of his sailing ’over the edge.’  Of course, it had never been done before, but then Columbus went ahead and did it himself.  He didn’t take somebody else’s failure as an indication of what he could do.  If he had, a couple of hundred years later, somebody else would have discovered it and put Columbus in the class with the rest of the weak-kneed who said it couldn’t be done, just because it never had been done.

“The progress of this country, Ben,” continued my cousin, “is founded on the determination of men who refuse to accept the failures of others as proof that things can’t be done at all.  Now you’ve got a mighty good start.  You’ve found out all about these other methods—­you know that they have failed—­and in a lot of cases, you know why they have failed.  Now, why don’t you begin where they have left off and find out how to succeed?”

The thought struck me like a bolt from a clear sky:  “Begin where the others leave off and find out how to succeed!” I kept saying it over and over to myself, “Begin where the others leave off—­ begin where the others leave off!”

This thought put high hope in my heart.  It seemed to ring like a call from afar.  “Begin where the others leave off and find out how to succeed.”  I kept thinking about that all the way home.  I thought of it at the table that evening.  I said nothing.  I went to bed—­but I didn’t go to sleep, for singing through my brain was that sentence, “Begin where the others leave off and find out how to succeed!”

Right then and there I made the resolve that resulted in my curing myself.  “I will do it,” I said, “I will begin where the others leave off—­and I will succeed!!” Then and there I determined to master the principles of speech, to chart the methods that had been used by others, to find their defects, to locate the cause of stammering, to find out how to remove that cause and remove it from myself, so that I, like the others whom I so envied, could talk freely and fluently.

That resolution—­that determination which first fired me that evening never left me.  It marked the turning point in my whole life.  I was no longer dependent upon others, no longer looking to physicians or elocution teachers or hypnotists to cure me of stammering.  I was looking to myself.  If I was to be cured, then I must be the one to do it.  This responsibility sobered me.  It intensified my determination.  It emphasized in my own mind the need for persistent effort, for a constant striving toward this one thing.  And absorbed with this idea, living and working toward this one end, I began my work.

CHAPTER VIII

BEGINNING WHERE OTHERS HAD LEFT OFF