LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOSEPH HARDY NEESIMA

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TRIBUTES. 339 everywhere important. We are a clever people. Western nations commend us in this respect, and they are doubtless right. Within twenty or thirty years we have, in virtue of this quality of smartness, appro· priated much from the west. It is a good thing to be clever, but to be clever only is to lack strength. Cleverness and steadfastness of purpose rarely go hand in hand. The former is apt to taper away into shallowness and fickleness, and the fickle, shallow mind can rarely carry through to its end any great undertaking. While there are undoubted exceptions, yet I think this is our weakness, that we have not the endurance, the indefatigable spirit, of the men of the west. In the case of Mr. Neesima, however, from the very first, when he decided to go to Amer­ica, to the close of his life, this invincible spirit was conspicuous. Such success as he attained cannot be brought about by mere cleverness. "We are praised for the enormous progress we have made during the last thirty years. Many who, not long since, despised foreigners as barbarians, now almost worship them. From regarding them as beasts of the field they have come to consider them divine. This transformation has been wrought by the genius of cleverness, and it is well that it is so; but a more steadfast spirit would have brought about the change more gradually .... Foreigners criticise us for our mobility, and in itself mobility leads to no good re­sults .... Without other qualities we cannot com­pete successfully with the west. Even if in actual hand to hand conflict we should conquer, in the com­petitions of peace we would be worsted. For the west is not only clever, it is strong .... I do not say that we are altogether destitute of this element of

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