Sunday, February 9, 2014

USING WHAT IS IN YOU

THERE is a gold mine hidden in every life. Nature never made a failure. Every man has success hidden away in his soul. No one else can find it but himself. He holds the key to the hidden room. Failure comes because we never sought that hidden treasure. Failure comes because we tried to find it somewhere else. You can’t find it anywhere else. Success, victory, achievement are in you. The exceptional people are those who develop what is within them. That quartet is winning fame and success because they developed what they had in them. Singly they could not do it but united they make a harmony that thrills the heart. The soloist had it in her. It was there and she developed it and made it of commercial value. I have seen three great baritones. One was a miner who, had he not been too lazy and loved the companionship of drinking men and useless women, would have been known the world over. What a voice he had. I picked him up a drunkard. I tried to make a man of him. I bought him clothes. When it was known that Scotty was going to sing the building could not hold the crowd. I said to him, “I don’t know whether my pianist can play the pieces that you want to sing without looking them over.” He looked at me with a peculiar expression and said; “I need no accompaniment.” He stood by the piano that first night in his old mining clothes and sang. I closed my eyes and I couldn’t locate him because his voice utterly filled that whole room. He seemed to be everywhere in it. That great voice was strange, sweet, wonderful music. He made the songs all over that he sang that night. I raised the money and sent him back to his own land. He promised to sing again. As a boy he sang in Drewry but he confessed he was so drunk it took a man to hold him up. But he never amounted to anything. He did not develop the thing that was in him. Genius has grown up to weeds about it, just because they did not develop the thing they had. I know it is hard work but you will learn to love hard work. There are no great gold nuggets lying on top of the earth now. You have to go down into the earth for them; you must dig for them. You want the applause of the world? You want money to buy fine clothes and build splendid houses? Awaken young men. Go find that hidden place in your own nature. Did and dig until you have conquered. A father was dying. He had two sons. The boys had always felt that he had gold that he had hidden away somewhere. He had never been a strong, healthy man so his farm was not developed. Back of the house there was ten acres of stump land. When he was dying he said, “The stump lot.” Again and again he said, “The stump lot.” As soon as the funeral was over the boys said, “The gold is out in the stump lot.” How feverishly they worked. They tore up every inch of it. But they found no gold. Then the older one said, “We have the land in good condition, let’s put in corn.” In the autumn they found in the ripened corn the gold. You have a stump lot in you. Dig it up, clean it up, and you will find the gold in it. © Kenyon.