during the progress of the "discovery" expedition. His lungs bled for months, but his indomitable purpose prevailed. He struggled heroically against a malady that threatened his life hour by hour. Before he set out he had looked at the map and said at a banquet, "Thanks, here's to our success. I must not touch wine again until I return. I think we shall do it; at least we will try." And he reached within ninety-seven miles of the South Pole, and returned to England sound and well.
(2722)
RESOLUTION
Robert Louis Stevenson, in "Virginibus Puerisque," writes an account of a sea-fight in which he relates this:
Duncan, lying off the Texel with his own
flagship, the Venerable, and only one other
vessel, heard that the whole Dutch fleet was
putting to sea. He told Captain Hotham
to anchor alongside of him in the narrowest
part of the channel and fight his vessel till
she sank. "I have taken the depth of the
water," added he, "and when the Venerable
goes down, my flag will still fly." (Text.)
(2723)
See Convictions, Strong.
RESOLUTIONS, GOOD
When Admiral Farragut's son was ten
years old the father said in his hearing that
when he was old enough to make a contract
and keep it, he had a bargain to offer him.
The son rose up and asked the father what
the contract was. The admiral said, "The
proposal I intend to make is this: If you
will not smoke or chew tobacco, drink intoxicating
or strong wines, till you are
twenty-one years of age, I will then give you
one thousand dollars." "I am old enough to
make that bargain now," said young Farragut.
"I will accept the offer." The bargain
was closed, and when young Farragut was
twenty-one the cash was handed over to
him. A smoking boy can save a thousand
dollars in a few years in the same way, besides
saving physical energy and moral
power.
(2724)
RESOURCEFULNESS
"Where there is a will there is a way."
"According to a Pittsburg telephone manager,"
says Telephony, "the telephone was put
to a novel and unusual use in Washington
County recently, enabling two boys, sons of
farmers, to hold their positions in their
classes in the public schools from which
they will graduate in another year. Incidentally,
the patience and long-suffering of
the country school-teacher was put to an
admirable test. Smallpox broke out in the
neighborhood in question, and the two
scholars were among the early victims. The
home was quarantined, and there was every
indication that the instruction which they
had been receiving would be cut off for an
indefinite period. But the teacher was resourceful
and willing. He called up the
stricken home one evening and proposed
that the boys study their lessons as usual,
and he would hear them over the telephone.
The idea was eagerly received. Each evening
they took down the receiver, and the
teacher, located several farms away, heard
them recite. Neither suffered to an appreciable
degree through their absence from
school, and their chances for graduation are
just as bright as before the disease entered
their home." (Text.)
(2725)
See Medical Missions.
Resources, American—See Waste.
RESOURCES, EXHAUSTED
No life is self-sustained. For the individual and the nation, isolation means death. If the resources by which life is sustained were not furnished by others we should soon be at the end of our career.
Charles Francis Adams, the historian and
publicist, of Boston, Mass., in his address at
Lexington, Va., on January 19, 1907, at the
centennial celebration of General Lee's birth,
told the throng of Southerners, there in the
shadow of Lee's old home, that the Confederacy
was beaten in the markets of the
world, that the economic laws held it in an
iron grip, that if 100,000 men could have
been sent to reenforce Lee, in the last days
of the war, his condition would have been
worse than before, as even their meager
food-supply would only the sooner have
been exhausted. With the South depleted of
food by the four years' of conflict, with the
markets of the world closed to her, and no
source of subsistence open to her armies,