Two men looked out from prison bars，One saw the mud，the other saw stars.
“I read those two lines over and over.I was ashamed of myself.
I made up my mind I would find out what was good in my presentsituation.I would look for the stars.
“I made friends with the natives，and their reaction amazed me.When I showed interest in their weaving and pottery，they gave me presents of their favourite pieces which they had refused to sell to tourists.I studied the fascinating forms of the cactus and the yuccas and the Joshua trees.I learned about prairie dogs，watched for the desert sunsets，and hunted for seashells that had been left there millions of years ago when the sands of the desert had been an ocean floor.
“What brought about this astonishing change in me？The Mojave Desert hadn’t changed.The Indians hadn’t changed.But I had.I had changed my attitude of mind.And by doing so，I transformed a wretched experience into the most exciting adventure of my life.I was stimulated and excited by this new world that I had discovered.I was so excited I wrote a book aboutit—a novel that was published under the title Bright Ramparts....I had looked out of my self-created prison and found the stars.”
Thelma Thompson，you discovered an old truth that the Greeks taught five hundred years before Christ was born：“The best things are the most difficult.”
Harry Emerson Fosdick repeated it again in the twentieth century：“Happiness is not mostly pleasure；it is mostly victory.”Yes，the victory that comes from a sense of achievement，of triumph，of turning our lemons into lemonades.
I once visited a happy farmer down in Florida who turned even a poison lemon into lemonade.When he first got this farm，he was discouraged.The land was so wretched he could neither grow fruit nor raise pigs.Nothing thrived there but scrub oaks and rattlesnakes.Then he got his idea.He would turn his liability into an asset：he would make the most of these rattlesnakes.To everyone’s amazement，he started canning rattlesnake meat.When I stopped to visit him a few years ago，I found that tourists were pouring in to see his rattlesnake farm at the rate of twenty thousand a year.His business was thriving.I saw poison from the fangs of his rattlers being shipped to laboratories to make anti-venom toxin；I saw rattlesnake skins being sold at fancy prices to make women’s shoes and handbags.I saw canned rattlesnake meat being shipped to customers all over the world.I bought a picture postcard of the place and mailed it at the local post office of the village，which had been re-christened “Rattlesnake，Florida”，in honour of a man who had turned a poison lemon into a sweet lemonade.
As I have travelled up and down and back and forth across America time after time，it has been my privilege to meet dozens of men and women who have demonstrated “their power to turn a minus into a plus”.
The late William Bolitho，author of Twelve Against the Gods，put it like this：“The most important thing in life is not to capitalise on your gains.Any fool can do that.The really important thing is to profit from your losses.That requires intelligence；and it makes the difference between a man of sense and a fool.”
Bolitho uttered those words after he had lost a leg in a railway accident.But I know a man who lost both legs and turned his minus into a plus.His name is Ben Fortson.I met him in a hotel elevator in Atlanta，Georgia.As I stepped into the elevator，I noticed this cheerful-looking man，who had both legs missing，sitting in a wheel-chair in a corner of the elevator.When the elevator stopped at his floor，he asked me pleasantly if I would step to one corner，so he could manage his chair better.“So sorry，”he said，“to inconvenience you”—and a deep，heart-warming smile lighted his face as he said it.
When I left the elevator and went to my room，I could think of nothing but this cheerful cripple.So I hunted him up and asked him to tell me his story.
“It happened in 1929，”he told me with a smile.“I had gone out to cut a load of hickory poles to stake the beans in my garden.I had loaded the poles on my Ford and started back home.Suddenly one pole slipped under the car and jammed the steering apparatus at the very moment I was making a sharp turn.The car shot over an embankment and hurled me against a tree.My spine was hurt.My legs were paralysed.
“I was twenty-four when that happened，and I have never taken a step since.”
Twenty-four years old，and sentenced to a wheel-chair for the rest of his life！I asked him how he managed to take it so courageously，and he said：“I didn’t.”He said he raged and rebelled.He fumed about his fate.But as the years dragged on，he found that his rebellion wasn’t getting him anything except bitterness.“I finally realised，”he said，“that other people were kind and courteous to me.So the least I could do was to be kind and courteous to them.”
I asked if he still felt，after all these years，that his accident had been a terrible misfortune，and he promptly said：“No.”He said：“I’m almost glad now that it happened.”He told me that after he got over the shock and resentment，he began to live in a different world.He began to read and developed a love for good literature.In fourteen years，he said，he had read at least fourteen hundred books；and those books had opened up new horizons for him and made his life richer than he ever thought possible.He began to listen to good music；and he is now thrilled by great symphonies that would have bored him before.But the biggest change was that he had time to think.“For the first time in my life，”he said，“I was able to look at the world and get a real sense of values.I began to realise that most of the things I had been striving for before weren’t worth-while at all.”
As a result of his reading，he became interested in politics，studied public questions，made speeches from his wheel-chair！He got to know people and people got to know him.Today Ben Fortson—still in his wheel-chair—is Secretary of State for the State of Georgia！