man tries. He too fails. A third man tries and out it comes. "Ah," every one says, "he has done what the others could not do." But the truth is that he succeeded because the first two men loosened the cork before him. Much of the great preparatory toil of the world's work has been done by men and women whose names do not appear in any record. Tycho, however, did leave his mark, for it was not usual for a man of noble birth to devote his time to arduous study.
By far the greater number of men who are famous in history, especially those who have achieved renown in science and the arts, have been men of humble origin who have had to work for their living and even struggle against the adversity which poverty brings. It is this very struggle and continuous effort that is the making of them. Those who are born in more fortunate circumstances, and are surrounded by luxury and comfort which tempt them to lead lives of ease and idleness rarely succeed in accomplishing notable achievements. Alexander Humboldt, who lived at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, is another notable instance of a man of high position (and in his case, too, considerable means) giving up his life to an untiring pursuit of knowledge and to amassing a remarkable amount of valuable scientific information.
To work when you need not work, to prevent your time being wasted in pleasure and amusements and
