But the author did not look on the fame and fortune brought to him by his
book as his chief reward. It had been his desire to be helpful to the
plodding, discouraged men and boys. As he expressed it himself: "It seemed
to me that the most important results in daily life are to be obtained, not
through the exercise of extraordinary powers, but through the energetic use
of simple means, and ordinary qualities, with which all have been more or
less endowed."
As his greatest reward he looked upon the grateful testimony of men of many
countries who had been inspired by the book to greater effort, and so
spurred on to success. An emigrant in New England wrote that he thanked God
for the volume, which had been the cause of an entire alteration in his
life. A working man wrote: "Since perusing the book I have experienced an
entire revolution in my habits. Instead of regarding life as a weary
course, which has to be gotten over as a task, I now view it in the light
of a trust, of which I must make the most." A country schoolboy received a
copy as a prize, and his life was transformed by the reading.
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