[Frontispiece: Orison Swett Marden]

Pushing to the Front

BY

ORISON SWETT MARDEN

"The world makes way for the determined man. "

PUBLISHED BY

The Success Company's

Branch Offices

PETERSBURG, N. Y. ---- TOLEDO ---- DANVILLE

OKLAHOMA CITY ---- SAN JOSE

COPYRIGHT, 1911, By ORISON SWETT MARDEN. 

FOREWORD

This revised and greatly enlarged edition of "Pushing to the Front" isthe outgrowth of an almost world-wide demand for an extension of theidea which made the original small volume such an ambition-arousing, energizing, inspiring force. 

It is doubtful whether any other book, outside of the Bible, has beenthe turning-point in more lives. 

It has sent thousands of youths, with renewed determination, back toschool or college, back to all sorts of vocations which they hadabandoned in moments of discouragement. It has kept scores of businessmen from failure after they had given up all hope. 

It has helped multitudes of poor boys and girls to pay their waythrough college who had never thought a liberal education possible. 

The author has received thousands of letters from people in nearly allparts of the world telling how the book has aroused their ambition, changed their ideals and aims, and has spurred them to the successfulundertaking of what they before had thought impossible. 

The book has been translated into many foreign languages. In Japan andseveral other countries it is used extensively in the public schools. Distinguished educators in many parts of the world have recommended itsuse in schools as a civilization-builder. 

Crowned heads, presidents of republics, distinguished members of theBritish and other parliaments, members of the United States SupremeCourt, noted authors, scholars, and eminent people in many parts of theworld, have eulogized this book and have thanked the author for givingit to the world. 

This volume is full of the most fascinating romances of achievementunder difficulties, of obscure beginnings and triumphant endings, ofstirring stories of struggles and triumphs. It gives inspiring storiesof men and women who have brought great things to pass. It givesnumerous examples of the triumph of mediocrity, showing how those ofordinary ability have succeeded by the use of ordinary means. It showshow invalids and cripples even have triumphed by perseverance and willover seemingly insuperable difficulties. 

The book tells how men and women have seized common occasions and madethem great; it tells of those of average ability who have succeeded bythe use of ordinary means, by dint of indomitable will and inflexiblepurpose. It tells how poverty and hardship have rocked the cradle ofthe giants of the race. The book points out that most people do notutilize a large part of their effort because their mental attitude doesnot correspond with their endeavor, so that although working for onething, they are really expecting something else; and it is what weexpect that we tend to get. 

No man can become prosperous while he really expects or half expects toremain poor, for holding the poverty thought, keeping in touch withpoverty-producing conditions, discourages prosperity. 

Before a man can lift himself he must lift his thoughts. When we shallhave learned to master our thought habits, to keep our minds open tothe great divine inflow of life force, we shall have learned the truthsof human endowment, human possibility. 

The book points out the fact that what is called success may befailure; that when men love money so much that they sacrifice theirfriendships, their families, their home life, sacrifice position, honor, health, everything for the dollar, their life is a failure, although they may have accumulated money. It shows how men have becomerich at the price of their ideals, their character, at the cost ofeverything noblest, best, and truest in life. It preaches the largerdoctrine of equality; the equality of will and purpose which paves aclear path even to the Presidential chair for a Lincoln or a Garfield, for any one who will pay the price of study and struggle. Men who feelthemselves badly handicapped, crippled by their lack of earlyeducation, will find in these pages great encouragement to broadentheir horizon, and will get a practical, helpful, sensible education intheir odd moments and half-holidays. 

Dr. Marden, in "Pushing to the Front, " shows that the average of theleaders are not above the average of ability. They are ordinarypeople, but of extraordinary persistence and perseverance. It is astorehouse of noble incentive, a treasury of precious sayings. Thereis inspiration and encouragement and helpfulness on every page. Itteaches the doctrine that no limits can be placed on one's career if hehas once learned the alphabet and has push; that there are no barriersthat can say to aspiring talent, "Thus far, and no farther. "Encouragement is its keynote; it aims to arouse to honorable exertionthose who are drifting without aim, to awaken dormant ambitions inthose who have grown discouraged in the struggle for success. 

THE PUBLISHERS. 

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

 I. THE MAN AND THE OPPORTUNITY II. WANTED--A MAN III. BOYS WITH NO CHANCE IV. THE COUNTRY BOY V. OPPORTUNITIES WHERE YOU ARE VI. POSSIBILITIES IN SPARE MOMENTS VII. HOW POOR BOYS AND GIRLS GO TO COLLEGE VIII. YOUR OPPORTUNITY CONFRONTS YOU--WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH IT? IX. ROUND BOYS IN SQUARE HOLES X. WHAT CAREER? XI. CHOOSING A VOCATION XII. CONCENTRATED ENERGY XIII. THE TRIUMPHS OF ENTHUSIASM XIV. "ON TIME, " OR, THE TRIUMPH OF PROMPTNESS XV. WHAT A GOOD APPEARANCE WILL DO XVI. PERSONALITY AS A SUCCESS ASSET XVII. If YOU CAN TALK WELL XVIII. A FORTUNE IN GOOD MANNERS XIX. SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND TIMIDITY FOES TO SUCCESS XX. TACT OR COMMON SENSE XXI. ENAMORED OF ACCURACY XXII. DO IT TO A FINISH XXIII. THE REWARD OF PERSISTENCE XXIV. NERVE--GRIP, PLUCK XXV. CLEAR GRIT XXVI. SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES XXVII. USES OF OBSTACLES XXVIII. DECISION XXIX. OBSERVATION AS A SUCCESS FACTOR XXX. SELF-HELP XXXI. THE SELF-IMPROVEMENT HABIT XXXII. RAISING OF VALUES XXXIII. PUBLIC SPEAKING XXXIV. THE TRIUMPHS OF THE COMMON VIRTUES XXXV. GETTING AROUSED XXXVI. THE MAN WITH AN IDEA XXXVII. DARE XXXVIII. THE WILL AND THE WAY XXXIX. ONE UNWAVERING AIM XL. WORK AND WAIT XLI. THE MIGHT OF LITTLE THINGS XLII. THE SALARY YOU DO NOT FIND IN YOUR PAY ENVELOPE XLIII. EXPECT GREAT THINGS OF YOURSELF XLIV. THE NEXT TIME YOU THINK YOU ARE A FAILURE XLV. STAND FOR SOMETHING XLVI. NATURE'S LITTLE BILL XLVII. HABIT--THE SERVANT, --THE MASTER XLVIII. THE CIGARETTE XLIX. THE POWER OF PURITY L. THE HABIT OF HAPPINESS LI. PUT BEAUTY INTO YOUR LIFE LII. EDUCATION BY ABSORPTION LIII. THE POWER OF SUGGESTION LIV. THE CURSE OF WORRY LV. TAKE A PLEASANT THOUGHT TO BED WITH YOU LVI. THE CONQUEST OF POVERTY LVII. A NEW WAY OF BRINGING UP CHILDREN LVIII. THE HOME AS A SCHOOL OF GOOD MANNERS LIX. MOTHER LX. WHY SO MANY MARRIED WOMEN DETERIORATE LXI. THRIFT LXII. A COLLEGE EDUCATION AT HOME LXIII. DISCRIMINATION IN READING LXIV. READING A SPUR TO AMBITION LXV. WHY SOME SUCCEED AND OTHERS FAIL LXVI. RICH WITHOUT MONEY

ILLUSTRATIONS

Orison Swett Marden . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_

House in which Abraham Lincoln was born

Ulysses S. Grant

William Ewart Gladstone

John Wanamaker

Jane Addams

Thomas Alva Edison

Henry Ward Beecher

Lincoln studying by the firelight

Marshall Field

Joseph Jefferson [Transcriber's note: Jefferson was a prominent actorduring the latter half of the 1800's. ]

Theodore Roosevelt

Helen Keller

William McKinley

Julia Ward Howe

Mark Twain

PUSHING TO THE FRONT

CHAPTER I

THE MAN AND THE OPPORTUNITY

No man is born into this world whose work is not born with him. --LOWELL. 

Things don't turn up in this world until somebody turns themup. --GARFIELD. 

Vigilance in watching opportunity; tact and daring in seizing uponopportunity; force and persistence in crowding opportunity to itsutmost of possible achievement--these are the martial virtues whichmust command success. --AUSTIN PHELPS. 

"I will find a way or make one. "

There never was a day that did not bring its own opportunity for doinggood that never could have been done before, and never can beagain. --W. H. BURLEIGH. 

 "Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute; What you can do, or dream you can, _begin_ it. "

"If we succeed, what will the world say?" asked Captain Berry indelight, when Nelson had explained his carefully formed plan before thebattle of the Nile. 

"There is no if in the case, " replied Nelson. "That we shall succeedis certain. Who may live to tell the tale is a very differentquestion. " Then, as his captains rose from the council to go to theirrespective ships, he added: "Before this time to-morrow I shall havegained a peerage or Westminster Abbey. " His quick eye and daringspirit saw an opportunity of glorious victory where others saw onlyprobable defeat. 

"Is it POSSIBLE to cross the path?" asked Napoleon of the engineers whohad been sent to explore the dreaded pass of St. Bernard. "Perhaps, "was the hesitating reply, "it is within the limits of _possibility_. "

"FORWARD THEN, " said the Little Corporal, without heeding their accountof apparently insurmountable difficulties. England and Austria laughedin scorn at the idea of transporting across the Alps, where "no wheelhad ever rolled, or by any possibility could roll, " an army of sixtythousand men, with ponderous artillery, tons of cannon balls andbaggage, and all the bulky munitions of war. But the besieged Massenawas starving in Genoa, and the victorious Austrians thundered at thegates of Nice, and Napoleon was not the man to fail his former comradesin their hour of peril. 

When this "impossible" deed was accomplished, some saw that it mighthave been done long before. Others excused themselves fromencountering such gigantic obstacles by calling them insuperable. Manya commander had possessed the necessary supplies, tools, and ruggedsoldiers, but lacked the grit and resolution of Bonaparte, who did notshrink from mere difficulties, however great, but out of his very needmade and mastered his opportunity. 

Grant at New Orleans had just been seriously injured by a fall from hishorse, when he received orders to take command at Chattanooga, sosorely beset by the Confederates that its surrender seemed only aquestion of a few days; for the hills around were all aglow by nightwith the camp-fires of the enemy, and supplies had been cut off. Though in great pain, he immediately gave directions for his removal tothe new scene of action. 

On transports up the Mississippi, the Ohio, and one of its tributaries;on a litter borne by horses for many miles through the wilderness; andinto the city at last on the shoulders of four men, he was taken toChattanooga. Things assumed a different aspect immediately. _Amaster_ had arrived who was _equal to the situation_. The army feltthe grip of his power. Before he could mount his horse he ordered anadvance, and although the enemy contested the ground inch by inch, thesurrounding hills were soon held by Union soldiers. 

Were these things the result of chance, or were they compelled by theindominable determination of the injured General?

Did things _adjust themselves_ when Horatius with two companions heldninety thousand Tuscans at bay until the bridge across the Tiber hadbeen destroyed?--when Leonidas at Thermopylae checked the mighty marchof Xerxes?--when Themistocles, off the coast of Greece, shattered thePersian's Armada?--when Caesar, finding his army hard pressed, seizedspear and buckler, fought while he reorganized his men, and snatchedvictory from defeat?--when Winkelried gathered to his heart a sheaf ofAustrian spears, thus opening a path through which his comrades pressedto freedom?--when for years Napoleon did not lose a single battle inwhich he was personally engaged?--when Wellington fought in many climeswithout ever being conquered?--when Ney, on a hundred fields, changedapparent disaster into brilliant triumph?--when Perry left the disabled_Lawrence_, rowed to the _Niagara_, and silenced the Britishguns?--when Sheridan arrived from Winchester just as the Union retreatwas becoming a rout, and turned the tide by riding along theline?--when Sherman, though sorely pressed, signaled his men to holdthe fort, and they, knowing that their leader was coming, held it?

History furnishes thousands of examples of men who have seizedoccasions to accomplish results deemed impossible by those lessresolute. Prompt decision and whole-souled action sweep the worldbefore them. 

True, there has been but one Napoleon; but, on the other hand, the Alpsthat oppose the progress of the average American youth are not as highor dangerous as the summits crossed by the great Corsican. 

Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. _Seize common occasionsand make them great_. 

On the morning of September 6, 1838, a young woman in the LongstoneLighthouse, between England and Scotland, was awakened by shrieks ofagony rising above the roar of wind and wave. A storm of unwonted furywas raging, and her parents could not hear the cries; but a telescopeshowed nine human beings clinging to the windlass of a wrecked vesselwhose bow was hanging on the rocks half a mile away. "We can donothing, " said William Darling, the light-keeper. "Ah, yes, we must goto the rescue, " exclaimed his daughter, pleading tearfully with bothfather and mother, until the former replied: "Very well, Grace, I willlet you persuade me, though it is against my better judgment. " Like afeather in a whirlwind the little boat was tossed on the tumultuoussea, but, borne on the blast that swept the cruel surge, the shrieks ofthose shipwrecked sailors seemed to change her weak sinews into cordsof steel. Strength hitherto unsuspected came from somewhere, and theheroic girl pulled one oar in even time with her father. At length thenine were safely on board. "God bless you; but ye're a bonny Englishlass, " said one poor fellow, as he looked wonderingly upon thismarvelous girl, who that day had done a deed which added more toEngland's glory than the exploits of many of her monarchs. 

"If you will let me try, I think I can make something that will do, "said a boy who had been employed as a scullion at the mansion of SignerFaliero, as the story is told by George Cary Eggleston. A largecompany had been invited to a banquet, and just before the hour theconfectioner, who had been making a large ornament for the table, sentword that he had spoiled the piece. "You!" exclaimed the head servant, in astonishment; "and who are you?" "I am Antonio Canova, the grandsonof Pisano, the stone-cutter, " replied the pale-faced little fellow. 

"And pray, what can you do?" asked the major-domo. "I can make yousomething that will do for the middle of the table, if you'll let metry. " The servant was at his wits' end, so he told Antonio to go aheadand see what he could do. Calling for some butter, the scullionquickly molded a large crouching lion, which the admiring major-domoplaced upon the table. 

Dinner was announced, and many of the most noted merchants, princes, and noblemen of Venice were ushered into the dining-room. Among themwere skilled critics of art work. When their eyes fell upon the butterlion, they forgot the purpose for which they had come in their wonderat such a work of genius. They looked at the lion long and carefully, and asked Signer Faliero what great sculptor had been persuaded towaste his skill upon such a temporary material. Faliero could nottell; so he asked the head servant, who brought Antonio before thecompany. 

When the distinguished guests learned that the lion had been made in ashort time by a scullion, the dinner was turned into a feast in hishonor. The rich host declared that he would pay the boy's expensesunder the best masters, and he kept his word. Antonio was not spoiledby his good fortune, but remained at heart the same simple, earnest, faithful boy who had tried so hard to become a good stone-cutter in theshop of Pisano. Some may not have heard how the boy Antonio tookadvantage of this first great opportunity; but all know of Canova, oneof the greatest sculptors of all time. 

_Weak men wait for opportunities, strong men make them_. 

"The best men, " says E. H. Chapin, "are not those who have waited forchances but who have taken them; besieged the chance; conquered thechance; and made chance the servitor. "

There may not be one chance in a million that you will ever receiveunusual aid; but opportunities are often presented which you canimprove to good advantage, if you will only _act_. 

The lack of opportunity is ever the excuse of a weak, vacillating mind. Opportunities! Every life is full of them. Every lesson in school orcollege is an opportunity. Every examination is a chance in life. Every patient is an opportunity. Every newspaper article is anopportunity. Every client is an opportunity. Every sermon is anopportunity. Every business transaction is an opportunity, --anopportunity to be polite, --an opportunity to be manly, --an opportunityto be honest, --an opportunity to make friends. Every proof ofconfidence in you is a great opportunity. Every responsibility thrustupon your strength and your honor is priceless. Existence is theprivilege of effort, and when that privilege is met like a man, opportunities to succeed along the line of your aptitude will comefaster than you can use them. If a slave like Fred Douglass, who didnot even own his body, can elevate himself into an orator, editor, statesman, what ought the poorest white boy to do, who is rich inopportunities compared with Douglass?

It is the idle man, not the great worker, who is always complainingthat he has no time or opportunity. Some young men will make more outof the odds and ends of opportunities which many carelessly throw awaythan other will get out of a whole life-time. Like bees, they extracthoney from every flower. Every person they meet, every circumstance ofthe day, adds something to their store of useful knowledge or personalpower. 

"There is nobody whom Fortune does not visit once in his life, " says acardinal; "but when she finds he is not ready to receive her, she goesin at the door and out at the window. "

Cornelius Vanderbilt saw his opportunity in the steamboat, anddetermined to identify himself with steam navigation. To the surpriseof all his friends, he abandoned his prosperous business and tookcommand of one of the first steamboats launched, at a salary of onethousand dollars a year. Livingston and Fulton had acquired the soleright to navigate New York waters by steam, but Vanderbilt thought thelaw unconstitutional, and defied it until it was repealed. He soonbecame a steamboat owner. When the government was paying a largesubsidy for carrying the European mails, he offered to carry them freeand give better service. His offer was accepted, and in this way hesoon built up an enormous freight and passenger traffic. 

Foreseeing the great future of railroads in a country like ours, heplunged into railroad enterprises with all his might, laying thefoundation for the vast Vanderbilt system of to-day. 

Young Philip Armour joined the long caravan of Forty-Niners, andcrossed the "Great American Desert" with all his possessions in aprairie schooner drawn by mules. Hard work and steady gains carefullysaved in the mines enabled him to start, six years later, in the grainand warehouse business in Milwaukee. In nine years he made fivehundred thousand dollars. But he saw his great opportunity in Grant'sorder, "On to Richmond. " One morning in 1864 he knocked at the door ofPlankinton, partner in his venture as a pork packer. "I am going totake the next train to New York, " said he, "to sell pork 'short. 'Grant and Sherman have the rebellion by the throat, and pork will godown to twelve dollars a barrel. " This was his opportunity. He wentto New York and offered pork in large quantities at forty dollars perbarrel. It was eagerly taken. The shrewd Wall Street speculatorslaughed at the young Westerner, and told him pork would go to sixtydollars, for the war was not nearly over. Mr. Armour, however, kept onselling, Grant continued to advance. Richmond fell, pork fell with itto twelve dollars a barrel, and Mr. Armour cleared two millions ofdollars. 

John D. Rockefeller saw his opportunity in petroleum. He could see alarge population in this country with very poor lights. Petroleum wasplentiful, but the refining process was so crude that the product wasinferior, and not wholly safe. Here was Rockefeller's chance. Takinginto partnership Samuel Andrews, the porter in a machine shop whereboth men had worked, he started a single barrel "still" in 1870, usingan improved process discovered by his partner. They made a superiorgrade of oil and prospered rapidly. They admitted a third partner, Mr. Flagler, but Andrews soon became dissatisfied. "What will you take foryour interest?" asked Rockefeller. Andrews wrote carelessly on a pieceof paper, "One million dollars. " Within twenty-four hours Mr. Rockefeller handed him the amount, saying, "Cheaper at one million thanten. " In twenty years the business of the little refinery, scarcelyworth one thousand dollars for building and apparatus, had grown intothe Standard Oil Trust, capitalized at ninety millions of dollars, withstock quoted at 170, giving a market value of one hundred and fiftymillions. 

These are illustrations of seizing opportunity for the purpose ofmaking money. But fortunately there is a new generation ofelectricians, of engineers, of scholars, of artists, of authors, and ofpoets, who find opportunities, thick as thistles, for doing something_nobler than merely amassing riches_. Wealth is not an end to strivefor, but an opportunity; not the climax of a man's career, but anincident. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, a Quaker lady, saw her opportunity in the prisonsof England. From three hundred to four hundred half-naked women, aslate as 1813, would often be huddled in a single ward of Newgate, London, awaiting trial. They had neither beds nor bedding, but women, old and young, and little girls, slept in filth and rags on the floor. No one seemed to care for them, and the Government merely furnishedfood to keep them alive. Mrs. Fry visited Newgate, calmed the howlingmob, and told them she wished to establish a school for the young womenand the girls, and asked them to select a schoolmistress from their ownnumber. They were amazed, but chose a young woman who had beencommitted for stealing a watch. In three months these "wild beasts, "as they were sometimes called, became harmless and kind. The reformspread until the Government legalized the system, and good womenthroughout Great Britain became interested in the work of educating andclothing these outcasts. Fourscore years have passed, and her plan hasbeen adopted throughout the civilized world. 

A boy in England had been run over by a car, and the bright bloodspurted from a severed artery. No one seemed to know what to do untilanother boy, Astley Cooper, took his handkerchief and stopped thebleeding by pressure above the wound. The praise which he received forthus saving the boy's life encouraging him to become a surgeon, theforemost of his day. 

"The time comes to the young surgeon, " says Arnold, "when, after longwaiting, and patient study and experiment, he is suddenly confrontedwith his first critical operation. The great surgeon is away. Time ispressing. Life and death hang in the balance. Is he equal to theemergency? Can he fill the great surgeon's place, and do his work? Ifhe can, he is the one of all others who is wanted. _His opportunityconfronts him_. He and it are face to face. Shall he confess hisignorance and inability, or step into fame and fortune? It is for himto say. "

Are you prepared for a great opportunity?

"Hawthorne dined one day with Longfellow, " said James T. Fields, "andbrought a friend, with him from Salem. After dinner the friend said, 'I have been trying to persuade Hawthorne to write a story based upon alegend of Acadia, and still current there, --the legend of a girl who, in the dispersion of the Acadians, was separated from her lover, andpassed her life in waiting and seeking for him, and only found himdying in a hospital when both were old. ' Longfellow wondered that thelegend did not strike the fancy of Hawthorne, and he said to him, 'Ifyou have really made up your mind not to use it for a story, will youlet me have it for a poem?' To this Hawthorne consented, and promised, moreover, not to treat the subject in prose till Longfellow had seenwhat he could do with it in verse. Longfellow seized his opportunityand gave to the world 'Evangeline, or the Exile of the Acadians. '"

Open eyes will discover opportunities everywhere; open ears will neverfail to detect the cries of those who are perishing for assistance;open hearts will never want for worthy objects upon which to bestowtheir gifts; open hands will never lack for noble work to do. 

Everybody had noticed the overflow when a solid is immersed in a vesselfilled with water, although no one had made use of his knowledge thatthe body displaces its exact bulk of liquid; but when Archimedesobserved the fact, he perceived therein an easy method of finding thecubical contents of objects, however irregular in shape. 

Everybody knew how steadily a suspended weight, when moved, sways backand forth until friction and the resistance of the air bring it torest, yet no one considered this information of the slightest practicalimportance; but the boy Galileo, as he watched a lamp left swinging byaccident in the cathedral at Pisa, saw in the regularity of thoseoscillations the useful principle of the pendulum. Even the iron doorsof a prison were not enough to shut him out from research. Heexperimented with the straw of his cell, and learned valuable lessonsabout the relative strength of tubes and rods of equal diameters. 

For ages astronomers had been familiar with the rings of Saturn, andregarded them merely as curious exceptions to the supposed law ofplanetary formation; but Laplace saw that, instead of being exceptions, they are the sole remaining visible evidences of certain stages in theinvariable process of star manufacture, and from their mute testimonyhe added a valuable chapter to the scientific history of Creation. 

There was not a sailor in Europe who had not wondered what might liebeyond the Western Ocean, but it remained for Columbus to steer boldlyout into an unknown sea and discover a new world. 

Innumerable apples had fallen from trees, often hitting heedless men onthe head as if to set them thinking, but Newton was the first torealize that they fall to the earth by the same law which holds theplanets in their courses and prevents the momentum of all the atoms inthe universe from hurling them wildly back to chaos. 

Lightning had dazzled the eyes, and thunder had jarred the ears of mensince the days of Adam, in the vain attempt to call their attention tothe all-pervading and tremendous energy of electricity; but thedischarges of Heaven's artillery were seen and heard only by the eyeand ear of terror until Franklin, by a simple experiment, proved thatlightning is but one manifestation of a resistless yet controllableforce, abundant as air and water. 

Like many others, these men are considered great, simply because theyimproved opportunities common to the whole human race. Read the storyof any successful man and mark its moral, told thousands of years agoby Solomon: "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall standbefore kings. " This proverb is well illustrated by the career of theindustrious Franklin, for he stood before five kings and dined with two. 

He who improves an opportunity sows a seed which will yield fruit inopportunity for himself and others. Every one who has labored honestlyin the past has aided to place knowledge and comfort within the reachof a constantly increasing number. 

Avenues greater in number, wider in extent, easier of access than everbefore existed, stand open to the sober, frugal, energetic and ablemechanic, to the educated youth, to the office boy and to theclerk--avenues through which they can reap greater successes than everbefore within the reach of these classes in the history of the world. A little while ago there were only three or four professions--now thereare fifty. And of trades, where there was one, there are a hundred now. 

"What is its name?" asked a visitor in a studio, when shown, among manygods, one whose face was concealed by hair, and which had wings on itsfeet. "Opportunity, " replied the sculptor. "Why is its face hidden?""Because men seldom know him when he comes to them. " "Why has he wingson his feet?" "Because he is soon gone, and once gone, cannot beovertaken. "

"Opportunity has hair in front, " says a Latin author; "behind she isbald; if you seize her by the forelock, you may hold her, but, ifsuffered to escape, not Jupiter himself can catch her again. "

But what is the best opportunity to him who cannot or will not use it?

"It was my lot, " said a shipmaster, "to fall in with the ill-fatedsteamer _Central America_. The night was closing in, the sea rollinghigh; but I hailed the crippled steamer and asked if they needed help. 'I am in a sinking condition, ' cried Captain Herndon. 'Had you notbetter send your passengers on board directly?' I asked. 'Will you notlay by me until morning?' replied Captain Herndon. 'I will try, ' Ianswered 'but had you not better send your passengers on board _now_?''Lay by me till morning, ' again shouted Captain Herndon. 

"I tried to lay by him, but at night, such was the heavy roll of thesea, I could not keep my position, and I never saw the steamer again. In an hour and a half after he said, 'Lay by me till morning, ' hisvessel, with its living freight, went down. The captain and crew andmost of the passengers found a grave in the deep. "

Captain Herndon appreciated the value of the opportunity he hadneglected when it was beyond his reach, but of what avail was thebitterness of his self-reproach when his last moments came? How manylives were sacrificed to his unintelligent hopefulness and indecision!Like him the feeble, the sluggish, and the purposeless too often see nomeaning in the happiest occasions, until too late they learn the oldlesson that the mill can never grind with the water which has passed. 

Such people are always a little too late or a little too early ineverything they attempt. "They have three hands apiece, " said John B. Gough; "a right hand, a left hand, and a little behindhand. " As boys, they were late for school, and unpunctual in their home duties. Thatis the way the habit is acquired; and now, when responsibility claimsthem, they think that if they had only gone yesterday they would haveobtained the situation, or they can probably get one to-morrow. Theyremember plenty of chances to make money, or know how to make it someother time than now; they see how to improve themselves or help othersin the future, but perceive no opportunity in the present. They cannot_seize their opportunity_. 

Joe Stoker, rear brakeman on the ---- accommodation train, wasexceedingly popular with all the railroad men. The passengers likedhim, too, for he was eager to please and always ready to answerquestions. But he did not realize the full responsibility of hisposition. He "took the world easy, " and occasionally tippled; and ifany one remonstrated, he would give one of his brightest smiles, andreply, in such a good-natured way that the friend would think he hadover-estimated the danger: "Thank you. I'm all right. Don't youworry. "

One evening there was a heavy snowstorm, and his train was delayed. Joe complained of extra duties because of the storm, and slyly sippedoccasional draughts from a flat bottle. Soon he became quite jolly;but the conductor and engineer of the train were both vigilant andanxious. 

Between two stations the train came to a quick halt. The engine hadblown out its cylinder head, and an express was due in a few minutesupon the same track. The conductor hurried to the rear car, andordered Joe back with a red light. The brakeman laughed and said:

"There's no hurry. Wait till I get my overcoat. "

The conductor answered gravely, "Don't stop a minute, Joe. The expressis due. "

"All right, " said Joe, smilingly. The conductor then hurried forwardto the engine. 

But the brakeman did not go at once. He stopped to put on hisovercoat. Then he took another sip from the flat bottle to keep thecold out. Then he slowly grasped the lantern and, whistling, movedleisurely down the track. 

He had not gone ten paces before he heard the puffing of the express. Then he ran for the curve, but it was too late. In a horrible minutethe engine of the express had telescoped the standing train, and theshrieks of the mangled passengers mingled with the hissing escape ofsteam. 

Later on, when they asked for Joe, he had disappeared; but the next dayhe was found in a barn, delirious, swinging an empty lantern in frontof an imaginary train, and crying, "Oh, that I had!"

He was taken home, and afterwards to an asylum, and there is no saddersound in that sad place than the unceasing moan, "Oh, that I had! Oh, that I had!" of the unfortunate brakeman, whose criminal indulgencebrought disaster to many lives. 

"Oh, that I had!" or "Oh, that I had not!" is the silent cry of many aman who would give life itself for the opportunity to go back andretrieve some long-past error. 

"There are moments, " says Dean Alford, "which are worth more thanyears. We cannot help it. There is no proportion between spaces oftime in importance nor in value. A stray, unthought-of five minutesmay contain the event of a life. And this all-important moment--whocan tell when it will be upon us?"

"What we call a turning-point, " says Arnold, "is simply an occasionwhich sums up and brings to a result previous training. Accidentalcircumstances are nothing except to men who have been trained to takeadvantage of them. "

The trouble with us is that we are ever looking for a princely chanceof acquiring riches, or fame, or worth. We are dazzled by what Emersoncalls the "shallow Americanism" of the day. We are expecting masterywithout apprenticeship, knowledge without study, and riches by credit. 

Young men and women, why stand ye here all the day idle? Was the landall occupied before you were born? Has the earth ceased to yield itsincrease? Are the seats all taken? the positions all filled? thechances all gone? Are the resources of your country fully developed?Are the secrets of nature all mastered? Is there no way in which youcan utilize these passing moments to improve yourself or benefitothers? Is the competition of modern existence so fierce that you mustbe content simply to gain an honest living? Have you received the giftof life in this progressive age, wherein all the experience of the pastis garnered for your inspiration, merely that you may increase by onethe sum total of purely animal existence?

Born in an age and country in which knowledge and opportunity abound asnever before, how can you sit with folded hands, asking God's aid inwork for which He has already given you the necessary faculties andstrength? Even when the Chosen People supposed their progress checkedby the Red Sea, and their leader paused for Divine help, the Lord said, "Wherefore criest thou unto me? Speak unto the children of Israel, _that they go forward_. "

With the world full of work that needs to be done; with human nature soconstituted that often a pleasant word or a trifling assistance maystem the tide of disaster for some fellow man, or clear his path tosuccess; with our own faculties so arranged that in honest, earnest, persistent endeavor we find our highest good; and with countless nobleexamples to encourage us to dare and to do, each moment brings us tothe threshold of some new opportunity. 

Don't _wait_ for your opportunity. _Make it_, --make it as theshepherd-boy Ferguson made his when he calculated the distances of thestars with a handful of glass beads on a string. Make it as GeorgeStephenson made his when he mastered the rules of mathematics with abit of chalk on the grimy sides of the coal wagons in the mines. Makeit, as Napoleon made his in a hundred "impossible" situations. Makeit, as _all leaders of men_, in war and in peace, have made theirchances of success. Golden opportunities are nothing to laziness, butindustry makes the commonest chances golden. 

 "There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries; And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures. "

 "'Tis never offered twice; seize, then, the hour When fortune smiles, and duty points the way; Nor shrink aside to 'scape the specter fear, Nor pause, though pleasure beckon from her bower; But bravely bear thee onward to the goal. "

CHAPTER II

WANTED--A MAN

 "Wanted; men: Not systems fit and wise, Not faiths with rigid eyes, Not wealth in mountain piles, Not power with gracious smiles, Not even the potent pen; Wanted; men. "

All the world cries, Where is the man who will save us? We want a man!Don't look so far for this man. You have him at hand. This man, --itis you, it is I, it is each one of us! . . . How to constitute one'sself a man? Nothing harder, if one knows not how to will it; nothingeasier, if one wills it. --ALEXANDRE DUMAS. 

Diogenes sought with a lantern at noontide in ancient Athens for aperfectly honest man, and sought in vain. In the market place he oncecried aloud, "Hear me, O men"; and, when a crowd collected around him, he said scornfully: "I called for men, not pygmies. "

Over the door of every profession, every occupation, every calling, theworld has a standing advertisement: "Wanted--A Man. "

Wanted, a man who will not lose his individuality in a crowd, a man whohas the courage of his convictions, who is not afraid to say "No, "though all the world say "Yes. "

Wanted, a man who, though he is dominated by a mighty purpose, will notpermit one great faculty to dwarf, cripple, warp, or mutilate hismanhood; who will not allow the over-development of one faculty tostunt or paralyze his other faculties. 

Wanted, a man who is larger than his calling, who considers it a lowestimate of his occupation to value it merely as a means of getting aliving. Wanted, a man who sees self-development, education andculture, discipline and drill, character and manhood, in his occupation. 

A thousand pulpits vacant in a single religious denomination, athousand preachers standing idle in the market place, while a thousandchurch committees scour the land for men to fill those same vacantpulpits, and scour in vain, is a sufficient indication, in onedirection at least, of the largeness of the opportunities of the age, and also of the crying need of good men. 

Wanted, a man of courage who is not a coward in any part of his nature. 

Wanted, a man who is well balanced, who is not cursed with some littledefect of weakness which cripples his usefulness and neutralizes hispowers. 

Wanted, a man who is symmetrical, and not one-sided in his development, who has not sent all the energies of his being into one narrowspecialty and allowed all the other branches of his life to wither anddie. Wanted, a man who is broad, who does not take half views ofthings; a man who mixes common sense with his theories, who does notlet a college education spoil him for practical, every-day life; a manwho prefers substance to show, and one who regards his good name as apriceless treasure. 

Wanted, a man "who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, butwhose passions are trained to heed a strong will, the servant of atender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether ofnature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others ashimself. "

The world wants a man who is educated all over; whose nerves arebrought to their acutest sensibility; whose brain is cultured, keen, incisive, broad; whose hands are deft; whose eyes are alert, sensitive, microscopic; whose heart is tender, magnanimous, true. 

The whole world is looking for such a man. Although there are millionsout of employment, yet it is almost impossible to find just the rightman in almost any department of life, and yet everywhere we see theadvertisement: "Wanted--A Man. "

Rousseau, in his celebrated essay on education, says; "According to theorder of nature, men being equal, their common vocation is theprofession of humanity; and whoever is well educated to discharge theduty of a man can not be badly prepared to fill any of those officesthat have a relation to him. It matters little to me whether my pupilbe designed for the army, the pulpit, or the bar. Nature has destinedus to the offices of human life antecedent to our destinationconcerning society. To live is the profession I would teach him. WhenI have done with him, it is true he will be neither a soldier, alawyer, nor a divine. _Let him first be a man_; Fortune may remove himfrom one rank to another as she pleases, he will be always found in hisplace. "

A little, short doctor of divinity in a large Baptist convention stoodon a step and said he thanked God he was a Baptist. The audience couldnot hear and called "Louder. " "Get up higher, " some one said. "Ican't, " he replied. "To be a Baptist is as high as one can get. " Butthere is something higher than being a Baptist, and that is being a_man_. 

As Emerson says, Talleyrand's question is ever the main one; not, is herich? is he committed? is he well-meaning? has he this or that faculty?is he of the movement? is he of the establishment? but is he anybody?does he stand for something? He must be good of his kind. That is allthat Talleyrand, all that the common sense of mankind asks. 

When Garfield as a boy was asked what he meant to be he answered:"First of all, I must make myself a man; if I do not succeed in that, Ican succeed in nothing. "

Montaigne says our work is not to train a soul by itself alone, nor abody by itself alone, but to train a man. 

One great need for the world to-day is for men and women who are goodanimals. To endure the strain of our concentrated civilization, thecoming man and woman must have good bodies and an excess of animalspirits. 

What more glorious than a magnificent manhood, animated with thebounding spirits of overflowing health?

It is a sad sight to see thousands of students graduated every yearfrom our grand institutions whose object is to make stalwart, independent, self-supporting men, turned out into the world saplingsinstead of stalwart oaks, "memory-glands" instead of brainy men, helpless instead of self-supporting, sickly instead of robust, weakinstead of strong, leaning instead of erect. "So many promisingyouths, and never a finished man!"

The character sympathizes with and unconsciously takes on the nature ofthe body. A peevish, snarling, ailing man can not develop the vigorand strength of character which is possible to a healthy, robust, cheerful man. There is an inherent love in the human mind for_wholeness_, a demand that man shall come up to the highest standard;and there is an inherent protest or contempt for preventabledeficiency. Nature, too, demands that man be ever at the top of hiscondition. 

As we stand upon the seashore while the tide is coming in, one wavereaches up the beach far higher than any previous one, then recedes, and for some time none that follows comes up to its mark, but after awhile the whole sea is there and beyond it. So now and then therecomes a man head and shoulders above his fellow men, showing thatNature has not lost her ideal, and after a while even the average manwill overtop the highest wave of manhood yet given to the world. 

Apelles hunted over Greece for many years, studying the fairest pointsof beautiful women, getting here an eye, there a forehead and there anose, here a grace and there a turn of beauty, for his famous portraitof a perfect woman which enchanted the world. So the coming man willbe a composite, many in one. He will absorb into himself not theweakness, not the follies, but the strength and the virtues of othertypes of men. He will be a man raised to the highest power. He willbe a self-centered, equipoised, and ever master of himself. Hissensibility will not be deadened or blunted by violation of Nature'slaws. His whole character will be impressionable, and will respond tothe most delicate touches of Nature. 

The first requisite of all education and discipline should beman-timber. Tough timber must come from well grown, sturdy trees. Such wood can be turned into a mast, can be fashioned into a piano oran exquisite carving. But it must become timber first. Time andpatience develop the sapling into the tree. So through discipline, education, experience, the sapling child is developed into hardymental, moral, physical man-timber. 

If the youth should start out with the fixed determination that everystatement he makes shall be the exact truth; that every promise hemakes shall be redeemed to the letter; that every appointment shall bekept with the strictest faithfulness and with full regard for othermen's time; if he should hold his reputation as a priceless treasure, feel that the eyes of the world are upon him that he must not deviate ahair's breadth from the truth and right; if he should take such a standat the outset, he would, like George Peabody, come to have almostunlimited credit and the confidence of everybody who knows him. 

What are palaces and equipages; what though a man could cover acontinent with his title-deeds, or an ocean with his commerce; comparedwith conscious rectitude, with a face that never turns pale at theaccuser's voice, with a bosom that never throbs with fear of exposure, with a heart that might be turned inside out and disclose no stain ofdishonor? To have done no man a wrong; to have put your signature tono paper to which the purest angel in heaven might not have been anattesting witness; to walk and live, unseduced, within arm's length ofwhat is not your own, with nothing between your desire and itsgratification but the invisible law of rectitude;--_this is to be aman_. 

Man is the only great thing in the universe. All the ages have beentrying to produce a perfect model. Only one complete man has yetevolved. The best of us are but prophesies of what is to come. 

 What constitutes a state? Not high-raised battlement or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate; Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned; Not bays and broad-armed ports, Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; Not starred and spangled courts, Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. No: men, high-minded men, With powers as far above dull brutes endued In forest, brake, or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude, -- Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain, Prevent the long-aimed blow, And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain. WILLIAM JONES. 

 God give us men. A time like this demands Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands: Men whom the lust of office does not kill; Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; Men who possess opinions and a will; Men who have honor--men who will not lie; Men who can stand before a demagogue And scorn his treacherous flatteries without winking; Tall men sun-crowned, who live above the fog In public duty, and in private thinking. ANON. 

CHAPTER III

BOYS WITH NO CHANCE

In the blackest soils grow the fairest flowers, and the loftiest andstrongest trees spring heavenward among the rocks. --J. G. HOLLAND. 

Poverty is very terrible, and sometimes kills the very soul within us, but it is the north wind that lashes men into Vikings; it is the soft, luscious south wind which lulls them to lotus dreams. --OUIDA. 

Poverty is the sixth sense. --GERMAN PROVERB. 

It is not every calamity that is a curse, and early adversity is oftena blessing. Surmounted difficulties not only teach, but hearten us inour future struggles. --SHARPE. 

There can be no doubt that the captains of industry to-day, using thatterm in its broadest sense, are men who began life as poor boys. --SETHLOW. 

 'Tis a common proof, That lowliness is young ambition's ladder! SHAKESPEARE. 

"I am a child of the court, " said a pretty little girl at a children'sparty in Denmark; "_my_ father is Groom of the Chambers, which is avery high office. And those whose names end with 'sen, '" she added, "can never be anything at all. We must put our arms akimbo, and makethe elbows quite pointed, so as to keep these 'sen' people at a greatdistance. "

"But my papa can buy a hundred dollars' worth of bonbons, and give themaway to children, " angrily exclaimed the daughter of the rich merchantPeter_sen_. "Can your papa do that?"

"Yes, " chimed in the daughter of an editor, "my papa can put your papaand everybody's papa into the newspaper. All sorts of people areafraid of him, my papa says, for he can do as he likes with the paper. "

"Oh, if I could be one of them!" thought a little boy peeping throughthe crack of the door, by permission of the cook for whom he had beenturning the spit. But no, _his_ parents had not even a penny to spare, and his name ended in "sen. "

Years afterwards when the children of the party had become men andwomen, some of them went to see a splendid house, filled with all kindsof beautiful and valuable objects. There they met the owner, once thevery boy who thought it so great a privilege to peep at them through acrack in the door as they played. He had become the great sculptorThorwald_sen_. 

This sketch is adapted from a story by a poor Danish cobbler's son, another whose name did not keep him from becoming famous, --HansChristian Ander_sen_. 

"There is no fear of my starving, father, " said the deaf boy, Kitto, begging to be taken from the poorhouse and allowed to struggle for aneducation; "we are in the midst of plenty, and I know how to preventhunger. The Hottentots subsist a long time on nothing but a littlegum; they also, when hungry, tie a ligature around their bodies. Cannot I do so, too? The hedges furnish blackberries and nuts, and thefields, turnips; a hayrick will make an excellent bed. "

The poor deaf boy with a drunken father, who was thought capable ofnothing better than making shoes as a pauper, became one of thegreatest Biblical scholars in the world. His first book was written inthe workhouse. 

Creon was a Greek slave, as a writer tells the story in Kate Field's"Washington, " but he was also a slave of the Genius of Art. Beauty washis god, and he worshiped it with rapt adoration. It was after therepulse of the great Persian invader, and a law was in force that underpenalty of death no one should espouse art except freemen. When thelaw was enacted he was engaged upon a group for which he hoped some dayto receive the commendation of Phidias, the greatest sculptor living, and even the praise of Pericles. 

What was to be done? Into the marble block before him Creon had puthis head, his heart, his soul, his life. On his knees, from day today, he had prayed for fresh inspiration, new skill. He believed, gratefully and proudly, that Apollo, answering his prayers, haddirected his hand and had breathed into the figures the life thatseemed to animate them; but now, --now, all the gods seemed to havedeserted him. 

Cleone, his devoted sister, felt the blow as deeply as her brother. "OAphrodite!" she prayed, "immortal Aphrodite, high enthroned child ofZeus, my queen, my goddess, my patron, at whose shrine I have dailylaid my offerings, to be now my friend, the friend of my brother!"

Then to her brother she said: "O Creon, go to the cellar beneath ourhouse. It is dark, but I will furnish light and food. Continue yourwork; the gods will befriend us. "

To the cellar Creon went, and guarded and attended by his sister, dayand night, he proceeded with his glorious but dangerous task. 

About this time all Greece was invited to Athens to behold an exhibitof works of art. The display took place in the Agora. Periclespresided. At his side was Aspasia. Phidias, Socrates, Sophocles, andother renowned men stood near him. 

The works of the great masters were there. But one group, far morebeautiful than the rest, --a group that Apollo himself must havechiseled, --challenged universal attention, exciting at the same time nolittle envy among rival artists. 

"Who is the sculptor of this group?" None could tell. Heraldsrepeated the question, but there was no answer. "A mystery, then! Canit be the work of a slave?" Amid great commotion a beautiful maidenwith disarranged dress, disheveled hair, a determined expression in hereyes, and with closed lips, was dragged into the Agora. "This woman, "cried the officers, "this woman knows the sculptor; we are sure of it;but she will not tell his name. "

Cleone was questioned, but was silent. She was informed of the penaltyof her conduct, but her lips remained closed. "Then, " said Pericles, "the law is imperative, and I am the minister of the law. Take themaid to the dungeon. "

As he spoke a youth with flowing hair, emaciated, but with black eyesthat beamed with the flashing light of genius, rushed forward, andflinging himself before him exclaimed: "O Pericles, forgive and savethe maid! She is my sister. I am the culprit. The group is the workof my hands, the hands of a slave. "

The indignant crowd interrupted him and cried, "To the dungeon, to thedungeon with the slave. " "As I live, no!" said Pericles, rising. "Behold that group! Apollo decides by it that there is somethinghigher in Greece than an unjust law. The highest purpose of law shouldbe the development of the beautiful. If Athens lives in the memory andaffections of men, it is her devotion to art that will immortalize her. Not to the dungeon, but to my side bring the youth. "

And there, in the presence of the assembled multitude, Aspasia placedthe crown of olives, which she held in her hands, on the brow of Creon;and at the same time, amid universal plaudits, she tenderly kissedCreon's affectionate and devoted sister. 

The Athenians erected a statue to Aesop, who was born a slave, that menmight know that the way to honor is open to all. In Greece, wealth andimmortality were the sure reward of the man who could distinguishhimself in art, literature, or war. No other country ever did so muchto encourage and inspire struggling merit. 

"I was born in poverty, " said Vice-President Henry Wilson. "Want satby my cradle. I know what it is to ask a mother for bread when she hasnone to give. I left my home at ten years of age, and served anapprenticeship of eleven years, receiving a month's schooling eachyear, and, at the end of eleven years of hard work, a yoke of oxen andsix sheep, which brought me eighty-four dollars. I never spent the sumof one dollar for pleasure, counting every penny from the time I wasborn till I was twenty-one years of age. I know what it is to travelweary miles and ask my fellow men to give me leave to toil. . . . Inthe first month after I was twenty-one years of age, I went into thewoods, drove a team, and cut mill-logs. I rose in the morning beforedaylight and worked hard till after dark, and received the magnificentsum of six dollars for the month's work! Each of these dollars lookedas large to me as the moon looks to-night. "

Mr. Wilson determined never to lose an opportunity for self-culture orself-advancement. Few men knew so well the value of spare moments. _He seized them as though they were gold_ and would not let one passuntil he had wrung from it every possibility. He managed to read athousand good books before he was twenty-one--what a lesson for boys ona farm! When he left the farm he started on foot for Natick, Mass. , over one hundred miles distant, to learn the cobbler's trade. He wentthrough Boston that he might see Bunker Hill monument and otherhistorical landmarks. The whole trip cost him but one dollar and sixcents. In a year he was the head of a debating club at Natick. Beforeeight years had passed, he made his great speech against slavery, inthe Massachusetts Legislature. Twelve years later he stood shoulder toshoulder with the polished Sumner in Congress. With him, _everyoccasion was a great occasion_. He ground every circumstance of hislife into material for success. 

"Don't go about the town any longer in that outlandish rig. Let megive you an order on the store. Dress up a little, Horace. " HoraceGreeley looked down on his clothes as if he had never before noticedhow seedy they were, and replied: "You see Mr. Sterrett, my father ison a new place, and I want to help him all I can. " He had spent butsix dollars for personal expenses in seven months, and was to receiveone hundred and thirty-five from Judge J. M. Sterret of the Erie"Gazette" for substitute work. He retained but fifteen dollars andgave the rest to his father, with whom he had moved from Vermont toWestern Pennsylvania, and for whom he had camped out many a night toguard the sheep from wolves. He was nearly twenty-one; and, althoughtall and gawky, with tow-colored hair, a pale face and whining voice, he resolved to seek his fortune in New York City. Slinging his bundleof clothes on a stick over his shoulder, he walked sixty miles throughthe woods to Buffalo, rode on a canal boat to Albany, descended theHudson in a barge, and reached New York, just as the sun was rising, August 18, 1831. 

He found board over a saloon at two dollars and a half a week. Hisjourney of six hundred miles had cost him but five dollars. For daysHorace wandered up and down the streets, going into scores of buildingsand asking if they wanted "a hand"; but "no" was the invariable reply. His quaint appearance led many to think he was an escaped apprentice. One Sunday at his boarding-place he heard that printers were wanted at"West's Printing-office. " He was at the door at five o'clock Mondaymorning, and asked the foreman for a job at seven. The latter had noidea that a country greenhorn could set type for the Polyglot Testamenton which help was needed, but said: "Fix up a case for him and we'llsee if he _can_ do anything. " When the proprietor came in, he objectedto the new-comer and told the foreman to let him go when his firstday's work was done. That night Horace showed a proof of the largestand most correct day's work that had then been done. 

In ten years he was a partner in a small printing-office. He foundedthe "New Yorker, " the best weekly paper in the United States, but itwas not profitable. When Harrison was nominated for President in 1840, Greeley started "The Log-Cabin, " which reached the then fabulouscirculation of ninety thousand. But on this paper at a penny per copyhe made no money. His next venture was "The New York Tribune, " priceone cent. To start it he borrowed a thousand dollars and printed fivethousand copies of the first number. It was difficult to give them allaway. He began with six hundred subscribers, and increased the list toeleven thousand in six weeks. The demand for the "Tribune" grew fasterthan new machinery could be obtained to print it. It was a paper whoseeditor, whatever his mistakes, always tried to be right. 

James Gordon Bennett had made a failure of his "New York Courier" in1825, of the "Globe" in 1832, and of the "Pennsylvanian" a littlelater, and was only known as a clever writer for the press, who hadsaved a few hundred dollars by hard labor and strict economy forfourteen years. In 1835 he asked Horace Greeley to join him instarting a new daily paper, the "New York Herald. " Greeley declined, but recommended two young printers, who formed partnership withBennett, and the "Herald" was started on May 6, 1835, with a cashcapital to pay expenses for _ten days_. Bennet hired a small cellar inWall Street, furnished it with a chair and a desk composed of a planksupported by two barrels; and there, doing all the work except theprinting, began the work of making a really great daily newspaper, athing then unknown in America, as all its predecessors were partyorgans. Steadily the young man struggled towards his ideal, giving thenews, fresh and crisp, from an ever-widening area, until his paper wasfamous for giving the current history of the world as fully and quicklyas any competitor, and often much more thoroughly and far morepromptly. Neither labor nor expense was spared in obtaining prompt andreliable information on every topic of general interest. It was anup-hill job, but its completion was finally marked by the opening atthe corner of Broadway and Ann Street of the most complete newspaperestablishment then known. 

One of the first things to attract the attention on entering George W. Childs' private office in Philadelphia was this motto, which was thekey-note of the success of a boy who started with "no chance": "Nihilsine labore. " It was his early ambition to own the "PhiladelphiaLedger" and the great building in which it was published; but how coulda poor boy working for $2. 00 a week ever hope to own such a greatpaper? However, he had great determination and indomitable energy; andas soon as he had saved a few hundred dollars as a clerk in abookstore, he began business as a publisher. He made "great hits" insome of the works he published, such as "Kane's Arctic Expedition. " Hehad a keen sense of what would please the public, and there seemed noend to his industry. 

In spite of the fact that the "Ledger" was losing money every day, hisfriends could not dissuade him from buying it, and in 1864 the dreamsof his boyhood found fulfilment. He doubled the subscription price, lowered the advertising rates, to the astonishment of everybody, andthe paper entered upon a career of remarkable prosperity, the profitssometimes amounting to over four hundred thousand dollars a year. Healways refused to lower the wages of his employees even when everyother establishment in Philadelphia was doing so. 

At a banquet in Lyons, nearly a century and a half ago, a discussionarose in regard to the meaning of a painting representing some scene inthe mythology or history of Greece. Seeing that the discussion wasgrowing warm, the host turned to one of the waiters and asked him toexplain the picture. Greatly to the surprise of the company, theservant gave a clear concise account of the whole subject, so plain andconvincing that it at once settled the dispute. 

"In what school have you studied, Monsieur?" asked one of the guests, addressing the waiter with great respect. "I have studied in manyschools, Monseigneur, " replied the young servant: "but the school inwhich I studied longest and learned most is the school of adversity. "Well had he profited by poverty's lessons; for, although then but apoor waiter, all Europe soon rang with the fame of the writings of thegreatest genius of his age and country, Jean Jacques Rousseau. 

The smooth sand beach of Lake Erie constituted the foolscap on which, for want of other material, P. R. Spencer, a barefoot boy with nochance, perfected the essential principles of the Spencerian system ofpenmanship, the most beautiful exposition of graphic art. 

For eight years William Cobbett had followed the plow, when he ran awayto London, copied law papers for eight or nine months, and thenenlisted in an infantry regiment. During his first year of soldierlife he subscribed to a circulating library at Chatham, read every bookin it, and began to study. 

"I learned grammar when I was a private soldier on the pay of sixpencea day. The edge of my berth, or that of the guard-bed, was my seat tostudy in; my knapsack was my bookcase; a bit of board lying on my lapwas my writing-table, and the task did not demand anything like a yearof my life. I had no money to purchase candles or oil; in winter itwas rarely that I could get any evening light but that of the fire, andonly my turn, even, of that. To buy a pen or a sheet of paper I wascompelled to forego some portion of my food, though in a state of halfstarvation. I had no moment of time that I could call my own, and Ihad to read and write amidst the talking, laughing, singing, whistling, and bawling of at least half a score of the most thoughtless of men, and that, too, in the hours of their freedom from all control. Thinknot lightly of the _farthing_ I had to give, now and then, for pen, ink, or paper. That farthing was, alas! a great sum to me. I was astall as I am now, and I had great health and great exercise. The wholeof the money not expended for us at market was _twopence a week_ foreach man. I remember, and well I may! that upon one occasion I had, after all absolutely necessary expenses, made shift to have ahalf-penny in reserve, which I had destined for the purpose of a redherring in the morning, but so hungry as to be hardly able to endurelife, when I pulled off my clothes at night, I found that I had lost myhalf-penny. I buried my head in the miserable sheet and rug, and criedlike a child. "

But Cobbett made even his poverty and hard circumstances serve hisall-absorbing passion for knowledge and success. "If I, " said he, "under such circumstances could encounter and overcome this task, isthere, can there be in the whole world, a youth to find any excuse forits non-performance?"

Humphrey Davy had but a slender chance to acquire great scientificknowledge, yet he had true mettle in him, and he made even old pans, kettles, and bottles contribute to his success, as he experimented andstudied in the attic of the apothecary-store where he worked. 

"Many a farmer's son, " says Thurlow Weed, "has found the bestopportunities for mental improvement in his intervals of leisure whiletending 'sap-bush. ' Such, at any rate, was my own experience. Atnight you had only to feed the kettles and keep up the fires, the saphaving been gathered and the wood cut before dark. During the day wewould always lay in a good stock of 'fat-pine, ' by the light of which, blazing bright before the sugar-house, I passed many a delightful nightin reading. I remember in this way to have a history of the FrenchRevolution, and to have obtained a better and more enduring knowledgeof its events and horrors and of the actors in that great nationaltragedy than I have received from all subsequent reading. I remember, also, how happy I was in being able to borrow the books of a Mr. Keyes, after a two-mile tramp through the snow, shoeless, my feet swaddled inremnants of rag carpet. "

"May I have a holiday to-morrow, father?" asked Theodore Parker oneAugust afternoon. The poor Lexington millwright looked in surprise athis youngest son, for it was a busy time, but he saw from the boy'searnest face that he had no ordinary object in view, and granted therequest. Theodore rose very early the next morning, walked through thedust ten miles to Harvard College, and presented himself for acandidate for admission. He had been unable to attend school regularlysince he was eight years old, but he had managed to go three monthseach winter, and had reviewed his lessons again and again as hefollowed the plow or worked at other tasks. All his odd moments hadbeen hoarded, too, for reading useful books, which he borrowed. Onebook he could not borrow, but he felt that he must have it; so onsummer mornings he rose long before the sun and picked bushel afterbushel of berries, which he sent to Boston, and so got the money to buythat coveted Latin dictionary. 

"Well done, my boy!" said the millwright, when his son came home lateat night and told of his successful examination; "but, Theodore, Icannot afford to keep you there!" "True, father, " said Theodore, "I amnot going to stay there; I shall study at home, at odd times, and thusprepare myself for a final examination, which will give me a diploma. "He did this; and, by teaching school as he grew older, got money tostudy for two years at Harvard, where he was graduated with honor. Years after, when, as the trusted friend and adviser of Seward, Chase, Sumner, Garrison, Horace Mann, and Wendell Phillips, his influence forgood was felt in the hearts of all his countrymen, it was a pleasurefor him to recall his early struggles and triumphs among the rocks andbushes of Lexington. 

"The proudest moment of my life, " said Elihu Burritt, "was when I hadfirst gained the full meaning of the first fifteen lines of Homer'sIliad. " Elihu Burritt's father died when he was sixteen, and Elihu wasapprenticed to a blacksmith in his native village of New Britain, Conn. He had to work at the forge for ten or twelve hours a day; but whileblowing the bellows, he would solve mentally difficult problems inarithmetic. In a diary kept at Worcester, whither he went some tenyears later to enjoy its library privileges, are such entries asthese, --"Monday, June 18, headache, 40 pages Cuvier's 'Theory of theEarth, ' 64 pages French, 11 hours' forging. Tuesday, June 19, 60 linesHebrew, 30 Danish, 10 lines Bohemian, 9 lines Polish, 15 names ofstars, 10 hours' forging. Wednesday, June 20, 25 lines Hebrew, 8 linesSyriac, 11 hours' forging. " He mastered 18 languages and 32 dialects. He became eminent as the "Learned Blacksmith, " and for his noble workin the service of humanity. Edward Everett said of the manner in whichthis boy with no chance acquired great learning: "It is enough to makeone who has good opportunities for education hang his head in shame. "

The barefoot Christine Nilsson in remote Sweden had little chance, butshe won the admiration of the world for her wondrous power of song, combined with rare womanly grace. 

"Let me say in regard to your adverse worldly circumstances, " says Dr. Talmage to young men, "that you are on a level now with those who arefinally to succeed. Mark my words, and think of it thirty years fromnow. You will find that those who are then the millionaires of thiscountry, who are the orators of the country, who are the poets of thecountry, who are the strong merchants of the country, who are the greatphilanthropists of the country, --mightiest in the church andstate, --are now on a level with you, not an inch above you, and instraightened circumstances. 

"No outfit, no capital to start with? Young man, go down to thelibrary and get some books, and read of what wonderful mechanism Godgave you in your hand, in your foot, in your eye, in your ear, and thenask some doctor to take you into the dissecting-room and illustrate toyou what you have read about, and never again commit the blasphemy ofsaying you have no capital to start with. _Equipped_? _Why, thepoorest young man is equipped as only the God of the whole universecould afford to equip him_. "

A newsboy is not a very promising candidate for success or honors inany line of life. A young man can't set out in life with much lesschance than when he starts his "daily" for a living. Yet the man whomore than any other is responsible for the industrial regeneration ofthis continent started in life as a newsboy on the Grand Trunk Railway. Thomas Alva Edison was then about fifteen years of age. He had alreadybegun to dabble in chemistry, and had fitted up a small itinerantlaboratory. One day, as he was performing some occult experiment, thetrain rounded a curve, and the bottle of sulphuric acid broke. Therefollowed a series of unearthly odors and unnatural complications. Theconductor, who had suffered long and patiently, promptly ejected theyouthful devotee, and in the process of the scientist's expulsion addeda resounding box upon the ear. 

Edison passed through one dramatic situation after another--alwaysmastering it--until he attained at an early age the scientific throneof the world. When recently asked the secret of his success, he saidhe had always been a total abstainer and singularly moderate ineverything but work. 

Daniel Manning who was President Cleveland's first campaign manager andafterwards Secretary of the Treasury, started out as a newsboy withapparently the world against him. So did Thurlow Weed; so did David B. Hill. New York seems to have been prolific in enterprising newsboys. 

What nonsense for two uneducated and unknown youths who met in a cheapboarding-house in Boston to array themselves against an institutionwhose roots were embedded in the very constitution of our country, andwhich was upheld by scholars, statesmen, churches, wealth, andaristocracy, without distinction of creed or politics! What chance hadthey against the prejudices and sentiment of a nation? But these youngmen were fired by a lofty purpose, and they were thoroughly in earnest. One of them, Benjamin Lundy, had already started in Ohio a paper called"The Genius of Universal Liberty, " and had carried the entire editionhome on his back from the printing-office, twenty miles, every month. He had walked four hundred miles on his way to Tennessee to increasehis subscription list. He was no ordinary young man. 

With William Lloyd Garrison, he started to prosecute his work moreearnestly in Baltimore. The sight of the slave-pens along theprincipal streets; of vessel-loads of unfortunates torn from home andfamily and sent to Southern ports; the heartrending scenes at theauction blocks, made an impression on Garrison never to be forgotten;and the young man whose mother was too poor to send him to school, although she early taught him to hate oppression, resolved to devotehis life to secure the freedom of these poor wretches. 

In the first issue of his paper, Garrison urged an immediateemancipation, and called down upon his head the wrath of the entirecommunity. He was arrested and sent to jail. John G. Whittier, anoble friend in the North, was so touched at the news that, being toopoor to furnish the money himself, he wrote to Henry Clay, begging himto release Garrison by paying the fine. After forty-nine days ofimprisonment he was set free. Wendell Phillips said of him, "He wasimprisoned for his opinion when he was twenty-four. He had confronteda nation in the bloom of his youth. "

In Boston, with no money, friends, or influence, in a little upstairsroom, Garrison started the "Liberator. " Read the declaration of thispoor young man with "no chance, " in the very first issue: "I will be asharsh as truth, as uncompromising as justice. I am in earnest. I willnot equivocate, I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard. " What audacity for a young man, with the worldagainst him!

Hon. Robert Y. Hayne, of South Carolina, wrote to Otis, mayor ofBoston, that some one had sent him a copy of the "Liberator, " and askedhim to ascertain the name of the publisher. Otis replied that he hadfound a poor young man printing "this insignificant sheet in an obscurehole, his only auxiliary a negro boy, his supporters a few persons ofall colors and little influence. "

But this poor young man, eating, sleeping, and printing in this"obscure hole, " had set the world to thinking, and must be suppressed. The Vigilance Association of South Carolina offered a reward of fifteenhundred dollars for the arrest and prosecution of any one detectedcirculating the "Liberator. " The Governors of one or two States set aprice on the editor's head. The legislature of Georgia offered areward of five thousand dollars for his arrest and conviction. 

Garrison and his coadjutors were denounced everywhere. A clergymannamed Lovejoy was killed by a mob in Illinois for espousing the cause, while defending his printing-press, and in the old "Cradle of AmericanLiberty" the wealth, power, and culture of Massachusetts arrayed itselfagainst the "Abolitionists" so outrageously, that a mere spectator, ayoung lawyer of great promise, asked to be lifted upon the highplatform, and replied in such a speech as was never before heard inFaneuil Hall. "When I heard the gentleman lay down the principleswhich place the murderers of Lovejoy at Alton side by side with Otisand Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, " said Wendell Phillips, pointing totheir portraits on the walls. "I thought those pictured lips wouldhave broken into voice to rebuke the recreant American, the slandererof the dead. For the sentiments that he has uttered, on soilconsecrated by the prayers of the Puritans and the blood of patriots. The earth should have yawned and swallowed him up. "

The whole nation was wrought to fever heat. 

Between the Northern pioneers and Southern chivalry the struggle waslong and fierce, even in far California. The drama culminated in theshock of civil war. When the war was ended, and, after thirty-fiveyears of untiring, heroic conflict, Garrison was invited as thenation's guest, by President Lincoln, to see the stars and stripesunfurled once more above Fort Sumter, an emancipated slave deliveredthe address of welcome, and his two daughters, no longer chattels inappreciation presented Garrison with a beautiful wreath of flowers. 

About this time Richard Cobden, another powerful friend of theoppressed, died in London. 

His father had died leaving nine children almost penniless. The boyearned his living by watching a neighbor's sheep, but had no chance toattend school until he was ten years old. He was sent to aboarding-school, where he was abused, half starved, and allowed towrite home only once in three months. At fifteen he entered hisuncle's store in London as a clerk. He learned French by rising earlyand studying while his companions slept. He was soon sent out in a gigas a commercial traveler. 

He called upon John Bright to enlist his aid in fighting the terrible"Corn-Laws" which were taking bread from the poor and giving it to therich. He found Mr. Bright in great grief, for his wife was lying deadin the house. 

"There are thousands of homes in England at this moment, " said RichardCobden, "where wives, mothers, and children are dying of hunger. Now, when the first paroxysm of grief is passed, I would advise you to comewith me, and we will never rest until the Corn-Laws are repealed. "Cobden could no longer see the poor man's bread stopped at theCustom-House and taxed for the benefit of the landlord and farmer, andhe threw his whole soul into this great reform. "This is not a partyquestion, " said he, "for men of all parties are united upon it. It isa pantry question, --a question between the working millions and thearistocracy. " They formed the "Anti-Corn-Law League, " which, aided bythe Irish famine, --for it was hunger that at last ate through thosestone walls of protection, --secured the repeal of the law in 1846. Mr. Bright said: "There is not in Great Britain a poor man's home that hasnot a bigger, better, and cheaper loaf through Richard Cobden's labors. "

John Bright himself was the son of a poor working man, and in thosedays the doors of the higher schools were closed to such as he; but thegreat Quaker heart of this resolute youth was touched with pity for themillions of England's and Ireland's poor, starving under the Corn-Laws. During the frightful famine, which cut off two millions of Ireland'spopulation in a year, John Bright was more powerful than all thenobility of England. The whole aristocracy trembled before hisinvincible logic, his mighty eloquence, and his commanding character. Except possibly Cobden, no other man did so much to give the laborer ashorter day, a cheaper loaf, an added shilling. 

Over a stable in London lived a poor boy named Michael Faraday, whocarried newspapers about the streets to loan to customers for a pennyapiece. He was apprenticed for seven years to a bookbinder andbookseller. When binding the Encyclopaedia Britannica, his eyes caughtthe article on electricity, and he could not rest until he had read it. He procured a glass vial, an old pan, and a few simple articles, andbegan to experiment. A customer became interested in the boy, and tookhim to hear Sir Humphry Davy lecture on chemistry. He summoned courageto write the great scientist and sent the notes he had taken of hislecture. One night, not long after, just as Michael was about toretire, Sir Humphry Davy's carriage stopped at his humble lodging, anda servant handed him a written invitation to call upon the greatlecturer the next morning. Michael could scarcely trust his eyes as heread the note. In the morning he called as requested, and was engagedto clean instruments and take them to and from the lecture-room. Hewatched eagerly every movement of Davy, as with a glass mask over hisface, he developed his safety-lamp and experimented with dangerousexplosives. Michael studied and experimented, too, and it was not longbefore this poor boy with no chance was invited to lecture before thegreat philosophical society. 

He was appointed professor at the Royal Academy of Woolwich, and becamethe wonder of the age in science. Tyndall said of him, "He is thegreatest experimental philosopher the world has ever seen. " When SirHumphry Davy was asked what was his greatest discovery, he replied"Michael Faraday. "

"What has been done can be done again, " said the boy with no chance, Disraeli, who become Lord Beaconsfield, England's great Prime Minister. "I am not a slave, I am not a captive, and by energy I can overcomegreater obstacles. " Jewish blood flowed in his veins and everythingseemed against him, but he remembered the example of Joseph, who becamePrime Minister of Egypt four thousand years before, and that of Daniel, who was Prime Minister to the greatest despot of the world fivecenturies before the birth of Christ. He pushed his way up through thelower classes, up through the middle classes, up through the upperclasses, until he stood a master, self-poised upon the topmost round ofpolitical and social power. Rebuffed, scorned, ridiculed, hissed downin the House of Commons, he simply said, "The time will come when youwill hear me. " The time did come, and the boy with no chance but adetermined will swayed the scepter of England for a quarter of acentury. 

Henry Clay, the "mill-boy of the slashes, " was one of seven children ofa widow too poor to send him to any but a common country school, wherehe was drilled only in the "three R's. " But he used every spare momentto study without a teacher, and in after years he was a king amongself-made men. The boy who had learned to speak in a barn, with only acow and a horse for an audience, became one of the greatest of Americanorators and statesmen. 

See Kepler struggling with poverty and hardship, his books burned inpublic by order of the state, his library locked up by the Jesuits, andhimself exiled by public clamor. For seventeen years he works calmlyupon the demonstration of the great principles that planets revolve inellipses, with the sun at one focus; that a line connecting the centerof the earth with the center of the sun passes over equal spaces inequal times, and that the squares of the times of revolution of theplanets above the sun are proportioned to the cubes by their meandistances from the sun. This boy with no chance became one of theworld's greatest astronomers. 

"When I found that I was black, " said Alexandre Dumas, "I resolved tolive as if I were white, and so force men to look below my skin. "

How slender seemed the chance of James Sharples, the celebratedblacksmith artist of England! He was very poor, but he often rose atthree o'clock to copy books he could not buy. He would walk eighteenmiles to Manchester and back after a hard day's work to buy ashilling's worth of artist's materials. He would ask for the heaviestwork in the blacksmith shop, because it took a longer time to heat atthe forge, and he could thus have many spare minutes to study theprecious book, which he propped up against the chimney. He was a greatmiser of spare moments and used every one as though he might never seeanother. He devoted his leisure hours for five years to that wonderfulproduction, "The Forge, " copies of which are to be seen in many a home. 

What chance had Galileo to win renown in physics or astronomy, when hisparents compelled him to go to a medical school? Yet while Veniceslept, he stood in the tower of St. Mark's Cathedral and discovered thesatellites of Jupiter and the phases of Venus, through a telescope madewith his own hands. When compelled on bended knee to publicly renouncehis heretical doctrine that the earth moves around the sun, all theterrors of the Inquisition could not keep this feeble man of threescoreyears and ten from muttering to himself, "Yet it does move. " Whenthrown into prison, so great was his eagerness for scientific researchthat he proved by a straws in his cell that a hollow tube is relativelymuch stronger than a solid rod of the same size. Even when totallyblind, he kept constantly at work. 

Imagine the surprise of the Royal Society of England when the poorunknown Herschel sent in the report of his discovery of the starGeorgium Sidus, its orbit and rate of motion; and of the rings andsatellites of Saturn. The boy with no chance, who had played the oboefor his meals, had with his own hands made the telescope through whichhe discovered facts unknown to the best-equipped astronomers of hisday. He had ground two hundred specula before he could get one perfect. 

George Stephenson was one of eight children whose parents were so poorthat all lived in a single room. George had to watch cows for aneighbor, but he managed to get time to make engines of clay, withhemlock sticks for pipes. At seventeen he had charge of an engine, with his father for fireman. He could neither read nor write, but theengine was his teacher, and he a faithful student. While the otherhands were playing games or loafing in liquor shops during theholidays, George was taking his machine to pieces, cleaning it, studying it, and making experiments in engines. When he had becomefamous as a great inventor of improvements in engines, those who hadloafed and played called him lucky. 

Without a charm of face or figure, Charlotte Cushman resolved to placeherself in the front rank as an actress, even in such characters asRosalind and Queen Katherine. The star actress was unable to perform, and Miss Cushman, her understudy, took her place. That night she heldher audience with such grasp of intellect and iron will that it forgotthe absence of mere dimpled feminine grace. Although poor, friendless, and unknown before, when the curtain fell upon her first performance atthe London theater, her reputation was made. In after years, whenphysicians told her she had a terrible, incurable disease, she flinchednot a particle, but quietly said, "I have learned to live with mytrouble. "

A poor colored woman in a log-cabin in the South had three boys, butcould afford only one pair of trousers for the three. She was soanxious to give them an education that she sent them to school byturns. The teacher, a Northern girl, noticed that each boy came toschool only one day out of three, and that all wore the samepantaloons. The poor mother educated her boys as best she could. Onebecame a professor in a Southern college, another a physician, and thethird a clergyman. What a lesson for boys who plead "no chance" as anexcuse for wasted lives!

Sam Cunard, the whittling Scotch lad of Glasgow, wrought many oddinventions with brain and jack-knife, but they brought neither honornor profit until he was consulted by Burns & McIvor, who wished toincrease their facilities for carrying foreign mails. The model of asteamship which Sam whittled out for them was carefully copied for thefirst vessel of the great Cunard Line, and became the standard type forall the magnificent ships since constructed by the firm. 

The new Testament and the speller were Cornelius Vanderbilt's onlybooks at school, but he learned to read, write, and cipher a little. He wished to buy a boat, but had no money. To discourage him fromfollowing the sea, his mother told him if he would plow, harrow, andplant with corn, before the twenty-seventh day of the month, ten acresof rough, hard, stony land, the worst on his father's farm, she wouldlend him the amount he wished. Before the appointed time the work wasdone, and well done. On his seventeenth birthday he bought the boat, but on his way home it struck a sunken wreck and sank just as hereached shallow water. 

But Cornelius Vanderbilt was not the boy to give up. He at once beganagain, and in three years saved three thousand dollars. He oftenworked all night, and soon had far the largest patronage of any boatmanin the harbor. During the War of 1812 he was awarded the Governmentcontract to carry provisions to the military stations near themetropolis. He fulfilled his contract by night so that he might runhis ferry-boat between New York and Brooklyn by day. 

The boy who gave his parents all his day earnings and had half of whathe got at night, was worth thirty thousand dollars at thirty-five, andwhen he died, at an advanced age, he left to his thirteen children oneof the largest fortunes in America. 

Lord Eldon might well have pleaded "no chance" when a boy, for he wastoo poor to go to school or even to buy books. But no; he had grit anddetermination, and was bound to make his way in the world. He rose atfour o'clock in the morning and copied law books which he borrowed, thevoluminous "Coke upon Littleton" among others. He was so eager tostudy that sometimes he would keep it up until his brain refused towork, when he would tie a wet towel about his head to enable him tokeep awake and to study. His first year's practice brought him butnine shillings, yet he was bound not to give up. 

When Eldon was leaving the chamber the Solicitor tapped him on theshoulder and said, "Young man, your bread and butter's cut for life. "The boy with "no chance" became Lord Chancellor of England, and one ofthe greatest lawyers of his age. 

Stephen Girard had "no chance. " He left his home in France when tenyears old, and came to America as a cabin boy. His great ambition wasto get on and succeed at any cost. There was no work, however hard anddisagreeable, that he would not undertake. Midas like, he turned togold everything he touched, and became one of the wealthiest merchantsof Philadelphia. His abnormal love of money cannot be commended, buthis thoroughness in all he did, his public spirit at times of nationalneed, and willingness to risk his life to save strangers sick with thedeadly yellow fever, are traits of character well worthy of imitation. 

John Wanamaker walked four miles to Philadelphia every day, and workedin a bookstore for one dollar and twenty-five cents a week. He nextworked in a clothing store at an advance of twenty-five cents a week. From this he went up and up until he became one of the greatest livingmerchants. He was appointed Postmaster-General by President Harrisonin 1889, and in that capacity showed great executive ability. 

Prejudice against her race and sex did not deter the colored girl, Edmonia Lewis, from struggling upward to honor and fame as a sculptor. 

Fred Douglass started in life with less than nothing, for he did notown his own body, and he was pledged before his birth to pay hismaster's debts. To reach the starting-point of the poorest white boy, he had to climb as far as the distance which the latter must ascend ifhe would become President of the United States. He saw his mother buttwo or three times, and then in the night, when she would walk twelvemiles to be with him an hour, returning in time to go into the field atdawn. He had no chance to study, for he had no teacher, and the rulesof the plantation forbade slaves to learn to read and write. Butsomehow, unnoticed by his master, he managed to learn the alphabet fromscraps of paper and patent medicine almanacs, and then no limits couldbe placed to his career. He put to shame thousands of white boys. Hefled from slavery at twenty-one, went North, and worked as a stevedorein New York and New Bedford. At Nantucket he was given an opportunityto speak at an anti-slavery meeting, and made so favorable animpression that he was made agent of the Anti-Slavery Society ofMassachusetts. While traveling from place to place to lecture, hewould study with all his might. He was sent to Europe to lecture, andwon the friendship of several Englishmen, who gave him $750, with whichhe purchased his freedom. He edited a paper in Rochester, N. Y. , andafterwards conducted the "New Era" in Washington. For several years hewas Marshal of the District of Columbia. 

Henry E. Dixey, the well-known actor, began his career upon the stagein the humble part of the hind legs of a cow. 

P. T. Barnum rode a horse for ten cents a day. 

It was a boy born in a log-cabin, without schooling, or books, orteacher, or ordinary opportunities, who won the admiration of mankindby his homely practical wisdom while President during our Civil War, and who emancipated four million slaves. 

Behold this long, lank, awkward youth, felling trees on the littleclaim, building his homely log-cabin, without floor or windows, teaching himself arithmetic and grammar in the evening by the light ofthe fireplace. In his eagerness to know the contents of Blackstone'sCommentaries, he walked forty-four miles to procure the preciousvolumes, and read one hundred pages while returning. Abraham Lincolninherited no opportunities, and acquired nothing by luck. His goodfortune consisted simply of untiring perseverance and a right heart. 

In another log-cabin, in the backwoods of Ohio, a poor widow is holdinga boy eighteen months old, and wondering if she will be able to keepthe wolf from her little ones. The boy grows, and in a few years wefind him chopping wood and tilling the little clearing in the forest, to help his mother. Every spare hour is spent in studying the books hehas borrowed, but cannot buy. At sixteen he gladly accepts a chance todrive mules on a canal towpath. Soon he applies for a chance to sweepfloors and ring the bell of an academy, to pay his way while studyingthere. 

His first term at Geauga Seminary cost him but seventeen dollars. Whenhe returned the next term he had but a sixpence in his pocket, and thishe put into the contribution box at church the next day. He engagedboard, washing, fuel, and light of a carpenter at one dollar and sixcents a week, with the privilege of working at night and on Saturdaysall the time he could spare. He had arrived on a Saturday and planedfifty-one boards that day, for which he received one dollar and twocents. When the term closed, he had paid all expenses and had threedollars over. The following winter he taught school at twelve dollarsa month and "board around. " In the spring he had forty-eight dollars, and when he returned to school he boarded himself at an expense ofthirty-one cents a week. 

Soon we find him in Williams College, where in two years he isgraduated with honors. He reaches the State Senate at twenty-six andCongress at thirty-three. Twenty-seven years from the time he appliedfor a chance to ring the bell at Hiram College, James A. Garfieldbecame President of the United States. The inspiration of such anexample is worth more to the young men of America than all the wealthof the Astors, the Vanderbilts, and the Goulds. 

Among the world's greatest heroes and benefactors are many others whosecradles were rocked by want in lowly cottages, and who buffeted thebillows of fate without dependence, save upon the mercy of God andtheir own energies. 

"The little gray cabin appears to be the birthplace of all your greatmen, " said an English author who had been looking over a book ofbiographies of eminent Americans. 

With five chances on each hand and one unwavering aim, no boy, howeverpoor, need despair. There is bread and success for every youth underthe American flag who has energy and ability to seize his opportunity. It matters not whether the boy is born in a log-cabin or in a mansion;if he is dominated by a resolute purpose and upholds himself, neithermen nor demons can keep him down. 

CHAPTER IV

THE COUNTRY BOY

The Napoleonic wars so drained the flower of French manhood that evento-day the physical stature of the average Frenchman is nearly half aninch below what it was at the beginning of Napoleon's reign. 

The country in America to-day is constantly paying a similar tribute tothe city in the sacrifice of its best blood, its best brain, the finestphysical and mental fiber in the world. This great stream of superbcountry manhood, which is ever flowing cityward, is rapidlydeteriorated by the softening, emasculating influences of the city, until the superior virility, stamina and sturdy qualities entirelydisappear in two or three generations of city life. Our citycivilization is always in a process of decay, and would, in a fewgenerations, become emasculated and effeminate were it not for thepure, crystal stream of country youth flowing steadily into andpurifying the muddy, devitalized stream of city life. It would soonbecome so foul and degenerate as to threaten the physical and moralhealth of city dwellers. 

One of our great men says that one of the most unfortunate phases ofmodern civilization is the drift away from the farm, the drift ofcountry youth to the city which has an indescribable fascination forhim. His vivid imagination clothes it with Arabian Nightspossibilities and joys. The country seems tame and commonplace afterhis first dream of the city. To him it is synonymous with opportunity, with power, with pleasure. He can not rid himself of its fascinationuntil he tastes its emptiness. He can not know the worth of thecountry and how to appreciate the glory of its disadvantages andopportunities until he has seen the sham and shallowness of the city. 

One of the greatest boons that can ever come to a human being is to beborn on a farm and reared in the country. Self-reliance and grit areoftenest country-bred. The country boy is constantly thrown upon hisown resources, forced to think for himself, and this calls out hisingenuity and inventiveness. He develops better all-round judgment anda more level head than the city boy. His muscles are harder, his fleshfirmer, and his brain-fiber partakes of the same superior quality. 

The very granite hills, the mountains, the valleys, the brooks, themiracle of the growing crops are every moment registering their mightypotencies in his constitution, putting iron into his blood and staminainto his character, all of which will help to make him a giant when hecomes to compete with the city-bred youth. 

The sturdy, vigorous, hardy qualities, the stamina, the brawn, the gritwhich characterize men who do great things in this world, are, as arule, country bred. If power is not absorbed from the soil, itcertainly comes from very near it. There seems to be a closeconnection between robust character and the soil, the hills, mountainsand valleys, the pure air and sunshine. There is a very appreciabledifference between the physical stamina, the brain vigor, the solidityand the reliability of country-bred men and that of those in the city. 

The average country-bred youth has a better foundation forsuccess-building, has greater courage, more moral stamina. He has notbecome weakened and softened by the superficial ornamental, decorativeinfluences of city life. And there is a reason for all this. We arelargely copies of our environment. We are under the perpetualinfluence of the suggestion of our surroundings. The city-bred youthsees and hears almost nothing that is natural, aside from the faces andforms of human beings. Nearly everything that confronts him frommorning till night is artificial, man-made. He sees hardly anythingthat God made, that imparts solidity, strength and power, as do thenatural objects in the country. How can a man build up a solid, substantial character when his eyes and ears bring him only sights andsounds of artificial things? A vast sea of business blocks, sky-scrapers and asphalt pavements does not generate character-buildingmaterial. 

Just as sculpture was once carried to such an extreme that pillars andbeams were often so weakened by the extravagant carvings as to threatenthe safety of the structure, so the timber in country boys and girls, when brought to the city, is often overcarved and adorned at the costof strength, robustness and vigor. 

In other words, virility, forcefulness, physical and mental staminareach their maximum in those who live close to the soil. The moment aman becomes artificial in his living, takes on artificial conditions, he begins to deteriorate, to soften. 

Much of what we call the best society in our cities is often in anadvanced process of decay. The muscles may be a little more delicatebut they are softer; the skin may be a little fairer, but it is not sohealthy; the thought a little more supple, but less vigorous. Thewhole tendency of life in big cities is toward deterioration. Citypeople rarely live really normal lives. It is not natural for humanbeings to live far from the soil. It is Mother Earth and country lifethat give vitality, stamina, courage and all the qualities which makefor manhood and womanhood. What we get from the country is solid, substantial, enduring, reliable. What comes from the artificialconditions of the city is weakening, enervating, softening. 

The country youth, on the other hand, is in the midst of a perpetualmiracle. He can not open his eyes without seeing a more magnificentpainting than a Raphael or a Michael Angelo could have created in alifetime. And this magnificent panorama is changing every instant. 

There is a miracle going on in every growing blade of grass and flower. Is it not wonderful to watch the chemical processes in nature'slaboratory, mixing and flinging out to the world the gorgeous coloringsand marvelous perfumes of the rose and wild flower! No city youth wasever in such a marvelous kindergarten, where perpetual creation isgoing on in such a vast multitude of forms. 

The city youth has too many things to divert his attention. Such amultiplicity of objects appeals to him that he is often superficial; helacks depth; his mind is perpetually drawn away from his subject, andhe lacks continuity of thought and application. His reading iscomparatively superficial. He glances through many papers; magazinesand periodicals and gives no real thought to any. His evenings aremuch more broken up than those of the country boy, who, having verylittle diversion after supper, can read continuously for an entireevening on one subject. The country boy does not read as many books asthe city boy, but, as a rule, he reads them with much better results. 

The dearth of great libraries, books and periodicals is one reason whythe country boy makes the most of good books and articles, oftenreading them over and over again, while the city youth, in the midst ofnewspapers and libraries, sees so many books that in most instances hecares very little for them, and will often read the best literaturewithout absorbing any of it. 

The fact is that there is such a diversity of attractions anddistractions, of temptation and amusement in the city, that unless ayouth is made of unusual stuff he will yield to the persuasion of themoment and follow the line of least resistance. It is hard for thecity-bred youth to resist the multiplicity of allurements and pleasuresthat bid for his attention, to deny himself and turn a deaf ear to theappeals of his associates and tie himself down to self-improvementwhile those around him are having a good time. 

These exciting, diverting, tempting conditions of city life are notconducive to generating the great master purpose, the one unwaveringlife aim, which we often see so marked in the young man from thecountry. Nor do city-bred youths store up anything like the reservepower, the cumulative force, the stamina, which are developed in thesimple life of the soil. 

For one thing, the country boy is constantly developing his muscularsystem. His health is better. He gets more exercise, more time tothink and to reflect; hence, he is not so superficial as the city boy. His perceptions are not so quick, he is not so rapid in his movements, his thought action is slower and he does not have as much polish, it istrue, but he is better balanced generally. He has been forced to do agreat variety of work and this has developed corresponding mentalqualities. 

The drudgery of the farm, the chores which we hated as boys, the rockswhich we despised, we have found were the very things which educatedus, which developed our power and made us practical. The farm is agreat gymnasium, a superb manual training school, nature'skindergarten, constantly calling upon the youth's self-reliance andinventiveness. He must make the implements and toys which he can notafford to buy or procure. He must run, adjust and repair all sorts ofmachinery and farm utensils. His ingenuity and inventiveness areconstantly exercised. If the wagon or plow breaks down it must berepaired on the spot, often without the proper tools. This trainingdevelops instinctive courage, strong success qualities, and makes him aresourceful man. 

