It hung between the portrait of a champion middle-weight
crouching in position and the calendar advertisement of a brewery
which, as I could not fancy Cousin Egbert being in the least concerned
about the day of the month, had too evidently been hung on his wall
because of the coloured lithograph of a blond creature in theatrical
undress who smirked most immorally.
Studying the curiously wavy effect this glass produced upon my face, I
chanced to observe in a corner of the frame a printed card with the
heading "Take Courage!" To my surprise the thing, when I had read it,
capped my black musings upon my position in a rather uncanny way.
Briefly it recited the humble beginnings of a score or more of the
world's notable figures.
"Demosthenes was the son of a cutler," it began. "Horace was the son
of a shopkeeper. Virgil's father was a porter. Cardinal Wolsey was the
son of a butcher. Shakespeare the son of a wool-stapler." Followed the
obscure parentage of such well-known persons as Milton, Napoleon,
Columbus, Cromwell. Even Mohammed was noted as a shepherd and
camel-driver, though it seemed rather questionable taste to include in
the list one whose religion, as to family life, was rather scandalous.
More to the point was the citation of various Americans who had sprung
from humble beginnings: Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, Garfield, Edison.
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