In actual life the victors win in spite of brutal blunders and repeated checks.
The Grimness and Harshness of Frontier Life.
Watched nearby, while the fight stamps to and fro, the doers and the deeds stand out naked and ugly.

We see all too clearly the blood and sweat, the craft and dunning and blind luck, the raw cruelty and stupidity, the shortcomings of heart and hand, the mad abuse of victory.
Strands of meanness and cowardice are everywhere shot through the warp of lofty and generous daring.

There are failures bitter and shameful side by side with feats of triumphant prowess.

Of those who venture in the contest some achieve success; others strive feebly and fail ignobly.
Only a Mighty Race Fit for the Trial.
If a race is weak, if it is lacking in the physical and moral traits which go to the makeup of a conquering people, it cannot succeed.

For three hundred years the Portuguese possessed footholds in South Africa; but they left to the English and Dutch the task of building free communities able to hold in fact as well as in name the country south of the Zambesi.