Is it any wonder that the boy so trained in self-reliance, so superblyequipped with physical and mental stamina, should take suchpre-eminence, should be in such demand when he comes to the city? Isit any wonder that he is always in evidence in great emergencies andcrises? Just stand a stamina-filled, self-reliant country boy beside apale, soft, stamina-less, washed-out city youth. Is it any wonder thatthe country-bred boy is nearly always the leader; that he heads thebanks, the great mercantile houses? It is this peculiar, indescribable something; this superior stamina and mental caliber, thatmakes the stuff that rises to the top in all vocations. 

There is a peculiar quality of superiority which comes from dealingwith _realities_ that we do not find in the superficial cityconditions. The life-giving oxygen, breathed in great inspirationsthrough constant muscular effort, develops in the country boy muchgreater lung power than is developed in the city youth, and his outdoorwork tends to build up a robust constitution. Plowing, hoeing, mowing, everything he does on the farm gives him vigor and strength. Hismuscles are harder, his flesh firmer, and his brain-fiber partakes ofthe same superior quality. He is constantly bottling up forces, storing up energy in his brain and muscles which later may be powerfulfactors in shaping the nation's destiny or which may furnish backboneto keep the ship of state from floundering on the rocks. Thismarvelous reserve power which he stores up in the country will come outin the successful banker, statesman, lawyer, merchant, or business man. 

Self-reliance and grit are oftenest country-bred. The country boy isconstantly thrown upon his own resources; he is forced to think forhimself, and this calls out his ingenuity and makes him self-reliantand strong. It has been found that the use of tools in our manualtraining schools develops the brain, strengthens the deficientfaculties and brings out latent powers. The farm-reared boy is in thebest manual training school in the world and is constantly forced toplan things, make things; he is always using tools. This is one of thereasons why he usually develops better all-round judgment and a morelevel head than the city boy. 

It is human nature to exaggerate the value of things beyond our reach. People save money for years in order to go to Europe to visit the greatart centers and see the famous masterpieces, when they have reallynever seen the marvelous pictures painted by the Divine Artist andspread in the landscape, in the sunset, in the glory of flowers andplant life, right at their very doors. 

What a perpetual inspiration, what marvels of beauty, what miracles ofcoloring are spread everywhere in nature, confronting us on every hand!We see them almost every day of our lives and they become so commonthat they make no impression upon us. Think of the difference betweenwhat a Ruskin sees in a landscape and the impression conveyed to hisbrain, and what is seen by the ordinary mind, the ordinary person whohas little or no imagination and whose esthetic faculties have scarcelybeen developed!

We are immersed in a wilderness of mysteries and marvelous beauties. Miracles innumerable in grass and flower and fruit are performed rightbefore our eyes. How marvelous is Nature's growing of fruit, forexample! How she packs the concentrated sunshine and delicious juicesinto the cans that she makes as she goes along, cans exactly the rightsize, without a particle of waste, leakage or evaporation, with nonoise of factories, no hammering of tins! The miracles are wrought ina silent laboratory; not a sound is heard, and yet what marvels ofskill, deliciousness and beauty?

What interrogation points, what wonderful mysteries, whatwit-sharpeners are ever before the farmer boy, whichever way he turns!Where does all this tremendous increase of corn, wheat, fruit andvegetables come from? There seems to be no loss to the soil, and yet, what a marvelous growth in everything! Life, life, more life on everyhand! Wherever he goes he treads on chemical forces which producegreater marvels than are described in the Arabian Nights. The trees, the brooks, the mountains, the hills, the valleys, the sunsets, thegrowing animals on the farm, are all mysteries that set him thinkingand to wondering at the creative processes which are working on everyhand. 

Then again, the delicious freedom of it all, as contrasted with thecramped, artificial life in the city! Everything in the country tendsto set the boy thinking, to call out his dormant powers and develop hislatent forces. And what health there is in it all! How hearty andnatural he is in comparison with the city boy, who is tempted to turnnight into day, to live an artificial, purposeless life. 

The very temptation in the city to turn night into day is of itselfhealth-undermining, stamina-dissipating and character-weakening. 

While the city youth is wasting his precious energy capital in latehours, pleasure seeking, and often dissipation, the country youth isstoring up power and vitality; he is being recharged with physicalforce by natural, refreshing sleep, away from the distracting influenceand enervating excitement of city life. The country youth does notlearn to judge people by the false standards of wealth and socialstanding. He is not inculcated with snobbish ideas. Everything in thegreat farm kindergarten teaches him sincerity, simplicity and honesty. 

The time was when the boy who gave no signs of genius or unusualability was consigned to the farm, and the brilliant boy was sent tocollege or to the city to make a career for himself. But we are nowbeginning to see that man has made a botch of farming only because helooked upon it as a sort of humdrum occupation; as a means provided bynature for living-getting for those who were not good for much else. Farming was considered by many people as a sort of degrading occupationdesirable only for those who lacked the brains and education to go intoa profession or some of the more refined callings. But the searchlightof science has revealed in it possibilities hitherto undreamed of. Weare commencing to realize that it takes a high order of ability andeducation to bring out the fullest possibilities of the soil; that itrequires fine-grained sympathetic talent. We are now finding thatagriculture is as great a science as astronomy, and that ignorant menhave been getting an indifferent living from their farms simply becausethey did not know how to mix brains with the soil. 

The science of agriculture is fast becoming appreciated and is more andmore regarded as a high and noble calling, a dignified profession. Think of what it means to go into partnership with the Creator inbringing out larger, grander products from the soil; to be able toco-operate with that divine creative force, and even to vary the size, the beauty, the perfume of flowers; to enlarge, modify and change theflavor of fruits and vegetables to our liking!

Think what it must mean to be a magician in the whole vegetablekingdom, like Luther Burbank, changing colors, flavors, perfumes, species! Almost anything is possible when one knows enough and hasheart and sympathy enough to enter into partnership with the greatcreative force in nature. Mr. Burbank says that the time will comewhen man will be able to do almost anything he wishes in the vegetablekingdom; will be able to produce at will any shade or color he wishes, and almost any flavor in any fruit; that the size of all fruits andvegetables and flowers is just a matter of sufficient understanding, and that Nature will give us almost anything when we know enough totreat her intelligently, wisely and sympathetically. 

The history of most great men shows that there is a disadvantage inhaving too many advantages. 

Who can tell what the consequences would have been had Lincoln beenborn in New York and educated at Harvard? If he had been reared in themidst of great libraries, brought up in an atmosphere of books, of onlya small fraction of which he could get even a superficial knowledge, would he have had that insatiable hunger which prompted him to walktwenty miles in order to borrow Blackstone's "Commentaries" and to readone hundred pages on the way home?

[Illustration: House in which Abraham Lincoln was born]

What was there in that rude frontier forest, where this poor boyscarcely ever saw any one who knew anything of books, to rouse hisambition and to stimulate him to self-education? Whence came thatyearning to know the history of men and women who had made a nation; toknow the history of his country? Whence came that passion to devourthe dry statutes of Indiana, as a young girl would devour a love story?Whence came that all-absorbing ambition to be somebody in the world; toserve his country with no selfish ambition? Had his father been richand well-educated instead of a poor man who could neither read norwrite and who was generally of a shiftless and roving disposition, there is no likelihood that Lincoln would ever have become the powerfulman he was. 

Had he not felt that imperious "must" calling him, the prod ofnecessity spurring him on, whence would have come the motive which ledhim to struggle for self-development, self-unfoldment? If he had beenborn and educated in luxury, his character would probably have beensoft and flabby in comparison with what it was. 

Where in all the annals of history is there another record of one bornof such poor parentage and reared in such a wretched environment, whoever rose to such eminence? Imagine a boy of to-day, so hungry for aneducation that he would walk nine miles a day to attend a rude frontierschool in a log cabin! What would the city boys of to-day, who do notwant to walk even a few blocks to school, think of a youth who would dowhat Lincoln did to overcome his handicap?

CHAPTER V

OPPORTUNITIES WHERE YOU ARE

 To each man's life there comes a time supreme; One day, one night, one morning, or one noon, One freighted hour, one moment opportune, One rift through which sublime fulfillments gleam, One space when fate goes tiding with the stream, One Once, in balance 'twixt Too Late, Too Soon, And ready for the passing instant's boon To tip in favor the uncertain beam. Ah, happy he who, knowing how to wait, Knows also how to watch and work and stand On Life's broad deck alert, and at the prow To seize the passing moment, big with fate, From Opportunity's extended hand, When the great clock of destiny strikes Now! MARY A. TOWNSEND. 

What is opportunity to a man who can't use it? An unfecundated egg, which the waves of time wash away into non-entity. --GEORGE ELIOT. 

The secret of success in life is for a man _to be ready for hisopportunity_ when it comes. --DISRAELI. 

"There are no longer any good chances for young men, " complained ayouthful law student to Daniel Webster. "There is always room at thetop, " replied the great statesman and jurist. 

No chance, no opportunities, in a land where thousands of poor boysbecome rich men, where newsboys go to Congress, and where those born inthe lowest stations attain the highest positions? The world is allgates, all opportunities to him who will use them. But, like Bunyan'sPilgrim in the dungeon of Giant Despair's castle, who had the key ofdeliverance all the time with him but had forgotten it, we fail to relywholly upon the ability to advance all that is good for us which hasbeen given to the weakest as well as the strongest. We depend too muchupon outside assistance. 

 "We look too high For things close by. "

A Baltimore lady lost a valuable diamond bracelet at a ball, andsupposed that it was stolen from the pocket of her cloak. Yearsafterward she washed the steps of the Peabody Institute, pondering howto get money to buy food. She cut up an old, worn-out, ragged cloak tomake a hood, when lo! in the lining of the cloak she discovered thediamond bracelet. During all her poverty she was worth $3500, but didnot know it. 

Many of us who think we are poor are rich in opportunities, if we couldonly see them, in possibilities all about us, in faculties worth morethan diamond bracelets. In our large Eastern cities it has been foundthat at least ninety-four out of every hundred found their firstfortune at home, or near at hand, and in meeting common every-daywants. It is a sorry day for a young man who can not see anyopportunities where he is, but thinks he can do better somewhere else. Some Brazilian shepherds organized a party to go to California to diggold, and took along a handful of translucent pebbles to play checkerswith on the voyage. After arriving in San Francisco, and after theyhad thrown most of the pebbles away, they discovered that they werediamonds. They hastened back to Brazil, only to find that the minesfrom which the pebbles had been gathered had been taken up by otherprospectors and sold to the government. 

The richest gold and silver mine in Nevada was sold by the owner for$42, to get money to pay his passage to other mines, where he thoughthe could get rich. Professor Agassiz once told the Harvard students ofa farmer who owned a farm of hundreds of acres of unprofitable woodsand rocks, and concluded to sell out and get into a more profitablebusiness. He decided to go into the coal-oil business; he studied coalmeasures and coal-oil deposits, and experimented for a long time. Hesold his farm for $200, and engaged in his new business two hundredmiles away. Only a short time after, the man who bought his farmdiscovered upon it a great flood of coal-oil, which the farmer hadpreviously ignorantly tried to drain off. 

Hundreds of years ago there lived near the shore of the river Indus aPersian by the name of Ali Hafed. He lived in a cottage on the riverbank, from which he could get a grand view of the beautiful countrystretching away to the sea. He had a wife and children; an extensivefarm, fields of grain, gardens of flowers, orchards of fruit, and milesof forest. He had plenty of money and everything that heart couldwish. He was contented and happy. One evening a priest of Buddhavisited him, and, sitting before the fire, explained to him how theworld was made, and how the first beams of sunlight condensed on theearth's surface into diamonds. 

The old priest told that a drop of sunlight the size of his thumb wasworth more than large mines of copper, silver, or gold; that with oneof them he could buy many farms like his; that with a handful he couldbuy a province, and with a mine of diamonds he could purchase akingdom. Ali Hafed listened, and was no longer a rich man. He hadbeen touched with discontent, and with that all wealth vanishes. Earlythe next morning he woke the priest who had been the cause of hisunhappiness, and anxiously asked him where he could find a mine ofdiamonds. "What do you want of diamonds?" asked the astonished priest. "I want to be rich and place my children on thrones. " "All you have todo is to go and search until you find them, " said the priest. "Butwhere shall I go?" asked the poor farmer. "Go anywhere, north, south, east, or west. " "How shall I know when I have found the place?" "Whenyou find a river running over white sands between high mountain ranges, in those white sands you will find diamonds, " answered the priest. 

The discontented man sold the farm for what he could get, left hisfamily with a neighbor, took the money he had at interest, and went tosearch for the coveted treasure. Over the mountains of Arabia, throughPalestine and Egypt, he wandered for years, but found no diamonds. When his money was all gone and starvation stared him in the face, ashamed of his folly and of his rags, poor Ali Hafed threw himself intothe tide and was drowned. The man who bought his farm was a contentedman, who made the most of his surroundings, and did not believe ingoing away from home to hunt for diamonds or success. While his camelwas drinking in the garden one day, he noticed a flash of light fromthe white sands of the brook. He picked up a pebble, and pleased withits brilliant hues took it into the house, put it on the shelf near thefireplace, and forgot all about it. 

The old priest of Buddha who had filled Ali Hafed with the fataldiscontent called one day upon the new owner of the farm. He had nosooner entered the room than his eye caught that flash of light fromthe stone. "Here's a diamond! here's a diamond!" he shouted in greatexcitement. "Has Ali Hafed returned?" "No, " said the farmer, "nor isthat a diamond. That is but a stone. " They went into the garden andstirred up the white sand with their fingers, and behold, otherdiamonds more beautiful than the first gleamed out of it. So thefamous diamond beds of Golconda were discovered. Had Ali Hafed beencontent to remain at home, and dug in his own garden, instead of goingabroad in search for wealth, he would have been one of the richest menin the world, for the entire farm abounded in the richest of gems. 

You have your own special place and work. Find it, fill it. Scarcelya boy or girl will read these lines but has much better opportunity towin success than Garfield, Wilson, Franklin, Lincoln, Harriet BeecherStowe, Frances Willard, and thousands of others had. But to succeedyou must be prepared to seize and improve the opportunity when itcomes. Remember that four things come not back: the spoken word, thesped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity. 

It is one of the paradoxes of civilization that the more opportunitiesare utilized, the more new ones are thereby created. New openings areas easy to find as ever to those who do their best; although it is notso easy as formerly to obtain great distinction in the old lines, because the standard has advanced so much, and competition has sogreatly increased. "The world is no longer clay, " said Emerson, "butrather iron in the hands of its workers, and men have got to hammer outa place for themselves by steady and rugged blows. "

Thousands of men have made fortunes out of trifles which others passby. As the bee gets honey from the same flower from which the spidergets poison, so some men will get a fortune out of the commonest andmeanest things, as scraps of leather, cotton waste, slag, iron filings, from which others get only poverty and failure. There is scarcely athing which contributes to the welfare and comfort of humanity, scarcely an article of household furniture, a kitchen utensil, anarticle of clothing or of food, that is not capable of an improvementin which there may be a fortune. 

Opportunities? They are all around us. Forces of nature plead to beused in the service of man, as lightning for ages tried to attract hisattention to the great force of electricity, which would do hisdrudgery and leave him to develop the God-given powers within him. There is power lying latent everywhere waiting for the observant eye todiscover it. 

First find out what the world needs and then supply the want. Aninvention to make smoke go the wrong way in a chimney might be a veryingenious thing, but it would be of no use to humanity. The patentoffice at Washington is full of wonderful devices of ingeniousmechanism, but not one in hundreds is of use to the inventor or to theworld. And yet how many families have been impoverished, and havestruggled for years amid want and woe, while the father has beenworking on useless inventions. A. T. Stewart, as a boy, losteighty-seven cents, when his capital was one dollar and a half, inbuying buttons and thread which shoppers did not call for. After thathe made it a rule never to buy anything which the public did not want, and so prospered. 

An observing man, the eyelets of whose shoes pulled out, but who couldnot afford to get another pair, said to himself, "I will make ametallic lacing hook, which can be riveted into the leather. " He wasthen so poor that he had to borrow a sickle to cut grass in front ofhis hired tenement. He became a very rich man. 

An observing barber in Newark, N. J. , thought he could make animprovement on shears for cutting hair, invented clippers, and becamerich. A Maine man was called in from the hayfield to wash clothes forhis invalid wife. He had never realized what it was to wash before. Finding the method slow and laborious, he invented the washing machine, and made a fortune. A man who was suffering terribly with toothachefelt sure there must be some way of filling teeth which would preventtheir aching and he invented the method of gold filling for teeth. 

The great things of the world have not been done by men of large means. Ericsson began the construction of the screw propellers in a bathroom. The cotton-gin was first manufactured in a log cabin. John Harrison, the great inventor of the marine chronometer, began his career in theloft of an old barn. Parts of the first steamboat ever run in Americawere set up in the vestry of a church in Philadelphia by Fitch. McCormick began to make his famous reaper in a grist-mill. The firstmodel dry-dock was made in an attic. Clark, the founder of ClarkUniversity of Worcester, Mass. , began his great fortune by making toywagons in a horse shed. Farquhar made umbrellas in his sitting-room, with his daughter's help, until he sold enough to hire a loft. Edisonbegan his experiments in a baggage car on the Grand Trunk Railroad whena newsboy. 

Michael Angelo found a piece of discarded Carrara marble among wasterubbish beside a street in Florence, which some unskilful workman hadcut, hacked, spoiled, and thrown away. No doubt many artists hadnoticed the fine quality of the marble, and regretted that it shouldhave been spoiled. But Michael Angelo still saw an angel in the ruin, and with his chisel and mallet he called out from it one of the finestpieces of statuary in Italy, the young David. 

Patrick Henry was called a lazy boy, a good-for-nothing farmer, and hefailed as a merchant. He was always dreaming of some far-offgreatness, and never thought he could be a hero among the corn andtobacco and saddlebags of Virginia. He studied law for six weeks; whenhe put out his shingle. People thought he would fail, but in his firstcase he showed that he had a wonderful power of oratory. It then firstdawned upon him that he could be a hero in Virginia. From the time theStamp Act was passed and Henry was elected to the Virginia House ofBurgesses, and he had introduced his famous resolution against theunjust taxation of the American colonies, he rose steadily until hebecame one of the brilliant orators of America. In one of his firstspeeches upon this resolution he uttered these words, which wereprophetic of his power and courage: "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles theFirst his Cromwell, and George the Third--may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it. "

The great natural philosopher, Faraday, who was the son of ablacksmith, wrote, when a young man, to Humphry Davy, asking foremployment at the Royal Institution. Davy consulted a friend on thematter. "Here is a letter from a young man named Faraday; he has beenattending my lectures, and wants me to give him employment at the RoyalInstitution--what can I do?" "Do? put him to washing bottles; if he isgood for anything he will do it directly; if he refuses he is good fornothing. " But the boy who could experiment in the attic of anapothecary shop with an old pan and glass vials during every moment hecould snatch from his work saw an opportunity in washing bottles, whichled to a professorship at the Royal Academy at Woolwich. Tyndall saidof this boy with no chance, "He is the greatest experimentalphilosopher the world has ever seen. " He became the wonder of his agein science. 

There is a legend of an artist who long sought for a piece ofsandalwood, out of which to carve a Madonna. He was about to give upin despair, leaving the vision of his life unrealized, when in a dreamhe was bidden to carve his Madonna from a block of oak wood which wasdestined for the fire. He obeyed, and produced a masterpiece from alog of common firewood. Many of us lose great opportunities in life bywaiting to find sandalwood for our carvings, when they really liehidden in the common logs that we burn. One man goes through lifewithout seeing chances for doing anything great, while another closebeside him snatches from the same circumstances and privilegesopportunities for achieving grand results. 

Opportunities? They are everywhere. "America is another name foropportunities. Our whole history appears like a last effort of divineProvidence in behalf of the human race. " Never before were there suchgrand openings, such chances, such opportunities. Especially is thistrue for girls and young women. A new era is dawning for them. Hundreds of occupations and professions, which were closed to them onlya few years ago, are now inviting them to enter. 

We can not all of us perhaps make great discoveries like Newton, Faraday, Edison, and Thompson, or paint immortal pictures like anAngelo or a Raphael. But we can all of us make our lives sublime, by_seizing common occasions and making them great_. What chance had theyoung girl, Grace Darling, to distinguish herself, living on thosebarren lighthouse rocks alone with her aged parents? But while herbrothers and sisters, who moved to the cities to win wealth and fame, are not known to the world, she became more famous than a princess. This poor girl did not need to go to London to see the nobility; theycame to the lighthouse to see her. Right at home she had won famewhich the regal heirs might envy, and a name which will never perishfrom the earth. She did not wander away into dreamy distance for fameand fortune, but did her best where duty had placed her. 

If you want to get rich, study yourself and your own wants. You willfind that millions have the same wants. The safest business is alwaysconnected with man's prime necessities. He must have clothing anddwelling; he must eat. He wants comforts, facilities of all kinds forpleasure, education, and culture. Any man who can supply a great wantof humanity, improve any methods which men use, supply any demand ofcomfort, or contribute in any way to their well-being, can make afortune. 

 "The golden opportunity Is never offered twice; seize then the hour When Fortune smiles and Duty points the way. "

 Why thus longing, thus forever sighing, For the far-off, unattained and dim, While the beautiful, all around thee lying Offers up its low, perpetual hymn? HARRIET WINSLOW. 

CHAPTER VI

POSSIBILITIES IN SPARE MOMENTS

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stufflife is made of. --FRANKLIN. 

Eternity itself cannot restore the loss struck from the minute. --ANCIENTPOET. 

_Periunt et imputantur_, --the hours perish and are laid to ourcharge. --INSCRIPTION ON A DIAL AT OXFORD. 

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me. --SHAKESPEARE. 

Believe me when I tell you that thrift of time will repay you in afterlife with a usury of profit beyond your most sanguine dreams, and thatwaste of it will make you dwindle alike in intellectual and moral staturebeyond your darkest reckoning. --GLADSTONE. 

Lost! Somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each setwith sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are goneforever. --HORACE MANN. 

"What is the price of that book?" at length asked a man who had beendawdling for an hour in the front store of Benjamin Franklin's newspaperestablishment. "One dollar, " replied the clerk. "One dollar, " echoedthe lounger; "can't you take less than that?" "One dollar is the price, "was the answer. 

The would-be purchaser looked over the books on sale a while longer, andthen inquired: "Is Mr. Franklin in?" "Yes, " said the clerk, "he is verybusy in the press-room. " "Well, I want to see him, " persisted the man. The proprietor was called, and the stranger asked: "What is the lowest, Mr. Franklin, that you can take for that book?" "One dollar and aquarter, " was the prompt rejoinder. "One dollar and a quarter! Why, your clerk asked me only a dollar just now. " "True, " said Franklin, "andI could have better afforded to take a dollar than to leave my work. "

The man seemed surprised; but, wishing to end a parley of his ownseeking, he demanded: "Well, come now, tell me your lowest price for thisbook. " "One dollar and a half, " replied Franklin. "A dollar and a half!Why, you offered it yourself for a dollar and a quarter. " "Yes, " saidFranklin coolly, "and I could better have taken that price then than adollar and a half now. "

The man silently laid the money on the counter, took his book, and leftthe store, having received a salutary lesson from a master in the art oftransmuting time, at will, into either wealth or wisdom. 

Time-wasters are everywhere. 

On the floor of the gold-working room, in the United States Mint atPhiladelphia, there is a wooden lattice-work which is taken up when thefloor is swept, and the fine particles of gold-dust, thousands ofdollars' yearly, are thus saved. So every successful man has a kind ofnetwork to catch "the raspings and parings of existence, those leavingsof days and wee bits of hours" which most people sweep into the waste oflife. He who hoards and turns to account all odd minutes, half hours, unexpected holidays, gaps "between times, " and chasms of waiting forunpunctual persons, achieves results which astonish those who have notmastered this most valuable secret. 

"All that I have accomplished, expect to, or hope to accomplish, " saidElihu Burritt, "has been and will be by that plodding, patient, persevering process of accretion which builds the ant-heap--particle byparticle, thought by thought, fact by fact. And if ever I was actuatedby ambition, its highest and warmest aspiration reached no further thanthe hope to set before the young men of my country an example inemploying those invaluable fragments of time called moments. "

"I have been wondering how Ned contrived to monopolize all the talents ofthe family, " said a brother, found in a brown study after listening toone of Burke's speeches in Parliament; "but then I remember; when we wereat play, he was always at work. "

The days come to us like friends in disguise, bringing priceless giftsfrom an unseen hand; but, if we do not use them, they are borne silentlyaway, never to return. Each successive morning new gifts are brought, but if we failed to accept those that were brought yesterday and the daybefore, we become less and less able to turn them to account, until theability to appreciate and utilize them is exhausted. Wisely was it saidthat lost wealth may be regained by industry and economy, lost knowledgeby study, lost health by temperance and medicine, but lost time is goneforever. 

"Oh, it's only five minutes or ten minutes till mealtime; there's no timeto do anything now, " is one of the commonest expressions heard in thefamily. But what monuments have been built up by poor boys with nochance, out of broken fragments of time which many of us throw away! Thevery hours you have wasted, if improved, might have insured your success. 

Marion Harland has accomplished wonders, and she has been able to do thisby economizing the minutes to shape her novels and newspaper articles, when her children were in bed and whenever she could get a spare minute. Though she has done so much, yet all her life has been subject tointerruptions which would have discouraged most women from attemptinganything outside their regular family duties. She has glorified thecommonplace as few other women have done. Harriet Beecher Stowe, too, wrote her great masterpiece, "Uncle Tom's Cabin, " in the midst ofpressing household cares. Beecher read Froude's "England" a little eachday while he had to wait for dinner. Longfellow translated the "Inferno"by snatches of ten minutes a day, while waiting for his coffee to boil, persisting for years until the work was done. 

Hugh Miller, while working hard as a stone-mason, found time to readscientific books, and write the lessons learned from the blocks of stonehe handled. 

Madame de Genlis, when companion of the future Queen of France, composedseveral of her charming volumes while waiting for the princess to whomshe gave her daily lessons. Burns wrote many of his most beautiful poemswhile working on a farm. The author of "Paradise Lost" was a teacher, Secretary of the Commonwealth, Secretary of the Lord Protector, and hadto write his sublime poetry whenever he could snatch a few minutes from abusy life. John Stuart Mill did much of his best work as a writer whilea clerk in the East India House. Galileo was a surgeon, yet to theimprovement of his spare moments the world owes some of its greatestdiscoveries. 

If a genius like Gladstone carried through life a little book in hispocket lest an unexpected spare moment slip from his grasp, what shouldwe of common abilities not resort to, to save the precious moments fromoblivion? What a rebuke is such a life to the thousands of young men andwomen who throw away whole months and even years of that which the "GrandOld Man" hoarded up even to the smallest fragments! Many a great man hassnatched his reputation from odd bits of time which others, who wonder attheir failure to get on, throw away. In Dante's time nearly everyliterary man in Italy was a hard-working merchant, physician, statesman, judge, or soldier. 

While Michael Faraday was employed binding books, he devoted all hisleisure to experiments. At one time he wrote to a friend, "Time is all Irequire. Oh, that I could purchase at a cheap rate some of our moderngentlemen's spare hours--nay, days. "

Oh, the power of ceaseless industry to perform miracles!

Alexander von Humboldt's days were so occupied with his business that hehad to pursue his scientific labors in the night or early morning, whileothers were asleep. 

One hour a day withdrawn from frivolous pursuits and profitably employedwould enable any man of ordinary capacity to master a complete science. One hour a day would in ten years make an ignorant man a well-informedman. It would earn enough to pay for two daily and two weekly papers, two leading magazines, and at least a dozen good books. In an hour a daya boy or girl could read twenty pages thoughtfully--over seven thousandpages, or eighteen large volumes in a year. An hour a day might make allthe difference between bare existence and useful, happy living. An houra day might make--nay, has made--an unknown man a famous one, a uselessman a benefactor to his race. Consider, then, the mighty possibilitiesof two--four--yes, six hours a day that are, on the average, thrown awayby young men and women in the restless desire for fun and diversion!

Every young man should have a hobby to occupy his leisure hours, something useful to which he can turn with delight. It might be in linewith his work or otherwise, only _his heart must be in it_. 

If one chooses wisely, the study, research, and occupation that a hobbyconfers will broaden character and transform the home. 

"He has nothing to prevent him but too much idleness, which, I haveobserved, " says Burke, "fills up a man's time much more completely andleaves him less his own master, than any sort of employment whatsoever. "

Some boys will pick up a good education in the odds and ends of timewhich others carelessly throw away, as one man saves a fortune by smalleconomies which others disdain to practise. What young man is too busyto get an hour a day for self-improvement? Charles C. Frost, thecelebrated shoemaker of Vermont, resolved to devote one hour a day tostudy. He became one of the most noted mathematicians in the UnitedStates, and also gained an enviable reputation in other departments ofknowledge. John Hunter, like Napoleon, allowed himself but four hours ofsleep. It took Professor Owen ten years to arrange and classify thespecimens in Comparative Anatomy, over twenty-four thousand in number, which Hunter's industry had collected. What a record for a boy who beganhis studies while working as a carpenter!

John Q. Adams complained bitterly when robbed of his time by those whohad no right to it. An Italian scholar put over his door theinscription: "Whoever tarries here must join in my labors. " Carlyle, Tennyson, Browning, and Dickens signed a remonstrance againstorgan-grinders who disturbed their work. 

Many of the greatest men of history earned their fame outside of theirregular occupations in odd bits of time which most people squander. Spenser made his reputation in his spare time while Secretary to the LordDeputy of Ireland. Sir John Lubbock's fame rests on his prehistoricstudies, prosecuted outside of his busy banking-hours. Southey, seldomidle for a minute, wrote a hundred volumes. Hawthorne's notebook showsthat he never let a chance thought or circumstance escape him. Franklinwas a tireless worker. He crowded his meals and sleep into as smallcompass as possible so that he might gain time for study. When a child, he became impatient of his father's long grace at table, and asked him ifhe could not say grace over a whole cask once for all, and save time. Hewrote some of his best productions on shipboard, such as his "Improvementof Navigation" and "Smoky Chimneys. "

What a lesson there is in Raphael's brief thirty-seven years to those whoplead "no time" as an excuse for wasted lives!

Great men have ever been misers of moments. Cicero said: "What othersgive to public shows and entertainments, nay, even to mental and bodilyrest, I give to the study of philosophy. " Lord Bacon's fame springs fromthe work of his leisure hours while Chancellor of England. During aninterview with a great monarch, Goethe suddenly excused himself, wentinto an adjoining room and wrote down a thought for his "Faust, " lest itshould be forgotten. Sir Humphry Davy achieved eminence in spare momentsin an attic of an apothecary's shop. Pope would often rise in the nightto write out thoughts that would not come during the busy day. Grotewrote his matchless "History of Greece" during the hours of leisuresnatched from his duties as a banker. 

George Stephenson seized the moments as though they were gold. Heeducated himself and did much of his best work during his spare moments. He learned arithmetic during the night shifts when he was an engineer. Mozart would not allow a moment to slip by unimproved. He would not stophis work long enough to sleep, and would sometimes write two whole nightsand a day without intermission. He wrote his famous "Requiem" on hisdeath-bed. 

Caesar said: "Under my tent in the fiercest struggle of war I have alwaysfound time to think of many other things. " He was once shipwrecked, andhad to swim ashore; but he carried with him the manuscript of his"Commentaries, " upon which he was at work when the ship went down. 

Dr. Mason Good translated "Lucretius" while riding to visit his patientsin London. Dr. Darwin composed most of his works by writing his thoughtson scraps of paper wherever he happened to be. Watt learned chemistryand mathematics while working at his trade of a mathematicalinstrument-maker. Henry Kirke White learned Greek while walking to andfrom the lawyer's office where he was studying. Dr. Burney learnedItalian and French on horseback. Matthew Hale wrote his "Contemplations"while traveling on his circuit as judge. 

The present time is the raw material out of which we make whatever wewill. Do not brood over the past, or dream of the future, but seize theinstant and _get your lesson from the hour_. The man is yet unborn whorightly measures and fully realizes the value of an hour. As Fenelonsays, God never gives but one moment at a time, and does not give asecond until he withdraws the first. 

Lord Brougham could not bear to lose a moment, yet he was so systematicthat he always seemed to have more leisure than many who did notaccomplish a tithe of what he did. He achieved distinction in politics, law, science, and literature. 

Dr. Johnson wrote "Rasselas" in the evenings of a single week, in orderto meet the expenses of his mother's funeral. 

Lincoln studied law during his spare hours while surveying, and learnedthe common branches unaided while tending store. Mrs. Somerville learnedbotany and astronomy and wrote books while her neighbors were gossipingand idling. At eighty she published "Molecular and MicroscopicalScience. "

The worst of a lost hour is not so much in the wasted time as in thewasted power. Idleness rusts the nerves and makes the muscles creak. Work has system, laziness has none. 

President Quincy never went to bed until he had laid his plans for thenext day. 

Dalton's industry was the passion of his life. He made and recorded overtwo hundred thousand meteorological observations. 

In factories for making cloth a single broken thread ruins a whole web;it is traced back to the girl who made the blunder and the loss isdeducted from her wages. But who shall pay for the broken threads inlife's great web? We cannot throw back and forth an empty shuttle;threads of some kind follow every movement as we weave the web of ourfate. It may be a shoddy thread of wasted hours or lost opportunitiesthat will mar the fabric and mortify the workman forever; or it may be agolden thread which will add to its beauty and luster. We cannot stopthe shuttle or pull out the unfortunate thread which stretches across thefabric, a perpetual witness of our folly. 

No one is anxious about a young man while he is busy in useful work. Butwhere does he eat his lunch at noon? Where does he go when he leaves hisboarding-house at night? What does he do after supper? Where does hespend his Sundays and holidays? The way he uses his spare momentsreveals his character. The great majority of youths who go to the badare ruined after supper. Most of those who climb upward to honor andfame devote their evenings to study or work or the society of those whocan help and improve them. Each evening is a crisis in the career of ayoung man. There is a deep significance in the lines of Whittier:--

 This day we fashion Destiny, our web of Fate we spin; This day for all hereafter choose we holiness or sin. 

Time is money. We should not be stingy or mean with it, but we shouldnot throw away an hour any more than we would throw away a dollar-bill. Waste of time means waste of energy, waste of vitality, waste ofcharacter in dissipation. It means the waste of opportunities which willnever come back. Beware how you kill time, for all your future lives init. 

"And it is left for each, " says Edward Everett, "by the cultivation ofevery talent, by watching with an eagle's eye for every chance ofimprovement, by redeeming time, defying temptation, and scorning sensualpleasure, to make himself useful, honored, and happy. "

CHAPTER VII

HOW POOR BOYS AND GIRLS GO TO COLLEGE

"Can I afford to go to college?" asks many an American youth who hashardly a dollar to his name and who knows that a college course meansyears of sacrifice and struggle. 

It seems a great hardship, indeed, for a young man with an ambition todo something in the world to be compelled to pay his own way throughschool and college by hard work. But history shows us that the men whohave led in the van of human progress have been, as a rule, self-educated, self-made. 

The average boy of to-day who wishes to obtain a liberal education hasa better chance by a hundredfold than had Daniel Webster or James A. Garfield. There is scarcely one in good health who reads these linesbut can be assured that if he will he may. Here, as elsewhere, thewill can usually make the way, and never before was there so manyavenues of resource open to the strong will, the inflexible purpose, asthere are to-day--at this hour and this moment. 

"Of the five thousand persons--students, --directly connected withHarvard University, " writes a graduate, "five hundred are studentsentirely or almost entirely dependent upon their own resources. Theyare not a poverty-stricken lot, however, for half of them make anincome above the average allowance of boys in smaller colleges. From$700 to $1, 000 are by no means exceptional yearly earnings of a studentwho is capable of doing newspaper work or tutoring, --branches ofemployment that pay well at Harvard. 

"There are some men that make much more. A classmate of the writerentered college with about twenty-five dollars. As a freshman he had ahard struggle. In his junior year, however, he prospered and in hislast ten months of undergraduate work he cleared above his collegeexpenses, which were none too low, upward of $3, 000. 

"He made his money by advertising schemes and other publishingventures. A few months after graduation he married. He is now livingcomfortably in Cambridge. "

A son of poor parents, living in Springfield, New York, worked his waythrough an academy. This only whetted his appetite for knowledge, andhe determined to advance, relying wholly on himself for success. Accordingly, he proceeded to Schenectady, and arranged with a professorof Union College to pay for his tuition by working. He rented a smallroom, which served for study and home, the expense of hisbread-and-milk diet never exceeding fifty cents a week. Aftergraduation, he turned his attention to civil engineering, and, later, to the construction of iron bridges of his own design. He procuredmany valuable patents, and amassed a fortune. His life was a success, the foundation being self-reliance and integrity. 

Albert J. Beveridge, the junior United States Senator from Indiana, entered college with no other capital than fifty dollars loaned to himby a friend. He served as steward of a college club, and added to hisoriginal fund of fifty dollars by taking the freshman essay prize oftwenty-five dollars. When summer came, he returned to work in theharvest fields and broke the wheat-cutting records of the county. Hecarried his books with him morning, noon and night, and studiedpersistently. When he returned to college he began to be recognized asan exceptional man. He had shaped his course and worked to it. 

The president of his class at Columbia University recently earned themoney to pay for his course by selling agricultural implements. One ofhis classmates, by the savings of two years' work as a farm laborer, and money earned by tutoring, writing, and copying done after studyhours, not only paid his way through college, but helped to support hisaged parents. He believed that he could afford a college training andhe got it. 

At Chicago University many hundreds of plucky young men are workingtheir way. The ways of earning money are various, depending upon theopportunities for work, and the student's ability and adaptability. Tobe a correspondent of city daily papers is the most coveted occupation, but only a few can obtain such positions. Some dozen or more teachnight school. Several teach in the public schools in the daytime, anddo their university work in the afternoons and evenings, so as to taketheir degrees. Scores carry daily papers, by which they earn two andone-half to three and one-half dollars a week; but, as this does notpay expenses, they add other employments. A few find evening work inthe city library. Some attend to lawns in summer and furnaces inwinter; by having several of each to care for, they earn from five toten dollars a week. Many are waiters at clubs and restaurants. Somesolicit advertisements. The divinity students, after the first year, preach in small towns. Several are tutors. Two young men made twelvehundred dollars apiece, in this way, in one year. One student is amember of a city orchestra, earning twelve dollars a week. A few servein the university postoffice, and receive twenty cents an hour. 

A representative American college president recently said: "I regard itas, on the whole, a distinct advantage that a student should have topay his own way in part as a condition of obtaining a collegeeducation. It gives a reality and vigor to one's work which is lesslikely to be obtained by those who are carried through college. I donot regard it, however, as desirable that one should have to work hisown way entirely, as the tax upon strength and time is likely to besuch as to interfere with scholarship and to undermine health. "

Circumstances have rarely favored great men. A lowly beginning is nobar to a great career. The boy who works his way through college mayhave a hard time of it, but he will learn how to work his way in life, and will often take higher rank in school, and in after life, than hisclassmate who is the son of a millionaire. It is the son and daughterof the farmer, the mechanic and the operative, the great average classof our country, whose funds are small and opportunities few, that therepublic will depend on most for good citizenship and brains in thefuture. The problem of securing a good education, where means arelimited and time short, is of great importance both to the individualand the nation. Encouragement and useful hints are offered by theexperience of many bright young people who have worked their way todiplomas worthily bestowed. 

Gaius B. Frost was graduated at the Brattleboro, Vt. , High School, taught district schools six terms, and entered Dartmouth College withjust money enough to pay the first necessary expenses. He worked ingardens and as a janitor for some time. During his course he taughtsix terms as principal of a high school, and one year as assistantsuperintendent in the Essex County Truant School, at Lawrence, Mass. , pushed a rolling chair at the Columbian Exposition, Chicago, was porterone season at Oak Hill House, Littleton, N. H. , and canvassed for apublishing house one summer in Maine. None of his fellow-students didmore to secure an education. 

Isaac J. Cox of Philadelphia worked his way through Kimball Academy, Meriden, N. H. , and through Dartmouth College, doing many kinds ofwork. There was no honest work within the limits of his ability thathe would not undertake to pay his way. He served summers as waiter ina White Mountain hotel, finally becoming head-waiter. Like Mr. Frost, he ranked well in his classes, and is a young man of solid characterand distinguished attainments. 

For four years Richard Weil was noted as the great prize winner ofColumbia College, and for "turning his time, attention and energy toany work that would bring remuneration. " He would do any honest workthat would bring cash, --and every cent of this money as well as everyhour not spent in sleep throughout the four years of his college coursewas devoted to getting his education. 

All these and many more from the ranks of the bright and well-trainedyoung men who have been graduated from the colleges and universities ofthe country in recent years believed--sincerely, doggedlybelieved--that a college training was something that they must have. The question of whether or not they could afford it does not appear tohave occasioned much hesitancy on their part. It is evident that theydid not for one instant think that they could not afford to go tocollege. 

In an investigation conducted to ascertain exact figures and factswhich a poor boy must meet in working his way through college, it wasfound that, in a list of forty-five representative colleges anduniversities, having a student population of somewhat over fortythousand, the average expense per year is three hundred and fourdollars; the average maximum expense, five hundred and twenty-ninedollars. In some of the smaller colleges the minimum expense per yearis from seventy-five dollars to one hundred and ten dollars. There aremany who get along on an expenditure of from one hundred and fiftydollars to two hundred dollars per year, while the maximum expenserises in but few instances above one thousand dollars. 

In Western and Southern colleges the averages are lower. For example, eighteen well-known Western colleges and universities have a generalaverage expense of two hundred and forty-two dollars per year, whilefourteen as well-known Eastern institutions give an average expense offour hundred and forty-four dollars. 

Statistics of expense, and the opportunities for self-help, at some ofthe best known Eastern institutions are full of interest:

Amherst makes a free gift of the tuition to prospective ministers; hasone hundred tuition scholarships for other students of good character, habits, and standing; has some free rooms; makes loans at low rates;students have chances to earn money at tutoring, table-waiting, shorthand, care of buildings, newspaper correspondence, agencies forlaundries, sale of books, etc. Five hundred dollars a year will defrayall necessary expenses. 

Bowdoin has nearly a hundred scholarships, fifty dollars toseventy-five dollars a year: "no limits placed on habits or socialprivileges of recipients;" students getting employment in the libraryor laboratories can earn about one-fourth of their expenses; these willbe, for the college year, three hundred dollars to four hundred dollars. 

Brown University has over a hundred tuition scholarships and a loanfund; often remits room rent in return for services about the collegebuildings; requires studiousness and economy in the case of assistedstudents. Many students earn money in various ways. The averageyearly expenditure is five hundred dollars. 

The cost at Columbia University averages five hundred and forty-sevendollars, the lowest being three hundred and eighty-seven dollars. Agreat many students who know how to get on in a great city work theirway through Columbia. 

Cornell University gives free tuition and free rooms to seniors andjuniors of good standing in their studies and of good habits. It hasthirty-six two-year scholarships (two hundred dollars), for freshmen, won by success in competitive examination. It has also five hundredand twelve state tuition scholarships. Many students supportthemselves in part by waiting on table, by shorthand, newspaper work, etc. The average yearly expenditure per student is five hundreddollars. 

Dartmouth has some three hundred scholarships; those above fiftydollars conditioned on class rank; some rooms at nominal rent;requirements, economy and total abstinence; work of one sort or anotherto be had by needy students; a few get through on less than two hundredand fifty dollars a year; the average expenditure is about four hundreddollars. 

Harvard has about two hundred and seventy-five scholarships, sixtydollars to four hundred dollars apiece, large beneficiary and loanfunds, distributed or loaned in sums of forty dollars to two hundredand fifty dollars to needy and promising under-graduates; freshmen(usually) barred; a faculty employment committee; some students earningmoney as stenographers, typewriters, reporters, private tutors, clerks, canvassers, and singers; yearly expenditure (exclusive of clothes, washing, books, and stationery, laboratory charges, membership insocieties, subscriptions and service), three hundred and fifty-eightdollars to one thousand and thirty-five dollars. 

The University of Pennsylvania in a recent year gave three hundred andfifteen students forty-three thousand, two hundred and forty-twodollars in free scholarships and fellowships; no requirements exceptgood standing. No money loaned, no free rooms. Many students supportthemselves in part, and a few wholly. The average expenditure peryear, exclusive of clothes, railway fares, etc. , is four hundred andfifty dollars. 

Wesleyan University remits tuition wholly or in part to two-thirds ofits under-graduates. Loan funds are available. "Beneficiaries must befrugal in habits, total abstainers, and maintain good standing andconduct. " Many students are self-supporting, thirty-five per cent ofthe whole undergraduate body earning money. The yearly expenditure isthree hundred and twenty-five dollars. 

Yale is pretty well off now for fellowships and prizes; remits all butforty dollars of term bills, in case of worthy students, regular inattendance and studious; many such students earning money forthemselves; average yearly expenditure, about six hundred dollars. 

There is a splendid chance for girls at some of the soundest and bestknown girls' colleges in the United States. 

The number of girls in the University of Michigan who are paying theirown way is large. "Most of them, " says Dr. Eliza M. Mosher, woman'sdean of the college, "have earned the money by teaching. It is notunusual for students to come here for two years and go away for a time, in order to earn money to complete the course. Some of our most worthygraduates have done this. Some lighten their expenses by waiting ontables in boarding-houses, thus paying for their board. Others getroom and board in the homes of professors by giving, daily, three hoursof service about the house. A few take care of children, two or threehours a day, in the families of the faculty. One young woman, who isespecially brave and in good earnest, worked as a chambermaid on a lakesteamer last year and hurried away this year to do the same. It is heraim to earn one hundred dollars. With this sum, and a chance to payfor room and board by giving service, she will pay the coming year'sexpenses. Because it is especially difficult to obtain good servantsin this inland town, there are a few people who are glad to give thecollege girls such employment. "

"It is my opinion, " said Miss Mary E. Woolley, president of MountHolyoke College, "that, if a girl with average intelligence and energywishes a college education, she can obtain it. As far as I know, thegirls who have earned money to pay their way through college, at leastin part, have accomplished it by tutoring, typewriting or stenography. Some of them earn pin-money while in college by tutoring, typewriting, sewing, summer work in libraries and offices, and in various littleways such as putting up lunches, taking care of rooms, executingcommissions, and newspaper work. There are not many opportunities atMount Holyoke to earn large amounts of money, but pin-money may beacquired in many little ways by a girl of ingenuity. "

The system of compulsory domestic service obtaining now at MountHolyoke--whereby, in return for thirty, or at the most, fifty minutes aday of light household labor, every student reduces her collegeexpenses by a hundred dollars or a hundred and fifty, --was formerly inuse at Wellesley; now, however, it is confined there to a few cottages. It has no foothold at Bryn Mawr, Smith and Vassar, or at the affiliatedcolleges, Barnard and Radcliffe. 

At city colleges, like the last two mentioned, board and lodging costmore than in the country; and in general it is more difficult for agirl to pay any large part of her expenses through her own efforts andcarry on her college work at the same time. 

A number of girls in Barnard are, however, paying for their clothes, books, car fares, etc. , by doing what work they can find. Tutoring inBarnard is seldom available for the undergraduates, because the listsare always full of experienced teachers, who can be engaged by thehour. Typewriting is one of the favorite resources. One student hasdone particularly well as agent for a firm that makes college caps andgowns. Another girl, a Russian Jewess, from the lower East Side, NewYork, runs a little "sweat shop, " where she keeps a number of womenbusy making women's wrappers and children's dresses. She has paid allthe expenses of her education in this way. 

"Do any of your students work their way through?" was asked of a BrynMawr authority. 

"Some, --to a certain extent, " was the reply; "but not many. The lowestentire expenses of a year, are between four hundred and five hundredand fifty dollars. This amount includes positively everything. Twogirls may pay part of their expenses by taking charge of the library, and by selling stationery; another, by distributing the mail, andothers by 'tutoring'. Those who 'tutor' receive a dollar, a dollar anda half, and sometimes a very good one receives two dollars and a half, a lesson. But to earn all of one's way in a college year, and at thesame time to keep up in all the studies, is almost impossible, and isnot often done. Yet several are able to pay half their way. "

A similar question put to a Vassar student brought the followingresponse:

"Why, yes, I know a girl who has a sign on the door of herroom, --'Dresses pressed, '--and she earns a good deal of money, too. Ofcourse, there are many wealthy girls here who are always havingsomething like that done, and who are willing to pay well for it. Andso this girl makes a large sum of money, evenings and Saturdays. 

"There are other girls who are agents for two of the greatmanufacturers of chocolate creams. 

"The girl that plays the piano for the exercises in the gymnasium ispaid for that, and some of the girls paint and make fancy articles, which they sell here, or send to the stores in New York, to be sold. Some of them write for the newspapers and magazines, too, and stillothers have pupils in music, etc. , in Poughkeepsie. Yes, there are agreat many girls who manage to pay most of their expenses. "

Typewriting, tutoring, assistance rendered in library or laboratory oroffice, furnish help to many a girl who wishes to help herself, innearly every college. Beside these standard employments, teaching inevening schools occasionally offers a good opportunity for steady ekingout of means. 

In many colleges there is opportunity for a girl with taste and cunningfingers to act as a dressmaker, repairer, and general refurnisher tostudents with generous allowances. Orders for gymnasium suits andswimming suits mean good profits. The reign of the shirt-waist hasbeen a boon to many, for the well-dressed girl was never known to haveenough pretty ones, and by a judicious display of attractive samplesshe is easily tempted to enlarge her supply. Then, too, any girl whois at all deft in the art of sewing can make a shirt-waist without aprofessional knowledge of cutting and fitting. 

No boy or girl in America to-day who has good health, good morals andgood grit need despair of getting a college education unless there areextremely unusual reasons against the undertaking. 

West of the Alleghanies a college education is accessible to allclasses. In most of the state universities tuition is free. InKansas, for example, board and a room can be had for twelve dollars amonth; the college fees are five dollars a year, while the averageexpenditure of the students does not exceed two hundred dollars perannum. In Ohio, the state university has abolished all tuition fees;and most of the denominational colleges demand fees even lower thanwere customary in New England half a century ago. Partly by reason ofthe cheapness of a college education in Ohio, that state now sends morestudents to college than all of New England. Yet if the total cost isless in the West, on the other hand, the opportunities for self-helpare correspondingly more in the East. Every young man or woman shouldweigh the matter well before concluding that a college education is outof the question. 

Former President Tucker of Dartmouth says: "The student who works hisway may do it with ease and profit; or he may be seriously handicappedboth by his necessities and the time he is obliged to bestow on outsidematters. I have seen the sons of rich men lead in scholarship, and thesons of poor men. Poverty under most of the conditions in which wefind it in colleges is a spur. Dartmouth College, I think, furnishes agood example. The greater part of its patronage is from poor men. Without examining the statistics, I should say, from facts that havefallen under my observation, that a larger percentage of Dartmouth menhave risen to distinction than those of almost any other Americancollege. "

The opportunities of to-day are tenfold what they were half a centuryago. Former President Schurman of Cornell says of his early life: "Atthe age of thirteen I left home. I hadn't definite plans as to myfuture. I merely wanted to get into a village, and to earn some money. 

"My father got me a place in the nearest town, --Summerside, --a villageof about one thousand inhabitants. For my first year's work I was toreceive thirty dollars and my board. Think of that, young men ofto-day! Thirty dollars a year for working from seven in the morninguntil ten at night! But I was glad to get the place. It was a startin the world, and the little village was like a city to my country eyes. 

"From the time I began working in the store until to-day, I have alwayssupported myself, and during all the years of my boyhood I neverreceived a penny that I did not earn myself. At the end of my firstyear, I went to a larger store in the same town, where I was to receivesixty dollars a year and my board. My salary was doubled; I wasgetting on swimmingly. 

"I kept this place for two years, and then I gave it up, against thewishes of my employer, because I had made up my mind that I wanted toget a better education. I determined to go to college. 

"I did not know how I was going to do this, except that it must be bymy own efforts. I had saved about eighty dollars from mystore-keeping, and that was all the money I had in the world. 

"When I told my employer of my plan, he tried to dissuade me from it. He pointed out the difficulties in the way of my going to college, andoffered to double my pay if I would stay in the store. 

"That was the turning-point in my life. In one side was the certaintyof one hundred and twenty dollars a year, and the prospect of promotionas fast as I deserved it. Remember what one hundred and twenty dollarsmeant on Prince Edward Island, and to me, a poor boy who had neverpossessed such a sum in his life. On the other side was my hope ofobtaining an education. I knew that it involved hard work andself-denial, and there was the possibility of failure in the end. Butmy mind was made up. I would not turn back. I need not say that I donot regret that early decision, although I think that I should havemade a successful storekeeper. 

"With my capital of eighty dollars, I began to attend the village highschool, to get my preparation for college. I had only one year to doit in. My money would not last longer than that. I recited in Latin, Greek, and algebra, all on the same day, and for the next forty weeks Istudied harder than I ever had before or have since. At the end of theyear I entered the competitive examination for a scholarship in Princeof Wales College, at Charlottetown, on the Island. I had small hope ofwinning it, my preparation had been so hasty and incomplete. But whenthe result was announced, I found that I had not only won thescholarship from my county, but stood first of all the competitors onthe Island. 

"The scholarship I had won amounted to only sixty dollars a year. Itseems little enough, but I can say now, after nearly thirty years, thatthe winning of it was the greatest success I ever have had. I have hadother rewards, which, to most persons, would seem immeasurably greater, but with this difference: that first success was essential; without itI could not have gone on. The others I could have done without, if ithad been necessary. "

For two years young Schurman attended Prince of Wales College. Helived on his scholarship and what he could earn by keeping books forone of the town storekeepers, spending less than one hundred dollarsduring the entire college year. Afterward, he taught a country schoolfor a year, and then went to Acadia College in Nova Scotia to completehis course. 

One of Mr. Schurman's fellow-students in Acadia says that he wasremarkable chiefly for taking every prize to which he was eligible. Inhis senior year, he learned of a scholarship in the University ofLondon offered for competition by the students of Canadian colleges. The scholarship paid five hundred dollars a year for three years. Theyoung student in Acadia was ambitious to continue his studies inEngland, and saw in this offer his opportunity. He tried theexamination and won the prize, in competition with the brighteststudents in the larger Canadian colleges. 

During the three years in the University of London, Mr. Schurman becamedeeply interested in the study of philosophy, and decided that he hadfound in it his life-work. He was eager to go to Germany to studyunder the great leaders of philosophic thought. A way was opened forhim, through the offer of the Hibbard Society, in London, of atraveling fellowship with two thousand dollars a year. The honor menof the great English Universities like Oxford and Cambridge were amongthe competitors, but the poor country boy from Prince Edward Island wasagain successful, greatly to the surprise of the others. 

At the end of his course in Germany, Mr. Schurman, then a Doctor ofPhilosophy, returned to Acadia College to become a teacher there. Soonafterward, he was called to Dalhousie University, at Halifax, NovaScotia. In 1886, when a chair of philosophy was established atCornell, President White, who had once met the brilliant youngCanadian, called him to that position. Two years later, Dr. Schurmanbecame dean of the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell; and, in 1892, when the president's chair became vacant, he was placed at the head ofthe great university. At that time he was only thirty-eight years ofage. 

A well-known graduate of Amherst college gives the following figures, which to the boy who earnestly wants to go to college are of the mostpertinent interest:

"I entered college with $8. 42 in my pocket. During the year I earned$60; received from the college a scholarship of $60, and an additionalgift of $20; borrowed $190. My current expenses during my freshmanyear were $4. 50 per week. Besides this I spent $10. 55 for books;$23. 45 for clothing; $10. 57 for voluntary subscriptions; $15 forrailroad fares; $8. 24 for sundries. 

"During the next summer I earned $100. I waited on table at a $4boarding-house all of my sophomore year, and earned half board, retaining my old room at $1 per week. The expenses of the sophomoreyear were $394. 50. I earned during the year, including board, $87. 20;received a scholarship of $70, and gifts amounting to $12. 50, andborrowed $150, with all of which I just covered expenses. 

"In my junior year I engaged a nice furnished room at $60 per year, which I agreed to pay for by work about the house. By clerical work, etc. , I earned $37; also earned full board waiting upon table; received$70 for a scholarship; $55 from gifts; borrowed $70, which squared myaccounts for the year, excepting $40 due on tuition. The expenses forthe year, including, of course, the full value of board, room, andtuition, were $478. 76. 

"During the following summer I earned $40. Throughout the senior yearI retained the same room, under the same conditions as the previousyear. I waited on table all the year, and received full board; earnedby clerical work, tutoring, etc. , $40; borrowed $40; secured ascholarship of $70; took a prize of $25; received a gift of $35. Theexpenses of the senior year, $496. 64 were necessarily heavier thanthese of previous years. But having secured a good position as teacherfor the coming year, I was permitted to give my note for the amount Icould not raise, and so was enabled to graduate without financialembarrassment. 

"The total expense for the course was about $1, 708; of which (countingscholarships as earnings) I earned $1, 157. "

Twenty-five of the young men graduated at Yale not long ago paid theirway entirely throughout their courses. It seemed as if they leftuntried no avenue for earning money. Tutoring, copying, newspaperwork, and positions as clerks were well-occupied fields; and painters, drummers, founders, machinists, bicycle agents, and mail carriers werenumbered among the twenty-five. 

In a certain district in Boston there are ten thousand students. Manyof them come from the country and from factory towns. A large numbercome from the farms of the West. Many of these students are paying fortheir education by money earned by their own hands. It is said thatunearned money does not enrich. The money that a student earns for hisown education does enrich his life. It is true gold. 

Every young man or woman should weigh the matter well before concludingthat a college education is out of the question. 

If Henry Wilson, working early and late on a farm with scarcely anyopportunities to go to school, bound out until he was twenty-one foronly a yoke of oxen and six sheep, could manage to read a thousand goodbooks before his time had expired; if the slave Frederick Douglass, ona plantation where it was almost a crime to teach a slave to read, could manage from scraps of paper, posters on barns, and old almanacs, to learn the alphabet and lift himself to eminence; if the poor deafboy Kitto, who made shoes in an alms-house, could become the greatestBiblical scholar of his age, where is the boy or girl to-day, under theAmerican flag, who cannot get a fair education and escape the manydisadvantages of ignorance?

"If a man empties his purse into his head, " says Franklin, "no man cantake it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the bestinterest. "

CHAPTER VIII

YOUR OPPORTUNITY CONFRONTS YOU--WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH IT?

Never before was the opportunity of the educated man so great asto-day. Never before was there such a demand for the trained man, _theman who can do a thing superbly well_. At the door of every vocationis a sign out, "Wanted--a man. " No matter how many millions are out ofemployment, the whole world is hunting for a man who can do things; atrained thinker who can do whatever he undertakes a little better thanit has ever before been done. Everywhere it is the educated, thetrained man, the man whose natural ability has been enlarged, enhancedone hundredfold by superior training, that is wanted. 

On all sides we see men with small minds, but who are well educated, pushing ahead of those who have greater capabilities, but who are onlyhalf educated. A one-talent man, superbly trained, often gets theplace when a man with many untrained or half-trained talents loses it. Never was ignorance placed at such a disadvantage as to-day. 

While the opportunities awaiting the educated man, the collegegraduate, on his entrance into practical life were never before sogreat and so numerous as to-day, so also the dangers and temptationswhich beset him were never before so great, so numerous, so insidious. 

All education which does not elevate, refine, and ennoble its recipientis a curse instead of a blessing. A liberal education only renders arascal more dishonest, more dangerous. _Educated rascality isinfinitely more of a menace to society than ignorant rascality_. 

Every year, thousands of young men and young women graduate full ofambition and hope, full of expectancy, go out from the schools, thecolleges, and the universities, with their diplomas, to face for thefirst time the practical world. 

There is nothing else, perhaps, which the graduate needs to becautioned against more than the money madness which has seized theAmerican people, for nothing else is more fatal to the development ofthe higher, finer instincts and nobler desires. 

Wealth with us multiplies a man's power so tremendously that everythinggravitates toward it. A man's genius, art, what he stands for, ismeasured largely by how many dollars it will bring. "How much can Iget for my picture?" "How much royalty for my book?" "How much can Iget out of my specialty, my profession, my business?" "How can I makethe most money?" or "How can I get rich?" is the great interrogation ofthe century. How will the graduate, the trained young man or womananswer it?

The dollar stands out so strongly in all the undertakings of life thatthe ideal is often lowered or lost, the artistic suffers, the soul'swings are weighted down with gold. The commercial spirit tends to drageverything down to its dead, sordid level. It is the subtle menacewhich threatens to poison the graduate's ambition. _Whichever way youturn, the dollar-mark will swing info your vision_. The money-god, which nearly everybody worships in some form or other, will tempt youon every hand. 

Never before was such pressure brought to bear on the trained youth tosell his brains, to coin his ability into dollars, to prostitute hiseducation, as to-day. The commercial prizes held up to him are sodazzling, so astounding, that it takes a strong, vigorous character toresist their temptation, even when the call in one to do somethingwhich bears little relation to money-making speaks very loudly. 

The song of the money-siren to-day is so persistent, so entrancing, sooverwhelming that it often drowns the still small voice which bids onefollow the call that runs in his blood, that is indicated in the verystructure in his brain. 

Tens of thousands of young people just out of school and college standtiptoe on the threshold of active life, with high ideals and gloriousvisions, full of hope and big with promise, but many of them will veryquickly catch the money contagion; the fatal germ will spread throughtheir whole natures, inoculating their ambition with its vicious virus, and, after a few years, their fair college vision will fade, theiryearnings for something higher will gradually die and be replaced bymaterial, sordid, selfish ideals. 

The most unfortunate day in a youth's career is that one on which hisideals begin to grow dim and his high standards begin to drop; that dayon which is born in him the selfish, money-making germ, which so oftenwarps and wrenches the whole nature out of its legitimate orbit. 

You will need to be constantly on your guard to resist the attack ofthis germ. After you graduate and go out into the world, powerfulinfluences will be operative in your life, tending to deteriorate yourstandards, lower your ideals, and encoarsen you generally. 

When you plunge into the swim of things, you will be constantly throwninto contact with those of lower ideals, who are actuated only bysordid, selfish aims. Then dies the man, the woman in you, unless youare made of superior stuff. 

What a contrast that high and noble thing which the college diplomastands for presents to that which many owners of the diploma stand fora quarter of a century later! It is often difficult to recognize anyrelationship between the two. 

American-Indian graduates, who are so transformed by the inspiring, uplifting influences of the schools and colleges which are educatingthem that they are scarcely recognizable by their own tribes when theyreturn home, very quickly begin to change under the deterioratinginfluences operating upon them when they leave college. They soonbegin to shed their polish, their fine manners, their improvedlanguage, and general culture; the Indian blanket replaces their moderndress, and they gradually drift back into their former barbarism. Theybecome Indians again. 

The influences that will surround you when you leave college or yourspecial training school will be as potent to drag you down as thosethat cause the young Indian to revert to barbarism. The shock you willreceive in dropping from the atmosphere of high ideals and beautifulpromise in which you have lived for four years to that of a verypractical, cold, sordid materiality will be a severe test to yourcharacter, your manhood. 

But the graduate whose training, whose education counts for anythingought to be able to resist the shock, to withstand all temptations. 

The educated man ought to be able to do something better, somethinghigher than merely to put money in his purse. Money-making can notcompare with man-making. There is something infinitely better than tobe a millionaire of money, and that is to be a millionaire of brains, of culture, of helpfulness to one's fellows, a millionaire ofcharacter--a gentleman. 

Whatever degrees you carry from school or college, whatever distinctionyou may acquire in your career, no title will ever mean quite so much, will ever be quite so noble, as that of gentleman. 

"A keen and sure sense of honor, " says Ex-President Eliot, of HarvardUniversity, "is the finest result of college life. " The graduate whohas not acquired this keen and sure sense of honor, this thing thatstamps the gentleman, misses the best thing that a college educationcan impart. 

Your future, fortunate graduate, like a great block of pure whitemarble, stands untouched before you. You hold the chisel andmallet--your ability, your education--in your hands. There issomething in the block for you, and it lives in your ideal. Shall itbe angel or devil? What are your ideals, as you stand tiptoe on thethreshold of active life? Will you smite the block and shatter it intoan unshapely or hideous piece; or will you call out a statue ofusefulness, of grace and beauty, a statue which will tell the unborngenerations the story of a noble life?

Great advantages bring great responsibilities. You can not divorcethem. A liberal education greatly increases a man's obligations. There is coupled with it a responsibility which you can not shirkwithout paying the penalty in a shriveled soul, a stunted mentality, awarped conscience, and a narrow field of usefulness. It is more of adisgrace for a college graduate to grovel, to stoop to mean, lowpractises, than for a man who has not had a liberal education. Theeducated man has gotten a glimpse of power, of grander things, and heis expected to look up, not down, to aspire, not to grovel. 

We cannot help feeling that it is worse for a man to go wrong who hashad all the benefits of a liberal education, than it is for one who hasnot had glimpses of higher things, who has not had similar advantages, because where much is given, much is expected. The world has a rightto expect that wherever there is an educated, trained man people shouldbe able to say of him as Lincoln said of Walt Whitman, "There goes aman. "

The world has a right to expect that the graduate, having once facedthe light and felt its power, will not turn his back on it; that hewill not disgrace his _alma mater_ which has given him his superiorchance in life and opened wide for him the door of opportunity. It hasa right to expect that a man who has learned how to use skilfully thetools of life, will be an artist and not an artisan; that he will notstop growing. Society has a right to look to the collegian to be arefining, uplifting force in his community, an inspiration to those whohave not had his priceless chance; it is justified in expecting that hewill raise the standard of intelligence in his community; that he willillustrate in his personality, his finer culture, the possible glory oflife. It has a right to expect that he will not be a victim of thenarrowing, cramping influence of avarice; that he will not be a slaveof the dollar or stoop to a greedy, grasping career: that he will befree from the sordidness which often characterizes the rich ignoramus. 

If you have the ability and have been given superior opportunities, itsimply means that you have a great commission to do something out ofthe ordinary for your fellows; a special message for humanity. 

If the torch of learning has been put in your hand, its significance isthat you should light up the way for the less fortunate. 

If you have received a message which carries freedom for peopleenslaved by ignorance and bigotry, you have no right to suppress it. Your education means an increased obligation to live your life up tothe level of your gift, your superior opportunity. Your duty is todeliver your message to the world with all the manliness, vigor, andforce you possess. 

What shall we think of a man who has been endowed with godlike gifts, who has had the inestimable advantage of a liberal education, who hasability to ameliorate the hard conditions of his fellows, to help toemancipate them from ignorance and drudgery; what shall we think ofthis man, so divinely endowed, so superbly equipped, who, instead ofusing his education to lift his fellow men, uses it to demoralize, todrag them down; who employs his talents in the book he writes, in thepicture he paints, in his business, whatever it may be, to mislead, todemoralize, to debauch; who uses his light as a decoy to lure hisfellows on the rocks and reefs, instead of as a beacon to guide theminto port?

We imprison the burglar for breaking into our houses and stealing, butwhat shall we do with the educated rascal who uses his trained mind andall his gifts to ruin the very people who look up to him as a guide?

"The greatest thing you can do is to be what you ought to be. "

A great man has said that no man will be content to live a half lifewhen he has once discovered it is a half life, because the other half, the higher half, will haunt him. Your superior training has given youa glimpse of the higher life. Never lose sight of your college vision. Do not permit yourself to be influenced by the maxims of a low, sordidprudence, which will be dinned into your ears wherever you go. Regardthe very suggestion that you shall coin your education, your highideals into dollars; that you lower your standards, prostitute youreducation by the practise of low-down, sordid methods, as an insult. 

Say to yourself, "_If the highest thing in me will not bring success, surely the lowest, the worst, cannot. _"

The mission of the trained man is to show the world a higher, finertype of manhood. 

The world has a right to expect better results from the work of theeducated man; something finer, of a higher grade, and better quality, than from the man who lacks early training, the man who has discoveredonly a small part of himself. "Pretty good, " "Fairly good, " appliedeither to character or to work are bad mottoes for an educated man. You should be able to demonstrate that the man with a diploma haslearned to use the tools of life skilfully; has learned how to focushis faculties so that he can bring the whole man to his task, and not apart of himself. Low ideals, slipshod work, aimless, systemless, half-hearted endeavors, should have no place in your program. 

It is a disgrace for a man with a liberal education to botch his work, demoralize his ideals, discredit his teachers, dishonor the institutionwhich has given him his chance to be a superior man. 

"Keep your eye on the model, don't watch your hands, " is the injunctionof a great master as he walks up and down among his pupils, criticizingtheir work. The trouble with most of us is that we do not keep oureyes on the model; we lose our earlier vision. A liberal educationought to broaden a man's mind so that he will be able to keep his eyealways on the model, the perfect ideal of his work, uninfluenced by thethousand and one petty annoyances, bickerings, misunderstandings, anddiscords which destroy much of the efficiency of narrower, lesscultivated minds. 

The graduate ought to be able to rise above these things so that he canuse all his brain power and energy and fling the weight of his entirebeing into work that is worth while. 

After the withdrawal of a play that has been only a short time on thestage, we often read this comment, "An artistic success, but afinancial failure. " While an education should develop all that ishighest and best in a man, it should also make him a practical man, nota financial failure. Be sure that you possess your knowledge, thatyour knowledge does not possess you. 

The mere possession of a diploma will only hold you up to ridicule, will only make you more conspicuous as a failure, if you cannot bringyour education to a focus and utilize it in a practical way. 

_Knowledge is power only when it can be made available, practical_. 

Only what you can use of your education will benefit you or the world. 

The great question which confronts you in the practical world is "Whatcan you do with what you know?" Can you transmute your knowledge intopower? Your ability to read your Latin diploma is not a test of trueeducation; a stuffed memory does not make an educated man. Theknowledge that can be utilized, that can be translated into power, constitutes the only education worthy of the name. There are thousandsof college-bred men in this country, who are loaded down with knowledgethat they have never been able to utilize, to make available forworking purposes. There is a great difference between absorbingknowledge, making a sponge of one's brain, and transmuting every bit ofknowledge into power, into working capital. 

As the silkworm transmutes the mulberry leaf into satin, so you shouldtransmute your knowledge into practical wisdom. 

There is no situation in life in which the beneficent influence of awell-assimilated education will not make itself felt. 

The college man _ought_ to be a superb figure anywhere. Theconsciousness of being well educated should put one at ease in anysociety. The knowledge that one's mentality has been broadened out bycollege training, that one has discovered his possibilities, not onlyadds wonderfully to one's happiness, but also increases one'sself-confidence immeasurably, and _self-confidence is the lever thatmoves the world_. On every hand we see men of good ability who feelcrippled all their lives and are often mortified, by having to confess, by the poverty of their language, their sordid ideals, their narrowoutlook on life, that they are not educated. The superbly trained mancan go through the world with his head up and feel conscious that he isnot likely to play the ignoramus in any company, or be mortified orpained by ignorance of matters which every well-informed person issupposed to know. This assurance of knowledge multipliesself-confidence and gives infinite satisfaction. 

In other words, a liberal education makes a man think a little more ofhimself, feel a little surer of himself, have more faith in himself, because he has discovered himself. There is also great satisfaction inthe knowledge that one has not neglected the unfoldment and expansionof his mind, that he has not let the impressionable years of youth goby unimproved. 

But the best thing you carry from your _alma mater_ is not what youthere prized most, not your knowledge of the sciences, languages, literature, art; it is something infinitely more sacred, of greatervalue than all these, and that is _your aroused ambition, yourdiscovery of yourself, of your powers, of your possibilities; yourresolution to be a little more of a man, to play a manly part in life, to do the greatest, grandest thing possible to you_. This will meaninfinitely more to you than all you have learned from books or lectures. 

The most precious thing of all, however, if you have made the most ofyour chance, is the uplift, encouragement, inspiration, which you haveabsorbed from your teachers, from your associations; this is theembodiment of the college spirit, the spirit of your _alma mater_; itis that which should make you reach up as well as on, which should makeyou aspire instead of grovel--look up, instead of down. 

The graduate should regard his education as a sacred trust. He shouldlook upon it as a power to be used, not alone for his advancement, orfor his own selfish ends, but for the betterment of all mankind. As amatter of fact, things are so arranged in this world that no one canuse his divine gift for himself alone and get the best out of it. Totry to keep it would be as foolish as for the farmer to hoard his seedcorn in a bin instead of giving it to the earth, for fear he wouldnever get it back. 

The man who withholds the giving of himself to the world, does it athis peril, at the cost of mental and moral penury. 

The way to get the most out of ourselves, or out of life, is not to tryto _sell_ ourselves for the highest possible price but to _give_ourselves, not stingily, meanly, but _royally, magnanimously, to ourfellows_. If the rosebud should try to retain all of its sweetness andbeauty locked within its petals and refuse to give it out, it would belost. It is only by flinging them out to the world that their fullestdevelopment is possible. The man who tries to keep his education, hissuperior advantages for himself, who is always looking out for the mainchance, only shrivels, and strangles the very faculties he woulddevelop. 

The trouble with most of us is that, in our efforts to sell ourselvesfor selfish ends or for the most dollars, we impoverish our own lives, stifle our better natures. 

The graduate should show the world that he has something in him toosacred to be tampered with, something marked "not for sale, " a sacredsomething that bribery cannot touch, that influence cannot buy. Youshould so conduct yourself that every one will see that there issomething in you that would repel as an insult the very suggestion thatyou could be bought or bribed, or influenced to stoop to anything lowor questionable. 

The college man who is cursed with commonness, who gropes along inmediocrity, who lives a shiftless, selfish life, and does not lift uphis head and show that he has made the most of his great privilegesdisgraces the institution that gave him his chance. 

You have not learned the best lesson from your school or college if youhave not discovered the secret of making life a glory instead of asordid grind. When you leave your _alma mater_, my young friend, whatever your vocation, do not allow all that is finest within you, your high ideals and noble purposes to be suffocated, strangled, in theeverlasting scramble for the dollar. Put beauty into your life, do notlet your esthetic faculties, your aspiring instincts, be atrophied inyour efforts to make a living. Do not, as thousands of graduates do, sacrifice your social instincts, your friendships, your good name, forpower or position. 

Whether you make money or lose it, never sell your divine heritage, your good name, for a mess of pottage. Whatever you do, be larger thanyour vocation; never let it be said of you that you succeeded in yourvocation, but failed as a man. 

When William Story, the sculptor, was asked to make a speech at theunveiling of his great statue of George Peabody, in London, he simplypointed to the statue and said, "_That is my speech. _"

So conduct yourself that your life shall need no eulogy in words. Letit be its own eulogy, let your success tell to the world the story of anoble career. However much money you may accumulate, carry yourgreatest wealth with you, in _a clean record, an unsullied reputation_. Then you will not need houses or lands or stocks or bonds to testify toa rich life. 

Never before did an opportunity to render such great service to mankindconfront the educated youth as confronts you to-day. WHAT WILL YOU DOWITH IT?

CHAPTER IX

ROUND BOYS IN SQUARE HOLES

The high prize of life, the crowning fortune of a man, is to be bornwith a bias to some pursuit, which finds him in employment andhappiness. --EMERSON. 

There is hardly a poet, artist, philosopher, or man of sciencementioned in the history of the human intellect, whose genius was notopposed by parents, guardians, or teachers. In these cases Natureseems to have triumphed by direct interposition; to have insisted onher darlings having their rights, and encouraged disobedience, secrecy, falsehood, even flight from home and occasional vagabondism, ratherthan the world should lose what it cost her so much pains toproduce. --E. P. WHIPPLE. 

 I hear a voice you cannot hear, Which says, I must not stay; I see a hand you cannot see, Which beckons me away. TICKELL. 

"James Watt, I never saw such an idle young fellow as you are, " saidhis grandmother; "do take a book and employ yourself usefully. For thelast half-hour you have not spoken a single word. Do you know what youhave been doing all this time? Why, you have taken off and replaced, and taken off again, the teapot lid, and you have held alternately inthe steam, first a saucer and then a spoon, and you have busiedyourself in examining and, collecting together the little drops formedby the condensation of the steam on the surface of the china and thesilver. Now, are you not ashamed to waste your time in thisdisgraceful manner?"

The world has certainly gained much through the old lady's failure totell James how he could employ his time to better advantage!

"But I'm good for something, " pleaded a young man whom a merchant wasabout to discharge for his bluntness. "You are good for nothing as asalesman, " said his employer. "I am sure I can be useful, " said theyouth. "How? Tell me how. " "I don't know, sir, I don't know. " "Nordo I, " said the merchant, laughing at the earnestness of his clerk. "Only don't put me away, sir, don't put me away. Try me at somethingbesides selling. I cannot sell; I know I cannot sell. " "I know that, too, " said the principal; "that is what is wrong. " "But I can makemyself useful somehow, " persisted the young man; "I know I can. " Hewas placed in the counting-house, where his aptitude for figures soonshowed itself, and in a few years he became not only chief cashier inthe large store, but an eminent accountant. 

You cannot look into a cradle and read the secret message traced by adivine hand and wrapped up in that bit of clay, any more than you cansee the North Star in the magnetic needle. God has loaded the needleof that young life so it will point to the star of its own destiny; andthough you may pull it around by artificial advice and unnaturaleducation, and compel it to point to the star which presides overpoetry, art, law, medicine, or whatever your own pet calling is untilyou have wasted years of a precious life, yet, when once free, theneedle flies back to its own star. 

"Rue it as he may, repent it as he often does, " says Robert Waters, "the man of genius is drawn by an irresistible impulse to theoccupation for which he was created. No matter by what difficultiessurrounded, no matter how unpromising the prospect, this occupation isthe only one which he will pursue with interest and pleasure. When hisefforts fail to procure means of subsistence, and he finds himself poorand neglected, he may, like Burns, often look back with a sigh andthink how much better off he would be had he pursued some otheroccupation, but he will stick to his favorite pursuit nevertheless. "

Civilization will mark its highest tide when every man has chosen hisproper work. No man can be ideally successful until he has found hisplace. Like a locomotive, he is strong on the track, but weak anywhereelse. "Like a boat on a river, " says Emerson, "every boy runs againstobstructions on every side but one. On that side all obstruction istaken away, and he sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into aninfinite sea. "

Only a Dickens can write the history of "Boy Slavery, " of boys whoseaspirations and longings have been silenced forever by ignorantparents; of boys persecuted as lazy, stupid, or fickle, simply becausethey were out of their places; of square boys forced into round holes, and oppressed because they did not fit; of boys compelled to pore overdry theological books when the voice within continually cried "Law, ""Medicine, " "Art, " "Science, " or "Business"; of boys tortured becausethey were not enthusiastic in employments which they loathed, andagainst which every fiber of their being was uttering perpetual protest. 

It is often a narrow selfishness in a father which leads him to wishhis son a reproduction of himself. "You are trying to make that boyanother you. One is enough, " said Emerson. John Jacob Astor's fatherwished his son to be his successor as a butcher, but the instinct ofcommercial enterprise was too strong in the future merchant. 

Nature never duplicates men. She breaks the pattern at every birth. The magic combination is never used but once. Frederick the Great wasterribly abused because he had a passion for art and music and did notcare for military drill. His father hated the fine arts and imprisonedhim. He even contemplated killing his son, but his own death placedFrederick on the throne at the age of twenty-eight. This boy, who, because he loved art and music, was thought good for nothing, madePrussia one of the greatest nations of Europe. 

How stupid and clumsy is the blinking eagle at perch, but how keen hisglance, how steady and true his curves, when turning his powerful wingagainst the clear blue sky!

Ignorant parents compelled the boy Arkwright to become a barber'sapprentice, but Nature had locked up in his brain a cunning devicedestined to bless humanity and to do the drudgery of millions ofEngland's poor; so he must needs say "hands off" even to his parents, as Christ said to his mother, "Wist ye not that I must be about myFather's business?"

Galileo was set apart for a physician, but when compelled to studyanatomy and physiology, he would hide his Euclid and Archimedes andstealthily work out the abstruse problems. He was only eighteen whenhe discovered the principle of the pendulum in a lamp left swinging inthe cathedral at Pisa. He invented both the microscope and telescope, enlarging knowledge of the vast and minute alike. 

The parents of Michael Angelo had declared that no son of theirs shouldever follow the discreditable profession of an artist, and evenpunished him for covering the walls and furniture with sketches; butthe fire burning in his breast was kindled by the Divine Artist, andwould not let him rest until he had immortalized himself in thearchitecture of St. Peter's, in the marble of his Moses, and on thewalls of the Sistine Chapel. 

Pascal's father determined that his son should teach the deadlanguages, but the voice of mathematics drowned every other call, haunting the boy until he laid aside his grammar for Euclid. 

The father of Joshua Reynolds rebuked his son for drawing pictures, andwrote on one: "Done by Joshua out of pure idleness. " Yet this "idleboy" became one of the founders of the Royal Academy. 

Turner was intended for a barber in Maiden Lane, but became thegreatest landscape-painter of modern times. 

Claude Lorraine, the painter, was apprenticed to a pastry-cook;Molière, the author, to an upholsterer; and Guido, the famous painterof Aurora, was sent to a music school. 

Schiller was sent to study surgery in the military school at Stuttgart, but in secret he produced his first play, "The Robbers, " the firstperformance of which he had to witness in disguise. The irksomeness ofhis prison-like school so galled him, and his longing for authorship soallured him, that he ventured, penniless, into the inhospitable worldof letters. A kind lady aided him, and soon he produced the twosplendid dramas which made him immortal. 

The physician Handel wished his son to become a lawyer, and so tried todiscourage his fondness for music. But the boy got an old spinet andpracticed on it secretly in a hayloft. When the doctor visited abrother in the service of the Duke of Weisenfelds, he took his son withhim. The boy wandered unobserved to the organ in a chapel, and soonhad a private concert under full blast. The duke happened to hear theperformance, and wondered who could possibly combine so much melodywith so much evident unfamiliarity with the instrument. The boy wasbrought before him, and the duke, instead of blaming him for disturbingthe organ, praised his performance, and persuaded Dr. Handel to let hisson follow his bent. 

Daniel Defoe had been a trader, a soldier, a merchant, a secretary, afactory manager, a commissioner's accountant, an envoy, and an authorof several indifferent books, before he wrote his masterpiece, "Robinson Crusoe. "

Wilson, the ornithologist, failed in five different professions beforehe found his place. 

Erskine spent four years in the navy, and then, in the hope of morerapid promotion, joined the army. After serving more than two years, he one day, out of curiosity, attended a court, in the town where hisregiment was quartered. The presiding judge, an acquaintance, invitedErskine to sit near him, and said that the pleaders at the bar wereamong the most eminent lawyers of Great Britain. Erskine took theirmeasure as they spoke, and believed he could excel them. He at oncebegan the study of law, in which he eventually soon stood alone as thegreatest forensic orator of his country. 

A. T. Stewart studied for the ministry, and became a teacher, before hedrifted into his proper calling as a merchant, through the accident ofhaving lent money to a friend. The latter, with failure imminent, insisted that his creditor should take the shop as the only means ofsecuring the money. 

"Jonathan, " said Mr. Chase, when his son told of having nearly fittedhimself for college, "thou shalt go down to the machine-shop on Mondaymorning. " It was many years before Jonathan escaped from the shop, towork his way up to the position of a man of great influence as a UnitedStates Senator from Rhode Island. 

It has been well said that if God should commission two angels, one tosweep a street crossing, and the other to rule an empire, they couldnot be induced to exchange callings. Not less true is it that he whofeels that God has given him a particular work to do can be happy onlywhen earnestly engaged in its performance. Happy the youth who findsthe place which his dreams have pictured! If he does not fill thatplace, he will not fill any to the satisfaction of himself or others. Nature never lets a man rest until he has found his place. She hauntshim and drives him until all his faculties give their consent and hefalls into his proper niche. A parent might just as well decide thatthe magnetic needle will point to Venus or Jupiter without trying it, as to decide what profession his son shall adopt. 

What a ridiculous exhibition a great truck-horse would make on therace-track; yet this is no more incongruous than the popular idea thatlaw, medicine, and theology are the only desirable professions. Howridiculous, too, for fifty-two per cent. Of our American collegegraduates to study law! How many young men become poor clergymen bytrying to imitate their fathers who were good ones; of poor doctors andlawyers for the same reason! The country is full of men who are out ofplace, "disappointed, soured, ruined, out of office, out of money, outof credit, out of courage, out at elbows, out in the cold. " The factis, nearly every college graduate who succeeds in the true sense of theword, prepares himself in school, but makes himself after he isgraduated. The best thing his teachers have taught him is _how_ tostudy. The moment he is beyond the college walls he ceases to usebooks and helps which do not feed him, and seizes upon those that do. 

[Illustration: Ulysses S. Grant]

We must not jump to the conclusion that because a man has not succeededin what he has really tried to do with all his might, he cannot succeedat anything. Look at a fish floundering on the sand as though he wouldtear himself to pieces. But look again: a huge wave breaks higher upthe beach and covers the unfortunate creature. The moment his finsfeel the water, he is himself again, and darts like a flash through thewaves. His fins mean something now, while before they beat the air andearth in vain, a hindrance instead of a help. 

If you fail after doing your level best, examine the work attempted, and see if it really be in the line of your bent or power ofachievement. Cowper failed as a lawyer. He was so timid that he couldnot plead a case, but he wrote some of our finest poems. Molière foundthat he was not adapted to the work of a lawyer, but he left a greatname in literature. Voltaire and Petrarch abandoned the law, theformer choosing philosophy, the latter, poetry. Cromwell was a farmeruntil forty years old. 

Very few of us, before we reach our teens, show great genius or evenremarkable talent for any line of work or study. The great majority ofboys and girls, even when given all the latitude and longitude heartcould desire, find it very difficult before their fifteenth or evenbefore their twentieth year to decide what to do for a living. Eachknocks at the portals of the mind, demanding a wonderful aptitude forsome definite line of work, but it is not there. That is no reason whythe duty at hand should be put off, or why the labor that naturallyfalls to one's lot should not be done well. Samuel Smiles was trainedto a profession which was not to his taste, yet he practiced it sofaithfully that it helped him to authorship, for which he was wellfitted. 

Fidelity to the work or everyday duties at hand, and a genuine feelingof responsibility to our parents or employers, ourselves, and our God, will eventually bring most of us into the right niches at the propertime. 

Garfield would not have become President if he had not previously beena zealous teacher, a responsible soldier, a conscientious statesman. Neither Lincoln nor Grant started as a baby with a precocity for theWhite House, or an irresistible genius for ruling men. So no oneshould be disappointed because he was not endowed with tremendous giftsin the cradle. His business is to do the best he can wherever his lotmay be cast, and advance at every honorable opportunity in thedirection towards which the inward monitor points. Let duty be theguiding-star, and success will surely be the crown, to the full measureof one's ability and industry. 

