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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 1, Issue 10 (March 21, 1927)

Success And Endeavour

Success And Endeavour.

From earliest childhood we have known Desire—
Been goaded forward by its barren spur Along achievement's road—with brain afire—
And deaf to any weaker thought's demur.
We strive! We fight! But with our first success
We find that joy is tardy in arriving:
The glory of the thing, we must confess,
Is not in the success, but in the striving.
No place on earth, no matter how exalted,
Appears the same when studied from afar, And viewed when we have in its centre halted—
We see then what the ugly features are.
As on we move to each successive station.
Our eyes the distance scan for further goals,—
We feel no special feeling of elation—
Desire again is burning in our souls.
If I, we say, could reach that high position, Contentment there would end all my contriving:
Desire allows no gracious intermission,—
Success is naught, beside the lure of striving.
Yet knowing this we still pursue our way, Till Death, at last, brings night to earthly day.

* * *

Learning should continue as long as there is anything you do not know, and if we may believe the proverb, as long as you live.—Seneca.

* * *

Whenever you hear a man dissuading you from attempting to do well, on the ground that perfection is “Utopian,” beware of that man.

* * *

It is not the eating of knowledge, but the digesting of it, that makes the student.