ENCOURAGEMENT

         Some of a greatest success stories of history have followed a word of encouragement or an act of  confidence by a loved one or a trusting friend. Had it not been for a confident wife, Sophia, we might not have listed among the great names of literature the name of Nathaniel Hawthorne.

         When Nathaniel, a heartbroken man, went home to tell his wife that he was a failure and had been fired from his job, she surprised him with an exclamation of joy.

          "Now," she said triumphantly, "you can write your book!"

           "Yes," replied the man, with sagging confidence, "and what shall we live on while I am writing it?"

           To his amazement, she opened a drawer and pulled a substantial amount of money.

            "When on earth did you get that" he exclaimed.

            "I have always known that you were a man of genius," she told him. "I knew that someday you would write a masterpiece. So every week, out of money you gave me for housekeeping, I saved a little bit. So here is enough to last us for one whole year."

         From her trust and confidence came one of the greatest novels of American literature, The Scarlet Letter.

                                                                                               - Nido Qubien

          I takes so littler to make people happy.

              Just a touch if we know how to give it,

         Just a word fitly spoken....a slight readjustment of some bolt or pin or bearing in the delicate machinery of a soul.

                                                                                                  - Frank Crane