What career? What shall my life's work be?

If instinct and heart ask for carpentry, be a carpenter; if formedicine, be a physician. With a firm choice and earnest work, a youngman or woman cannot help but succeed. But if there be no instinct, orif it be weak or faint, one should choose cautiously along the line ofhis best adaptability and opportunity. No one need doubt that theworld has use for him. True success lies in acting well your part, andthis every one can do. Better be a first-rate hod-carrier than asecond-rate anything. 

The world has been very kind to many who were once known as dunces orblockheads, after they have become very successful; but it was verycross to them while they were struggling through discouragement andmisinterpretation. Give every boy and girl a fair chance andreasonable encouragement, and do not condemn them because of even alarge degree of downright stupidity; for many so-calledgood-for-nothing boys, blockheads, numskulls, dullards, or dunces, wereonly boys out of their places, round boys forced into square holes. 

Wellington was considered a dunce by his mother. At Eton he was calleddull, idle, slow, and was about the last boy in school of whom anythingwas expected. He showed no talent, and had no desire to enter thearmy. His industry and perseverance were his only redeemingcharacteristics in the eyes of his parents and teachers. But atforty-six he had defeated the greatest general living, except himself. 

Goldsmith was the laughing-stock of his schoolmasters. He wasgraduated "Wooden Spoon, " a college name for a dunce. He tried toenter a class in surgery, but was rejected. He was driven toliterature. Goldsmith found himself totally unfit for the duties of aphysician; but who else could have written the "Vicar of Wakefield" orthe "Deserted Village"? Dr. Johnson found him very poor and about tobe arrested for debt. He made Goldsmith give him the manuscript of the"Vicar of Wakefield, " sold it to the publishers, and paid the debt. This manuscript made its author famous. 

Robert Clive bore the name of "dunce" and "reprobate" at school, but atthirty-two, with three thousand men, he defeated fifty thousand atPlassey and laid the foundation of the British Empire in India. SirWalter Scott was called a blockhead by his teacher. When Byronhappened to get ahead of his class, the master would say: "Now, Jordie, let me see how soon you will be at the foot again. "

Young Linnaeus was called by his teachers almost a blockhead. Notfinding him fit for the church, his parents sent him to college tostudy medicine. But the silent teacher within, greater and wiser thanall others, led him to the fields; and neither sickness, misfortune, nor poverty could drive him from the study of botany, the choice of hisheart, and he became the greatest botanist of his age. 

Richard B. Sheridan's mother tried in vain to teach him the mostelementary studies. The mother's death aroused slumbering talents, ashas happened in hundreds of cases, and he became one of the mostbrilliant men of his age. 

Samuel Drew was one of the dullest and most listless boys in hisneighborhood, yet after an accident by which he nearly lost his life, and after the death of his brother, he became so studious andindustrious that he could not bear to lose a moment. He read at everymeal, using all the time he could get for self-improvement. He saidthat Paine's "Age of Reason" made him an author, for it was by hisattempt to refute its arguments that he was first known as a strong, vigorous writer. 

It has been well said that no man ever made an ill figure whounderstood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them. 

CHAPTER X

WHAT CAREER?

 Brutes find out where their talents lie; A bear will not attempt to fly, A foundered horse will oft debate Before he tries a five-barred gate. A dog by instinct turns aside Who sees the ditch too deep and wide. But man we find the only creature Who, led by folly, combats nature; Who, when she loudly cries--Forbear! With obstinacy fixes there; And where his genius least inclines, Absurdly bends his whole designs. SWIFT. 

The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which findshim in employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, orbroadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs. --EMERSON. 

Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line oftalent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed; beanything else, and you will be ten thousand times worse thannothing. --SYDNEY SMITH. 

"Every man has got a Fort, " said Artemus Ward. "It's some men's fortto do one thing, and some other men's fort to do another, while thereis numeris shiftless critters goin' round loose whose fort is not to donothin'. 

"Twice I've endevered to do things which they wasn't my Fort. Thefirst time was when I undertook to lick a owdashus cuss who cut a holein my tent and krawld threw. Sez I, 'My jentle sir, go out, or I shallfall onto you putty hevy. ' Sez he, 'Wade in, Old Wax Figgers, 'whereupon I went for him, but he cawt me powerful on the hed and knocktme threw the tent into a cow pastur. He pursood the attack and flungme into a mud puddle. As I aroze and rung out my drencht garmints, Iconcluded fitin was n't my fort. 

"I'le now rize the curtain upon seen 2nd. It is rarely seldum that Iseek consolation in the Flowin Bole. But in a certain town in Injiannyin the Faul of 18--, my orgin grinder got sick with the fever and died. I never felt so ashamed in my life, and I thought I'd hist in a fewswallers of suthin strengthnin. Konsequents was, I histed so much Ididn't zackly know whereabouts I was. I turned my livin' wild beastsof Pray loose into the streets, and split all my wax-works. 

"I then Bet I cood play hoss. So I hitched myself to a kanawl bote, there bein' two other hosses behind and anuther ahead of me. But thehosses bein' onused to such a arrangemunt, begun to kick and squeal andrair up. Konsequents was, I was kicked vilently in the stummuck andback, and presently, I found myself in the kanawl with the otherhosses, kikin and yellin like a tribe of Cusscaroorus savajis. I wasrescood, and as I was bein carried to the tavern on a hemlock bored Ised in a feeble voice, 'Boys, playin' hoss isn't my Fort. '

"_Moral: Never don't do nothin' which isn't your Fort, for ef you doyou'll find yourself splashin' round in the kanawl, figurativelyspeakin. _"

The following advertisement, which appeared day after day in a Westernpaper, did not bring a single reply:--

"Wanted. --Situation by a Practical Printer, who is competent to takecharge of any department in a printing and publishing house. Wouldaccept a professorship in any of the academies. Has no objection toteach ornamental painting and penmanship, geometry, trigonometry, andmany other sciences. Has had some experience as a lay preacher. Wouldhave no objection to form a small class of young ladies and gentlemento instruct them in the higher branches. To a dentist or chiropodisthe would be invaluable; or he would cheerfully accept a position asbass or tenor singer in a choir. "

At length there appeared this addition to the notice:--

"P. S. Will accept an offer to saw and split wood at less than theusual rates. " This secured a situation at once, and the advertisementwas seen no more. 

Your talent is your _call_. Your legitimate destiny speaks in yourcharacter. If you have found your place, your occupation has theconsent of every faculty of your being. 

If possible, choose that occupation which focuses the largest amount ofyour experience and tastes. You will then not only have a congenialvocation, but also will utilize largely your skill and businessknowledge, which is your true capital. 

_Follow your bent_. You cannot long fight successfully against youraspirations. Parents, friends, or misfortune may stifle and suppressthe longings of the heart, by compelling you to perform unwelcometasks; but, like a volcano, the inner fire will burst the crusts whichconfine it and will pour forth its pent-up genius in eloquence, insong, in art, or in some favorite industry. Beware of "a talent whichyou cannot hope to practice in perfection. " Nature hates all botchedand half-finished work, and will pronounce her curse upon it. 

Better be the Napoleon of bootblacks, or the Alexander ofchimney-sweeps, let us say with Matthew Arnold, than a shallow-brainedattorney who, like necessity, knows no law. 

Half the world seems to have found uncongenial occupation, as thoughthe human race had been shaken up together and exchanged places in theoperation. A servant girl is trying to teach, and a natural teacher istending store. Good farmers are murdering the law, while Choates andWebsters are running down farms, each tortured by the consciousness ofunfulfilled destiny. Boys are pining in factories who should bewrestling with Greek and Latin, and hundreds are chafing beneathunnatural loads in college who should be on the farm or before themast. Artists are spreading "daubs" on canvas who should bewhitewashing board fences. Behind counters stand clerks who hate theyard-stick and neglect their work to dream of other occupations. Agood shoemaker writes a few verses for the village paper, his friendscall him a poet, and the last, with which he is familiar, is abandonedfor the pen, which he uses awkwardly. Other shoemakers are cobbling inCongress, while statesmen are pounding shoe-lasts. Laymen aremurdering sermons while Beechers and Whitefields are failing asmerchants, and people are wondering what can be the cause of emptypews. A boy who is always making something with tools is railroadedthrough the university and started on the road to inferiority in one ofthe "three honorable professions. " Real surgeons are handling themeat-saw and cleaver, while butchers are amputating human limbs. Howfortunate that--

 "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, _Rough-hew them how we will. _"

"He that hath a trade, " says Franklin, "hath an estate; and he thathath a calling hath a place of profit and honor. A plowman on his legsis higher than a gentleman on his knees. "

A man's business does more to make him than anything else. It hardenshis muscles, strengthens his body, quickens his blood, sharpens hismind, corrects his judgment, wakes up his inventive genius, puts hiswits to work, starts him on the race of life, arouses his ambition, makes him feel that he is a man and must fill a man's shoes, do a man'swork, bear a man's part in life, and show himself a man in that part. No man feels himself a man who is not doing a man's business. A manwithout employment is not a man. He does not prove by his works thathe is a man. A hundred and fifty pounds of bone and muscle do not makea man. A good cranium full of brains is not a man. The bone andmuscle and brain must know how to do a man's work, think a man'sthoughts, mark out a man's path, and bear a man's weight of characterand duty before they constitute a man. 

Go-at-it-iveness is the first requisite for success. Stick-to-it-iveness is the second. Under ordinary circumstances, andwith practical common sense to guide him, one who has these requisiteswill not fail. 

Don't wait for a higher position or a larger salary. Enlarge theposition you already occupy; put originality of method into it. Fillit as it never was filled before. Be more prompt, more energetic, morethorough, more polite than your predecessor or fellow workmen. Studyyour business, devise new modes of operation, be able to give youremployer points. The art lies not in giving satisfaction merely, notin simply filling your place, but in doing better than was expected, insurprising your employer; and the reward will be a better place and alarger salary. 

When out of work, take the first respectable job that offers, heedingnot the disproportion between your faculties and your task. If you putyour manhood into your labor, you will soon be given something betterto do. 

This question of a right aim in life has become exceedingly perplexingin our complicated age. It is not a difficult problem to solve whenone is the son of a Zulu or the daughter of a Bedouin. The conditionof the savage hardly admits of but one choice; but as one rises higherin the scale of civilization and creeps nearer to the great centers ofactivity, the difficulty of a correct decision increases with itsimportance. In proportion as one is hard pressed in competition is itof the sternest necessity for him to choose the right aim, so as to beable to throw the whole of his energy and enthusiasm into the strugglefor success. The dissipation of strength or hope is fatal toprosperity even in the most attractive field. 

Gladstone says there is a limit to the work that can be got out of ahuman body, or a human brain, and he is a wise man who wastes no energyon pursuits for which he is not fitted. 

"Blessed is he who has found his work, " says Carlyle. "Let him ask noother blessedness. He has a work--a life purpose; he has found it, andwill follow it. "

In choosing an occupation, do not ask yourself how you can make themost money or gain the most notoriety, but choose that work which willcall out all your powers and develop your manhood into the greateststrength and symmetry. Not money, not notoriety, not fame even, butpower is what you want. Manhood is greater than wealth, grander thanfame. Character is greater than any career. Each faculty must beeducated, and any deficiency in its training will appear in whateveryou do. The hand must be educated to be graceful, steady, and strong. The eye must be educated to be alert, discriminating, and microscopic. The heart must be educated to be tender, sympathetic, and true. Thememory must be drilled for years in accuracy, retention, andcomprehensiveness. The world does not demand that you be a lawyer, minister, doctor, farmer, scientist, or merchant; it does not dictatewhat you shall do, but it does require that you be a master in whateveryou undertake. If you are a master in your line, the world willapplaud you and all doors will fly open to you. But it condemns allbotches, abortions, and failures. 

"Whoever is well educated to discharge the duty of a man, " saysRousseau, "cannot be badly prepared to fill any of those offices thathave relation to him. It matters little to me whether my pupils bedesigned for the army, the pulpit, or the bar. Nature has destined usto the offices of human life antecedent to our destination concerningsociety. To live is the profession I would teach him. When I havedone with him, it is true he will be neither a soldier, a lawyer, nor adivine. Let him first be a man. Fortune may remove him from one rankto another as she pleases; he will be always found in his place. "

In the great race of life common sense has the right of way. Wealth, adiploma, a pedigree, talent, genius, without tact and common sense, cutbut a small figure. The incapables and the impracticables, thoughloaded with diplomas and degrees, are left behind. Not what do youknow, or _who_ are you, but _what_ are you, _what can you do_, is theinterrogation of the century. 

George Herbert has well said: "What we are is much more to us than whatwe do. " An aim that carries in it the least element of doubt as to itsjustice or honor or right should be abandoned at once. The art ofdishing up the wrong so as to make it look and taste like the right hasnever been more extensively cultivated than in our day. It is acurious fact that reason will, on pressure, overcome a man's instinctof right. An eminent scientist has said that a man could soon reasonhimself out of the instinct of decency if he would only take pains andwork hard enough. So when a doubtful but attractive future is placedbefore one, there is a great temptation to juggle with the wrong untilit seems the right. Yet any aim that is immoral carries in itself thegerm of certain failure, in the real sense of the word--failure that isphysical and spiritual. 

There is no doubt that every person has a special adaptation for hisown peculiar part in life. A very few--geniuses, we call them--havethis marked in an unusual degree, and very early in life. 

Madame de Staël was engrossed in political philosophy at an age whenother girls are dressing dolls. Mozart, when but four years old, played the clavichord and composed minuets and other pieces stillextant. The little Chalmers, with solemn air and earnest gestures, would preach often from a stool in the nursery. Goethe wrote tragediesat twelve, and Grotius published an able philosophical work before hewas fifteen. Pope "lisped in numbers. " Chatterton wrote good poems ateleven, and Cowley published a volume of poetry in his sixteenth year. Thomas Lawrence and Benjamin West drew likenesses almost as soon asthey could walk. Liszt played in public at twelve. Canova made modelsin clay while a mere child. Bacon exposed the defects of Aristotle'sphilosophy when but sixteen. Napoleon was at the head of armies whenthrowing snowballs at Brienne. 

All these showed their bent while young, and followed it in activelife. But precocity is not common, and, except in rare cases, we mustdiscover the bias in our natures, and not wait for the proclivity tomake itself manifest. When found, it is worth more to us than a veinof gold. 

"_I_ do not forbid you to preach, " said a Bishop to a young clergyman, "but nature does. "

Lowell said: "It is the vain endeavor to make ourselves what we are notthat has strewn history with so many broken purposes, and lives left inthe rough. "

You have not found your place until all your faculties are roused, andyour whole nature consents and approves of the work you are doing; notuntil you are so enthusiastic in it that you take it to bed with you. You may be forced to drudge at uncongenial toil for a time, butemancipate yourself as soon as possible. Carey, the "ConsecratedCobbler, " before he went as a missionary said: "My business is topreach the gospel. I cobble shoes to pay expenses. "

If your vocation be only a humble one, elevate it with more manhoodthan others put into it. Put into it brains and heart and energy andeconomy. Broaden it by originality of methods. Extend it byenterprise and industry. Study it as you would a profession. Learneverything that is to be known about it. Concentrate your facultiesupon it, for the greatest achievements are reserved for the man ofsingle aim, in whom no rival powers divide the empire of the soul. _Better adorn your own than seek another's place_. 

Go to the bottom of your business if you would climb to the top. Nothing is small which concerns your business. Master every detail. This was the secret of A. T. Stewart's and of John Jacob Astor's greatsuccess. They knew everything about their business. 

As love is the only excuse for marriage, and the only thing which willcarry one safely through the troubles and vexations of married life, solove for an occupation is the only thing which will carry one safelyand surely through the troubles which overwhelm ninety-five out ofevery one hundred who choose the life of a merchant, and very many inevery other career. 

A famous Englishman said to his nephew, "Don't choose medicine, for wehave never had a murderer in our family, and the chances are that inyour ignorance you may kill a patient; as to the law, no prudent man iswilling to risk his life or his fortune to a young lawyer, who has notonly no experience, but is generally too conceited to know the risks heincurs for his client, who alone is the loser; therefore, as themistakes of a clergyman in doctrine or advice to his parishionerscannot be clearly determined in this world, I advise you by all meansto enter the church. "

"I felt that I was in the world to do something, and thought I must, "said Whittier, thus giving the secret of his great power. It is theman who must enter law, literature, medicine, the ministry, or anyother of the overstocked professions, who will succeed. His certaincall, that is his love for it, and his fidelity to it, are theimperious factors of his career. If a man enters a profession simplybecause his grandfather made a great name in it, or his mother wantshim to, with no love or adaptability for it, it were far better for himto be a motor-man on an electric car at a dollar and seventy-five centsa day. In the humbler work his intelligence may make him a leader; inthe other career he might do as much harm as a bowlder rolled from itsplace upon a railroad track, a menace to the next express. 

Only a few years ago marriage was the only "sphere" open to girls, andthe single woman had to face the disapproval of her friends. Lessingsaid: "The woman who thinks is like a man who puts on rouge, ridiculous. " Not many years have elapsed since the ambitious woman whoventured to study or write would keep a bit of embroidery at hand tothrow over her book or manuscript when callers entered. Dr. Gregorysaid to his daughters: "If you happen to have any learning, keep it aprofound secret from the men, who generally look with a jealous andmalignant eye on a woman of great parts and a cultivatedunderstanding. " Women who wrote books in those days would deny thecharge as though a public disgrace. 

All this has changed, and what a change it is! As Frances Willardsaid, the greatest discovery of the century is the discovery of woman. We have emancipated her, and are opening countless opportunities forour girls outside of marriage. Formerly only a boy could choose acareer; now his sister can do the same. This freedom is one of thegreatest glories of the twentieth century. But with freedom comesresponsibility, and under these changed conditions every girl shouldhave a definite aim. 

Dr. Hall says that the world has urgent need of "girls who are mother'sright hand; girls who can cuddle the little ones next best to mamma, and smooth out the tangles in the domestic skein when thing's gettwisted; girls whom father takes comfort in for something better thanbeauty, and the big brothers are proud of for something that outranksthe ability to dance or shine in society. Next, we want girls ofsense, --girls who have a standard of their own, regardless ofconventionalities, and are independent enough to live up to it; girlswho simply won't wear a trailing dress on the street to gather upmicrobes and all sorts of defilement; girls who don't wear a high hatto the theater, or lacerate their feet and endanger their health withhigh heels and corsets; girls who will wear what is pretty and becomingand snap their fingers at the dictates of fashion when fashion ishorrid and silly. And we want good girls, --girls who are sweet, rightstraight out from the heart to the lips; innocent and pure and simplegirls, with less knowledge of sin and duplicity and evil-doing attwenty than the pert little schoolgirl of ten has all too often. Andwe want careful girls and prudent girls, who think enough of thegenerous father who toils to maintain them in comfort, and of thegentle mother who denies herself much that they may have so many prettythings, to count the cost and draw the line between the essentials andnon-essentials; girls who strive to save and not to spend; girls whoare unselfish and eager to be a joy and a comfort in the home ratherthan an expense and a useless burden. We want girls withhearts, --girls who are full of tenderness and sympathy, with tears thatflow for other people's ills, and smiles that light outward their ownbeautiful thoughts. We have lots of clever girls, and brilliant girls, and witty girls. Give us a consignment of jolly girls, warm-heartedand impulsive girls; kind and entertaining to their own folks, and withlittle desire to shine in the garish world. With a few such girlsscattered around, life would freshen up for all of us, as the weatherdoes under the spell of summer showers. "

 "They talk about a woman's sphere, As though it had a limit; There's not a place in earth or heaven, There's not a task to mankind given, There's not a blessing or a woe, There's not a whisper, Yes or No, There's not a life, or death, or birth, That has a feather's weight of worth, Without a woman in it. "

"Do that which is assigned you, " says Emerson, "and you cannot hope toomuch or dare too much. There is at this moment for you an utterancebrave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias, or trowel ofthe Egyptians, or the pen of Moses or Dante, but different from allthese. "

"The best way for a young man to begin, who is without friends orinfluence, " said Russell Sage, "is, first, by getting a position;second, keeping his mouth shut; third, observing; fourth, beingfaithful; fifth, making his employer think he would be lost in a fogwithout him; and sixth, being polite. "

"Close application, integrity, attention to details, discreetadvertising, " are given as the four steps to success by John Wanamaker, whose motto is, "Do the next thing. "

Whatever you do in life, be greater than your calling. Most peoplelook upon an occupation or calling as a mere expedient for earning aliving. What a mean, narrow view to take of what was intended for thegreat school of life, the great man developer, the character-builder;that which should broaden, deepen, heighten, and round out intosymmetry, harmony, and beauty all the God-given faculties within us!How we shrink from the task and evade the lessons which were intendedfor the unfolding of life's great possibilities into usefulness andpower, as the sun unfolds into beauty and fragrance the petals of theflower!

 I am glad to think I am not bound to make the world go round; But only to discover and to do, With cheerful heart, the work that God appoints. JEAN INGELOW. 

 "'What shall I do to be forever known?' Thy duty ever! 'This did full many who yet sleep all unknown, '-- Oh, never, never! Think'st thou, perchance, that they remain unknown Whom thou know'st not? By angel trumps in heaven their praise is blown, Divine their lot. "

CHAPTER XI

CHOOSING A VOCATION

Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anythingelse, and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing. --SYDNEYSMITH. 

"Many a man pays for his success with a slice of his constitution. "

No man struggles perpetually and victoriously against his owncharacter; and one of the first principles of success in life is so toregulate our career as rather to turn our physical constitution andnatural inclinations to good account than to endeavor to counteract theone or oppose the other. --BULWER. 

He that hath a trade hath an estate. --FRANKLIN. 

Nature fits all her children with something to do. --LOWELL. 

As occupations and professions have a powerful influence upon thelength of human life, the youth should first ascertain whether thevocation he thinks of choosing is a healthy one. Statesmen, judges, and clergymen are noted for their longevity. They are not swept intothe great business vortex, where the friction and raspings of sharpcompetition whittle life away at a fearful rate. Astronomers, whocontemplate vast systems, moving through enormous distances, areexceptionally long lived, --as Herschel and Humboldt. Philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians, as Galileo, Bacon, Newton, Euler, Dalton, in fact, those who have dwelt upon the exact sciences, seem tohave escaped many of the ills from which humanity suffers. Greatstudents of natural history have also, as a rule, lived long and happylives. Of fourteen members of a noted historical society in England, who died in 1870, two were over ninety, five over eighty, and two overseventy. 

The occupation of the mind has a great influence upon the health of thebody. 

There is no employment so dangerous and destructive to life but plentyof human beings can be found to engage in it. Of all the instancesthat can be given of recklessness of life, there is none which exceedsthat of the workmen employed in what is called dry-pointing--thegrinding of needles and of table forks. The fine steel dust which theybreathe brings on a painful disease, of which they are almost sure todie before they are forty. Yet not only are men tempted by high wagesto engage in this employment, but they resist to the utmost allcontrivances devised for diminishing the danger, through fear that suchthings would cause more workmen to offer themselves and thus lowerwages. Many physicians have investigated the effects of work in thenumerous match factories in France upon the health of the employees, and all agree that rapid destruction of the teeth, decay or necrosis ofthe jawbone, bronchitis, and other diseases result. 

We will probably find more old men on farms than elsewhere. There aremany reasons why farmers should live longer than persons residing incities or than those engaged in other occupations. Aside from thepurer air, the outdoor exercise, both conducive to a good appetite andsound sleep, which comparatively few in cities enjoy, they are freefrom the friction, harassing cares, anxieties, and the keen competitionincident to city life. On the other hand, there are some greatdrawbacks and some enemies to longevity, even on the farm. Man doesnot live by bread alone. The mind is by far the greatest factor inmaintaining the body in a healthy condition. The social life of thecity, the great opportunities afforded the mind for feeding uponlibraries and lectures, great sermons, and constant association withother minds, the great variety of amusements compensate largely for theloss of many of the advantages of farm life. In spite of the greattemperance and immunity from things which corrode, whittle, and raspaway life in the cities, farmers in many places do not live so long asscientists and some other professional men. 

There is no doubt that aspiration and success tend to prolong life. Prosperity tends to longevity, if we do not wear life away or burn itout in the feverish pursuit of wealth. Thomas W. Higginson made a listof thirty of the most noted preachers of the last century, and foundthat their average length of life was sixty-nine years. 

Among miners in some sections over six hundred out of a thousand diefrom consumption. In the prisons of Europe, where the fatal effects ofbad air and filth are shown, over sixty-one per cent. Of the deaths arefrom tuberculosis. In Bavarian monasteries, fifty per cent. Of thosewho enter in good health die of consumption, and in the Prussianprisons it is almost the same. The effect of bad air, filth, and badfood is shown by the fact that the death-rate among these classes, between the ages of twenty and forty, is five times that of the generalpopulation of the same age. In New York City, over one-fifth of allthe deaths of persons over twenty are from this cause. In large citiesin Europe the percentage is often still greater. Of one thousanddeaths from all causes, on the average, one hundred and three farmersdie of pulmonary tuberculosis, one hundred and eight fishermen, onehundred and twenty-one gardeners, one hundred and twenty-two farmlaborers, one hundred and sixty-seven grocers, two hundred and ninetailors, three hundred and one dry-goods dealers, and four hundred andsixty-one compositors, --nearly one-half. 

According to a long series of investigations by Drs. Benoysten andLombard into occupations or trades where workers must inhale dust, itappears that mineral dust is the most detrimental to health, animaldust ranking next, and vegetable dust third. 

In choosing an occupation, cleanliness, pure air, sunlight, and freedomfrom corroding dust and poisonous gases are of the greatest importance. A man who would sell a year of his life for any amount of money wouldbe considered insane, and yet we deliberately choose occupations andvocations which statistics and physicians tell us will be practicallysure to cut off from five to twenty-five, thirty, or even forty yearsof our lives, and are seemingly perfectly indifferent to our fate. 

There is danger in a calling which requires great expenditure ofvitality at long, irregular intervals. He who is not regularly, orsystematically employed incurs perpetual risk. "Of the thirty-twoall-round athletes in a New York club not long ago, " said a physician, "three are dead of consumption, five have to wear trusses, four or fiveare lop-shouldered, and three have catarrh and partial deafness. " Dr. Patten, chief surgeon at the National Soldiers' Home at Dayton, Ohio, says that "of the five thousand soldiers in that institution fullyeighty per cent. Are suffering from heart disease in one form oranother, due to the forced physical exertions of the campaigns. "

Man's faculties and functions are so interrelated that whatever affectsone affects all. Athletes who over-develop the muscular system do soat the expense of the physical, mental, and moral well-being. It is alaw of nature that the overdevelopment of any function or faculty, forcing or straining it, tends not only to ruin it, but also to causeinjurious reactions on every other faculty and function. 

Vigorous thought must come from a fresh brain. We cannot expect nerve, snap, robustness and vigor, sprightliness and elasticity, in thespeech, in the book, or in the essay, from an exhausted, jaded brain. The brain is one of the last organs of the body to reach maturity (atabout the age of twenty-eight), and should never be overworked, especially in youth. The whole future of a man is often ruined byover-straining the brain in school. 

Brain-workers cannot do good, effective work in one line many hours aday. When the brain is weary, when it begins to lose its elasticityand freshness, there will be the same lack of tonicity and strength inthe brain product. Some men often do a vast amount of literary work inentirely different lines during their spare hours. 

Cessation of brain activity does not necessarily constitute brain rest, as most great thinkers know. The men who accomplish the mostbrain-work, sooner or later--usually later, unfortunately--learn togive rest to one set of faculties and use another, as interest beginsto flag and a sense of weariness comes. In this way they have beenenabled to astonish the world by their mental achievements, which isvery largely a matter of skill in exercising alternate sets offaculties, allowing rest to some while giving healthy exercise toothers. The continual use of one set of faculties by an ambitiousworker will soon bring him to grief. No set of brain cells canpossibly set free more brain force in the combustion of thought than isstored up in them. The tired brain must have rest, or nervousexhaustion, brain fever, or even softening of the brain is liable tofollow. 

As a rule, physical vigor is the condition of a great career. Whatwould Gladstone have accomplished with a weak, puny physique? Headdresses an audience at Corfu in Greek, and another at Florence inItalian. A little later he converses at ease with Bismarck in German, or talks fluent French in Paris, or piles up argument on argument inEnglish for hours in Parliament. There are families that have"clutched success and kept it through generations from the simple factof a splendid physical organization handed down from one generation toanother. "

[Illustration: William Ewart Gladstone]

All occupations that enervate, paralyze, or destroy body or soul shouldbe avoided. Our manufacturing interests too often give little thoughtto the employed; the article to be made is generally the only objectconsidered. They do not care if a man spends the whole of his lifeupon the head of a pin, or in making a screw in a watch factory. Theytake no notice of the occupations that ruin, or the phosphorus, thedust, the arsenic that destroys the health, that shortens the lives ofmany workers; of the cramped condition of the body which createsdeformity. 

The moment we compel those we employ to do work that demoralizes themor does not tend to elevate or lift them, we are forcing them intoservice worse than useless. "If we induce painters to work in fadingcolors, or architects with rotten stone, or contractors to constructbuildings with imperfect materials, we are forcing our Michael Angelosto carve in snow. "

Ruskin says that the tendency of the age is to expend its genius inperishable art, _as if it were a triumph to burn its thoughts away inbonfires_. Is the work you compel others to do useful to yourself andto society? If you employ a seamstress to make four or five or sixbeautiful flounces for your ball dress, flounces which will only clotheyourself, and which you will wear at only one ball, you are employingyour money selfishly. Do not confuse covetousness with benevolence, nor cheat yourself into thinking that all the finery you can wear is somuch put into the hungry mouths of those beneath you. It is what thosewho stand shivering on the street, forming a line to see you step outof your carriage, know it to be. These fine dresses do not mean thatso much has been put into their mouths, but _that so much has beentaken out of their mouths_. 

Select a clean, useful, honorable occupation. If there is any doubt onthis point, abandon it at once, for _familiarity with a bad businesswill make it seem good_. Choose a business that has expansiveness init. Some kinds of business not even a J. Pierpont Morgan could makerespectable. Choose an occupation which will develop you; which willelevate you; which will give you a chance for self-improvement andpromotion. You may not make quite so much money, but you will be moreof a man, and _manhood is above all riches, overtops all titles_, and_character is greater than any career_. If possible avoid occupationswhich compel you to work in a cramped position, or where you must workat night and on Sundays. Don't try to justify yourself on the groundthat somebody must do this kind of work. Let "somebody, " not yourself, take the responsibility. Aside from the right and wrong of the thing, it is injurious to the health to work seven days in the week, to workat night when Nature intended you to sleep, or to sleep in the daytimewhen she intended you to work. 

Many a man has dwarfed his manhood, cramped his intellect, crushed hisaspiration, blunted his finer sensibilities, in some mean, narrowoccupation just because there was money in it. 

"Study yourself, " says Longfellow, "and most of all, note well whereinkind nature meant you to excel. "

Dr. Matthews says that "to no other cause, perhaps, is failure in lifeso frequently to be traced as to a mistaken calling. " We can oftenfind out by hard knocks and repeated failures what we can not do beforewhat we can do. This negative process of eliminating the doubtfulchances is often the only way of attaining to the positive conclusion. 

How many men have been made ridiculous for life by choosing law ormedicine or theology, simply because they are "honorable professions"!These men might have been respectable farmers or merchants, but are"nobodies" in such vocations. The very glory of the profession whichthey thought would make them shining lights simply renders moreconspicuous their incapacity. 

Thousands of youths receive an education that fits them for aprofession which they have not the means or inclination to follow, andthat unfits them for the conditions of life to which they were born. Unsuccessful students with a smattering of everything are raised asmuch above their original condition as if they were successful. Alarge portion of Paris cabmen are unsuccessful students in theology andother professions and also unfrocked priests. They are very bad cabmen. 

 "Tompkins forsakes his last and awl For literary squabbles; Styles himself poet; but his trade Remains the same, --he cobbles. "

Don't choose a profession or occupation because your father, or uncle, or brother is in it. Don't choose a business because you inherit it, or because parents or friends want you to follow it. Don't choose itbecause others have made fortunes in it. Don't choose it because it isconsidered the "proper thing" and a "genteel" business. The mania fora "genteel" occupation, for a "soft job" which eliminates drudgery, thorns, hardships, and all disagreeable things, and one which can belearned with very little effort, ruins many a youth. 

When we try to do that for which we are unfitted we are not workingalong the line of our strength, but of our weakness; our will power andenthusiasm become demoralized; we do half work, botched work, loseconfidence in ourselves, and conclude that we are dunces because wecannot accomplish what others do; the whole tone of life is demoralizedand lowered because we are out of place. 

How it shortens the road to success to make a wise choice of one'soccupation early, to be started on the road of a proper career whileyoung, full of hope, while the animal spirits are high, and enthusiasmis vigorous; to feel that every step we take, that every day's work wedo, that every blow we strike helps to broaden, deepen, and enrich life!

Those who fail are, as a rule, those who are out of their places. _Aman out of his place is but half a man; his very nature is perverted_. He is working against his nature, rowing against the current. When hisstrength is exhausted he will float down the stream. A man can notsucceed when his whole nature is entering its perpetual protest againsthis occupation. To succeed, his vocation must have the consent of allhis faculties; they must be in harmony with his purpose. 

Has a young man a right to choose an occupation which will only callinto play his lower and inferior qualities, as cunning, deceit, lettingall his nobler qualities shrivel and die? Has he a right to select avocation that will develop only the beast within him instead of theman? which will call out the bulldog qualities only, the qualitieswhich overreach and grasp, the qualities which get and never give, which develop long-headedness only, while his higher self atrophies?

The best way to choose an occupation is to ask yourself the question, "What would my government do with me if it were to considerscientifically my qualifications and adaptations, and place me to thebest possible advantage for all the people?" The Norwegian precept isa good one: "Give thyself wholly to thy fellow-men; they will give theeback soon enough. " We can do the most possible for ourselves when weare in a position where we can do the most possible for others. _Weare doing the most for ourselves and for others when we are in aposition which calls into play in the highest possible way the greatestnumber of our best faculties; in other words, we are succeeding bestfor ourselves when we are succeeding best for others_. 

The time will come when there will be institutions for determining thenatural bent of the boy and girl; where men of large experience andclose observation will study the natural inclination of the youth, helphim to find where his greatest strength lies and how to use it to thebest advantage. Even if we take for granted what is not true, thatevery youth will sooner or later discover the line of his greateststrength so that he may get his living by his strong points rather thanby his weak ones, the discovery is often made so late in life thatgreat success is practically impossible. Such institutions would helpboys and girls to start in their proper careers early in life; and _anearly choice shortens the way_. Can anything be more important tohuman beings than a start in life in the right direction, where evensmall effort will count for more in the race than the greatesteffort--and a life of drudgery--in the wrong direction? A man isseldom unsuccessful, unhappy, or vicious when he is in his place. 

After once choosing your occupation, however, never look backward;stick to it with all the tenacity you can muster. Let nothing temptyou or swerve you a hair's breadth from your aim, and you will win. Donot let the thorns which appear in every vocation, or temporarydespondency or disappointment, shake your purpose. You will neversucceed while smarting under the drudgery of your occupation, if youare constantly haunted with the idea that you could succeed better insomething else. Great tenacity of purpose is the only thing that willcarry you over the hard places which appear in every career to ultimatetriumph. This determination, or fixity of purpose, has a great moralbearing upon our success, for it leads others to feel confidence in us, and this is everything. It gives credit and moral support in athousand ways. People always believe in a man with a fixed purpose, and will help him twice as quickly as one who is loosely orindifferently attached to his vocation, and liable at any time to makea change, or to fail. Everybody knows that determined men are notlikely to fail. They carry in their very pluck, grit, anddetermination the conviction and assurance of success. 

The world does not dictate _what_ you shall do, but it does demand thatyou do _something_, and that you shall be a king in your line. Thereis no grander sight than that of a young man or woman in the rightplace struggling with might and main to make the most of the stuff atcommand, determined that not a faculty or power shall run to waste. Not money, not position, but power is what we want; and character isgreater than any occupation or profession. 

"Do not, I beseech you, " said Garfield, "be content to enter on anybusiness that does not require and compel constant intellectualgrowth. " Choose an occupation that is refining and elevating; anoccupation that you will be proud of; an occupation that will give youtime for self-culture and self-elevation; an occupation that willenlarge and expand your manhood and make you a better citizen, a betterman. 

Power and constant growth toward a higher life are the great end ofhuman existence. Your calling should be the great school of life, thegreat man-developer, character-builder, that which should broaden, deepen, and round out into symmetry, harmony, and beauty, all theGod-given faculties within you. 

But whatever you do be greater than your calling; let your manhoodovertop your position, your wealth, your occupation, your title. A manmust work hard and study hard to counteract the narrowing, hardeningtendency of his occupation. Said Goldsmith, --

 Burke, born for the universe, narrowed his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind. 

"Constant engagement in traffic and barter has no elevating influence, "says Lyndall. "The endeavor to obtain the upper hand of those withwhom we have to deal, to make good bargains, the higgling and scheming, and the thousand petty artifices, which in these days of sterncompetition are unscrupulously resorted to, tend to narrow the sphereand to lessen the strength of the intellect, and, at the same time, thedelicacy of the moral sense. "

Choose upward, study the men in the vocation you think of adopting. Does it elevate those who follow it? Are they broad, liberal, intelligent men? Or have they become mere appendages of theirprofession, living in a rut with no standing in the community, and ofno use to it? Don't think you will be the great exception, and canenter a questionable vocation without becoming a creature of it. Inspite of all your determination and will power to the contrary, youroccupation, from the very law of association and habit, will seize youas in a vise, will mold you, shape you, fashion you, and stamp itsinevitable impress upon you. How frequently do we see bright, open-hearted, generous young men come out of college with high hopesand lofty aims, enter a doubtful vocation, and in a few years return tocollege commencement so changed that they are scarcely recognized. Theonce broad, noble features have become contracted and narrowed. Theman has become grasping, avaricious, stingy, mean, hard. Is itpossible, we ask, that a few years could so change a magnanimous andgenerous youth?

Go to the bottom if you would get to the top. Be master of yourcalling in all its details. Nothing is small which concerns yourbusiness. 

Thousands of men who have been failures in life have done drudgeryenough in half a dozen different occupations to have enabled them toreach great success, if their efforts had all been expended in onedirection. That mechanic is a failure who starts out to build anengine, but does not _quite_ accomplish it, and shifts into some otheroccupation where perhaps he will almost succeed, but stops just shortof the point of proficiency in his acquisition and so fails again. Theworld is full of people who are "almost a success. " They stop justthis side of success. Their courage oozes out just before they becomeexpert. How many of us have acquisitions which remain permanentlyunavailable because not carried quite to the point of skill? How manypeople "almost know a language or two, " which they can neither writenor speak; a science or two whose elements they have not quiteacquired; an art or two partially mastered, but which they can notpractice with satisfaction or profit! The habit of desultoriness, which has been acquired by allowing yourself to abandon a half-finishedwork, more than balances any little skill gained in one vocation whichmight possibly be of use later. 

Beware of that frequently fatal gift, versatility. Many a personmisses being a great man by splitting into two middling ones. Universality is the _ignis fatuus_ which has deluded to ruin many apromising mind. In attempting to gain a knowledge of half a hundredsubjects it has mastered none. "The jack-of-all-trades, " says one ofthe foremost manufacturers of this country, "had a chance in mygeneration. In this he has none. "

"The measure of a man's learning will be the amount of his voluntaryignorance, " said Thoreau. If we go into a factory where the mariner'scompass is made we can see the needles before they are magnetized, theywill point in any direction. But when they have been applied to themagnet and received its peculiar power, from that moment they point tothe north, and are true to the pole ever after. So man never pointssteadily in any direction until he has been polarized by a great masterpurpose. 

Give your life, your energy, your enthusiasm, all to the highest workof which you are capable. Canon Farrar said, "There is only one realfailure in life possible, and that is, not to be true to the best oneknows. "

 "'What must I do to be forever known?' Thy duty ever. "

 Who does the best his circumstance allows, Does well, acts nobly, angels could do no more. YOUNG. 

"Whoever can make two ears of corn, two blades of grass to grow upon aspot of ground where only one grew before, " says Swift, "would deservebetter of mankind and do more essential service to his country than thewhole race of politicians put together. "

CHAPTER XII

CONCENTRATED ENERGY

This one thing I do. --ST. PAUL. 

The one prudence in life is concentration; the one evil is dissipation;and it makes no difference whether our dissipations are coarse or fine. . . . Everything is good which takes away one plaything and delusionmore, and sends us home to add one stroke of faithful work. --EMERSON. 

 The man who seeks one thing in life, and but one, May hope to achieve it before life be done; But he who seeks all things, wherever he goes, Only reaps from the hopes which around him he sows, A harvest of barren regrets. OWEN MEREDITH. 

The longer I live, the more deeply am I convinced that that which makesthe difference between one man and another--between the weak andpowerful, the great and insignificant, is energy--invincibledetermination--a purpose once formed, and then death orvictory. --FOWELL BUXTON. 

"There was not enough room for us all in Frankfort, " said Nathan MayerRothschild, in speaking of himself and his four brothers. "I dealt inEnglish goods. One great trader came there, who had the market tohimself: he was quite the great man, and did us a favor if he sold usgoods. Somehow I offended him, and he refused to show me his patterns. This was on a Tuesday. I said to my father, 'I will go to England. 'On Thursday I started. The nearer I got to England, the cheaper goodswere. As soon as I got to Manchester, I laid out all my money, thingswere so cheap, and I made a good profit. "

"I hope, " said a listener, "that your children are not too fond ofmoney and business to the exclusion of more important things. I amsure you would not wish that. "

"I am sure I would wish that, " said Rothschild; "I wish them to givemind, and soul, and heart, and body, and everything to business; thatis the way to be happy. " "Stick to one business, young man, " he added, addressing a young brewer; "stick to your brewery, and you may be thegreat brewer of London. But be a brewer, and a banker, and a merchant, and a manufacturer, and you will soon be in the Gazette. "

Not many things indifferently, but one thing supremely, is the demandof the hour. He who scatters his efforts in this intense, concentratedage, cannot hope to succeed. 

"Goods removed, messages taken, carpets beaten, and poetry composed onany subject, " was the sign of a man in London who was not verysuccessful at any of these lines of work, and reminds one of MonsieurKenard, of Paris, "a public scribe, who digests accounts, explains thelanguage of flowers, and sells fried potatoes. "

The great difference between those who succeed and those who fail doesnot consist in the amount of work done by each, but in the amount ofintelligent work. Many of those who fail most ignominiously do enoughto achieve grand success; but they labor at haphazard, building up withone hand only to tear down with the other. They do not graspcircumstances and change them into opportunities. They have no facultyof turning honest defeats into telling victories. With ability enough, and time in abundance, --the warp and woof of success, --they are foreverthrowing back and forth an empty shuttle, and the real web of life isnever woven. 

If you ask one of them to state his aim and purpose in life, he willsay: "I hardly know yet for what I am best adapted, but I am a thoroughbeliever in genuine hard work, and I am determined to dig early andlate all my life, and I know I shall come across something--eithergold, silver, or at least iron. " I say most emphatically, no. Wouldan intelligent man dig up a whole continent to find its veins of silverand gold? The man who is forever looking about to see what he can findnever finds anything. If we look for nothing in particular, we findjust that and no more. We find what we seek with all our heart. Thebee is not the only insect that visits the flower, but it is the onlyone that carries honey away. It matters not how rich the materials wehave gleaned from the years of our study and toil in youth, if we goout into life with no well-defined idea of our future work, there is nohappy conjunction of circumstances that will arrange them into animposing structure, and give it magnificent proportions. 

"What a immense power over the life, " says Elizabeth Stuart PhelpsWard, "is the power of possessing distinct aims. The voice, the dress, the look, the very motions of a person, define and alter when he or shebegins to live for a reason. I fancy that I can select, in a crowdedstreet, the busy, blessed women who support themselves. They carrythemselves with an air of conscious self-respect and self-content, which a shabby alpaca cannot hide, nor a bonnet of silk enhance, noreven sickness nor exhaustion quite drag out. "

It is said that the wind never blows fair for that sailor who knows notto what port he is bound. 

"The weakest living creature, " says Carlyle, "by concentrating hispowers on a single object, can accomplish something; whereas thestrongest, by dispersing his over many, may fail to accomplishanything. The drop, by continually falling, bores its passage throughthe hardest rock. The hasty torrent rushes over it with hideous uproarand leaves no trace behind. "

"When I was young I used to think it was thunder that killed men, " saida shrewd preacher; "but as I grew older, I found it was lightning. SoI resolved to thunder less, and lighten more. "

The man who knows one thing, and can do it better than anybody else, even if it only be the art of raising turnips, receives the crown hemerits. If he raises the best turnips by reason of concentrating allhis energy to that end, he is a benefactor to the race, and isrecognized as such. 

If a salamander be cut in two, the front part will run forward and theother backward. Such is the progress of him who divides his purpose. Success is jealous of scattered energies. 

No one can pursue a worthy object steadily and persistently with allthe powers of his mind, and yet make his life a failure. You can'tthrow a tallow candle through the side of a tent, but you can shoot itthrough an oak board. Melt a charge of shot into a bullet, and it canbe fired through the bodies of four men. Focus the rays of the sun inwinter, and you can kindle a fire with ease. 

The giants of the race have been men of concentration, who have strucksledgehammer blows in one place until they have accomplished theirpurpose. The successful men of to-day are men of one overmasteringidea, one unwavering aim, men of single and intense purpose. "Scatteration" is the curse of American business life. Too many arelike Douglas Jerrold's friend, who could converse in twenty-fourlanguages, but had no ideas to express in any one of them. 

"The only valuable kind of study, " said Sydney Smith, "is to read soheartily that dinner-time comes two hours before you expected it; tosit with your Livy before you and hear the geese cackling that savedthe Capitol, and to see with your own eyes the Carthaginian sutlersgathering up the rings of the Roman knights after the battle of Cannae, and heaping them into bushels, and to be so intimately present at theactions you are reading of, that when anybody knocks at the door itwill take you two or three seconds to determine whether you are in yourown study or on the plains of Lombardy, looking at Hannibal'sweather-beaten face and admiring the splendor of his single eye. "

"The one serviceable, safe, certain, remunerative, attainable qualityin every study and pursuit is the quality of attention, " said CharlesDickens. "My own invention, or imagination, such as it is, I can mosttruthfully assure you, would never have served me as it has, but forthe habit of commonplace, humble, patient, daily, toiling, drudgingattention. " When asked on another occasion the secret of his success, he said: "I never put one hand to anything on which I could throw mywhole self. " "Be a whole man at everything, " wrote Joseph Gurney tohis son, "a whole man at study, in work, and in play. "

_Don't dally with your purpose_. 

"I go at what I am about, " said Charles Kingsley, "as if there wasnothing else in the world for the time being. That's the secret of allhard-working men; but most of them can't carry it into theiramusements. "

Many a man fails to become a great man by splitting into several smallones, choosing to be a tolerable Jack-of-all-trades rather than to bean unrivaled specialist. 

"Many persons seeing me so much engaged in active life, " said EdwardBulwer Lytton, "and as much about the world as if I had never been astudent, have said to me, 'When do you get time to write all yourbooks? How on earth do you contrive to do so much work?' I shallsurprise you by the answer I made. The answer is this--'I contrive todo so much by never doing too much at a time. A man to get throughwork well must not overwork himself; or, if he do too much to-day, thereaction of fatigue will come, and he will be obliged to do too littleto-morrow. Now, since I began really and earnestly to study, which wasnot till I had left college and was actually in the world, I mayperhaps say that I have gone through as large a course of generalreading as most men of my time. I have traveled much and I have seenmuch; I have mixed much in politics, and in the various business oflife; and in addition to all this, I have published somewhere aboutsixty volumes, some upon subjects requiring much special research. Andwhat time do you think, as a general rule, I have devoted to study, toreading and writing? Not more than three hours a day; and, whenParliament is sitting, not always that. But then, during these threehours, I have given my whole attention to what I was about. '"

S. T. Coleridge possessed marvelous powers of mind, but he had nodefinite purpose; he lived in an atmosphere of mental dissipation whichconsumed his energy, exhausted his stamina, and his life was in manyrespects a miserable failure. He lived in dreams and died in reverie. He was continually forming plans and resolutions, but to the day of hisdeath they remained simply resolutions and plans. 

He was always just going to do something, but never did it. "Coleridgeis dead, " wrote Charles Lamb to a friend, "and is said to have leftbehind him above forty thousand treatises on metaphysics anddivinity--not one of them complete!"

Every great man has become great, every successful man has succeeded, in proportion as he has confined his powers to one particular channel. 

Hogarth would rivet his attention upon a face and study it until it wasphotographed upon his memory, when he could reproduce it at will. Hestudied and examined each object as eagerly as though he would neverhave a chance to see it again, and this habit of close observationenabled him to develop his work with marvelous detail. The very modesof thought of the time in which he lived were reflected from his works. He was not a man of great education or culture, except in his power ofobservation. 

With an immense procession passing up Broadway, the streets lined withpeople, and bands playing lustily, Horace Greeley would sit upon thesteps of the Astor House, use the top of his hat for a desk, and writean editorial for the "New York Tribune" which would be quoted far andwide. 

Offended by a pungent article, a gentleman called at the "Tribune"office and inquired for the editor. He was shown into a littleseven-by-nine sanctum, where Greeley, with his head close down to hispaper, sat scribbling away at a two-forty rate. The angry man began byasking if this was Mr. Greeley. "Yes, sir; what do you want?" said theeditor quickly, without once looking up from his paper. The iratevisitor then began using his tongue, with no regard for the rules ofpropriety, good breeding, or reason. Meantime Mr. Greeley continued towrite. Page after page was dashed off in the most impetuous style, with no change of features and without his paying the slightestattention to the visitor. Finally, after about twenty minutes of themost impassioned abuse ever poured out in an editor's office, the angryman became disgusted, and abruptly turned to walk out of the room. Then, for the first time, Mr. Greeley quickly looked up, rose from hischair, and slapping the gentleman familiarly on his shoulder, in apleasant tone of voice said: "Don't go, friend; sit down, sit down, andfree your mind; it will do you good, --you will feel better for it. Besides, it helps me to think what I am to write about. Don't go. "

One unwavering aim has ever characterized successful men. 

"Daniel Webster, " said Sydney Smith, "struck me much like asteam-engine in trousers. "

As Adams suggests, Lord Brougham, like Canning, had too many talents;and, though as a lawyer he gained the most splendid prize of hisprofession, the Lord Chancellorship of England, and merited theapplause of scientific men for his investigations in science, yet hislife on the whole was a failure. He was "everything by turns andnothing long. " With all his magnificent abilities he left no permanentmark on history or literature, and actually outlived his own fame. 

Miss Martineau says, "Lord Brougham was at his chateau at Cannes whenthe daguerreotype process first came into vogue. An artist undertookto take a view of the chateau with a group of guests on the balcony. His Lordship was, asked to keep perfectly still for five seconds, andhe promised that he would not stir, but alas, --he moved. Theconsequence was that there was a blur where Lord Brougham should havebeen. 

"There is something, " continued Miss Martineau, "very typical in this. In the picture of our century, as taken from the life by history, thisvery man should have been the central figure. But, owing to his wantof steadfastness, there will be forever a blur where Lord Broughamshould have been. How many lives are blurs for want of concentrationand steadfastness of purpose!"

Fowell Buxton attributed his success to ordinary means andextraordinary application, and being a whole man to one thing at atime. It is ever the unwavering pursuit of a single aim that wins. "_Non multa, sed multum_"--not many things, but much, was Coke's motto. 

It is the almost invisible point of a needle, the keen, slender edge ofa razor or an ax, that opens the way for the bulk that follows. Without point or edge the bulk would be useless. It is the man of oneline of work, the sharp-edged man, who cuts his way through obstaclesand achieves brilliant success. While we should shun that narrowdevotion to one idea which prevents the harmonious development of ourpowers, we should avoid on the other hand the extreme versatility ofone of whom W. M. Praed says:--

 His talk is like a stream which runs With rapid change from rocks to roses, It slips from politics to puns, It glides from Mahomet to Moses: Beginning with the laws that keep The planets in their radiant courses, And ending with some precept deep For skinning eels or shoeing horses. 

If you can get a child learning to walk to fix his eyes on any object, he will generally navigate to that point without capsizing, butdistract his attention and down he goes. 

The young man seeking a position to-day is not asked what college hecame from or who his ancestors were. "_What can you do?_" is the greatquestion. It is special training that is wanted. Most of the men atthe head of great firms and great enterprises have been promoted stepby step from the bottom. 

"I know that he can toil terribly, " said Cecil of Walter Raleigh, inexplanation of the latter's success. 

As a rule, what the heart longs for the head and the hands may attain. The currents of knowledge, of wealth, of success, are as certain andfixed as the tides of the sea. In all great successes we can trace thepower of concentration, riveting every faculty upon one unwavering aim;perseverance in the pursuit of an undertaking in spite of everydifficulty; and courage which enables one to bear up under all trials, disappointments, and temptations. 

Chemists tell us that there is power enough in a single acre of grassto drive all the mills and steam-cars in the world, could we butconcentrate it upon the piston-rod of a steam-engine. But it is atrest, and so, in the light of science, it is comparatively valueless. 

Dr. Mathews says that the man who scatters himself upon many objectssoon loses his energy, and with his energy his enthusiasm. 

"Never study on speculation, " says Waters; "all such study is vain. Form a plan; have an object; then work for it, learn all you can aboutit, and you will be sure to succeed. What I mean by studying onspeculation is that aimless learning of things because they may beuseful some day; which is like the conduct of the woman who bought atauction a brass door-plate with the name of Thompson on it, thinking itmight be useful some day!"

Definiteness of aim is characteristic of all true art. He is not thegreatest painter who crowds the greatest number of ideas upon a singlecanvas, giving all the figures equal prominence. He is the genuineartist who makes the greatest variety express the greatest unity, whodevelops the leading idea in the central figure, and makes all thesubordinate figures, lights, and shades point to that center and findexpression there. So in every well-balanced life, no matter howversatile in endowments or how broad in culture, there is one grandcentral purpose, in which all the subordinate powers of the soul arebrought to a focus, and where they will find fit expression. In naturewe see no waste of energy, nothing left to chance. Since the shuttleof creation shot for the first time through chaos, design has markedthe course of every golden thread. Every leaf, every flower, everycrystal, every atom even, has a purpose stamped upon it whichunmistakably points to the crowning summit of all creation--man. 

Young men are often told to aim high, but we must aim at what we wouldhit. A general purpose is not enough. The arrow shot from the bowdoes not wander around to see what it can hit on its way, but fliesstraight to the mark. The magnetic needle does not point to all thelights in the heavens to see which it likes best. They all attract it. The sun dazzles, the meteor beckons, the stars twinkle to it, and tryto win its affections; but the needle, true to its instinct, and with afinger that never errs in sunshine or in storm, points steadily to theNorth Star; for, while all the other stars must course with untiringtread around their great centers through all the ages, the North Star, alone, distant beyond human comprehension, moves with stately sweep onits circuit of more than 25, 000 years, for all practical purposes ofman stationary, not only for a day, but for a century. So all alongthe path of life other luminaries will beckon to lead us from ourcherished aim--from the course of truth and duty; but let no moonswhich shine with borrowed light, no meteors which dazzle, but neverguide, turn the needle of our purpose from the North Star of its hope. 

CHAPTER XIII

THE TRIUMPHS OF ENTHUSIASM. 

The labor we delight in physics pain. --SHAKESPEARE. 

The only conclusive evidence of a man's sincerity is that he giveshimself for a principle. Words, money, all things else arecomparatively easy to give away; but when a man makes a gift of hisdaily life and practise, it is plain that the truth, whatever it maybe, has taken possession of him. --LOWELL. 

Let us beware of losing our enthusiasm. Let us ever glory insomething, and strive to retain our admiration for all that wouldennoble, and our interest in all that would enrich and beautify ourlife. --PHILLIPS BROOKS. 

In the Galérie des Beaux Arts in Paris is a beautiful statue conceivedby a sculptor who was so poor that he lived and worked in a smallgarret. When his clay model was nearly done, a heavy frost fell uponthe city. He knew that if the water in the interstices of the clayshould freeze, the beautiful lines would be distorted. So he wrappedhis bedclothes around the clay image. In the morning he was founddead, but his idea was saved, and other hands gave it enduring form inmarble. 

"I do not know how it is with others when speaking on an importantquestion, " said Henry Clay; "but on such occasions I seem to beunconscious of the external world. Wholly engrossed by the subjectbefore me, I lose all sense of personal identity, of time, or ofsurrounding objects. "

"A bank never becomes very successful, " says a noted financier, "untilit gets a president who takes it to bed with him. " Enthusiasm givesthe otherwise dry and uninteresting subject or occupation a new meaning. 

As the young lover has finer sense and more acute vision and sees inthe object of his affections a hundred virtues and charms invisible toall other eyes, so a man permeated with enthusiasm has his power ofperception heightened and his vision magnified until he sees beauty andcharms others cannot discern which compensate for drudgery, privations, hardships, and even persecution. Dickens says he was haunted, possessed, spirit-driven by the plots and characters in his storieswhich would not let him sleep or rest until he had committed them topaper. On one sketch he shut himself up for a month, and when he cameout he looked as haggard as a murderer. His characters haunted him dayand night. 

"Herr Capellmeister, I should like to compose something; how shall Ibegin?" asked a youth of twelve who had played with great skill on thepiano. "Pooh, pooh, " replied Mozart, "you must wait. " "But you beganwhen you were younger than I am, " said the boy. "Yes, so I did, " saidthe great composer, "but I never asked anything about it. When one hasthe spirit of a composer, he writes because he can't help it. "

Gladstone said that what is really desired is to light up the spiritthat is within a boy. In some sense and in some degree, in someeffectual degree, there is in every boy the material of good work inthe world; in every boy, not only in those who are brilliant, not onlyin those who are quick, but in those who are stolid, and even in thosewho are dull, or who seem to be dull. If they have only the good will, the dulness will day by day clear away and vanish completely under theinfluence of the good will. 

Gerster, an unknown Hungarian, made fame and fortune sure the firstnight she appeared in opera. Her enthusiasm almost hypnotized herauditors. In less than a week she had become popular and independent. Her soul was smitten with a passion for growth, and all the powers ofheart and mind she possessed were enthusiastically devoted toself-improvement. 

All great works of art have been produced when the artist wasintoxicated with the passion for beauty and form which would not lethim rest until his thought was expressed in marble or on canvas. 

"Well, I've worked hard enough for it, " said Malibran when a criticexpressed his admiration of her D in alt, reached by running up threeoctaves from low D; "I've been chasing it for a month. I pursued iteverywhere, --when I was dressing, when I was doing my hair; and at lastI found it on the toe of a shoe that I was putting on. "

"Every great and commanding moment in the annals of the world, " saysEmerson, "is the triumph of some enthusiasm. The victories of theArabs after Mahomet, who, in a few years, from a small and meanbeginning, established a larger empire than that of Rome, is anexample. They did they knew not what. The naked Derar, horsed on anidea, was found an overmatch for a troop of cavalry. The women foughtlike men and conquered the Roman men. They were miserably equipped, miserably fed, but they were temperance troops. There was neitherbrandy nor flesh needed to feed them. They conquered Asia and Africaand Spain on barley. The Caliph Omar's walking-stick struck moreterror into those who saw it than another man's sword. "

It was enthusiasm that enabled Napoleon to make a campaign in two weeksthat would have taken another a year to accomplish. "These Frenchmenare not men, they fly, " said the Austrians in consternation. Infifteen days Napoleon, in his first Italian campaign, had gained sixvictories, taken twenty-one standards, fifty-five pieces of cannon, hadcaptured fifteen thousand prisoners, and had conquered Piedmont. 

After this astonishing avalanche a discomfited Austrian general said:"This young commander knows nothing whatever about the art of war. Heis a perfect ignoramus. There is no doing anything with him. " But hissoldiers followed their "Little Corporal" with an enthusiasm which knewno defeat or disaster. 

"There are important cases, " says A. H. K. Boyd, "in which thedifference between half a heart and a whole heart makes just thedifference between signal defeat and a splendid victory. "

"Should I die this minute, " said Nelson at an important crisis, "wantof frigates would be found written on my heart. "

The simple, innocent Maid of Orleans with her sacred sword, herconsecrated banner, and her belief in her great mission, sent a thrillof enthusiasm through the whole French army such as neither king norstatesmen could produce. Her zeal carried everything before it. Oh!what a great work each one could perform in this world if he only knewhis power! But, like a bitted horse, man does not realize his strengthuntil he has once run away with himself. 

"Underneath is laid the builder of this church and city, ChristopherWren, who lived more than ninety years, not for himself, but for thepublic good. Reader, if you seek his monument, look around!" Turnwhere you will in London, you find noble monuments of the genius of aman who never received instruction from an architect. He builtfifty-five churches in the city and thirty-six halls. "I would give myskin for the architect's design of the Louvre, " said he, when in Paristo get ideas for the restoration of St. Paul's Cathedral in London. His rare skill is shown in the palaces of Hampton Court and Kensington, in Temple Bar, Drury Lane Theater, the Royal Exchange, and the greatMonument. He changed Greenwich palace into a sailor's retreat, andbuilt churches and colleges at Oxford. He also planned for therebuilding of London after the great fire, but those in authority wouldnot adopt his splendid idea. He worked thirty-five years upon hismaster-piece, St. Paul's Cathedral. Although he lived so long, and wasexceedingly healthy in later life, he was so delicate as a child thathe was a constant source of anxiety to his parents. His greatenthusiasm alone seemed to give strength to his body. 

Indifference never leads armies that conquer, never models statues thatlive, nor breathes sublime music, nor harnesses the forces of nature, nor rears impressive architecture, nor moves the soul with poetry, northe world with heroic philanthropies. Enthusiasm, as Charles Bell saysof the hand, wrought the statue of Memnon and hung the brazen gates ofThebes. It fixed the mariner's trembling needle upon its axis, andfirst heaved the tremendous bar of the printing-press. It opened thetubes for Galileo, until world after world swept before his vision, andit reefed the high topsail that rustled over Columbus in the morningbreezes of the Bahamas. It has held the sword with which freedom hasfought her battles, and poised the axe of the dauntless woodman as heopened the paths of civilization, and turned the mystic leaves uponwhich Milton and Shakespeare inscribed their burning thoughts. 

Horace Greeley said that the best product of labor is the high-mindedworkman with an enthusiasm for his work. 

"The best method is obtained by earnestness, " said Salvini. "If youcan impress people with the conviction that you feel what you say, theywill pardon many shortcomings. And above all, study, study, study!All the genius in the world will not help you along with any art, unless you become a hard student. It has taken me years to master asingle part. "

There is a "go, " a zeal, a furore, almost a fanaticism for one's idealsor calling, that is peculiar to our American temperament and life. Youdo not find this in tropical countries. It did not exist fifty yearsago. It could not be found then even on the London Exchange. But theinfluence of the United States and of Australia, where, if a person isto succeed, he must be on the jump with all the ardor of his being, hasfinally extended until what used to be the peculiar strength of a fewgreat minds has now become characteristic of the leading nations. Enthusiasm is the being awake; it is the tingling of every fiber ofone's being to do the work that one's heart desires. Enthusiasm madeVictor Hugo lock up his clothes while writing "Notre Dame, " that hemight not leave the work until it was finished. The great actorGarrick well illustrated it when asked by an unsuccessful preacher thesecret of his power over audiences: "You speak of eternal verities andwhat you know to be true as if you hardly believed what you were sayingyourself, whereas I utter what I know to be unreal and untrue as if Idid believe it in my very soul. "

"When he comes into a room, every man feels as if he had taken a tonicand had a new lease of life, " said a man when asked the reason for hisselection, after he, with two companions, had written upon a slip ofpaper the name of the most agreeable companion he had ever met. "He isan eager, vivid fellow, full of joy, bubbling over with spirits. Hissympathies are quick as an electric flash. "

"He throws himself into the occasion, whatever it may be, with hiswhole heart, " said the second, in praise of the man of his choice. 

"He makes the best of everything, " said the third, speaking of his ownmost cherished acquaintance. 

The three were traveling correspondents of great English journals, whohad visited every quarter of the world and talked with all kinds ofmen. The papers were examined and all were found to contain the nameof a prominent lawyer in Melbourne, Australia. 

"If it were not for respect for human opinions, " said Madame de Staëlto M. Mole, "I would not open my window to see the Bay of Naples forthe first time, while I would go five hundred leagues to talk with aman of genius whom I had not seen. "

Enthusiasm is that secret and harmonious spirit which hovers over theproduction of genius, throwing the reader of a book, or the spectatorof a statue, into the very ideal presence whence these works haveoriginated. 

"One moonlight evening in winter, " writes the biographer of Beethoven, "we were walking through a narrow street of Bonn. 'Hush!' exclaimedthe great composer, suddenly pausing before a little, mean dwelling, 'what sound is that? It is from my Sonata in F. Hark! how well it isplayed!'

"In the midst of the finale there was a break, and a sobbing voicecried: 'I cannot play any more. It is so beautiful; it is utterlybeyond my power to do it justice. Oh, what would I not give to go tothe concert at Cologne!' 'Ah! my sister, ' said a second voice; 'whycreate regrets when there is no remedy? We can scarcely pay our rent. ''You are right, ' said the first speaker, 'and yet I wish for once in mylife to hear some really good music. But it is of no use. '

"'Let us go in, ' said Beethoven. 'Go in!' I remonstrated; 'what shouldwe go in for?' 'I will play to her, ' replied my companion in anexcited tone; 'here is feeling, --genius, --understanding! I will playto her, and she will understand it. Pardon me, ' he continued, as heopened the door and saw a young man sitting by a table, mending shoes, and a young girl leaning sorrowfully upon an old-fashioned piano; 'Iheard music and was tempted to enter. I am a musician. I--I alsooverheard something of what you said. You wish to hear--that is, youwould like--that is--shall I play for you?'

"'Thank you, ' said the shoemaker, 'but our piano is so wretched, and wehave no music. '

"'No music!' exclaimed the composer; 'how, then, does the younglady--I--I entreat your pardon, ' he added, stammering as he saw thatthe girl was blind; 'I had not perceived before. Then you play by ear?But where do you hear the music, since you frequent no concerts?'

"'We lived at Bruhl for two years; and, while there, I used to hear alady practicing near us. During the summer evenings her windows weregenerally open, and I walked to and fro outside to listen to her. '

"Beethoven seated himself at the piano. Never, during all the years Iknew him, did I hear him play better than to that blind girl and herbrother. Even the old instrument seemed inspired. The young man andwoman sat as if entranced by the magical, sweet sounds that flowed outupon the air in rhythmical swell and cadence, until, suddenly, theflame of the single candle wavered, sank, flickered, and went out. Theshutters were thrown open, admitting a flood of brilliant moonlight, but the player paused, as if lost in thought. 

"'Wonderful man!' said the shoemaker in a low tone; 'who and what areyou?'

"'Listen!' replied the master, and he played the opening bars of theSonata in F. 'Then you are Beethoven!' burst from the young people indelighted recognition. 'Oh, play to us once more, ' they added, as herose to go, --'only once more!'

"'I will improvise a sonata to the moonlight, ' said he, gazingthoughtfully upon the liquid stars shining so softly out of the depthsof a cloudless winter sky. Then he played a sad and infinitely lovelymovement, which crept gently over the instrument, like the calm flow ofmoonlight over the earth. This was followed by a wild, elfin passagein triple time--a sort of grotesque interlude, like the dance offairies upon the lawn. Then came a swift agitated ending--abreathless, hurrying, trembling movement, descriptive of flight, anduncertainty, and vague impulsive terror, which carried us away on itsrustling wings, and left us all in emotion and wonder. 'Farewell toyou, ' he said, as he rose and turned toward the door. 'You will comeagain?' asked the host and hostess in a breath. 'Yes, yes, ' saidBeethoven hurriedly, 'I will come again, and give the young lady somelessons. Farewell!' Then to me he added: 'Let us make haste back, that I may write out that sonata while I can yet remember it. ' We didreturn in haste, and not until long past the dawn of day did he risefrom his table with the full score of the Moonlight Sonata in his hand. "

Michael Angelo studied anatomy twelve years, nearly ruining his health, but this course determined his style, his practice, and his glory. Hedrew his figures in skeleton, added muscles, fat, and skinsuccessively, and then draped them. He made every tool he used insculpture, such as files, chisels, and pincers. In painting heprepared all his own colors, and would not let servants or studentseven mix them. 

Raphael's enthusiasm inspired every artist in Italy, and his modest, charming manners disarmed envy and jealousy. He has been called theonly distinguished man who lived and died without an enemy ordetractor. Again and again poor Bunyan might have had his liberty; butnot the separation from his poor blind daughter Mary, which he said waslike pulling the flesh from his bones; not the need of a poor familydependent upon him; not the love of liberty nor the spur of ambitioncould induce him to forego his plain preaching in public places. Hehad so forgotten his early education that his wife had to teach himagain to read and write. It was the enthusiasm of conviction whichenabled this poor, ignorant, despised Bedford tinker to write hisimmortal allegory with such fascination that a whole world has read it. 

Only thoughts that breathe in words that burn can kindle the sparkslumbering in the heart of another. 

Rare consecration to a great enterprise is found in the work of thelate Francis Parkman. While a student at Harvard he determined towrite the history of the French and English in North America. With asteadiness and devotion seldom equaled he gave his life, his fortune, his all to this one great object. Although he had, while among theDakota Indians, collecting material for his history, ruined his healthand could not use his eyes more than five minutes at a time for fiftyyears, he did not swerve a hair's breadth from the high purpose formedin his youth, until he gave to the world the best history upon thissubject ever written. 

After Lincoln had walked six miles to borrow a grammar, he returnedhome and burned one shaving after another while he studied the preciousprize. 

Gilbert Becket, an English Crusader, was taken prisoner and became aslave in the palace of a Saracen prince, where he not only gained theconfidence of his master, but also the love of his master's fairdaughter. By and by he escaped and returned to England, but thedevoted girl determined to follow him. She knew but two words of theEnglish language--_London_ and _Gilbert_; but by repeating the firstshe obtained passage in a vessel to the great metropolis, and then shewent from street to street pronouncing the other--"Gilbert. " At lastshe came to the street on which Gilbert lived in prosperity. Theunusual crowd drew the family to the window, when Gilbert himself sawand recognized her, and took to his arms and home his far-come princesswith her solitary fond word. 

The most irresistible charm of youth is its bubbling enthusiasm. Youthsees no darkness ahead, --no defile that has no outlet, --it forgets thatthere is such a thing as failure in the world, and believes thatmankind has been waiting all these centuries for him to come and be theliberator of truth and energy and beauty. 

Of what use was it to forbid the boy Handel to touch a musicalinstrument, or to forbid him going to school, lest he learn the gamut?He stole midnight interviews with a dumb spinet in a secret attic. Theboy Bach copied whole books of studies by moonlight, for want of acandle churlishly denied. Nor was he disheartened when these copieswere taken from him. The painter West began in a garret, and plunderedthe family cat for bristles to make his brushes. 

It is the enthusiasm of youth which cuts the Gordian knot age cannotuntie. "People smile at the enthusiasm of youth, " says CharlesKingsley; "that enthusiasm which they themselves secretly look back towith a sigh, perhaps unconscious that it is partly their own fault thatthey ever lost it. "

How much the world owes to the enthusiasm of Dante!

Tennyson wrote his first volume at eighteen, and at nineteen gained amedal at Cambridge. 

"The most beautiful works of all art were done in youth, " says Ruskin. "Almost everything that is great has been done by youth, " wroteDisraeli. "The world's interests are, under God, in the hands of theyoung, " says Dr. Trumbull. 

It was the youth Hercules that performed the Twelve Labors. Enthusiastic youth faces the sun, it shadows all behind it. The heartrules youth; the head, manhood. Alexander was a mere youth when herolled back the Asiatic hordes that threatened to overwhelm Europeancivilization almost at its birth. Napoleon had conquered Italy attwenty-five. Byron and Raphael died at thirty-seven, an age which hasbeen fatal to many a genius, and Poe lived but a few months longer. Romulus founded Rome at twenty. Pitt and Bolingbroke were ministersalmost before they were men. Gladstone was in Parliament in earlymanhood. Newton made some of his greatest discoveries before he wastwenty-five. Keats died at twenty-five, Shelley at twenty-nine. Luther was a triumphant reformer at twenty-five. It is said that noEnglish poet ever equaled Chatterton at twenty-one. Whitefield andWesley began their great revival as students at Oxford, and the formerhad made his influence felt throughout England before he wastwenty-four. Victor Hugo wrote a tragedy at fifteen, and had takenthree prizes at the Academy and gained the title of Master before hewas twenty. 

Many of the world's greatest geniuses never saw forty years. Neverbefore has the young man, who is driven by his enthusiasm, had such anopportunity as he has to-day. It is the age of young men and youngwomen. Their ardor is their crown, before which the languid and thepassive bow. 

But if enthusiasm is irresistible in youth, how much more so is it whencarried into old age! Gladstone at eighty had ten times the weight andpower that any man of twenty-five would have with the same ideals. Theglory of age is only the glory of its enthusiasm, and the respect paidto white hairs is reverence to a heart fervent, in spite of the torpidinfluence of an enfeebled body. The "Odyssey" was the creation of ablind old man, but that old man was Homer. 

The contagious zeal of an old man, Peter the Hermit, rolled thechivalry of Europe upon the ranks of Islam. 

Dandolo, the Doge of Venice, won battles at ninety-four, and refused acrown at ninety-six. Wellington planned and superintendedfortifications at eighty. Bacon and Humboldt were enthusiasticstudents to the last gasp. Wise old Montaigne was shrewd in hisgray-beard wisdom and loving life, even in the midst of his fits ofgout and colic. 

Dr. Johnson's best work, "The Lives of the Poets, " was written when hewas seventy-eight. Defoe was fifty-eight when he published "RobinsonCrusoe. " Newton wrote new briefs to his "Principia" at eighty-three. Plato died writing, at eighty-one. Tom Scott began the study of Hebrewat eighty-six. Galileo was nearly seventy when he wrote on the laws ofmotion. James Watt learned German at eighty-five. Mrs. Somervillefinished her "Molecular and Microscopic Science" at eighty-nine. Humboldt completed his "Cosmos" at ninety, a month before his death. Burke was thirty-five before he obtained a seat in Parliament, yet hemade the world feel his character. Unknown at forty, Grant was one ofthe most famous generals in history at forty-two. Eli Whitney wastwenty-three when he decided to prepare for college, and thirty when hegraduated from Yale; yet his cotton-gin opened a great industrialfuture for the Southern States. What a power was Bismarck at eighty!Lord Palmerston was an "Old Boy" to the last. He became Prime Ministerof England the second time at seventy-five, and died Prime Minister ateighty-one. Galileo at seventy-seven, blind and feeble, was workingevery day, adapting the principle of the pendulum to clocks. GeorgeStephenson did not learn to read and write until he had reachedmanhood. Some of Longfellow's, Whittier's, and Tennyson's best workwas done after they were seventy. 

At sixty-three Dryden began the translation of the "Aeneid. " RobertHall learned Italian when past sixty, that he might read Dante in theoriginal. Noah Webster studied seventeen languages after he was fifty. Cicero said well that men are like wine: age sours the bad and improvesthe good. 

With enthusiasm we may retain the youth of the spirit until the hair issilvered, even as the Gulf Stream softens the rigors of northern Europe. 

"How ages thine heart, --towards youth? If not, doubt thy fitness forthy work. "

CHAPTER XIV. 

"ON TIME, " OR THE TRIUMPH OF PROMPTNESS

"On the great clock of time there is but one word--NOW. "

Note the sublime precision that leads the earth over a circuit of fivehundred millions of miles back to the solstice at the appointed momentwithout the loss of one second, --no, not the millionth part of asecond, --for ages and ages of which it traveled that imperiledroad. --EDWARD EVERETT. 

"Who cannot but see oftentimes how strange the threads of our destinyrun? Oft it is only for a moment the favorable instant is presented. We miss it, and months and years are lost. "

By the street of by and by one arrives at the house ofnever. --CERVANTES. 

"Lose this day by loitering--'t will be the same story tomorrow, andthe next more dilatory. "

Let's take the instant by the forward top. --SHAKESPEARE. 

"Haste, post, haste! Haste for thy life!" was frequently written uponmessages in the days of Henry VIII of England, with a picture of acourier swinging from a gibbet. Post-offices were unknown, and letterswere carried by government messengers subject to hanging if theydelayed upon the road. 

Even in the old, slow days of stage-coaches, when it took a month ofdangerous traveling to accomplish the distance we can now span in a fewhours, unnecessary delay was a crime. One of the greatest gainscivilization has made is in measuring and utilizing time. We can do asmuch in an hour to-day as they could in twenty hours a hundred yearsago. 

"Delays have dangerous ends. " Caesar's delay to read a message costhim his life when he reached the senate house. Colonel Rahl, theHessian commander at Trenton, was playing cards when a messengerbrought a letter stating that Washington was crossing the Delaware. Heput the letter in his pocket without reading it until the game wasfinished, when he rallied his men only to die just before his troopswere taken prisoners. Only a few minutes' delay, but he lost honor, liberty, life!

Success is the child of two very plain parents--punctuality andaccuracy. There are critical moments in every successful life when ifthe mind hesitate or a nerve flinch all will be lost. 

"Immediately on receiving your proclamation, " wrote Governor Andrew ofMassachusetts to President Lincoln on May 3, 1861, "we took up the war, and have carried on our part of it, in the spirit in which we believethe Administration and the American people intend to act, namely, as ifthere were not an inch of red tape in the world. " He had received atelegram for troops from Washington on Monday, April 15; at nineo'clock the next Sunday he said: "All the regiments demanded fromMassachusetts are already either in Washington, or in Fortress Monroe, or on their way to the defence of the Capitol. "

"The only question which I can entertain, " he said, "is what to do; andwhen that question is answered, the other is, what next to do. "

"The whole period of youth, " said Ruskin, "is one essentially offormation, edification, instruction. There is not an hour of it but istrembling with destinies--not a moment of which, once passed, theappointed work can ever be done again, or the neglected blow struck onthe cold iron. "

Napoleon laid great stress upon that "supreme moment, " that "nick oftime" which occurs in every battle, to take advantage of which meansvictory, and to lose in hesitation means disaster. He said that hebeat the Austrians because they did not know the value of five minutes;and it has been said that among the trifles that conspired to defeathim at Waterloo, the loss of a few moments by himself and Grouchy onthe fatal morning was the most significant. Blucher was on time, andGrouchy was late. It was enough to send Napoleon to St. Helena, and tochange the destiny of millions. 

It is a well-known truism that has almost been elevated to the dignityof a maxim, that what may be done at any time will be done at no time. 

The African Association of London wanted to send Ledyard, the traveler, to Africa, and asked when he would be ready to go. "To-morrowmorning, " was the reply. John Jervis, afterwards Earl St. Vincent, wasasked when he could join his ship, and replied, "Directly. " ColinCampbell, appointed commander of the army in India, and asked when hecould set out, replied without hesitation, "To-morrow. "

The energy wasted in postponing until to-morrow a duty of to-day wouldoften do the work. How much harder and more disagreeable, too, it isto do work which has been put off! What would have been done at thetime with pleasure or even enthusiasm, after it has been delayed fordays and weeks, becomes drudgery. Letters can never be answered soeasily as when first received. Many large firms make it a rule neverto allow a letter to lie unanswered overnight. 

Promptness takes the drudgery out of an occupation. Putting offusually means leaving off, and going to do becomes going undone. Doinga deed is like sowing a seed: if not done at just the right time itwill be forever out of season. The summer of eternity will not be longenough to bring to maturity the fruit of a delayed action. If a staror planet were delayed one second, it might throw the whole universeout of harmony. 

"There is no moment like the present, " said Maria Edgeworth; "not onlyso, there is no moment at all, no instant force and energy, but in thepresent. The man who will not execute his resolutions when they arefresh upon him can have no hopes from them afterward. They will bedissipated, lost in the hurry and scurry of the world, or sunk in theslough of indolence. "

Cobbett said he owed his success to being "always ready" more than toall his natural abilities combined. 

"To this quality I owed my extraordinary promotion in the army, " saidhe. "If I had to mount guard at ten, I was ready at nine; never didany man or anything wait one minute for me. "

"How, " asked a man of Sir Walter Raleigh, "do you accomplish so much, and in so short a time?" "When I have anything to do, I go and do it, "was the reply. The man who always acts promptly, even if he makesoccasional mistakes, will succeed when a procrastinator, even if hehave the better judgment, will fail. 

When asked how he managed to accomplish so much work, and at the sametime attend to his social duties, a French statesman replied, "I do itsimply by never postponing till to-morrow what should be done to-day. "It was said of an unsuccessful public man that he used to reverse thisprocess, his favorite maxim being "never to do to-day what might bepostponed till to-morrow. " How many men have dawdled away theirsuccess and allowed companions and relatives to steal it away fiveminutes at a time!

"To-morrow, didst thou say?" asked Cotton. "Go to--I will not hear ofit. To-morrow! 'tis a sharper who stakes his penury against thyplenty--who takes thy ready cash and pays thee naught but wishes, hopes, and promises, the currency of idiots. _To-morrow_! it is aperiod nowhere to be found in all the hoary registers of time, unlessperchance in the fool's calendar. Wisdom disclaims the word, nor holdssociety with those that own it. 'Tis fancy's child, and folly is itsfather; wrought of such stuffs as dreams are; and baseless as thefantastic visions of the evening. " Oh, how many a wreck on the road tosuccess could say: "I have spent all my life in pursuit of to-morrow, being assured that to-morrow has some vast benefit or other in storefor me. "

"But his resolutions remained unshaken, " Charles Reade continues in hisstory of Noah Skinner, the defaulting clerk, who had been overcome by asleepy languor after deciding to make restitution; "by and by, wakingup from a sort of heavy doze, he took, as it were, a last look at thereceipts, and murmured, 'My head, how heavy it feels!' But presentlyhe roused himself, full of his penitent resolutions, and murmuredagain, brokenly, 'I'll take it to--Pembroke--Street to--morrow;to--morrow. ' The morrow found him, and so did the detectives, dead. "

"To-morrow. " It is the devil's motto. All history is strewn with itsbrilliant victims, the wrecks of half-finished plans and unexecutedresolutions. It is the favorite refuge of sloth and incompetency. 

"Strike while the iron is hot, " and "Make hay while the sun shines, "are golden maxims. 

Very few people recognize the hour when laziness begins to set in. Some people it attacks after dinner; some after lunch; and some afterseven o'clock in the evening. There is in every person's life acrucial hour in the day, which must be employed instead of wasted ifthe day is to be saved. With most people the early morning hourbecomes the test of the day's success. 

A person was once extolling the skill and courage of Mayenne in Henry'spresence. "You are right, " said Henry, "he is a great captain, but Ihave always five hours' start of him. " Henry rose at four in themorning, and Mayenne at about ten. This made all the differencebetween them. Indecision becomes a disease and procrastination is itsforerunner. There is only one known remedy for the victims ofindecision, and that is prompt decision. Otherwise the disease isfatal to all success or achievement. He who hesitates is lost. 

A noted writer says that a bed is a bundle of paradoxes. We go to itwith reluctance, yet we quit it with regret. We make up our mindsevery night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morningto keep it late. 

Yet most of those who have become eminent have been early risers. Peter the Great always rose before daylight. "I am, " said he, "formaking my life as long as possible, and therefore sleep as little aspossible. " Alfred the Great rose before daylight. In the hours ofearly morning Columbus planned his voyage to America, and Napoleon hisgreatest campaigns. Copernicus was an early riser, as were most of thefamous astronomers of ancient and modern times. Bryant rose at five, Bancroft at dawn, and nearly all our leading authors in the earlymorning. Washington, Jefferson, Webster, Clay, and Calhoun were allearly risers. 

Daniel Webster used often to answer twenty to thirty letters beforebreakfast. 

Walter Scott was a very punctual man. This was the secret of hisenormous achievements. He rose at five. By breakfast-time he had, ashe used to say, broken the neck of the day's work. Writing to a youthwho had obtained a situation and asked him for advice, he gave thiscounsel: "Beware of stumbling over a propensity which easily besets youfrom not having your time fully employed--I mean what the women calldawdling. Do instantly whatever is to be done, and take the hours ofrecreation after business, never before it. "

Not too much can be said about the value of the habit of rising early. Eight hours is enough sleep for any man. Very frequently seven hoursis plenty. After the eighth hour in bed, if a man is able, it is hisbusiness to get up, dress quickly, and go to work. 

"A singular mischance has happened to some of our friends, " saidHamilton. "At the instant when He ushered them into existence, Godgave them a work to do, and He also gave them a competence of time; somuch that if they began at the right moment, and wrought withsufficient vigor, their time and their work would end together. But agood many years ago a strange misfortune befell them. A fragment oftheir allotted time was lost. They cannot tell what became of it, butsure enough, it has dropped out of existence; for just like twomeasuring-lines laid alongside, the one an inch shorter than the other, their work and their time run parallel, but the work is always tenminutes in advance of the time. They are not irregular. They arenever too soon. Their letters are posted the very minute after themail is closed. They arrive at the wharf just in time to see thesteamboat off, they come in sight of the terminus precisely as thestation gates are closing. They do not break any engagement or neglectany duty; but they systematically go about it too late, and usually toolate by about the same fatal interval. "

Some one has said that "promptness is a contagious inspiration. "Whether it be an inspiration, or an acquirement, it is one of thepractical virtues of civilization. 

There is one thing that is almost as sacred as the marriagerelation, --that is, an appointment. A man who fails to meet hisappointment, unless he has a good reason, is practically a liar, andthe world treats him as such. 

"If a man has no regard for the time of other men, " said HoraceGreeley, "why should he have for their money? What is the differencebetween taking a man's hour and taking his five dollars? There aremany men to whom each hour of the business day is worth more than fivedollars. "

When President Washington dined at four, new members of Congressinvited to dine at the White House would sometimes arrive late, and bemortified to find the President eating. "My cook, " Washington wouldsay, "never asks if the visitors have arrived, but if the hour hasarrived. "

When his secretary excused the lateness of his attendance by sayingthat his watch was too slow, Washington replied, "Then you must get anew watch, or I another secretary. "

Franklin said to a servant who was always late, but always ready withan excuse, "I have generally found that the man who is good at anexcuse is good for nothing else. "

Napoleon once invited his marshals to dine with him, but, as they didnot arrive at the moment appointed, he began to eat without them. Theycame in just as he was rising from the table. "Gentlemen, " said he, "it is now past dinner, and we will immediately proceed to business. "

Blücher was one of the promptest men that ever lived. He was called"Marshal Forward. "

John Quincy Adams was never known to be behind time. The Speaker ofthe House of Representatives knew when to call the House to order byseeing Mr. Adams coming to his seat. Once a member said that it wastime to begin. "No, " said another, "Mr. Adams is not in his seat. " Itwas found that the clock was three minutes fast, and prompt to theminute, Mr. Adams arrived. 

