Nineteenth century poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem on perseverance that was in one of our textbooks in high school, I think. It’s called “Don’t Quit.” Part of it goes:
When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit—
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.
—He finished the poem with these two lines:
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit—
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.
Dr. Frank Crane looked at quitting a little bit differently a century ago. We pass along his thoughts to join those of Whittier in these times when many who are fatigued by the meanness of so much rhetoric want to withdraw, to quit the noise of our argumentative society. This entry also is something of a prelude for our entry Wednesday.
THE QUITTER
History is full of quitters. They furnish some of the most spectacular characters upon the world stage.
It’s an illustrious roll-call: Elijah, Jonah, Pilate, Romola*, Charles V., Hamlet—and how about you?
Some of these quit only temporarily and took hold again. With the others the quitting was fatal.
Running away and giving up were never a noble business.
The side-stepper does not cut an edifying figure.
At one time men imagined the ills of the world might be cured by deserting the world. They retired into caves and walled retreats. They gave mankind up as a hopeless lot and devoted themselves to getting themselves plucked as brands from the burning.
In Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” Christian is pictured fleeing his city and family, his fingers in his ears, bound for Heaven.
The world has got over this unwisdom. The church now sends missionaries into the world. Social reformers go and live in the slums. These systems indicate a healthier idea.
The question whether the world’s progress swill be furthered best by our activity or by our desertion needs not be discussed. Humanity will doubtless continue to advance whether you and I assist or not. Destiny has its own long plans; and if one man will not play the part it assigns him, another will be found who will do quite as well.
The only question is, not what will happen to the universe, but what will happen to me if I refuse to work. As Mordecai said to Esther when she hesitated to intercede with the king for her people, so it might be said to you or me: “If thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, doubtless deliverance shall arise from another place, but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed.”
The point is that one’s fullest enjoyment of life is only found infighting courageously in that small corner of the battlefield where he has been stationed. No man ever found worthy content by running away.
To quit implies moral weakness.
Sensitiveness is not to be coddled, but to be overcome.
Go on, forget your wounds, never mind the bruises upon your soul, despise the danger, drop regret, brush aside premonitions, do your work, and you will get a quality of joy the deserter cannot know.
They say the sharks will shy off from a man if he keeps splashing about lively. The fear-birds will not settle upon a soul in vigorous movement.
The noblest drop of consolation that can cheer one’s last hour is to say, whether he has won or lost, “I have fought the good fight.”
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*Romola, the least-recognized of these six names, is the character in a three-volume novel by English Victorian-era novelist George Eliot (who was really a woman, Mary Ann Evans) that tells of a manipulative 15th century stranger in Florence, Italy and Romola, the daughter of a blind scholar. There are other characters in a plot that is too tiring to relate, as it is too tiring to discuss why Mary Ann wrote under the name of George. Look her up on the internet on your own. If you want to wade into the novel, it’s available thanks to Project Gutenberg at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24020/24020-h/24020-h.htm
If you begin reading it, remember Dr. Crane: “To quit implies moral weakness.”
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