p. 13 | No Short Cut

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Apr 7, 1904

No Short Cut

THERE is no royal road to anything that is worth having in this life. I saw not long ago in a newspaper a little advertisement to this effect: “Violin playing taught perfectly in twelve lessons.” I immediately called to mind the reply of Giardini, the great violinist, to some one who asked him how long it would take to learn to play the violin: “Twelve hours a day for twenty years together,” was the instant reply.

There is no “short cut” to perfection in music, art, literature, or in anything else of real worth. To labor is “the common lot of all.” Patience and perseverance, combined with unfailing industry, have made all great men what they are. They lost no time in seeking for the “royal road” that exists only in the imagination of the idle and the characterless.—Selected.