Webster was never late at a recitation in school or college. In court, in congress, in society, he was equally punctual. Amid the cares anddistractions of a singularly busy life, Horace Greeley managed to be ontime for every appointment. Many a trenchant paragraph for the"Tribune" was written while the editor was waiting for men of leisure, tardy at some meeting. 

Punctuality is the soul of business, as brevity is of wit. 

During the first seven years of his mercantile career, Amos Lawrencedid not permit a bill to remain unsettled over Sunday. Punctuality issaid to be the politeness of princes. Some men are always running tocatch up with their business: they are always in a hurry, and give youthe impression that they are late for a train. They lack method, andseldom accomplish much. Every business man knows that there aremoments on which hang the destiny of years. If you arrive a fewmoments late at the bank, your paper may be protested and your creditruined. 

One of the best things about school and college life is that the bellwhich strikes the hour for rising, for recitations, or for lectures, teaches habits of promptness. Every young man should have a watchwhich is a good timekeeper; one that is _nearly_ right encourages badhabits, and is an expensive investment at any price. 

"Oh, how I do appreciate a boy who is always on time!" says H. C. Brown. "How quickly you learn to depend on him, and how soon you findyourself intrusting him with weightier matters! The boy who hasacquired a reputation for punctuality has made the first contributionto the capital that in after years makes his success a certainty. "

Promptness is the mother of confidence and gives credit. It is thebest possible proof that our own affairs are well ordered and wellconducted, and gives others confidence in our ability. The man who ispunctual, as a rule, will keep his word, and may be depended upon. 

A conductor's watch is behind time, and a terrible railway collisionoccurs. A leading firm with enormous assets becomes bankrupt, simplybecause an agent is tardy in transmitting available funds, as ordered. An innocent man is hanged because the messenger bearing a reprieveshould have arrived five minutes earlier. A man is stopped fiveminutes to hear a trivial story and misses a train or steamer by oneminute. 

Grant decided to enlist the moment that he learned of the fall ofSumter. When Buckner sent him a flag of truce at Fort Donelson, askingfor the appointment of commissioners to consider terms of capitulation, he promptly replied: "No terms except an unconditional and immediatesurrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon yourworks. " Buckner replied that circumstances compelled him "to acceptthe ungenerous and unchivalrous terms which you propose. "

The man who, like Napoleon, can on the instant seize the most importantthing and sacrifice the others, is sure to win. 

Many a wasted life dates its ruin from a lost five minutes. "Too late"can be read between the lines on the tombstone of many a man who hasfailed. A few minutes often makes all the difference between victoryand defeat, success and failure. 

CHAPTER XV

WHAT A GOOD APPEARANCE WILL DO

Let thy attire be comely but not costly. --LIVY. 

 Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not expressed in fancy; rich not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man. SHAKESPEARE. 

I hold that gentleman to be the best dressed whose dress no oneobserves. --ANTHONY TROLLOPE. 

As a general thing an individual who is neat in his person is neat inhis morals. --H. W. SHAW. 

There are two chief factors in good appearance; cleanliness of body andcomeliness of attire. Usually these go together, neatness of attireindicating a sanitary care of the person, while outward slovenlinesssuggests a carelessness for appearance that probably goes deeper thanthe clothes covering the body. 

We express ourselves first of all in our bodies. The outer conditionof the body is accepted as the symbol of the inner. If it is unlovely, or repulsive, through sheer neglect or indifference, we conclude thatthe mind corresponds with it. As a rule, the conclusion is a just one. High ideals and strong, clean, wholesome lives and work areincompatible with low standards of personal cleanliness. A young manwho neglects his bath will neglect his mind; he will quicklydeteriorate in every way. A young woman who ceases to care for herappearance in minutest detail will soon cease to please. She will falllittle by little until she degenerates into an ambitionless slattern. 

It is not to be wondered at that the Talmud places cleanliness next togodliness. I should place it nearer still, for I believe that absolutecleanliness _is_ godliness. Cleanliness or purity of soul and bodyraises man to the highest estate. Without this he is nothing but abrute. 

There is a very close connection between a fine, strong, clean physiqueand a fine, strong, clean character. A man who allows himself tobecome careless in regard to the one will, in spite of himself, fallaway in the other. 

But self-interest clamors as loudly as esthetic or moral considerationsfor the fulfilment of the laws of cleanliness. Every day we see peoplereceiving "demerits" for failure to live up to them. I can recallinstances of capable stenographers who forfeited their positionsbecause they did not keep their finger nails clean. An honest, intelligent man whom I know lost his place in a large publishing firmbecause he was careless about shaving and brushing his teeth. Theother day a lady remarked that she went into a store to buy someribbons, but when she saw the salesgirl's hands she changed her mindand made her purchase elsewhere. "Dainty ribbons, " she said, "couldnot be handled by such soiled fingers without losing some of theirfreshness. " Of course, it will not be long until that girl's employerwill discover that she is not advancing his business, and then, --well, the law will work inexorably. 

The first point to be emphasized in the making of a good appearance isthe necessity of frequent bathing. A daily bath insures a clean, wholesome condition of the skin, without which health is impossible. 

Next in importance to the bath is the proper care of the hair, thehands, and the teeth. This requires little more than a small amount oftime and the use of soap and water. 

The hair, of course, should be combed and brushed regularly every day. If it is naturally oily, it should be washed thoroughly every two weekswith a good reliable scalp soap and warm water, to which a very littleammonia may be added. If the hair is dry or lacking in oily matter, itshould not be washed oftener than once a month and the ammonia may beomitted. Manicure sets are so cheap that they are within the reach ofalmost everyone. If you can not afford to buy a whole set, you can buya file (you can get one as low as ten cents), and keep your nailssmooth and clean. Keeping the teeth in good condition is a very simplematter, yet perhaps more people sin in this particular point ofcleanliness than in any other. I know young men, and young women, too, who dress very well and seem to take considerable pride in theirpersonal appearance, yet neglect their teeth. They do not realize thatthere could hardly be a worse blot on one's appearance than dirty ordecaying teeth, or the absence of one or two in front. Nothing can bemore offensive in man or woman than a foul breath, and no one can haveneglected teeth without reaping this consequence. We all know howdisagreeable it is to be anywhere near a person whose breath is bad. It is positively disgusting. No employer wants a clerk, orstenographer, or other employee about him who contaminates theatmosphere. Nor does he, if he is at all particular, want one whoseappearance is marred by a lack of one or two front teeth. Many anapplicant has been denied the position he sought because of bad teeth. 

For those who have to make their way in the world, the best counsel onthe subject of clothes may be summed up in this short sentence, "Letthy attire be comely, but not costly. " Simplicity in dress is itsgreatest charm, and in these days, when there is such an infinitevariety of tasteful but inexpensive fabrics to choose from, themajority can afford to be well dressed. But no one need blush for ashabby suit, if circumstances prevent his having a better one. Youwill be more respected by yourself and every one else with an old coaton your back that has been paid for than a new one that has not. It isnot the shabbiness that is unavoidable, but the slovenliness that isavoidable, that the world frowns upon. No one, no matter how poor hemay be, will be excused for wearing a dirty coat, a crumpled collar, ormuddy shoes. If you are dressed according to your means, no matter howpoorly, you are appropriately dressed. The consciousness of making thebest appearance you possibly can, of always being scrupulously neat andclean, and of maintaining your self-respect and integrity at all costs, will sustain you under the most adverse circumstances, and give you adignity, strength, and magnetic forcefulness that will command therespect and admiration of others. 

Herbert H. Vreeland, who rose in a short time from a section hand onthe Long Island Railroad to the presidency of all the surface railwaysin New York City, should be a practical authority on this subject. Inthe course of an address on how to attain success, he said:--

"Clothes don't make the man, but good clothes have got many a man agood job. If you have twenty-five dollars, and want a job, it isbetter to spend twenty dollars for a suit of clothes, four dollars forshoes, and the rest for a shave, a hair-cut, and a clean collar, andwalk to the place, than go with the money in the pockets of a dingysuit. "

[Illustration: John Wanamaker]

Most large business houses make it a rule not to employ anyone wholooks seedy, or slovenly, or who does not make a good appearance whenhe applies for a position. The man who hires all the salespeople forone of the largest retail stores in Chicago says:

"While the routine of application is in every case strictly adhered to, the fact remains that the most important element in an applicant'schance for a trial is his personality. "

It does not matter how much merit or ability an applicant for aposition may possess, he can not afford to be careless of his personalappearance. Diamonds in the rough of infinitely greater value than thepolished glass of some of those who get positions may, occasionally, berejected. Applicants whose good appearance helped them to secure aplace may often be very superficial in comparison with some who wererejected in their favor and may not have half their merit; but havingsecured it, they may keep it, though not possessing half the ability ofthe boy or girl who was turned away. 

That the same rule that governs employers in America holds in England, is evidenced by the "London Draper's Record. " It says:--

"Wherever a marked personal care is exhibited for the cleanliness ofthe person and for neatness in dress, there is also almost always foundextra carefulness as regards the finish of work done. Work peoplewhose personal habits are slovenly produce slovenly work; those who arecareful of their own appearance are equally careful of the looks of thework they turn out. And probably what is true of the workroom isequally true of the region behind the counter. Is it not a fact thatthe smart saleswoman is usually rather particular about her dress, isaverse to wearing dingy collars, frayed cuffs; and faded ties? Thetruth of the matter seems to be that extra care as regards personalhabits and general appearance is, as a rule, indicative of a certainalertness of mind, which shows itself antagonistic to slovenliness ofall kinds. "

No young man or woman who wishes to retain that most potent factor ofthe successful life, self-respect, can afford to be negligent in thematter of dress, for "the character is subdued to what it is clothedin. " As the consciousness of being well dressed tends to grace andease of manner, so shabby, ill-fitting, or soiled attire makes one feelawkward and constrained, lacking in dignity and importance. Ourclothes unmistakably affect our feelings, and self respect, as anyoneknows who has experienced the sensation--and who has not?--that comesfrom being attired in new and becoming raiment. Poor, ill-fitting, orsoiled garments are detrimental to morals and manners. "Theconsciousness of clean linen, " says Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, "is in andof itself a source of moral strength, second only to that of a cleanconscience. A well-ironed collar or a fresh glove has carried many aman through an emergency in which a wrinkle or a rip would havedefeated him. "

The importance of attending to little details--the perfection of whichreally constitutes the well-dressed man or woman--is well illustratedby this story of a young woman's failure to secure a desirableposition. One of those large-souled women of wealth, in which ourgeneration is rich, had established an industrial school for girls inwhich they received a good English education and were trained to beself-supporting. She needed the services of a superintendent andteacher, and considered herself fortunate when the trustees of theinstitution recommended to her a young woman whose tact, knowledge, perfect manners, and general fitness for the position they extolled inthe highest terms. The young woman was invited by the founder of theschool to call on her at once. Apparently she possessed all therequired qualifications; and yet, without assigning any reason, Mrs. V. Absolutely refused to give her a trial. Long afterward, whenquestioned by a friend as to the cause of her seemingly inexplicableconduct in refusing to engage so competent a teacher, she replied: "Itwas a trifle, but a trifle in which, as in an Egyptian hieroglyphic, lay a volume of meaning. The young woman came to me fashionably andexpensively dressed, but with torn and soiled gloves, and half of thebuttons off her shoes. A slovenly woman is not a fit guide for anyyoung girl. " Probably the applicant never knew why she did not obtainthe position, for she was undoubtedly well qualified to fill it inevery respect, except in this seemingly unimportant matter of attentionto the little details of dress. 

From every point of view it pays well to dress well. The knowledgethat we are becomingly clothed acts like a mental tonic. Very few menor women are so strong and so perfectly poised as to be unaffected bytheir surroundings. If you lie around half-dressed, without makingyour toilet, and with your room all in disorder, taking it easy becauseyou do not expect or wish to see anybody, you will find yourself veryquickly taking on the mood of your attire and environment. Your mindwill slip down; it will refuse to exert itself; it will become asslovenly, slipshod, and inactive as your body. On the other hand, if, when you have an attack of the "blues, " when you feel half sick and notable to work, instead of lying around the house in your old wrapper ordressing gown, you take a good bath, --a Turkish bath, if you can affordit, --put on your best clothes, and make your toilet as carefully as ifyou were going to a fashionable reception, you will feel like a newperson. Nine times out of ten, before you have finished dressing your"blues" and your half-sick feeling will have vanished like a bad dream, and your whole outlook on life will have changed. 

By emphasizing the importance of dress I do not mean that you should belike Beau Brummel, the English fop, who spent four thousand dollars ayear at his tailor's alone, and who used to take hours to tie hiscravat. An undue love of dress is worse than a total disregard of it, and they love dress too much who "go in debt" for it, who make it theirchief object in life, to the neglect of their most sacred duty tothemselves and others, or who, like Beau Brummel, devote most of theirwaking hours to its study. But I do claim, in view of its effect onourselves and on those with whom we come in contact, that it is a duty, as well as the truest economy, to dress as well and becomingly as ourposition requires and our means will allow. 

Many young men and women make the mistake of thinking that "welldressed" necessarily means being expensively dressed, and, with thiserroneous idea in mind, they fall into as great a pitfall as those whothink clothes are of no importance. They devote the time that shouldbe given to the culture of head and heart to studying their toilets, and planning how they can buy, out of their limited salaries, this orthat expensive hat, or tie or coat, which they see exhibited in somefashionable store. If they can not by any possibility afford thecoveted article, they buy some cheap, tawdry imitation, the effect ofwhich is only to make them look ridiculous. Young men of this stampwear cheap rings, vermilion-tinted ties, and broad checks, and almostinvariably they occupy cheap positions. Like the dandy, whom Carlyledescribes as "a clothes-wearing man, --a man whose trade, office andexistence consists in the wearing of clothes, --every faculty of whosesoul, spirit, person and purse is heroically consecrated to this oneobject, " they live to dress, and have no time to devote to self-cultureor to fitting themselves for higher positions. 

The overdressed young woman is merely the feminine of the overdressedyoung man. The manners of both seem to have a subtle connection withtheir clothes. They are loud, flashy, vulgar. Their style of dressbespeaks a type of character even more objectionable than that of theslovenly, untidily dressed person. The world accepts the truthannounced by Shakespeare that "the apparel oft proclaims the man"; andthe man and the woman, too, are frequently condemned by the very garbwhich they think makes them so irresistible. At first sight, it mayseem hasty or superficial to judge men or women by their clothes, butexperience has proved, again and again, that they do, as a rule, measure the sense and self-respect of the wearer; and aspirants tosuccess should be as careful in choosing their dress as theircompanions, for the old adage: "Tell me thy company and I will tellthee what thou art, " is offset by this wise saying of some philosopherof the commonplace: "Show me all the dresses a woman has worn in thecourse of her life, and I will write you her biography. "

"How exquisitely absurd it is, " says Sydney Smith, "to teach a girlthat beauty is of no value, dress of no use. Beauty is of value. Herwhole prospect and happiness in life may often depend upon a new gownor a becoming bonnet. If she has five grains of common sense, she willfind this out. The great thing is to teach her their proper value. "

It is true that clothes do not make the man, but they have a muchlarger influence on man's life than we are wont to attribute to them. Prentice Mulford declares dress to be one of the avenues for thespiritualization of the race. This is not an extravagant statement, when we remember what an effect clothes have in inciting to personalcleanliness. Let a woman, for instance, don an old soiled or wornwrapper, and it will have the effect of making her indifferent as towhether her hair is frowsy or in curl papers. It does not matterwhether her face or hands are clean or not, or what sort of slipshodshoes she wears, for "anything, " she argues, "is good enough to go withthis old wrapper. " Her walk, her manner, the general trend of herfeelings, will in some subtle way be dominated by the old wrapper. Suppose she changes, --puts on a dainty muslin garment instead; howdifferent her looks and acts! Her hair must be becomingly arranged, soas not to be at odds with her dress. Her face and hands and fingernails must be spotless as the muslin which surrounds them. Thedown-at-heel old shoes are exchanged for suitable slippers. Her mindruns along new channels. She has much more respect for the wearer ofthe new, clean wrapper than for the wearer of the old, soiled one. "Would you change the current of your thoughts? Change your raiment, and you will at once feel the effect. " Even so great an authority asBuffon, the naturalist and philosopher, testifies to the influence ofdress on thought. He declared himself utterly incapable of thinking togood purpose except in full court dress. This he always put on beforeentering his study, not even omitting his sword. 

There is something about ill-fitting, unbecoming, or shabby apparelwhich not only robs one of self-respect, but also of comfort and power. Good clothes give ease of manner, and make one talk well. Theconsciousness of being well dressed gives a grace and ease of mannerthat even religion will not bestow, while inferiority of garb ofteninduces restraint. 

One can not but feel that God is a lover of appropriate dress. He hasput robes of beauty and glory upon all His works. Every flower isdressed in richness; every field blushes beneath a mantle of beauty;every star is veiled in brightness; every bird is clothed in thehabiliments of the most exquisite taste. And surely He is pleased whenwe provide a beautiful setting for the greatest of His handiworks. 

CHAPTER XVI

PERSONALITY AS A SUCCESS ASSET

There is something about one's personality which eludes thephotographer, which the painter can not reproduce, which the sculptorcan not chisel. This subtle something which every one feels, but whichno one can describe, which no biographer ever put down in a book, has agreat deal to do with one's success in life. 

It is this indescribable quality, which some persons have in aremarkable degree, which sets an audience wild at the mention of thename of a Blaine or a Lincoln, --which makes people applaud beyond thebounds of enthusiasm. It was this peculiar atmosphere which made Claythe idol of his constituents. Although, perhaps, Calhoun was a greaterman, he never aroused any such enthusiasm as "the mill-boy of theslashes. " Webster and Sumner were great men, but they did not arouse atithe of the spontaneous enthusiasm evoked by men like Blaine and Clay. 

A historian says that, in measuring Kossuth's influence over themasses, "we must first reckon with the orator's physical bulk, and thencarry the measuring line above his atmosphere. " If we had discernmentfine enough and tests delicate enough, we could not only measure thepersonal atmosphere of individuals, but could also make more accurateestimates concerning the future possibilities of schoolmates and youngfriends. We are often misled as to the position they are going tooccupy from the fact that we are apt to take account merely of theirability, and do not reckon this personal atmosphere or magnetic poweras a part of their success-capital. Yet this individual atmosphere hasquite as much to do with one's advancement as brain-power or education. Indeed, we constantly see men of mediocre ability but with finepersonal presence, superb manner, and magnetic qualities, being rapidlyadvanced over the heads of those who are infinitely their superiors inmental endowments. 

A good illustration of the influence of personal atmosphere is found inthe orator who carries his audience with him like a whirlwind, while heis delivering his speech, and yet so little of this personal elementadheres to his cold words in print that those who read them arescarcely moved at all. The influence of such speakers depends almostwholly upon their presence, --the atmosphere that emanates from them. They are much larger than anything they say or do. 

Certain personalities are greater than mere physical beauty and morepowerful than learning. Charm of personality is a divine gift thatsways the strongest characters, and sometimes even controls thedestinies of nations. 

We are unconsciously influenced by people who possess this magneticpower. The moment we come into their presence we have a sense ofenlargement. They unlock within us possibilities of which wepreviously had no conception. Our horizon broadens; we feel a newpower stirring through all our being; we experience a sense of relief, as if a great weight which long had pressed upon us had been removed. 

We can converse with such people in a way that astonishes us, althoughmeeting them, perhaps, for the first time. We express ourselves moreclearly and eloquently than we believed we could. They draw out thebest that is in us; they introduce us, as it were, to our larger, better selves. With their presence, impulses and longings comethronging to our minds which never stirred us before. All at once lifetakes on a higher and nobler meaning, and we are fired with a desire todo more than we have ever before done, and to be more than we have beenin the past. 

A few minutes before, perhaps, we were sad and discouraged, when, suddenly, the flashlight of a potent personality of this kind hasopened a rift in our lives and revealed to us hidden capabilities. Sadness gives place to joy, despair to hope, and disheartenment toencouragement. We have been touched to finer issues; we have caught aglimpse of higher ideals; and, for the moment, at least, have beentransformed. The old commonplace life, with its absence of purpose andendeavor, has dropped out of sight, and we resolve, with better heartand newer hope, to struggle to make permanently ours the forces andpotentialities that have been revealed to us. 

Even a momentary contact with a character of this kind seems to doubleour mental and soul powers, as two great dynamos double the currentwhich passes over the wire, and we are loath to leave the magicalpresence lest we lose our new-born power. 

On the other hand, we frequently meet people who make us shrivel andshrink into ourselves. The moment they come near us we experience acold chill, as if a blast of winter had struck us in midsummer. Ablighting, narrowing sensation, which seems to make us suddenlysmaller, passes over us. We feel a decided loss of power, ofpossibility. We could no more smile in their presence than we couldlaugh while at a funeral. Their gloomy miasmatic atmosphere chills allour natural impulses. In their presence there is no possibility ofexpansion for us. As a dark cloud suddenly obscures the brightness ofa smiling summer sky, their shadows are cast upon us and fill us withvague, undefinable uneasiness. 

We instinctively feel that such people have no sympathy with ouraspirations, and our natural prompting is to guard closely anyexpression of our hopes and ambitions. When they are near us ourlaudable purposes and desires shrink into insignificance and merefoolishness; the charm of sentiment vanishes and life seems to losecolor and zest. The effect of their presence is paralyzing, and wehasten from it as soon as possible. 

If we study these two types of personality, we shall find that thechief difference between them is that the first loves his kind, and thelatter does not. Of course, that rare charm of manner which captivatesall those who come within the sphere of its influence, and that strongpersonal magnetism which inclines all hearts toward its fortunatepossessor, are largely natural gifts. But we shall find that the manwho practises unselfishness, who is genuinely interested in the welfareof others, who feels it a privilege to have the power to do afellow-creature a kindness, --even though polished manners and agracious presence may be conspicuous by their absence, --will be anelevating influence wherever he goes. He will bring encouragement toand uplift every life that touches his. He will be trusted and lovedby all who come in contact with him. This type of personality we mayall cultivate if we will. 

Magnetic personality is intangible. This mysterious something, whichwe sometimes call individuality, is often more powerful than theability which can be measured, or the qualities that can be rated. 

Many women are endowed with this magnetic quality, which is entirelyindependent of personal beauty. It is often possessed in a high degreeby very plain women. This was notably the case with some of the womenwho ruled in the French _salons_ more absolutely than the king on histhrone. 

At a social gathering, when conversation drags, and interest is at alow ebb, the entrance of some bright woman with a magnetic personalityinstantly changes the whole situation. She may not be handsome, buteverybody is attracted; it is a privilege to speak to her. 

People who possess this rare quality are frequently ignorant of thesource of their power. They simply know they have it, but can notlocate or describe it. While it is, like poetry, music, or art, a giftof nature, born in one, it can be cultivated to a certain extent. 

Much of the charm of a magnetic personality comes from a fine, cultivated manner. Tact, also, is a very important element, --next to afine manner, perhaps the most important. One must know exactly what todo, and be able to do just the right thing at the proper time. Goodjudgment and common sense are indispensable to those who are trying toacquire this magic power. Good taste is also one of the elements ofpersonal charm. You can not offend the tastes of others withouthurting their sensibilities. 

One of the greatest investments one can make is that of attaining agracious manner, cordiality of bearing, generosity of feeling, --thedelightful art of pleasing. It is infinitely better than moneycapital, for all doors fly open to sunny, pleasing personalities. Theyare more than welcome; they are sought for everywhere. 

Many a youth owes his promotion or his first start in life to thedisposition to be accommodating, to help along wherever he could. Thiswas one of Lincoln's chief characteristics; he had a passion forhelping people, for making himself agreeable under all circumstances. Mr. Herndon, his law partner, says: "When the Rutledge Tavern, whereLincoln boarded, was crowded, he would often give up his bed, and sleepon the counter in his store with a roll of calico for his pillow. Somehow everybody in trouble turned to him for help. " This generousdesire to assist others and to return kindnesses especially endearedLincoln to the people. 

The power to please is a tremendous asset. What can be more valuablethan a personality which always attracts, never repels? It is not onlyvaluable in business, but also in every field of life. It makesstatesmen and politicians, it brings clients to the lawyer, andpatients to the physician. It is worth everything to the clergyman. No matter what career you enter, you can not overestimate theimportance of cultivating that charm of manner, those personalqualities, which attract people to you. They will take the place ofcapital, or influence. They are often a substitute for a large amountof hard work. 

Some men attract business, customers, clients, patients, as naturallyas magnets attract particles of steel. Everything seems to point theirway, for the same reason that the steel particles point toward themagnet, --because they are attracted. 

Such men are business magnets. Business moves toward them, even whenthey do not apparently make half so much effort to get it as the lesssuccessful. Their friends call them "lucky dogs. " But if we analyzethese men closely, we find that they have attractive qualities. Thereis usually some charm of personality about them that wins all hearts. 

Many successful business and professional men would be surprised, ifthey should analyze their success, to find what a large percentage ofit is due to their habitual courtesy and other popular qualities. Hadit not been for these, their sagacity, long-headedness, and businesstraining would not, perhaps, have amounted to half so much; for, nomatter how able a man may be, if his coarse, rude manners drive awayclients, patients, or customers, if his personality repels, he willalways be placed at a disadvantage. 

It pays to cultivate popularity. It doubles success possibilities, develops manhood, and builds up character. To be popular, one muststrangle selfishness, he must keep back his bad tendencies, he must bepolite, gentlemanly, agreeable, and companionable. In trying to bepopular, he is on the road to success and happiness as well. Theability to cultivate friends is a powerful aid to success. It iscapital which will stand by one when panics come, when banks fail, whenbusiness concerns go to the wall. How many men have been able to startagain after having everything swept away by fire or flood, or someother disaster, just because they had cultivated popular qualities, because they had learned the art of being agreeable, of making friendsand holding them with hooks of steel! People are influenced powerfullyby their friendships, by their likes and dislikes, and a popularbusiness or professional man has every advantage in the world over acold, indifferent man, for customers, clients, or patients will flockto him. 

Cultivate the art of being agreeable. It will help you toself-expression as nothing else will; it will call out your successqualities; it will broaden your sympathies. It is difficult toconceive of any more delightful birthright than to be born with thispersonal charm, and yet it is comparatively easy to cultivate, becauseit is made up of so many other qualities, all of which are cultivatable. 

I never knew a thoroughly unselfish person who was not an attractiveperson. No person who is always thinking of himself and trying tofigure out how he can get some advantage from everybody else will everbe attractive. We are naturally disgusted with people who are tryingto get everything for themselves and never think of anybody else. 

The secret of pleasing is in being pleasant yourself, in beinginteresting. If you would be agreeable, you must be magnanimous. Thenarrow, stingy soul is not lovable. People shrink from such acharacter. There must be heartiness in the expression, in the smile, in the hand-shake, in the cordiality, which is unmistakable. Thehardest natures can not resist these qualities any more than the eyescan resist the sun. If you radiate sweetness and light, people willlove to get near you, for we are all looking for the sunlight, tryingto get away from the shadows. 

It is unfortunate that these things are not taught more in the home andin the school; for our success and happiness depend largely upon them. Many of us are no better than uneducated heathens. We may know enough, but we give ourselves out stingily and we live narrow and reservedlives, when we should be broad, generous, sympathetic, and magnanimous. 

Popular people, those with great personal charm, take infinite pains tocultivate all the little graces and qualities which go to make uppopularity. If people who are naturally unsocial would only spend asmuch time and take as much pains as people who are social favorites inmaking themselves popular, they would accomplish wonders. 

Everybody is attracted by lovable qualities and is repelled by theunlovely wherever found. The whole principle of an attractivepersonality lives in this sentence. A fine manner pleases; a coarse, brutal manner repels. We cannot help being attracted to one who isalways trying to help us, --who gives us his sympathy, who is alwaystrying to make us comfortable and to give us every advantage he can. On the other hand, we are repelled by people who are always trying toget something out of us, who elbow their way in front of us, to get thebest seat in a car or a hall, who are always looking for the easiestchair, or for the choicest bits at the table, who are always wanting tobe waited on first at the restaurant or hotel, regardless of others. 

The ability to bring the best that is in you to the man you are tryingto reach, to make a good impression at the very first meeting, toapproach a prospective customer as though you had known him for yearswithout offending his taste, without raising the least prejudice, butgetting his sympathy and good will, is a great accomplishment, and thisis what commands a great salary. 

There is a charm in a gracious personality from which it is very hardto get away. It is difficult to snub the man who possesses it. Thereis something about him which arrests your prejudice, and no matter howbusy or how worried you may be, or how much you may dislike to beinterrupted, somehow you haven't the heart to turn away the man with apleasing personality. 

Who has not felt his power multiplied many times, his intellectsharpened, and a keener edge put on all of his faculties, when cominginto contact with a strong personality which has called forth hiddenpowers which he never before dreamed he possessed, so that he could saythings and do things impossible to him when alone? The power of theorator, which he flings back to his listeners, he first draws from hisaudience, but he could never get it from the separate individuals anymore than the chemist could get the full power from chemicals standingin separate bottles in his laboratory. It is in contact andcombination only that new creations, new forces, are developed. 

We little realize what a large part of our achievement is due to othersworking through us, to their sharpening our faculties, radiating hope, encouragement, and helpfulness into our lives, and sustaining andinspiring us mentally. 

We are apt to overestimate the value of an education from books alone. A large part of the value of a college education comes from the socialintercourse of the students, the reenforcement, the buttressing ofcharacter by association. Their faculties are sharpened and polishedby the attrition of mind with mind, and the pitting of brain againstbrain, which stimulate ambition, brighten the ideals, and open up newhopes and possibilities. Book knowledge is valuable, but the knowledgewhich comes from mind intercourse is invaluable. 

Two substances totally unlike, but having a chemical affinity for eachother, may produce a third infinitely stronger than either, or evenboth of those which unite. Two people with a strong affinity oftencall into activity in each other a power which neither dreamed hepossessed before. Many an author owes his greatest book, his cleverestsaying to a friend who has aroused in him latent powers which otherwisemight have remained dormant. Artists have been touched by the power ofinspiration through a masterpiece, or by some one they happened to meetwho saw in them what no one else had ever seen, --the power to do animmortal thing. 

The man who mixes with his fellows is ever on a voyage of discovery, finding new islands of power in himself which would have remainedforever hidden but for association with others. Everybody he meets hassome secret for him, if he can only extract it, something which henever knew before, something which will help him on his way, somethingwhich will enrich his life. No man finds himself alone. Others arehis discoverers. 

It is astonishing how much you can learn from people in socialintercourse when you know how to look at them rightly. But it is afact that you can only get a great deal out of them by giving them agreat deal of yourself. The more you radiate yourself, the moremagnanimous you are, the more generous of yourself, the more you flingyourself out to them without reserve, the more you will get back. 

You must give much in order to get much. The current will not settoward you until it goes out from you. About all you get from othersis a reflex of the currents from yourself. The more generously yougive, the more you get in return. You will not receive if you give outstingily, narrowly, meanly. You must give of yourself in awhole-hearted, generous way, or you will receive only stingy rivulets, when you might have had great rivers and torrents of blessings. 

A man who might have been symmetrical, well-rounded, had he availedhimself of every opportunity of touching life along all sides, remainsa pygmy in everything except his own little specialty, because he didnot cultivate his social side. 

It is always a mistake to miss an opportunity of meeting with our kind, and especially of mixing with those above us, because we can alwayscarry away something of value. It is through social intercourse thatour rough corners are rubbed off, that we become polished andattractive. 

If you go into social life with a determination to give it something, to make it a school for self-improvement, for calling out your bestsocial qualities, for developing the latent brain cells, which haveremained dormant for the lack of exercise, you will not find societyeither a bore or unprofitable. But you must give it something, or youwill not get anything. 

When you learn to look upon every one you meet as holding a treasure, something which will enrich your life, which will enlarge and broadenyour experience, and make you more of a man, you will not think thetime in the drawing-room wasted. 

The man who is determined to get on will look upon every experience asan educator, as a culture chisel, which will make his life a littlemore shapely and attractive. 

Frankness of manner is one of the most delightful of traits in young orold. Everybody admires the open-hearted, the people who have nothingto conceal, and who do not try to cover up their faults and weaknesses. They are, as a rule, large-hearted and magnanimous. They inspire loveand confidence, and, by their very frankness and simplicity, invite thesame qualities in others. 

Secretiveness repels as much as frankness attracts. There is somethingabout the very inclination to conceal or cover up which arousessuspicion and distrust. We cannot have the same confidence in peoplewho possess this trait, no matter how good they may seem to be, as infrank, sunny natures. Dealing with these secretive people is liketraveling on a stage coach on a dark night. There is always a feelingof uncertainty. We may come out all right, but there is a lurking fearof some pitfall or unknown danger ahead of us. We are uncomfortablebecause of the uncertainties. They may be all right, and may dealsquarely with us, but we are not sure and can not trust them. Nomatter how polite or gracious a secretive person may be, we can neverrid ourselves of the feeling that there is a motive behind hisgraciousness, and that he has an ulterior purpose in view. He isalways more or less of an enigma, because he goes through life wearinga mask. He endeavors to hide every trait that is not favorable tohimself. Never, if he can help it, do we get a glimpse of the real man. 

How different the man who comes out in the open, who has no secrets, who reveals his heart to us, and who is frank, broad and liberal! Howquickly he wins our confidence! How we all like and trust him! Weforgive him for many a slip or weakness, because he is always ready toconfess his faults, and to make amends for them. It he has badqualities, they are always in sight, and we are ready to makeallowances for them. His heart is sound and true, his sympathies arebroad and active. The very qualities he possesses--frankness andsimplicity, --are conducive to the growth of the highest manhood andwomanhood. 

In the Black Hills of South Dakota there lived a humble, ignorantminer, who won the love and good will of everyone. "You can't 'elplikin' 'im, " said an English miner, and when asked why the miners andthe people in the town couldn't help liking him, he answered. "Becausehe has a 'eart in 'im; he's a man. He always 'elps the boys when introuble. You never go to 'im for nothin'. "

Bright, handsome young men, graduates of Eastern colleges, were thereseeking their fortune; a great many able, strong men drawn there fromdifferent parts of the country by the gold fever; but none of them heldthe public confidence like this poor man. He could scarcely write hisname, and knew nothing of the usages of polite society, yet he sointrenched himself in the hearts in his community that no other man, however educated or cultured, had the slightest chance of being electedto any office of prominence while "Ike" was around. 

He was elected mayor of his town, and sent to the legislature, althoughhe could not speak a grammatical sentence. It was all because he had aheart in him; he was a man. 

CHAPTER XVII

IF YOU CAN TALK WELL

When Charles W. Eliot was president of Harvard, he said, "I recognizebut one mental acquisition as an essential part of the education of alady or gentleman, namely, an accurate and refined use of themother-tongue. "

Sir Walter Scott defined "a good conversationalist" as "one who hasideas, who reads, thinks, listens, and who has therefore something tosay. "

There is no other one thing which enables us to make so good animpression, especially upon those who do not know us thoroughly, as theability to converse well. 

To be a good conversationalist, able to interest people, to rivet theirattention, to draw them to you naturally, by the very superiority ofyour conversational ability, is to be the possessor of a very greataccomplishment, one which is superior to all others. It not only helpsyou to make a good impression upon strangers, it also helps you to makeand keep friends. It opens doors and softens hearts. It makes youinteresting in all sorts of company. It helps you to get on in theworld. It sends you clients, patients, customers. It helps you intothe best society, even though you are poor. 

A man who can talk well, who has the art of putting things in anattractive way, who can interest others immediately by his power ofspeech, has a very great advantage over one who may know more than he, but who cannot express himself with ease or eloquence. 

No matter how expert you may be in any other art or accomplishment, youcannot use your expertness always and everywhere as you can the powerto converse well. If you are a musician, no matter how talented youmay be, or how many years you may have spent in perfecting yourself inyour specialty, or how much it may have cost you, only comparativelyfew people can ever hear or appreciate your music. 

You may be a fine singer, and yet travel around the world withouthaving an opportunity of showing your accomplishment, or without anyoneguessing your specialty. But wherever you go and in whatever societyyou are, no matter what your station in life may be, you talk. 

You may be a painter, you may have spent years with great masters, andyet, unless you have very marked ability so that your pictures are hungin the salons or in the great art galleries, comparatively few peoplewill ever see them. But if you are an artist in conversation, everyonewho comes in contact with you will see your life-picture, which youhave been painting ever since you began to talk. Everyone knowswhether you are an artist or a bungler. 

In fact, you may have a great many accomplishments which peopleoccasionally see or enjoy, and you may have a very beautiful home and alot of property which comparatively few people ever know about; but ifyou are a good converser, everyone with whom you talk will feel theinfluence of your skill and charm. 

A noted society leader, who has been very successful in the launchingof _débutantes_ in society, always gives this advice to her _protégés_, "Talk, talk. It does not matter much what you say, but chatter awaylightly and gayly. Nothing embarrasses and bores the average man somuch as a girl who has to be entertained. "

There is a helpful suggestion in this advice. The way to learn to talkis to talk. The temptation for people who are unaccustomed to society, and who feel diffident, is to say nothing themselves and listen to whatothers say. 

Good talkers are always sought after in society. Everybody wants toinvite Mrs. So-and-So to dinners or receptions because she is such agood talker. She entertains. She may have many defects, but peopleenjoy her society because she can talk well. 

Conversation, if used as an educator, is a tremendous power developer;but talking without thinking, without an effort to express oneself withclearness, conciseness, or efficiency, mere chattering, or gossiping, the average society small talk, will never get hold of the best thingin a man. It lies too deep for such superficial effort. 

Thousands of young people who envy such of their mates as are gettingon faster than they are keep on wasting their precious evenings andtheir half-holidays, saying nothing but the most frivolous, frothy, senseless things--things which do not rise to the level of humor, butthe foolish, silly talk which demoralizes one's ambition, lowers one'sideals and all the standards of life, because it begets habits ofsuperficial and senseless thinking. On the streets, on the cars, andin public places, loud, coarse voices are heard in light, flippant, slipshod speech, in coarse slang expressions. "You're talking throughyour hat"; "Search me"; "You just bet"; "Well, that's the limit"; "Ihate that man; he gets on my nerves, " and a score of other suchvulgarities we often hear. 

Nothing else will indicate your fineness or coarseness of culture, yourbreeding or lack of it, so quickly as your conversation. It will tellyour whole life's story. What you say, and how you say it, will betrayall your secrets, will give the world your true measure. 

There is no accomplishment, no attainment which you can use soconstantly and effectively, which will give so much pleasure to yourfriends, as fine conversation. There is no doubt that the gift oflanguage was intended to be a much greater accomplishment than themajority of us have ever made of it. 

Most of us are bunglers in our conversation, because we do not make anart of it; we do not take the trouble or pains to learn to talk well. We do not read enough or think enough. Most of us express ourselves insloppy, slipshod English, because it is so much easier to do so than itis to think before we speak, to make an effort to express ourselveswith elegance, ease, and power. 

Poor conversers excuse themselves for not trying to improve by sayingthat "good talkers are born, not made. " We might as well say that goodlawyers, good physicians, or good merchants are born, not made. Noneof them would ever get very far without hard work. This is the priceof all achievement that is of value. 

Many a man owes his advancement very largely to his ability to conversewell. The ability to interest people in your conversation, to holdthem, is a great power. The man who has a bungling expression, whoknows a thing, but never can put it in logical, interesting, orcommanding language, is always placed at a great disadvantage. 

I know a business man who has cultivated the art of conversation tosuch an extent that it is a great treat to listen to him. His languageflows with such liquid, limpid beauty, his words are chosen with suchexquisite delicacy, taste, and accuracy, there is such a refinement inhis diction that he charms everyone who hears him speak. All his lifehe has been a reader of the finest prose and poetry, and has cultivatedconversation as a fine art. 

You may think you are poor and have no chance in life. You may besituated so that others are dependent upon you, and you may not be ableto go to school or college, or to study music or art, as you long to;you may be tied down to an iron environment; you may be tortured withan unsatisfied, disappointed ambition; and yet you can become aninteresting talker, because in every sentence you utter you canpractise the best form of expression. Every book you read, everyperson with whom you converse, who uses good English, can help you. 

Few people think very much about how they are going to expressthemselves. They use the first words that come to them. They do notthink of forming a sentence so that it will have beauty, brevity, transparency, power. The words flow from their lips helter-skelter, with little thought of arrangement or order. 

Now and then we meet a real artist in conversation, and it is such atreat and delight that we wonder why the most of us should be suchbunglers in our conversation, that we should make such a botch of themedium of communication between human beings, when it is capable ofbeing made the art of arts. 

I have met a dozen persons in my lifetime who have given me such aglimpse of its superb possibilities that it has made all other artsseem comparatively unimportant to me. 

I was once a visitor at Wendell Phillips's home in Boston, and themusic of his voice, the liquid charm of his words, the purity, thetransparency of his diction, the profundity of his knowledge, thefascination of his personality, and his marvelous art of puttingthings, I shall never forget. He sat down on the sofa beside me andtalked as he would to an old schoolmate, and it seemed to me that I hadnever heard such exquisite and polished English. I have met severalEnglish people who possessed that marvelous power of "soul inconversation which charms all who come under its spell. "

Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, Julia Ward Howe, and Elizabeth S. P. Ward, hadthis wonderful conversational charm, as has ex-President Eliot ofHarvard. 

The quality of the conversation is everything. We all know people whouse the choicest language and express their thoughts in fluent, liquiddiction, who impress us by the wonderful flow of their conversation;but that is all there is to it. They do not impress us with theirthoughts; they do not stimulate us to action. We do not feel any moredetermined to do something in the world, to be somebody, after we haveheard them talk than we felt before. 

We know other people who talk very little, but whose words are so fullof meat and stimulating brain force that we feel ourselves multipliedmany times by the power they have injected into us. 

In olden times the art of conversation reached a much higher standardthan that of to-day. The deterioration is due to the completerevolution in the conditions of modern civilization. Formerly peoplehad almost no other way of communicating their thoughts than by speech. Knowledge of all kinds was disseminated almost wholly through thespoken word. There were no great daily newspapers, no magazines orperiodicals of any kind. 

The great discoveries of vast wealth in the precious minerals, the newworld opened up by inventions and discoveries, and the great impetus toambition have changed all this. In this lightning-express age, inthese strenuous times, when everybody has the mania to attain wealthand position, we no longer have time to reflect with deliberation, andto develop our powers of conversation. In these great newspaper andperiodical days, when everybody can get for one or a few cents the newsand information which it has cost thousands of dollars to collect, everybody sits behind the morning sheet or is buried in a book ormagazine. There is no longer the same need of communicating thought bythe spoken word. 

Oratory is becoming a lost art for the same reason. Printing hasbecome so cheap that even the poorest homes can get more reading for afew dollars than kings and noblemen could afford in the Middle Ages. 

It is a rare thing to find a polished conversationalist to-day. Sorare is it to hear one speaking exquisite English, and using a superbdiction, that it is indeed a luxury. 

Good reading, however, will not only broaden the mind and give newideas, but it will also increase one's vocabulary, and that is a greataid to conversation. Many people have good thoughts and ideas, butthey cannot express them because of the poverty of their vocabulary. They have not words enough to clothe their ideas and make themattractive. They talk around in a circle, repeat and repeat, because, when they want a particular word to convey their exact meaning, theycannot find it. 

If you are ambitious to talk well, you must be as much as possible inthe society of well-bred, cultured people. If you seclude yourself, though you are a college graduate, you will be a poor converser. 

We all sympathize with people, especially the timid and shy, who havethat awful feeling of repression and stifling of thought, when theymake an effort to say something and cannot. Timid young people oftensuffer keenly in this way in attempting to declaim at school orcollege. But many a great orator went through the same sort ofexperience, when he first attempted to speak in public and was oftendeeply humiliated by his blunders and failures. There is no other way, however, to become an orator or a good conversationalist than byconstantly trying to express oneself efficiently and elegantly. 

If you find that your ideas fly from you when you attempt to expressthem, that you stammer and flounder about for words which you areunable to find, you may be sure that every honest effort you make, evenif you fail in your attempt, will make it all the easier for you tospeak well the next time. It is remarkable, if one keeps on trying, how quickly he will conquer his awkwardness and self-consciousness, andwill gain ease of manner and facility of expression. 

Everywhere we see people placed at a tremendous disadvantage becausethey have never learned the art of putting their ideas intointeresting, telling language. We see brainy men at public gatherings, when momentous questions are being discussed, sit silent, unable totell what they know, when they are infinitely better informed thanthose who are making a great deal of display of oratory or smooth talk. 

People with a lot of ability, who know a great deal, often appear likea set of dummies in company, while some superficial, shallow-brainedperson holds the attention of those present simply because he can tellwhat he knows in an interesting way. They are constantly humiliatedand embarrassed when away from those who happen to know their realworth, because they can not carry on an intelligent conversation uponany topic. There are hundreds of these silent people at our nationalcapital--many of them wives of husbands who have suddenly andunexpectedly come into political prominence. 

Many people--and this is especially true of scholars--seem to thinkthat the great _desideratum_ in life is to get as much valuableinformation into the head as possible. But it is just as important toknow how to give out knowledge in a palatable manner as to acquire it. You may be a profound scholar, you may be well read in history and inpolitics, you may be wonderfully well-posted in science, literature, and art, and yet, if your knowledge is locked up within you, you willalways be placed at a great disadvantage. 

Locked-up ability may give the individual some satisfaction, but itmust be exhibited, expressed in some attractive way, before the worldwill appreciate it or give credit for it. It does not matter howvaluable the rough diamond may be, no explaining, no describing itsmarvels of beauty within, and its great value, would avail; nobodywould appreciate it until it was ground and polished and the light letinto its depths to reveal its hidden brilliancy. Conversation is tothe man what the cutting of the diamond is to the stone. The grindingdoes not add anything to the diamond. It merely reveals its wealth. 

How little parents realize the harm they are doing their children byallowing them to grow up ignorant of or indifferent to the marvelouspossibilities in the art of conversation! In the majority of homes, children are allowed to mangle the English language in a most painfulway. 

Nothing else will develop the brain and character more than theconstant effort to talk well, intelligently, interestingly, upon allsorts of topics. There is a splendid discipline in the constant effortto express one's thoughts in clear language and in an interestingmanner. We know people who are such superb conversers that no onewould ever dream that they have not had the advantages of the higherschools. Many a college graduate has been silenced and put to shame bypeople who have never even been to a high school, but who havecultivated the art of self-expression. 

The school and the college employ the student comparatively a few hoursa day for a few years; conversation is a training in a perpetualschool. Many get the best part of their education in this school. 

Conversation is a great ability discoverer, a great revealer ofpossibilities and resources. It stimulates thought wonderfully. Wethink more of ourselves if we can talk well, if we can interest andhold others. The power to do so increases our self-respect, ourself-confidence. 

No man knows what he really possesses until he makes his best effort toexpress to others what is in him. Then the avenues of the mind flyopen, the faculties are on the alert. Every good converser has felt apower come to him from the listener which he never felt before, andwhich often stimulates and inspires to fresh endeavor. The mingling ofthought with thought, the contact of mind with mind, develops newpowers, as the mixing of two chemicals often produces a new thirdsubstance. 

To converse well one must listen well also--hold oneself in a receptiveattitude. 

We are not only poor conversationalists, but we are poor listeners aswell. We are too impatient to listen. Instead of being attentive andeager to drink in the story or the information, we have not enoughrespect for the talker to keep quiet. We look about impatiently, perhaps snap our watch, play a tattoo with our fingers on a chair or atable, hitch about as if we were bored and were anxious to get away, and interrupt the speaker before he reaches his conclusion. In fact, we are such an impatient people that we have no time for anythingexcepting to push ahead, to elbow our way through the crowd to get theposition or the money we desire. Our life is feverish and unnatural. We have no time to develop charm of manner, or elegance of diction. "We are too intense for epigram or repartee. We lack time. "

Nervous impatience is a conspicuous characteristic of the Americanpeople. Everything bores us which does not bring us more business, ormore money, or which does not help us to attain the position for whichwe are striving. Instead of enjoying our friends, we are inclined tolook upon them as so many rungs in a ladder, and to value them inproportion as they furnish readers for our books, send us patients, clients, customers or show their ability to give us a boost forpolitical position. 

Before these days of hurry and drive, before this age of excitement, itwas considered one of the greatest luxuries possible to be a listenerin a group surrounding an intelligent talker. It was better than mostmodern lectures, than anything one could find in a book; for there wasa touch of personality, a charm of style, a magnetism which held, asuperb personality which fascinated. For the hungry soul, yearning foran education, to drink in knowledge from those wise lips was to be fedwith a royal feast indeed. 

But to-day everything is "touch and go. " We have no time to stop onthe street and give a decent salutation. It is: "How do?" or"Morning, " accompanied by a sharp nod of the head, instead of by agraceful bow. We have no time for the graces and the charms. Everything must give way to the material. 

We have no time for the development of a fine manner; the charm of thedays of chivalry and leisure has almost vanished from our civilization. A new type of individual has sprung up. We work like Trojans duringthe day, and then rush to a theater or other place of amusement in theevening. We have no time to make our own amusement or to develop thefaculty of humor and fun-making as people used to do. We pay peoplefor doing that while we sit and laugh. We are like some college boys, who depend upon tutors to carry them through their examinations--theyexpect to buy their education ready-made. 

Life is becoming so artificial, so forced, so diverse from naturalness, we drive our human engines at such a fearful speed, that our finer lifeis crushed out. Spontaneity and humor, and the possibility of a fineculture and a superb charm of personality in us are almost impossibleand extremely rare. 

One cause for our conversational decline is a lack of sympathy. We aretoo selfish, too busily engaged in our own welfare, and wrapped up inour own little world, too intent upon our own self-promotion to beinterested in others. No one can make a good conversationalist who isnot sympathetic. You must be able to enter into another's life, tolive it with the other person, to be a good listener or a good talker. 

Walter Besant used to tell of a clever woman who had a great reputationas a conversationalist, though she talked very little. She had such acordial, sympathetic manner that she helped the timid and the shy tosay their best things, and made them feel at home. She dissipatedtheir fears, and they could say things to her which they could not sayto anyone else. People thought her an interesting conversationalistbecause she had this ability to call out the best in others. 

If you would make yourself agreeable you must be able to enter into thelife of the people you are conversing with, and you must touch themalong the lines of their interest. No matter how much you may knowabout a subject, if it does not happen to interest those to whom youare talking your efforts will be largely lost. 

It is pitiable, sometimes, to see men standing around at the averagereception or club gathering, dumb, almost helpless, and powerless toenter heartily into the conversation because they are in a subjectivemood. They are thinking, thinking, thinking business, business, business; thinking how they can get on a little faster--get morebusiness, more clients, more patients, or more readers for theirbooks--or a better house to live in; how they can make more show. Theydo not enter heartily into the lives of others, or abandon themselvesto the occasion enough to make good talkers. They are cold andreserved, distant, because their minds are somewhere else, theiraffections on themselves and their own affairs. There are only twothings that interest them; business and their own little world. If youtalk about these things, they are interested at once; but they do notcare a snap about your affairs, how you get on, or what your ambitionis, or how they can help you. Our conversation will never reach a highstandard while we live in such a feverish, selfish, and unsympatheticstate. 

Great conversationalists have always been very tactful--interestingwithout offending. It does not do to stab people if you would interestthem, nor to drag out their family skeletons. Some people have thepeculiar quality of touching the best that is in us; others stir up thebad. Every time they come into our presence they irritate us. Othersallay all that is disagreeable. They never touch our sensitive spots, and they call out all that is spontaneous and sweet and beautiful. 

Lincoln was master of the art of making himself interesting toeverybody he met. He put people at ease with his stories and jokes, and made them feel so completely at home in his presence that theyopened up their mental treasures to him without reserve. Strangerswere always glad to talk with him because he was so cordial and quaint, and always gave more than he got. 

A sense of humor such as Lincoln had is, of course, a great addition toone's conversational power. But not everyone can be funny; and, if youlack the sense of humor, you will make yourself ludicrous by attemptingto be funny. 

A good conversationalist, however, is not too serious. He does notdeal too much with facts, no matter how important. Facts, statistics, weary. Vivacity is absolutely necessary. Heavy conversation bores;too light, disgusts. 

Therefore, to be a good conversationalist you must be spontaneous, buoyant, natural, sympathetic, and must show a spirit of good will. You must feel a spirit of helpfulness, and must enter heart and soulinto things which interest others. You must get the attention ofpeople and hold it by interesting them, and you can only interest themby a warm sympathy--a real friendly sympathy. If you are cold, distant, and unsympathetic you can not hold their attention. 

You must be broad, tolerant. A narrow stingy soul never talks well. Aman who is always violating your sense of taste, of justice, and offairness, never interests you. You lock tight all the approaches toyour inner self, every avenue is closed to him. Your magnetism andyour helpfulness are thus cut off, and the conversation is perfunctory, mechanical, and without life or feeling. 

You must bring your listener close to you, must open your heart wide, and exhibit a broad free nature, and an open mind. You must beresponsive, so that he will throw wide open every avenue of his natureand give you free access to his heart of hearts. 

If a man is a success anywhere, it ought to be in his personality, inhis power to express himself in strong, effective, interestinglanguage. He should not be obliged to give a stranger an inventory ofhis possessions in order to show that he has achieved something. Agreater wealth should flow from his lips, and express itself in hismanner. 

No amount of natural ability or education or good clothes, no amount ofmoney, will make you appear well if you use poor English. 

CHAPTER XVIII

A FORTUNE IN GOOD MANNERS

Give a boy address and accomplishments, and you give him the mastery ofpalaces and fortunes wherever he goes; he has not the trouble ofearning or owning them; they solicit him to enter and possess. --EMERSON. 

With hat in hand, one gets on in the world. --GERMAN PROVERB. 

 What thou wilt, Thou must rather enforce it with thy smile, Than hew to it with thy sword. SHAKESPEARE. 

Politeness has been compared to an air cushion, which, although thereis apparently nothing in it, eases our jolts wonderfully. --GEORGE L. CAREY. 

Birth's gude, but breedin's better. --SCOTCH PROVERB. 

Conduct is three fourths of life. --MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

"Why the doose de 'e 'old 'is 'ead down like that?" asked a cockneysergeant-major angrily, when a worthy fellow soldier wished to bereinstated in a position from which he had been dismissed. "Has 'e 'sbeen han hofficer 'e bought to know 'ow to be'ave 'isself better. Whatuse 'ud 'e be has a non-commissioned hofficer hif 'e didn't dare look'is men in the face? Hif a man wants to be a soldier, hi say, let 'imcock 'is chin hup, switch 'is stick abart a bit, an give a crack hoverthe 'ead to hanybody who comes foolin' round 'im, helse 'e might justhas well be a Methodist parson. "

The English is somewhat rude, but it expresses pretty forcibly the factthat a good bearing is indispensable to success as a soldier. Mien andmanner have much to do with our influence and reputation in any walk oflife. 

"Don't you wish you had my power?" asked the East Wind of the Zephyr. "Why, when I start they hail me by storm signals all along the coast. I can twist off a ship's mast as easily as you can waft thistledown. With one sweep of my wing I strew the coast from Labrador to Cape Hornwith shattered ship timber. I can lift and have often lifted theAtlantic. I am the terror of all invalids, and to keep me frompiercing to the very marrow of their bones, men cut down forests fortheir fires and explore the mines of continents for coal to feed theirfurnaces. Under my breath the nations crouch in sepulchers. Don't youwish you had my power?"

Zephyr made no reply, but floated from out the bowers of the sky, andall the rivers and lakes and seas, all the forests and fields, all thebeasts and birds and men smiled at its coming. Gardens bloomed, orchards ripened, silver wheat-fields turned to gold, fleecy cloudswent sailing in the lofty heaven, the pinions of birds and the sails ofvessels were gently wafted onward, and health and happiness wereeverywhere. The foliage and flowers and fruits and harvests, thewarmth and sparkle and gladness and beauty and life were the onlyanswer Zephyr gave to the insolent question of the proud but pitilessEast Wind. 

The story goes that Queen Victoria once expressed herself to herhusband in rather a despotic tone, and Prince Albert, whose manlyself-respect was smarting at her words, sought the seclusion of his ownapartment, closing and locking the door. In about five minutes someone knocked. 

"Who is it?" inquired the Prince. 

"It is I. Open to the Queen of England!" haughtily responded herMajesty. There was no reply. After a long interval there came agentle tapping and the low spoken words: "It is I, Victoria, yourwife. " Is it necessary to add that the door was opened, or that thedisagreement was at an end? It is said that civility is to a man whatbeauty is to a woman: it creates an instantaneous impression in hisbehalf. 

The monk Basle, according to a quaint old legend, died while under theban of excommunication by the pope, and was sent in charge of an angelto find his proper place in the nether world. But his genialdisposition and great conversational powers won friends wherever hewent. The fallen angels adopted his manner, and even the good angelswent a long way to see him and live with him. He was removed to thelowest depths of Hades, but with the same result. His inbornpoliteness and kindness of heart were irresistible, and he seemed tochange the hell into a heaven. At length the angel returned with themonk, saying that no place could be found in which to punish him. Hestill remained the same Basle. So his sentence was revoked, and he wassent to Heaven and canonized as a saint. 

The Duke of Marlborough "wrote English badly and spelled it worse, " yethe swayed the destinies of empires. The charm of his manner wasirresistible and influenced all Europe. His fascinating smile andwinning speech disarmed the fiercest hatred and made friends of thebitterest enemies. 

A gentleman took his daughter of sixteen to Richmond to witness thetrial of his bitter personal enemy, Aaron Burr, whom he regarded as anarch-traitor. But she was so fascinated by Burr's charming manner thatshe sat with his friends. Her father took her from the courtroom, andlocked her up, but she was so overcome by the fine manner of theaccused that she believed in his innocence and prayed for hisacquittal. "To this day, " said she fifty years afterwards, "I feel themagic of his wonderful deportment. "

Madame Récamier was so charming that when she passed around the box atthe Church St. Roche in Paris, twenty thousand francs were put into it. At the great reception to Napoleon on his return from Italy, the crowdcaught sight of this fascinating woman and almost forgot to look at thegreat hero. 

"Please, Madame, " whispered a servant to Madame de Maintenon at dinner, "one anecdote more, for there is no roast to-day. " She was sofascinating in manner and speech that her guests appeared to overlookall the little discomforts of life. 

According to St. Beuve, the privileged circle at Coppet after making anexcursion returned from Chambéry in two coaches. Those arriving in thefirst coach had a rueful experience to relate--a terrificthunder-storm, shocking roads, and danger and gloom to the wholecompany. The party in the second coach heard their story withsurprise; of thunder-storm, of steeps, of mud, of danger, they knewnothing; no, they had forgotten earth, and breathed a purer air; such aconversation between Madame de Staël and Madame Récamier and BenjaminConstant and Schlegel! they were all in a state of delight. Theintoxication of the conversation had made them insensible to all noticeof weather or rough roads. "If I were Queen, " said Madame Tesse, "Ishould command Madame de Staël to talk to me every day. " "When she hadpassed, " as Longfellow wrote of Evangeline, "it seemed like the ceasingof exquisite music. "

Madame de Staël was anything but beautiful, but she possessed thatindefinable something before which mere conventional beauty cowers, commonplace and ashamed. Her hold upon the minds of men was wonderful. They were the creatures of her will, and she shaped careers as if shewere omnipotent. Even the Emperor Napoleon feared her influence overhis people so much that he destroyed her writings and banished her fromFrance. 

In the words of Whittier it could be said of her as might be said ofany woman:--

 Our homes are cheerier for her sake, Our door-yards brighter blooming, And all about the social air Is sweeter for her coming. 

A guest for two weeks at the house of Arthur M. Cavanaugh, M. P. , whowas without arms or legs, was very desirous of knowing how he fedhimself; but the conversation and manner of the host were so charmingthat the visitor was scarcely conscious of his deformity. 

"When Dickens entered a room, " said one who knew him well, "it was likethe sudden kindling of a big fire, by which every one was warmed. "

It is said that when Goethe entered a restaurant people would lay downtheir knives and forks to admire him. 

Philip of Macedon, after hearing the report of Demosthenes' famousoration, said: "Had I been there he would have persuaded me to take uparms against myself. "

Henry Clay was so graceful and impressive in his manner that aPennsylvania tavern-keeper tried to induce him to get out of thestage-coach in which they were riding, and make a speech to himself andhis wife. 

"I don't think much of Choate's spread-eagle talk, " said asimple-minded member of a jury that had given five successive verdictsto the great advocate; "but I call him a very lucky lawyer, for therewas not one of those five cases that came before us where he wasn't onthe right side. " His manner as well as his logic was irresistible. 

When Edward Everett took a professor's chair at Harvard after fiveyears of study in Europe, he was almost worshiped by the students. Hismanner seemed touched by that exquisite grace seldom found except inwomen of rare culture. His great popularity lay in a magicalatmosphere which every one felt, but no one could describe, and whichnever left him. 

A New York lady had just taken her seat in a car on a train bound forPhiladelphia, when a somewhat stout man sitting just ahead of herlighted a cigar. She coughed and moved uneasily; but the hints had noeffect, so she said tartly: "You probably are a foreigner, and do notknow that there is a smoking-car attached to the train. Smoking is notpermitted here. " The man made no reply, but threw his cigar from thewindow. What has her astonishment when the conductor told her, amoment later, that she had entered the private car of General Grant. She withdrew in confusion, but the same fine courtesy which led him togive up his cigar was shown again as he spared her the mortification ofeven a questioning glance, still less of a look of amusement, althoughshe watched his dumb, immovable figure with apprehension until shereached the door. 

Julian Ralph, after telegraphing an account of President Arthur'sfishing-trip to the Thousand Islands, returned to his hotel at twoo'clock in the morning, to find all the doors locked. With two friendswho had accompanied him, he battered at a side door to wake theservants, but what was his chagrin when the door was opened by thePresident of the United States!

"Why, that's all right, " said Mr. Arthur when Mr. Ralph asked hispardon. "You wouldn't have got in till morning if I had not come. Noone is up in the house but me. I could have sent my colored boy, buthe had fallen asleep and I hated to wake him. "

The late King Edward, when Prince of Wales, the first gentleman inEurope, invited an eminent man to dine with him. When coffee wasserved, the guest, to the consternation of the others, drank from hissaucer. An open titter of amusement went round the table. The Prince, quickly noting the cause of the untimely amusement, gravely emptied hiscup into his saucer and drank after the manner of his guest. Silentand abashed, the other members of the princely household took therebuke and did the same. 

Queen Victoria sent for Carlyle, who was a Scotch peasant, offering himthe title of nobleman, which he declined, feeling that he had alwaysbeen a nobleman in his own right. He understood so little of themanners at court that, when presented to the Queen, after speaking toher a few minutes, being tired, he said, "Let us sit down, madam;"whereat the courtiers were ready to faint. But she was great enough, and gave a gesture that seated all her puppets in a moment. TheQueen's courteous suspension of the rules of etiquette, and what it mayhave cost her, can be better understood from what an acquaintance ofCarlyle said of him when he saw him for the first time. "His presence, in some unaccountable manner, rasped the nerves. I expected to meet arare being, and I left him feeling as if I had drunk sour wine, or hadhad an attack of seasickness. "

Some persons wield a scepter before which others seem to bow in gladobedience. But whence do they obtain such magic power? What is thesecret of that almost hypnotic influence over people which we wouldgive anything to possess?

Courtesy is not always found in high places. Even royal courts furnishmany examples of bad manners. At an entertainment given years ago byPrince Edward and the Princess of Wales, to which only the very creamof the cream of society was admitted, there was such pushing andstruggling to see the Princess, who was then but lately married, that, as she passed through the reception rooms, a bust of the Princess Royalwas thrown from its pedestal and damaged, and the pedestal upset; andthe ladies, in their eagerness to see the Princess, actually stood uponit. 

When Catherine of Russia gave receptions to her nobles, she publishedthe following rules of etiquette upon cards: "Gentlemen will not getdrunk before the feast is ended. Noblemen are forbidden to striketheir wives in company. Ladies of the court must not wash out theirmouths in the drinking-glasses, or wipe their faces on the damask, orpick their teeth with forks. " But to-day the nobles of Russia have nosuperiors in manners. 

Etiquette originally meant the ticket or tag tied to a bag to indicateits contents. If a bag had this ticket it was not examined. From thisthe word passed to cards upon which were printed certain rules to beobserved by guests. These rules were "the ticket" or the etiquette. To be "the ticket, " or, as it was sometimes expressed, to act or talkby the card, became the thing with the better classes. 

It was fortunate for Napoleon that he married Josephine before he wasmade commander-in-chief of the armies of Italy. Her fascinatingmanners and her wonderful powers of persuasion were more influentialthan the loyalty of any dozen men in France in attaching to him theadherents who would promote his interests. Josephine was to thedrawing-room and the salon what Napoleon was to the field--a preeminentleader. The secret of her personality that made her the Empress notonly of the hearts of the Frenchmen, but also of the nations herhusband conquered, has been beautifully told by herself. "There isonly one occasion, " she said to a friend, "in which I would voluntarilyuse the words, 'I _will_!'--namely, when I would say, 'I will that allaround me be happy. '"

 "It was only a glad 'good-morning, ' As she passed along the way, But it spread the morning's glory Over the livelong day. "

A fine manner more than compensates for all the defects of nature. Themost fascinating person is always the one of most winning manners, notthe one of greatest physical beauty. The Greeks thought beauty was aproof of the peculiar favor of the gods, and considered that beautyonly worth adorning and transmitting which was unmarred by outwardmanifestations of hard and haughty feeling. According to their ideal, beauty must be the expression of attractive qualities within--such ascheerfulness, benignity, contentment, charity, and love. 

Mirabeau was one of the ugliest men in France. It was said he had "theface of a tiger pitted by smallpox, " but the charm of his manner wasalmost irresistible. 

Beauty of life and character, as in art, has no sharp angles. Itslines seem continuous, so gently does curve melt into curve. It issharp angles that keep many souls from being beautiful that are almostso. Our good is less good when it is abrupt, rude, ill timed, or illplaced. Many a man and woman might double their influence and successby a kindly courtesy and a fine manner. 

Tradition tells us that before Apelles painted his wonderful Goddess ofBeauty which enchanted all Greece, he traveled for years observing fairwomen, that he might embody in his matchless Venus a combination of theloveliest found in all. So the good-mannered study, observe, and adoptall that is finest and most worthy of imitation in every culturedperson they meet. 

Throw a bone to a dog, said a shrewd observer, and he will run off withit in his mouth, but with no vibration in his tail. Call the dog toyou, pat him on the head, let him take the bone from your hand, and histail will wag with gratitude. The dog recognizes the good deed and thegracious manner of doing it. Those who throw their good deeds shouldnot expect them to be caught with a thankful smile. 

"Ask a person at Rome to show you the road, " said Dr. Guthrie ofEdinburgh, "and he will always give you a civil and polite answer; butask any person a question for that purpose in this country (Scotland), and he will say, 'Follow your nose and you will find it. ' But theblame is with the upper classes; and the reason why, in this country, the lower classes are not polite is because the upper classes are notpolite. I remember how astonished I was the first time I was in Paris. I spent the first night with a banker, who took me to a pension, or, aswe call it, a boarding-house. When we got there, a servant girl cameto the door, and the banker took off his hat, and bowed to the servantgirl, and called her mademoiselle, as though she were a lady. Now, thereason why the lower classes there are so polite is because the upperclasses are polite and civil to them. "

A fine courtesy is a fortune in itself. The good-mannered can dowithout riches, for they have passports everywhere. All doors fly opento them, and they enter without money and without price. They canenjoy nearly everything without the trouble of buying or owning. Theyare as welcome in every household as the sunshine; and why not? forthey carry light, sunshine, and joy everywhere. They disarm jealousyand envy, for they bear good will to everybody. Bees will not sting aman smeared with honey. 

"A man's own good breeding, " says Chesterfield, "is the best securityagainst other people's ill manners. It carries along with it a dignitythat is respected by the most petulant. Ill breeding invites andauthorizes the familiarity of the most timid. No man ever said a pertthing to the Duke of Marlborough, or a civil one to Sir Robert Walpole. "

The true gentleman cannot harbor those qualities which excite theantagonism of others, as revenge, hatred, malice, envy, or jealousy, for these poison the sources of spiritual life and shrivel the soul. Generosity of heart and a genial good will towards all are absolutelyessential to him who would possess fine manners. Here is a man who iscross, crabbed, moody, sullen, silent, sulky, stingy, and mean with hisfamily and servants. He refuses his wife a little money to buy aneeded dress, and accuses her of extravagance that would ruin amillionaire. Suddenly the bell rings. Some neighbors call: what achange! The bear of a moment ago is as docile as a lamb. As by magiche becomes talkative, polite, generous. After the callers have gone, his little girl begs her father to keep on his "company manners" for alittle while, but the sullen mood returns and his courtesy vanishes asquickly as it came. He is the same disagreeable, contemptible, crabbedbear as before the arrival of his guests. 

What friend of the great Dr. Johnson did not feel mortified and painedto see him eat like an Esquimau, and to hear him call men "liars"because they did not agree with him? He was called the "Ursa Major, "or Great Bear. 

Benjamin Rush said that when Goldsmith at a banquet in London asked aquestion about "the American Indians, " Dr. Johnson exclaimed: "There isnot an Indian in North America foolish enough to ask such a question. ""Sir, " replied Goldsmith, "there is not a savage in America rude enoughto make such a speech to a gentleman. "

After Stephen A. Douglas had been abused in the Senate he rose andsaid: "What no gentleman should say no gentleman need answer. "

Aristotle thus described a real gentleman more than two thousand yearsago: "The magnanimous man will behave with moderation under both goodfortune and bad. He will not allow himself to be exalted; he will notallow himself to be abased. He will neither be delighted with success, nor grieved with failure. He will never choose danger, nor seek it. He is not given to talk about himself or others. He does not care thathe himself should be praised, nor that other people should be blamed. "

A gentleman is just a gentle man: no more, no less; a diamond polishedthat was first a diamond in the rough. A gentleman is gentle, modest, courteous, slow to take offense, and never giving it. He is slow tosurmise evil, as he never thinks it. He subjects his appetites, refines his tastes, subdues his feelings, controls his speech, anddeems every other person as good as himself. A gentleman, likeporcelain-ware, must be painted before he is glazed. There can be nochange after it is burned in, and all that is put on afterwards willwash off. He who has lost all but retains his courage, cheerfulness, hope, virtue, and self-respect, is a true gentleman, and is rich still. 

"You replace Dr. Franklin, I hear, " said the French Minister, Count deVergennes, to Mr. Jefferson, who had been sent to Paris to relieve ourmost popular representative. "I succeed him; no man can replace him, "was the felicitous reply of the man who became highly esteemed by themost polite court in Europe. 

"You should not have returned their salute, " said the master ofceremonies, when Clement XIV bowed to the ambassadors who had bowed incongratulating him upon his election. "Oh, I beg your pardon, " repliedClement. "I have not been pope long enough to forget good manners. "

Cowper says:--

 A modest, sensible, and well-bred man Would not insult me, and no other can. 

"I never listen to calumnies, " said Montesquieu, "because if they areuntrue I run the risk of being deceived, and if they are true, ofhating people not worth thinking about. "

"I think, " says Emerson, "Hans Andersen's story of the cobweb clothwoven so fine that it was invisible--woven for the king's garment--mustmean manners, which do really clothe a princely nature. "

No one can fully estimate how great a factor in life is the possessionof good manners, or timely thoughtfulness with human sympathy behindit. They are the kindly fruit of a refined nature, and are the opensesame to the best of society. Manners are what vex or soothe, exaltor debase, barbarize or refine us by a constant, steady, uniform, invincible operation like that of the air we breathe. Even poweritself has not half the might of gentleness, that subtle oil whichlubricates our relations with each other, and enables the machinery ofsociety to perform its functions without friction. 

"Have you not seen in the woods, in a late autumn morning, " asksEmerson, "a poor fungus, or mushroom, --a plant without any solidity, nay, that seemed nothing but a soft mush or jelly, --by its constant, total, and inconceivably gentle pushing, manage to break its way upthrough the frosty ground, and actually to lift a hard crust on itshead? It is the symbol of the power of kindness. "

"There is no policy like politeness, " says Magoon; "since _a goodmanner often succeeds where the best tongue has failed_. " The art ofpleasing is the art of rising in the world. 

The politest people in the world, it is said, are the Jews. In allages they have been maltreated and reviled, and despoiled of theircivil privileges and their social rights; yet are they everywherepolite and affable. They indulge in few or no recriminations; arefaithful to old associations; more considerate of the prejudices ofothers than others are of theirs; not more worldly-minded andmoney-loving than people generally are; and, everything considered, they surpass all nations in courtesy, affability, and forbearance. 

"Men, like bullets, " says Richter, "go farthest when they aresmoothest. "

Napoleon was much displeased on hearing that Josephine had permittedGeneral Lorges, a young and handsome man, to sit beside her on thesofa. Josephine explained that, instead of its being General Lorges, it was one of the aged generals of his army, entirely unused to thecustoms of courts. She was unwilling to wound the feelings of thehonest old soldier, and so allowed him to retain his seat. Napoleoncommended her highly for her courtesy. 

President Jefferson was one day riding with his grandson, when they meta slave, who took off his hat and bowed. The President returned thesalutation by raising his hat, but the grandson ignored the civility ofthe negro. "Thomas, " said the grandfather, "do you permit a slave tobe more of a gentleman than yourself?"

"Lincoln was the first great man I talked with freely in the UnitedStates, " said Fred Douglass, "who in no single instance reminded me ofthe difference between himself and me, of the difference in color. "

"Eat at your own table, " says Confucius, "as you would eat at the tableof the king. " If parents were not careless about the manners of theirchildren at home, they would seldom be shocked or embarrassed at theirbehavior abroad. 

James Russell Lowell was as courteous to a beggar as to a lord, and wasonce observed holding a long conversation in Italian with anorgan-grinder whom he was questioning about scenes in Italy with whichthey were each familiar. 

In hastily turning the corner of a crooked street in London, a younglady ran with great force against a ragged beggar-boy and almostknocked him down. Stopping as soon as she could, she turned around andsaid very kindly: "I beg your pardon, my little fellow; I am very sorrythat I ran against you. " The astonished boy looked at her a moment, and then, taking off about three quarters of a cap, made a low bow andsaid, while a broad, pleasant smile overspread his face: "You have myparding, miss, and welcome, --and welcome; and the next time you runag'in' me, you can knock me clean down and I won't say a word. " Afterthe lady had passed on, he said to a companion: "I say, Jim, it's thefirst time I ever had anybody ask my parding, and it kind o' took meoff my feet. "

"Respect the burden, madame, respect the burden, " said Napoleon, as hecourteously stepped aside at St. Helena to make way for a laborerbending under a heavy load, while his companion seemed inclined to keepthe narrow path. 

A Washington politician went to visit Daniel Webster at Marshfield, Mass. , and, in taking a short cut to the house, came to a stream whichhe could not cross. Calling to a rough-looking farmer near by, heoffered a quarter to be carried to the other side. The farmer took thepolitician on his broad shoulders and landed him safely, but would nottake the quarter. The old rustic presented himself at the house a fewminutes later, and to the great surprise and chagrin of the visitor wasintroduced as Mr. Webster. 

Garrison was as polite to the furious mob that tore his clothes fromhis back and dragged him through the streets as he could have been to aking. He was one of the serenest souls that ever lived. Christ wascourteous, even to His persecutors, and in terrible agony on the cross, He cried: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. " St. Paul's speech before Agrippa is a model of dignified courtesy, as wellas of persuasive eloquence. 

Good manners often prove a fortune to a young man. Mr. Butler, amerchant in Providence, R. I. , had once closed his store and was on hisway home when he met a little girl who wanted a spool of thread. Hewent back, opened the store, and got the thread. This little incidentwas talked of all about the city and brought him hundreds of customers. He became very wealthy, largely because of his courtesy. 

Ross Winans of Baltimore owed his great success and fortune largely tohis courtesy to two foreign strangers. Although his was but afourth-rate factory, his great politeness in explaining the minutestdetails to his visitors was in such marked contrast with the limitedattention they had received in large establishments that it won theiresteem. The strangers were Russians sent by their Czar, who laterinvited Mr. Winans to establish locomotive works in Russia. He did so, and soon his profits resulting from his politeness were more than$100, 000 a year. 

A poor curate saw a crowd of rough boys and men laughing and making funof two aged spinsters dressed in antiquated costume. The ladies wereembarrassed and did not dare enter the church. The curate pushedthrough the crowd, conducted them up the central aisle, and amid thetitter of the congregation, gave them choice seats. These old ladiesalthough strangers to him, at their death left the gentle curate alarge fortune. Courtesy pays. 

Not long ago a lady met the late President Humphrey of Amherst College, and she was so much pleased with his great politeness that she gave agenerous donation to the college. 

"Why did our friend never succeed in business?" asked a man returningto New York after years of absence; "he had sufficient capital, athorough knowledge of his business, and exceptional shrewdness andsagacity. " "He was sour and morose, " was the reply; "he alwayssuspected his employees of cheating him, and was discourteous to hiscustomers. Hence, no man ever put good will or energy into work donefor him, and his patrons went to shops where they were sure ofcivility. "

Some men almost work their hands off and deny themselves many of thecommon comforts of life in their earnest efforts to succeed, and yetrender success impossible by their cross-grained ungentlemanliness. They repel patronage, and, naturally, business which might easily betheirs goes to others who are really less deserving but morecompanionable. 

Bad manners often neutralize even honesty, industry, and the greatestenergy; while agreeable manners win in spite of other defects. Taketwo men possessing equal advantages in every other respect; if one begentlemanly, kind, obliging, and conciliating, and the otherdisobliging, rude, harsh, and insolent, the former will become richwhile the boorish one will starve. 

[Illustration: Jane Addams]

A fine illustration of the business value of good manners is found inthe Bon Marché, an enormous establishment in Paris where thousands ofclerks are employed, and where almost everything is kept for sale. Thetwo distinguishing characteristics of the house are one low price toall, and extreme courtesy. Mere politeness is not enough; theemployees must try in every possible way to please and to makecustomers feel at home. Something more must be done than is done inother stores, so that every visitor will remember the Bon Marché withpleasure. By this course the business has been developed until it issaid to be the largest of the kind in the world. 

"Thank you, my dear; please call again, " spoken to a little beggar-girlwho bought a pennyworth of snuff proved a profitable advertisement andmade Lundy Foote a millionaire. 

Many persons of real refinement are thought to be stiff, proud, reserved, and haughty who are not, but are merely diffident and shy. 

It is a curious fact that diffidence often betrays us intodiscourtesies which our hearts abhor, and which cause us intensemortification and embarrassment. Excessive shyness must be overcome asan obstacle to perfect manners. It is peculiar to the Anglo-Saxon andthe Teutonic races, and has frequently been a barrier to the highestculture. It is a disease of the finest organizations and the highesttypes of humanity. It never attacks the coarse and vulgar. 

Sir Isaac Newton was the shyest man of his age. He did not acknowledgehis great discovery for years just for fear of attracting attention tohimself. He would not allow his name to be used in connection with histheory of the moon's motion, for fear it would increase theacquaintances he would have to meet. George Washington was awkward andshy and had the air of a countryman. Archbishop Whately was so shythat he would escape notice whenever it was possible. At last hedetermined to give up trying to cure his shyness; "for why, " he asked, "should I endure this torture all my life?" when, to his surprise, italmost entirely disappeared. Elihu Burritt was so shy that he wouldhide in the cellar when his parents had company. 

Practice on the stage or lecture platform does not always eradicateshyness. David Garrick, the great actor, was once summoned to testifyin court; and, though he had acted for thirty years with markedself-possession, he was so confused and embarrassed that the judgedismissed him. John B. Gough said that he could not rid himself of hisearly diffidence and shrinking from public notice. He said that henever went on the platform without fear and trembling, and would oftenbe covered with cold perspiration. 

There are many worthy people who are brave on the street, who wouldwalk up to a cannon's mouth in battle, but who are cowards in thedrawing-room, and dare not express an opinion in the social circle. They feel conscious of a subtle tyranny in society's code, which lockstheir lips and ties their tongues. Addison was one of the purestwriters of English and a perfect master of the pen, but he couldscarcely utter a dozen words in conversation without being embarrassed. Shakespeare was very shy. He retired from London at forty, and did nottry to publish or preserve one of his plays. He took second orthird-rate parts on account of his diffidence. 

Generally shyness comes from a person thinking too much abouthimself--which in itself is a breach of good breeding--and wonderingwhat other people think about him. 

"I was once very shy, " said Sydney Smith, "but it was not long before Imade two very useful discoveries; first, that all mankind were notsolely employed in observing me; and next, that shamming was of no use;that the world was very clear-sighted, and soon estimated a man at histrue value. This cured me. "

What a misfortune it is to go through life apparently encased in ice, yet all the while full of kindly, cordial feeling for one's fellow men!Shy people are always distrustful of their powers and look upon theirlack of confidence as a weakness or lack of ability, when it mayindicate quite the reverse. By teaching children early the arts ofsocial life, such as boxing, horseback riding, dancing, elocution, andsimilar accomplishments, we may do much to overcome the sense ofshyness. 

Shy people should dress well. Good clothes give ease of manner, andunlock the tongue. The consciousness of being well dressed gives agrace and ease of manner that even religion will not bestow, whileinferiority of garb often induces restraint. As peculiarities inapparel are sure to attract attention, it is well to avoid brightcolors and fashionable extremes, and wear plain, well-fitting garmentsof as good material as the purse will afford. 

Beauty in dress is a good thing, rail at it who may. But it is a lowerbeauty, for which a higher beauty should not be sacrificed. They lovedress too much who give it their first thought, their best time, or alltheir money; who for it neglect the culture of the mind or heart, orthe claims of others on their service; who care more for dress than fortheir character; who are troubled more by an unfashionable garment thanby a neglected duty. 

When Ezekiel Whitman, a prominent lawyer and graduate of Harvard, waselected to the Massachusetts legislature, he came to Boston from hisfarm in countryman's dress, and went to a hotel in Boston. He enteredthe parlor and sat down, when he overheard the remark between someladies and gentlemen: "Ah, here comes a real homespun countryman. Here's fun. " They asked him all sorts of queer questions, tending tothrow ridicule upon him, when he arose and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, permit me to wish you health and happiness, and may you grow better andwiser in advancing years, bearing in mind that outward appearances aredeceitful. You mistook me, from my dress, for a country booby; whileI, from the same superficial cause, thought you were ladies andgentlemen. The mistake has been mutual. " Just then Governor CalebStrong entered and called to Mr. Whitman, who, turning to thedumfounded company, said: "I wish you a very good evening. "

"In civilized society, " says Johnson, "external advantages make us morerespected. A man with a good coat upon his back meets with a betterreception than he who has a bad one. "

One cannot but feel that God is a lover of the beautiful. He has putrobes of beauty and glory upon all his works. Every flower is dressedin richness; every field blushes beneath a mantle of beauty; every staris veiled in brightness; every bird is clothed in the habiliments ofthe most exquisite taste. 

Some people look upon polished manners as a kind of affectation. Theyclaim admiration for plain, solid, square, rugged characters. Theymight as well say that they prefer square, plain, unornamented housesmade from square blocks of stone. St. Peter's is none the less strongand solid because of its elegant columns and the magnificent sweep ofits arches, its carved and fretted marbles of matchless hues. 

Our manners, like our characters, are always under inspection. Everytime we go into society we must step on the scales of each person'sopinion, and the loss or gain from our last weight is carefully noted. Each mentally asks, "Is this person going up or down? Through how manygrades has he passed?" For example, young Brown enters a drawing-room. All present weigh him in their judgment and silently say, "This youngman is gaining; he is more careful, thoughtful, polite, considerate, straightforward, industrious. " Besides him stands young Jones. It isevident that he is losing ground rapidly. He is careless, indifferent, rough, does not look you in the eye, is mean, stingy, snaps at theservants, yet is over-polite to strangers. 

And so we go through life, tagged with these invisible labels by allwho know us. I sometimes think it would be a great advantage if onecould read these ratings of his associates. We cannot long deceive theworld, for that other self, who ever stands in the shadow of ourselvesholding the scales of justice, that telltale in the soul, rushes to theeye or into the manner and betrays us. 

But manners, while they are the garb of the gentleman, do notconstitute or finally determine his character. Mere politeness cannever be a substitute for moral excellence, any more than the bark cantake the place of the heart of the oak. It may well indicate the kindof wood below, but not always whether it be sound or decayed. Etiquette is but a substitute for good manners and is often but theirmere counterfeit. 

Sincerity is the highest quality of good manners. 

The following recipe is recommended to those who wish to acquiregenuine good manners:--

Of Unselfishness, three drachms;

Of the tincture of Good Cheer, one ounce;

Of Essence of Heart's-Ease, three drachms;

Of the Extract of the Rose of Sharon, four ounces;

Of the Oil of Charity, three drachms, and no scruples;

Of the Infusion of Common Sense and Tact, one ounce;

Of the Spirit of Love, two ounces. 

The Mixture to be taken whenever there is the slightest symptom ofselfishness, exclusiveness, meanness, or I-am-better-than-you-ness. 

Pattern after Him who gave the Golden Rule, and who was the first truegentleman that ever breathed. 

CHAPTER XIX

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND TIMIDITY FOES TO SUCCESS

Timid, shy people are morbidly self-conscious; they think too muchabout themselves. Their thoughts are always turned inward; they arealways analyzing, dissecting themselves, wondering how they appear andwhat people think of them. If these people could only forgetthemselves and think of others, they would be surprised to see whatfreedom, ease, and grace they would gain; what success in life theywould achieve. 

Timidity, shyness, and self-consciousness belong to the same family. We usually find all where we find any one of these qualities, and theyare all enemies of peace of mind, happiness, and achievement. No onehas ever done a great thing while his mind was centered upon himself. We must lose ourselves before we can find ourselves. Self analysis isvaluable only to learn our strength; fatal, if we dwell upon ourweaknesses. 

Thousands of young people are held back from undertaking what they longto do, and are kept from trying to make real their great life-dreams, because they are afraid to jostle with the world. They shrink fromexposing their sore spots and sensitive points, which smart from thelightest touch. Their super-sensitiveness makes cowards of them. 

