had come at once.For all these successive failures induce a skill, which is so much additional power working into the final achievement.Nobody passes at once to the mastery, in any branch of science or of industry; and when he does become a master in his work it is evident, not only in the positive excellence of his performance, but in the sureness with which he avoids defects; and these defects he has learned by experimental failures.The hand that evokes such perfect music from the instrument has often failed in its touch, and bungled among the keys.And if a man derives skill from his own failures, so does he from the failures of other men.Every unsuccessful attempt is, for him, so much work done; for he will not go over that ground again, but seek some new way.
Every disappointed effort fences in and indicates the only possible path of success, and makes it easier to find.We should thank past ages and other men, not only for what they have left us of great things done, but for the heritage of their failures.Every baffled effort for freedom contributes skill for the next attempt, and ensures the day of victory.
Nations stripped and bound, and waiting for liberty under the shadow of thrones, cherish in memory not only the achievements of their heroes, but the defeats of their martyrs; and when the trumpet-voice shall summon them once more, as surely it will, --when they shall draw for the venture of freedom, and unroll its glittering standard to the winds, -- they will avoid the stumbling blocks which have sacrificed the brave, and the errors which have postponed former hopes.In public and in private action, it is true that disappointment is the school of achievement, and the balked efforts are the very agents that help us to our purpose.
