I have mentioned all these experiences, and I could mention scores of others, because out of them grew my philosophy—­perhaps they were in part caused by my philosophy—­of bodily vigor as a method of getting that vigor of soul without which vigor of the body counts for nothing.  The dweller in cities has less chance than the dweller in the country to keep his body sound and vigorous.  But he can do so, if only he will take the trouble.  Any young lawyer, shopkeeper, or clerk, or shop-assistant can keep himself in good condition if he tries.  Some of the best men who have ever served under me in the National Guard and in my regiment were former clerks or floor-walkers.  Why, Johnny Hayes, the Marathon victor, and at one time world champion, one of my valued friends and supporters, was a floor-walker in Bloomingdale’s big department store.  Surely with Johnny Hayes as an example, any young man in a city can hope to make his body all that a vigorous man’s body should be.

I once made a speech to which I gave the title “The Strenuous Life.”  Afterwards I published a volume of essays with this for a title.  There were two translations of it which always especially pleased me.  One was by a Japanese officer who knew English well, and who had carried the essay all through the Manchurian campaign, and later translated it for the benefit of his countrymen.  The other was by an Italian lady, whose brother, an officer in the Italian army who had died on duty in a foreign land, had also greatly liked the article and carried it round with him.  In translating the title the lady rendered it in Italian as Vigor di Vita.  I thought this translation a great improvement on the original, and have always wished that I had myself used “The Vigor of Life” as a heading to indicate what I was trying to preach, instead of the heading I actually did use.

There are two kinds of success, or rather two kinds of ability displayed in the achievement of success.  There is, first, the success either in big things or small things which comes to the man who has in him the natural power to do what no one else can do, and what no amount of training, no perseverance or will power, will enable any ordinary man to do.  This success, of course, like every other kind of success, may be on a very big scale or on a small scale.  The quality which the man possesses may be that which enables him to run a hundred yards in nine and three-fifths seconds, or to play ten separate games of chess at the same time blindfolded, or to add five columns of figures at once without effort, or to write the “Ode to a Grecian Urn,” or to deliver the Gettysburg speech, or to show the ability of Frederick at Leuthen or Nelson at Trafalgar.  No amount of training of body or mind would enable any good ordinary man to perform any one of these feats.  Of course the proper performance of each implies much previous study or training, but in no one of them is success to be attained save by the altogether exceptional man who has in him the something additional which the ordinary man does not have.