Over-sensitiveness, whether in man or woman, is really an exaggeratedform of self-consciousness. It is far removed from conceit orself-esteem, yet it causes one's personality to overshadow everythingelse. A sensitive person feels that, whatever he does, wherever hegoes, or whatever he says, he is the center of observation. Heimagines that people are criticizing his movements, making fun at hisexpense, or analyzing his character, when they are probably notthinking of him at all. He does not realize that other people are toobusy and too much interested in themselves and other things to devoteto him any of their time beyond what is absolutely necessary. When hethinks they are aiming remarks at him, putting slights upon him, ortrying to hold him up to the ridicule of others, they may not be evenconscious of his presence. 

Morbid sensitiveness requires heroic treatment. A sufferer who wishesto overcome it must take himself in hand as determinedly as he would ifhe wished to get control of a quick temper, or to rid himself of ahabit of lying, or stealing, or drinking, or any other defect whichprevented his being a whole man. 

"What shall I do to get rid of it?" asks a victim. Think less ofyourself and more of others. Mingle freely with people. Becomeinterested in things outside of yourself. Do not brood over what issaid to you, or analyze every simple remark until you magnify it intosomething of the greatest importance. Do not have such a low andunjust estimate of people as to think they are bent on nothing buthurting the feelings of others, and depreciating and making light ofthem on every possible occasion. A man who appreciates himself at histrue value, and who gives his neighbors credit for being at least asgood as he is, cannot be a victim of over-sensitiveness. 

One of the best schools for a sensitive boy is a large business housein which he will be thrown among strangers who will not handle him withgloves. In such an environment he will soon learn that everyone hasall he can do to attend to his own business. He will realize that hemust be a man and give and take with the others, or get out. He willbe ashamed to play "cry baby" every time he feels hurt, but will makeup his mind to grin and bear it. Working in competition with otherpeople, and seeing that exactly the same treatment is given to thoseabove him as to himself, takes the nonsense out of him. He begins tosee that the world is too busy to bother itself especially about him, and that, even when people look at him, they are not usually thinkingof him. 

A college course is of inestimable value to a boy or girl ofover-refined sensibilities. Oftentimes, when boys enter college asfreshmen, they are so touchy that their sense of honor is constantlybeing hurt and their pride stung by the unconscious thrusts ofclassmates and companions. But after they have been in college a term, and have been knocked about and handled in a rough but good-humoredmanner by youths of their own age, they realize that it would be themost foolish thing in the world to betray resentment. If one showsthat he is hurt, he knows that he will be called the class booby, andteased unmercifully, so he is simply forced to drop his foolishsensitiveness. 

Thousands of people are out of positions, and cannot keep places whenthey get them, because of this weakness. Many a good business man hasbeen kept back, or even ruined, by his quickness to take offense, or toresent a fancied slight. There is many a clergyman, well educated andable, who is so sensitive that he can not keep a pastorate long. Fromhis distorted viewpoint some brother or sister in the church is alwayshurting him, saying and thinking unkind things, or throwing out hintsand suggestions calculated to injure him in the eyes of thecongregation. 

Many schoolteachers are great sufferers from over-sensitiveness. Remarks of parents, or school committees, or little bits of gossipwhich are reported to them make them feel as if people were stickingpins in them, metaphorically speaking, all the time. Writers, authors, and other people with artistic temperaments, are usually verysensitive. I have in mind a very strong, vigorous editorial writer whois so prone to take offense that he can not hold a position either on amagazine or a daily paper. He is cut to the very quick by theslightest criticism, and regards every suggestion for the improvementof his work as a personal affront. He always carries about an injuredair, a feeling that he has been imposed upon, which greatly detractsfrom an otherwise agreeable personality. 

The great majority of people, no matter how rough in manner or bearing, are kind-hearted, and would much rather help than hinder a fellowbeing, but they have all they can do to attend to their own affairs, and haveno time to spend in minutely analyzing the nature and feeling of thosewhom they meet in the course of their daily business. In the busyworld of affairs, it is give and take, touch and go, and those whoexpect to get on must rid themselves of all morbid sensitiveness. Ifthey do not, they doom themselves to unhappiness and failure. 

Self-consciousness is a foe to greatness in every line of endeavor. Noone ever does a really great thing until he feels that he is a part ofsomething greater than himself, until he surrenders to that greaterprinciple. 

Some of our best writers never found themselves, never touched theirpower, until they forgot their rules for construction, their grammar, their rhetorical arrangement, by losing themselves in their subject. Then they found their style. 

It is when a writer is so completely carried away with his subject thathe cannot help writing, that he writes naturally. He shows what hisreal style is. 

No orator has ever electrified an audience while he was thinking of hisstyle or was conscious of his rhetoric, or trying to apply theconventional rules of oratory. It is when the orator's soul is on firewith his theme, and he forgets his audience, forgets everything but hissubject, that he really does a great thing. 

No painter ever did a great masterpiece when trying to keep all therules of his profession, the laws of drawing, of perspective, thescience of color, in his mind. Everything must be swallowed up in hiszeal, fused in the fire of his genius, --then, and then only, can hereally create. 

No singer ever captivated her audience until she forgot herself, untilshe was lost in her song. 

Could anything be more foolish and short-sighted than to allow a morbidsensitiveness to interfere with one's advancement in life?

I know a young lady with a superb mind and a fine personality, capableof filling a superior position, who has been kept in a very ordinarysituation for years simply because of her morbid sensitiveness. 

She takes it for granted that if any criticism is made in thedepartment where she works, it is intended for her, and she "flies offthe handle" over every little remark that she can possibly twist into areflection upon herself. 

The result is that she makes it so unpleasant for her employers thatthey do not promote her. And she can not understand why she does notget on faster. 

No one wishes to employ anyone who is so sensitive that he is obligedto be on his guard every moment lest he wound him or touch a sore spot. It makes an employer very uncomfortable to feel that those about himare carrying around an injured air a large part of the time, so that henever quite knows whether they are in sympathy with him or not. Ifanything has gone wrong in his business and he feels vexed, he knowsthat he is liable to give offense to these people without everintending it. 

A man wants to feel that his employees understand him, and that theytake into consideration the thousand and one little vexations andhappenings which are extremely trying, and that if he does not happento approach them with a smiling face, with consideration andfriendliness in his words or commands, they will not take offense. They will think of his troubles, not their own, if they are wise: theywill forget self, and contribute their zeal to the greater good. 

CHAPTER XX

TACT OR COMMON SENSE

"Who is stronger than thou?" asked Braham; and Force replied"Address. "--VICTOR HUGO. 

Address makes opportunities; the want of it gives them. --BOVEE. 

 He'll suit his bearing to the hour, Laugh, listen, learn, or teach. ELIZA COOK. 

A man who knows the world will not only make the most of everything hedoes know, but of many things he does not know; and will gain morecredit by his adroit mode of hiding his ignorance, than the pedant byhis awkward attempt to exhibit his erudition. --COLTON. 

The art of using moderate abilities to advantage wins praise, and oftenacquires more reputation than actual brilliancy. --ROCHEFOUCAULD. 

 "Tact clinches the bargain, Sails out of the bay, Gets the vote in the Senate, Spite of Webster or Clay. "

"I never will surrender to a nigger, " said a Confederate officer, whena colored soldier chased and caught him. "Berry sorry, massa, " saidthe negro, leveling his rifle; "must kill you den; hain't time to goback and git a white man. " The officer surrendered. 

"When God endowed human beings with brains, " says Montesquieu, "he didnot intend to guarantee them. "

When Abraham Lincoln was running for the legislature the first time, onthe platform of the improvement of the Sangamon River, he went tosecure the votes of thirty men who were cradling a wheatfield. Theyasked no questions about internal improvements, but only seemed curiousto know whether he had muscle enough to represent them in thelegislature. Lincoln took up a cradle and led the gang around thefield. The whole thirty voted for him. 

"I do not know how it is, " said Napoleon in surprise to his cook, "butat whatever hour I call for my breakfast my chicken is always ready andalways in good condition. " This seemed to him the more strange becausesometimes he would breakfast at eight and at other times as late aseleven. "Sire, " said the cook, "the reason is, that every quarter ofan hour I put a fresh chicken down to roast, so that your Majesty issure always to have it at perfection. "

Talent in this age is no match for tact. We see its failureeverywhere. Tact will manipulate one talent so as to get more out ofit in a lifetime than ten talents will accomplish without it. "Talentlies abed till noon; tact is up at six. " Talent is power, tact isskill. Talent knows what to do, tact knows how to do it. 

"Talent is something, but tact is everything. It is not a sixth sense, but it is like the life of all the five. It is the open eye, the quickear, the judging taste, the keen smell, and lively touch; it is theinterpreter of all riddles, the surmounter of all difficulties, theremover of all obstacles. "

The world is full of theoretical, one-sided, impractical men, who haveturned all the energies of their lives into one faculty until they havedeveloped, not a full-orbed, symmetrical man, but a monstrosity, whileall their other faculties have atrophied and died. We often call theseone-sided men geniuses, and the world excuses their impractical andalmost idiotic conduct in most matters, because they can perform onekind of work that no one else can do as well. A merchant is excused ifhe is a giant in merchandise, though he may be an imbecile in thedrawing-room. Adam Smith could teach the world economy in his "Wealthof Nations, " but he could not manage the finances of his own household. 

Many great men are very impractical even in the ordinary affairs oflife. Isaac Newton could read the secret of creation; but, tired ofrising from his chair to open the door for a cat and her kitten, he hadtwo holes cut through the panels for them to pass at will, a large holefor the cat, and a small one for the kitten. Beethoven was a greatmusician, but he sent three hundred florins to pay for six shirts andhalf a dozen handkerchiefs. He paid his tailor as large a sum inadvance, and yet he was so poor at times that he had only a biscuit anda glass of water for dinner. He did not know enough of business to cutthe coupon from a bond when he wanted money, but sold the wholeinstrument. Dean Swift nearly starved in a country parish where hismore practical classmate Stafford became rich. One of Napoleon'smarshals understood military tactics as well as his chief, but he didnot know men so well, and lacked the other's skill and tact. Napoleonmight fall; but, like a cat, he would fall upon his feet. 

For his argument in the Florida Case, a fee of one thousand dollars incrisp new bills of large denomination was handed to Daniel Webster ashe sat reading in his library. The next day he wished to use some ofthe money, but could not find any of the bills. Years afterward, as heturned the page of a book, he found a bank-bill without a crease in it. On turning the next leaf he found another, and so on until he took thewhole amount lost from the places where he had deposited themthoughtlessly, as he read. Learning of a new issue of gold pieces atthe Treasury, he directed his secretary, Charles Lanman, to obtainseveral hundred dollars' worth. A day or two after he put his hand inhis pocket for one, but they were all gone. Webster was at firstpuzzled, but on reflection remembered that he had given them away, oneby one, to friends who seemed to appreciate their beauty. 

A professor in mathematics in a New England college, a "book-worm, " wasasked by his wife to bring home some coffee. "How much will you have?"asked the merchant. "Well, I declare, my wife did not say, but I guessa bushel will do. "

Many a great man has been so absent-minded at times as to seem devoidof common-sense. 

"The professor is not at home, " said his servant who looked out of awindow in the dark and failed to recognize Lessing when the latterknocked at his own door in a fit of absent-mindedness. "Oh, verywell, " replied Lessing. "No matter, I'll call at another time. "

Louis Philippe said he was the only sovereign in Europe fit to govern, for he could black his own boots. The world is full of men and womenapparently splendidly endowed and highly educated, yet who can scarcelyget a living. 

Not long ago three college graduates were found working on a sheep farmin Australia, one from Oxford, one from Cambridge, and the other from aGerman University, --college men tending brutes! Trained to lead men, they drove sheep. The owner of the farm was an ignorant, coarsesheep-raiser. He knew nothing of books or theories, but he knew sheep. His three hired graduates could speak foreign languages and discusstheories of political economy and philosophy, but he could make money. He could talk about nothing but sheep and farm; but he had made afortune, while the college men could scarcely get a living. Even theUniversity could not supply common sense. It was "culture againstignorance; the college against the ranch; and the ranch beat everytime. "

Do not expect too much from books. Bacon said that studies "teach nottheir own use, but that there is a practical wisdom without them, wonby observation. " The use of books must be found outside their ownlids. It was said of a great French scholar: "He was drowned in histalents. " Over-culture, without practical experience, weakens a man, and unfits him for real life. Book education alone tends to make a mantoo critical, too self-conscious, timid, distrustful of his abilities, too fine for the mechanical drudgery of practical life, too highlypolished, and too finely cultured for every day use. 

The culture of books and colleges refines, yet it is often but anethical culture, and is gained at the cost of vigor and ruggedstrength. Book culture alone tends to paralyze the practicalfaculties. The bookworm loses his individuality; his head is filledwith theories and saturated with other men's thoughts. The stamina ofthe vigorous mind he brought from the farm has evaporated in college;and when he graduates, he is astonished to find that he has lost thepower to grapple with men and things, and is therefore out-stripped inthe race of life by the boy who has had no chance, but who, in thefierce struggle for existence, has developed hard common sense andpractical wisdom. The college graduate often mistakes his crutches forstrength. He inhabits an ideal realm where common sense rarely dwells. The world cares little for his theories or his encyclopaedic knowledge. The cry of the age is for practical men. 

"We have been among you several weeks, " said Columbus to the Indianchiefs; "and, although at first you treated us like friends, you arenow jealous of us and are trying to drive us away. You brought us foodin plenty every morning, but now you bring very little and the amountis less with each succeeding day. The Great Spirit is angry with youfor not doing as you agreed in bringing us provisions. To show hisanger he will cause the sun to be in darkness. " He knew that there wasto be an eclipse of the sun, and told the day and hour it would occur, but the Indians did not believe him, and continued to reduce the supplyof food. 

On the appointed day the sun rose without a cloud, and the Indiansshook their heads, beginning to show signs of open hostility as thehours passed without a shadow on the face of the sun. But at length adark spot was seen on one margin; and, as it became larger, the nativesgrew frantic and fell prostrate before Columbus to entreat for help. He retired to his tent, promising to save them, if possible. About thetime for the eclipse to pass away, he came out and said that the GreatSpirit had pardoned them, and would soon drive away the monster fromthe sun if they would never offend him again. They readily promised, and when the sun had passed out of the shadow they leaped and dancedand sang for joy. Thereafter the Spaniards had all the provisions theyneeded. 

"Common sense, " said Wendell Phillips, "bows to the inevitable andmakes use of it. "

When Caesar stumbled in landing on the beach of Britain, he instantlygrasped a handful of sand and held it aloft as a signal of triumph, hiding forever from his followers the ill omen of his threatened fall. 

Goethe, speaking of some comparisons that had been instituted betweenhimself and Shakespeare, said: "Shakespeare always hits the right nailon the head at once; but I have to stop and think which is the rightnail, before I hit. "

It has been said that a few pebbles from a brook in the sling of aDavid who knows how to send them to the mark are more effective than aGoliath's spear and a Goliath's strength with a Goliath's clumsiness. 

"Get ready for the redskins!" shouted an excited man as he galloped upto the log-cabin of the Moore family in Ohio many years ago; "and giveme a fresh horse as soon as you can. They killed a family down theriver last night, and nobody knows where they'll turn up next!"

"What shall we do?" asked Mrs. Moore, with a pale face. "My husbandwent away yesterday to buy our winter supplies, and will not be backuntil morning. "

"Husband away? Whew! that's bad! Well, shut up as tight as you can. Cover up your fire, and don't strike a light to-night. " Then springingupon the horse the boys had brought, he galloped away to warn othersettlers. 

Mrs. Moore carried the younger children to the loft of the cabin, andleft Obed and Joe to watch, reluctantly yielding the post of danger tothem at their urgent request. "They're coming, Joe!" whispered Obedearly in the evening, as he saw several shadows moving across thefields. "Stand by that window with the axe, while I get the riflepointed at this one. " Opening the bullet-pouch, he took out a ball, but nearly fainted as he found it was too large for the rifle. Hisfather had taken the wrong pouch. Obed felt around to see if therewere any smaller balls in the cupboard, and almost stumbled over a verylarge pumpkin, one of the two which he and Joe had been using to makeJack-o'-lanterns when the messenger alarmed them. Pulling off hiscoat, he flung it over the vegetable lantern, made to imitate agigantic grinning face, with open eyes, nose, and mouth, and with alive coal from the ashes he lighted the candle inside. "They'll soundthe war-whoop in a minute, if I give them time, " he whispered, as heraised the covered lantern to the window. "Now for it!" he added, pulling the coat away. An unearthly yell greeted the appearance of thegrinning monster, and the Indians fled wildly to the woods. "Quick, Joe! Light up the other one! Don't you see that's what scar't 'emso?" demanded Obed; and at the appearance of the second fiery face thesavages gave a final yell and vanished in the forest. Mr. Moore anddaylight came together, but the Indians did not return. 

Thurlow Weed earned his first quarter by carrying a trunk on his backfrom a sloop in New York harbor to a Broad Street hotel. He had veryfew chances such as are now open to the humblest boy, but he had tactand intuition. He could read men as an open book, and mold them to hiswill. He was unselfish. By three presidents whom his tact andshrewdness had helped to elect he was offered the English mission andscores of other important positions, but he invariably declined. 

Lincoln selected Weed to attempt the reconciliation of the "New YorkHerald, " which had a large circulation in Europe, and was creating adangerous public sentiment abroad and at home by its articles insympathy with the Confederacy. Though Weed and Bennett had not spokento each other before for thirty years, the very next day after theirinterview the "Herald" became a strong Union paper. Weed was then sentto Europe to counteract the pernicious influence of secession agents. The emperor of France favored the South. He was very indignant becauseCharleston harbor had been blockaded, thus shutting off Frenchmanufacturers from large supplies of cotton. But Weed's rare tactmodified his views, and induced him to change to friendliness the toneof a hostile speech prepared for delivery to the National Assembly. England was working night and day preparing for war when Weed arrivedupon the scene, and soon changed largely the current of publicsentiment. On his return to America the city of New York extendedpublic thanks to him for his inestimable services. He was equallysuccessful in business, and acquired a fortune of a million dollars. 

"Tell me the breadth of this stream, " said Napoleon to his chiefengineer, as they came to a bridgeless river which the army had tocross. "Sire, I cannot. My scientific instruments are with the army, and we are ten miles ahead of it. "

"Measure the width of this stream instantly. "--"Sire, bereasonable!"--"Ascertain at once the width of this river, or you shallbe deposed. "

The engineer drew the cap-piece of his helmet down until the edgeseemed just in line between his eye and the opposite bank; then, holding himself carefully erect, he turned on his heel and noticedwhere the edge seemed to touch the bank on which he stood, which was onthe same level as the other. He paced the distance to the point lastnoted, and said: "This is the approximate width of the stream. " He waspromoted. 

"Mr. Webster, " said the mayor of a Western city, when it was learnedthat the great statesman, although weary with travel, would be delayedfor an hour by a failure to make close connections, "allow me tointroduce you to Mr. James, one of our most distinguished citizens. ""How do you do, Mr. James?" asked Webster mechanically, as he glancedat a thousand people waiting to take his hand. "The truth is, Mr. Webster, " replied Mr. James in a most lugubrious tone, "I am not verywell. " "I hope nothing serious is the matter, " thundered the godlikeDaniel, in a tone of anxious concern. "Well, I don't know that, Mr. Webster. I think it's rheumatiz, but my wife----" "Mr. Webster, thisis Mr. Smith, " broke in the mayor, leaving poor Mr. James to enjoy hisbad health in the pitiless solitude of a crowd. His total want of tacthad made him ridiculous. 

"Address yourself to the jury, sir, " said a judge to a witness whoinsisted upon imparting his testimony in a confidential tone to thecourt direct. The man did not understand and continued as before. "Speak to the jury, sir, the men sitting behind you on the raisedbenches. " Turning, the witness bowed low in awkward suavity, and said, "Good-morning, gentlemen. "

"What are these?" asked Napoleon, pointing to twelve silver statues ina cathedral. "The twelve Apostles, " was the reply. "Take them down, "said Napoleon, "melt them, coin them into money, and let them go aboutdoing good, as their Master did. "

"I don't think the Proverbs of Solomon show very great wisdom, " said astudent at Brown University; "I could make as good ones myself. " "Verywell, " replied President Wayland, "bring in two to-morrow morning. " Hedid not bring them. 

"Will you lecture for us for fame?" was the telegram young Henry WardBeecher received from a Young Men's Christian Association in the West. "Yes, F. A. M. E. Fifty and my expenses, " was the answer the shrewdyoung preacher sent back. 

Montaigne tells of a monarch who, on the sudden death of an only child, showed his resentment against Providence by abolishing the Christianreligion throughout his dominions for a fortnight. 

The triumphs of tact, or common sense, over talent and genius, are seeneverywhere. Walpole was an ignorant man, and Charlemagne could hardlywrite his name so that it could be deciphered; but these giants knewmen and things, and possessed that practical wisdom and tact which haveever moved the world. 

Tact, like Alexander, cuts the knots it cannot untie, and leads itsforces to glorious victory. A practical man not only sees, but seizesthe opportunity. There is a certain getting-on quality difficult todescribe, but which is the great winner of the prizes of life. Napoleon could do anything in the art of war with his own hands, evento the making of gunpowder. Paul was all things to all men, that hemight save some. The palm is among the hardest and least yielding ofall woods, yet rather than be deprived of the rays of the life-givingsun in the dense forests of South America, it is said to turn into acreeper, and climb the nearest trunk to the light. 

A farmer who could not get a living sold one half of his farm to ayoung man who made enough money on the half to pay for it and buy therest. "You have not tact, " was his reply, when the old man asked howone could succeed so well where the other had failed. 

According to an old custom a Cape Cod minister was called upon in Aprilto make a prayer over a piece of land. "No, " said he, when shown theland, "this does not need a prayer; it needs manure. "

To see a man as he is you must turn him round and round until you gethim at the right angle. Place him in a good light, as you would apicture. The excellences and defects will appear if you get the rightangle. How our old schoolmates have changed places in the ranking ofactual life! The boy who led his class and was the envy of all hasbeen distanced by the poor dunce who was called slow and stupid, butwho had a sort of dull energy in him which enabled him to get on in theworld. The class leader had only a theoretical knowledge, and couldnot cope with the stern realities of the age. Even genius, howeverrapid its flight, must not omit a single essential detail, and must bewilling to work like a horse. 

Shakespeare had marvelous tact; he worked everything into his plays. He ground up the king and his vassal, the fool and the fop, the princeand the peasant, the black and the white, the pure and the impure, thesimple and the profound, passions and characters, honor anddishonor, --everything within the sweep of his vision he ground up intopaint and spread it upon his mighty canvas. 

Some people show want of tact in resenting every slight or pettyinsult, however unworthy their notice. Others make Don Quixote'smistake of fighting a windmill by engaging in controversies with publicspeakers and editors, who are sure to have the advantage of the finalword. One of the greatest elements of strength in the character ofWashington was found in his forbearance when unjustly attacked orridiculed. 

Artemus Ward touches this bubble with a pretty sharp-pointed pen. 

"It was in a surtin town in Virginny, the Muther of Presidents andthings, that I was shaimfully aboozed by a editer in human form. Heset my Show up steep, and kalled me the urbane and gentlemunly manager, but when I, fur the purpuss of showin' fair play all round, went toanuther offiss to get my handbills printed, what duz thispussillanermus editer do but change his toon and abooze me like ainjun. He sed my wax-wurks was a humbug, and called me a horey-hededitinerent vagabone. I thort at fust Ide pollish him orf ar-lar BenekiBoy, but on reflectin' that he cood pollish me much wuss in his paper, I giv it up; and I wood here take occashun to advise people when theyrun agin, as they sumtimes will, these miserable papers, to not pay noattenshun to um. Abuv all, don't assault a editer of this kind. Itonly gives him a notorosity, which is jist what he wants, and don't doyou no more good than it would to jump into enny other mudpuddle. Editors are generally fine men, but there must be black sheep in everyflock. "

John Jacob Astor had practical talent in a remarkable degree. During astorm at sea, on his voyage to America, the other passengers ran aboutthe deck in despair, expecting every minute to go down; but young Astorwent below and coolly put on his best suit of clothes, saying that ifthe ship should founder and he should happen to be rescued, he would atleast save his best suit of clothes. 

"Their trading talent is bringing the Jews to the front in America aswell as in Europe, " said a traveler to one of that race; "and it hasgained for them an ascendency, at least in certain branches of trade, from which nothing will ever displace them. "

"Dey are coming to de vront, most zairtainly, " replied his companion;"but vy do you shpeak of deir drading dalent all de time?"

"But don't you regard it as a talent?"

"A dalent? No! It is chenius. I vill dell you what is de difference, in drade, between dalent and chenius. Ven one goes into a man's shtoreand manaches to seel him vat he vonts, dat is dalent; but ven annoderman goes into dat man's shtore and sells him vot he don't vont, dat ischenius; and dat is de chenius vot my race has got. "

CHAPTER XXI

ENAMORED OF ACCURACY

 "Antonio Stradivari has an eye That winces at false work and loves the true. "

Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty. --C. SIMMONS. 

Genius is the infinite art of taking pains. --CARLYLE. 

I hate a thing done by halves. If it be right, do it boldly; if it bewrong, leave it undone. --GILPIN. 

 If I were a cobbler, it would be my pride The best of all cobblers to be; If I were a tinker, no tinker beside Should mend an old kettle like me. OLD SONG. 

If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make abetter mouse-trap than his neighbor, though he build his house in thewoods, the world will make a beaten path to his door. --EMERSON. 

"Sir, it is a watch which I have made and regulated myself, " saidGeorge Graham of London to a customer who asked how far he could dependupon its keeping correct time; "take it with you wherever you please. If after seven years you come back to see me, and can tell me there hasbeen a difference of five minutes, I will return you your money. "Seven years later the gentleman returned from India. "Sir, " said he, "I bring you back your watch. "

"I remember our conditions, " said Graham. "Let me see the watch. Well, what do you complain of?" "Why, " said the man, "I have had itseven years, and there is a difference of more than five minutes. "

"Indeed! In that case I return you your money. " "I would not partwith my watch, " said the man, "for ten times the sum I paid for it. ""And I would not break my word for any consideration, " replied Graham;so he paid the money and took the watch, which he used as a regulator. 

He learned his trade of Tampion, the most exquisite mechanic in London, if not in the world, whose name on a timepiece was considered proofpositive of its excellence. When a person once asked him to repair awatch upon which his name was fraudulently engraved, Tampion smashed itwith a hammer, and handed the astonished customer one of his ownmaster-pieces, saying, "Sir, here is a watch of my making. "

Graham invented the "compensating mercury pendulum, " the "deadescapement, " and the "orrery, " none of which have been much improvedsince. The clock which he made for Greenwich Observatory has beenrunning one hundred and fifty years, yet it needs regulating but oncein fifteen months. Tampion and Graham lie in Westminster Abbey, because of the accuracy of their work. 

To insure safety, a navigator must know how far he is from the equator, north or south, and how far east or west of some known point, asGreenwich, Paris, or Washington. He could be sure of this knowledgewhen the sun is shining, if he could have an absolutely accuratetimekeeper; but such a thing has not yet been made. In the sixteenthcentury Spain offered a prize of a thousand crowns for the discovery ofan approximately correct method of determining longitude. About twohundred years later the English government offered 5, 000 pounds for achronometer by which a ship six months from home could get herlongitude within sixty miles; 7, 500 pounds if within forty miles;10, 000 pounds if within thirty miles; and in another clause 20, 000pounds for correctness within thirty miles, a careless repetition. 

The watchmakers of the world contested for the prizes, but 1761 came, and they had not been awarded. In that year John Harrison asked for atest of his chronometer. In a trip of one hundred and forty-seven daysfrom Portsmouth to Jamaica and back, it varied less than two minutes, and only four seconds on the outward voyage. In a round trip of onehundred and fifty-six days to Barbadoes, the variation was only fifteenseconds. The 20, 000 pounds was paid to the man who had worked andexperimented for forty years, and whose hand was as exquisitelydelicate in its movement as the mechanism of his chronometer. 

"Make me as good a hammer as you know how, " said a carpenter to theblacksmith in a New York village before the first railroad was built;"six of us have come to work on the new church, and I've left mine athome. " "As good a one as I know how?" asked David Maydole, doubtfully, "but perhaps you don't want to pay for as good a one as I know how tomake. " "Yes, I do, " said the carpenter, "I want a good hammer. "

It was indeed a good hammer that he received, the best, probably, thathad ever been made. By means of a longer hole than usual, David hadwedged the handle in its place so that the head could not fly off, awonderful improvement in the eyes of the carpenter, who boasted of hisprize to his companions. They all came to the shop next day, and eachordered just such a hammer. When the contractor saw the tools, heordered two for himself, asking that they be made a little better thanthose of his men. "I can't make any better ones, " said Maydole; "whenI make a thing, I make it as well as I can, no matter whom it is for. "

The storekeeper soon ordered two dozen, a supply unheard of in hisprevious business career. A New York dealer in tools came to thevillage to sell his wares, and bought all the storekeeper had, and lefta standing order for all the blacksmith could make. David might havegrown very wealthy by making goods of the standard already attained;but throughout his long and successful life he never ceased to studystill further to perfect his hammers in the minutest detail. They wereusually sold without any warrant of excellence, the word "Maydole"stamped on the head being universally considered a guaranty of the bestarticle the world could produce. 

Character is power, and is the best advertisement in the world. 

"We have no secret, " said the manager of an iron works employingthousands of men. "We always try to beat our last batch of rails. That is all the secret we've got, and we don't care who knows it. "

"I don't try to see how cheap a machine I can produce, but how good amachine, " said the late John C. Whitin, of Northbridge, Mass. , to acustomer who complained of the high price of some cotton machinery. Business men soon learned what this meant; and when there was occasionto advertise any machinery for sale, New England cotton manufacturerswere accustomed to state the number of years it had been in use andadd, as an all-sufficient guaranty of Northbridge products, "Whitinmake. "

"Madam, " said the sculptor H. K. Brown, as he admired a statue inalabaster made by a youth in his teens, "this boy has something inhim. " It was the figure of an Irishman who worked for the Ward familyin Brooklyn years ago, and gave with minutest fidelity not merely theman's features and expression, but even the patches in his trousers, the rent in his coat, and the creases in his narrow-brimmed stove-pipehat. Mr. Brown saw the statue at the house of a lady living atNewburgh-on-the-Hudson. Six years later he invited her brother, J. Q. A. Ward, to become a pupil in his studio. To-day the name of Ward isthat of the most prosperous of all Americans sculptors. 

"Paint me just as I am, warts and all, " said Oliver Cromwell to theartist who, thinking to please the great man, had omitted a mole. 

"I can remember when you blacked my father's shoes, " said one member ofthe House of Commons to another in the heat of debate. "True enough, "was the prompt reply, "but did I not black them well?"

"It is easy to tell good indigo, " said an old lady. "Just take a lumpand put it into water, and if it is good, it will either sink or swim, I am not sure which; but never mind, you can try it for yourself. "

John B. Gough told of a colored preacher who, wishing his congregationto fresco the recess back of the pulpit, suddenly closed his Bible andsaid, "There, my bredren, de Gospel will not be dispensed with any morefrom dis pulpit till de collection am sufficient to fricassee disabscess. "

When troubled with deafness, Wellington consulted a celebratedphysician, who put strong caustic into his ear, causing an inflammationwhich threatened his life. The doctor apologized, expressed greatregrets, and said that the blunder would ruin him. "No, " saidWellington, "I will never mention it. " "But you will allow me toattend you, so that people will not withdraw their confidence?" "No, "said the Iron Duke, "that would be lying. "

"Father, " said a boy, "I saw an immense number of dogs--five hundred, Iam sure--in our street, last night. " "Surely not so many, " said thefather. "Well, there were one hundred, I'm quite sure. " "It could notbe, " said the father; "I don't think there are a hundred dogs in ourvillage. " "Well, sir, it could not be less than ten: this I am quitecertain of. " "I will not believe you saw ten even, " said the father;"for you spoke as confidently of seeing five hundred as of seeing thissmaller number. You have contradicted yourself twice already, and nowI cannot believe you. " "Well, sir, " said the disconcerted boy, "I sawat least our Dash and another one. "

We condemn the boy for exaggerating in order to tell a wonderful story;but how much more truthful are they who "never saw it rain so before, "or who call day after day the hottest of the summer or the coldest ofthe winter?

There is nothing which all mankind venerate and admire so much assimple truth, exempt from artifice, duplicity, and design. It exhibitsat once a strength of character and integrity of purpose in which allare willing to confide. 

To say nice things merely to avoid giving offense; to keep silentrather than speak the truth; to equivocate, to evade, to dodge, to saywhat is expedient rather than what is truthful; to shirk the truth; toface both ways; to exaggerate; to seem to concur with another'sopinions when you do not; to deceive by a glance of the eye, a nod ofthe head, a smile, a gesture; to lack sincerity; to assume to know orthink or feel what you do not--all these are but various manifestationsof hollowness and falsehood resulting from want of accuracy. 

We find no lying, no inaccuracy, no slipshod business in nature. Rosesblossom and crystals form with the same precision of tint and angleto-day as in Eden on the morning of creation. The rose in the queen'sgarden is not more beautiful, more fragrant, more exquisitely perfect, than that which blooms and blushes unheeded amid the fern-decked brushby the roadside, or in some far-off glen where no human eye ever seesit. The crystal found deep in the earth is constructed with the samefidelity as that formed above ground. Even the tiny snowflake whosedestiny is to become an apparently insignificant and a wholly unnoticedpart of an enormous bank, assumes its shape of ethereal beauty asfaithfully as though preparing for some grand exhibition. Planets rushwith dizzy sweep through almost limitless courses, yet return toequinox or solstice at the appointed second, their very movement being"the uniform manifestation of the will of God. "

The marvelous resources and growth of America have developed anunfortunate tendency to overstate, overdraw, and exaggerate. It seemsstrange that there should be so strong a temptation to exaggerate in acountry where the truth is more wonderful than fiction. The positiveis stronger than the superlative, but we ignore this fact in ourspeech. Indeed, it is really difficult to ascertain the exact truth inAmerica. How many American fortunes are built on misrepresentationthat is needless, for nothing else is half so strong as truth. 

"Does the devil lie?" was asked of Sir Thomas Browne. "No, for theneven he could not exist. " Truth is necessary to permanency. 

In Siberia a traveler found men who could see the satellites of Jupiterwith the naked eye. These men have made little advance incivilization, yet they are far superior to us in their accuracy ofvision. It is a curious fact that not a single astronomical discoveryof importance has been made through a large telescope, the men who haveadvanced our knowledge of that science the most working with ordinaryinstruments backed by most accurately trained minds and eyes. 

A double convex lens three feet in diameter is worth $60, 000. Itsadjustment is so delicate that the human hand is the only instrumentthus far known suitable for giving the final polish, and one sweep ofthe hand more than is needed, Alvan Clark says, would impair thecorrectness of the glass. During the test of the great glass which hemade for Russia, the workmen turned it a little with their hands. "Wait, boys, let it cool before making another trial, " said Clark; "thepoise is so delicate that the heat from your hands affects it. "

Mr. Clark's love of accuracy has made his name a synonym of exactnessthe world over. 

"No, I can't do it, it is impossible, " said Webster, when urged tospeak on a question soon to come up, toward the close of aCongressional session. "I am so pressed with other duties that Ihaven't time to prepare myself to speak upon that theme. " "Ah, but, Mr. Webster, you always speak well upon any subject. You never fail. ""But that's the very reason, " said the orator, "because I never allowmyself to speak upon any subject without first making that subjectthoroughly my own. I haven't time to do that in this instance. HenceI must refuse. "

Rufus Choate would plead before a shoemaker justice of the peace in apetty case with all the fervor and careful attention to detail withwhich he addressed the United States Supreme Court. 

"Whatever is right to do, " said an eminent writer, "should be done withour best care, strength, and faithfulness of purpose; we have no scalesby which we can weigh our faithfulness to duties, or determine theirrelative importance in God's eyes. That which seems a trifle to us maybe the secret spring which shall move the issues of life and death. "

"There goes a man that has been in hell, " the Florentines would saywhen Dante passed, so realistic seemed to them his description of thenether world. 

"There is only one real failure in life possible, " said Canon Farrar;"and that is, not to be true to the best one knows. "

"It is quite astonishing, " Grove said of Beethoven, "to find the lengthof time during which some of the best known instrumental melodiesremained in his thoughts till they were finally used, or the crude, vague, commonplace shape in which they were first written down. Themore they are elaborated, the more fresh and spontaneous they become. "

Leonardo da Vinci would walk across Milan to change a single tint orthe slightest detail in his famous picture of the Last Supper. "Everyline was then written twice over by Pope, " said his publisher Dodsley, of manuscript brought to be copied. Gibbon wrote his memoir ninetimes, and the first chapters of his history eighteen times. Of one ofhis works Montesquieu said to a friend: "You will read it in a fewhours, but I assure you it has cost me so much labor that it haswhitened my hair. " He had made it his study by day and his dream bynight, the alpha and omega of his aims and objects. "He who does notwrite as well as he can on every occasion, " said George Ripley, "willsoon form the habit of not writing well on any occasion. "

An accomplished entomologist thought he would perfect his knowledge bya few lessons under Professor Agassiz. The latter handed him a deadfish and told him to use his eyes. Two hours later he examined his newpupil, but soon remarked, "You haven't really looked at the fish yet. You'll have to try again. " After a second examination he shook hishead, saying, "You do not show that you can use your eyes. " Thisroused the pupil to earnest effort, and he became so interested inthings he had never noticed before that he did not see Agassiz when hecame for the third examination. "That will do, " said the greatscientist. "I now see that you can use your eyes. "

Reynolds said he could go on retouching a picture forever. 

The captain of a Nantucket whaler told the man at the wheel to steer bythe North Star, but was awakened towards morning by a request foranother star to steer by, as they had "sailed by the other. "

Stephen Girard was precision itself. He did not allow those in hisemploy to deviate in the slightest degree from his iron-clad orders. He believed that no great success is possible without the most rigidaccuracy in everything. He did not vary from a promise in theslightest degree. People knew that his word was not "pretty good, " but_absolutely_ good. He left nothing to chance. Every detail ofbusiness was calculated and planned to a nicety. He was as exact andprecise even in the smallest trifles as Napoleon; yet his brothermerchants attributed his superior success to good luck. 

In 1805 Napoleon broke up the great camp he had formed on the shores ofthe English Channel, and gave orders for his mighty host to defiletoward the Danube. Vast and various as were the projects fermenting inhis brain, however, he did not content himself with giving the order, and leaving the elaboration of its details to his lieutenants. Todetails and minutiae which inferior captains would have deemed toomicroscopic for their notice, he gave such exhaustive attention thatbefore the bugle had sounded for the march he had planned the exactroute which every regiment was to follow, the exact day and hour it wasto leave that station, and the precise moment when it was to reach itsdestination. These details, so thoroughly premeditated, were carriedout to the letter, and the result of that memorable march was thevictory of Austerlitz, which sealed the fate of Europe for ten years. 

When a noted French preacher speaks in Notre Dame, the scholars ofParis throng the cathedral to hear his fascinating, eloquent, polisheddiscourses. This brilliant finish is the result of most patient work, as he delivers but five or six sermons a year. 

When Sir Walter Scott visited a ruined castle about which he wished towrite, he wrote in a notebook the separate names of grasses and wildflowers growing near, saying that only by such means can a writer benatural. 

The historian, Macaulay, never allowed a sentence to stand until it wasas good as he could make it. 

Besides his scrapbooks, Garfield had a large case of some fiftypigeonholes, labeled "Anecdotes, " "Electoral Laws and Commissions, ""French Spoliation, " "General Politics, " "Geneva Award, ""Parliamentary Decisions, " "Public Men, " "State Politics, " "Tariff, ""The Press, " "United States History, " etc. ; every valuable hint hecould get being preserved in the cold exactness of black and white. When he chose to make careful preparation on a subject, no otherspeaker could command so great an array of facts. Accurate people aremethodical people, and method means character. 

"Am offered 10, 000 bushels wheat on your account at $1. 00. Shall Ibuy, or is it too high?" telegraphed a San Francisco merchant to one inSacramento. "No price too high, " came back over the wire instead of"No. Price too high, " as was intended. The omission of a period costthe Sacramento dealer $1, 000. How many thousands have lost theirwealth or lives, and how many frightful accidents have occurred throughcarelessness in sending messages!

"The accurate boy is always the favored one, " said President Tuttle. "Those who employ men do not wish to be on the constant lookout, asthough they were rogues or fools. If a carpenter must stand at hisjourneyman's elbow to be sure his work is right, or if a cashier mustrun over his bookkeeper's columns, he might as well do the work himselfas employ another to do it in that way; and it is very certain that theemployer will get rid of such a blunderer as soon as he can. "

"If you make a good pin, " said a successful manufacturer, "you willearn more than if you make a bad steam-engine. "

"There are women, " said Fields, "whose stitches always come out, andthe buttons they sew on fly off on the mildest provocation; there areother women who use the same needle and thread, and you may tug away attheir work on your coat, or waistcoat, and you can't start a button ina generation. "

"Carelessness, " "indifference, " "slouchiness, " "slipshod financiering, "could truthfully be written over the graves of thousands who havefailed in life. How many clerks, cashiers, clergymen, editors, andprofessors in colleges have lost position and prestige by carelessnessand inaccuracy!

"You would be the greatest man of your age, Grattan, " said Curran, "ifyou would buy a few yards of red tape and tie up your bills andpapers. " Curran realized that methodical people are accurate, and, asa rule, successful. 

Bergh tells of a man beginning business who opened and shut his shopregularly at the same hour every day for weeks, without selling twocents' worth, yet whose application attracted attention and paved theway to fortune. 

A. T. Stewart was extremely systematic and precise in all histransactions. Method ruled in every department of his store, and forevery delinquency a penalty was rigidly enforced. His eye was upon hisbusiness in all its ramifications; he mastered every detail and workedhard. 

From the time Jonas Chickering began to work for a piano-maker, he wasnoted for the pains and care with which he did everything. To himthere were no trifles in the manufacturing of pianos. Neither time norlabor was of any account to him, compared with accuracy and knowledge. He soon made pianos in a factory of his own. He determined to make aninstrument yielding the fullest and richest volume of melody with theleast exertion to the player, withstanding atmospheric changes, andpreserving its purity and truthfulness of tone. He resolved that eachpiano should be an improvement upon the one which preceded it;perfection was his aim. To the end of his life he gave the finishingtouch to each of his instruments, and would trust it to no one else. He permitted no irregularity in workmanship or sales, and wascharacterized by simplicity, transparency, and straightforwardness. 

He distanced all competitors. Chickering's name was such a power thatone piano-maker had his name changed to Chickering by the Massachusettslegislature, and put it on his pianos; but Jonas Chickering sent apetition to the legislature, and the name was changed back. Characterhas a commercial as well as an ethical value. 

Joseph M. W. Turner was intended by his father for a barber, but heshowed such a taste for drawing that a reluctant permission was givenfor him to follow art as a profession. He soon became skilful, but ashe lacked means he took anything to do that came in his way, frequentlyillustrating guide-books and almanacs. But although the pay was verysmall the work was never careless. His labor was worth several timeswhat he received for it, but the price was increased and work of highergrade given him simply because men seek the services of those who areknown to be faithful, and employ them in as lofty work as they seemable to do. And so he toiled upward until he began to employ himself, his work sure of a market at some price, and the price increasing asother men began to get glimpses of the transcendent art revealed in hispaintings, an art not fully comprehended even in our day. He surpassedthe acknowledged masters in various fields of landscape work, and leftmatchless studies of natural scenery in lines never before attempted. What Shakespeare is in literature, Turner is in his special field, thegreatest name on record. 

The demand for perfection in the nature of Wendell Phillips waswonderful. Every word must exactly express the shade of his thought;every phrase must be of due length and cadence; every sentence must beperfectly balanced before it left his lips. Exact precisioncharacterized his style. He was easily the first forensic oratorAmerica has produced. The rhythmical fulness and poise of his periodsare remarkable. 

Alexandre Dumas prepared his manuscript with the greatest care. Whenconsulted by a friend whose article had been rejected by severalpublishers, he advised him to have it handsomely copied by aprofessional penman, and then change the title. The advice was taken, and the article eagerly accepted by one of the very publishers who hadrefused it before. Many able essays have been rejected because of poorpenmanship. We must strive after accuracy as we would after wisdom, orhidden treasure or anything we would attain. Determine to form exactbusiness habits. Avoid slipshod financiering as you would the plague. Careless and indifferent habits would soon ruin a millionaire. Nearlyevery very successful man is accurate and painstaking. Accuracy meanscharacter, and character is power. 

CHAPTER XXII

DO IT TO A FINISH

Years ago a relief lifeboat at New London sprung a leak, and whilebeing repaired a hammer was found in the bottom that had been leftthere by the builders thirteen years before. From the constant motionof the boat the hammer had worn through the planking, clear down to theplating. 

Not long since, it was discovered that a girl had served twenty yearsfor a twenty months' sentence, in a southern prison, because of themistake of a court clerk who wrote "years" instead of "months" in therecord of the prisoner's sentence. 

The history of the human race is full of the most horrible tragediescaused by carelessness and the inexcusable blunders of those who neverformed the habit of accuracy, of thoroughness, of doing things to afinish. 

Multitudes of people have lost an eye, a leg, or an arm, or areotherwise maimed, because dishonest workmen wrought deception into thearticles they manufactured, slighted their work, covered up defects andweak places with paint and varnish. 

How many have lost their lives because of dishonest work, carelessness, criminal blundering in railroad construction? Think of the tragediescaused by lies packed in car-wheels, locomotives, steamboat boilers, and engines; lies in defective rails, ties, or switches; lies indishonest labor put into manufactured material by workmen who said itwas good enough for the meager wages they got! Because people were notconscientious in their work there were flaws in the steel, which causedthe rail or pillar to snap, the locomotive or other machinery to break. The steel shaft broke in mid-ocean, and the lives of a thousandpassengers were jeopardized because of somebody's carelessness. 

Even before they are completed, buildings often fall and bury theworkmen under their ruins, because somebody was careless, dishonest--either employer or employee--and worked lies, deceptions, into the building. 

The majority of railroad wrecks, of disasters on land and sea, whichcause so much misery and cost so many lives, are the result ofcarelessness, thoughtlessness, or half-done, botched, blundering work. They are the evil fruit of the low ideals of slovenly, careless, indifferent workers. 

Everywhere over this broad earth we see the tragic results of botchedwork. Wooden legs, armless sleeves, numberless graves, fatherless andmotherless homes everywhere speak of somebody's carelessness, somebody's blunders, somebody's habit of inaccuracy. The worst crimesare not punishable by law. Carelessness, slipshodness, lack ofthoroughness, are crimes against self, against humanity, that often domore harm than the crimes that make the perpetrator an outcast fromsociety. Where a tiny flaw or the slightest defect may cost a preciouslife, carelessness is as much a crime as deliberate criminality. 

If everybody put his conscience into his work, did it to a completefinish, it would not only reduce the loss of human life, the manglingand maiming of men and women, to a fraction of what it is at present, but it would also give us a higher quality of manhood and womanhood. 

Most young people think too much of quantity, and too little of qualityin their work. They try to do too much, and do not do it well. Theydo not realize that the education, the comfort, the satisfaction, thegeneral improvement, and bracing up of the whole man that comes fromdoing one thing absolutely right, from putting the trade-mark of one'scharacter on it, far outweighs the value that attaches to the doing ofa thousand botched or slipshod jobs. 

We are so constituted that the quality which we put into our life-workaffects everything else in our lives, and tends to bring our wholeconduct to the same level. The entire person takes on thecharacteristics of one's usual way of doing things. The habit ofprecision and accuracy strengthens the mentality, improves the wholecharacter. 

On the contrary, doing things in a loose-jointed, slipshod, carelessmanner deteriorates the whole mentality, demoralizes the mentalprocesses, and pulls down the whole life. 

Every half-done or slovenly job that goes out of your hands leaves itstrace of demoralization behind. After slighting your work, after doinga poor job, you are not quite the same man you were before. You arenot so likely to try to keep up the standard of your work, not solikely to regard your word as sacred as before. 

The mental and moral effect of half doing, or carelessly doing things;its power to drag down, to demoralize, can hardly be estimated becausethe processes are so gradual, so subtle. No one can respect himselfwho habitually botches his work, and when self-respect drops, confidence goes with it; and when confidence and self-respect havegone, excellence is impossible. 

It is astonishing how completely a slovenly habit will gradually, insidiously fasten itself upon the individual and so change his wholemental attitude as to thwart absolutely his life-purpose, even when hemay think he is doing his best to carry it out. 

I know a man who was extremely ambitious to do something verydistinctive and who had the ability to do it. When he started on hiscareer he was very exact and painstaking. He demanded the best ofhimself--would not accept his second-best in anything. The thought ofslighting his work was painful to him, but his mental processes have sodeteriorated, and he has become so demoralized by the habit which, after a while, grew upon him, of accepting his second-best, that he nowslights his work without a protest, seemingly without being consciousof it. He is to-day doing quite ordinary things, without apparentmortification or sense of humiliation, and the tragedy of it all is, _he does not know why he has failed_!

One's ambition and ideals need constant watching and cultivation inorder to keep up to the standards. Many people are so constituted thattheir ambition wanes and their ideals drop when they are alone, or withcareless, indifferent people. They require the constant assistance, suggestion, prodding, or example of others to keep them up to standard. 

How quickly a youth of high ideals, who has been well trained inthoroughness, often deteriorates when he leaves home and goes to workfor an employer with inferior ideals and slipshod methods!

The introduction of inferiority into our work is like introducingsubtle poison into the system. It paralyzes the normal functions. Inferiority is an infection which, like leaven, affects the entiresystem. It dulls ideals, palsies the aspiring faculty, stupefies theambition, and causes deterioration all along the line. 

The human mechanism is so constituted that whatever goes wrong in onepart affects the whole structure. There is a very intimate relationbetween the quality of the work and the quality of the character. Didyou ever notice the rapid decline in a young man's character when hebegan to slight his work, to shirk, to slip in rotten hours, rottenservice?

If you should ask the inmates of our penitentiaries what had causedtheir ruin, many of them could trace the first signs of deteriorationto shirking, clipping their hours, deceiving their employers--toindifferent, dishonest work. 

We were made to be honest. Honesty is our normal expression, and anydeparture from it demoralizes and taints the whole character. Honestymeans integrity in everything. It not only means reliability in yourword, but also carefulness, accuracy, honesty in your work. It doesnot mean that if only you will not lie with your lips you may lie anddefraud in the quality of your work. Honesty means wholeness, completeness; it means truth in everything--in deed and in word. Merely not to steal another's money or goods is not all there is tohonesty. You must not steal another's time, you must not steal hisgoods or ruin his property by half finishing or botching your work, byblundering through carelessness or indifference. Your contract withyour employer means that you will give him your best, and not yoursecond-best. 

"What a fool you are, " said one workman to another, "to take so muchpains with that job, when you don't get much pay for it. 'Get the mostmoney for the least work, ' is my rule, and I get twice as much money asyou do. "

"That may be, " replied the other, "but I shall like myself better, Ishall think more of myself, and that is more important to me thanmoney. "

You will like yourself better when you have the approval of yourconscience. That will be worth more to you than any amount of moneyyou can pocket through fraudulent, skimped, or botched work. Nothingelse can give you the glow of satisfaction, the electric thrill anduplift which come from a superbly-done job. Perfect work harmonizeswith the very principles of our being, because we were made forperfection. It fits our very natures. 

Some one has said: "It is a race between negligence and ignorance as towhich can make the more trouble. "

Many a young man is being kept down by what probably seems a smallthing to him--negligence, lack of accuracy. He never quite finishesanything he undertakes; he can not be depended upon to do anythingquite right; his work always needs looking over by some one else. Hundreds of clerks and book-keepers are getting small salaries in poorpositions today because they have never learned to do things absolutelyright. 

A prominent business man says that the carelessness, inaccuracy, andblundering of employees cost Chicago one million dollars a day. Themanager of a large house in that city, says that he has to stationpickets here and there throughout the establishment in order toneutralize the evils of inaccuracy and the blundering habit. One ofJohn Wanamaker's partners says that unnecessary blunders and mistakescost that firm twenty-five thousand dollars a year. The dead letterdepartment of the Post Office in Washington received in one year sevenmillion pieces of undelivered mail. Of these more than eighty thousandbore no address whatever. A great many of them were from businesshouses. Are the clerks who are responsible for this carelessnesslikely to win promotion?

Many an employee who would be shocked at the thought of telling hisemployer a lie with his lips is lying every day in the quality of hiswork, in his dishonest service, in the rotten hours he is slipping intoit, in shirking, in his indifference to his employer's interests. Itis just as dishonest to express deception in poor work, in shirking, asto express it with the lips, yet I have known office-boys, who couldnot be induced to tell their employer a direct lie, to steal his timewhen on an errand, to hide away during working hours to smoke acigarette or take a nap, not realizing, perhaps, that lies can be actedas well as told and that acting a lie may be even worse than tellingone. 

The man who botches his work, who lies or cheats in the goods he sellsor manufactures, is dishonest with himself as well as with his fellowmen, and must pay the price in loss of self-respect, loss of character, of standing in his community. 

Yet on every side we see all sorts of things selling for a song becausethe maker put no character, no thought into them. Articles of clothingthat look stylish and attractive when first worn, very quickly get outof shape, and hang and look like old, much-worn garments. Buttons flyoff, seams give way at the slightest strain, dropped stitches areeverywhere in evidence, and often the entire article goes to piecesbefore it is worn half a dozen times. 

Everywhere we see furniture which looks all right, but which in realityis full of blemishes and weaknesses, covered up with paint and varnish. Glue starts at joints, chairs and bedsteads break down at the slightestprovocation, castors come off, handles pull out, many things "go topieces" altogether, even while practically new. 

"Made to sell, not for service, " would be a good label for the greatmass of manufactured articles in our markets to-day. 

It is difficult to find anything that is well and honestly made, thathas character, individuality and thoroughness wrought into it. Mostthings are just thrown together. This slipshod, dishonestmanufacturing is so general that concerns which turn out products basedupon honesty and truth often win for themselves a world-wide reputationand command the highest prices. 

There is no other advertisement like a good reputation. Some of theworld's greatest manufacturers have regarded their reputation as theirmost precious possession, and under no circumstances would they allowtheir names to be put on an imperfect article. Vast sums of money areoften paid for the use of a name, because of its great reputation forintegrity and square dealing. 

There was a time when the names of Graham and Tampion on timepieceswere guarantees of the most exquisite workmanship and of unquestionedintegrity. Strangers from any part of the world could send theirpurchase money and order goods from those manufacturers without a doubtthat they would be squarely dealt with. 

Tampion and Graham lie in Westminster Abbey because of the accuracy oftheir work--because they refused to manufacture and sell lies. 

When you finish a thing you ought to be able to say to yourself:"There, I am willing to stand for that piece of work. It is not prettywell done; it is done as well as I can do it; done to a completefinish. I will stand for that. I am willing to be judged by it. "

Never be satisfied with "fairly good, " "pretty good, " "good enough. "Accept nothing short of your best. Put such a quality into your workthat anyone who comes across anything you have ever done will seecharacter in it, individuality in it, your trade-mark of superiorityupon it. Your reputation is at stake in everything you do, and yourreputation is your capital. You cannot afford to do a poor job, to letbotched work or anything that is inferior go out of your hands. Everybit of your work, no matter how unimportant or trivial it may seem, should bear your trade-mark of excellence; you should regard every taskthat goes through your hands, every piece of work you touch, as Tampionregarded every watch that went out of his shop. It must be the verybest you can do, the best that human skill can produce. 

It is just the little difference between the good and the best thatmakes the difference between the artist and the artisan. It is justthe little touches after the average man would quit that make themaster's fame. 

Regard your work as Stradivarius regarded his violins, which he "madefor eternity, " and not one of which was ever known to come to pieces orbreak. Stradivarius did not need any patent on his violins, for noother violin maker would pay such a price for excellence as he paid;would take such pains to put his stamp of superiority upon hisinstrument. Every "Stradivarius" now in existence is worth from threeto ten thousand dollars, or several times its weight in gold. 

Think of the value such a reputation for thoroughness as that ofStradivarius or Tampion, such a passion to give quality to your work, would give you! There is nothing like being enamored of accuracy, being grounded in thoroughness as a life-principle, of always strivingfor excellence. 

No other characteristic makes such a strong impression upon an employeras the habit of painstaking, carefulness, accuracy. He knows that if ayouth puts his conscience into his work from principle, not from thestandpoint of salary or what he can get for it, but because there issomething in him which refuses to accept anything from himself but thebest, that he is honest and made of good material. 

I have known many instances where advancement hinged upon the littleoverplus of interest, of painstaking an employee put into his work, onhis doing a little better than was expected of him. Employers do notsay all they think, but they detect very quickly the earmarks ofsuperiority. They keep their eye on the employee who has the stamp ofexcellence upon him, who takes pains with his work, who does it to afinish. They know he has a future. 

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. , says that the "secret of success is to do thecommon duty uncommonly well. " The majority of young people do not seethat the steps which lead to the position above them are constructed, little by little, by the faithful performance of the common, humble, every-day duties of the position they are now filling. The thing whichyou are now doing will unlock or bar the door to promotion. 

Many employees are looking for some great thing to happen that willgive them an opportunity to show their mettle. "What can there be, "they say to themselves, "in this dry routine, in doing these common, ordinary things, to help me along?" But it is the youth who sees agreat opportunity hidden in just these simple services, who sees a veryuncommon chance in a common situation, a humble position, who gets onin the world. It is doing things a little better than those about youdo them; being a little neater, a little quicker, a little moreaccurate, a little more observant; it is ingenuity in finding new andmore progressive ways of doing old things; it is being a little morepolite, a little more obliging, a little more tactful, a little morecheerful, optimistic, a little more energetic, helpful, than thoseabout you that attracts the attention of your employer and otheremployers also. 

Many a boy is marked for a higher position by his employer long beforehe is aware of it himself. It may be months, or it may be a yearbefore the opening comes, but when it does come the one who hasappreciated the infinite difference between "good" and "better, "between "fairly good" and "excellent, " between what others call "good"and the best that can be done, will be likely to get the place. 

If there is that in your nature which demands the best and will takenothing less; if you insist on keeping up your standards in everythingyou do, you will achieve distinction in some line provided you have thepersistence and determination to follow your ideal. 

But if you are satisfied with the cheap and shoddy, the botched andslovenly, if you are not particular about quality in your work, or inyour environment, or in your personal habits, then you must expect totake second place, to fall back to the rear of the procession. 

People who have accomplished work worth while have had a very highsense of the way to do things. They have not been content withmediocrity. They have not confined themselves to the beaten tracks;they have never been satisfied to do things just as others do them, butalways a little better. They always pushed things that came to theirhands a little higher up, a little farther on. It is this littlehigher up, this little farther on, that counts in the quality of life'swork. It is the constant effort to be first-class in everything oneattempts that conquers the heights of excellence. 

It is said that Daniel Webster made the best chowder in his state onthe principle that he would not be second-class in anything. This is agood resolution with which to start out in your career; never to besecond-class in anything. No matter what you do, try to do it as wellas it can be done. Have nothing to do with the inferior. Do your bestin everything; deal with the best; choose the best; live up to yourbest. 

Everywhere we see mediocre or second-class men--perpetual clerks whowill never get away from the yardstick; mechanics who will never beanything but bunglers, all sorts of people who will never rise abovemediocrity, who will always fill very ordinary positions because theydo not take pains, do not put conscience into their work, do not try tobe first-class. 

Aside from the lack of desire or effort to be first-class, there areother things that help to make second-class men. Dissipation, badhabits, neglect of health, failure to get an education, all makesecond-class men. A man weakened by dissipation, whose understandinghas been dulled, whose growth has been stunted by self-indulgences, isa second-class man, if, indeed, he is not third-class. A man who, through his amusements in his hours of leisure, exhausts his strengthand vitality, vitiates his blood, wears his nerves till his limbstremble like leaves in the wind, is only half a man, and could in nosense be called first-class. 

Everybody knows the things that make for second-class characteristics. Boys imitate older boys and smoke cigarettes in order to be "smart. "Then they keep on smoking because they have created an appetite asunnatural as it is harmful. Men get drunk for all sorts of reasons;but, whatever the reason, they cannot remain first-class men and drink. Dissipation in other forms is pursued because of pleasure to bederived, but the surest consequence is that of becoming second-class, below the standard of the best men for any purpose. 

Every fault you allow to become a habit, to get control over you, helpsto make you second-class, and puts you at a disadvantage in the racefor honor, position, wealth, and happiness. Carelessness as to healthfills the ranks of the inferior. The submerged classes that theeconomists talk about are those that are below the high-water mark ofthe best manhood and womanhood. Sometimes they are second-rate orthird-rate people because those who are responsible for their being andtheir care during their minor years were so before them, but more andmore is it becoming one's own fault if, all through life, he remainssecond-class. Education of some sort, and even a pretty good sort, ispossible to practically everyone in our land. Failure to get the besteducation available, whether it be in books or in business training, issure to relegate one to the ranks of the second-class. 

There is no excuse for incompetence in this age of opportunity; noexcuse for being second-class when it is possible to be first-class, and when first-class is in demand everywhere. 

Second-class things are wanted only when first-class can't be had. Youwear first-class clothes if you can pay for them, eat first-classbutter, first-class meat, and first-class bread, or, if you don't, youwish you could. Second-class men are no more wanted than any othersecond-class commodity. They are taken and used when the betterarticle is scarce or is too high-priced for the occasion. For workthat really amounts to anything, first-class men are wanted. If youmake yourself first-class in anything, no matter what your condition orcircumstances, no matter what your race or color, you will be indemand. If you are a king in your calling, no matter how humble it maybe, nothing can keep you from success. 

The world does not demand that you be a physician, a lawyer, a farmer, or a merchant; but it does demand that whatever you do undertake, youwill do it right, will do it with all your might and with all theability you possess. It demands that you be a master in your line. 

When Daniel Webster, who had the best brain of his time, was asked tomake a speech on some question at the close of a Congressional session, he replied: "I never allow myself to speak on any subject until I havemade it my own. I haven't time to do that in this case, hence, I mustrefuse to speak on the subject. "

Dickens would never consent to read before an audience until he hadthoroughly prepared his selection. 

Balzac, the great French novelist, sometimes worked a week on a singlepage. 

Macready, when playing before scant audiences in country theaters inEngland, Ireland, and Scotland, always played as if he were before themost brilliant audiences in the great metropolises of the world. 

Thoroughness characterizes all successful men. Genius is the art oftaking infinite pains. The trouble with many Americans is that theyseem to think they can put any sort of poor, slipshod, half-done workinto their careers and get first-class products. They do not realizethat all great achievement has been characterized by extreme care, infinite painstaking, even to the minutest detail. No youth can everhope to accomplish much who does not have thoroughness and accuracyindelibly fixed in his life-habit. Slipshodness, inaccuracy, the habitof half doing things, would ruin the career of a youth with aNapoleon's mind. 

If we were to examine a list of the men who have left their mark on theworld, we should find that, as a rule, it is not composed of those whowere brilliant in youth, or who gave great promise at the outset oftheir careers, but rather of the plodding young men who, if they havenot dazzled by their brilliancy, have had the power of a day's work inthem, who could stay by a task until it was done, and well done; whohave had grit, persistence, common sense, and honesty. 

The thorough boys are the boys that are heard from, and usually fromposts far higher up than those filled by the boys who were too "smart"to be thorough. One such boy is Elihu Root, now United States Senator. When he was a boy in the grammar school at Clinton, New York, he madeup his mind that anything he had to study he would keep at until hemastered it. Although not considered one of the "bright" boys of theschool, his teacher soon found that when Elihu professed to knowanything he knew it through and through. He was fond of hard problemsrequiring application and patience. Sometimes the other boys calledhim a plodder, but Elihu would only smile pleasantly, for he knew whathe was about. On winter evenings, while the other boys were outskating, Elihu frequently remained in his room with his arithmetic oralgebra. Mr. Root recently said that if his close application toproblems in his boyhood did nothing else for him, it made him carefulabout jumping at conclusions. To every problem there was only oneanswer, and patience was the price to be paid for it. Carrying theprinciple of "doing everything to a finish" into the law, he became oneof the most noted members of the New York bar, intrusted with vastinterests, and then a member of the President's cabinet. 

William Ellery Channing, the great New England divine, who in his youthwas hardly able to buy the clothes he needed, had a passion forself-improvement. "I wanted to make the most of myself, " he says; "Iwas not satisfied with knowing things superficially and by halves, buttried to get comprehensive views of what I studied. "

The quality which, more than any other, has helped to raise the Germanpeople to their present commanding position in the world, is theirthoroughness. It is giving young Germans a great advantage over bothEnglish and American youths. Every employer is looking forthoroughness, and German employees, owing to their preeminence in thisrespect, the superiority of their training, and the completeness oftheir preparation for business, are in great demand to-day in England, especially in banks and large mercantile houses. 

As a rule, a German who expects to engage in business takes a fouryears' course in some commercial school, and after graduation servesthree years' apprenticeship without pay, to his chosen business. 

Thoroughness and reliability, the German's characteristics, areincreasing the power of Germany throughout the civilized world. 

Our great lack is want of thoroughness. How seldom you find a youngman or woman who is willing to prepare for his life-work! A littleeducation is all they want, a little smattering of books, and then theyare ready for business. 

"Can't wait, " "haven't time to be thorough, " is characteristic of ourcountry, and is written on everything--on commerce, on schools, onsociety, on churches. We can't wait for a high-school, seminary, orcollege education. The boy can't wait to become a youth, nor the youthto become a man. Young men rush into business with no great reserve ofeducation or drill; of course, they do poor, feverish work, and breakdown in middle life, while many die of old age in the forties. 

Perhaps there is no other country in the world where so much poor workis done as in America. Half-trained medical students perform bunglingoperations, and butcher their patients, because they are not willing totake time for thorough preparation. Half-trained lawyers stumblethrough their cases, and make their clients pay for experience whichthe law school should have given. Half-trained clergymen bungle awayin the pulpit, and disgust their intelligent and cultured parishioners. Many an American youth is willing to stumble through life half preparedfor his work, and then blame society because he is a failure. 

A young man, armed with letters of introduction from prominent men, oneday presented himself before Chief Engineer Parsons, of the RapidTransit Commission of New York as a candidate for a position. "Whatcan you do? Have you any specialty?" asked Mr. Parsons. "I can doalmost anything, " answered the young man. "Well, " remarked the ChiefEngineer, rising to end the interview, "I have no use for anyone whocan 'almost' do anything. I prefer someone who can actually do onething thoroughly. "

There is a great crowd of human beings just outside the door ofproficiency. They can half do a great many things, but can't do anyone thing well, to a finish. They have acquisitions which remainpermanently unavailable because they were not carried quite to thepoint of skill; they stopped just short of efficiency. How many peoplealmost know a language or two, which they can neither write nor speak;a science or two, whose elements they have not fully mastered; an artor two, which they can not practise with satisfaction or profit!

The Patent Office at Washington contains hundreds, --yes, thousands, --ofinventions which are useless simply because they are not quitepractical, because the men who started them lacked the staying quality, the education, or the ability necessary to carry them to the point ofpracticability. 

The world is full of half-finished work, --failures which require only alittle more persistence, a little finer mechanical training, a littlebetter education, to make them useful to civilization. Think what aloss it would be if such men as Edison and Bell had not come to thefront and carried to a successful termination the half-finished work ofothers!

Make it a life-rule to give your best to whatever passes through yourhands. Stamp it with your manhood. Let superiority be yourtrade-mark, let it characterize everything you touch. This is whatevery employer is looking for. It indicates the best kind of brain; itis the best substitute for genius; it is better capital than cash; itis a better promoter than friends, or "pulls" with the influential. 

A successful manufacturer says: "If you make a good pin, you will earnmore money than if you make a bad steam engine. " "If a man can write abetter book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap thanhis neighbor, " says Emerson, "though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a path to his door. "

Never allow yourself to dwell too much upon what you are getting foryour work. You have something of infinitely greater importance, greater value, at stake. Your honor, your whole career, your futuresuccess, will be affected by the way you do your work, by theconscience or lack of it which you put into your job. Character, manhood and womanhood are at stake, compared with which salary isnothing. 

Everything you do is a part of your career. If any work that goes outof your hands is skimped, shirked, bungled, or botched, your characterwill suffer. If your work is badly done; if it goes to pieces; ifthere is shoddy or sham in it; if there is dishonesty in it, there isshoddy, sham, dishonesty in your character. We are all of a piece. Wecannot have an honest character, a complete, untarnished career, whenwe are constantly slipping rotten hours, defective material andslipshod service into our work. 

The man who has dealt in shams and inferiority, who has botched hiswork all his life, must be conscious that he has not been a real man;he can not help feeling that his career has been a botched one. 

To spend a life buying and selling lies, dealing in cheap, shoddyshams, or botching one's work, is demoralizing to every element ofnobility. 

Beecher said he was never again quite the same man after readingRuskin. You are never again quite the same man after doing a poor job, after botching your work. You cannot be just to yourself and unjust tothe man you are working for in the quality of your work, for, if youslight your work, you not only strike a fatal blow at your efficiency, but also smirch your character. If you would be a full man, a completeman, a just man, you must be honest to the core in the quality of yourwork. 

No one can be really happy who does not believe in his own honesty. Weare so constituted that every departure from the right, from principle, causes loss of self-respect, and makes us unhappy. 

Every time we obey the inward law of doing right we hear an inwardapproval, the amen of the soul, and every time we disobey it, a protestor condemnation. 

There is everything in holding a high ideal of your work, for whatevermodel the mind holds, the life copies. Whatever your vocation, letquality be your life-slogan. 

A famous artist said he would never allow himself to look at aninferior drawing or painting, to do anything that was low ordemoralizing, lest familiarity with it should taint his own ideal andthus be communicated to his brush. 

Many excuse poor, slipshod work on the plea of lack of time. But inthe ordinary situations of life there is plenty of time to doeverything as it ought to be done. 

There is an indescribable superiority added to the character and fiberof the man who always and everywhere puts quality into his work. Thereis a sense of wholeness, of satisfaction, of happiness, in his lifewhich is never felt by the man who does not do his level best everytime. He is not haunted by the ghosts or tail ends of half-finishedtasks, of skipped problems; is not kept awake by a troubled conscience. 

When we are trying with all our might to do our level best, our wholenature improves. Everything looks down when we are going down hill. Aspiration lifts the life; groveling lowers it. 

Don't think you will never hear from a half-finished job, a neglectedor botched piece of work. It will never die. It will bob up fartheralong in your career at the most unexpected moments, in the mostembarrassing situations. It will be sure to mortify you when you leastexpect it. Like Banquo's ghost, it will arise at the most unexpectedmoments to mar your happiness. A single broken thread in a web ofcloth is traced back to the girl who neglected her work in the factory, and the amount of damage is deducted from her wages. 

Thousands of people are held back all their lives and obliged to acceptinferior positions because they cannot entirely overcome the handicapof slipshod habits formed early in life, habits of inaccuracy, ofslovenliness, of skipping difficult problems in school, of slurringtheir work, shirking, or half doing it. "Oh, that's good enough, what's the use of being so awfully particular?" has been the beginningof a life-long handicap in many a career. 

I was much impressed by this motto, which I saw recently in a greatestablishment, "WHERE ONLY THE BEST IS GOOD ENOUGH. " What a life-mottothis would be! How it would revolutionize civilization if everyonewere to adopt it and use it; to resolve that, whatever they did onlythe best they could do would be good enough, would satisfy them!

Adopt this motto as yours. Hang it up in your bedroom, in your officeor place of business, put it into your pocket-book, weave it into thetexture of everything you do, and your life-work will be what everyone's should be--A MASTERPIECE. 

CHAPTER XXIII

THE REWARD OF PERSISTENCE

Every noble work is at first impossible. --CARLYLE. 

Victory belongs to the most persevering. --NAPOLEON. 

Success in most things depends on knowing how long it takes tosucceed. --MONTESQUIEU. 

Perpetual pushing and assurance put a difficulty out of countenance, and make a seeming impossibility give way. --JEREMY COLLIER. 

"Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel. "

The nerve that never relaxes, the eye that never blanches, the thoughtthat never wanders, --these are the masters of victory. --BURKE. 

"The pit rose at me!" exclaimed Edmund Kean in a wild tumult ofemotion, as he rushed home to his trembling wife. "Mary, you shallride in your carriage yet, and Charles shall go to Eton!" He had beenso terribly in earnest with the study of his profession that he had atlength made a mark on his generation. He was a little dark man with avoice naturally harsh, but he determined, when young, to play thecharacter of Sir Giles Overreach, in Massinger's drama, as no other manhad ever played it. By a persistency that nothing seemed able todaunt, he so trained himself to play the character that his success, when it did come, was overwhelming, and all London was at his feet. 

"I am sorry to say that I don't think this is in your line, " saidWoodfall the reporter, after Sheridan had made his first speech inParliament. "You would better have stuck to your former pursuits. "With head on his hand Sheridan mused for a time, then looked up andsaid, "It is in me, and it shall come out of me. " From the same mancame that harangue against Warren Hastings which the orator Fox calledthe best speech ever made in the House of Commons. 

"I had no other books than heaven and earth, which are open to all, "said Bernard Palissy, who left his home in the south of France in 1828, at the age of eighteen. Though only a glass-painter, he had the soulof an artist. The sight of an elegant Italian cup disturbed his wholeexistence and from that moment the determination to discover the enamelwith which it was glazed possessed him like a passion. For months andyears he tried all kinds of experiments to learn the materials of whichthe enamel was compounded. He built a furnace, which was a failure, and then a second, burning so much wood, spoiling so many drugs andpots of common earthenware, and losing so much time, that povertystared him in the face, and he was forced, from lack of ability to buyfuel, to try his experiments in a common furnace. Flat failure was theresult, but he decided on the spot to begin all over again, and soonhad three hundred pieces baking, one of which came out covered withbeautiful enamel. 

To perfect his invention he next built a glass-furnace, carrying thebricks on his back. At length the time came for a trial; but, thoughhe kept the heat up six days, his enamel would not melt. His money wasall gone, but he borrowed some, and bought more pots and wood, andtried to get a better flux. When next he lighted his fire, he attainedno result until his fuel was gone. Tearing off the palings of hisgarden fence, he fed them to the flames, but in vain. His furniturefollowed to no purpose. The shelves of his pantry were then broken upand thrown into the furnace; and the great burst of heat melted theenamel. The grand secret was learned. Persistence had triumphed again. 

"If you work hard two weeks without selling a book, " wrote a publisherto an agent, "you will make a success of it. "

"Know thy work and do it, " said Carlyle; "and work at it like aHercules. "

"Whoever is resolved to excel in painting, or, indeed, in any otherart, " said Reynolds, "must bring all his mind to bear upon that oneobject from the moment that he rises till he goes to bed. "

"I have no secret but hard work, " said Turner, the painter. 

"The man who is perpetually hesitating which of two things he will dofirst, " said William Wirt, "will do neither. The man who resolves, butsuffers his resolution to be changed by the first counter-suggestion ofa friend--who fluctuates from opinion to opinion, from plan to plan, and veers like a weather-cock to every point of the compass, with everybreath of caprice that blows, --can never accomplish anything great oruseful. Instead of being progressive in anything, he will be at beststationary, and, more probably, retrograde in all. "

Perseverance built the pyramids on Egypt's plains, erected the gorgeoustemple at Jerusalem, inclosed in adamant the Chinese Empire, scaled thestormy, cloud-capped Alps, opened a highway through the waterywilderness of the Atlantic, leveled the forests of the new world, andreared in its stead a community of states and nations. Perseverancehas wrought from the marble block the exquisite creations of genius, painted on canvas the gorgeous mimicry of nature, and engraved on ametallic surface the viewless substance of the shadow. Perseverancehas put in motion millions of spindles, winged as many flying shuttles, harnessed thousands of iron steeds to as many freighted cars, and setthem flying from town to town and nation to nation, tunneled mountainsof granite, and annihilated space with the lightning's speed. It haswhitened the waters of the world with the sails of a hundred nations, navigated every sea and explored every land. It has reduced nature inher thousand forms to as many sciences, taught her laws, prophesied herfuture movements, measured her untrodden spaces, counted her myriadhosts of worlds, and computed their distances, dimensions, andvelocities. 

The slow penny is surer than the quick dollar. The slow trotter willout-travel the fleet racer. Genius darts, flutters, and tires; butperseverance wears and wins. The all-day horse wins the race. Theafternoon-man wears off the laurels. The last blow drives home thenail. 

"Are your discoveries often brilliant intuitions?" asked a reporter ofThomas A. Edison. "Do they come to you while you are lying awakenights?"

"I never did anything worth doing by accident, " was the reply, "nor didany of my inventions come indirectly through accident, except thephonograph. No, when I have fully decided that a result is worthgetting I go ahead on it and make trial after trial until it comes. Ihave always kept strictly within the lines of commercially usefulinventions. I have never had any time to put on electrical wonders, valuable simply as novelties to catch the popular fancy. _I like it_, "continued the great inventor. "I don't know any other reason. Anything I have begun is always on my mind, and I am not easy whileaway from it until it is finished. "

[Illustration: Thomas Alva Edison]

A man who thus gives himself wholly to his work is certain toaccomplish something; and if he have ability and common sense, hissuccess will be great. 

How Bulwer wrestled with the fates to change his apparent destiny! Hisfirst novel was a failure; his early poems were failures; and hisyouthful speeches provoked the ridicule of his opponents. But hefought his way to eminence through ridicule and defeat. 

Gibbon worked twenty years on his "Decline and Fall of the RomanEmpire. " Noah Webster spent thirty-six years on his dictionary. Whata sublime patience he showed in devoting a life to the collection anddefinition of words! George Bancroft spent twenty-six years on his"History of the United States. " Newton rewrote his "Chronology ofAncient Nations" fifteen times. Titian wrote to Charles V. : "I sendyour majesty the Last Supper, after working on it almost daily forseven years. " He worked on his Pietro Martyn eight years. GeorgeStephenson was fifteen years perfecting his locomotive; Watt, twentyyears on his condensing engine. Harvey labored eight long years beforehe published his discovery of the circulation of the blood. He wasthen called a crack-brained impostor by his fellow physicians. Amidabuse and ridicule he waited twenty-five years before his greatdiscovery was recognized by the profession. 

Newton discovered the law of gravitation before he was twenty-one, butone slight error in a measurement of the earth's circumferenceinterfered with a demonstration of the correctness of his theory. Twenty years later he corrected the error, and showed that the planetsroll in their orbits as a result of the same law which brings an appleto the ground. 

Sothern, the great actor, said that the early part of his theatricalcareer was spent in getting dismissed for incompetency. 

"Never depend upon your genius, " said John Ruskin, in the words ofJoshua Reynolds; "if you have talent, industry will improve it; if youhave none, industry will supply the deficiency. "

Savages believe that when they conquer an enemy, his spirit enters intothem, and fights for them ever afterwards. So the spirit of ourconquests enters us, and helps us to win the next victory. 

Blücher may have been routed at Ligny yesterday, but to-day you hearthe thunder of his guns at Waterloo hurling dismay and death among hisformer conquerors. 

Opposing circumstances create strength. Opposition gives us greaterpower of resistance. To overcome one barrier gives us greater abilityto overcome the next. 

In February, 1492, a poor gray-haired man, his head bowed withdiscouragement almost to the back of his mule, rode slowly out throughthe beautiful gateway of the Alhambra. From boyhood he had beenhaunted with the idea that the earth is round. He believed that thepiece of carved wood picked up four hundred miles at sea and the bodiesof two men unlike any other human beings known, found on the shores ofPortugal, had drifted from unknown lands in the west. But his lasthope of obtaining aid for a voyage of discovery had failed. King Johnof Portugal, while pretending to think of helping him, had sent outsecretly an expedition of his own. 

He had begged bread, drawn maps and charts to keep from starving; hehad lost his wife; his friends had called him crazy, and forsaken him. The council of wise men called by Ferdinand and Isabella ridiculed histheory of reaching the east by sailing west. 

"But the sun and moon are round, " said Columbus, "why not the earth?"

"If the earth is a ball, what holds it up?" asked the wise men. 

"What holds the sun and moon up?" inquired Columbus. 

"But how can men walk with their heads hanging down, and their feet up, like flies on a ceiling?" asked a learned doctor; "how can trees growwith their roots in the air?"

"The water would run out of the ponds and we should fall off, " saidanother philosopher. 

"This doctrine is contrary to the Bible, which says, 'The heavens arestretched out like a tent:'--of course it is flat; it is rank heresy tosay it is round, " said a priest. 

Columbus left the Alhambra in despair, intending to offer his servicesto Charles VII. , but he heard a voice calling his name. An old friendhad told Isabella that it would add great renown to her reign at atrifling expense if what the sailor believed should prove true. "Itshall be done, " said Isabella, "I will pledge my jewels to raise themoney. Call him back. "

Columbus turned and with him turned the world. Not a sailor would govoluntarily; so the king and queen compelled them. Three days out, inhis vessels scarcely larger than fishing-schooners, the _Pinta_ floateda signal of distress for a broken rudder. Terror seized the sailors, but Columbus calmed their fears with pictures of gold and preciousstones from India. Two hundred miles west of the Canaries, the compassceased to point to the North Star. The sailors are ready to mutiny, but he tells them the North Star is not exactly north. Twenty-threehundred miles from home, though he tells them it is but seventeenhundred, a bush with berries floats by, land birds fly near, and theypick up a piece of wood curiously carved. On October 12, Columbusraised the banner of Castile over the western world. 

"How hard I worked at that tremendous shorthand, and all improvementappertaining to it, " said Dickens. "I will only add to what I havealready written of my perseverance at this time of my life, and of apatient and continuous energy which then began to be matured. "

Cyrus W. Field had retired from business with a large fortune when hebecame possessed with the idea that by means of a cable laid upon thebottom of the Atlantic Ocean, telegraphic communication could beestablished between Europe and America. He plunged into theundertaking with all the force of his being. The preliminary workincluded the construction of a telegraph line one thousand miles long, from New York to St. John's, Newfoundland. Through four hundred milesof almost unbroken forest they had to build a road as well as atelegraph line across Newfoundland. Another stretch of one hundred andforty miles across the island of Cape Breton involved a great deal oflabor, as did the laying of a cable across the St. Lawrence. 

By hard work he secured aid for his company from the Britishgovernment, but in Congress he encountered such bitter opposition froma powerful lobby that his measure only had a majority of one in theSenate. The cable was loaded upon the _Agamemnon_, the flag ship ofthe British fleet at Sebastopol, and upon the _Niagara_, a magnificentnew frigate of the United States Navy; but, when five miles of cablehad been paid out, it caught in the machinery and parted. On thesecond trial, when two hundred miles at sea, the electric current wassuddenly lost, and men paced the decks nervously and sadly, as if inthe presence of death. Just as Mr. Field was about to give the orderto cut the cable, the current returned as quickly and mysteriously asit had disappeared. The following night, when the ship was moving butfour miles an hour and the cable running out at the rate of six miles, the brakes were applied too suddenly just as the steamer gave a heavylurch, breaking the cable. 

Field was not the man to give up. Seven hundred miles more of cablewere ordered, and a man of great skill was set to work to devise abetter machine for paying out the long line. American and Britishinventors united in making a machine. At length in mid-ocean the twohalves of the cable were spliced and the steamers began to separate, the one headed for Ireland, the other for Newfoundland, each runningout the precious thread, which, it was hoped, would bind two continentstogether. Before the vessels were three miles apart, the cable parted. Again it was spliced, but when the ships were eighty miles apart, thecurrent was lost. A third time the cable was spliced and about twohundred miles paid out, when it parted some twenty feet from the_Agamemnon_, and the vessels returned to the coast of Ireland. 

Directors were disheartened, the public skeptical, capitalists wereshy, and but for the indomitable energy and persuasiveness of Mr. Field, who worked day and night almost without food or sleep, the wholeproject would have been abandoned. Finally a third attempt was made, with such success that the whole cable was laid without a break, andseveral messages were flashed through nearly seven hundred leagues ofocean, when suddenly the current ceased. 

Faith now seemed dead except in the breast of Cyrus W. Field, and oneor two friends, yet with such persistence did they work that theypersuaded men to furnish capital for yet another trial even againstwhat seemed their better judgment. A new and superior cable was loadedupon the _Great Eastern_, which steamed slowly out to sea, paying outas she advanced. Everything worked to a charm until within six hundredmiles of Newfoundland, when the cable snapped and sank. After severalattempts to raise it, the enterprise was abandoned for a year. 

Not discouraged by all these difficulties, Mr. Field went to work witha will, organized a new company, and made a new cable far superior toanything before used, and on July 13, 1866, was begun the trial whichended with the following message sent to New York:--

"HEART'S CONTENT, July 27. 

"We arrived here at nine o'clock this morning. All well. Thank God!the cable is laid and is in perfect working order. 

"CYRUS W. FIELD. "

The old cable was picked up, spliced, and continued to Newfoundland, and the two are still working, with good prospects for usefulness formany years. 

In Revelation we read: "He that overcometh, I will give him to sit downwith me on my throne. "

Successful men, it is said, owe more to their perseverance than totheir natural powers, their friends, or the favorable circumstancesaround them. Genius will falter by the side of labor, great powerswill yield to great industry. Talent is desirable, but perseverance ismore so. 

"How long did it take you to learn to play?" asked a young man ofGeradini. "Twelve hours a day for twenty years, " replied the greatviolinist. Lyman Beecher when asked how long it took him to write hiscelebrated sermon on the "Government of God, " replied, "About fortyyears. "

A Chinese student, discouraged by repeated failures, had thrown awayhis book in despair, when he saw a poor woman rubbing an iron bar on astone to make a needle. This example of patience sent him back to hisstudies with a new determination, and he became one of the threegreatest scholars of China. 

Malibran said: "If I neglect my practice a day, I see the difference inmy execution; if for two days, my friends see it; and if for a week, all the world knows my failure. " Constant, persistent struggle shefound to be the price of her marvelous power. 

When an East India boy is learning archery, he is compelled to practisethree months drawing the string to his ear before he is allowed totouch an arrow. 

