Energy also displays itself in quietness.

“The more noise the less power,” reads one of

the principles of mechanics, and it is just as true of the physical and intellectual efforts
of man. The great workers work quietly, often in obscurity. The world does not know that
a great genius has labored, and that tremendous energy has been exerted, until it sees
it in the results accomplished by years of toil.

The meditations of a Newton, the calculations of a Kepler, the discoveries of a Faraday,

the inventions of a Galileo and a Herschel are never heralded to the world by the sound
of trumpets and cymbals. Often-times the world does not know that a hero has lived,
until he has died and passed from the stage of action. Indeed a great man must always
labor unseen and unhonored for half a century before he can stand for a decade upon
the mountain top. The greatest general America has ever known, was noted for his
quietness and modesty of demeanor. The hero of a score of battles could hardly be
distinguished by dress or manner, from the meanest soldier in the ranks, and U. S.
Grant was never known to boast of a single deed of his. Washington was no less quiet,
no less self-composed and no less retiring than Grant, but where Washington tread
there thrones trembled, there the powers of tyranny were rebuked and silenced. The
man who could marshal victory out of an army of farmers at Boston; who could outwit
the brilliant generalship of a Burgoyne and a Cornwallis; who could successfully resist
for eight long years the whole war-power of Great Britain, with a mere handful of
determined patriots, was necessarily a great man, but there were no signs of greatness
in the manner or daily speech of the “Father of his Country.” America’s greatest poet, in
whom the energies of genius burned with marvelous vigor, was simple and quiet and
tender as a child. Longfellow possessed great genius, great learning, great power; but
he bore about him no visible signs of that power. His life was as quiet as a summer
evening. The author of those tender songs that have thrilled the heart of the world could
not boast. He could not exhibit, even to the eye of his friend, the pent-up energies of a
poet’s heart. The marvelous power of great poetic genius was as quiet as the smooth-
running rods and wheels of the famous Corliss engine. . . .
And thus we might go on “counting o’er earth’s chosen heroes,” and we should find
them all earnest, determined, resolute men, who go to the great tasks of their lives, to
pour out almost superhuman energies with the ease and quietness which is only born of
power. The man who groans at a difficulty, sobs at a disappointment, cries out to the
neighborhood every time he puts forth an effort, is like the man whom Sam Jones
recently described: “When I hear some men speak or see them work, they remind me of
a river steamboat, with a very large whistle and a very small boiler, so that every time
the whistle blows the boat stops.”