Ernest Hemingway was in Switzerland, on assignment as a correspondent. Journalist Lincoln Steffens was impressed with Hemingway’s writing and asked to see more. His wife carried all his writings in a suitcase from their home in Paris. She lost it in the train.
At that point, nothing of Hemingway’s fiction had been published. Now, there was nothing left as his wife had packed both the originals and their carbons. Only two short stories survived the disaster.
But when he lamented the loss to poet Ezra Pound, Pound called it a stroke of luck. Pound assured him that when he rewrote the stories, he would forget the weak parts and only the best would reappear. Hemingway rewrote the stories and became a major figure in literature.
Indeed, with the loss of the manuscripts, and with time pressing to replace those vanished words in his bid to become a respected writer, Hemingway may have adopted and adapted the lean prose style for which he became famous.
Perseverance and failure cannot coexist. Failure happens when you quit. We can instead learn from it. We can unlearn the unnecessary and rewrite our efforts afresh. Perseverance can turn failure into an opportunity.
Don’t get stuck at failure’s gate
Perseverance scripts your fate!
- Pravin K. Sabnis
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