Benjamin Franklin had this tenacity of purpose in a wonderful degree. When he started in the printing business in Philadelphia, he carriedhis material through the streets on a wheelbarrow. He hired one roomfor his office, work-room, and sleeping-room. He found a formidablerival in the city and invited him to his room. Pointing to a piece ofbread from which he had just eaten his dinner, he said: "Unless you canlive cheaper than I can you can not starve me out. "

All are familiar with the misfortune of Carlyle while writing his"History of the French Revolution. " After the first volume was readyfor the press, he loaned the manuscript to a neighbor who left it lyingon the floor, and the servant girl took it to kindle the fire. It wasa bitter disappointment, but Carlyle was not the man to give up. Aftermany months of poring over hundreds of volumes of authorities andscores of manuscripts, he reproduced that which had burned in a fewminutes. 

Audubon, the naturalist, had spent two years with his gun and note-bookin the forests of America, making drawings of birds. He nailed themall up securely in a box and went off on a vacation. When he returnedhe opened the box only to find a nest of Norwegian rats in hisbeautiful drawings. Every one was ruined. It was a terribledisappointment, but Audubon took his gun and note-book and started forthe forest. He reproduced his drawings, and they were even better thanthe first. 

When Dickens was asked to read one of his selections in public hereplied that he had not time, for he was in the habit of reading thesame piece every day for six months before reading it in public. "Myown invention, " he says, "such as it is, I assure you, would never haveserved me as it has but for the habit of commonplace, humble, patient, toiling attention. "

Addison amassed three volumes of manuscript before he began the"Spectator. "

Everyone admires a determined, persistent man. Marcus Morton ransixteen times for governor of Massachusetts. At last his opponentsvoted for him from admiration of his pluck, and he was elected by amajority of one! Such persistence always triumphs. 

Webster declared that when a pupil at Phillips Exeter Academy he nevercould declaim before the school. He said he committed piece afterpiece and rehearsed them in his room, but when he heard his name calledin the academy and all eyes turned towards him the room became dark andeverything he ever knew fled from his brain; but he became the greatorator of America. Indeed, it is doubtful whether Demosthenes himselfsurpassed his great reply to Hayne in the United States Senate. Webster's tenacity was illustrated by a circumstance which occurred inthe academy. The principal punished him for shooting pigeons bycompelling him to commit one hundred lines of Vergil. He knew theprincipal was to take a certain train that afternoon, so he went to hisroom and learned seven hundred lines. He went to recite them to theprincipal just before train time. After repeating the hundred lines hecontinued until he had recited two hundred. The principal anxiouslylooked at his watch and grew nervous, but Webster kept right on. Theprincipal finally stopped him and asked him how many more he hadlearned. "About five hundred more, " said Webster, continuing to recite. 

"You can have the rest of the day for pigeon-shooting, " said theprincipal. 

Great writers have ever been noted for their tenacity of purpose. Their works have not been flung off from minds aglow with genius, buthave been elaborated and elaborated into grace and beauty, until everytrace of their efforts has been obliterated. 

Bishop Butler worked twenty years incessantly on his "Analogy, " andeven then was so dissatisfied that he wanted to burn it. Rousseau sayshe obtained the ease and grace of his style only by ceaselessinquietude, by endless blotches and erasures. Vergil worked elevenyears on the Aeneid. The note-books of great men like Hawthorne andEmerson are tell-tales of the enormous drudgery, of the years put intoa book which may be read in an hour. Montesquieu was twenty-five yearswriting his "Esprit des Lois, " yet you can read it in sixty minutes. Adam Smith spent ten years on his "Wealth of Nations. " A rivalplaywright once laughed at Euripides for spending three days on threelines, when he had written five hundred lines. "But your five hundredlines in three days will be dead and forgotten, while my three lineswill live forever, " he replied. 

Ariosto wrote his "Description of a Tempest" in sixteen different ways. He spent ten years on his "Orlando Furioso, " and only sold one hundredcopies at fifteen pence each. The proof of Burke's "Letters to a NobleLord" (one of the sublimest things in all literature) went back to thepublisher so changed and blotted with corrections that the printerabsolutely refused to correct it, and it was entirely reset. AdamTucker spent eighteen years on the "Light of Nature. " Thoreau's NewEngland pastoral, "A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers, " was anentire failure. Seven hundred of the one thousand copies printed werereturned from the publishers. Thoreau wrote in his diary: "I have somenine hundred volumes in my library, seven hundred of which I wrotemyself. " Yet he took up his pen with as much determination as ever. 

The rolling stone gathers no moss. The persistent tortoise outruns theswift but fickle hare. An hour a day for twelve years more than equalsthe time given to study in a four years' course at a high school. Thereading and re-reading of a single volume has been the making of many aman. "Patience, " says Bulwer "is the courage of the conqueror; it isthe virtue _par excellence_, of Man against Destiny--of the One againstthe World, and of the Soul against Matter. Therefore, this is thecourage of the Gospel; and its importance in a social view--itsimportance to races and institutions--cannot be too earnestlyinculcated. "

Want of constancy is the cause of many a failure, making themillionaire of to-day a beggar to-morrow. Show me a really greattriumph that is not the reward of persistence. One of the paintingswhich made Titian famous was on his easel eight years; another, seven. How came popular writers famous? By writing for years without any payat all; by writing hundreds of pages as mere practise-work; by workinglike galley-slaves at literature for half a lifetime with no othercompensation than--fame. 

"Never despair, " says Burke; "but if you do, work on in despair. "

The head of the god Hercules is represented as covered with a lion'sskin with claws joined under the chin, to show that when we haveconquered our misfortunes, they become our helpers. Oh, the glory ofan unconquerable will!

CHAPTER XXIV

NERVE--GRIP, PLUCK

 "Never give up; for the wisest is boldest, Knowing that Providence mingles the cup; And of all maxims, the best, as the oldest, Is the stern watchword of 'Never give up!'"

 Be firm; one constant element of luck Is genuine, solid, old Teutonic pluck. Stick to your aim; the mongrel's hold will slip, But only crowbars loose the bulldog's grip; Small though he looks, the jaw that never yields Drags down the bellowing monarch of the fields! HOLMES. 

"Soldiers, you are Frenchmen, " said Napoleon, coolly walking among hisdisaffected generals when they threatened his life in the Egyptiancampaign; "you are too many to assassinate, and too few to intimidateme. " "How brave he is!" exclaimed the ringleader, as he withdrew, completely cowed. 

"General Taylor never surrenders, " said old "Rough and Ready" at BuenaVista, when Santa Anna with 20, 000 men offered him a chance to save his4, 000 soldiers by capitulation. The battle was long and desperate, butat length the Mexicans were glad to avoid further defeat by flight. When Lincoln was asked how Grant impressed him as a general, hereplied, "The greatest thing about him is cool persistency of purpose. He has the grip of a bulldog; when he once gets his teeth in, nothingcan shake him off. " It was "On to Richmond, " and "I propose to fightit out on this line if it takes all summer, " that settled the fate ofthe Rebellion. 

"My sword is too short, " said a Spartan youth to his father. "Add astep to it, then, " was the only reply. 

It is said that the snapping-turtle will not release his grip, evenafter his head is cut off. He is resolved, if he dies, to die hard. It is just such grit that enables men to succeed, for what is calledluck is generally the prerogative of valiant souls. It is the finaleffort that brings victory. It is the last pull of the oar, withclenched teeth and knit muscles, that shows what Oxford boatmen call"the beefiness of the fellow. "

After Grant's defeat at the first battle of Shiloh, nearly everynewspaper of both parties in the North, almost every member ofCongress, and public sentiment everywhere demanded his removal. Friends of the President pleaded with him to give the command to someone else, for his own sake as well as for the good of the country. Lincoln listened for hours one night, speaking only at rare intervalsto tell a pithy story, until the clock struck one. Then, after a longsilence, he said: "I can't spare this man. He fights. " It wasLincoln's marvelous insight and sagacity that saved Grant from thestorm of popular passion, and gave us the greatest hero of the CivilWar. 

It is this keeping right on that wins in the battle of life. 

Grant never looked backward. Once, after several days of hard fightingwithout definite result, he called a council of war. One generaldescribed the route by which he would retreat, another thought itbetter to retire by a different road, and general after general toldhow he would withdraw, or fall back, or seek a more favorable positionin the rear. At length all eyes were turned upon Grant, who had been asilent listener for hours. He rose, took a bundle of papers from aninside pocket, handed one to each general, and said: "Gentlemen, atdawn you will execute those orders. " Every paper gave definitedirections for an advance, and with the morning sun the army movedforward to victory. 

Massena's army of 18, 000 men in Genoa had been reduced by fighting andfamine to 8, 000. They had killed and captured more than 15, 000Austrians, but their provisions were completely exhausted; starvationstared them in the face; the enemy outnumbered them four to one, andthey seemed at the mercy of their opponents. General Ott demanded adiscretionary surrender, but Massena replied: "My soldiers must beallowed to march out with colors flying, and arms and baggage; not asprisoners of war, but free to fight when and where we please. If youdo not grant this, I will sally forth from Genoa sword in hand. Witheight thousand famished men I will attack your camp, and I will fighttill I cut my way through it. " Ott knew the temper of the greatsoldier, and agreed to accept the terms if he would surrender himself, or if he would depart by sea so as not to be quickly joined byreinforcements. Massena's only reply was: "Take my terms, or I willcut my way through your army. " Ott at last agreed, when Massena said:"I give you notice that ere fifteen days are passed I shall be oncemore in Genoa, " and he kept his word. 

Napoleon said of this man, who was orphaned in infancy and cast uponthe world to make his own way in life: "When defeated, Massena wasalways ready to fight a battle over again, as though he had been theconqueror. "

"The battle is completely lost, " said Desaix, looking at his watch, when consulted by Napoleon at Marengo; "but it is only two o'clock, andwe shall have time to gain another. " He then made his famous cavalrycharge, and won the field, although a few minutes before the Frenchsoldiers all along the line were momentarily expecting an order toretreat. 

"Well, " said Barnum to a friend in 1841, "I am going to buy theAmerican Museum. " "Buy it!" exclaimed the astonished friend, who knewthat the showman had not a dollar; "what do you intend buying it with?""Brass, " was the prompt reply, "for silver and gold have I none. "

Everyone interested in public entertainments in New York knew Barnum, and knew the condition of his pocket; but Francis Olmstead, who ownedthe Museum building, consulted numerous references all telling of "agood showman, who would do as he agreed, " and accepted a proposition togive security for the purchaser. Mr. Olmstead was to appoint amoney-taker at the door, and credit Barnum towards the purchase withall above expenses and an allowance of fifty dollars per month tosupport his wife and three children. Mrs. Barnum assented to thearrangement, and offered to cut down the household expenses to a littlemore than a dollar a day. Six months later Mr. Olmstead entered theticket-office at noon, and found Barnum eating for dinner a few slicesof bread and some corned beef. "Is this the way you eat your dinner?"he asked. 

"I have not eaten a warm dinner since I bought the Museum, except onthe Sabbath; and I intend never to eat another until I get out ofdebt. " "Ah! you are safe, and will pay for the Museum before the yearis out, " said Mr. Olmstead, slapping the young man approvingly on theshoulder. He was right, for in less than a year Barnum had paid everycent out of the profits of the establishment. 

"Hard pounding, gentlemen, " said Wellington at Waterloo to hisofficers, "but we will see who can pound the longest. "

"It is very kind of them to 'sand' our letters for us, " said youngJunot coolly, as an Austrian shell scattered earth over the dispatch hewas writing at the dictation of his commander-in-chief. The remarkattracted Napoleon's attention and led to the promotion of thescrivener. 

"There is room enough up higher, " said Webster to a young manhesitating to study law because the profession was so crowded. This istrue in every department of activity. The young man who succeeds musthold his ground and push hard. Whoever attempts to pass through thedoor to success will find it labeled, "Push. "

There is another big word in the English language: the perfection ofgrit is the power of saying "No, " with emphasis that can not bemistaken. Learn to meet hard times with a harder will, and moredetermined pluck. The nature which is all pine and straw is of no usein times of trial, we must have some oak and iron in us. The goddessof fame or of fortune has been won by many a poor boy who had nofriends, no backing, or anything but pure grit and invincible purpose. 

A good character, good habits, and _iron industry_ are impregnable tothe assaults of the ill luck that fools are dreaming of. There is noluck, for all practical purposes, to him who is not striving, and whosesenses are not all eagerly attent. What are called accidentaldiscoveries are almost invariably made by those who are looking forsomething. A man incurs about as much risk of being struck bylightning as by accidental luck. There is, perhaps, an element of luckin the amount of success which crowns the efforts of different men; buteven here it will usually be found that the sagacity with which theefforts are directed and the energy with which they are prosecutedmeasure pretty accurately the luck contained in the results achieved. Apparent exceptions will be found to relate almost wholly to singleundertakings, while in the long run the rule will hold good. Twopearl-divers, equally expert, dive together and work with equal energy. One brings up a pearl, while the other returns empty-handed. But letboth persevere and at the end of five, ten, or twenty years it will befound that they succeeded almost in exact proportion to their skill andindustry. 

"Varied experience of men has led me, the longer I live, " says Huxley, "to set less value on mere cleverness; to attach more and moreimportance to industry and physical endurance. Indeed, I am muchdisposed to think that endurance is the most valuable quality of all;for industry, as the desire to work hard, does not come to much if afeeble frame is unable to respond to the desire. No life is wastedunless it ends in sloth, dishonesty, or cowardice. No success isworthy of the name unless it is won by honest industry and bravebreasting of the waves of fortune. "

Has luck ever made a fool speak words of wisdom; an ignoramus utterlectures on science; a dolt write an Odyssey, an Aeneid, a ParadiseLost, or a Hamlet; a loafer become a Girard or Astor, a Rothschild, Stewart, Vanderbilt, Field, Gould, or Rockefeller; a coward win atYorktown, Wagram, Waterloo, or Richmond; a careless stonecutter carvean Apollo, a Minerva, a Venus de Medici, or a Greek Slave? Does luckraise rich crops on the land of the sluggard, weeds and brambles onthat of the industrious farmer? Does luck make the drunkard sleek andattractive, and his home cheerful, while the temperate man lookshaggard and suffers want and misery? Does luck starve honest labor, and pamper idleness? Does luck put common sense at a discount, follyat a premium? Does it cast intelligence into the gutter, and raiseignorance to the skies? Does it imprison virtue, and laud vice? Didluck give Watt his engine, Franklin his captive lightning, Whitney hiscotton-gin, Fulton his steamboat, Morse his telegraph, Blanchard hislathe, Howe his sewing-machine, Goodyear his rubber, Bell histelephone, Edison his phonograph?

If you are told of the man who, worn out by a painful disorder, triedto commit suicide, but only opened an internal tumor, effecting a cure;of the Persian condemned to lose his tongue, on whom a bunglingoperation merely removed an impediment of speech; of a painter whoproduced an effect long desired by throwing his brush at a picture inrage and despair; of a musician who, after repeated failures in tryingto imitate a storm at sea, obtained the result desired by angrilyrunning his hands together from the extremities of the keyboard, --bearin mind that even this "luck" came to men as the result of action, notinaction. 

"Luck is ever waiting for something to turn up, " says Cobden; "labor, with keen eyes and strong will, will turn up something. Luck lies inbed, and wishes the postman would bring him the news of a legacy; laborturns out at six o'clock, and with busy pen or ringing hammer lays thefoundation of a competence. Luck whines; labor whistles. Luck relieson chance; labor, on character. "

Stick to the thing and carry it through. _Believe you were made forthe place you fill_, and that no one else can fill it as well. Putforth your whole energies. Be awake, electrify yourself; go forth tothe task. Only once learn to carry a thing through in all itscompleteness and proportion, and you will become a hero. You willthink better of yourself; others will think better of you. The worldin its very heart admires the stern, determined doer. 

 "I like the man who faces what he must With step triumphant and a heart of cheer; Who fights the daily battle without fear; Sees his hopes fail, yet keeps unfaltering trust That God is God; that somehow, true and just, His plans work out for mortals; not a tear Is shed when fortune, which the world holds dear, Falls from his grasp; better, with love, a crust Than living in dishonor; envies not, Nor loses faith in man; but does his best, Nor even murmurs at his humbler lot; But with a smile and words of hope, gives zest To every toiler; he alone is great, Who by a life heroic conquers fate. "

CHAPTER XXV

CLEAR GRIT

 Let fortune empty her whole quiver on me, I have a soul that, like an ample shield, Can take in all, and verge enough for more. DRYDEN. 

 There's a brave fellow! There's a man of pluck! A man who's not afraid to say his say, Though a whole town's against him. LONGFELLOW. 

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time wefall. --GOLDSMITH. 

The barriers are not yet erected which shall say to aspiring talent, "Thus far and no farther. "--BEETHOVEN. 

"Friends and comrades, " said Pizarro, as he turned toward the south, after tracing with his sword upon the sand a line from east to west, "on that side are toil, hunger, nakedness, the drenching storm, desertion, and death; on this side, ease and pleasure. There lies Peruwith its riches: here, Panama and its poverty. Choose, each man, whatbest becomes a brave Castilian. For my part, I go to the south. " Sosaying, he crossed the line and was followed by thirteen Spaniards inarmor. Thus, on the little island of Gallo in the Pacific, when hismen were clamoring to return to Panama, did Pizarro and his fewvolunteers resolve to stake their lives upon the success of a desperatecrusade against the powerful empire of the Incas. At the time they hadnot even a vessel to transport them to the country they wished toconquer. Is it necessary to add that all difficulties yielded at lastto such resolute determination?

 "Perseverance is a Roman virtue, That wins each godlike act, and plucks success E'en from the spear-proof crest of rugged danger. "

"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, tillit seems as if you could not hold on a minute longer, " said HarrietBeecher Stowe, "never give up then, for that's just the place and timethat the tide'll turn. "

Charles Sumner said "three things are necessary to a strong character:First, backbone; second, backbone; third, backbone. "

While digging among the ruins of Pompeii, which was buried by the dustand ashes from an eruption of Vesuvius A. D. 79, the workmen found theskeleton of a Roman soldier in the sentry-box at one of the city'sgates. He might have found safety under sheltering rocks close by;but, in the face of certain death, he had remained at his post, a mutewitness to the thorough discipline, the ceaseless vigilance andfidelity which made the Roman legionaries masters of the known world. 

The world admires the man who never flinches from unexpecteddifficulties, who calmly, patiently, and courageously grapples with hisfate; who dies, if need be, at his post. 

"Clear grit" always commands respect. It is that quality whichachieves, and everybody admires achievement. In the strife of partiesand principles, backbone without brains will carry against brainswithout backbone. You can not, by tying an opinion to a man's tongue, make him the representative of that opinion; at the close of any battlefor principles, his name will be found neither among the dead nor amongthe wounded, but among the missing. 

The "London Times" was an insignificant sheet published by Mr. Walterand was steadily losing money. John Walter, Jr. , then onlytwenty-seven years old, begged his father to give him full control ofthe paper. After many misgivings, the father finally consented. Theyoung journalist began to remodel the establishment and to introducenew ideas everywhere. The paper had not attempted to mold publicopinion, and had had no individuality or character of its own. Theaudacious young editor boldly attacked every wrong, even thegovernment, whenever he thought it corrupt. Thereupon the publiccustoms, printing, and the government advertisements were withdrawn. The father was in utter dismay. His son, he was sure, would ruin thepaper and himself. But no remonstrance could swerve the son from hispurpose to give the world a great journal which should have weight, character, individuality, and independence. 

The public soon saw that a new power stood behind the "Times"; that itsarticles meant business; that new life and new blood and new ideas hadbeen infused into the insignificant sheet; that a man with brains andpush and tenacity of purpose stood at the helm, --a man who could make away when he could not find one. Among other new features foreigndispatches were introduced, and they appeared in the "Times" severaldays before their appearance in the government organs. The "leadingarticle" also was introduced to stay. The aggressive editorantagonized the government, and his foreign dispatches were all stoppedat the outposts, while the ministerial journalists were allowed toproceed. But nothing could daunt this resolute young spirit. Atenormous expense he employed special couriers. Every obstacle put inhis way, and all opposition from the government, only added to hisdetermination to succeed. Enterprise, push, grit were behind the"Times, " and nothing could stay its progress. Young Walter was thesoul of the paper, and his personality pervaded every detail. In thosedays only three hundred copies of the paper could be struck off in anhour by the best presses, and Walter had duplicate and even triplicatetypes set. Then he set his brain to work, and finally the WalterPress, throwing off 17, 000 copies per hour, both sides printed, was theresult. It was the 29th of November, 1814, that the first steamprinted paper was given to the world. 

"Mean natures always feel a sort of terror before great natures, andmany a base thought has been unuttered, many a sneaking vote withheld, through the fear inspired by the rebuking presence of one noble man. "As a rule, pure grit, character, has the right of way. In the presenceof men permeated with grit and sound in character, meanness andbaseness slink out of sight. Mean men are uncomfortable, dishonestytrembles, hypocrisy is uncertain. 

Lincoln, being asked by an anxious visitor what he would do after threeor four years if the rebellion were not subdued, replied: "Oh, there isno alternative but to keep pegging away. "

"It is in me and it shall come out, " said Sheridan, when told that hewould never make an orator as he had failed in his first speech inParliament. He became known as one of the foremost orators of his day. 

When a boy Henry Clay was very bashful and diffident, and scarcelydared recite before his class at school, but he determined to become anorator. So he committed speeches and recited them in the cornfields, or in the barn with the horse and cows for an audience. 

If impossibilities ever exist, popularly speaking, they ought to havebeen found somewhere between the birth and death of Kitto, that deafpauper and master of Oriental learning. But Kitto did not find themthere. In the presence of his decision and imperial energy they meltedaway. He begged his father to take him out of the poorhouse, even ifhe had to subsist like the Hottentots. He told him that he would sellhis books and pawn his handkerchief, by which he thought he could raiseabout twelve shillings. He said he could live upon blackberries, nuts, and field turnips, and was willing to sleep on a hayrick. Here wasreal grit. What were impossibilities to such a resolute, indomitablewill?

Grit is a permanent, solid quality, which enters into the verystructure, the very tissues of the constitution. 

Many of our generals in the Civil War exhibited heroism; they were"plucky, " and often displayed great determination, but Grant had pure"grit" in the most concentrated form. He could not be moved from hisbase; he was self-centered, immovable. "If you try to wheedle out ofhim his plans for a campaign, he stolidly smokes; if you call him animbecile and a blunderer, he blandly lights another cigar; if youpraise him as the greatest general living, he placidly returns the pufffrom his regalia; and if you tell him he should run for the presidency, it does not disturb the equanimity with which he inhales and exhalesthe unsubstantial vapor which typifies the politician's promises. While you are wondering what kind of creature this man without a tongueis, you are suddenly electrified with the news of some splendidvictory; proving that behind the cigar, and behind the face dischargedof all telltale expression, is the best brain to plan and the strongestheart to dare among the generals of the Republic. "

Lincoln had pure "grit. " When the illustrated papers everywhere werecaricaturing him, when no epithet seemed too harsh to heap upon him, when his methods were criticized by his own party, and the generals inthe war were denouncing his "foolish" confidence in Grant, anddelegations were waiting upon him to ask for that general's removal, the great President sat with crossed legs, and was reminded of a story. 

Lincoln and Grant both had that rare nerve which cares not forridicule, is not swerved by public clamor, can bear abuse and hatred. There is a mighty force in truth, and in the sublime conviction andsupreme self-confidence behind it; in the knowledge that truth ismighty, and the conviction and confidence that it will prevail. 

Pure grit is that element of character which enables a man to clutchhis aim with an iron grip, and keep the needle of his purpose pointingto the star of his hope. Through sunshine and storm, through hurricaneand tempest, through sleet and rain, with a leaky ship, with a crew inmutiny, it perseveres; in fact, nothing but death can subdue it, and itdies still struggling. 

The man of grit carries in his very presence a power which controls andcommands. He is spared the necessity of declaring himself, for hisgrit speaks in his every act. It does not come by fits and starts, itis a part of his life. It inspires a sublime audacity and a heroiccourage. Many of the failures of life are due to the want of grit orbusiness nerve. It is unfortunate for a young man to start out inbusiness life with a weak, yielding disposition, with no resolution orbackbone to mark his own course and stick to it; with no ability to say"No" with an emphasis, obliging this man by investing in hopelessspeculation, and, rather than offend a friend, indorsing a questionablenote. 

A little boy was asked how he learned to skate. "Oh, by getting upevery time I fell down, " he replied. 

Whipple tells a story of Masséna which illustrates the masterfulpurpose that plucks victory out of the jaws of defeat. "After thedefeat at Essling, the success of Napoleon's attempt to withdraw hisbeaten army depended on the character of Masséna, to whom the Emperordispatched a messenger, telling him to keep his position for two hourslonger at Aspern. This order, couched in the form of a request, required almost an impossibility; but Napoleon knew the indomitabletenacity of the man to whom he gave it. The messenger found Massénaseated on a heap of rubbish, his eyes bloodshot, his frame weakened byhis unparalleled exertions during a contest of forty hours, and hiswhole appearance indicating a physical state better befitting thehospital than the field. But that steadfast soul seemed altogetherunaffected by bodily prostration. Half dead as he was with fatigue, herose painfully and said courageously, 'Tell the Emperor that I willhold out for two hours. ' And he kept his word. "

"Often defeated in battle, " said Macaulay of Alexander the Great, "hewas always successful in war. "

In the battle of Marengo, the Austrians considered the day won. TheFrench army was inferior in numbers, and had given way. The Austrianarmy extended its wings on the right and on the left, to follow up theFrench. Then, though the French themselves thought that the battle waslost, and the Austrians were confident it was won, Napoleon gave thecommand to charge; and, the trumpet's blast being given, the Old Guardcharged down into the weakened center of the enemy, cut it in two, rolled the two wings up on either side, and the battle was won forFrance. 

Once when Marshal Ney was going into battle, looking down at his kneeswhich were smiting together, he said, "You may well shake; you wouldshake worse yet if you knew where I am going to take you. "

It is victory after victory with the soldier, lesson after lesson withthe scholar, blow after blow with the laborer, crop after crop with thefarmer, picture after picture with the painter, and mile after milewith the traveler, that secures what all so much desire--SUCCESS. 

A promising Harvard student was stricken with paralysis of both legs. Physicians said there was no hope for him. The lad determined tocontinue his college studies. The examiners heard him at his bedside, and in four years he took his degree. He resolved to make a criticalstudy of Dante, to do which he had to learn Italian and German. Hepersevered in spite of repeated attacks of illness and partial loss ofsight. He was competing for the university prize. Think of theparalytic lad, helpless in bed, competing for a prize, fighting deathinch by inch! What a lesson! Before his manuscript was published orthe prize awarded, the brave student died, but his work was successful. 

Congressman William W. Crapo, while working his way through college, being too poor to buy a dictionary, actually copied one, walking fromhis home in the village of Dartmouth, Mass. , to New Bedford toreplenish his store of words and definitions from the town library. 

Oh, the triumphs of this indomitable spirit of the conqueror! This itwas that enabled Franklin to dine on a small loaf in theprinting-office with a book in his hand. It helped Locke to live onbread and water in a Dutch garret. It enabled Gideon Lee to gobarefoot in the snow, half starved and thinly clad. It sustainedLincoln and Garfield on their hard journeys from the log cabin to theWhite House. 

President Chadbourne put grit in place of his lost lung, and workedthirty-five years after his funeral had been planned. 

Henry Fawcett put grit in place of eyesight, and became the greatestPostmaster-General England ever had. 

Prescott also put grit in place of eyesight, and became one ofAmerica's greatest historians. Francis Parkman put grit in place ofhealth and eyesight, and became the greatest historian of America inhis line. Thousands of men have put grit in place of health, eyes, ears, hands, legs and yet have achieved marvelous success. Indeed, most of the great things of the world have been accomplished by gritand pluck. You can not keep a man down who has these qualities. Hewill make stepping-stones out of his stumbling-blocks, and lift himselfto success. 

At fifty, Barnum was a ruined man, owing thousands more than hepossessed, yet he resolutely resumed business once more, fairlywringing success from adverse fortune, and paying his notes at the sametime. Again and again he was ruined; but phoenix-like, he roserepeatedly from the ashes of his misfortune each time more determinedthan before. 

"It is all very well, " said Charles J. Fox, "to tell me that a youngman has distinguished himself by a brilliant first speech. He may goon, or he may be satisfied with his first triumph; but show me a youngman who has not succeeded at first, and nevertheless has gone on, and Iwill back that young man to do better than most of those who havesucceeded at the first trial. "

Cobden broke down completely the first time he appeared on a platformin Manchester, and the chairman apologized for him. But he did notgive up speaking till every poor man in England had a larger, better, and cheaper loaf. 

See young Disraeli, sprung from a hated and persecuted race; withoutopportunity, pushing his way up through the middle classes, up throughthe upper classes, until he stands self-poised upon the topmost roundof political and social power. Scoffed, ridiculed, rebuffed, hissedfrom the House of Commons, he simply says, "The time will come when youwill hear me. " The time did come, and the boy with no chance swayedthe scepter of England for a quarter of a century. 

One of the most remarkable examples in history is Disraeli, forcing hisleadership upon that very party whose prejudices were deepest againsthis race, and which had an utter contempt for self-made men andinterlopers. Imagine England's surprise when she awoke to find thisinsignificant Hebrew actually Chancellor of the Exchequer! He waseasily master of all the tortures supplied by the armory of rhetoric;he could exhaust the resources of the bitterest invective; he couldsting Gladstone out of his self-control; he was absolute master ofhimself and his situation. You could see that this young man intendedto make his way in the world. Determined audacity was in his veryface. Handsome, with the hated Hebrew blood in his veins, after threedefeats in parliamentary elections he was not the least daunted, for heknew his day would come. Lord Melbourne, the great Prime Minister, when this gay young fop was introduced to him, asked him what he wishedto be. "Prime Minister of England, " was his audacious reply. 

William H. Seward was given a thousand dollars by his father with whichto go to college; this was all he was to have. The son returned at theend of the freshman year with extravagant habits and no money. Hisfather refused to give him more, and told him he could not stay athome. When the youth found the props all taken out from under him, andthat he must now sink or swim, he left home moneyless, returned tocollege, graduated at the head of his class, studied law, was electedGovernor of New York, and became Lincoln's great Secretary of Stateduring the Civil War. 

Garfield said, "If the power to do hard work is not talent, it is thebest possible substitute for it. " The triumph of industry and gritover low birth and iron fortune in America, the land of opportunity, ought to be sufficient to put to shame all grumblers over their hardfortune and those who attempt to excuse aimless, shiftless, successlessmen because they have no chance. 

During a winter in the War of 1812, General Jackson's troops, unprovided for and starving, became mutinous and were going home. Butthe general set the example of living on acorns; and then he rodebefore the rebellious line and threatened with instant death the firstmutineer that should try to leave. 

The race is not always to the swift, the battle is not always to thestrong. Horses are sometimes weighted or hampered in the race, andthis is taken into account in the result. So in the race of life thedistance alone does not determine the prize. We must take intoconsideration the hindrances, the weights we have carried, thedisadvantages of education, of breeding, of training, of surroundings, of circumstances. How many young men are weighted down with debt, withpoverty, with the support of invalid parents or brothers and sisters, or friends? How many are fettered with ignorance, hampered byinhospitable surroundings, with the opposition of parents who do notunderstand them? How many a round boy is hindered in the race by beingforced into a square hole? How many youths are delayed in their coursebecause nobody believes in them, because nobody encourages them, because they get no sympathy and are forever tortured for not doingthat against which every fiber of their being protests, and every dropof their blood rebels? How many men have to feel their way to the goalthrough the blindness of ignorance and lack of experience? How many gobungling along from the lack of early discipline and drill in thevocation they have chosen? How many have to hobble along on crutchesbecause they were never taught to help themselves, but have beenaccustomed to lean upon a father's wealth or a mother's indulgence?How many are weakened for the journey of life by self-indulgence, bydissipation, by "life-sappers"; how many are crippled by disease, by aweak constitution, by impaired eyesight or hearing?

When the prizes of life shall be finally awarded, the distance we haverun, the weights we have carried, the handicaps, will all be taken intoaccount. Not the distance we have run, but the obstacles we haveovercome, the disadvantages under which we have made the race, willdecide the prizes. The poor wretch who has plodded along againstunknown temptations, the poor woman who has buried her sorrows in hersilent heart and sewed her weary way through life, those who havesuffered abuse in silence, and who have been unrecognized or despisedby their fellow-runners, will often receive the greater prize. 

 "The wise and active conquer difficulties, By daring to attempt them; sloth and folly Shiver and sink at sight of toil and hazard, And make the impossibility they fear. "

"I can't, it is impossible, " said a foiled lieutenant, to Alexander. "Begone, " shouted the conquering Macedonian, "there is nothingimpossible to him who will try. "

Were I called upon to express in a word the secret of so many failuresamong those who started out in life with high hopes, I should sayunhesitatingly, they lacked will-power. They could not half will. What is a man without a will? He is like an engine without steam, amere sport of chance, to be tossed about hither and thither, always atthe mercy of those who have wills. I should call the strength of willthe test of a young man's possibilities. Can he will strong enough, and hold whatever he undertakes with an iron grip? It is the iron gripthat takes the strong hold on life. What chance is there in thiscrowding, pushing, selfish, greedy world, where everything is pusher orpushed, for a young man with no will, no grip on life? "The truestwisdom, " said Napoleon, "is a resolute determination. " An iron willwithout principle might produce a Napoleon; but with character it wouldmake a Wellington or a Grant, untarnished by ambition or avarice. 

 "The undivided will 'T is that compels the elements and wrings A human music from the indifferent air. "

CHAPTER XXVI

SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES

Victories that are easy are cheap. Those only are worth having whichcome as the result of hard fighting. --BEECHER. 

Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds riseabove them. --WASHINGTON IRVING. 

"I have here three teams that I want to get over to Staten Island, "said a boy of twelve one day in 1806 to the innkeeper at South Amboy, N. J. "If you will put us across, I'll leave with you one of my horsesin pawn, and if I don't send you back six dollars within forty-eighthours you may keep the horse. "

The innkeeper asked the reason for this novel proposition, and learnedthat the lad's father had contracted to get the cargo of a vesselstranded near Sandy Hook, and take it to New York in lighters. The boyhad been sent with three wagons, six horses, and three men, to carrythe cargo across a sand-spit to the lighters. The work accomplished, he had started with only six dollars to travel a long distance homeover the Jersey sands, and reached South Amboy penniless. "I'll doit, " said the innkeeper, as he looked into the bright honest eyes ofthe boy. The horse was soon redeemed. 

"My son, " said this same boy's mother, on the first of May, 1810, whenhe asked her to lend him one hundred dollars to buy a boat, havingimbibed a strong liking for the sea; "on the twenty-seventh of thismonth you will be sixteen years old. If, by that time, you will plow, harrow, and plant with corn the eight-acre lot, I will advance you themoney. " The field was rough and stony, but the work was done in time, and well done. From this small beginning Cornelius Vanderbilt laid thefoundation of a colossal fortune. 

In 1818 Vanderbilt owned two or three of the finest coasting schoonersin New York harbor, and had a capital of nine thousand dollars. Seeingthat steam-vessels would soon win supremacy over those carrying sailsonly, he gave up his fine business to become the captain of a steamboatat one thousand dollars a year. For twelve years he ran between NewYork City and New Brunswick, N. J. In 1829 he began business as asteamboat owner, in the face of opposition so bitter that he lost hislast dollar. But the tide turned, and he prospered so rapidly that heat length owned over a hundred steamboats. He early identified himselfwith the growing railroad interests of the country, and became therichest man of his day in America. 

Barnum began the race of business life barefoot, for at the age offifteen he was obliged to buy on credit the shoes he wore at hisfather's funeral. He was a remarkable example of success underdifficulties. There was no keeping him down; no opposition daunted him. 

"Eloquence must have been born with you, " said a friend to J. P. Curran. "Indeed, my dear sir, it was not, " replied the orator; "it wasborn some three and twenty years and some months after me. " Speakingof his first attempt at a debating club, he said: "I stood up, trembling through every fiber; but remembering that in this I was butimitating Tully, I took courage and had actually proceeded almost asfar as 'Mr. Chairman, ' when, to my astonishment and terror, I perceivedthat every eye was turned on me. There were only six or seven present, and the room could not have contained as many more; yet was it, to mypanic-stricken imagination, as if I were the central object in nature, and assembled millions were gazing upon me in breathless expectation. I became dismayed and dumb. My friends cried, 'Hear him!' but therewas nothing to hear. " He was nicknamed "Orator Mum, " and well did hedeserve the title until he ventured to stare in astonishment at aspeaker who was "culminating chronology by the most preposterousanachronisms. " "I doubt not, " said the annoyed speaker, "that 'OratorMum' possesses wonderful talents for eloquence, but I would recommendhim to show it in future by some more popular method than his silence. "Stung by the taunt, Curran rose and gave the man a "piece of his mind, "speaking fluently in his anger. Encouraged by this success, he tookgreat pains to become a good speaker. He corrected his habit ofstuttering by reading favorite passages aloud every day slowly anddistinctly, and spoke at every opportunity. 

Bunyan wrote his "Pilgrim's Progress" on the untwisted papers whichwere used to cork the bottles of milk brought for his meals. Giffordwrote his first copy of a mathematical work, when a cobbler'sapprentice, on small scraps of leather; and Rittenhouse, theastronomer, first calculated eclipses on his plow handle. 

David Livingstone at ten years of age was put into a cotton factorynear Glasgow. Out of his first week's wages he bought a Latin grammar, and studied in the night schools for years. He would sit up and studytill midnight unless his mother drove him to bed, notwithstanding hehad to be at the factory at six in the morning. He mastered Vergil andHorace in this way, and read extensively, besides studying botany. Soeager for knowledge was he, that he would place his book before him onthe spinning-jenny, and amid the deafening roar of machinery would poreover its pages. 

"All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise andwonder, " says Johnson, "are instances of the resistless force ofperseverance: it is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and thatdistant countries are united with canals. If a man was to compare theeffect of a single stroke of the pickax, or of one impression of thespade, with the general design and last result, he would be overwhelmedby the sense of their disproportion; yet those petty operations, incessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, andmountains are leveled, and oceans bounded, by the slender force ofhuman beings. "

Great men never wait for opportunities; they make them. Nor do theywait for facilities or favoring circumstances; they seize upon whateveris at hand, work out their problem, and master the situation. A youngman determined and willing will find a way or make one. A Franklindoes not require elaborate apparatus; he can bring electricity from theclouds with a common kite. 

Great men have found no royal road to their triumph. It is always theold route, by way of industry and perseverance. 

The farmer boy, Elihu B. Washburn, taught school at ten dollars permonth, and early learned the lesson that it takes one hundred cents tomake a dollar. In after years he fought "steals" in Congress, until hewas called the "Watchdog of the Treasury. "

When Elias Howe, harassed by want and woe, was in London completing hisfirst sewing-machine, he had frequently to borrow money to live on. Hebought beans and cooked them himself. He also borrowed money to sendhis wife back to America. He sold his first machine for five pounds, although it was worth fifty, and then he pawned his letters patent topay his expenses home. 

The boy Arkwright begins barbering in a cellar, but dies worth amillion and a half. The world treated his novelties just as it treatseverybody's novelties--made infinite objection, mustered all theimpediments, but he snapped his fingers at their objections, and livedto become honored and wealthy. 

There is scarcely a great truth or doctrine but has had to fight itsway to public recognition in the face of detraction, calumny, andpersecution. 

Nearly every great discovery or invention that has blessed mankind hashad to fight its way to recognition, even against the opposition of themost progressive men. 

William H. Prescott was a remarkable example of what a boy with "nochance" can do. While at college, he lost one eye by a hard piece ofbread thrown during a "biscuit battle, " and the other eye became almostuseless. But the boy would not lead a useless life. He set his heartupon being a historian, and turned all his energies in that direction. By the aid of others' eyes, he spent ten years studying before he evendecided upon a particular theme for his first book. Then he spent tenyears more, poring over old archives and manuscripts, before hepublished his "Ferdinand and Isabella. " What a lesson in his life foryoung men! What a rebuke to those who have thrown away theiropportunities and wasted their lives!

"Galileo with an opera-glass, " said Emerson, "discovered a moresplendid series of celestial phenomena than any one since with thegreat telescopes. Columbus found the new world in an undecked boat. "

Surroundings which men call unfavorable can not prevent the unfoldingof your powers. From among the rock-ribbed hills of New Hampshiresprang the greatest of American orators and statesmen, Daniel Webster. From the crowded ranks of toil, and homes to which luxury is astranger, have often come the leaders and benefactors of our race. 

Where shall we find an illustration more impressive than in AbrahamLincoln, whose life, career, and death might be chanted by a Greekchorus as at once the prelude and the epilogue of the most imperialtheme of modern times? Born as lowly as the Son of God, in a hovel; ofwhat real parentage we know not; reared in penury, squalor, with nogleam of light, nor fair surrounding; a young manhood vexed by weirddreams and visions; with scarcely a natural grace; singularly awkward, ungainly even among the uncouth about him: it was reserved for thisremarkable character, late in life, to be snatched from obscurity, raised to supreme command at a supreme moment, and intrusted with thedestiny of a nation. The great leaders of his party were made to standaside; the most experienced and accomplished men of the day, men likeSeward, and Chase, and Sumner, statesmen famous and trained, were sentto the rear, while this strange figure was brought by unseen hands tothe front, and given the reins of power. 

_There is no open door to the temple of success_. Everyone who entersmakes his own door, which closes behind him to all others, not evenpermitting his own children to pass. 

Not in the brilliant salon, not in the tapestried library, not in easeand competence, is genius born and nurtured; but often in adversity anddestitution, amidst the harassing cares of a straitened household, inbare and fireless garrets. Amid scenes unpropitious, repulsive, wretched, have men labored, studied, and trained themselves, until theyhave at last emanated from the gloom of that obscurity the shininglights of their times; have become the companions of kings, the guidesand teachers of their kind, and exercised an influence upon the thoughtof the world amounting to a species of intellectual legislation. 

"What does he know, " said a sage, "who has not suffered?" Schillerproduced his greatest tragedies in the midst of physical sufferingalmost amounting to torture. Handel was never greater than when, warned by palsy of the approach of death, and struggling with distressand suffering, he sat down to compose the great works which have madehis name immortal in music. Mozart composed his great operas, and lastof all his "Requiem, " when oppressed by debt and struggling with afatal disease. Beethoven produced his greatest works amidst gloomysorrow, when oppressed by almost total deafness. 

Perhaps no one ever battled harder to overcome obstacles which wouldhave disheartened most men than Demosthenes. He had such a weak voice, and such an impediment in his speech, and was so short of breath, thathe could scarcely get through a single sentence without stopping torest. All his first attempts were nearly drowned by the hisses, jeers, and scoffs of his audiences. His first effort that met with successwas against his guardian, who had defrauded him, and whom he compelledto refund a part of his fortune. He was so discouraged by his defeatsthat he determined to give up forever all attempts at oratory. One ofhis auditors, however, believed the young man had something in him, andencouraged him to persevere. He accordingly appeared again in public, but was hissed down as before. As he withdrew, hanging his head ingreat confusion, a noted actor, Satyrus, encouraged him still furtherto try to overcome his impediment. He stammered so much that he couldnot pronounce some of the letters at all, and his breath would give outbefore he could get through a sentence. Finally, he determined to bean orator at any cost. He went to the seashore and practised amid theroar of the breakers with small pebbles in his mouth, in order toovercome his stammering, and at the same time accustom himself to thehisses and tumults of his audience. He overcame his short breath bypractising while running up steep and difficult places on the shore. His awkward gestures were also corrected by long and determined drillbefore a mirror. 

Columbus was dismissed as a fool from court after court, but he pushedhis suit against an incredulous and ridiculing world. Rebuffed bykings, scorned by queens, he did not swerve a hair's breadth from theovermastering purpose which dominated his soul. The words "New World"were graven upon his heart; and reputation, ease, pleasure, position, life itself if need be, must be sacrificed. Threats, ridicule, ostracism, storms, leaky vessels, mutiny of sailors, could not shakehis mighty purpose. 

You can not keep a determined man from success. Place stumbling-blocksin his way and he takes them for stepping-stones, and on them willclimb to greatness. Take away his money, and he makes spurs of hispoverty to urge him on. Cripple him, and he writes the Waverley Novels. 

All that is great and noble and true in the history of the world is theresult of infinite painstaking, perpetual plodding, of common every-dayindustry. 

Roger Bacon, one of the profoundest thinkers the world has produced, was terribly persecuted for his studies in natural philosophy, yet hepersevered and won success. He was accused of dealing in magic, hisbooks were burned in public, and he was kept in prison for ten years. Even our own revered Washington was mobbed in the streets because hewould not pander to the clamor of the people and reject the treatywhich Mr. Jay had arranged with Great Britain. But he remained firm, and the people adopted his opinion. The Duke of Wellington was mobbedin the streets of London and his windows were broken while his wife laydead in the house; but the "Iron Duke" never faltered in his course, orswerved a hair's breadth from his purpose. 

William Phipps, when a young man, heard some sailors on the street, inBoston, talking about a Spanish ship wrecked off the Bahama Islands, which was supposed to have money on board. Young Phipps determined tofind it. He set out at once, and, after many hardships, discovered thelost treasure. He then heard of another ship, which had been wreckedoff Port De La Plata many years before. He set sail for England andimportuned Charles II for aid. To his delight the king fitted up theship _Rose Algier_ for him. He searched and searched for a long timein vain, and at length had to return to England to repair his vessel. James II was then on the throne, and Phipps had to wait for four yearsbefore he could raise money to return. His crew mutinied andthreatened to throw him overboard, but he turned the ship's guns onthem. One day an Indian diver went down for a curious sea plant andsaw several cannon lying on the bottom. They proved to belong to thewreck. He had nothing but dim traditions to guide him, but he returnedto England with $1, 500, 000. 

A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to win success in spite ofevery barrier, is the price of all great achievements. 

The man who has not fought his way up to his own loaf, and does notbear the scar of desperate conflict, does not know the highest meaningof success. 

The money acquired by those who have thus struggled upward to successis not their only, or indeed their chief reward. When, after years oftoil, of opposition, of ridicule, of repeated failure, Cyrus W. Fieldplaced his hand upon the telegraph instrument ticking a message underthe sea, think you that the electric thrill passed no further than thetips of his fingers? When Thomas A. Edison demonstrated that theelectric light had at last been developed into a commercial success, doyou suppose those bright rays failed to illuminate the inmost recessesof his soul?

CHAPTER XXVII

USES OF OBSTACLES

Nature, when she adds difficulties, adds brains. --EMERSON. 

Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendousdifficulties. --SPURGEON. 

 The good are better made by ill, As odors crushed are sweeter still. ROGERS. 

 Though losses and crosses be lessons right severe, There's wit there ye'll get there, ye'll find no other where. BURNS. 

"Adversity is the prosperity of the great. "

"Kites rise against, not with, the wind. "

"Many and many a time since, " said Harriet Martineau, referring to herfather's failure in business, "have we said that, but for that loss ofmoney, we might have lived on in the ordinary provincial method ofladies with small means, sewing and economizing and growing narrowerevery year; whereas, by being thrown, while it was yet time, on our ownresources, we have worked hard and usefully, won friends, reputation, and independence, seen the world abundantly, abroad and at home; inshort, have truly lived instead of vegetating. "

Two of the three greatest epic poets of the world were blind, --Homerand Milton; while the third, Dante, was in his later years nearly, ifnot altogether, blind. It almost seems as though some great charactershad been physically crippled in certain respects so that they would notdissipate their energy, but concentrate it all in one direction. 

A distinguished investigator in science said that when he encounteredan apparently insuperable obstacle, he usually found himself upon thebrink of some discovery. 

"Returned with thanks" has made many an author. Failure often leads aman to success by arousing his latent energy, by firing a dormantpurpose, by awakening powers which were sleeping. Men of mettle turndisappointments into helps as the oyster turns into pearl the sandwhich annoys it. 

"Let the adverse breath of criticism be to you only what the blast ofthe storm wind is to the eagle, --a force against him that lifts himhigher. "

A kite would not fly unless it had a string tying it down. It is justso in life. The man who is tied down by half a dozen bloomingresponsibilities and their mother will make a higher and strongerflight than the bachelor who, having nothing to keep him steady, isalways floundering in the mud. 

When Napoleon's school companions made sport of him on account of hishumble origin and poverty he devoted himself entirely to books, and, quickly rising above them in scholarship, commanded their respect. Soon he was regarded as the brightest ornament of the class. 

"To make his way at the bar, " said an eminent jurist, "a young man mustlive like a hermit and work like a horse. There is nothing that does ayoung lawyer so much good as to be half starved. "

Thousands of men of great native ability have been lost to the worldbecause they have not had to wrestle with obstacles, and to struggleunder difficulties sufficient to stimulate into activity their dormantpowers. No effort is too dear which helps us along the line of ourproper career. 

Poverty and obscurity of origin may impede our progress, but it is onlylike the obstruction of ice or débris in the river temporarily forcingthe water into eddies, where it accumulates strength and a mightyreserve which ultimately sweeps the obstruction impetuously to the sea. Poverty and obscurity are not insurmountable obstacles, but they oftenact as a stimulus to the naturally indolent, and develop a firmer fiberof mind, a stronger muscle and stamina of body. 

If the germ of the seed has to struggle to push its way up through thestones and hard sod, to fight its way up to sunlight and air, and thento wrestle with storm and tempest, with snow and frost, the fiber ofits timber will be all the tougher and stronger. 

There is good philosophy in the injunction to love our enemies, forthey are often our best friends in disguise. They tell us the truthwhen friends flatter. Their biting sarcasm and scathing rebuke aremirrors which reveal us to ourselves. These unkind stings and thrustsare often spurs which urge us on to grander success and noblerendeavor. Friends cover our faults and rarely rebuke; enemies drag outto the light all our weaknesses without mercy. We dread these thrustsand exposures as we do the surgeon's knife, but are the better forthem. They reach depths before untouched, and we are led to resolve toredeem ourselves from scorn and inferiority. 

We are the victors of our opponents. They have developed in us thevery power by which we overcome them. Without their opposition wecould never have braced and anchored and fortified ourselves, as theoak is braced and anchored for its thousand battles with the tempests. Our trials, our sorrows, and our griefs develop us in a similar way. 

The man who has triumphed over difficulties bears the signs of victoryin his face. An air of triumph is seen in every movement. 

John Calvin, who made a theology for the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies, was tortured with disease for many years, and so was RobertHall. The great men who have lifted the world to a higher level werenot developed in easy circumstances, but were rocked in the cradle ofdifficulties and pillowed on hardships. 

"The gods look on no grander sight than an honest man struggling withadversity. "

"Then I must learn to sing better, " said Anaximander, when told thatthe very boys laughed at his singing. 

Strong characters, like the palm-tree, seem to thrive best when mostabused. Men who have stood up bravely under great misfortune for yearsare often unable to bear prosperity. Their good fortune takes thespring out of their energy, as the torrid zone enervates racesaccustomed to a vigorous climate. Some people never come to themselvesuntil baffled, rebuffed, thwarted, defeated, crushed, in the opinion ofthose around them. Trials unlock their virtues; defeat is thethreshold of their victory. 

It is defeat that turns bone to flint; it is defeat that turns gristleto muscle; it is defeat that makes men invincible; it is defeat thathas made those heroic natures that are now in the ascendency, and thathas given the sweet law of liberty instead of the bitter law ofoppression. 

Difficulties call out great qualities, and make greatness possible. How many centuries of peace would have developed a Grant? Few knewLincoln until the great weight of the war showed his character. Acentury of peace would never have produced a Bismarck. PerhapsPhillips and Garrison would never have been known to history had it notbeen for slavery. 

"Will he not make a great painter?" was asked in regard to an artistfresh from his Italian tour. "No, never, " replied Northcote. "Whynot?" "Because he has an income of six thousand pounds a year. " Inthe sunshine of wealth a man is, as a rule, warped too much to becomean artist of high merit. He should have some great thwartingdifficulty to struggle against. A drenching shower of adversity wouldstraighten his fibers out again. 

The best tools receive their temper from fire, their edge fromgrinding; the noblest characters are developed in a similar way. Theharder the diamond, the more brilliant the luster, and the greater thefriction necessary to bring it out. Only its own dust is hard enoughto make this most precious stone reveal its full beauty. 

The spark in the flint would sleep forever but for friction; the firein man would never blaze but for antagonism. 

Suddenly, with much jarring and jolting, an electric car came to astandstill just in front of a heavy truck that was headed in anopposite direction. The huge truck wheels were sliding uselessly roundon the car tracks that were wet and slippery from rain. All the urgingof the teamster and the straining of the horses were in vain, --untilthe motorman quietly tossed a shovelful of sand on the track under theheavy wheels, and then the truck lumbered on its way. "Friction is avery good thing, " remarked a passenger. 

The philosopher Kant observed that a dove, inasmuch as the onlyobstacle it has to overcome is the resistance of the air, might supposethat if only the air were out of the way it could fly with greaterrapidity and ease. Yet if the air were withdrawn, and the bird shouldtry to fly in a vacuum, it would fall instantly to the ground, unableto fly at all. The very element that offers the opposition to flyingis at the same time the condition of any flight whatever. 

Emergencies make giant men. But for our Civil War the names of itsgrand heroes would not be written among the greatest of our time. 

The effort or struggle to climb to a higher place in life has strengthand dignity in it, and cannot fail to leave us stronger, even though wemay never reach the position we desire, or secure the prize we seek. 

From an aimless, idle, and useless brain, emergencies often call outpowers and virtues before unknown and unsuspected. How often we see ayoung man develop astounding ability and energy after the death of aparent, or the loss of a fortune, or after some other calamity hasknocked the props and crutches from under him. The prison has rousedthe slumbering fire in many a noble mind. "Robinson Crusoe" waswritten in prison. The "Pilgrim's Progress" appeared in Bedford Jail, Sir Walter Raleigh wrote "The History of the World" during hisimprisonment of thirteen years. Luther translated the Bible whileconfined in the Castle of Wartburg. For twenty years Dante worked inexile, and even under sentence of death. 

Take two acorns from the same tree, as nearly alike as possible; plantone on a hill by itself, and the other in the dense forest, and watchthem grow. The oak standing alone is exposed to every storm. Itsroots reach out in every direction, clutching the rocks and piercingdeep into the earth. Every rootlet lends itself to steady the growinggiant, as if in anticipation of fierce conflict with the elements. Sometimes its upward growth seems checked for years, but all the whileit has been expending its energy in pushing a root across a large rockto gain a firmer anchorage. Then it shoots proudly aloft again, prepared to defy the hurricane. The gales which sport so rudely withits wide branches find more than their match, and only serve stillfurther to toughen every minutest fiber from pith to bark. 

The acorn planted in the deep forest, on the other hand, shoots up aweak, slender sapling. Shielded by its neighbors, it feels no need ofspreading its roots far and wide for support. 

Take two boys, as nearly alike as possible. Place one in the countryaway from the hothouse culture and refinements of the city, with onlythe district school, the Sunday-school, and a few books. Remove wealthand props of every kind; and, if he has the right sort of material inhim, he will thrive. Every obstacle overcome lends him strength forthe next conflict. If he falls, he rises with more determination thanbefore. Like a rubber ball, the harder the obstacle he meets thehigher he rebounds. Obstacles and opposition are but apparatus of thegymnasium in which the fibers of his manhood are developed. He compelsrespect and recognition from those who have ridiculed his poverty. Putthe other boy in a Vanderbilt family. Give him French and Germannurses; gratify his every wish. Place him under the tutelage of greatmasters and send him to Harvard. Give him thousands a year forspending money, and let him travel extensively. 

The two meet. The city lad is ashamed of his country brother. Theplain, threadbare clothes, hard hands, tawny face, and awkward mannerof the country boy make sorry contrast with the genteel appearance ofthe other. The poor boy bemoans his hard lot, regrets that he has "nochance in life, " and envies the city youth. He thinks that it is acruel Providence that places such a wide gulf between them. 

They meet again as men, but how changed! It is as easy todistinguished the sturdy, self-made man from the one who has beenpropped up all his life by wealth, position, and family influence, asit is for the shipbuilder to tell the difference between the plank fromthe rugged mountain oak and one from the sapling of the forest. 

When God wants to educate a man, he does not send him to school to theGraces, but to the Necessities. Through the pit and the dungeon Josephcame to a throne. We are not conscious of the mighty cravings of ourhalf divine humanity; we are not aware of the God within us until somechasm yawns which must be filled, or till the rending asunder of ouraffections forces us to become conscious of a need. St. Paul in hisRoman cell; John Huss led to the stake at Constance; Tyndale dying inhis prison at Amsterdam; Milton, amid the incipient earthquake throesof revolution, teaching two little boys in Aldgate Street; DavidLivingstone, worn to a shadow, dying in a negro hut in Central Africa, alone--what failures they might all have seemed to themselves to be, yet what mighty purposes was God working out by their apparenthumiliations!

Two highwaymen chancing once to pass a gibbet, one of them exclaimed:"What a fine profession ours would be if there were no gibbets!" "Tut, you blockhead, " replied the other, "gibbets are the making of us; for, if there were no gibbets, every one would be a highwayman. " Just sowith every art, trade, or pursuit; it is the difficulties that scareand keep out unworthy competitors. 

"Success grows out of struggles to overcome difficulties, " says Smiles. "If there were no difficulties there would be no success. In thisnecessity for exertion we find the chief source of humanadvancement, --the advancement of individuals as of nations. It has ledto most of the mechanical inventions and improvements of the age. "

"Stick your claws into me, " said Mendelssohn to his critics whenentering the Birmingham orchestra. "Don't tell me what you like, butwhat you don't like. "

John Hunter said that the art of surgery would never advance untilprofessional men had the courage to publish their failures as well astheir successes. 

"Young men need to be taught not to expect a perfectly smooth and easyway to the objects of their endeavor or ambition, " says Dr. Peabody. "Seldom does one reach a position with which he has reason to besatisfied without encountering difficulties and what might seemdiscouragements. But if they are properly met, they are not what theyseem, and may prove to be helps, not hindrances. There is no morehelpful and profiting exercise than surmounting obstacles. "

It was in the Madrid jail that Cervantes wrote "Don Quixote. " He wasso poor that he could not even get paper during the last of hiswriting, and had to write on scraps of leather. A rich Spaniard wasasked to help him, but replied: "Heaven forbid that his necessitiesshould be relieved; it is his poverty that makes the world rich. "

"He has the stuff in him to make a good musician, " said Beethoven ofRossini, "if he had only been well flogged when a boy; but he isspoiled by the ease with which he composes. "

We do our best while fighting desperately to attain what the heartcovets. 

Waters says that the struggle to obtain knowledge and to advance one'sself in the world strengthens the mind, disciplines the faculties, matures the judgment, promotes self-reliance, and gives oneindependence of thought and force of character. 

Kossuth called himself "a tempest-tossed soul, whose eyes have beensharpened by affliction. "

As soon as young eagles can fly the old birds tumble them out and tearthe down and feathers from their nest. The rude and rough experienceof the eaglet fits him to become the bold king of birds, fierce andexpert in pursuing his prey. 

Boys who are bound out, crowded out, kicked out, usually "turn out, "while those who do not have these disadvantages frequently fail to"come out. "

"It was not the victories but the defeats of my life which havestrengthened me, " said the aged Sidenham Poyntz. 

Almost from the dawn of history, oppression has been the lot of theHebrews, yet they have given the world its noblest songs, its wisestproverbs, its sweetest music. With them persecution seems to bringprosperity. They thrive where others would starve. They hold thepurse-strings of many nations. To them hardship has been "like springmornings, frosty but kindly, the cold of which will kill the vermin, but will let the plant live. "

In one of the battles of the Crimea a cannon-ball struck inside thefort, crashing through a beautiful garden. But from the ugly chasmthere burst forth a spring of water which ever afterward flowed aliving fountain. From the ugly gashes which misfortunes and sorrowsmake in our hearts, perennial fountains of rich experience and new joysoften spring. 

Don't lament and grieve over lost wealth. The Creator may seesomething grand and mighty which even He can not bring out as long asyour wealth stands in the way. You must throw away the crutches ofriches and stand upon your own feet, and develop the long unusedmuscles of manhood. God may see a rough diamond in you which only thehard hits of poverty can polish. 

God knows where the richest melodies of our lives are, and what drilland what discipline are necessary to bring them out. The frost, thesnows, the tempests, the lightnings are the rough teachers that bringthe tiny acorn to the sturdy oak. Fierce winters are as necessary toit as long summers. It is its half-century's struggle with theelements for existence, wrestling with the storm, fighting for its lifefrom the moment that it leaves the acorn until it goes into the ship, that gives it value. Without this struggle it would have beencharacterless, staminaless, nerveless, and its grain would have neverbeen susceptible of high polish. The most beautiful as well as thestrongest woods are found not in tropical climates, but in severeclimates, where they have to fight the frosts and the winter's cold. 

Many a man has never found himself until he has lost his all. Adversity stripped him only to discover him. Obstacles, hardships, arethe chisel and mallet which shape the strong life into beauty. Therough ledge on the hillside complains of the drill, of the blastingwhich disturbs its peace of centuries: it is not pleasant to be rentwith powder, to be hammered and squared by the quarryman. But lookagain: behold the magnificent statue, the monument, chiseled into graceand beauty, telling its grand story of valor in the public square forcenturies. 

The statue would have slept in the marble forever but for the blasting, the chiseling, and the polishing. The angel of our higher and noblerselves would remain forever unknown in the rough quarries of our livesbut for the blastings of affliction, the chiseling of obstacles, andthe sand-papering of a thousand annoyances. 

Who has not observed the patience, the calm endurance, the sweetloveliness chiseled out of some rough life by the reversal of fortuneor by some terrible affliction?

How many business men have made their greatest strides toward manhood, and developed their greatest virtues when reverses of fortune haveswept away everything they had in the world; when disease had robbedthem of all they held dear in life! Often we can not see the angel inthe quarry of our lives, the statue of manhood, until the blasts ofmisfortune have rent the ledge, and difficulties and obstacles havesquared and chiseled the granite blocks into grace and beauty. 

Many a man has been ruined into salvation. The lightning which smotehis dearest hopes opened up a new rift in his dark life, and gave himglimpses of himself which, until then, he had never seen. The graveburied his dearest hopes, but uncovered in his nature possibilities ofpatience, endurance, and hope which he never before dreamed hepossessed. 

"Adversity is a severe instructor, " says Edmund Burke, "set over us byone who knows us better than we do ourselves, as he loves us bettertoo. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens ourskill. Our antagonist is our helper. This conflict with difficultymakes us acquainted with our object, and compels us to consider it inall its relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial. "

Men who have the right kind of material in them will assert theirpersonality and rise in spite of a thousand adverse circumstances. Youcan not keep them down. Every obstacle seems only to add to theirability to get on. 

The greatest men will ever be those who have risen from the ranks. Itis said that there are ten thousand chances to one that genius, talent, and virtue shall issue from a farmhouse rather than from a palace. 

Adversity exasperates fools, dejects cowards, but draws out thefaculties of the wise and industrious, puts the modest to the necessityof trying their skill, awes the opulent, and makes the idleindustrious. The storms of adversity, like those of the ocean, rousethe faculties, and excite the invention, prudence, skill, and fortitudeof the voyager. A man upon whom continuous sunshine falls is like theearth in August: he becomes parched and dry and hard and close-grained. Men have drawn from adversity the elements of greatness. 

Beethoven was almost totally deaf and burdened with sorrow when heproduced his greatest works. Schiller wrote his best books in greatbodily suffering. He was not free from pain for fifteen years. Miltonwrote his leading productions when blind, poor, and sick. "Who bestcan suffer, " said he, "best can do. " Bunyan said that, if it werelawful, he could even pray for greater trouble, for the greatercomfort's sake. 

Not until the breath of the plague had blasted a hundred thousandlives, and the great fire had licked up cheap, shabby, wicked London, did she arise, phoenix-like, from her ashes and ruin, a grand andmighty city. 

True salamanders live best in the furnace of persecution. 

Many of our best poets

 "Are cradled into poetry by wrong, And learn in suffering what they teach in song. "

Byron was stung into a determination to go to the top by a scathingcriticism of his first book, "Hours of Idleness, " published when he wasbut nineteen years of age. Macaulay said, "There is scarce an instancein history of so sudden a rise to so dizzy an eminence as Byronreached. " In a few years he stood by the side of such men as Scott, Southey, and Campbell, and died at thirty-seven, that age so fatal togenius. Many an orator like "stuttering Jack Curran, " or "Orator Mum, "as he was once called, has been spurred into eloquence by ridicule andabuse. 

This is the crutch age. "Helps" and "aids" are advertised everywhere. We have institutes, colleges, universities, teachers, books, libraries, newspapers, magazines. Our thinking is done for us. Our problems areall worked out in "explanations" and "keys. " Our boys are too oftentutored through college with very little study. "Short roads" and"abridged methods" are characteristic of the century. Ingeniousmethods are used everywhere to get the drudgery out of the collegecourse. Newspapers give us our politics, and preachers our religion. Self-help and self-reliance are getting old-fashioned. Nature, as ifconscious of delayed blessings, has rushed to man's relief with herwondrous forces, and undertakes to do the world's drudgery andemancipate him from Eden's curse. 

But do not misinterpret her edict. She emancipates from the lower onlyto call to the higher. She does not bid the world go and play whileshe does the work. She emancipates the muscles only to employ thebrain and heart. 

The most beautiful as well as the strongest characters are notdeveloped in warm climates, where man finds his bread ready made ontrees, and where exertion is a great effort, but rather in a tryingclimate and on a stubborn soil. It is not chance that returns to theHindoo ryot a penny and to the American laborer a dollar for his dailytoil; that makes Mexico with its mineral wealth poor, and New Englandwith its granite and ice rich. It is rugged necessity, it is thestruggle to obtain; it is poverty, the priceless spur, that developsthe stamina of manhood, and calls the race out of barbarism. Intelligent labor found the world a wilderness and has made it a garden. 

As the sculptor thinks only of the angel imprisoned in the marbleblock, so Nature cares only for the man or woman shut up in the humanbeing. The sculptor cares nothing for the block as such; Nature haslittle regard for the mere lump of breathing clay. The sculptor willchip off all unnecessary material to set free the angel. Nature willchip and pound us remorselessly to bring out our possibilities. Shewill strip us of wealth, humble our pride, humiliate our ambition, letus down from the ladder of fame, will discipline us in a thousand ways, if she can develop a little character. Everything must give way tothat. 

 "The hero is not fed on sweets, Daily his own heart he eats; Chambers of the great are jails, And head-winds right for royal sails. "

 Then welcome each rebuff, That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting, that bids not sit nor stand but go. BROWNING. 

CHAPTER XXVIII

DECISION

Resolve, and thou art free. --LONGFELLOW. 

The heaviest charged words in our language are those briefest ones, "yes" and "no. " One stands for the surrender of the will, the otherfor denial; one stands for gratification, the other for character. Astout "no" means a stout character, the ready "yes" a weak one, gild itas we may. --T. T. MUNGER. 

The world is a market where everything is marked at a set price, andwhatever we buy with our time, labor, or ingenuity, whether riches, ease, fame, integrity, or knowledge, we must stand by our decision, andnot like children, when we have purchased one thing, repine that we donot possess another we did not buy. --MATHEWS. 

A man must master his undertaking and not let it master him. He musthave the power to decide instantly on which side he is going to makehis mistakes. --P. D. ARMOUR. 

When Rome was besieged by the Gauls in the time of the Republic, theRomans were so hard pressed that they consented to purchase immunitywith gold. They were in the act of weighing it, a legend tells us, when Camillus appeared on the scene, threw his sword into the scales inplace of the ransom, and declared that the Romans should not purchasepeace, but would win it with the sword. This act of daring and promptdecision so roused the Romans that they triumphantly swept from thesacred soil the enemy of their peace. 

In an emergency, the arrival of a prompt, decided, positive man, whowill do something, although it may be wrong, changes the face ofeverything. Such a man comes upon the scene like a refreshing breezeblown down from the mountain top. He is a tonic to the hesitating, bewildered crowd. 

When Antiochus Epiphanes invaded Egypt, which was then under theprotection of Rome, the Romans sent an ambassador who met Antiochusnear Alexandria and commanded him to withdraw. The invader gave anevasive reply. The brave Roman swept a circle around the king with hissword, and forbade his crossing the line until he had given his answer. By the prompt decision of the intrepid ambassador the invader was ledto withdraw, and war was prevented. The prompt decision of the Romanswon them many a battle, and made them masters of the world. All thegreat achievements in the history of the world are the results of quickand steadfast decision. 

Men who have left their mark upon their century have been men of greatand prompt decision. An undecided man, a man who is ever balancingbetween two opinions, forever debating which of two courses he willpursue, proclaims by his indecision that he can not control himself, that he was meant to be possessed by others; he is not a man, only asatellite. The decided man, the prompt man, does not wait forfavorable circumstances; he does not submit to events; events mustsubmit to him. 

The vacillating man is ever at the mercy of the opinion of the man whotalked with him last. He may see the right, but he drifts toward thewrong. If he decides upon a course he only follows it until somebodyopposes it. 

When Julius Caesar came to the Rubicon, which formed the boundary ofItalia, --"the sacred and inviolable, "--even his great decision waveredat the thought of invading a territory which no general was allowed toenter without the permission of the Senate. But his alternative was"destroy myself, or destroy my country, " and his intrepid mind did notwaver long. "The die is cast, " he said, as he dashed into the streamat the head of his legions. The whole history of the world was changedby that moment's decision. The man who said, "I came, I saw, Iconquered, " could not hesitate long. He, like Napoleon, had the powerto choose one course, and sacrifice every conflicting plan on theinstant. When he landed with his troops in Britain, the inhabitantsresolved never to surrender. Caesar's quick mind saw that he mustcommit his soldiers to victory or death. In order to cut off all hopeof retreat, he burned all the ships which had borne them to the shoresof Britain. There was no hope of return, it was victory or death. This action was the key to the character and triumphs of this greatwarrior. 

Satan's sublime decision in "Paradise Lost, " after his hopelessbanishment from heaven, excites a feeling akin to admiration. After afew moments of terrible suspense he resumes his invincible spirit andexpresses that sublime line: "What matter where, if I be still thesame?"

That power to decide instantly the best course to pursue, and tosacrifice every opposing motive; and, when once sacrificed, to silencethem forever and not allow them continually to plead their claims anddistract us from our single decided course, is one of the most potentforces in winning success. To hesitate is sometimes to be lost. Infact, the man who is forever twisting and turning, backing and filling, hesitating and dawdling, shuffling and parleying, weighing andbalancing, splitting hairs over non-essentials, listening to every newmotive which presents itself, will never accomplish anything. There isnot positiveness enough in him; negativeness never accomplishesanything. The negative man creates no confidence, he only invitesdistrust. But the positive man, the decided man, is a power in theworld, and stands for something. You can measure him, gauge him. Youcan estimate the work that his energy will accomplish. It is relatedof Alexander the Great that, when asked how it was that he hadconquered the world, he replied, "By not wavering. "

When the packet ship _Stephen Whitney_ struck, at midnight, on an Irishcliff, and clung for a few moments to the cliff, all the passengers wholeaped instantly upon the rock were saved. The positive step landedthem in safety. Those who lingered were swept off by the returningwave, and engulfed forever. 

The vacillating man is never a prompt man, and without promptness nosuccess is possible. Great opportunities not only come seldom into themost fortunate life, but also are often quickly gone. 

"A man without decision, " says John Foster, "can never be said tobelong to himself; since if he dared to assert that he did, the punyforce of some cause, about as powerful as a spider, may make a seizureof the unhappy boaster the very next minute, and contemptuously exhibitthe futility of the determination by which he was to have proved theindependence of his understanding and will. He belongs to whatever canmake capture of him; and one thing after another vindicates its rightto him by arresting him while he is trying to go on; as twigs and chipsfloating near the edge of a river are intercepted by every weed andwhirled into every little eddy. "

The decided man not only has the advantage of the time saved fromdillydallying and procrastination, but he also saves the energy andvital force which is wasted by the perplexed man who takes up everyargument on one side and then on the other, and weighs them until thetwo sides hang in equipoise, with no prepondering motive to enable himto decide. He is in stable equilibrium, and so does not move at all ofhis own volition, but moves very easily at the slightest volition ofanother. 

Yet there is not a man living who might not be a prompt and decided manif he would only learn always to act quickly. The punctual man, thedecided man, can do twice as much as the undecided and dawdling man whonever quite knows what he wants. Prompt decision saved Napoleon andGrant and their armies many a time when delay would have been fatal. Napoleon used to say that although a battle might last an entire day, yet it generally turned upon a few critical minutes, in which the fateof the engagement was decided. His will, which subdued nearly thewhole of Europe, was as prompt and decisive in the minutest detail ofcommand as in the greatest battle. 

Decision of purpose and promptness of action enabled him to astonishthe world with his marvelous successes. He seemed to be everywhere atonce. What he could accomplish in a day surprised all who knew him. He seemed to electrify everybody about him. His invincible energythrilled the whole army. He could rouse to immediate and enthusiasticaction the dullest troops, and inspire with courage the most stupidmen. The "ifs and buts, " he said, "are at present out of season; andabove all it must be done with speed. " He would sit up all night ifnecessary, after riding thirty or forty leagues, to attend tocorrespondence, dispatches and, details. What a lesson to dawdling, shiftless, half-hearted men!

"The doubt of Charles V. , " says Motley, "changed the destinies of thecivilized world. "

So powerful were President Washington's views in determining theactions of the people, that when Congress adjourned, Jefferson wrote toMonroe at Paris: "You will see by their proceedings the truth of what Ialways told you, --namely, that one man outweighs them all in influence, who supports his judgment against their own and that of theirrepresentatives. Republicanism resigns the vessel to the pilot. "

There is no vocation or occupation which does not present manydifficulties, at times almost overwhelming, and the young man whoallows himself to waver every time he comes to a hard place in lifewill not succeed. Without decision there can be no concentration; and, to succeed, a man must concentrate. 

The undecided man can not bring himself to a focus. He dissipates hisenergy, scatters his forces, and executes nothing. He can not hold toone thing long enough to bring success out of it. One vocation oroccupation presents its rosy side to him, he feels sure it is the thinghe wants to do, and, full of enthusiasm, adopts it as his life's work. But in a few days the thorns begin to appear, his enthusiasmevaporates, and he wonders why he is so foolish as to think himselffitted for that vocation. The one which his friend adopted is muchbetter suited to him; he drops his own and adopts the other. So hevacillates through life, captured by any new occupation which happensto appeal to him as the most desirable at the time, never using hisjudgment or common sense, but governed by his impressions and hisfeelings at the moment. Such people are never led by principle. Younever know where to find them; they are here to-day and thereto-morrow, doing this thing and that thing, throwing away all the skillthey had acquired in mastering the drudgery of the last occupation. Infact, they never go far enough in anything to get beyond the drudgerystage to the remunerative and agreeable stage, the skilful stage. Theyspend their lives at the beginning of occupations, which are alwaysmost agreeable. These people rarely reach the stage of competency, comfort, and contentment. 

There is a legend of a powerful genius who promised a lovely maiden agift of rare value if she would go through a field of corn, and, without pausing, going backward, or wandering hither and thither, select the largest and ripest ear. The value of the gift was to be inproportion to the size and perfection of the ear. She passed by manymagnificent ones, but was so eager to get the largest and most perfectthat she kept on without plucking any until the ears she passed weresuccessively smaller and smaller and more stunted. Finally they becameso small that she was ashamed to select one of them; and, not beingallowed to go backward, she came out on the other side without any. 

Alexander, his heart throbbing with a great purpose, conquers theworld; Hannibal, impelled by his hatred to the Romans, even crosses theAlps to compass his design. While other men are bemoaning difficultiesand shrinking from dangers and obstacles, and preparing expedients, thegreat soul, without fuss or noise, takes the step, and lo, the mountainhas been leveled and the way lies open. Learn, then, to will stronglyand decisively; thus fix your floating life and leave it no longer tobe carried hither and thither, like a withered leaf, by every wind thatblows. An undecided man is like the turnstile at a fair, which is ineverybody's way but stops no one. 

"The secret of the whole matter was, " replied Amos Lawrence, "we hadformed the habit of prompt acting, thus taking the top of the tide;while the habit of some others was to delay till about half tide, thusgetting on the flats. "

Most of the young men and women who are lost in our cities are ruinedbecause of their inability to say "No" to the thousand allurements andtemptations which appeal to their weak passions. If they would onlyshow a little decision at first, one emphatic "No" might silence theirsolicitors forever. But they are weak, they are afraid of offending, they don't like to say "No, " and thus they throw down the gauntlet andare soon on the broad road to ruin. A little resolution early in lifewill soon conquer the right to mind one's own business. 

An old legend says that a fool and a wise man were journeying together, and came to a point where two ways opened before them, --one broad andbeautiful, the other narrow and rough. The fool desired to take thepleasant way; the wise man knew that the difficult one was the shortestand safest, and so declared. But at last the urgency of the foolprevailed; they took the more inviting path, and were soon met byrobbers, who seized their goods and made them captives. A little laterboth they and their captors were arrested by officers of the law andtaken before the judge. Then the wise man pleaded that the fool was toblame because he desired to take the wrong way. The fool pleaded thathe was only a fool, and no sensible man should have heeded his counsel. The judge punished them both equally. "If sinners entice thee, consentthou not. "

There is no habit that so grows on the soul as irresolution. Before aman knows what he has done, he has gambled his life away, and allbecause he has never made up his mind what he would do with it. Onmany of the tombstones of those who have failed in life could be readbetween the lines: "He Dawdled, " "Behind Time, " "Procrastination, ""Listlessness, " "Shiftlessness, " "Nervelessness, " "Always Behind. " Oh, the wrecks strewn along the shores of life "just behind success, " "justthis side of happiness, " above which the words of warning are flying!

Webster said of such an undecided man that "he is like the irresolutionof the sea at the turn of tide. This man neither advances nor recedes;he simply hovers. " Such a man is at the mercy of any chance occurrencethat may overtake him. His "days are lost lamenting o'er lost days. "He has no power to seize the facts which confront him and compel themto serve him. 

To indolent, shiftless, listless people life becomes a mere shuffle ofexpedients. They do not realize that the habit of putting everythingoff puts off their manhood, their capacity, their success; theircontagion infects their whole neighborhood. Scott used to cautionyouth against the habit of dawdling, which creeps in at every creviceof unoccupied time and often ruins a bright life. "Your motto mustbe, " he said, "_Hoc age_, "--do instantly. This is the only way tocheck the propensity to dawdling. How many hours have been wasteddawdling in bed, turning over and dreading to get up! Many a careerhas been crippled by it. Burton could not overcome this habit, and, convinced that it would ruin his success, made his servant promisebefore he went to bed to get him up at just such a time; the servantcalled, and called, and coaxed; but Burton would beg him to be left alittle longer. The servant, knowing that he would lose his shilling ifhe did not get him up, then dashed cold water into the bed between thesheets, and Burton came out with a bound. When one asked a lazy youngfellow what made him lie in bed so long, "I am employed, " said he, "inhearing counsel every morning. _Industry_ advises me to get up;_Sloth_ to lie still; and they give me twenty reasons for and against. It is my part, as an impartial judge, to hear all that can be said onboth sides, and by the time the cause is over dinner is ready. "

There is no doubt that, as a rule, great decision of character isusually accompanied by great constitutional firmness. Men who havebeen noted for great firmness of character have usually been strong androbust. There is no quality of the mind which does not sympathize withbodily weakness, and especially is this true with the power ofdecision, which is usually impaired or weakened from physical sufferingor any great physical debility. As a rule, it is the strong physicalman who carries weight and conviction. Any bodily weakness, orlassitude, or lack of tone and vigor, is, perhaps, first felt in theweakened or debilitated power of decisions. 

Nothing will give greater confidence, and bring assistance more quicklyfrom the bank or from a friend, than the reputation of promptness. Theworld knows that the prompt man's bills and notes will be paid on theday, and will trust him. "Let it be your first study to teach theworld that you are not wood and straw; that there is some iron in you. ""Let men know that what you say you will do; that your decision, oncemade, is final, --no wavering; that, once resolved, you are not to beallured or intimidated. "

Some minds are so constructed that they are bewildered and dazedwhenever a responsibility is thrust upon them; they have a mortal dreadof deciding anything. The very effort to come to immediate andunflinching decision starts up all sorts of doubts, difficulties, andfears, and they can not seem to get light enough to decide nor courageenough to attempt to remove the obstacle. They know that hesitation isfatal to enterprise, fatal to progress, fatal to success. Yet somehowthey seem fated with a morbid introspection which ever holds them insuspense. They have just energy enough to weigh motives, but nothingleft for the momentum of action. They analyze and analyze, deliberate, weigh, consider, ponder, but never act. How many a man can trace hisdownfall in life to the failure to seize his opportunity at thefavorable moment, when it was within easy grasp, the nick of time, which often does not present itself but once!

It was said that Napoleon had an officer under him who understood thetactics of war better than his commander, but he lacked that power ofrapid decision and powerful concentration which characterized thegreatest military leaders perhaps of the world. There were severalgenerals under Grant who were as well skilled in war tactics, knew thecountry as well, were better educated, but they lacked that power ofdecision which made unconditional surrender absolutely imperativewherever he met the foe. Grant's decision was like inexorable fate. There was no going behind it, no opening it up for reconsideration. Itwas his decision which voiced itself in those memorable words in theWilderness, "I propose to fight it out on these lines if it takes allsummer, " and which sent back the words "unconditional surrender" toGeneral Buckner, who asked him for conditions of capitulation, thatgave the first confidence to the North that the rebellion was doomed. At last Lincoln had a general who had the power of decision, and theNorth breathed easy for the first time. 

The man who would forge to the front in this competitive age must be aman of prompt and determined decision; like Caesar, he must burn hisships behind him, and make retreat forever impossible. When he drawshis sword he must throw the scabbard away, lest in a moment ofdiscouragement and irresolution he be tempted to sheathe it. He mustnail his colors to the mast as Nelson did in battle, determined to sinkwith his ship if he can not conquer. Prompt decision and sublimeaudacity have carried many a successful man over perilous crises wheredeliberation would have been ruin. 

"_Hoc age_. "

CHAPTER XXIX

OBSERVATION AS A SUCCESS FACTOR

Henry Ward Beecher was not so foolish as to think that he could get onwithout systematic study, and a thorough-going knowledge of the worldof books. "When I first went to Brooklyn, " he said, "men doubtedwhether I could sustain myself. I replied, 'Give me uninterrupted timetill nine o'clock every morning, and I do not care what comes after. '"

He was a hard student during four hours every morning; those who sawhim after that imagined that he picked up the material for his sermonson the street. 

Yet having said so much, it is true that much that was most vital inhis preaching he did pick up on the street. 

"Where does Mr. Beecher get his sermons?" every ambitious youngclergyman in the country was asking, and upon one occasion he answered:"I keep my eyes open and ask questions. "

This is the secret of many a man's success, --keeping his eyes open andasking questions. Although Beecher was an omnivorous reader he did notcare much for the writings of the theologians; the Christ was his greatmodel, and he knew that He did not search the writings of the Sanhedrinfor His sermons, but picked them up as He walked along the banks of theJordan and over the hills and through the meadows and villages ofGalilee. He saw that the strength of this great Master's sermons wasin their utter simplicity, their naturalness. 

Beecher's sermons were very simple, healthy, and strong. They pulsatedwith life; they had the vigor of bright red blood in them, because, like Christ's, they grew out of doors. He got them everywhere fromlife and nature. He picked them up in the marketplace, on Wall Street, in the stores. He got them from the brakeman, the mechanic, theblacksmith, the day laborer, the newsboy, the train conductor, theclerk, the lawyer, the physician, and the business man. 

He did not watch the progress of the great human battle from his study, as many did. He went into the thick of the fight himself. He was inthe smoke and din. Where the battle of life raged fiercest, there hewas studying its great problems. Now it was the problem of slavery;again the problem of government, or commerce, or education, --whatevertouched the lives of men. He kept his hand upon the pulse of events. He was in the swim of things. The great, busy, ambitious world waseverywhere throbbing for him. 

[Illustration: Henry Ward Beecher]

When he once got a taste of the power and helpfulness which comes fromthe study of real life, when he saw how much more forceful andinteresting actual life stories were as they were being lived thananything he could get out of any book except the Bible, he was neveragain satisfied without illustrations fresh from the lives of thepeople he met every day. 

Beecher believed a sermon a failure when it does not make a great massof hearers go away with a new determination to make a little more ofthemselves, to do their work a little better, to be a little moreconscientious, a little more helpful, a little more determined to dotheir share in the world. 

This great observer was not only a student of human nature, but of allnature as well. I watched him, many a time, completely absorbed indrinking in the beauties of the marvelous landscape, gathering grandeurand sublimity from the great White Mountains, which he loved so well, and where he spent many summers. 

He always preached on Sunday at the hotel where he stayed, and greatcrowds came from every direction to hear him. There was something inhis sermons that appealed to the best in everyone who heard him. Theywere full of pictures of beautiful landscapes, seascapes, andentrancing sunsets. The clouds, the rain, the sunshine, and the stormwere reflected in them. The flowers, the fields, the brooks, therecord of creation imprinted in the rocks and the mountains wereintermingled with the ferryboats, the steam-cars, orphans, calamities, accidents, all sorts of experiences and bits of life. Happiness andsunshine, birds and trees alternated with the direst poverty in theslums, people on sick beds and death beds, in hospitals and in funeralprocessions; life pictures of successes and failures, of thediscouraged, the despondent, the cheerful, the optimist and thepessimist, passed in quick succession and stamped themselves on thebrains of his eager hearers. 

Wherever he went, Beecher continued his study of life throughobservation. Nothing else was half so interesting. To him man was thegreatest study in the world. To place the right values upon men, toemphasize the right thing in them, to be able to discriminate betweenthe genuine and the false, to be able to pierce their masks and readthe real man or woman behind them, he regarded as one of a clergyman'sgreatest accomplishments. 

Like Professor Agassiz, who could see wonders in the scale of a fish ora grain of sand, Beecher had an eye like the glass of a microscope, which reveals marvels of beauty in common things. He could see beautyand harmony where others saw only ugliness and discord, because he readthe hidden meaning in things. Like Ruskin, he could see the marvelousphilosophy, the Divine plan, in the lowliest object. He could feel theDivine presence in all created things. 

"An exhaustive observation, " says Herbert Spencer, "is an element ofall great success. " There is no position in life where a trained eyecan not be made a great success asset. 

"Let's leave it to Osler, " said the physicians at a consultation wherea precious life hung by a thread. Then the great Johns Hopkinsprofessor examined the patient. He did not ask questions. Hisexperienced eye drew a conclusion from the slightest evidence. Hewatched the patient closely; his manner of breathing, the appearance ofthe eye, --everything was a telltale of the patient's condition, whichhe read as an open book. He saw symptoms which others could not see. He recommended a certain operation, which was performed, and thepatient recovered. The majority of those present disagreed with him, but such was their confidence in his power to diagnose a case throughsymptoms and indications which escape most physicians, that they werewilling to leave the whole decision to him. Professor Osler was calleda living X-ray machine, with additional eyes in finger tips so familiarwith the anatomy that they could detect a growth or displacement sosmall that it would escape ordinary notice. 

