You drive out, let us suppose, upon a certain day.  To your surprise and mortification, your horse, usually lively and frisky, is quite dull and sluggish.  He does not get over the ground as he is wont to do.  The slightest touch of whip-cord, on other days, suffices to make him dart forward with redoubled speed; but upon this day, after two or three miles, he needs positive whipping, and he runs very sulkily with it all.  By-and-by his coat, usually smooth and glossy and dry through all reasonable work, begins to stream like a water-cart.  This will not do.  There is something wrong.  You investigate; and you discover that your horse’s work, though seemingly the same as usual, is in fact immensely greater.  The blockheads who oiled your wheels yesterday have screwed up your patent axles too tightly; the friction is enormous; the hotter the metal gets, the greater grows the friction; your horse’s work is quadrupled.  You drive slowly home, and severely upbraid the blockheads.

There are many people who have to go through life at an analogous disadvantage.  There is something in their constitution of body or mind, there is something in their circumstances, which adds incalculably to the exertion they must go through to attain their ends, and which holds them back from doing what they might otherwise have done.  Very probably that malign something exerted its influence unperceived by those around them.  They did not get credit for the struggle they were going through.  No one knew what a brave fight they were making with a broken right arm; no one remarked that they were running the race, and keeping a fair place in it, too, with their legs tied together.  All they do, they do at a disadvantage.  It is as when a noble race-horse is beaten by a sorry hack; because the race-horse, as you might see, if you look at the list, is carrying twelve pounds additional.  But such men, by a desperate effort, often made silently and sorrowfully, may (so to speak) run in the race, and do well in it, though you little think with how heavy a foot and how heavy a heart.  There are others who have no chance at all. They are like a horse set to run a race, tied by a strong rope to a tree, or weighted with ten tons of extra burden. That horse cannot run even poorly.  The difference between their case and that of the men who are placed at a disadvantage is like the difference between setting a very near-sighted man to keep a sharp look-out and setting a man who is quite blind to keep that sharp look-out.  Many can do the work of life with difficulty; some cannot do it at all.  In short, there are PEOPLE WHO CARRY WEIGHT IN LIFE, and there are some WHO NEVER HAVE A CHANCE.