The problem for those who wait .- For a higher man in whom the
solution to a problem lies asleep, strokes of luck and all sorts of
unpredictable things are necessary for him to swing into action at just
the right time -"for an eruption," as we could say. Ordinarily it does not
happen, and in all the corners of the earth sit people waiting, who
hardly know to what extent they are waiting, but even less that they are
waiting in vain. From time to time the call to wake up, that chance
which provides the "permission" for action comes too late - at a time
when the best youth and power for action have already been used up in
sitting still. And many a man, in the very moment he "sprang up," has
found to his horror that his limbs have gone to sleep and his spirit is
already too heavy! "It is too late," he says to himself, having lost
faith in himself, and is now forever useless. - In the realm of the
genius, could "Raphael without hands," taking that phrase in the widest
sense, perhaps not be the exception but the rule? - Genius is perhaps not really so rare, but the five hundred hands needed to tyrannize the kairos, "the right time," to seize chance by the forelock!