The power which inheres in a trained faculty of observation ispriceless. The education which Beecher got through observation, bykeeping his eyes, his ears, and his mind open, meant a great deal moreto him and to the world than his college education. He was not a greatscholar; he did not stand nearly as high in college as some of hisclassmates whom he far outstripped in life, but his mind penetrated tothe heart of things. 

Lincoln was another remarkable example of the possibilities of aneducation through reflection upon what he observed. His mind stoppedand questioned, and extracted the meaning of everything that camewithin its range. Wherever he went, there was a great interrogationpoint before him. Everything he saw must give up its secret before hewould let it go. He had a passion for knowledge; he yearned to knowthe meaning of things, the philosophy underlying the common, everydayoccurrences. 

Ruskin says: "Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think; butthousands can think for one who can see. "

I once traveled abroad with two young men, one of whom was alleyes, --nothing seemed to escape him, --and the other never saw anything. The day after leaving a city, the latter could scarcely recall anythingof interest, while the former had a genius for absorbing knowledge ofevery kind through the eye. Things so trivial that his companion didnot notice them at all, meant a great deal to him. He was a poorstudent, but he brought home rich treasures from over the sea. Theother young man was comparatively rich, and brought home almost nothingof value. 

While visiting Luther Burbank, the wizard horticulturist, in his famousgarden, recently, I was much impressed by his marvelous power of seeingthings. He has observed the habits of fruits and flowers to suchpurpose that he has performed miracles in the fields of floricultureand horticulture. Stunted and ugly flowers and fruits, under the eyeof this miracle worker, become marvels of beauty. 

George W. Cortelyou was a stenographer not long ago. Many peoplethought he would remain a stenographer, but he always kept his eyesopen. He was after an opportunity. Promotion was always staring himin the face. He was always looking for the next step above him. Hewas a shrewd observer. But for this power of seeing things quickly, ofabsorbing knowledge, he would never have advanced. 

The youth who would get on must keep his eyes open, his ears open, hismind open. He must be quick, alert, ready. 

I know a young Turk, who has been in this country only a year, yet hespeaks our language fluently. He has studied the map of our country. He knows its geography, and a great deal of our history, and much aboutour resources and opportunities. He said that when he landed in NewYork it seemed to him that he saw more opportunities in walking everyblock of our streets than he had ever seen in the whole of Turkey. Andhe could not understand the lethargy, the lack of ambition, theindifference of our young men to our marvelous possibilities. 

The efficient man is always growing. He is always accumulatingknowledge of every kind. He does not merely look with his eyes. Hesees with them. He keeps his ears open. He keeps his mind open to allthat is new and fresh and helpful. 

The majority of people do not _see_ things; they just _look_ at them. The power of keen observation is indicative of a superior mentality;for it is the mind, not the optic nerve, that really sees. 

Most people are too lazy, mentally, to see things carefully. Closeobservation is a powerful mental process. The mind is all the timeworking over the material which the eye brings it, considering, formingopinions, estimating, weighing, balancing, calculating. 

Careless, indifferent observation does not go back of the eye. If themind is not focused, the image is not clean-cut, and is not carriedwith force and distinctness enough to the brain to enable it to get atthe truth and draw accurate conclusions. 

The observing faculty is particularly susceptible to culture, and iscapable of becoming a mighty power. Few people realize what atremendous success and happiness is possible through the medium of theeye. 

The telegraph, the sewing machine, the telephone, the telescope, themiracles of electricity, in fact, every great invention of the past orpresent, every triumph of modern labor-saving machinery, everydiscovery in science and art, is due to the trained power of seeingthings. 

The whole secret of a richly stored mind is alertness, sharp, keenattention, and thoughtfulness. Indifference, apathy, mental lassitudeand laziness are fatal to all effective observation. 

It does not take long to develop a habit of attention that seizes thesalient points of things. 

It is a splendid drill for children to send them out on the street, orout of doors anywhere, just for the purpose of finding out how manythings they can see in a certain given time, and how closely they canobserve them. Just the effort to try to see how much they can rememberand bring back is a splendid drill. Children often become passionatelyfond of this exercise, and it becomes of inestimable value in theirlives. 

Other things equal, it is the keen observer who gets ahead. Go into aplace of business with the eye of an eagle. Let nothing escape you. Ask yourself why it is that the proprietor at fifty or sixty years ofage is conducting a business which a boy of eighteen or twenty ought tobe able to handle better. Study his employees; analyze the situation. You will find perhaps that he never knew the value of good manners inclerks. He thought a boy, if honest, would make a good salesman; but, perhaps, by gruff, uncouth manners, he is driving out of the doorcustomers the proprietor is trying to bring in by advertisements. Youwill see by his show windows, perhaps, before you go into his store, that there is no business insight, no detection of the wants ofpossible buyers. If you keep your eyes open, you can, in a littlewhile, find out why this man is not a greater success. You can seethat a little more knowledge of human nature would have revolutionizedhis whole business, multiplied the receipts tenfold in a few years. You will see that this man has not studied men. He does not know them. 

No matter where you go, study the situation. Think why the man doesnot do better if he is not doing well, why he remains in mediocrity allhis life. If he is making a remarkable success, try to find out why. Keep your eyes open, your ears open. Make deductions from what you seeand hear. Trace difficulties; look up evidences of success or failureeverywhere. It will be one of the greatest factors in your own success. 

CHAPTER XXX

SELF-HELP

I learned that no man in God's wide earth is either willing or able tohelp any other man. --PESTALOZZI. 

What I am I have made myself. --HUMPHRY DAVY. 

Be sure, my son, and remember that the best men always makethemselves. --PATRICK HENRY. 

 Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the blow? BYRON. 

 Who waits to have his task marked out, Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled. LOWELL. 

"Colonel Crockett makes room for himself!" exclaimed a backwoodscongressman in answer to the exclamation of the White House usher to"Make room for Colonel Crockett!" This remarkable man was not afraidto oppose the head of a great nation. He preferred being right tobeing president. Though rough, uncultured, and uncouth, Crockett was aman of great courage and determination. 

"Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify, " said James A. Garfield;"but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a youngman is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim forhimself. In all my acquaintance I have never known a man to be drownedwho was worth the saving. "

Garfield was the youngest member of the House of Representatives whenhe entered, but he had not been in his seat sixty days before hisability was recognized and his place conceded. He stepped to the frontwith the confidence of one who belonged there. He succeeded becauseall the world in concert could not have kept him in the background, andbecause when once in the front he played his part with an intrepidityand a commanding ease that were but the outward evidences of theimmense reserves of energy on which it was in his power to draw. 

"Take the place and attitude which belong to you, " says Emerson, "andall men acquiesce. The world must be just. It leaves every man withprofound unconcern to set his own rate. "

"A person under the firm persuasion that he can command resourcesvirtually has them, " says Livy. 

Richard Arkwright, the thirteenth child, in a hovel, with no education, no chance, gave his spinning model to the world, and put a scepter inEngland's right hand such as the queen never wielded. 

Solario, a wandering gypsy tinker, fell deeply in love with thedaughter of the painter Coll' Antonio del Fiore, but was told that noone but a painter as good as the father should wed the maiden. "Willyou give me ten years to learn to paint, and so entitle myself to thehand of your daughter?" Consent was given, Coll' Antonio thinking thathe would never be troubled further by the gypsy. 

About the time that the ten years were to end the king's sister showedColl' Antonio a Madonna and Child, which the painter extolled in termsof the highest praise. Judge of his surprise on learning that Solariowas the artist. His great determination gained him his bride. 

Louis Philippe said he was the only sovereign in Europe fit to govern, for he could black his own boots. 

When asked to name his family coat-of-arms, a self-made President ofthe United States replied, "A pair of shirtsleeves. "

It is not the men who have inherited most, except it be in nobility ofsoul and purpose, who have risen highest; but rather the men with no"start" who have won fortunes, and have made adverse circumstances aspur to goad them up the steep mount, where

 "Fame's proud temple shines afar. "

To such men, every possible goal is accessible, and honest ambition hasno height that genius or talent may tread, which has not felt theimpress of their feet. 

You may leave your millions to your son, but have you really given himanything? You can not transfer the discipline, the experience, thepower, which the acquisition has given you; you can not transfer thedelight of achieving, the joy felt only in growth, the pride ofacquisition, the character which trained habits of accuracy, method, promptness, patience, dispatch, honesty of dealing, politeness ofmanner have developed. You cannot transfer the skill, sagacity, prudence, foresight, which lie concealed in your wealth. It meant agreat deal for you, but means nothing to your heir. In climbing toyour fortune, you developed the muscle, stamina, and strength whichenabled you to maintain your lofty position, to keep your millionsintact. You had the power which comes only from experience, and whichalone enables you to stand firm on your dizzy height. Your fortune wasexperience to you, joy, growth, discipline, and character; to him itwill be a temptation, an anxiety, which will probably dwarf him. Itwas wings to you, it will be a dead weight to him; to you it waseducation and expansion of your highest powers; to him it may meaninaction, lethargy, indolence, weakness, ignorance. You have taken thepriceless spur--necessity--away from him, the spur which has goaded manto nearly all the great achievements in the history of the world. 

You thought it a kindness to deprive yourself in order that your sonmight begin where you left off. You thought to spare him the drudgery, the hardships, the deprivations, the lack of opportunities, the meagereducation, which you had on the old farm. But you have put a crutchinto his hand instead of a staff; you have taken away from him theincentive to self-development, to self-elevation, to self-disciplineand self-help, without which no real success, no real happiness, nogreat character is ever possible. His enthusiasm will evaporate, hisenergy will be dissipated, his ambition, not being stimulated by thestruggle for self-elevation, will gradually die away. If you doeverything for your son and fight his battles for him, you will have aweakling on your hands at twenty-one. 

"My life is a wreck, " said the dying Cyrus W. Field, "my fortune gone, my home dishonored. Oh, I was so unkind to Edward when I thought I wasbeing kind. If I had only had firmness enough to compel my boys toearn their living, then they would have known the meaning of money. "His table was covered with medals and certificates of honor from manynations, in recognition of his great work for civilization in mooringtwo continents side by side in thought, of the fame he had won andcould never lose. But grief shook the sands of life as he thought onlyof the son who had brought disgrace upon a name before unsullied; thewounds were sharper than those of a serpent's tooth. 

During the great financial crisis of 1857 Maria Mitchell, who wasvisiting England, asked an English lady what became of daughters whenno property was left them. "They live on their brothers, " was thereply. "But what becomes of the American daughters, " asked the Englishlady, "when there is no money left?" "They earn it, " was MissMitchell's reply. 

Men who have been bolstered up all their lives are seldom good foranything in a crisis. When misfortune comes, they look around forsomebody to lean upon. It the prop is not there, down they go. Oncedown, they are as helpless as capsized turtles, or unhorsed men inarmor. Many a frontier boy has succeeded beyond all his expectationssimply because all props were early knocked out from under him and hewas obliged to stand upon his own feet. 

"A man's best friends are his ten fingers, " said Robert Collyer, whobrought his wife to America in the steerage. 

There is no manhood mill which takes in boys and turns out men. Whatyou call "no chance" may be your only chance. Don't wait for yourplace to be made for you; make it yourself. Don't wait for somebody togive you a lift; lift yourself. Henry Ward Beecher did not wait for acall to a big church with a large salary. He accepted the firstpastorate offered him, in a little town near Cincinnati. He becameliterally the light of the church, for he trimmed the lamps, kindledthe fires, swept the rooms, and rang the bell. His salary was onlyabout $200 a year, --but he knew that a fine church and great salary cannot make a great man. It was work and opportunity that he wanted. Hefelt that if there were anything in him work would bring it out. 

When Beethoven was examining the work of Moscheles, he found written atthe end, "Finis, with God's help. " He wrote under it, "Man, helpyourself. "

A young man stood listlessly watching some anglers on a bridge. He waspoor and dejected. At length, approaching a basket filled with fish, he sighed, "If now I had these I would be happy. I could sell them andbuy food and lodgings. " "I will give you just as many and just asgood, " said the owner, who chanced to overhear his words, "if you willdo me a trifling favor. " "And what is that?" asked the other. "Onlyto tend this line till I come back; I wish to go on a short errand. "The proposal was gladly accepted. The old man was gone so long thatthe young man began to get impatient. Meanwhile the fish snappedgreedily at the hook, and he lost all his depression in the excitementof pulling them in. When the owner returned he had caught a largenumber. Counting out from them as many as were in the basket, andpresenting them to the youth, the old fisherman said, "I fulfil mypromise from the fish you have caught, to teach you whenever you seeothers earning what you need to waste no time in foolish wishing, butcast a line for yourself. "

A white squall caught a party of tourists on a lake in Scotland, andthreatened to capsize the boat. When it seemed that the crisis hadreally come, the largest and strongest man in the party, in a state ofintense fear, said, "Let us pray. " "No, no, my man, " shouted the bluffold boatman; "_let the little man pray. You take an oar. _"

The grandest fortunes ever accumulated or possessed on earth were andare the fruit of endeavor that had no capital to begin with saveenergy, intellect, and the will. From Croesus down to Rockefeller thestory is the same, not only in the getting of wealth, but also in theacquirement of eminence; those men have won most who relied most uponthemselves. 

"The male inhabitants in the Township of Loaferdom, in the County ofHatework, " says a printer's squib, "found themselves laboring undergreat inconvenience for want of an easily traveled road between Povertyand Independence. They therefore petitioned the Powers that be to levya tax upon the property of the entire county for the purpose of layingout a macadamized highway, broad and smooth, and all the way down hillto the latter place. "

"Every one is the artificer of his own fortune, " says Sallust. 

Man is not merely the architect of his own fate, but he must lay thebricks himself. Bayard Taylor, at twenty-three, wrote: "I will becomethe sculptor of my own mind's statue. " His biography shows how oftenthe chisel and hammer were in his hands to shape himself into his ideal. 

Labor is the only legal tender in the world to true success. The godssell everything for that, nothing without it. You will never findsuccess "marked down. " The door to the temple of success is never leftopen. Every one who enters makes his own door, which closes behind himto all others. 

Circumstances have rarely favored great men. They have fought theirway to triumph over the road of difficulty and through all sorts ofopposition. A lowly beginning and a humble origin are no bar to agreat career. The farmer's boys fill many of the greatest places inlegislatures, in business, at the bar, in pulpits, in Congress, to-day. Boys of lowly origin have made many of the greatest discoveries, arepresidents of our banks, of our colleges, of our universities. Ourpoor boys and girls have written many of our greatest books, and havefilled the highest places as teachers and journalists. Ask almost anygreat man in our large cities where he was born, and he will tell youit was on a farm or in a small country village. Nearly all of thegreat capitalists of the city came from the country. 

Isaac Rich, the founder of Boston University, left Cape Cod for Bostonto make his way with a capital of only four dollars. Like HoraceGreeley, he could find no opening for a boy; but what of that? He madean opening. He found a board, and made it into an oyster stand on thestreet corner. He borrowed a wheelbarrow, and went three miles to anoyster smack, bought three bushels of oysters, and wheeled them to hisstand. Soon his little savings amounted to $130, and then he bought ahorse and cart. 

Self-help has accomplished about all the great things of the world. How many young men falter, faint, and dally with their purpose becausethey have no capital to start with, and wait and wait for some goodluck to give them a lift! But success is the child of drudgery andperseverance. It cannot be coaxed or bribed; pay the price and it isyours. Where is the boy to-day who has less chance to rise in theworld than Elihu Burritt, apprenticed to a blacksmith, in whose shop hehad to work at the forge all the daylight, and often by candle-light?Yet, he managed, by studying with a book before him at his meals, carrying it in his pocket that he might utilize every spare moment, andstudying at night and holidays, to pick up an excellent education inthe odds and ends of time which most boys throw away. While the richboy and the idler were yawning and stretching and getting their eyesopen, young Burritt had seized the opportunity and improved it. Atthirty years of age he was master of every important language in Europeand was studying those of Asia. What chance had such a boy fordistinction?

Probably not a single youth will read this book who has not a betteropportunity for success. Yet he had a thirst for knowledge and adesire for self-improvement, which overcame every obstacle in hispathway. 

If the youth of America who are struggling against cruel circumstancesto do something and be somebody in the world could only understand thatninety per cent. Of what is called genius is merely the result ofpersistent, determined industry, in most cases of down-right hard work, that it is the slavery to a single idea which has given to many amediocre talent the reputation of being a genius, they would beinspired with new hope. It is interesting to note that the men whotalk most about genius are the men who like to work the least. Thelazier the man, the more he will have to say about great things beingdone by genius. 

The greatest geniuses have been the greatest workers. Sheridan wasconsidered a genius, but it was found that the "brilliants" and"off-hand sayings" with which he used to dazzle the House of Commonswere elaborated, polished and repolished, and put down in hismemorandum book ready for any emergency. 

Genius has been well defined as the infinite capacity for taking pains. If men who have done great things could only reveal to the strugglingyouth of to-day how much of their reputations was due to downright harddigging and plodding, what an uplift of inspiration and encouragementthey would give! How often I have wished that the discouraged, struggling youth could know of the heartaches, the headaches, thenerve-aches, the disheartening trials, the discouraged hours, the fearsand despair involved in works which have gained the admiration of theworld, but which have taxed the utmost powers of their authors. Youcan read in a few minutes or a few hours a poem or a book with onlypleasure and delight, but the days and months of weary plodding overdetails and dreary drudgery often required to produce it would staggerbelief. 

The greatest works in literature have been elaborated and elaborated, line by line, paragraph by paragraph, often rewritten a dozen times. The drudgery which literary men have put into the productions whichhave stood the test of time is almost incredible. Lucretius workednearly a lifetime on one poem. It completely absorbed his life. It issaid that Bryant rewrote "Thanatopsis" a hundred times, and even thenwas not satisfied with it. John Foster would sometimes linger a weekover a single sentence. He would hack, split, prune, pull up by theroots, or practise any other severity on whatever he wrote, till itgained his consent to exist. Chalmers was once asked what Foster wasabout in London. "Hard at it, " he replied, "at the rate of a line aweek. "

Even Lord Bacon, one of the greatest geniuses that ever lived, at hisdeath left large numbers of manuscripts filled with "sudden thoughtsset down for use. " Hume toiled thirteen hours a day on his "History ofEngland. " Lord Eldon astonished the world with his great legallearning, but when he was a student too poor to buy books, he hadactually borrowed and copied many hundreds of pages of large law books. Matthew Hale for years studied law sixteen hours a day. Speaking ofFox, some one declared that he wrote "drop by drop. " Rousseau says ofthe labor involved in his smooth and lively style: "My manuscripts, blotted, scratched, interlined, and scarcely legible, attest thetrouble they cost me. There is not one of them which I have not beenobliged to transcribe four or five times before it went to press. . . . Some of my periods I have turned or returned in my head for five or sixnights before they were fit to be put to paper. "

Beethoven probably surpassed all other musicians in his painstakingfidelity and persistent application. There is scarcely a bar in hismusic that was not written and rewritten at least a dozen times. Hisfavorite maxim was, "The barriers are not yet erected which can say toaspiring talent and industry 'thus far and no further. '" Gibbon wrotehis autobiography nine times, and was in his study every morning, summer and winter, at six o'clock; and yet youth who waste theirevenings wonder at the genius which can produce "The Decline and Fallof the Roman Empire, " upon which Gibbon worked twenty years. EvenPlato, one of the greatest writers that ever lived, wrote the firstsentence in his "Republic" nine different ways before he was satisfiedwith it. Burke wrote the conclusion of his speech at the trial ofHastings sixteen times, and Butler his famous "Analogy" twenty times. It took Vergil seven years to write his Georgics, and twelve years towrite the Aeneid. He was so displeased with the latter that heattempted to rise from his deathbed to commit it to the flames. 

Haydn was very poor; his father was a coachman and he, friendless andlonely, married a servant girl. He was sent away from home to act aserrand boy for a music teacher. He absorbed a great deal ofinformation, but he had a hard life of persecution until he became abarber in Vienna. Here he blacked boots for an influential man, whobecame a friend to him. In 1798 this poor boy's oratorio, "TheCreation, " came upon the musical world like the rising of a new sunwhich never set. He was courted by princes and dined with kings andqueens; his reputation was made; there was no more barbering, no morepoverty. But of his eight hundred compositions, "The Creation"eclipsed them all. He died while Napoleon's guns were bombardingVienna, some of the shot falling in his garden. 

When a man like Lord Cavanagh, without arms or legs, manages to puthimself into Parliament, when a man like Francis Joseph Campbell, ablind man, becomes a distinguished mathematician, a musician, and agreat philanthropist, we get a hint as to what it means to make themost possible out of ourselves and our opportunities. Perhapsninety-nine of a hundred under such unfortunate circumstances would becontent to remain helpless objects of charity for life. If it is yourcall to acquire money power instead of brain power, to acquire businesspower instead of professional power, double your talent just the same, no matter what it may be. 

A glover's apprentice of Glasgow, Scotland, who was too poor to affordeven a candle or a fire, and who studied by the light of the shopwindows in the streets, and when the shops were closed climbed thelamp-post, holding his book in one hand, and clinging to the lamp-postwith the other, --this poor boy, with less chance than almost any boy inAmerica, became the most eminent scholar of Scotland. 

Francis Parkman, half blind, became one of America's greatesthistorians in spite of everything, because he made himself such. Personal value is a coin of one's own minting; one is taken at theworth he has put into himself. Franklin was but a poor printer's boy, whose highest luxury at one time was only a penny roll, eaten in thestreets of Philadelphia. 

Michael Faraday was a poor boy, son of a blacksmith, who apprenticedhim at the age of thirteen to a bookbinder in London. Michael laid thefoundations of his future greatness by making himself familiar with thecontents of the books he bound. He remained at night, after others hadgone, to read and study the precious volumes. Lord Tenterden was proudto point out to his son the shop where he had shaved for a penny. AFrench doctor once taunted Fléchier, Bishop of Nismes, who had been atallow-chandler in his youth, with the meanness of his origin, to whichhe replied, "If you had been born in the same condition that I was, youwould still have been but a maker of candles. "

Edwin Chadwick, in his report to the British Parliament, stated thatchildren, working on half time (that is, studying three hours a day andworking the rest of their time out of doors), really made the greatestintellectual progress during the year. Business men have oftenaccomplished wonders during the busiest lives by simply devoting one, two, three, or four hours daily to study or other literary work. 

James Watt received only the rudiments of an education at school, forhis attendance was irregular on account of delicate health. He morethan made up for all deficiencies, however, by the diligence with whichhe pursued his studies at home. Alexander V was a beggar; he was "bornmud, and died marble. " William Herschel, placed at the age of fourteenas a musician in the band of the Hanoverian Guards, devoted all hisleisure to philosophical studies. He acquired a large fund of generalknowledge, and in astronomy, a science in which he was whollyself-instructed, his discoveries entitle him to rank with the greatestastronomers of all time. 

George Washington was the son of a widow, born under the roof of aWestmoreland farmer; almost from infancy his lot had been that of anorphan. No academy had welcomed him to its shade, no college crownedhim with its honors; to read, to write, to cipher--these had been hisdegrees in knowledge. Shakespeare learned little more than reading andwriting at school, but by self-culture he made himself the great masteramong literary men. Burns, too, enjoyed few advantages of education, and his youth was passed in almost abject poverty. 

James Ferguson, the son of a half-starved peasant, learned to read bylistening to the recitations of one of his elder brothers. While amere boy he discovered several mechanical principles, made models ofmills and spinning-wheels, and by means of beads on strings worked outan excellent map of the heavens. Ferguson made remarkable things witha common penknife. How many great men have mounted the hill ofknowledge by out-of-the-way paths! Gifford worked his intricateproblems with a shoemaker's awl on a bit of leather. Rittenhouse firstcalculated eclipses on his plow-handle. 

Columbus, while leading the life of a sailor, managed to become themost accomplished geographer and astronomer of his time. 

When Peter the Great, a boy of seventeen, became the absolute ruler ofRussia his subjects were little better than savages, and in himselfeven the passions and propensities of barbarism were so strong thatthey were frequently exhibited during his whole career. But hedetermined to transform himself and the Russians into civilized people. He instituted reforms with great energy, and at the age of twenty-sixstarted on a visit to the other countries of Europe for the purpose oflearning about their arts and institutions. At Saardam, Holland, hewas so impressed with the sights of the great East India dockyard thathe apprenticed himself to a shipbuilder, and helped to build the _St. Peter_, which he promptly purchased. Continuing his travels, after hehad learned his trade, he worked in England in paper-mills, saw-mills, rope-yards, watchmakers' shops, and other manufactories, doing the workand receiving the treatment of a common laborer. 

While traveling, his constant habit was to obtain as much informationas he could beforehand with regard to every place he was to visit, andhe would demand, "Let me see all. " When setting out on hisinvestigations, on such occasions, he carried his tablets in his handand whatever he deemed worthy of remembrance was carefully noted down. He would often leave his carriage if he saw the country people at workby the wayside as he passed along, and not only enter into conversationwith them on agricultural affairs, but also accompany them to theirhomes, examine their furniture, and take drawings of their implementsof husbandry. Thus he obtained much minute and correct knowledge, which he would scarcely have acquired by other means, and which heafterward turned to admirable account in the improvement of his owncountry. 

The ancients said, "Know thyself"; the twentieth century says, "Helpthyself. " Self-culture gives a second birth to the soul. A liberaleducation is a true regeneration. When a man is once liberallyeducated, he will generally remain a man, not shrink to a manikin, nordwindle to a brute. But if he is not properly educated, if he hasmerely been crammed and stuffed through college, if he has merely abroken-down memory from trying to hold crammed facts enough to pass theexamination, he will continue to shrink, shrivel, and dwindle, oftenbelow his original proportions, for he will lose both his confidenceand self-respect, as his crammed facts, which never became a part ofhimself, evaporate from his distended memory. 

Every bit of education or culture is of great advantage in the strugglefor existence. The microscope does not create anything new, but itreveals marvels. To educate the eye adds to its magnifying power untilit sees beauty where before it saw only ugliness. It reveals a worldwe never suspected, and finds the greatest beauty even in the commonestthings. The eye of an Agassiz could see worlds of which the uneducatedeye never dreamed. The cultured hand can do a thousand things theuneducated hand can not do. It becomes graceful, steady of nerve, strong, skilful, indeed it almost seems to think, so animated is itwith intelligence. The cultured will can seize, grasp, and hold thepossessor, with irresistible power and nerve, to almost superhumaneffort. The educated touch can almost perform miracles. The educatedtaste can achieve wonders almost past belief. What a contrast betweenthe cultured, logical, profound, masterly reason of a Gladstone andthat of the hod-carrier who has never developed or educated his reasonbeyond what is necessary to enable him to mix mortar and carry brick!

Be careful to avoid that over-intellectual culture which is purchasedat the expense of moral vigor. An observant professor of one of ourcolleges has remarked that "the mind may be so rounded and polished byeducation, and so well balanced, as not to be energetic in any onefaculty. In other men not thus trained, the sense of deficiency and ofthe sharp, jagged corners of their knowledge leads to efforts to fillup the chasms, rendering them at last far better educated men than thepolished, easy-going graduate who has just knowledge enough to preventconsciousness of his ignorance. While all the faculties of the mindshould be cultivated, it is yet desirable that it should have two orthree rough-hewn features of massive strength. Young men are too aptto forget the great end of life, which is to be and do, not to read andbrood over what other men have been and done. "

"I repeat that my object is not to give him knowledge, but to teach himhow to acquire it at need, " said Rousseau. 

All learning is self-teaching. It is upon the working of the pupil'sown mind that his progress in knowledge depends. The great business ofthe master is to teach the pupil to teach himself. 

"Thinking, not growth, makes manhood, " says Isaac Taylor. "Accustomyourself, therefore, to thinking. Set yourself to understand whateveryou see or read. To join thinking with reading is one of the firstmaxims, and one of the easiest operations. "

 "How few think justly of the thinking few: How many never think who think they do. "

CHAPTER XXXI

THE SELF-IMPROVEMENT HABIT

If you want knowledge you must toil for it. --RUSKIN. 

We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty. --QUINTILLIAN. 

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the humansoul. --ADDISON. 

A boy is better unborn than untaught. --GASCOIGNE. 

It is ignorance that wastes; it is knowledge that saves, an untaughtfaculty is at once quiescent and dead. --N. D. HILLIS. 

The plea that this or that man has no time for culture will vanish assoon as we desire culture so much that we begin to examine seriouslyinto our present use of time. --MATTHEW ARNOLD. 

Education, as commonly understood, is the process of developing themind by means of books and teachers. When education has beenneglected, either by reason of lack of opportunity, or becauseadvantage was not taken of the opportunities afforded, the oneremaining hope is self-improvement. Opportunities for self-improvementsurround us, the helps to self-improvement are abundant, and in thisday of cheap books and free libraries, there can be no good excuse forneglect to use the faculties for mental growth and development whichare so abundantly supplied. 

When we look at the difficulties which hindered the acquisition ofknowledge fifty years to a century ago; the scarcity and the costlinessof books, the value of the dimmest candle-light, the unremitting toilwhich left so little time for study, the physical weariness which hadto be overcome to enable mental exertion in study, we may well marvelat the giants of scholarship those days of hardship produced. And whenwe add to educational limitations, physical disabilities, blindness, deformity, ill-health, hunger and cold, we may feel shame as wecontemplate the fulness of modern opportunity and the helps andincentives to study and self-development which are so lavishly providedfor our use and inspiration, and of which we make so little use. 

Self-improvement implies one essential feeling: the desire forimprovement. If the desire exists, then improvement is usuallyaccomplished only by the conquest of self--the material self, whichseeks pleasure and amusement. The novel, the game of cards, thebilliard cue, idle whittling and story-telling will have to beeschewed, and every available moment of leisure turned to account. Forall who seek self-improvement "there is a lion in the way, " the lion ofself-indulgence, and it is only by the conquest of this enemy thatprogress is assured. 

Show me how a youth spends his evenings, his odd bits of time, and Iwill forecast his future. Does he look upon this leisure as precious, rich in possibilities, as containing golden material for his futurelife structure? Or does he look upon it as an opportunity forself-indulgence, for a light, flippant good time?

The way he spends his leisure will give the keynote of his life, willtell whether he is dead in earnest, or whether he looks upon it as ahuge joke. 

He may not be conscious of the terrible effects, the gradualdeterioration of character which comes from a frivolous wasting of hisevenings and half-holidays, but the character is being undermined justthe same. 

Young men are often surprised to find themselves dropping behind theircompetitors, but if they will examine themselves, they will find thatthey have stopped growing, because they have ceased their effort tokeep abreast of the times, to be widely read, to enrich life withself-culture. 

It is the right use of spare moments in reading and study which qualifymen for leadership. And in many historic cases the "spare" momentsutilized for study were not spare in the sense of being the spare timeof leisure. They were rather _spared_ moments, moments spared fromsleep, from meal times, from recreation. 

Where is the boy to-day who has less chance to rise in the world thanElihu Burritt, apprenticed at sixteen to a blacksmith, in whose shop hehad to work at the forge all the daylight, and often by candle-light?Yet he managed, by studying with a book before him at his meals, carrying it in his pocket that he might utilize every spare moment, andstudying nights and holidays, to pick up an excellent education in theodds and ends of time which most boys throw away. While the rich boyand the idler were yawning and stretching and getting their eyes open, young Burritt had seized the opportunity and improved it. 

He had a thirst for knowledge and a desire for self-improvement, whichovercame every obstacle in his pathway. A wealthy gentleman offered topay his expenses at Harvard. But no, Elihu said he could get hiseducation himself, even though he had to work twelve or fourteen hoursa day at the forge. Here was a determined boy. He snatched everyspare moment at the anvil and forge as if it were gold. He believed, with Gladstone, that thrift of time would repay him in after years withusury, and that waste of it would make him dwindle. Think of a boyworking nearly all the daylight in a blacksmith shop, and yet findingtime to study seven languages in a single year. 

It is not lack of ability that holds men down but lack of industry. Inmany cases the employee has a better brain, a better mental capacitythan his employer. But he does not improve his faculties. He dullshis mind by cigarette smoking. He spends his money at the pool table, theater, or dance, and as he grows old, and the harness of perpetualservice galls him, he grumbles at his lack of luck, his limitedopportunity. 

The number of perpetual clerks is constantly being recruited by thosewho did not think it worth while as boys to learn to write a good handor to master the fundamental branches of knowledge requisite in abusiness career. The ignorance common among young men and young women, in factories, stores, and offices, everywhere, in fact, in this land ofopportunity, where youth should be well educated, is a pitiable thingin American life. On every hand we see men and women of abilityoccupying inferior positions because they did not think it worth whilein youth to develop their powers and to concentrate their attention onthe acquisition of sufficient knowledge. 

Thousands of men and women find themselves held back, handicapped forlife because of the seeming trifles which they did not think it worthwhile to pay attention to in their early days. 

Many a girl of good natural ability spends her most productive years asa cheap clerk, or in a mediocre position because she never thought itworth while to develop her mental faculties or to take advantage ofopportunities within reach to fit herself for a superior position. Thousands of girls unexpectedly thrown on their own resources have beenheld down all their lives because of neglected tasks in youth, which atthe time were dismissed with a careless "I don't think it worth while. "They did not think it would pay to go to the bottom of any study atschool, to learn to keep accounts accurately, or fit themselves to doanything in such a way as to be able to make a living by it. Theyexpected to marry, and never prepared for being dependent onthemselves, --a contingency against which marriage, in many instances, is no safeguard. 

The trouble with most youths is that they are not willing to fling thewhole weight of their being into their location. They want shorthours, little work and a lot of play. They think more of leisure andpleasure than of discipline and training in their great life specialty. 

Many a clerk envies his employer and wishes that he could go intobusiness for himself, be an employer too but it is too much work tomake the effort to rise above a clerkship. He likes to take life easy;and he wonders idly whether, after all, it is worth while to strain andstrive and struggle and study to prepare oneself for the sake ofgetting up a little higher and making a little more money. 

The trouble with a great many people is that they are not willing tomake present sacrifices for future gain. They prefer to have a goodtime as they go along, rather than spend time in self-improvement. They have a sort of vague wish to do something great, but few have thatintensity of longing which impels them to make the sacrifice of thepresent for the future. Few are willing to work underground for yearslaying a foundation for the life monument. They yearn for greatness, but their yearning is not the kind which is willing to pay any price inendeavor or make any sacrifice for its object. 

So the majority slide along in mediocrity all their lives. They haveability for something higher up, but they have not the energy anddetermination to prepare for it. They do not care to make necessaryeffort. They prefer to take life easier and lower down rather than tostruggle for something higher. They do not play the game for all theyare worth. 

If a man or woman has but the disposition for self-improvement andadvancement he will find opportunity to rise or "what he can not findcreate. " Here is an example from the everyday life going on around usand in which we are all taking part. 

A young Irishman who had reached the age of nineteen or twenty withoutlearning to read or write, and who left home because of theintemperance that prevailed there, learned to read a little by studyingbillboards, and eventually got a position as steward aboard aman-of-war. He chose that occupation and got leave to serve at thecaptain's table because of a great desire to learn. He kept a littletablet in his coat-pocket, and whenever he heard a new word wrote itdown. One day an officer saw him writing and immediately suspected himof being a spy. When he and the other officers learned what the tabletwas used for, the young man was given more opportunities to learn, andthese led in time to promotion, until, finally, the sometime stewardwon a prominent position in the navy. Success as a naval officerprepared the way for success in other fields. 

Self-help has accomplished about all the great things of the world. How many young men falter, faint, and dally with their purpose, becausethey have no capital to start with, and wait and wait for some goodluck to give them a lift! But success is the child of drudgery andperseverance. It can not be coaxed or bribed; pay the price and it isyours. 

One of the sad things about the neglected opportunities forself-improvement is that it puts people of great natural ability at adisadvantage among those who are their mental inferiors. 

I know a member of one of our city legislatures, a splendid fellow, immensely popular, who has a great, generous heart and broadsympathies, but who can not open his mouth without so murdering theEnglish language that it is really painful to listen to him. 

There are a great many similar examples in Washington of men who havebeen elected to important positions because of their great naturalability and fine characters, but who are constantly mortified andembarrassed by their ignorance and lack of early training. 

One of the most humiliating experiences that can ever come to a humanbeing is to be conscious of possessing more than ordinary ability, andyet be tied to an inferior position because of lack of early andintelligent training commensurate with his ability. To be consciousthat one has ability to realize eighty or ninety per cent of hispossibilities, if he had only had the proper education and training, but because of this lack to be unable to bring out more thantwenty-five per cent of it on account of ignorance, is humiliating andembarrassing. In other words, to go through life conscious that youare making a botch of your capabilities just because of lack oftraining, is a most depressing thing. 

Nothing else outside of sin causes more sorrow than that which comesfrom not having prepared for the highest career possible to one. Thereare no bitterer regrets than those which come from being obliged to letopportunities pass by for which one never prepared himself. 

I know a pitiable case of a born naturalist whose ambition was sosuppressed, and whose education so neglected in youth, that later whenhe came to know more about natural history than almost any man of hisday, he could not write a grammatical sentence, and could never makehis ideas live in words, perpetuate them in books, because of hisignorance of even the rudiments of an education. His early vocabularywas so narrow and pinched, and his knowledge of his language so limitedthat he always seemed to be painfully struggling for words to expresshis thought. 

Think of the suffering of this splendid man, who was conscious ofpossessing colossal scientific knowledge, and yet was absolutely unableto express himself grammatically!

How often stenographers are mortified by the use of some unfamiliarword or term, or quotation, because of the shallowness of theirpreparation!

It is not enough to be able to take dictation when ordinary letters aregiven, not enough to do the ordinary routine of office work. Theambitious stenographer must be prepared for the unusual demand, musthave good reserves of knowledge to draw from in case of emergency. 

But, if she is constantly slipping up upon her grammar, or is all atsea the moment she steps out of her ordinary routine, her employerknows that her preparation is shallow, that her education is verylimited, and her prospects will be limited also. 

A young lady writes me that she is so handicapped by the lack of anearly education that she fairly dreads to write a letter to anyone ofeducation or culture for fear of making ignorant mistakes in grammarand spelling. Her letter indicates that she has a great deal ofnatural ability. Yet she is much limited and always placed at adisadvantage because of this lack of an early education. It isdifficult to conceive of a greater misfortune than always to beembarrassed and handicapped just because of the neglect of those earlyyears. 

I am often pained by letters from people, especially young people, which indicate that the writers have a great deal of natural ability, that they have splendid minds, but a large part of their ability iscovered up, rendered ineffectual by their ignorance. 

Many of these letters show that the writers are like diamonds in therough, with only here and there a little facet ground off, just enoughto let in the light and reveal the great hidden wealth within. 

I always feel sorry for these people who have passed the school age andwho will probably go through life with splendid minds handicapped bytheir ignorance which, even late in life, they might largely orentirely overcome. 

It is such a pity that, a young man, for instance, who has the naturalability which would make him a leader among men, must, for the lack ofa little training, a little preparation, work for somebody else, perhaps with but half of his ability but with a better preparation, more education. 

Everywhere we see clerks, mechanics, employees in all walks of life, who cannot rise to anything like positions which correspond with theirnatural ability, because they have not had the education. They areignorant. They can not write a decent letter. They murder the Englishlanguage, and hence their superb ability cannot be demonstrated, andremains in mediocrity. 

The parable of the talents illustrates and enforces one of nature'ssternest laws: "To him that hath shall be given; from him that hath notshall be taken away even that which he hath. " Scientists call this lawthe survival of the fittest. The fittest are those who use what theyhave, who gain strength by struggle, and who survive byself-development by control of their hostile or helpful environment. 

The soil, the sunshine, the atmosphere are very liberal with thematerial for the growth of the plant or the tree, but the plant mustuse all it gets, it must work it up into flowers, into fruit, into leafor fiber or something or the supply will cease. In other words, thesoil will not send any more building material up the sap than is usedfor growth, and the faster this material is used the more rapid thegrowth, the more abundantly the material will come. 

The same law holds good everywhere. Nature is liberal with us if weutilize what she gives us, but if we stop using it, if we do nottransform what she gives us into power, if we do not do some buildingsomewhere, if we do not transform the material which she gives us intoforce and utilize that force, we not only find the supply cut off, butwe find that we are growing weaker, less efficient. 

Everything in nature is on the move, either one way or the other. Itis either going up or down. It is either advancing or retrograding; wecannot hold without using. 

Nature withdraws muscle or brain if we do not use them. She withdrawsskill the moment we stop drilling efficiently, the moment we stop usingour power. The force is withdrawn when we cease exercising it. 

A college graduate is often surprised years after he leaves the collegeto find that about all he has to show for his education is his diploma. The power, the efficiency which he gained there has been lost becausehe has not been using them. He thought at the time that everything wasstill fresh in his mind after his examination that this knowledge wouldremain with him, but it has been slipping away from him every minutesince he stopped using it, and only that has remained and increasedwhich he has used; the rest has evaporated. A great many collegegraduates ten years afterwards find that they have but very little leftto show for their four years' course, because they have not utilizedtheir knowledge. They have become weaklings without knowing it. Theyconstantly say to themselves, "I have a college education, I must havesome ability, I must amount to something in the world. " But thecollege diploma has no more power to hold the knowledge you have gainedin college than a piece of tissue paper over a gas jet can hold the gasin the pipe. 

Everything which you do not use is constantly slipping away from you. Use it or lose it. The secret of power is use. Ability will notremain with us, force will evaporate the moment we cease to dosomething with it. 

The tools for self-improvement are at your hand, use them. If the axis dull the more strength must be put forth. If your opportunities arelimited you must use more energy, put forth more effort. Progress mayseem slow at first, but perseverance assures success. "Line upon line, and precept upon precept" is the rule of mental upbuilding and "In duetime ye shall reap if ye faint not. "

CHAPTER XXXII

RAISING OF VALUES

 "Destiny is not about thee, but within, -- Thyself must make thyself. "

"The world is no longer clay, but rather iron in the hands of itsworkers, " says Emerson, "and men have got to hammer out a place forthemselves by steady and rugged blows. "

To make the most of your "stuff, " be it cloth, iron, orcharacter, --this is success. Raising common "stuff" to priceless valueis great success. 

The man who first takes the rough bar of wrought iron may be ablacksmith, who has only partly learned his trade, and has no ambitionto rise above his anvil. He thinks that the best possible thing he cando with his bar is to make it into horseshoes, and congratulateshimself upon his success. He reasons that the rough lump of iron isworth only two or three cents a pound, and that it is not worth whileto spend much time or labor on it. His enormous muscles and smallskill have raised the value of the iron from one dollar, perhaps, toten dollars. 

Along comes a cutler, with a little better education, a little moreambition, a little finer perception, and says to the blacksmith: "Isthis all you can see in that iron? Give me a bar, and I will show youwhat brains and skill and hard work can make of it. " He sees a littlefurther into the rough bar. He has studied many processes of hardeningand tempering; he has tools, grinding and polishing wheels, andannealing furnaces. The iron is fused, carbonized into steel, drawnout, forged, tempered, heated white-hot, plunged into cold water or oilto improve its temper, and ground and polished with great care andpatience. When this work is done, he shows the astonished blacksmithtwo thousand dollars' worth of knife-blades where the latter only sawten dollars' worth of crude horseshoes. The value has been greatlyraised by the refining process. 

"Knife-blades are all very well, if you can make nothing better, " saysanother artisan, to whom the cutler has shown the triumph of his art, "but you haven't half brought out what is in that bar of iron. I see ahigher and better use; I have made a study of iron, and know what thereis in it and what can be made of it. "

This artisan has a more delicate touch, a finer perception, a bettertraining, a higher ideal, and superior determination, which enable himto look still further into the molecules of the rough bar, --past thehorse-shoes, past the knife-blades, --and he turns the crude iron intothe finest cambric needles, with eyes cut with microscopic exactness. The production of the invisible points requires a more delicateprocess, a finer grade of skill than the cutler possesses. 

This feat the last workman considers marvelous, and he thinks he hasexhausted the possibilities of the iron. He has multiplied many timesthe value of the cutler's product. 

But, behold! another very skilful mechanic, with a more finelyorganized mind, a more delicate touch, more patience, more industry, ahigher order of skill, and a better training, passes with ease by thehorse-shoes, the knife-blades, and the needles, and returns the productof his bar in fine mainsprings for watches. Where the others sawhorseshoes, knife-blades, or needles, worth only a few thousanddollars, his penetrating eye saw a product worth one hundred thousanddollars. 

A higher artist-artisan appears, who tells us that the rough bar hasnot even yet found its highest expression; that he possesses the magicthat can perform a still greater miracle in iron. To him, evenmain-springs seem coarse and clumsy. He knows that the crude iron canbe manipulated and coaxed into an elasticity that can not even beimagined by one less trained in metallurgy. He knows that, if careenough be used in tempering the steel, it will not be stiff, trenchant, and merely a passive metal, but so full of its new qualities that italmost seems instinct with life. 

With penetrating, almost clairvoyant vision, this artist-artisan seeshow every process of mainspring making can be carried further; and how, at every stage of manufacture, more perfection can be reached; how thetexture of the metal can be so much refined that even a fiber, aslender thread of it, can do marvelous work. He puts his bar throughmany processes of refinement and fine tempering, and, in triumph, turnshis product into almost invisible coils of delicate hair-springs. After infinite toil and pain, he has made his dream true; he has raisedthe few dollars' worth of iron to a value of one million dollars, perhaps forty times the value of the same weight of gold. 

Still another workman, whose processes are so almost infinitelydelicate, whose product is so little known, by even the averageeducated man, that his trade is unmentioned by the makers ofdictionaries and encylopedias, takes but a fragment of one of the barsof steel, and develops its higher possibilities with such marvelousaccuracy, such ethereal fineness of touch, that even mainsprings andhairsprings are looked back upon as coarse, crude, and cheap. When hiswork is done, he shows you a few of the minutely barbed instrumentsused by dentists to draw out the finest branches of the dental nerves. While a pound of gold, roughly speaking, is worth about two hundred andfifty dollars, a pound of these slender, barbed filaments of steel, ifa pound could be collected, might be worth hundreds of times as much. 

Other experts may still further refine the product, but it will be manya day before the best will exhaust the possibilities of a metal thatcan be subdivided until its particles will float in the air. 

It sounds magical, but the magic is only that wrought by theapplication of the homeliest virtues; by the training of the eye, thehand, the perception; by painstaking care, by hard work, and bydetermination and grit. 

If a metal possessing only a few coarse material qualities is capableof such marvelous increase in value, by mixing brains with itsmolecules, who shall set bounds to the possibilities of the developmentof a human being, that wonderful compound of physical, mental, moral, and spiritual forces? Whereas, in the development of iron, a dozenprocesses are possible, a thousand influences may be brought to bearupon mind and character. While the iron is an inert mass acted upon byexternal influences only, the human being is a bundle of forces, actingand counteracting, yet all capable of control and direction by thehigher self, the real, dominating personality. 

The difference in human attainment is due only slightly to the originalmaterial. It is the ideal followed and unfolded, the effort made, theprocesses of education and experience undergone that fuse, hammer, andmold our life-bar into its ultimate development. 

Life, everyday life, has counterparts of all the tortures the ironundergoes, and through them it comes to its highest expression. Theblows of opposition, the struggles amid want and woe, the fiery trialsof disaster and bereavement, the crushings of iron circumstances, theraspings of care and anxiety, the grinding of constant difficulties, the rebuffs that chill enthusiasm, the weariness of years of dry, dreary drudgery in education and discipline, --all these are necessaryto the man who would reach the highest success. 

The iron, by this manipulation, is strengthened, refined, made moreelastic or more resistant, and adapted to the use each artisan dreamsof. If every blow should fracture it, if every furnace should burn thelife out of it, if every roller should pulverize it, of what use wouldit be? It has that virtue, those qualities that withstand all; thatdraw profit from every test, and come out triumphant in the end. Inthe iron the qualities are, in the main, inherent; but in ourselvesthey are largely matters of growth, culture, and development, and allare subject to the dominating will. 

Just as each artisan sees in the crude iron some finished, refinedproduct, so must we see in our lives glorious possibilities, if wewould but realize them. If we see only horseshoes or knife-blades, allour efforts and struggles will never produce hairsprings. We mustrealize our own adaptability to great ends; we must resolve tostruggle, to endure trials and tests, to pay the necessary price, confident that the result will pay us for our suffering, our trials, and our efforts. 

Those who shrink from the forging, the rolling, and the drawing out, are the ones who fail, the "nobodies, " the faulty characters, thecriminals. Just as a bar of iron, if exposed to the elements, willoxidize, and become worthless, so will character deteriorate if thereis no constant effort to improve its form, to increase its ductility, to temper it, or to better it in some way. 

It is easy to remain a common bar of iron, or comparatively so, bybecoming merely a horseshoe; but it is hard to raise your life-productto higher values. 

Many of us consider our natural gift-bars poor, mean, and inadequate, compared with those of others; but, if we are willing, by patience, toil, study, and struggle, to hammer, draw out, and refine, to work onand up from clumsy horseshoes to delicate hairsprings, we can, byinfinite patience and persistence, raise the value of the raw materialto almost fabulous heights. It was thus that Columbus, the weaver, Franklin, the journeyman printer, Aesop, the slave, Homer, the beggar, Demosthenes, the cutler's son, Ben Jonson, the bricklayer, Cervantes, the common soldier, and Haydn, the poor wheelwright's son, developedtheir powers, until they towered head and shoulders above other men. 

There is very little difference between the material given to a hundredaverage boys and girls at birth, yet one with no better means ofimprovement than the others, perhaps with infinitely poorer means, willraise his material in value a hundredfold, five-hundredfold, aye, athousandfold, while the ninety-nine will wonder why their materialremains so coarse and crude, and will attribute their failure to hardluck. 

While one boy is regretting his want of opportunities, his lack ofmeans to get a college education, and remains in ignorance, anotherwith half his chances picks up a good education in the odds and ends oftime which other boys throw away. From the same material, one manbuilds a palace and another a hovel. From the same rough piece ofmarble, one man calls out an angel of beauty which delights everybeholder, another a hideous monster which demoralizes every one whosees it. 

The extent to which you can raise the value of your life-bar dependsvery largely upon yourself. Whether you go upward to the mainspring orhairspring stage, depends very largely upon your ideal, yourdetermination to be the higher thing, upon your having the grit to behammered, to be drawn out, to be thrust from the fire into cold wateror oil in order to get the proper temper. 

Of course, it is hard and painful, and it takes lots of stamina toundergo the processes that produce the finest product, but would youprefer to remain a rough bar of iron or a horseshoe all your life?

[Illustration: Lincoln studying by the firelight]

CHAPTER XXXIII

SELF-IMPROVEMENT THROUGH PUBLIC SPEAKING

It does not matter whether you want to be a public speaker or not, everybody should have such complete control of himself, should be soself-centered and self-posed that he can get up in any audience, nomatter how large or formidable, and express his thoughts clearly anddistinctly. 

Self-expression in some manner is the only means of developing mentalpower. It may be in music; it may be on canvas: it may be throughoratory; it may come through selling goods or writing a book; but itmust come through self-expression. 

Self-expression in any legitimate form tends to call out what is in aman, his resourcefulness, inventiveness; but no other form ofself-expression develops a man so thoroughly and so effectively, and soquickly unfolds all of his powers, as expression before an audience. 

It is doubtful whether anyone can reach the highest standard of culturewithout studying the art of expression, especially public vocalexpression. In all ages oratory has been regarded as the highestexpression of human achievement. Young people, no matter what theyintend to be, whether blacksmith or farmer, merchant or physician, should make it a study. 

Nothing else will call out what is in a man so quickly and soeffectively as the constant effort to do his best in speaking before anaudience. When one undertakes to think on his feet and speakextemporaneously before the public, the power and the skill of theentire man are put to a severe test. 

The writer has the advantage of being able to wait for his moods. Hecan write when he feels like it; and he knows that he can burn hismanuscript again and again if it does not suit him. There are not athousand eyes upon him. He does not have a great audience criticizingevery sentence, weighing every thought. He does not have to step uponthe scales of every listener's judgment to be weighed, as does theorator. A man may write as listlessly as he pleases, use much orlittle of his brain or energy, just as he chooses or feels like doing. No one is watching him. His pride and vanity are not touched, and whathe writes may never be seen by anyone. Then, there is always a chancefor revision. In conversation, we do not feel that so much dependsupon our words; only a few persons hear them, and perhaps no one willever think of them again. In music, whether vocal or instrumental, what one gives out is only partially one's own; the rest is thecomposer's. 

Yet anyone who lays any claim to culture, should train himself to thinkon his feet, so that he can at a moment's notice rise and expresshimself intelligently. The occasions for little speaking areincreasing enormously. A great many questions which used to be settledin the office are now discussed and settled at dinners. All sorts ofbusiness deals are now carried through at dinners. There was neverbefore any such demand for dinner oratory as to-day. 

We know men who have, by the dint of hard work and persistent grit, lifted themselves into positions of prominence, and yet they are notable to stand on their feet in public, even to make a few remarks, orscarcely to put a motion without trembling like an aspen leaf. Theyhad plenty of opportunities when they were young, at school, indebating clubs to get rid of their self-consciousness and to acquireease and facility in public speaking, but they always shrank from everyopportunity, because they were timid, or felt that somebody else couldhandle the debate or questions better. 

There are plenty of business men to-day who would give a great deal ofmoney if they could only go back and improve the early opportunitiesfor learning to think and speak on their feet which they threw away. Now they have money, they have position, but they are nobodies whencalled upon to speak in public. All they can do is to look foolish, blush, stammer out an apology and sit down. 

Some time ago I was at a public meeting when a man who stands very highin the community, who is king in his specialty, was called upon to givehis opinion upon the matter under consideration, and he got up andtrembled and stammered and could scarcely say his soul was his own. Hecould not even make a decent appearance. He had power and a great dealof experience, but there he stood, as helpless as a child, and he feltcheap, mortified, embarrassed, and probably would have given anythingif he had early in life trained himself to get himself in hand so thathe could think on his feet and say with power and effectiveness thatwhich he knew. 

At the very meeting where this strong man who had the respect andconfidence of everybody who knew him, and who made such a miserablefailure of his attempt to give his opinion upon an important publicmatter on which he was well posted, being so confused andself-conscious and "stage struck" that he could say scarcely anything, a shallow-brained business man, in the same city, who hadn't ahundredth part of the other man's practical power in affairs, got upand made a brilliant speech, and strangers no doubt thought that he wasmuch the stronger man. He had simply cultivated the ability to say hisbest thing on his feet, and the other man had not, and was placed at atremendous disadvantage. 

A very brilliant young man in New York who has climbed to a responsibleposition in a very short time, tells me that he has been surprised onseveral occasions when he has been called upon to speak at banquets, oron other public occasions, at the new discoveries he has made ofhimself of power which he never before dreamed he possessed, and he nowregrets more than anything else that he has allowed so manyopportunities for calling himself out to go by in the past. 

The effort to express one's ideas in lucid, clean-cut, concise, tellingEnglish tends to make one's everyday language choicer and more direct, and improves one's diction generally. In this and other waysspeech-making develops mental power and character. This explains therapidity with which a young man develops in school or college when hebegins to take part in public debates or in debating societies. 

Every man, says Lord Chesterfield, may choose good words instead of badones and speak properly instead of improperly; he may have grace in hismotions and gestures, and may be a very agreeable instead ofdisagreeable speaker if he will take care and pains. 

It is a matter of painstaking and preparation. There is everything inlearning what you wish to know. Your vocal culture, manner, and mentalfurnishing, are to be made a matter for thought and careful training. Nothing will tire an audience more quickly than monotony, everythingexpressed on the same dead level. There must be variety; the humanmind tires very quickly without it. 

This is especially true of a monotonous tone. It is a great art to beable to raise and lower the voice with sweet flowing cadences whichplease the ear. 

Gladstone said, "Ninety-nine men in every hundred never rise abovemediocrity because the training of the voice is entirely neglected andconsidered of no importance. "

It was indeed said of a certain Duke of Devonshire that he was the onlyEnglish statesman who ever took a nap during the progress of his ownspeech. He was a perfect genius for dry uninteresting oratory, movingforward with a monotonous droning, and pausing now and then as ifrefreshing himself by slumber. 

In thinking on one's feet before an audience, one must think quickly, vigorously, effectively. At the same time he must speak effectivelythrough a properly modulated voice, with proper facial and bodilyexpression and gesture. This requires practise in early life. 

In youth the would-be orator must cultivate robust health, since force, enthusiasm, conviction, will-power are greatly affected by physicalcondition. One, too, must cultivate bodily posture, and have goodhabits at easy command. What would have been the result of Webster'sreply to Hayne, the greatest oratorical effort ever made on thiscontinent, if he had sat down in the Senate and put his feet on hisdesk? Think of a great singer like Nordica attempting to electrify anaudience while lounging on a sofa or sitting in a slouchy position. 

An early training for effective speaking will make one careful tosecure a good vocabulary by good reading and a dictionary. One mustknow words. 

There is no class of people put to such a severe test of showing whatis in them as public speakers; no other men who run such a risk ofexposing their weak spots, or making fools of themselves in theestimation of others, as do orators. Public speaking--thinking onone's feet--is a powerful educator except to the thick-skinned man, theman who has no sensitiveness, or who does not care for what othersthink of him. Nothing else so thoroughly discloses a man's weaknessesor shows up his limitations of thought, his poverty of speech, hisnarrow vocabulary. Nothing else is such a touchstone of the characterand the extent of one's reading, the carefulness or carelessness of hisobservation. 

Close, compact statement must be had. Learn to stop when you getthrough. Do not keep stringing out conversation or argument after youhave made your point. You only weaken your case and prejudice peopleagainst you for your lack of tact, good judgment, or sense ofproportion. Do not neutralize all the good impression you have made bytalking on and on long after you have made your point. 

The attempt to become a good public speaker is a great awakener of allthe mental faculties. The sense of power that comes from holdingattention, stirring the emotions or convincing the reason of anaudience, gives self-confidence, assurance, self-reliance, arousesambition, and tends to make one more effective in every particular. One's manhood, character, learning, judgment of his opinions--allthings that go to make him what he is--are being unrolled like apanorama. Every mental faculty is quickened, every power of thoughtand expression spurred. Thoughts rush for utterance, words press forchoice. The speaker summons all his reserves of education, ofexperience, of natural or acquired ability, and masses all his forcesin the endeavor to capture the approval and applause of the audience. 

Such an effort takes hold of the entire nature, beads the brow, firesthe eye, flushes the cheek, and sends the blood surging through theveins. Dormant impulses are stirred, half-forgotten memories revived, the imagination quickened to see figures and similes that would nevercome to calm thought. 

This forced awakening of the whole personality has effects reachingmuch further than the oratorical occasion. The effort to marshal allone's reserves in a logical and orderly manner, to bring to the frontall the power one possesses, leaves these reserves permanently betterin hand, more readily in reach. 

The Debating Club is the nursery of orators. No matter how far youhave to go to attend it, or how much trouble it is, or how difficult itis to get the time, the drill you will get by it is the turning point. Lincoln, Wilson, Webster, Choate, Clay, and Patrick Henry got theirtraining in the old-fashioned Debating Society. 

Do not think that because you do not know anything about parliamentarylaw that you should not accept the presidency of your club or debatingsociety. This is just the place to learn, and when you have acceptedthe position you can post yourself on the rules, and the chances arethat you will never know the rules until you are thrust into the chairwhere you will be obliged to give rulings. Join just as many youngpeople's organizations--especially self-improvement organizations--asyou can, and force yourself to speak every time you get a chance. Ifthe chance does not come to you, make it. Jump to your feet and saysomething upon every question that is up for discussion. Do not beafraid to rise to put a motion or to second it or give your opinionupon it. Do not wait until you are better prepared. You never will be. 

Every time you rise to your feet will increase your confidence, andafter awhile you will form the habit of speaking until it will be aseasy as anything else, and there is no one thing which will developyoung people so rapidly and effectively as the debating clubs anddiscussions of all sorts. A vast number of our public men have owedtheir advance more to the old-fashioned debating societies thananything else. Here they learned confidence, self-reliance; theydiscovered themselves. It was here they learned not to be afraid ofthemselves, to express their opinions with force and independence. Nothing will call a young man out more than the struggle in a debate tohold his own. It is strong, vigorous exercise for the mind aswrestling is for the body. 

Do not remain way back on the back seat. Go up front. Do not beafraid to show yourself. This shrinking into a corner and getting outof sight and avoiding publicity is fatal to self-confidence. 

It is so easy and seductive, especially for boys and girls in school orcollege, to shrink from the public debates or speaking, on the groundthat they are not quite well enough educated at present. They want towait until they can use a little better grammar, until they have readmore history and more literature, until they have gained a little moreculture and ease of manner. 

The way to acquire grace, ease, facility, the way to get poise andbalance so that you will not feel disturbed in public gatherings, is toget the experience. Do the thing so many times that it will becomesecond nature to you. If you have an invitation to speak, no matterhow much you may shrink from it, or how timid or shy you may be, resolve that you will not let this opportunity for self-enlargementslip by you. 

We know of a young man who has a great deal of natural ability forpublic speaking, and yet he is so timid that he always shrinks fromaccepting invitations to speak at banquets or in public because he isso afraid that he has not had experience enough. He lacks confidencein himself. He is so proud, and so afraid that he will make some slipwhich will mortify him, that he has waited and waited and waited untilnow he is discouraged and thinks that he will never be able to doanything in public speaking at all. He would give anything in theworld if he had only accepted all of the invitations he has had, because then he would have profited by experience. It would have beena thousand times better for him to have made a mistake, or even to havebroken down entirely a few times, than to have missed the scores ofopportunities which would undoubtedly have made a strong public speakerof him. 

What is technically called "stage fright" is very common. A collegeboy recited an address "to the conscript fathers. " His professorasked, --"Is that the way Caesar would have spoken it?" "Yes, " hereplied, "if Caesar had been scared half to death, and as nervous as acat. "

An almost fatal timidity seizes on an inexperienced person, when heknows that all eyes are watching him, that everybody in his audience istrying to measure and weigh him, studying him, scrutinizing him to seehow much there is in him; what he stands for, and making up their mindswhether he measures more or less than they expected. 

Some are constitutionally sensitive, and so afraid of being gazed atthat they don't dare to open their mouths, even when a question inwhich they are deeply interested and on which they have strong views isbeing discussed. At debating clubs, meetings of literary societies, orgatherings of any kind, they sit dumb, longing, yet fearing to speak. The sound of their own voices, if they should get on their feet to makea motion or to speak in a public gathering, would paralyze them. Themere thought of asserting themselves, of putting forward their views oropinions on any subject as being worthy of attention, or as valuable asthose of their companions, makes them blush and shrink more intothemselves. 

This timidity is often, however, not so much the fear of one'saudience, as the fear lest one can make no suitable expression of histhought. 

The hardest thing for the public speaker to overcome isself-consciousness. Those terrible eyes which pierce him through andthrough, which are measuring him, criticizing him, are very difficultto get out of one's consciousness. 

But no orator can make a great impression until he gets rid of himself, until he can absolutely annihilate his self-consciousness, forgethimself in his speech. While he is wondering what kind of animpression he is making, what people think of him, his power iscrippled, and his speech to that extent will be mechanical, wooden. 

Even a partial failure on the platform has good results, for it oftenarouses a determination to conquer the next time, which never leavesone. Demosthenes' heroic efforts, and Disraeli's "The time will comewhen you will hear me, " are historic examples. 

It is not the speech, but the man behind the speech, that wins a way tothe front. 

One man carries weight because he is himself the embodiment of power, he is himself convinced of what he says. There is nothing of thenegative, the doubtful, the uncertain in his nature. He not only knowsa thing, but he knows that he knows it. His opinion carries with itthe entire weight of his being. The whole man gives consent to hisjudgment. He himself is in his conviction, in his act. 

One of the most entrancing speakers I have ever listened to--a man tohear whom people would go long distances and stand for hours to getadmission to the hall where he spoke--never was able to get theconfidence of his audience because he lacked character. People likedto be swayed by his eloquence. There was a great charm in the cadencesof his perfect sentences. But somehow they could not believe what hesaid. 

The orator must be sincere. The public is very quick to see throughshams. If the audience sees mud at the bottom of your eye, that youare not honest yourself, that you are acting, they will not take anystock in you. 

It is not enough to say a pleasing thing, an interesting thing, theorator must be able to convince; and to convince others he must havestrong convictions. 

Great speeches have become the beacon lights of history. Those who areprepared acquire a world-wide influence when the fit occasion comes. 

Very few people ever rise to their greatest possibilities or ever knowtheir entire power unless confronted by some great occasion. We are asmuch amazed as others are when, in some great emergency, we out-doourselves. Somehow the power that stands behind us in the silence, inthe depths of our natures, comes to our relief, intensifies ourfaculties a thousandfold and enables us to do things which before wethought impossible. 

It would be difficult to estimate the great part which practical drillin oratory may play in one's life. 

Great occasions, when nations have been in peril, have developed andbrought out some of the greatest orators of the world. Cicero, Mirabeau, Patrick Henry, Webster, and John Bright might all be calledto witness to this fact. 

The occasion had much to do with the greatest speech delivered in theUnited States Senate--Webster's reply to Hayne. Webster had no timefor immediate preparation, but the occasion brought all the reserves inthis giant, and he towered so far above his opponent that Hayne lookedlike a pygmy in comparison. 

The pen has discovered many a genius, but the process is slower andless effective than the great occasion that discovers the orator. Every crisis calls out ability, previously undeveloped, and perhapsunexpected. 

No orator living was ever great enough to give out the same power andforce and magnetism to an empty hall, to empty seats, that he couldgive to an audience capable of being fired by his theme. 

In the presence of the audience lies a fascination, an indefinablemagnetism that stimulates all the mental faculties, and acts as a tonicand vitalizer. An orator can say before an audience what he could notpossibly say before he went on the platform, just as we can often sayto a friend in animated conversation things which we could not possiblysay when alone. As when two chemicals are united, a new substance isformed from the combination, which did not exist in either alone, hefeels surging through his brain the combined force of his audience, which he calls inspiration, a mighty power which did not exist in hisown personality. 

Actors tell us that there is an indescribable inspiration which comesfrom the orchestra, the footlights, the audience, which it isimpossible to feel at a cold mechanical rehearsal. There is somethingin a great sea of expectant faces which awakens the ambition andarouses the reserve of power which can never be felt except before anaudience. The power was there just the same before, but it was notaroused. 

In the presence of the orator, the audience is absolutely in his powerto do as he will. They laugh or cry as he pleases, or rise and fall athis bidding, until he releases them from the magic spell. 

What is oratory but to stir the blood of all hearers, to so arousetheir emotions that they can not control themselves a moment longerwithout taking the action to which they are impelled?

"His words are laws" may be well said of the statesmen whose orationssway the world. What art is greater than that of changing the minds ofmen?

Wendell Phillips so played upon the emotions, so changed theconvictions of Southerners who hated him, but who were curious tolisten to his oratory, that, for the time being he almost persuadedthem that they were in the wrong. I have seen him when it seemed to methat he was almost godlike in his power. With the ease of a master heswayed his audience. Some who hated him in the slavery days werethere, and they could not resist cheering him. He warped their ownjudgment and for the time took away their prejudice. 

When James Russell Lowell was a student, said Wetmore Story, he andStory went to Faneuil Hall to hear Webster. They meant to hoot him forhis remaining in Tyler's cabinet. It would be easy, they reasoned, toget the three thousand people to join them. When he begun, Lowellturned pale, and Story livid. His great eyes, they thought, were fixedon them. His opening words changed their scorn to admiration, andtheir contempt to approbation. 

"He gave us a glimpse into the Holy of Holies, " said another student, in relating his experience in listening to a great preacher. 

Is not oratory a fine art? The well-spring of eloquence, whenup-gushing as the very water of life, quenches the thirst of myriads ofmen, like the smitten rock of the wilderness reviving the life ofdesert wanderers. 

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE TRIUMPHS OF THE COMMON VIRTUES

The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do, without a thought of fame. --LONGFELLOW. 

It is not a question of what a man knows but what use he can make ofwhat he knows. --J. G. HOLLAND. 

Seest thou a man diligent in business? He shall stand beforekings. --SOLOMON. 

The most encouraging truth that can be impressed upon the mind of youthis this: "What man has done man may do. " Men of great achievements arenot to be set on pedestals and reverenced as exceptions to the averageof humanity. Instead, these great men are to be considered as settinga standard of success for the emulation of every aspiring youth. Theirexample shows what can be accomplished by the practise of the commonvirtues, --diligence, patience, thrift, self-denial, determination, industry, and persistence. 

We can best appreciate the uplifting power of these simple virtueswhich all may cultivate and exercise, by taking some concrete exampleof great success which has been achieved by patient plodding toward adefinite goal. No more illustrious example of success won by theexercise of common virtues can be offered than Abraham Lincoln, rail-splitter and president. 

Probably Lincoln has been the hero of more American boys during thelast two generations than any other American character. Young peoplelook upon him as a marvelous being, raised up for a divine purpose; andyet, if we analyze his character, we find it made up of the humblestvirtues, the commonest qualities; the poorest boys and girls, who lookupon him as a demigod, possess these qualities. 

The strong thing about Lincoln was his manliness, his straightforward, downright honesty. You could depend upon him. He was ambitious tomake the most of himself. He wanted to know something, to be somebody, to lift his head up from his humble environment and be of some accountin the world. He simply wanted to better his condition. 

It is true that he had a divine hunger for growth, a passion for alarger and completer life than that of those about him; but there is noevidence of any great genius, any marvelous powers. He was a simpleman, never straining after effect. 

His simplicity was his chief charm. Everybody who knew him felt thathe was a man, a large-hearted, generous friend, always ready to helpeverybody and everything out of their troubles, whether it was a pigstuck in the mire, a poor widow in trouble, or a farmer who neededadvice. He had a helpful mind, open, frank, transparent. He nevercovered up anything, never had secrets. The door of his heart wasalways open so that anyone could read his inmost thoughts. 

The ability to do hard work, and to stick to it, is the right hand ofgenius and the best substitute for it, --in fact, that is genius. 

If young people were to represent Lincoln's total success by onehundred, they would probably expect to find some brilliant facultywhich would rank at least fifty per cent of the total. But I thinkthat the verdict of history has given his honesty of purpose, hispurity and unselfishness of motive as his highest attributes, andcertainly these qualities are within the reach of the poorest boy andthe humblest girl in America. 

Suppose we rank his honesty, his integrity twenty per cent of thetotal, his dogged persistence, his ability for hard work ten per cent, his passion for wholeness, for completeness, for doing everything to afinish ten more, his aspiration, his longing for growth, his yearningfor fulness of life ten more. The reader can see that it would be easyto make up the hundred per cent, without finding any one quality whichcould be called genius; that the total of his character would be madeup of the sum of the commonest qualities, the most ordinary virtueswithin the reach of the poorest youth in the land. There is no onequality in his entire make-up so overpowering, so commanding that itcould be ranked as genius. 

What an inestimable blessing to the world, what an encouragement, aninspiration to poor boys and poor girls that his great achievement canbe accounted for by the triumph in his character of those qualitieswhich are beyond the reach of money, of family, of influence, but thatare within the reach of the poorest and the humblest. 

In a speech to the people in Colorado Mountains, Roosevelt said: "Youthink that my success is quite foreign to anything you can achieve. Let me assure you that the big prizes I have won are largelyaccidental. If I have succeeded, it is only as anyone of you cansucceed, merely because I have tried to do my duty as I saw it in myhome and in my business, and as a citizen. 

"If when I die the ones who know me best believe that I was athoughtful, helpful husband, a loving, wise and painstaking father, agenerous, kindly neighbor and an honest citizen, that will be a farmore real honor, and will prove my life to have been more successfulthan the fact that I have ever been president of the United States. Had a few events over which no one had control been other than theywere it is quite possible I might never have held the high office I nowoccupy, but no train of events could accidentally make me a noblecharacter or a faithful member of my home and community. Thereforeeach of you has the same chance to succeed in true success as I havehad, and if my success in the end proves to have been as great as thatachieved by many of the humblest of you I shall be fortunate. "

McKinley did not start with great mental ability. There was nothingvery surprising or startling in his career. He was not a great genius, not notable as a scholar. He did not stand very high in school; he wasnot a great lawyer; he did not make a great record in Congress; but hehad a good, level head. He had _the best substitute for genius--theability for hard work and persistence_. He knew how to keep plodding, how to hang on, and he knew that the only way to show what he was madeof in Congress was to stick to one thing, and he made a specialty ofthe tariff, following the advice of a statesman friend. 

The biographies of the giants of the race are often discouraging to theaverage poor boy, because the moment he gets the impression that thecharacter he is reading about was a genius, the effect is largely lostupon himself, because he knows that he is not a genius, and he says tohimself, "This is very interesting reading, but I can never do thosethings. " But when he reads the life of McKinley he does not see anyreason why he could not do the same things himself, because there wereno great jumps, no great leaps and bounds in his life from particularability or special opportunity. He had no very brilliant talents, buthe averaged well. He had good common sense and was a hard worker. Hehad tact and diplomacy and made the most of every opportunity. 

Nothing can keep from success the man who has iron in his blood and isdetermined that he will succeed. When he is confronted by barriers heleaps over them, tunnels through them, or makes a way around them. Obstacles only serve to stiffen his backbone, increase hisdetermination, sharpen his wits and develop his innate resources. Therecord of human achievement is full of the truth. "There is nodifficulty to him who wills. "

"All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise andwonder, " says Johnson, "are instances of the resistless force ofperseverance. "

It has been well said that from the same materials one man buildspalaces, another hovels; one warehouses, another villas. Bricks andmortar are mortar and bricks until the architect makes them somethingelse. The boulder which was an obstacle in the path of the weakbecomes a stepping-stone in the pathway of the resolute. Thedifficulties which dishearten one man only stiffen the sinews ofanother, who looks on them as a sort of mental spring-board by which tovault across the gulf of failure to the sure, solid ground of fullsuccess. 

One of the greatest generals on the Confederate side in the Civil War, "Stonewall" Jackson, was noted for his slowness. With this hepossessed great application and dogged determination. If he undertooka task, he never let go till he had it done. So, when he went to WestPoint, his habitual class response was that he was too busy getting thelesson of a few days back to look at the one of the day. He kept upthis steady gait, and, from the least promising "plebe, " came outseventeenth in a class of seventy, distancing fifty-three who startedwith better attainments and better minds. His classmates used to saythat, if the course was ten years instead of four, he would come outfirst. 

The world always stands aside for the determined man. You will find noroyal road to your triumph. There is no open door to the Temple ofSuccess. 

One of the commonest of common virtues is perseverance, yet it has beenthe open sesame of more fast locked doors of opportunity than havebrilliant tributes. Every man and woman can exercise this virtue ofperseverance, can refuse to stop short of the goal of ambition, candecline to turn aside in search of pleasures that do but hinderprogress. 

The romance of perseverance under especial difficulty is one of themost fascinating subjects in history. Tenacity of purpose has beencharacteristic of all characters who have left their mark on the world. Perseverance, it has been said, is the statesman's brain, the warrior'ssword, the inventor's secret, the scholar's "open sesame. "

Persistency is to talent what steam is to the engine. It is thedriving force by which the machine accomplishes the work for which itwas intended. A great deal of persistency, with a very little talent, can be counted on to go farther than a great deal of talent withoutpersistency. 

You cannot keep a determined man from success. Take away his money, and he makes spurs of his poverty to urge him on. Lock him up in adungeon, and he writes the immortal "Pilgrim's Progress. "

Stick to a thing and carry it through in all its completeness andproportion, and you will become a hero. You will think better ofyourself; others will exalt you. 

Thoroughness is another of the common virtues which all may cultivate. The man who puts his best into every task will leave far behind the manwho lets a job go with the comment "That's good enough. " Nothing isgood enough unless it reflects our best. 

Daniel Webster had no remarkable traits of character in his boyhood. He was sent to Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and stayedthere only a short time when a neighbor found him crying on his wayhome, and asked the reason. Daniel said he despaired of ever making ascholar. He said the boys made fun of him, for always being at thefoot of the class, and that he had decided to give up and go home. Thefriend said he ought to go back, and see what hard study would do. Hewent back, applied himself to his studies with determination to win, and it was not long before he silenced those who had ridiculed him, byreaching the head of the class, and remaining there. 

Fidelity to duty has been a distinguishing virtue in men who have risento positions of authority and command. It has been observed that thedispatches of Napoleon rang with the word glory. Wellington'sdispatches centered around the common word duty. 

Nowadays people seem unwilling to tread the rough path of duty and bypatience and steadfast perseverance step into the ranks of those thecountry delights to honor. 

Every little while I get letters from young men who say, if they werepositively sure that they could be a Webster in law, they would devoteall their energies to study, fling their whole lives into their work;or if they could be an Edison in invention, or a great leader inmedicine, or a merchant prince like Wanamaker or Marshall Field, theycould work with enthusiasm and zeal and power and concentration. Theywould be willing to make any sacrifice, to undergo any hardship inorder to achieve what these men have achieved. But many of them saythey do not feel that they have the marvelous ability, the greatgenius, the tremendous talent exhibited by those leaders, and so theyare not willing to make the great exertion. 

They do not realize that success is not necessarily doing some greatthing, that it is not making a tremendous strain to do something great;but that it is just honestly, earnestly living the everyday simplelife. It is by the exercise of the common everyday virtues; it is bytrying to do everything one does to a complete finish; it is by tryingto be scrupulously honest in every transaction; it is by always ringingtrue in our friendships, by holding a helpful, accommodating attitudetoward those about us; by trying to be the best possible citizen, agood, accommodating, helpful neighbor, a kind, encouraging father; itis by all these simple things that we attain success. 

There is no great secret about success. It is just a naturalpersistent exercise of the commonest every-day qualities. 

We have seen people in the country in the summer time trampling downthe daisies and the beautiful violets, the lovely wild flowers in theirefforts to get a branch of showy flowers off a large tree, which, perhaps, would not compare in beauty and delicacy and loveliness to thethings they trampled under their feet in trying to procure it. 

Oh, how many exquisite experiences, delightful possible joys we trampleunder our feet in straining after something great, in trying to do somemarvelous thing that will attract attention and get our names in thepapers! We trample down the finer emotions, we spoil many of the mostdelicious things in life in our scrambling and greed to grasp somethingwhich is unusual, something showy that we can wave before the world inorder to get its applause. 

In straining for effect, in the struggle to do something great andwonderful, we miss the little successes, the sum of which would makeour lives sublime; and often, after all this straining and strugglingfor the larger, for the grander things, we miss them, and then wediscover to our horror what we have missed on the way up--whatsweetness, what beauty, what loveliness, what a lot of common, homely, cheering things we have lost in the useless struggle. 

Great scientists tell us that the reason why the secrets of nature havebeen hidden from the world so long is because we are not simple enoughin our methods of reasoning; that investigators are always looking forunusual phenomena, for something complicated; that the principles ofnature's secrets are so extremely simple that men overlook them intheir efforts to see and solve the more intricate problems. 

It is most unfortunate that so many young people get the impressionthat success consists in doing some marvelous thing, that there must besome genius born in the man who achieves it, else he could not do suchremarkable things. 

CHAPTER XXXV

GETTING AROUSED

"How's the boy gittin' on, Davis?" asked Farmer John Field, as hewatched his son, Marshall, waiting upon a customer. "Well, John, youand I are old friends, " replied Deacon Davis, as he took an apple froma barrel and handed it to Marshall's father as a peace offering; "weare old friends, and I don't want to hurt your feelin's; but I'm ablunt man, and air goin' to tell you the truth. Marshall is a good, steady boy, all right, but he wouldn't make a merchant if he stayed inmy store a thousand years. He weren't cut out for a merchant. Takehim back to the farm, John, and teach him how to milk cows!"

If Marshall Field had remained as clerk in Deacon Davis's store inPittsfield, Massachusetts, where he got his first position, he couldnever have become one of the world's merchant princes. But when hewent to Chicago and saw the marvelous examples around him of poor boyswho had won success, it aroused his ambition and fired him with thedetermination to be a great merchant himself. "If others can do suchwonderful things, " he asked himself, "why cannot I?"

Of course, there was the making of a great merchant in Mr. Field fromthe start; but circumstances, an ambition-arousing environment, had agreat deal to do with stimulating his latent energy and bringing outhis reserve force. It is doubtful if he would have climbed so rapidlyin any other place than Chicago. In 1856, when young Field went there, this marvelous city was just starting on its unparalleled career. Ithad then only about eighty-five thousand inhabitants. A few yearsbefore it had been a mere Indian trading village. But the city grew byleaps and bounds, and always beat the predictions of its most sanguineinhabitants. Success was in the air. Everybody felt that there weregreat possibilities there. 

[Illustration: Marshall Field]

Many people seem to think that ambition is a quality born within us;that it is not susceptible to improvement; that it is something thrustupon us which will take care of itself. But it is a passion thatresponds very quickly to cultivation, and it requires constant care andeducation, just as the faculty for music or art does, or it willatrophy. 

If we do not try to realize our ambition, it will not keep sharp anddefined. Our faculties become dull and soon lose their power if theyare not exercised. How can we expect our ambition to remain fresh andvigorous through years of inactivity, indolence, or indifference? Ifwe constantly allow opportunities to slip by us without making anyattempt to grasp them, our inclination will grow duller and weaker. 

"What I most need, " as Emerson says, "is somebody to make me do what Ican. " To do what I can, that is my problem; not what a Napoleon or aLincoln could do, but what _I_ can do. It makes all the difference inthe world to me whether I bring out the best thing in me or theworst, --whether I utilize ten, fifteen, twenty-five, or ninety per centof my ability. 

Everywhere we see people who have reached middle life or later withoutbeing aroused. They have developed only a small percentage of theirsuccess possibilities. They are still in a dormant state. The bestthing in them lies so deep that it has never been awakened. When wemeet these people we feel conscious that they have a great deal oflatent power that has never been exercised. Great possibilities ofusefulness and of achievement are, all unconsciously, going to wastewithin them. 

Some time ago there appeared in the newspapers an account of a girl whohad reached the age of fifteen years, and yet had only attained themental development of a small child. Only a few things interested her. She was dreamy, inactive, and indifferent to everything around her mostof the time until, one day, while listening to a hand organ on thestreet, she suddenly awakened to full consciousness. She came toherself; her faculties were aroused, and in a few days she leapedforward years in her development. Almost in a day she passed fromchildhood to budding womanhood. Most of us have an enormous amount ofpower, of latent force, slumbering within us, as it slumbered in thisgirl, which could do marvels if we would only awaken it. 

The judge of the municipal court in a flourishing western city, one ofthe most highly esteemed jurists in his state, was in middle life, before his latent power was aroused, an illiterate blacksmith. He isnow sixty, the owner of the finest library in his city, with thereputation of being its best-read man, and one whose highest endeavoris to help his fellow man. What caused the revolution in his life?The hearing of a single lecture on the value of education. This waswhat stirred the slumbering power within him, awakened his ambition, and set his feet in the path of self-development. 

I have known several men who never realized their possibilities untilthey reached middle life. Then they were suddenly aroused, as if froma long sleep, by reading some inspiring, stimulating book, by listeningto a sermon or a lecture, or by meeting some friend, --someone with highideals, --who understood, believed in, and encouraged them. 

It will make all the difference in the world to you whether you arewith people who are watching for ability in you, people who believe in, encourage, and praise you, or whether you are with those who areforever breaking your idols, blasting your hopes, and throwing coldwater on your aspirations. 

The chief probation officer of the children's court in New York, in hisreport for 1905, says: "Removing a boy or girl from improperenvironment is the first step in his or her reclamation. " The New YorkSociety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, after thirty yearsof investigation of cases involving the social and moral welfare ofover half a million of children, has also come to the conclusion thatenvironment is stronger than heredity. 

Even the strongest of us are not beyond the reach of our environment. No matter how independent, strong-willed, and determined our nature, weare constantly being modified by our surroundings. Take the best-bornchild, with the greatest inherited advantages, and let it be reared bysavages, and how many of its inherited tendencies will remain? Ifbrought up from infancy in a barbarous, brutal atmosphere, it will, ofcourse, become brutal. The story is told of a well-born child who, being lost or abandoned as an infant, was suckled by a wolf with herown young ones, and who actually took on all the characteristics of thewolf, --walked on all fours, howled like a wolf, and ate like one. 

It does not take much to determine the lives of most of us. Wenaturally follow the examples about us, and, as a rule, we rise or fallaccording to the strongest current in which we live. The poet's "I ama part of all that I have met" is not a mere poetic flight of fancy; itis an absolute truth. Everything--every sermon or lecture orconversation you have heard, every person who has touched yourlife--has left an impress upon your character, and you are never quitethe same person after the association or experience. You are a littledifferent, --modified somewhat from what you were before, --just asBeecher was never the same man after reading Ruskin. 

Some years ago a party of Russian workmen were sent to this country bya Russian firm of shipbuilders, in order that they might acquireAmerican methods and catch the American spirit. Within six months theRussians had become almost the equals of the American artisans amongwhom they worked. They had developed ambition, individuality, personalinitiative, and a marked degree of excellence in their work. A yearafter their return to their own country, the deadening, non-progressiveatmosphere about them had done its work. The men had lost the desireto improve; they were again plodders, with no goal beyond the day'swork. The ambition aroused by stimulating environment had sunk tosleep again. 

Our Indian schools sometimes publish, side by side, photographs of theIndian youths as they come from the reservation and as they look whenthey are graduated, --well dressed, intelligent, with the fire ofambition in their eyes. We predict great things for them; but themajority of those who go back to their tribes, after struggling awhileto keep up their new standards, gradually drop back to their old mannerof living. There are, of course, many notable exceptions, but theseare strong characters, able to resist the downward-dragging tendenciesabout them. 

If you interview the great army of failures, you will find thatmultitudes have failed because they never got into a stimulating, encouraging environment, because their ambition was never aroused, orbecause they were not strong enough to rally under depressing, discouraging, or vicious surroundings. Most of the people we find inprisons and poor-houses are pitiable examples of the influence of anenvironment which appealed to the worst instead of to the best in them. 

