“However, thank God, I have a good share of Tapleyism in me and come out strong under difficulties.  I think I may confidently say that no man ever saw me out of heart or ever heard a complaining word from me even when our prospects were gloomiest.  We were sadly crippled by cholera, and it was almost appalling to me to find that out of twenty-seven officers I could only muster fifteen for the operations of the attack.  However, it was done,—­and after it was done came the collapse.

[Sidenote:  Enduring Power of Mind]

“Don’t be horrified when I tell you that for the whole of the actual siege, and in truth for some little time before, I almost lived on brandy.  Appetite for food I had none, but I forced myself to eat just sufficient to sustain life, and I had an incessant craving for brandy, as the strongest stimulant I could get.  Strange to say, I was quite unconscious of its affecting me in the slightest degree.

“The excitement of the work was so great that no lesser one seemed to have any chance against it, and I certainly never found my intellect clearer or my nerves stronger in my life.”

Such is the profound resourcefulness and enduring power of the human mind.

CHAPTER II

RESERVES OF POWER

[Sidenote:  Man’s Potential and Kinetic Energies]

Stored-up energy not in use has been given a name by scientific men.  They call it potential energy.  In this way it is distinguished from kinetic or circulating energy by which is meant energy that is at work.  For example, a ton of coal in the bin contains a certain amount of potential energy, which is capable of being converted into kinetic energy by combustion.

[Sidenote:  Holding the Top Pace]

You have a vast amount of potential energy over and above what you actually use.  You have formed the habit of giving up trying a thing as soon as you have spent the usual amount of effort on it, and this without regard to whether or not you have accomplished anything.

While we all have the power of sustained mental activity, not one in ten thousand of us holds to the top pace.

Worse still, even such mental energy as we do consume is dispersed and scattered over a multitude of trivial interests instead of being focused upon some one possessing aim.

We intend to show you how you can lose yourself in your work with an absorbing passion and how you can at any time make special requisition upon your hidden stores of potential energy and draw new supplies of power that will sweep you on to your goal.

[Sidenote:  Genius and the Master Man]

More than anything else, it is the ability to do this that lifts the great men of the race above the common run of mortals.

It is this that distinguishes genius from mediocrity.  The master man transforms his vast stores of reserve or potential energy into circulating or kinetic energy.  His work glows with living fire.