Whatever you do in life, make any sacrifice necessary to keep in anambition-arousing atmosphere, an environment that will stimulate you toself-development. Keep close to people who understand you, who believein you, who will help you to discover yourself and encourage you tomake the most of yourself. This may make all the difference to youbetween a grand success and a mediocre existence. Stick to those whoare trying to do something and to be somebody in the world, --people ofhigh aims, lofty ambition. Keep close to those who aredead-in-earnest. Ambition is contagious. You will catch the spiritthat dominates in your environment. The success of those about you whoare trying to climb upward will encourage and stimulate you to struggleharder if you have not done quite so well yourself. 

There is a great power in a battery of individuals who are strugglingfor the achievement of high aims, a great magnetic force which willhelp you to attract the object of your ambition. It is verystimulating to be with people whose aspirations run parallel with yourown. If you lack energy, if you are naturally lazy, indolent, orinclined to take it easy, you will be urged forward by the constantprodding of the more ambitious. 

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE MAN WITH AN IDEA

He who wishes to fulfil his mission must be a man of one idea, that is, of one great overmastering purpose, over shadowing all his aims, andguiding and controlling his entire life. --BATE. 

A healthful hunger for a great idea is the beauty and blessedness oflife. --JEAN INGELOW. 

A profound conviction raises a man above the feeling of ridicule. --J. STUART MILL. 

Ideas go booming through the world louder than cannon. Thoughts aremightier than armies. Principles have achieved more victories thanhorsemen or chariots. --W. M. PAXTON. 

"What are you bothering yourselves with a knitting machine for?" askedAri Davis, of Boston, a manufacturer of instruments; "why don't youmake a sewing-machine?" His advice had been sought by a rich man andan inventor who had reached their wits' ends in the vain attempt toproduce a device for knitting woolen goods. "I wish I could, but itcan't be done. " "Oh, yes it can, " said Davis; "I can make one myself. ""Well, " the capitalist replied, "you do it, and I'll insure you anindependent fortune. " The words of Davis were uttered in a spirit ofjest, but the novel idea found lodgment in the mind of one of theworkmen who stood by, a mere youth of twenty, who was thought notcapable of a serious idea. 

But Elias Howe was not so rattle-headed as he seemed, and the more hereflected, the more desirable such a machine appeared to him. Fouryears passed, and with a wife and three children to support in a greatcity on a salary of nine dollars a week, the light-hearted boy hadbecome a thoughtful, plodding man. The thought of the sewing-machinehaunted him night and day, and he finally resolved to produce one. 

After months wasted in the effort to work a needle pointed at bothends, with the eye in the middle, that should pass up and down throughthe cloth, suddenly the thought flashed through his mind that anotherstitch must be possible, and with almost insane devotion he workednight and day, until he had made a rough model of wood and wire thatconvinced him of ultimate success. In his mind's eye he saw his idea, but his own funds and those of his father, who had aided him more orless, were insufficient to embody it in a working machine. But helpcame from an old schoolmate, George Fisher, a coal and wood merchant ofCambridge. He agreed to board Elias and his family and furnish fivehundred dollars, for which he was to have one-half of the patent, ifthe machine proved to be worth patenting. In May, 1845, the machinewas completed, and in July Elias Howe sewed all the seams of two suitsof woolen clothes, one for Mr. Fisher and the other for himself. Thesewing outlasted the cloth. This machine, which is still preserved, will sew three hundred stitches a minute, and is considered more nearlyperfect than any other prominent invention at its first trial. Thereis not one of the millions of sewing-machines now in use that does notcontain some of the essential principles of this first attempt. 

When it was decided to try and elevate Chicago out of the mud byraising its immense blocks up to grade, the young son of a poormechanic, named George M. Pullman, appeared on the scene, and put in abid for the great undertaking, and the contract was awarded to him. Henot only raised the blocks, but did it in such a way that businesswithin them was scarcely interrupted. All this time he was revolvingin his mind his pet project of building a "sleeping car" which would beadopted on all railroads. He fitted up two old cars on the Chicago andAlton road with berths, and soon found they would be in demand. Hethen went to work on the principle that the more luxurious his carswere, the greater would be the demand for them. After spending threeyears in Colorado gold mines, he returned and built two cars which cost$18, 000 each. Everybody laughed at "Pullman's folly. " But Pullmanbelieved that whatever relieved the tediousness of long trips wouldmeet with speedy approval, and he had faith enough in his idea to riskhis all in it. 

Pullman was a great believer in the commercial value of beauty. Thewonderful town which he built and which bears his name, as well as hismagnificent cars, is an example of his belief in this principle. Hecounts it a good investment to surround his employees with comforts andbeauty and good sanitary conditions, and so the town of Pullman is amodel of cleanliness, order, and comfort. 

It has ever been the man with an idea, which he puts into practicaleffect, who has changed the face of Christendom. The germ idea of thesteam engine can be seen in the writings of the Greek philosophers, butit was not developed until more than two thousand years later. 

It was an English blacksmith, Newcomen, with no opportunities, who inthe seventeenth century conceived the idea of moving a piston by theelastic force of steam; but his engine consumed thirty pounds of coalin producing one horse power. The perfection of the modern engine islargely due to James Watt, a poor, uneducated Scotch boy, who atfifteen walked the streets of London in a vain search for work. Aprofessor in the Glasgow University gave him the use of a room to workin, and while waiting for jobs he experimented with old vials for steamreservoirs and hollow canes for pipes, for he could not bear to waste amoment. He improved Newcomen's engine by cutting off the steam afterthe piston had completed a quarter or a third of its stroke, andletting the steam already in the chamber expand and drive the pistonthe remaining distance. This saved nearly three-fourths of the steam. Watt suffered from pinching poverty and hardships which would havedisheartened ordinary men; but he was terribly in earnest, and hisbrave wife Margaret begged him not to mind her inconvenience, nor bediscouraged. "If the engine will not work, " she wrote him whilestruggling in London, "something else will. Never despair. "

"I had gone to take a walk, " said Watt, "on a fine Sabbath afternoon, and had passed the old washing-house, thinking upon the engine at thetime, when the idea came into my head that, as steam is an elasticbody, it would rush into a vacuum, and if a communication were madebetween the cylinder and an exhausted vessel, it would rush into it, and might be there condensed without cooling the cylinder. " The ideawas simple, but in it lay the germ of the first steam engine of muchpractical value. Sir James Mackintosh places this poor Scotch boy whobegan with only an idea "at the head of all inventors in all ages andall nations. "

See George Stephenson, working in the coal pits for sixpence a day, patching the clothes and mending the boots of his fellow-workmen atnight, to earn a little money to attend a night school, giving thefirst money he ever earned, $150, to his blind father to pay his debts. People say he is crazy; his "roaring steam engine will set the house onfire with its sparks"; "smoke will pollute the air"; "carriage makersand coachmen will starve for want of work. " For three days thecommittee of the House of Commons plies questions to him. This was oneof them: "If a cow get on the track of the engine traveling ten milesan hour, will it not be an awkward situation?" "Yes, very awkward, indeed, for the coo, " replied Stephenson. A government inspector saidthat if a locomotive ever went ten miles an hour, he would undertake toeat a stewed engine for breakfast. 

"What can be more palpably absurd and ridiculous than the prospect heldout of locomotives traveling twice as fast as horses?" asked a writerin the English "Quarterly Review" for March, 1825. "We should as soonexpect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off uponone of Congreve's rockets as to trust themselves to the mercy of such amachine, going at such a rate. We trust that Parliament will, in allthe railways it may grant, _limit the speed to eight or nine miles anhour_, which we entirely agree with Mr. Sylvester is as great as can beventured upon. " This article referred to Stephenson's proposition touse his newly invented locomotive instead of horses on the Liverpooland Manchester Railroad, then in process of construction. 

The company decided to lay the matter before two leading Englishengineers, who reported that steam would be desirable only when used instationary engines one and a half miles apart, drawing the cars bymeans of ropes and pulleys. But Stephenson persuaded them to test hisidea by offering a prize of about twenty-five hundred dollars for thebest locomotive produced at a trial to take place October 6, 1829. 

On the eventful day, thousands of spectators assembled to watch thecompetition of four engines, the "Novelty, " the "Rocket, " the"Perseverance, " and the "Sanspareil. " The "Perseverance" could makebut six miles an hour, and so was ruled out, as the conditions calledfor at least ten. The "Sanspareil" made an average of fourteen milesan hour, but as it burst a water-pipe it lost its chance. The"Novelty" did splendidly, but also burst a pipe, and was crowded out, leaving the "Rocket" to carry off the honors with an average speed offifteen miles an hour, the highest rate attained being twenty-nine. This was Stephenson's locomotive, and so fully vindicated his theorythat the idea of stationary engines on a railroad was completelyexploded. He had picked up the fixed engines which the genius of Watthad devised, and set them on wheels to draw men and merchandise, against the most direful predictions of the foremost engineers of hisday. 

In all the records of invention there is no more sad or affecting storythan that of John Fitch. Poor he was in many senses, poor inappearance, poor in spirit. He was born poor, lived poor, and diedpoor. If there ever was a true inventor, this man was one. He was oneof those eager souls that would coin their own flesh to carry theirpoint. He only uttered the obvious truth when he said one day, in acrisis of his invention, that if he could get one hundred pounds bycutting off one of his legs he would gladly give it to the knife. 

He tried in vain both in this country and in France to get money tobuild his steamboat. He would say: "You and I will not live to see theday, but the time will come when the steamboat will be preferred to allother modes of conveyance, when steamboats will ascend the Westernrivers from New Orleans to Wheeling, and when steamboats will cross theocean. Johnny Fitch will be forgotten, but other men will carry outhis ideas and grow rich and great upon them. "

Poor, ragged, forlorn, jeered at, pitied as a madman, discouraged bythe great, refused by the rich, he kept on till, in 1790, he had thefirst vessel on the Delaware that ever answered the purpose of asteamboat. It ran six miles an hour against the tide, and eight mileswith it. 

At noon, on Friday, August 4, 1807, a crowd of curious people mighthave been seen along the wharves of the Hudson River. They hadgathered to witness what they considered a ridiculous failure of a"crank" who proposed to take a party of people up the Hudson River toAlbany in what he called a steam vessel named the _Clermont_. Didanybody ever hear of such a ridiculous idea as navigating against thecurrent up the Hudson in a vessel without sails? "The thing will'bust, '" says one; "it will burn up, " says another, and "they will allbe drowned, " exclaims a third, as he sees vast columns of black smokeshoot up with showers of brilliant sparks. Nobody present, in allprobability, ever heard of a boat going by steam. It was the opinionof everybody that the man who had tooled away his money and his time onthe _Clermont_ was little better than an idiot, and ought to be in aninsane asylum. But the passengers go on board, the plank is pulled in, and the steam is turned on. The walking beam moves slowly up and down, and the _Clermont_ floats out into the river. "It can never go upstream, " the spectators persist. But it did go up stream, and the boy, who in his youth said there is nothing impossible, had scored a greattriumph, and had given to the world the first steamboat that had anypractical value. 

Notwithstanding that Fulton had rendered such great service tohumanity, a service which has revolutionized the commerce of the world, he was looked upon by many as a public enemy. Critics and cynicsturned up their noses when Fulton was mentioned. The severity of theworld's censure, ridicule, and detraction has usually been inproportion to the benefit the victim has conferred upon mankind. 

As the _Clermont_ burned pine wood, dense columns of fire and smokebelched forth from her smoke-stack while she glided triumphantly up theriver, and the inhabitants along the banks were utterly unable toaccount for the spectacle. They rushed to the shore amazed to see aboat "on fire" go against the stream so rapidly with neither oars norsails. The noise of her great paddle-wheels increased the wonder. Sailors forsook their vessels, and fishermen rowed home as fast aspossible to get out of the way of the fire monster. The Indians wereas much frightened as their predecessors were when the first shipapproached their hunting-ground on Manhattan Island. The owners ofsailing vessels were jealous of the _Clermont_, and tried to run herdown. Others whose interests were affected denied Fulton's claim tothe invention and brought suits against him. But the success of the_Clermont_ soon led to the construction of other steamships all overthe country. The government employed Fulton to aid in building apowerful steam frigate, which was called _Fulton the First_. He alsobuilt a diving boat for the government for the discharge of torpedoes. By this time his fame had spread all over the civilized world, and whenhe died, in 1815, newspapers were marked with black lines; thelegislature of New York wore badges of mourning; and minute guns werefired as the long funeral procession passed to old Trinity churchyard. Very few private persons were ever honored with such a burial. 

True, Dr. Lardner had "proved" to scientific men that a steamship couldnot cross the Atlantic, but in 1810 the _Savannah_ from New Yorkappeared off the coast of Ireland under sail and steam, having madethis "impossible" passage. Those on shore thought that a fire hadbroken out below the decks, and a king's cutter was sent to her relief. Although the voyage was made without accident, it was nearly twentyyears before it was admitted that steam navigation could be made acommercial success in ocean traffic. 

As Junius Smith impatiently paced the deck of a vessel sailing from anEnglish port to New York, on a rough and tedious voyage in 1832, hesaid to himself, "Why not cross the ocean regularly in steamships?" InNew York and in London a deaf ear was turned to any such nonsense. Smith's first encouragement came from George Grote, the historian andbanker, who said the idea was practicable; but it was the same oldstory, --he would risk no money in it. At length Isaac Selby, aprominent business man of London, agreed to build a steamship of twothousand tons, the _British Queen_. An unexpected delay in fitting theengines led the projectors to charter the _Sirius_, a river steamer ofseven hundred tons, and send her to New York. Learning of this, otherparties started from Bristol four days later in the _Great Western_, and both vessels arrived at New York the same day. Soon after Smithmade the round trip between London and New York in thirty-two days. 

What a sublime picture of determination and patience was that ofCharles Goodyear, of New Haven, buried in poverty and struggling withhardships for eleven long years, to make India rubber of practical use!See him in prison for debt; pawning his clothes and his wife's jewelryto get a little money to keep his children (who were obliged to gathersticks in the field for fire) from starving. Watch his sublime courageand devotion to his idea, when he had no money to bury a dead child andwhen his other five were near starvation; when his neighbors wereharshly criticizing him for his neglect of his family and calling himinsane. But, behold his vulcanized rubber; the result of that heroicstruggle, applied to over five hundred uses by 100, 000 employees. 

What a pathetic picture was that of Palissy, plodding on through wantand woe to rediscover the lost art of enameling pottery; building hisfurnaces with bricks carried on his back, seeing his six children dieof neglect, probably of starvation, his wife in rags and despair overher husband's "folly"; despised by his neighbors for neglecting hisfamily, worn to a skeleton himself, giving his clothes to his hired manbecause he could not pay him in money, hoping always, failing steadily, until at last his great work was accomplished, and he reaped his reward. 

German unity was the idea engraven upon Bismarck's heart. What caredthis herculean despot for the Diet chosen year after year simply tovote down every measure he proposed? He was indifferent to allopposition. He simply defied and sent home every Diet which opposedhim. He could play the game alone. To make Germany the greatest powerin Europe, to make William of Prussia a greater potentate than Napoleonor Alexander, was his all-absorbing purpose. It mattered not whatstood in his way, whether people, Diet, or nation; all must bend to hismighty will. Germany must hold the deciding voice in the Areopagus ofthe world. He rode roughshod over everybody and everything that stoodin his way, defiant of opposition, imperious, irrepressible!

See the great Dante in exile, condemned to be burnt alive on falsecharges of embezzlement. Look at his starved features, gaunt form, melancholy, a poor wanderer; but he never gave up his idea; he pouredout his very soul into his immortal poem, ever believing that rightwould at last triumph. 

Columbus was exposed to continual scoffs and indignities, beingridiculed as a mere dreamer and stigmatized as an adventurer. The verychildren, it is said, pointed to their foreheads as he passed, beingtaught to regard him as a kind of madman. 

An American was once invited to dine with Oken, the famous Germannaturalist. To his surprise, they had neither meats nor dessert, butonly baked potatoes. Oken was too great a man to apologize for theirsimple fare. His wife explained, however, that her husband's incomewas very small, and that they preferred to live simply in order that hemight obtain books and instruments for his scientific researches. 

Before the discovery of ether it often took a week, in some cases amonth, to recover from the enormous dose, sometimes five hundred dropsof laudanum, given to a patient to deaden the pain during a surgicaloperation. Young Dr. Morton believed that there must be some meansprovided by Nature to relieve human suffering during these terribleoperations; but what could he do? He was not a chemist; he did notknow the properties of chemical substances; he was not liberallyeducated. 

Dr. Morton did not resort to books, however, nor did he go toscientific men for advice, but immediately began to experiment withwell-known substances. He tried intoxicants even to the point ofintoxication, but as soon as the instruments were applied the patientwould revive. He kept on experimenting with narcotics in this manneruntil at last he found what he sought in ether. 

What a grand idea Bishop Vincent worked out for the young world in theChautauqua Circle, Dr. Clark in his world-wide Christian Endeavormovement, the Methodist Church in the Epworth League, Edward EverettHale in his little bands of King's Daughters and Ten Times One is Ten!Here is Clara Barton who has created the Red Cross Society, which isloved by all nations. She noticed in our Civil War that theConfederates were shelling the hospital. She thought it the last touchof cruelty to fight what couldn't fight back, and she determined tohave the barbarous custom stopped. Of course the world laughed at thispoor unaided woman. But her idea has been adopted by all nations; andthe enemy that aims a shot at the tent or building over which flies thewhite flag with the red cross has lost his last claim to humanconsideration. 

In all ages those who have advanced the cause of humanity have been menand women "possessed, " in the opinion of their neighbors. Noah inbuilding the ark, Moses in espousing the cause of the Israelites, orChrist in living and dying to save a fallen race, incurred the pity andscorn of the rich and highly educated, in common with all greatbenefactors. Yet in every age and in every clime men and women havebeen willing to incur poverty, hardship, toil, ridicule, persecution, or even death, if thereby they might shed light or comfort upon thepath which all must walk from the cradle to the grave. In fact it isdoubtful whether a man can perform very great service to mankind who isnot permeated with a great purpose--with an overmastering idea. 

Beecher had to fight every step of the way to his triumph throughobstacles which would have appalled all but the greatest characters. Oftentimes in these great battles for principle and struggles fortruth, he stood almost alone fighting popular prejudice, narrowness, and bigotry, uncharitableness and envy even in his own church. But henever hesitated nor wavered when he once saw his duty. There was noshilly-shallying, no hunting for a middle ground between right andwrong, no compromise on principles. He hewed close to the chalk lineand held his line plumb to truth. He never pandered for public favornor sought applause. Duty and truth were his goal, and he wentstraight to his mark. Other churches did not agree with him nor his, but he was too broad for hatred, too charitable for revenge, and toomagnanimous for envy. 

What tale of the "Arabian Nights" equals in fascination the story ofsuch lives as those of Franklin, of Morse, Goodyear, Howe, Edison, Bell, Beecher, Gough, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Amos Lawrence, GeorgePeabody, McCormick, Hoe, and scores of others, each representing somegreat idea embodied in earnest action, and resulting in an improvementof the physical, mental, and moral condition of those around them?

There are plenty of ideas left in the world yet. Everything has notbeen invented. All good things have not been done. There arethousands of abuses to rectify, and each one challenges the independentsoul, armed with a new idea. 

"But how shall I get ideas?" Keep your wits open! Observe! Study!But above all, Think! and when a noble image is indelibly impressedupon the mind--_Act_!

CHAPTER XXXVII

DARE

The Spartans did not inquire how many the enemy are, but where theyare. --AGIS II. 

What's brave, what's noble, let's do it after the high Roman fashion, and make death proud to take us. --SHAKESPEARE. 

Let me die facing the enemy. --BAYARD. 

Who conquers me, shall find a stubborn foe. --BYRON. 

 No great deed is done By falterers who ask for certainty. GEORGE ELIOT. 

Fortune befriends the bold. --DRYDEN. 

To stand with a smile upon your face against a stake from which youcannot get away--that, no doubt, is heroic. But the true glory isresignation to the inevitable. To stand unchained, with perfectliberty to go away, held only by the higher claims of duty, and let thefire creep up to the heart, --this is heroism. --F. W. ROBERTSON. 

"Steady, men! Every man must die where he stands!" said Colin Campbellto the Ninety-third Highlanders at Balaklava, as an overwhelming forceof Russian cavalry came sweeping down. "Ay, ay, Sir Colin! we'll dothat!" was the response from men, many of whom had to keep their wordby thus obeying. 

"Bring back the colors, " shouted a captain at the battle of the Alma, when an ensign maintained his ground in front, although the men wereretreating. "No, " cried the ensign, "bring up the men to the colors. "

"To dare, and again to dare, and without end to dare, " was Danton'snoble defiance to the enemies of France. "The Commons of France haveresolved to deliberate, " said Mirabeau to De Breze, who brought anorder from the king for them to disperse, June 23, 1789. "We haveheard the intentions that have been attributed to the king; and you, sir, who cannot be recognized as his organ in the NationalAssembly, --you, who have neither place, voice, nor right to speak, --youare not the person to bring to us a message of his. Go, say to thosewho sent you that we are here by the power of the people, and that wewill not be driven hence, save by the power of the bayonet. "

When the assembled senate of Rome begged Regulus not to return toCarthage to fulfil an illegal promise, he calmly replied: "Have youresolved to dishonor me? Torture and death are awaiting me, but whatare these to the shame of an infamous act, or the wounds of a guiltymind? Slave as I am to Carthage, I still have the spirit of a Roman. I have sworn to return. It is my duty. Let the gods take care of therest. "

The courage which Cranmer had shown since the accession of Mary gaveway the moment his final doom was announced. The moral cowardice whichhad displayed itself in his miserable compliance with the lust anddespotism of Henry VIII displayed itself again in six successiverecantations by which he hoped to purchase pardon. But pardon wasimpossible; and Cranmer's strangely mingled nature found a power in itsvery weakness when he was brought into the church of St. Mary at Oxfordon the 21st of March, to repeat his recantation on the way to thestake. "Now, " ended his address to the hushed congregation beforehim, --"now I come to the great thing that troubleth my conscience morethan any other thing that ever I said or did in my life, and that isthe setting abroad of writings contrary to the truth; which here I nowrenounce and refuse as things written by a hand contrary to the truthwhich I thought in my heart, and written for fear of death, to save mylife, if it might be. And, forasmuch as my hand offended in writingcontrary to my heart, my hand therefore shall be the first punished;for if I come to the fire it shall be the first burned. " "This was thehand that wrote it, " he again exclaimed at the stake, "therefore itshall suffer first punishment"; and holding it steadily in the flame, "he never stirred nor cried till life was gone. "

A woman's piercing shriek suddenly startled a party of surveyors atdinner in a forest of northern Virginia on a calm, sunny day in 1750. The cries were repeated in quick succession, and the men sprang throughthe undergrowth to learn their cause. "Oh, sir, " exclaimed the womanas she caught sight of a youth of eighteen, but a man in stature andbearing; "you will surely do something for me! Make these friendsrelease me. My boy, --my poor boy is drowning, and they will not let mego!" "It would be madness; she will jump into the river, " said one ofthe men who was holding her; "and the rapids would dash her to piecesin a moment!" Throwing off his coat, the youth sprang to the edge ofthe bank, scanned for a moment the rocks and whirling currents, andthen, at sight of part of the boy's dress, plunged into the roaringrapids. "Thank God, he will save my child!" cried the mother, and allrushed to the brink of the precipice; "there he is! Oh, my boy, mydarling boy! How could I leave you?"

But all eyes were bent upon the youth struggling with strong heart andhope amid the dizzy sweep of the whirling currents far below. Now itseemed as if he would be dashed against a projecting rock, over whichthe water flew in foam, and anon a whirlpool would drag him in, fromwhose grasp escape would seem impossible. Twice the boy went out ofsight, but he had reappeared the second time, although terribly nearthe most dangerous part of the river. The rush of waters here wastremendous, and no one had ever dared to approach it, even in a canoe, lest he should be dashed to pieces. The youth redoubled his exertions. Three times he was about to grasp the child, when some stronger eddywould toss it from him. One final effort he makes; the child is heldaloft by his strong right arm; but a cry of horror bursts from the lipsof every spectator as boy and man shoot over the falls and vanish inthe seething waters below. 

"There they are!" shouted the mother a moment later, in a delirium ofjoy. "See! they are safe! Great God, I thank Thee!" And sure enough, they emerged unharmed from the boiling vortex, and in a few minutesreached a low place in the bank and were drawn up by their friends, theboy senseless, but still alive, and the youth almost exhausted. "Godwill give you a reward, " solemnly spoke the grateful woman. "He willdo great things for you in return for this day's work, and theblessings of thousands besides mine will attend you. "

The youth was George Washington. 

"Your Grace has not the organ of animal courage largely developed, "said a phrenologist, who was examining Wellington's head. "You areright, " replied the Iron Duke, "and but for my sense of duty I shouldhave retreated in my first fight. " That first fight, on an Indianfield, was one of the most terrible on record. 

When General Jackson was a judge and was holding court in a smallsettlement, a border ruffian, a murderer and desperado, came into thecourt-room with brutal violence and interrupted the court. The judgeordered him to be arrested. The officer did not dare to approach him. "Call a posse, " said the judge, "and arrest him. " But they also shrankin fear from the ruffian. "Call me, then, " said Jackson; "this courtis adjourned for five minutes. " He left the bench, walked straight upto the man, and with his eagle eye actually cowed the ruffian, whodropped his weapons, afterwards saying, "There was something in his eyeI could not resist. "

One of the last official acts of President Carnot, of France, was thesending of a medal of the French Legion of Honor to a little Americangirl who lives in Indiana. While a train on the Pan Handle Railroad, having on board several distinguished Frenchmen, was bound to Chicagoand the World's Fair, Jennie Carey, who was then ten years old, discovered that a trestle was on fire, and that if the train, which wasnearly due, entered it a dreadful wreck would take place. Thereuponshe ran out upon the track to a place where she could be seen from somelittle distance. Then she took off her red flannel skirt and, when thetrain came in view, waved it back and forth across the track. It wasseen, and the train stopped. On board of it were seven hundred people, many of whom must have suffered death but for Jennie's courage andpresence of mind. When they returned to France, the Frenchmen broughtthe occurrence to the notice of President Carnot, and the result wasthe sending of the medal of this famous French society, the purpose ofwhich is the honoring of bravery and merit, wherever they may be found. 

It was the heroic devotion of an Indian girl that saved the life ofCaptain John Smith, when the powerful King Powhatan had decreed hisdeath. Ill could the struggling colony spare him at that time. 

On May 10, 1796, Napoleon carried the bridge at Lodi, in the face ofthe Austrian batteries. Fourteen cannon--some accounts saythirty--were trained upon the French end of the structure. Behind themwere six thousand troops. Napoleon massed four thousand grenadiers atthe head of the bridge, with a battalion of three hundred carbineers infront. At the tap of the drum the foremost assailants wheeled from thecover of the street wall under a terrible hail of grape and canister, and attempted to pass the gateway to the bridge. The front ranks wentdown like stalks of grain before a reaper; the column staggered andreeled backward, and the valiant grenadiers were appalled by the taskbefore them. Without a word or a look of reproach, Napoleon placedhimself at their head, and his aides and generals rushed to his side. Forward again, this time over heaps of dead that choked the passage, and a quick run, counted by seconds only, carried the column across twohundred yards of clear space, scarcely a shot from the Austrians takingeffect beyond the point where the platoons wheeled for the first leap. So sudden and so miraculous was it all that the Austrian artilleristsabandoned their guns instantly, and instead of rushing to the front andmeeting the French onslaught, their supports fled in a panic. ThisNapoleon had counted on in making the bold attack. The contrastbetween Napoleon's slight figure and the massive grenadiers suggestedthe nickname "Little Corporal. "

When Stephen of Colonna fell into the hands of base assailants, theyasked him in derision, "Where is now your fortress?" "Here, " was hisbold reply, placing his hand upon his heart. 

After the Mexican War General McClellan was employed as a topographicalengineer in surveying the Pacific coast. From his headquarters atVancouver he had gone on an exploring expedition with two companions, asoldier and a servant, when one evening he received word that thechiefs of the Columbia River tribes desired to confer with him. Fromthe messenger's manner he suspected that the Indians meant mischief, and so he warned his companions that they must be ready to leave campat a moment's notice. 

Mounting his horse, he rode boldly into the Indian village. Aboutthirty chiefs were holding council. McClellan was led into the circle, and placed at the right hand of Saltese. He was familiar with theChinook jargon, and could understand every word spoken in the council. Saltese made known the grievance of the tribes. Two Indians had beencaptured by a party of white pioneers and hanged for theft. Retaliation for this outrage seemed imperative. The chiefs ponderedlong, but had little to say. McClellan had been on friendly terms withthem, and was not responsible for the forest executions, but still, hewas a white man, and the chiefs had vowed vengeance against the race. The council was prolonged for hours before sentence was passed, andthen Saltese, in the name of the head men of the tribes, decreed thatMcClellan should immediately be put to death. 

McClellan said nothing. He had known that argument and pleas forjustice or mercy would be of no avail. He sat motionless, apparentlyindifferent to his fate. By his listlessness he had thrown his captorsoff their guard. When the sentence was passed he acted like a flash. Flinging his left arm around the neck of Saltese, he whipped out hisrevolver and held it close to the chief's temple. "Revoke thatsentence, or I shall kill you this instant!" he cried, with his fingersclicking the trigger. "I revoke it!" exclaimed Saltese, fairly lividfrom fear. "I must have your word that I can leave this council insafety. " "You have the word of Saltese, " was the quick response. 

McClellan knew how sacred was the pledge which he had received. Therevolver was lowered. Saltese was released from the embrace of thestrong arm. McClellan strode out of the tent with his revolver in hishand. Not a hand was raised against him. He mounted his horse androde to his camp, where his two followers were ready to spring into thesaddle and to escape from the villages. He owed his life to hisquickness of perception, his courage, and to his accurate knowledge ofIndian character. 

In 1856, Rufus Choate spoke to an audience of nearly five thousand inLowell, Mass. , in favor of the candidacy of James Buchanan for thepresidency. The floor of the great hall began to sink, settling moreand more as he proceeded with his address, until a sound of crackingtimber below would have precipitated a stampede with fatal results butfor the coolness of B. F. Butler, who presided. Telling the people toremain quiet, he said that he would see if there were any cause foralarm. He found the supports of the floor in so bad a condition thatthe slightest applause would be likely to bury the audience in theruins of the building. Returning rather leisurely to the platform, hewhispered to Choate as he passed, "We shall all be in ---- in fiveminutes"; then he told the crowd that there was no immediate danger ifthey would slowly disperse. The post of danger, he added, was on theplatform, which was most weakly supported, therefore he and those withhim would be the last to leave. No doubt many lives were saved by hiscoolness. 

Many distinguished foreign and American statesmen were present at afashionable dinner party where wine was freely poured, but SchuylerColfax, then vice-president of the United States, declined to drinkfrom a proffered cup. "Colfax dares not drink, " sneered a Senator whohad already taken too much. "You are right, " said the Vice-President, "I dare not. "

When Grant was in Houston many years ago, he was given a rousingreception. Naturally hospitable, and naturally inclined to like a manof Grant's make-up, the Houstonites determined to go beyond any otherSouthern city in the way of a banquet and other manifestations of theirgood-will and hospitality. They made lavish preparations for thedinner, the committee taking great pains to have the finest wines thatcould be procured for the table that night. When the time came toserve the wine, the headwaiter went first to Grant. Without a word thegeneral quietly turned down all the glasses at his plate. Thismovement was a great surprise to the Texans, but they were equal to theoccasion. Without a single word being spoken, every man along the lineof the long tables turned his glasses down, and there was not a drop ofwine taken that night. 

Two French officers at Waterloo were advancing to charge a greatlysuperior force. One, observing that the other showed signs of fear, said, "Sir, I believe you are frightened. " "Yes, I am, " was the reply, "and if you were half as much frightened, you would run away. "

"That's a brave man, " said Wellington, when he saw a soldier turn paleas he marched against a battery; "he knows his danger, and faces it. "

"There are many cardinals and bishops at Worms, " said a friend toLuther, "and they will burn your body to ashes as they did that of JohnHuss. " Luther replied: "Although they should make a fire that shouldreach from Worms to Wittenberg, and that should flame up to heaven, inthe Lord's name I would pass through it and appear before them. " Hesaid to another: "I would enter Worms though there were as many devilsthere as there are tiles upon the roofs of the houses. " Another mansaid to him: "Duke George will surely arrest you. " He replied: "It ismy duty to go, and I will go, though it rain Duke Georges for nine daystogether. "

A Western paper recently invited the surviving Union and Confederateofficers to give an account of the bravest act observed by each duringthe Civil War. Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson said that at adinner at Beaufort, S. C. , where wine flowed freely and ribald jestswere bandied, Dr. Miner, a slight, boyish fellow who did not drink, wastold that he could not go until he had drunk a toast, told a story, orsung a song. He replied: "I cannot sing, but I will give a toast, although I must drink it in water. It is 'Our Mothers. '" The men wereso affected and ashamed that they took him by the hand and thanked himfor displaying such admirable moral courage. 

It takes courage for a young man to stand firmly erect while others arebowing and fawning for praise and power. It takes courage to wearthreadbare clothes while your comrades dress in broadcloth. It takescourage to remain in honest poverty when others grow rich by fraud. Ittakes courage to say "No" squarely when those around you say "Yes. " Ittakes courage to do your duty in silence and obscurity while othersprosper and grow famous although neglecting sacred obligations. Ittakes courage to unmask your true self, to show your blemishes to acondemning world, and to pass for what you really are. 

It takes courage and pluck to be outvoted, beaten, laughed at, scoffed, ridiculed, derided, misunderstood, misjudged, to stand alone with allthe world against you, but

 "They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three. "

"An honest man is not the worse because a dog barks at him. "

We live ridiculously for fear of being thought ridiculous. 

 "Tis he is the coward who proves false to his vows, To his manhood, his honor, for a laugh or a sneer. "

The youth who starts out by being afraid to speak what he thinks willusually end by being afraid to think what he wishes. 

How we shrink from an act of our own! We live as others live. Customor fashion, or your doctor or minister, dictates, and they in turn darenot depart from their schools. Dress, living, servants, carriages, everything must conform, or we are ostracized. Who dares conduct hishousehold or business affairs in his own way, and snap his fingers atDame Grundy?

It takes courage for a public man not to bend the knee to popularprejudice. It takes courage to refuse to follow custom when it isinjurious to his health and morals. How much easier for a politicianto prevaricate and dodge an issue than to stand squarely on his feetlike a man!

As the strongest man has a weakness somewhere, so the greatest hero isa coward somewhere. Peter was courageous enough to draw his sword todefend his Master, but he could not stand the ridicule and the fingerof scorn of the maidens in the high priest's hall, and he actuallydenied even the acquaintance of the Master he had declared he would diefor. 

Don't be like Uriah Heep, begging everybody's pardon for taking theliberty of being in the world. There is nothing attractive intimidity, nothing lovable in fear. Both are deformities and arerepulsive. Manly courage is always dignified and graceful. 

Bruno, condemned to be burned alive in Rome, said to his judge: "Youare more afraid to pronounce my sentence than I am to receive it. "Anne Askew, racked until her bones were dislocated, never flinched, butlooked her tormentor calmly in the face and refused to adjure her faith. 

"I should have thought fear would have kept you from going so far, "said a relative who found the little boy Nelson wandering a longdistance from home. "Fear?" said the future admiral, "I don't knowhim. "

"To think a thing is impossible is to make it so. " _Courage isvictory, timidity's defeat_. 

That simple shepherd-lad, David, fresh from his flocks, marchingunattended and unarmed, save with his shepherd's staff and sling, toconfront the colossal Goliath with his massive armor, is the sublimestaudacity the world has ever seen. 

"Dent, I wish you would get down and see what is the matter with thatleg there, " said Grant, when he and Colonel Dent were riding throughthe thickest of a fire that had become so concentrated and murderousthat his troops had all been driven back. "I guess looking after yourhorse's legs can wait, " said Dent; "it is simply murder for us to sithere. " "All right, " said Grant; "if you don't want to see to it, Iwill. " He dismounted, untwisted a piece of telegraph wire which hadbegun to cut the horse's leg, examined it deliberately, and climbedinto his saddle. "Dent, " said he, "when you've got a horse that youthink a great deal of, you should never take any chances with him. Ifthat wire had been left there for a little time longer he would havegone dead lame, and would perhaps have been ruined for life. "

Wellington said that at Waterloo the hottest of the battle raged rounda farmhouse, with an orchard surrounded by a thick hedge, which was soimportant a point in the British position that orders were given tohold it at any hazard or sacrifice. At last the powder and ball ranshort and the hedges took fire, surrounding the orchard with a wall offlame. A messenger had been sent for ammunition, and soon two loadedwagons came galloping toward the farmhouse. "The driver of the firstwagon, with the reckless daring of an English boy, spurred hisstruggling and terrified horses through the burning heap; but theflames rose fiercely round, and caught the powder, which exploded in aninstant, sending wagon, horses, and rider in fragments into the air. For a instant the driver of the second wagon paused, appalled by hiscomrade's fate; the next, observing that the flames, beaten back forthe moment by the explosion, afforded him one desperate chance, senthis horses at the smoldering breach and, amid the deafening cheers ofthe garrison, landed his terrible cargo safely within. Behind him theflames closed up, and raged more fiercely than ever. "

At the battle of Friedland a cannon-ball came over the heads of theFrench soldiers, and a young soldier instinctively dodged. Napoleonlooked at him and smilingly said: "My friend, if that ball weredestined for you, though you were to burrow a hundred feet under groundit would be sure to find you there. "

When the mine in front of Petersburg was finished the fuse was lightedand the Union troops were drawn up ready to charge the enemy's works assoon as the explosion should make a breach. But seconds, minutes, andtens of minutes passed, without a sound from the mine, and the suspensebecame painful. Lieutenant Doughty and Sergeant Rees volunteered toexamine the fuse. Through the long subterranean galleries they hurriedin silence, not knowing but that they were advancing to a horribledeath. They found the defect, fired the train anew, and soon aterrible upheaval of earth gave the signal to march to victory. 

At the battle of Copenhagen, as Nelson walked the deck slippery withblood and covered with the dead, he said: "This is warm work, and thisday may be the last to any of us in a moment. But, mark me, I wouldnot be elsewhere for thousands. " At the battle of Trafalgar, when hewas shot and was being carried below, he covered his face, that thosefighting might not know their chief had fallen. 

In a skirmish at Salamanca, while the enemy's guns were pouring shotinto his regiment, Sir William Napier's men became disobedient. He atonce ordered a halt, and flogged four of the ringleaders under fire. The men yielded at once, and then marched three miles under a heavycannonade as coolly as if it were a review. 

Execute your resolutions immediately. Thoughts are but dreams untiltheir effects be tried. Does competition trouble you? work away; whatis your competitor but a man? _Conquer your place in the world_, forall things serve a brave soul. Combat difficulty manfully; sustainmisfortune bravely; endure poverty nobly; encounter disappointmentcourageously. The influence of the brave man is contagious and createsan epidemic of noble zeal in all about him. Every day sends to thegrave obscure men who have only remained in obscurity because theirtimidity has prevented them from making a first effort; and who, ifthey could have been induced to begin, would in all probability havegone great lengths in the career of usefulness and fame. "No greatdeed is done, " says George Eliot, "by falterers who ask for certainty. "

After the great inward struggle was over, and he had determined toremain loyal to his principles, Thomas More walked cheerfully to theblock. His wife called him a fool for staying in a dark, damp, filthyprison when he might have his liberty by merely renouncing hisdoctrines, as some of the bishops had done. But Thomas More preferreddeath to dishonor. 

His daughter showed the power of love to drive away fear. She remainedtrue to her father when all others, even her mother, had forsaken him. After his head had been cut off and exhibited on a pole on LondonBridge, the poor girl begged it of the authorities, and requested thatit be buried in the coffin with her. Her request was granted, for herdeath soon occurred. 

When Sir Walter Raleigh came to the scaffold he was very faint, andbegan his speech to the crowd by saying that during the last two dayshe had been visited by two ague fits. "If, therefore, you perceive anyweakness in me, I beseech you ascribe it to my sickness rather than tomyself. " He took the ax and kissed the blade, and said to the sheriff:"'T is a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for all diseases. "

Don't waste time dreaming of obstacles you may never encounter, or incrossing bridges you have not reached. To half will and to hangforever in the balance is to lose your grip on life. 

Abraham Lincoln's boyhood was one long struggle with poverty, withlittle education, and no influential friends. When at last he hadbegun the practice of law, it required no little courage to cast hisfortune with the weaker side in politics, and thus imperil what smallreputation he had gained. Only the most sublime moral courage couldhave sustained him as President to hold his ground against hostilecriticism and a long train of disaster; to issue the EmancipationProclamation, to support Grant and Stanton against the clamor of thepoliticians and the press. 

Lincoln never shrank from espousing an unpopular cause when he believedit to be right. At the time when it almost cost a young lawyer hisbread and butter to defend the fugitive slave, and when other lawyershad refused, Lincoln would always plead the cause of the unfortunatewhenever an opportunity presented. "Go to Lincoln, " people would say, when these hounded fugitives were seeking protection; "he's not afraidof any cause, if it's right. "

 Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just: Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified. LOWELL. 

As Salmon P. Chase left the court room after an impassioned plea forthe runaway slave girl Matilda, a man looked at him in surprise andsaid: "There goes a fine young fellow who has just ruined himself. "But in thus ruining himself Chase had taken the first important step ina career in which he became Governor of Ohio, United States Senatorfrom Ohio, Secretary of the United States Treasury, and Chief Justiceof the United States Supreme Court. 

At the trial of William Penn for having spoken at a Quaker meeting, therecorder, not satisfied with the first verdict, said to the jury: "Wewill have a verdict by the help of God, or you shall starve for it. ""You are Englishmen, " said Penn; "mind your privileges, give not awayyour right. " At last the jury, after two days and two nights withoutfood, returned a verdict of "Not guilty. " The recorder fined themforty marks apiece for their independence. 

What cared Christ for the jeers of the crowd? The palsied hand moved, the blind saw, the leper was made whole, the dead spake, despite theridicule and scoffs of the spectators. 

What cared Wendell Phillips for rotten eggs, derisive scorn, andhisses? In him "at last the scornful world had met its match. " WereBeecher and Gough to be silenced by the rude English mobs that came toextinguish them? No! they held their ground and compelled unwillingthousands to hear and to heed. Did Anna Dickinson leave the platformwhen the pistol bullets of the Molly Maguires flew about her head? Shesilenced those pistols by her courage and her arguments. 

What the world wants is a Knox, who dares to preach on with a musketleveled at his head; a Garrison, who is not afraid of a jail, or a mob, or a scaffold erected in front of his door. 

When General Butler was sent with nine thousand men to quell the NewYork riots, he arrived in advance of his troops, and found the streetsthronged with an angry mob, which had already hanged several men tolamp-posts. Without waiting for his men, Butler went to the placewhere the crowd was most dense, overturned an ash barrel, stood uponit, and began: "Delegates from Five Points, fiends from hell, you havemurdered your superiors, " and the bloodstained crowd quailed before thecourageous words of a single man in a city which Mayor Fernando Woodcould not restrain with the aid of police and militia. 

"Our enemies are before us, " exclaimed the Spartans at Thermopylae. "And we are before them. " was the cool reply of Leonidas. "Deliveryour arms, " came the message from Xerxes. "Come and take them, " wasthe answer Leonidas sent back. A Persian soldier said: "You will notbe able to see the sun for flying javelins and arrows. " "Then we willfight in the shade, " replied a Lacedemonian. What wonder that ahandful of such men checked the march of the greatest host that evertrod the earth!

"It is impossible, " said a staff officer, when Napoleon gave directionsfor a daring plan. "Impossible!" thundered the great commander, "_impossible_ is the adjective of fools!"

The courageous man is an example to the intrepid. His influence ismagnetic. Men follow him, even to the death. 

Men who have dared have moved the world, often before reaching theprime of life. It is astonishing what daring to begin and perseverancehave enabled even youths to achieve. Alexander, who ascended thethrone at twenty, had conquered the known world before dying atthirty-three. Julius Caesar captured eight hundred cities, conqueredthree hundred nations, defeated three million men, became a greatorator and one of the greatest statesmen known, and still was a youngman. Washington was appointed adjutant-general at nineteen, was sentat twenty-one as an ambassador to treat with the French, and won hisfirst battle as a colonel at twenty-two. Lafayette was made general ofthe whole French Army at twenty. Charlemagne was master of France andGermany at thirty. Galileo was but eighteen when he saw the principleof the pendulum in the swing lamp in the cathedral at Pisa. Peel wasin Parliament at twenty-one. Gladstone was in Parliament before he wastwenty-two, and at twenty-four he was Lord of the Treasury. ElizabethBarrett Browning was proficient in Greek and Latin at twelve; DeQuincey at eleven. Robert Browning wrote at eleven poetry of no meanorder. Cowley, who sleeps in Westminster Abbey, published a volume ofpoems at fifteen. Luther was but twenty-nine when he nailed his famousthesis to the door of the bishop and defied the pope. Nelson was alieutenant in the British Navy before he was twenty. He was butforty-seven when he received his death wound at Trafalgar. Atthirty-six, Cortez was the conqueror of Mexico; at thirty-two, Clivehad established the British power in India. Hannibal, the greatest ofmilitary commanders, was only thirty when, at Cannae, he dealt analmost annihilating blow at the republic of Rome, and Napoleon was onlytwenty-seven when, on the plains of Italy, he outgeneraled anddefeated, one after another, the veteran marshals of Austria. 

Equal courage and resolution are often shown by men who have passed theallotted limit of life. Victor Hugo and Wellington were both in theirprime after they had reached the age of threescore years and ten. Gladstone ruled England with a strong hand at eighty-four, and was amarvel of literary and scholarly ability. 

Shakespeare says: "He is not worthy of the honeycomb that shuns thehive because the bees have stings. "

 "The brave man is not he who feels no fear, For that were stupid and irrational; But he whose noble soul its fear subdues And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from. "

Many a bright youth has accomplished nothing of worth to himself or theworld simply because he did not dare to commence things. 

Begin! Begin! Begin!!!

Whatever people may think of you, do that which you believe to beright. Be alike indifferent to censure or praise. --PYTHAGORAS. 

 I dare to do all that may become a man: Who dares do more is none. SHAKESPEARE. 

For man's great actions are performed in minor struggles. There areobstinate and unknown braves who defend themselves inch by inch in theshadows against the fatal invasion of want and turpitude. There arenoble and mysterious triumphs which no eye sees, no renown rewards, andno flourish of trumpets salutes. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment, and poverty are battlefields which have theirheroes. --VICTOR HUGO. 

Quit yourselves like men. --1 SAMUEL iv. 9. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE WILL AND THE WAY

"I will find a way or make one. "

Nothing is impossible to the man who can will. --MIRABEAU. 

 The iron will of one stout heart shall make a thousand quail: A feeble dwarf, dauntlessly resolved, will turn the tide of battle, And rally to a nobler strife the giants that had fled. --TUPPER. 

In the lexicon of youth which fate reserves for a bright manhood thereis no such word as fail. --BULWER. 

When a firm and decisive spirit is recognized, it is curious to see howthe space clears around a man and leaves him room and freedom. --JOHNFOSTER. 

"As well can the Prince of Orange pluck the stars from the sky, asbring the ocean to the wall of Leyden for your relief, " was thederisive shout of the Spanish soldiers when told that the Dutch fleetwould raise that terrible four months' siege of 1574. But from theparched lips of William, tossing on his bed of fever at Rotterdam, hadissued the command: "_Break down the dikes: give Holland back toocean!_" and the people had replied: "Better a drowned land than a lostland. " They began to demolish dike after dike of the strong lines, ranged one within another for fifteen miles to their city of theinterior. It was an enormous task; the garrison was starving; and thebesiegers laughed in scorn at the slow progress of the puny insects whosought to rule the waves of the sea. But ever, as of old, Heaven aidsthose who help themselves. On the first and second of October aviolent equinoctial gale rolled the ocean inland, and swept the fleeton the rising waters almost to the camp of the Spaniards. The nextmorning the garrison sallied out to attack their enemies, but thebesiegers had fled in terror under cover of the darkness. The next daythe wind changed, and a counter tempest brushed the water, with thefleet upon it, from the surface of Holland. The outer dikes werereplaced at once, leaving the North Sea within its old bounds. Whenthe flowers bloomed the following spring, a joyous procession marchedthrough the streets to found the University of Leyden, in commemorationof the wonderful deliverance of the city. 

At a dinner party given in 1837, at the residence of Chancellor Kent, in New York City, some of the most distinguished men in the countrywere invited, and among them was a young and rather melancholy andreticent Frenchman. Professor Morse was also one of the guests, andduring the evening he drew the attention of Mr. Gallatin, then aprominent statesman, to the stranger, observing that his foreheadindicated a great intellect. "Yes, " replied Mr. Gallatin, touching hisown forehead with his finger, "there is a great deal in that head ofhis: but he has a strange fancy. Can you believe it? He has the ideathat he will one day be the Emperor of France. Can you conceiveanything more absurd than that?"

It did seem absurd, for this reserved Frenchman was then a pooradventurer, an exile from his country, without fortune or powerfulconnections, and yet, fourteen years later, his idea became afact, --his dream of becoming Napoleon III. Was realized. True, beforehe accomplished his purpose there were long, dreary years ofimprisonment, exile, disaster, and patient labor and hope, but hegained his ambition at last. He was not scrupulous as to the meansemployed to accomplish his ends, yet he is a remarkable example of whatpluck and energy can do. 

When Mr. Ingram, publisher of the "Illustrated London News, " began lifeas a newsdealer at Nottingham, England, he walked ten miles to delivera single paper rather than disappoint a customer. Does any one wonderthat such a youth succeeded? Once he rose at two o'clock in themorning and walked to London to get some papers because there was nopost to bring them. He determined that his customers should not bedisappointed. This is the kind of will that finds a way. 

There is scarcely anything in all biography grander than the saying ofyoung Henry Fawcett, Gladstone's last Postmaster-General, to hisgrief-stricken father, who had put out both his eyes by birdshot duringa game hunt: "Never mind, father, blindness shall not interfere with mysuccess in life. " One of the most pathetic sights in London streets, long afterward, was Henry Fawcett, M. P. , led everywhere by a faithfuldaughter, who acted as amanuensis as well as guide to her pluckyfather. Think of a young man, scarcely on the threshold of activelife, suddenly losing the sight of both eyes and yet by mere pluck andalmost incomprehensible tenacity of purpose, lifting himself intoeminence in any direction, to say nothing of becoming one of theforemost men in a country noted for its great men!

The courageous daughter who was eyes to her father was herself amarvelous example of pluck and determination. For the first time inthe history of Oxford College, which reaches back centuries, shesucceeded in winning the post which had only been gained before bygreat men, such as Gladstone, --the post of senior wrangler. Thisachievement had had no parallel in history up to that date, andattracted the attention of the whole civilized world. Not only had nowoman ever held this position before, but with few exceptions it hadonly been held by men who in after life became highly distinguished. 

"Circumstances, " says Milton, "have rarely favored famous men. Theyhave fought their way to triumph through all sorts of opposingobstacles. "

The true way to conquer circumstances is to be a greater circumstanceyourself. 

Yet, while desiring to impress in the most forcible manner possible thefact that will-power is necessary to success, and that, other thingsbeing equal, the greater the will-power, the grander and more completethe success, we can not indorse the theory that there is nothing incircumstances or environments, or that any man, simply because he hasan indomitable will, may become a Bonaparte, a Pitt, a Webster, aBeecher, a Lincoln. We must temper determination with discretion, andsupport it with knowledge and common sense, or it will only lead us torun our heads against posts. We must not expect to overcome a stubbornfact merely by a stubborn will. We only have the right to assume thatwe can do anything within the limit of our utmost faculty, strength, and endurance. Obstacles permanently insurmountable bar our progressin some directions, but in any direction we may reasonably hope andattempt to go we shall find that, as a rule, they are either notinsurmountable or else not permanent. The strong-willed, intelligent, persistent man will find or make a way where, in the nature of things, a way can be found or made. 

Every schoolboy knows that circumstances do give clients to lawyers andpatients to physicians; place ordinary clergymen in extraordinarypulpits; place sons of the rich at the head of immense corporations andlarge houses, when they have very ordinary ability and scarcely anyexperience, while poor young men with unusual ability, good education, good character, and large experience, often have to fight their way foryears to obtain even very mediocre situations; that there are thousandsof young men of superior ability, both in the city and in the country, who seem to be compelled by circumstances to remain in very ordinarypositions for small pay, when others about them are raised by money orfamily influence into desirable places. In other words, we all knowthat the best men do not always get the best places; circumstances dohave a great deal to do with our position, our salaries, our station inlife. 

Every one knows that there is not always a way where there is a will;that labor does not always conquer all things; that there are thingsimpossible even to him that wills, however strongly; that one can notalways make anything of himself he chooses; that there are limitationsin our very natures which no amount of will-power or industry canovercome. 

But while it is true that the will-power can not perform miracles, yetthat it is almost omnipotent, and can perform wonders, all history goesto prove. As Shakespeare says:--

 Men at some time are masters of their fates; The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings. 

Show me a man who according to popular prejudice is a victim of badluck, and I will show you one who has some unfortunate crooked twist oftemperament that invites disaster. He is ill-tempered, conceited, ortrifling; lacks character, enthusiasm, or some other requisite forsuccess. 

Disraeli said that man is not the creature of circumstances, but thatcircumstances are the creatures of men. 

Believe in the power of will, which annihilates the sickly, sentimentaldoctrine of fatalism, --you must, but can't, you ought, but it isimpossible. 

Give me the man who faces what he must, "Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And breasts the blows of circumstance, And grapples with his evil star. "

The indomitable will, the inflexible purpose, will find a way or makeone. There is always room for a man of force. 

"He who has a firm will, " says Goethe, "molds the world to himself. ""People do not lack strength, " says Victor Hugo, "they lack will. "

"He who resolves upon any great end, by that very resolution has scaledthe great barriers to it, and he who seizes the grand idea ofself-cultivation, and solemnly resolves upon it, will find that idea, that resolution, burning like fire within him, and ever putting himupon his own improvement. He will find it removing difficulties, searching out, or making means; giving courage for despondency, andstrength for weakness. "

Nearly all great men, those who have towered high above their fellows, have been remarkable above all things else for their energy of will. Of Julius Caesar it was said by a contemporary that it was his activityand giant determination, rather than his military skill, that won hisvictories. The youth who starts out in life determined to make themost of his eyes and let nothing escape him which he can possibly usefor his own advancement; who keeps his ears open for every sound thatcan help him on his way, who keeps his hands open that he may clutchevery opportunity, who is ever on the alert for everything which canhelp him to get on in the world, who seizes every experience in lifeand grinds it up into paint for his great life's picture, who keeps hisheart open that he may catch every noble impulse, and everything whichmay inspire him, --that youth will be sure to make his life successful;there are no "ifs" or "ands" about it. If he has his health, nothingcan keep him from final success. 

No tyranny of circumstances can permanently imprison a determined will. 

The world always stands aside for the determined man. 

"The general of a large army may be defeated, " said Confucius, "but youcan not defeat the determined mind of a peasant. "

The poor, deaf pauper, Kitto, who made shoes in the almshouse, and whobecame the greatest of Biblical scholars, wrote in his journal, on thethreshold of manhood: "I am not myself a believer in impossibilities: Ithink that all the fine stories about natural ability, etc. , are mererigmarole, and that every man may, according to his opportunities andindustry, render himself almost anything he wishes to become. "

Lincoln is probably the most remarkable example on the pages ofhistory, showing the possibilities of our country. From the poverty inwhich he was born, through the rowdyism of a frontier town, thediscouragement of early bankruptcy, and the fluctuations of popularpolitics, he rose to the championship of union and freedom. 

Lincoln's will made his way. When his friends nominated him as acandidate for the legislature, his enemies made fun of him. Whenmaking his campaign speeches he wore a mixed jean coat so short that hecould not sit down on it, flax and tow-linen trousers, straw hat, andpot-metal boots. He had nothing in the world but character and friends. 

When his friends suggested law to him, he laughed at the idea of hisbeing a lawyer. He said he had not brains enough. He read lawbarefoot under the trees, his neighbors said, and he sometimes slept onthe counter in the store where he worked. He had to borrow money tobuy a suit of clothes to make a respectable appearance in thelegislature, and walked to take his seat at Vandalia, --one hundredmiles. 

See Thurlow Weed, defying poverty and wading through the snow twomiles, with rags for shoes, to borrow a book to read before thesap-bush fire. See Locke, living on bread and water in a Dutch garret. See Heyne, sleeping many a night on a barn floor with only a book forhis pillow. See Samuel Drew, tightening his apron string "in lieu of adinner. " History is full of such examples. He who will pay the pricefor victory need never fear final defeat. 

Paris was in the hands of a mob, the authorities were panic-stricken, for they did not dare to trust their underlings. In came a man whosaid, "I know a young officer who has the courage and ability to quellthis mob. " "Send for him; send for him; send for him, " said they. Napoleon was sent for, came, subjugated the mob, subjugated theauthorities, ruled France and then conquered Europe. 

Success in life is dependent largely upon the will-power, and whateverweakens or impairs it diminishes success. The will can be educated. That which most easily becomes a habit in us is the will. Learn, then, to will decisively and strongly; thus fix your floating life, and leaveit no longer to be carried hither and thither, like a withered leaf, byevery wind that blows. "It is not talent that men lack, it is the willto labor; it is the purpose. "

It was the insatiable thirst for knowledge which held to his task, through poverty and discouragement, John Leyden, a Scotch shepherd'sson. Barefoot and alone, he walked six or eight miles daily to learnto read, which was all the schooling he had. His desire for aneducation defied the extremest poverty, and no obstacle could turn himfrom his purpose. He was rich when he discovered a little bookstore, and his thirsty soul would drink in the precious treasures from itspriceless volumes for hours, perfectly oblivious of the scanty meal ofbread and water which awaited him at his lowly lodging. Nothing coulddiscourage him from trying to improve himself by study. It seemed tohim that an opportunity to get at books and lectures was all that anyman could need. Before he was nineteen, this poor shepherd boy with nochance had astonished the professors of Edinburgh by his knowledge ofGreek and Latin. 

Hearing that a surgeon's assistant in the Civil Service was wanted, although he knew nothing whatever of medicine, he determined to applyfor it. There were only six months before the place was to be filled, but nothing would daunt him, and he took his degree with honor. WalterScott, who thought this one of the most remarkable illustrations ofperseverance, helped to fit him out, and he sailed for India. 

Webster was very poor even after he entered Dartmouth College. Afriend sent him a recipe for greasing his boots. Webster wrote andthanked him, and added: "But my boots needs other doctoring, for theynot only admit water, but even peas and gravel-stones. " Yet he becameone of the greatest men in the world. Sydney Smith said: "Webster wasa living lie, because no man on earth could be as great as he looked. "Carlyle said of him: "One would incline at sight to back him againstthe world. "

What seemed to be luck followed Stephen Girard all his life. No matterwhat he did, it always seemed to others to turn to his account. 

Being a foreigner, unable to speak English, short, stout, and with arepulsive face, blind in one eye, it was hard for him to get a start. But he was not the man to give up. He had begun as a cabin boy atthirteen, and for nine years sailed between Bordeaux and the FrenchWest Indies. He improved every leisure minute at sea, mastering theart of navigation. 

At the age of eight he had first discovered that he was blind in oneeye. His father, evidently thinking that he would never amount toanything, would not help him to an education beyond that of merereading and writing, but sent his younger brothers to college. Thediscovery of his blindness, the neglect of his father, and the chagrinof his brothers' advancement soured his whole life. 

When he began business for himself in Philadelphia, there seemed to benothing he would not do for money. He bought and sold anything, fromgroceries to old junk; he bottled wine and cider, from which he made agood profit. Everything he touched prospered. 

He left nothing to chance. His plans and schemes were worked out withmathematical care. His letters written to his captains in foreignports, laying out their routes and giving detailed instructions, aremodels of foresight and systematic planning. He never left anything ofimportance to others. He was rigidly accurate in his instructions, andwould not allow the slightest departure from them. He used to say thatwhile his captains might save him money by deviating from instructionsonce, yet they would cause loss in ninety-nine other cases. 

He never lost a ship, and many times that which brought financial ruinto many others, as the War of 1812, only increased his wealth. Everybody, especially his jealous brother merchants, attributed hisgreat success to his luck. While undoubtedly he was fortunate inhappening to be at the right place at the right time, yet he wasprecision, method, accuracy, energy itself. What seemed luck with himwas only good judgment and promptness in seizing opportunities, and thegreatest care and zeal in improving them to their utmost possibilities. 

The mathematician tells you that if you throw the dice, there arethirty chances to one against your turning up a particular number, anda hundred to one against your repeating the same throw three times insuccession: and so on in an augmenting ratio. 

Many a young man who has read the story of John Wanamaker's romanticcareer has gained very little inspiration or help from it toward hisown elevation and advancement, for he looks upon it as the result ofgood luck, chance, or fate. "What a lucky fellow, " he says to himselfas he reads; "what a bonanza he fell into!" But a careful analysis ofWanamaker's life only enforces the same lesson taught by the analysisof most great lives, namely, that a good mother, a good constitution, the habit of hard work, indomitable energy, determination which knowsno defeat, decision which never wavers, a concentration which neverscatters its forces, courage which never falters, self-mastery whichcan say No, and stick to it, strict integrity and downright honesty, acheerful disposition, unbounded enthusiasm in one's calling, and a highaim and noble purpose insure a very large measure of success. 

Youth should be taught that there is something in circumstances; thatthere is such a thing as a poor pedestrian happening to find noobstruction in his way, and reaching the goal when a better walkerfinds the drawbridge up, the street blockaded, and so fails to win therace; that wealth often does place unworthy sons in high positions;that family influence does gain a lawyer clients, a physician patients, an ordinary scholar a good professorship; but that, on the other hand, position, clients, patients, professorships, managers' andsuperintendents' positions do not necessarily constitute success. Heshould be taught that in the long run, as a rule, _the best man doeswin the best place_, and that persistent merit does succeed. 

There is about as much chance of idleness and incapacity winning realsuccess or a high position in life, as there would be in producing a"Paradise Lost" by shaking up promiscuously the separate words ofWebster's Dictionary, and letting them fall at random on the floor. Fortune smiles upon those who roll up their sleeves and put theirshoulders to the wheel; upon men who are not afraid of dreary, dry, irksome drudgery, men of nerve and grit who do not turn aside for dirtand detail. 

The youth should be taught that "he alone is great, who, by a lifeheroic, conquers fate"; that "diligence is the mother of good luck";that nine times out of ten what we call luck or fate is but a merebugbear of the indolent, the languid, the purposeless, the careless, the indifferent; that, as a rule, the man who fails does not see orseize his opportunity. Opportunity is coy, is swift, is gone, beforethe slow, the unobservant, the indolent, or the careless can seizeher:--

 "In idle wishes fools supinely stay: Be there a will and wisdom finds a way. "

It has been well said that the very reputation of being strong-willed, plucky, and indefatigable is of priceless value. It often cows enemiesand dispels at the start opposition to one's undertakings which wouldotherwise be formidable. 

It is astonishing what men who have come to their senses late in lifehave accomplished by a sudden resolution. 

Arkwright was fifty years of age when he began to learn English grammarand improve his writing and spelling. Benjamin Franklin was past fiftybefore he began the study of science and philosophy. Milton, in hisblindness, was past the age of fifty when he sat down to complete hisworld-known epic, and Scott at fifty-five took up his pen to redeem aliability of $600, 000. "Yet I am learning, " said Michael Angelo, whenthreescore years and ten were past, and he had long attained thehighest triumphs of his art. 

Even brains are second in importance to will. The vacillating man isalways pushed aside in the race of life. It is only the weak andvacillating who halt before adverse circumstances and obstacles. A manwith an iron will, with a determination that nothing shall check hiscareer, is sure, if he has perseverance and grit, to succeed. We maynot find time for what we would like, but what we long for and strivefor with all our strength, we usually approximate, if we do not fullyreach. 

I wish it were possible to show the youth of America the great partthat the will might play in their success in life and in theirhappiness as well. The achievements of will-power are simply beyondcomputation. Scarcely anything in reason seems impossible to the manwho can will strong enough and long enough. 

How often we see this illustrated in the case of a young woman whosuddenly becomes conscious that she is plain and unattractive; who, byprodigious exercise of her will and untiring industry, resolves toredeem herself from obscurity and commonness; and who not only makes upfor her deficiencies, but elevates herself into a prominence andimportance which mere personal attractions could never have given her!Charlotte Cushman, without a charm of form or face, climbed to the verytop of her profession. How many young men, stung by consciousness ofphysical deformity or mental deficiencies, have, by a strong, persistent exercise of will-power, raised themselves from mediocrityand placed themselves high above those who scorned them!

History is full of examples of men and women who have redeemedthemselves from disgrace, poverty, and misfortune by the firmresolution of an iron will. The consciousness of being looked upon asinferior, as incapable of accomplishing what others accomplish; thesensitiveness at being considered a dunce in school, has stung many ayouth into a determination which has elevated him far above those wholaughed at him, as in the case of Newton, of Adam Clark, of Sheridan, Wellington, Goldsmith, Dr. Chalmers, Curran, Disraeli and hundreds ofothers. 

It is men like Mirabeau, who "trample upon impossibilities"; likeNapoleon, who do not wait for opportunities, but make them; like Grant, who has only "unconditional surrender" for the enemy, who change thevery front of the world. 

"I can't, it is impossible, " said a foiled lieutenant to Alexander. "Be gone, " shouted the conquering Macedonian, "there is nothingimpossible to him who will try. "

Were I called upon to express in a word the secret of so many failuresamong those who started out in life with high hopes, I should sayunhesitatingly, they lacked will-power. They could not half will. What is a man without a will? He is like an engine without steam, amere sport of chance, to be tossed about hither and thither, always atthe mercy of those who have wills. I should call the strength of willthe test of a young man's possibilities. Can he will strong enough, and hold whatever he undertakes with an iron grip? It is the iron gripthat takes the strong hold on life. "The truest wisdom, " saidNapoleon, "is a resolute determination. " An iron will withoutprinciple might produce a Napoleon; but with character it would make aWellington or a Grant, untarnished by ambition or avarice. 

 "The undivided will 'Tis that compels the elements and wrings A human music from the indifferent air. "

CHAPTER XXXIX

ONE UNWAVERING AIM

 Life is an arrow--therefore you must know What mark to aim at, how to use the bow-- Then draw it to the head and let it go. HENRY VAN DYKE. 

The important thing in life is to have a great aim, and to possess theaptitude and perseverance to attain it. --GOETHE. 

"A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. "

Let every one ascertain his special business and calling, and thenstick to it if he would be successful. --FRANKLIN. 

"Why do you lead such a solitary life?" asked a friend of MichaelAngelo. "Art is a jealous mistress, " replied the artist; "she requiresthe whole man. " During his labors at the Sistine Chapel, according toDisraeli, he refused to meet any one, even at his own house. 

"This day we sailed westward, which was our course, " were the simplebut grand words which Columbus wrote in his journal day after day. Hope might rise and fall, terror and dismay might seize upon the crewat the mysterious variations of the compass, but Columbus, unappalled, pushed due west and nightly added to his record the above words. 

"Cut an inch deeper, " said a member of the Old Guard to the surgeonprobing his wound, "and you will find the Emperor, "--meaning his heart. By the marvelous power of concentrated purpose Napoleon had left hisname on the very stones of the capital, had burned it indelibly intothe heart of every Frenchman, and had left it written in living lettersall over Europe. France to-day has not shaken off the spell of thatname. In the fair city on the Seine the mystic "N" confronts youeverywhere. 

Oh, the power of a great purpose to work miracles! It has changed theface of the world. Napoleon knew that there were plenty of great menin France, but they did not know the might of the unwavering aim bywhich he was changing the destinies of Europe. He saw that what wascalled the "balance of power" was only an idle dream; that, unless somemaster-mind could be found which was a match for events, the millionswould rule in anarchy. His iron will grasped the situation; and likeWilliam Pitt, he did not loiter around balancing the probabilities offailure or success, or dally with his purpose. There was no turning tothe right nor to the left; no dreaming away time, nor buildingair-castles; but one look and purpose, forward, upward and onward, straight to his goal. His great success in war was due largely to hisdefiniteness of aim. He always hit the bull's-eye. He was like agreat burning-glass, concentrating the rays of the sun upon a singlespot; he burned a hole wherever he went. After finding the weak placein the enemy's ranks, he would mass his men and hurl them like anavalanche upon the critical point, crowding volley upon volley, chargeupon charge, till he made a breach. What a lesson of the powerconcentration there is in this man's life!

To succeed to-day a man must concentrate all the faculties of his mindupon one unwavering aim, and have a tenacity of purpose which meansdeath or victory. Every other inclination which tempts him from hisaim must be suppressed. 

A man may starve on a dozen half-learned trades or occupations; he maygrow rich and famous upon one trade thoroughly mastered, even though itbe the humblest. 

Even Gladstone, with his ponderous yet active brain, said he could notdo two things at once; he threw his entire strength upon whatever hedid. The intensest energy characterized everything he undertook, evenhis recreation. If such concentration of energy is necessary for thesuccess of a Gladstone, what can we common mortals hope to accomplishby "scatteration"?

All great men have been noted for their power of concentration whichmakes them oblivious of everything outside their aim. Victor Hugowrote his "Notre Dame" during the revolution of 1830, while the bulletswere whistling across his garden. He shut himself up in one room, locking his clothes up in another, lest they should tempt him to go outinto the street, and spent most of that winter wrapped in a big graycomforter, pouring his very life into his work. 

Abraham Lincoln possessed such power of concentration that he couldrepeat quite correctly a sermon to which he had listened in his boyhood. 

A New York sportsman, in answer to an advertisement, sent twenty-fivecents for a sure receipt to prevent a shotgun from scattering, andreceived the following: "Dear Sir: To keep a gun from scattering put inbut a single shot. "

It is the men who do one thing in this world who come to the front. Who is the favorite actor? It is a Jefferson, who devotes a lifetimeto a "Rip Van Winkle, " a Booth, an Irving, a Kean, who plays onecharacter until he can play it better than any other man living, andnot the shallow players who impersonate all parts. The great man isthe one who never steps outside of his specialty or dissipates hisindividuality. It is an Edison, a Morse, a Bell, a Howe, a Stephenson, a Watt. It is an Adam Smith, spending ten years on the "Wealth ofNations. " It is a Gibbon, giving twenty years to his "Decline and Fallof the Roman Empire. " It is a Hume, writing thirteen hours a day onhis "History of England. " It is a Webster, spending thirty-six yearson his dictionary. It is a Bancroft, working twenty-six years on his"History of the United States. " It is a Field, crossing the oceanfifty times to lay a cable, while the world ridicules. It is a Newton, writing his "Chronology of Ancient Nations" sixteen times. 

A one-talent man who decides upon a definite object accomplishes morethan a ten-talent man who scatters his energies and never knows exactlywhat he will do. The weakest living creature, by concentrating hispowers upon one thing, can accomplish something; the strongest, bydispersing his over many, may fail to accomplish anything. 

A great purpose is cumulative; and, like a great magnet, it attractsall that is kindred along the stream of life. 

[Illustration: Joseph Jefferson]

A Yankee can splice a rope in many different ways; an English sailoronly knows one way, but that is the best one. It is the one-sided man, the sharp-eyed man, the man of single and intense purpose, the man ofone idea, who cuts his way through obstacles and forges to the front. The time has gone forever when a Bacon can span universal knowledge; orwhen, absorbing all the knowledge of the times, a Dante can sustainarguments against fourteen disputants in the University of Paris, andconquer in them all. The day when a man can successfully drive a dozencallings abreast is a thing of the past. Concentration is the keynoteof the century. 

Scientists estimate that there is energy enough in less than fiftyacres of sunshine to run all the machinery in the world, if it could beconcentrated. But the sun might blaze out upon the earth foreverwithout setting anything on fire; although these rays focused by aburning-glass would melt solid granite, or even change a diamond intovapor. There are plenty of men who have ability enough; the rays oftheir faculties, taken separately, are all right, but they arepowerless to collect them, to bring them all to bear upon a singlespot. Versatile men, universal geniuses, are usually weak, becausethey have no power to concentrate their talents upon one point, andthis makes all the difference between success and failure. 

Chiseled upon the tomb of a disappointed, heart-broken king, Joseph II. Of Austria, in the Royal Cemetery at Vienna, a traveler tells us, isthis epitaph: "Here lies a monarch who, with the best of intentions, never carried out a single plan. "

Sir James Mackintosh was a man of remarkable ability. He excited inevery one who knew him the greatest expectations. Many watched hiscareer with much interest, expecting that he would dazzle the world;but there was no purpose in his life. He had intermittent attacks ofenthusiasm for doing great things, but his zeal all evaporated beforehe could decide what to do. This fatal defect in his character kepthim balancing between conflicting motives; and his whole life wasalmost thrown away. He lacked power to choose one object and perseverewith a single aim, sacrificing every interfering inclination. He, forinstance, vacillated for weeks trying to determine whether to use"usefulness" or "utility" in a composition. 

One talent utilized in a single direction will do infinitely more thanten talents scattered. A thimbleful of powder behind a ball in a riflewill do more execution than a carload of powder unconfined. Therifle-barrel is the purpose that gives direct aim to the powder, whichotherwise, no matter how good it might be, would be powerless. Thepoorest scholar in school or college often, in practical life, faroutstrips the class leader or senior wrangler, simply because whatlittle ability he has he employs for a definite object, while theother, depending upon his general ability and brilliant prospects, never concentrates his powers. 

It is fashionable to ridicule the man of one idea, but the men who havechanged the front of the world have been men of a single aim. No mancan make his mark on this age of specialties who is not a man of oneidea, one supreme air, one master passion. The man who would makehimself felt on this bustling planet, who would make a breach in thecompact conservatism of our civilization, must play all his guns on onepoint. A wavering aim, a faltering purpose, has no place in thetwentieth century. "Mental shiftlessness" is the cause of many afailure. The world is full of unsuccessful men who spend their livesletting empty buckets down into empty wells. 

"Mr. A. Often laughs at me, " said a young American chemist, "because Ihave but one idea. He talks about everything, aims to excel in manythings; but I have learned that, if I ever wish to make a breach, Imust play my guns continually upon one point. " This great chemist, when an obscure schoolmaster, used to study by the light of a pine knotin a log cabin. Not many years later he was performing experiments inelectro-magnetism before English earls, and subsequently he was at thehead of one of the largest scientific institutes of this country. Hewas the late Professor Henry, of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington. 

We should guard against a talent which we can not hope to practise inperfection, says Goethe. Improve it as we may, we shall always, in theend, when the merit of the matter has become apparent to us, painfullylament the loss of time and strength devoted to such botching. An oldproverb says: "The master of one trade will support a wife and sevenchildren, and the master of seven will not support himself. "

_It is the single aim that wins_. Men with monopolizing ambitionsrarely live in history. They do not focus their powers long enough toburn their names indelibly into the roll of honor. Edward Everett, even with his magnificent powers, disappointed the expectations of hisfriends. He spread himself over the whole field of knowledge andelegant culture; but the mention of the name of Everett does not callup any one great achievement as does that of names like Garrison andPhillips. Voltaire called the Frenchman La Harpe an oven which wasalways heating, but which never cooked anything. Hartley Coleridge wassplendidly endowed with talent, but there was one fatal lack in hischaracter--he had no definite purpose, and his life was a failure. Unstable as water, he could not excel. Southey, the uncle ofColeridge, says of him: "Coleridge has two left hands. " He was somorbidly shy from living alone in his dreamland that he could not opena letter without trembling. He would often rally from his purposelesslife, and resolve to redeem himself from the oblivion he saw staringhim in the face; but, like Sir James Mackintosh, he remained a man ofpromise merely to the end of his life. 

The man who succeeds has a program. He fires his course and adheres toit. He lays his plans and executes them. He goes straight to hisgoal. He is not pushed this way and that every time a difficulty isthrown in his path; if he can not get over it he goes through it. Constant and steady use of the faculties under a central purpose givesstrength and power, while the use of faculties without an aim or endonly weakens them. The mind must be focused on a definite end, or, like machinery without a balance-wheel, it will rack itself to pieces. 

This age of concentration calls, not for educated men merely, not fortalented men, not for geniuses, not for jacks-of-all-trades, but formen who are trained to do one thing as well as it can be done. Napoleon could go through the drill of his soldiers better than any oneof his men. 

_Stick to your aim_. The constant changing of one's occupation isfatal to all success. After a young man has spent five or six years ina dry goods store, he concludes that he would rather sell groceries, thereby throwing away five years of valuable experience which will beof very little use to him in the grocery business; and so he spends alarge part of his life drifting around from one kind of employment toanother, learning part of each but all of none, forgetting thatexperience is worth more to him than money and that the years devotedto learning his trade or occupation are the most valuable. Half-learned trades, no matter if a man has twenty, will never give hima good living, much less a competency, while wealth is absolutely outof the question. 

How many young men fail to reach the point of efficiency in one line ofwork before they get discouraged and venture into something else! Howeasy to see the thorns in one's own profession or vocation, and onlythe roses in that of another! A young man in business, for instance, seeing a physician riding about town in his carriage, visiting hispatients, imagines that a doctor must have an easy, ideal life, andwonders that he himself should have embarked in an occupation so fullof disagreeable drudgery and hardships. He does not know of the yearsof dry, tedious study which the physician has consumed, the months andperhaps years of waiting for patients, the dry detail of anatomy, theendless names of drugs and technical terms. 

There is a sense of great power in a vocation after a man has reachedthe point of efficiency in it, the point of productiveness, the pointwhere his skill begins to tell and brings in returns. Up to this pointof efficiency, while he is learning his trade, the time seems to havebeen almost thrown away. But he has been storing up a vast reserve ofknowledge of detail, laying foundations, forming his acquaintances, gaining his reputation for truthfulness, trustworthiness, andintegrity, and in establishing his credit. When he reaches this pointof efficiency, all the knowledge and skill, character, influence, andcredit thus gained come to his aid, and he soon finds that in whatseemed almost thrown away lies the secret of his prosperity. Thecredit he established as a clerk, the confidence, the integrity, thefriendships formed, he finds equal to a large capital when he startsout for himself and takes the highway to fortune; while the young manwho half learned several trades, got discouraged and stopped just shortof the point of efficiency, just this side of success, is a failurebecause he didn't go far enough; he did not press on to the point atwhich his acquisition would have been profitable. 

In spite of the fact that nearly all very successful men have made alife-work of one thing, we see on every hand hundreds of young men andwomen flitting about from occupation to occupation, trade to trade, inone thing to-day and another to-morrow, --just as though they could gofrom one thing to another by turning a switch, as though they could runas well on another track as on the one they have left, regardless ofthe fact that no two careers have the same gage, that every man buildshis own road upon which another man's engine can not run either withspeed or safety. This fickleness, this disposition to shift about fromone occupation to another, seems to be peculiar to American life, somuch so that, when a young man meets a friend whom he has not seen forsome time, the commonest question to ask is, "What are you doing now?"showing the improbability or uncertainty that he is doing to-day whathe was doing when they last met. 

Some people think that if they "keep everlastingly at it" they willsucceed, but this is not always so. Working without a plan is asfoolish as going to sea without a compass. 

A ship which has broken its rudder in mid-ocean may "keep everlastinglyat it, " may keep on a full head of steam, driving about all the time, but it never arrives anywhere, it never reaches any port unless byaccident; and if it does find a haven, its cargo may not be suited tothe people, the climate, or conditions. The ship must be directed to adefinite port, for which its cargo is adapted, and where there is ademand for it, and it must aim steadily for that port through sunshineand storm, through tempest and fog. So a man who would succeed mustnot drift about rudderless on the ocean of life. He must not onlysteer straight toward his destined port when the ocean is smooth, whenthe currents and winds serve, but he must keep his course in the veryteeth of the wind and the tempest, and even when enveloped in the fogsof disappointment and mists of opposition. Atlantic liners do not stopfor fogs or storms; they plow straight through the rough seas with onlyone thing in view, their destined port, and no matter what the weatheris, no matter what obstacles they encounter, their arrival in port canbe predicted to within a few hours. 

On the prairies of South America there grows a flower that alwaysinclines in the same direction. If a traveler loses his way and hasneither compass nor chart, by turning to this flower he will find aguide on which he can implicitly rely; for no matter how the rainsdescend or the winds blow, its leaves point to the north. So there aremany men whose purposes are so well known, whose aims are so constant, that no matter what difficulties they may encounter, or what oppositionthey may meet, you can tell almost to a certainty where they will comeout. They may be delayed by head winds and counter currents, but theywill _always head for the port_ and will steer straight towards theharbor. You know to a certainty that whatever else they may lose, theywill not lose their compass or rudder. 

Whatever may happen to a man of this stamp, even though his sails maybe swept away and his mast stripped to the deck, though he may bewrecked by the storms of life, the needle of his compass will stillpoint to the North Star of his hope. Whatever comes, his life will notbe purposeless. Even a wreck that makes its port is a greater successthan a full-rigged ship with all its sails flying, with every mast andevery rope intact, which merely drifts along into an accidental harbor. 

To fix a wandering life and give it direction is not an easy task, buta life which has no definite aim is sure to be frittered away in emptyand purposeless dreams. "Listless triflers, " "busy idlers, ""purposeless busy-bodies, " are seen everywhere. A healthy, definitepurpose is a remedy for a thousand ills which attend aimless lives. Discontent and dissatisfaction flee before a definite purpose. What wedo begrudgingly without a purpose becomes a delight with one, and nowork is well done nor healthily done which is not enthusiastically done. 

Mere energy is not enough; it must be concentrated on some steady, unwavering aim. What is more common than "unsuccessful geniuses, " orfailures with "commanding talents"? Indeed, the term "unrewardedgenius" has become a proverb. Every town has unsuccessful educated andtalented men. But education is of no value, talent is worthless, unless it can do something, achieve something. Men who can dosomething at everything and a very little at anything are not wanted inthis age. 

What this age wants is young men and women who can do one thing withoutlosing their identity or individuality, or becoming narrow, cramped, ordwarfed. Nothing can take the place of an all-absorbing purpose;education can not, genius can not, talent can not, industry can not, will-power can not. The purposeless life must ever be a failure. Whatgood are powers, faculties, unless we can use them for a purpose? Whatgood would a chest of tools do a carpenter unless he could use them? Acollege education, a head full of knowledge, are worth little to themen who cannot use them to some definite end. 

The man without a purpose never leaves his mark upon the world. He hasno individuality; he is absorbed in the mass, lost in the crowd, weak, wavering, and incompetent. 

"Consider, my lord, " said Rowland Hill to the Prime Minister ofEngland, "that a letter to Ireland and the answer back would costthousands upon thousands of my affectionate countrymen more than afifth of their week's wages. If you shut the post-office to them, which you do now, you shut out warm hearts and generous affections fromhome, kindred, and friends. " The lad learned that it cost to carry aletter from London to Edinburgh, four hundred and four miles, oneeighteenth of a cent, while the government charged for a simple foldedsheet of paper twenty-eight cents, and twice as much if there was thesmallest inclosure. Against the opposition and contempt of thepost-office department he at length carried his point, and on January10, 1840, penny postage was established throughout Great Britain. Mr. Hill was chosen to introduce the system, at a salary of fifteen hundredpounds a year. His success was most encouraging, but at the end of twoyears a Tory minister dismissed him without paying for his services, asagreed. The public was indignant, and at once contributed sixty-fivethousand dollars; and, at the request of Queen Victoria, Parliamentvoted him one hundred thousand dollars cash, together with ten thousanddollars a year for life. 

It is a great purpose which gives meaning to life; it unifies all ourpowers, binds them together in one cable and makes strong and unitedwhat was weak, separated, scattered. 

"Smatterers" are weak and superficial. Of what use is a man who knowsa little of everything and not much of anything? It is the momentum ofconstantly repeated acts that tells the story. "Let thine eyes lookstraight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet and let all thy waysbe established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left. " Onegreat secret of St. Paul's power lay in his strong purpose. Nothingcould daunt, nothing intimidate him. The Roman Emperor could notmuzzle him, the dungeon could not appall him, no prison suppress him, obstacles could not discourage him. "This one thing I do" was writtenall over his work. The quenchless zeal of his mighty purpose burnedits way down through the centuries, and its contagion will never ceaseto fire the hearts of men. 

"Try and come home somebody, " said his mother to Gambetta as she senthim off to Paris to school. Poverty pinched this lad hard in hislittle garret study and his clothes were shabby, but what of that? Hehad made up his mind to get on in the world. For years he was chainedto his desk and worked like a hero. At last his opportunity came. Jules Favre was to plead a great cause on a certain day; but, beingill, he chose this young man, absolutely unknown, rough and uncouth, totake his place. For many years Gambetta had been preparing for such anopportunity, and he was equal to it. He made one of the greatestspeeches that up to that time had ever been made in France. That nightall the papers in Paris were sounding the praises of this ragged, uncouth Bohemian, and soon all France recognized him as the Republicanleader. This sudden rise was not due to luck or accident. He had beensteadfastly working and fighting his way up against oppositions andpoverty for just such an occasion. Had he not been equal to it, itwould only have made him ridiculous. What a stride; yesterday, poorand unknown, living in a garret; today, deputy-elect, in the city ofMarseilles, and the great Republican leader!

When Louis Napoleon had been defeated at Sedan and had delivered hissword to William of Prussia, and when the Prussian army was marching onParis, the brave Gambetta went out of the besieged city in a balloonbarely grazed by the Prussian guns, landed in Amiens, and by almostsuperhuman skill raised three armies of 800, 000 men, provided for theirmaintenance, and directed their military operations. A German officersaid: "This colossal energy is the most remarkable event of modernhistory, and will carry down Gambetta's name to remote posterity. "This youth who was poring over his books in an attic while other youthswere promenading the Champs Elysées, although but thirty-two years old, was now virtually dictator of France, and the greatest orator in theRepublic. What a striking example of the great reserve of personalpower, which, even in dissolute lives, is sometimes called out by agreat emergency or sudden sorrow, and ever after leads the life tovictory! When Gambetta found that his first speech had electrified allFrance, his great reserve rushed to the front; he was suddenly weanedfrom dissipation, and resolved to make his mark in the world. Nor didhe lose his head in his quick leap into fame. He still lived in theupper room in the musty Latin Quarter, and remained a poor man, withoutstain of dishonor, though he might easily have made himself amillionaire. When he died the "Figaro" said, "The Republic has lostits greatest man. " American boys should study this great man, for heloved our country, and took our Republic as the pattern for France. 

There is no grander sight in the world than that of a young man firedwith a great purpose, dominated by one unwavering aim. He is bound towin; the world stands to one side and lets him pass; it always makesway for the man with a will in him. He does not have one-half theopposition to overcome that the undecided, purposeless man has who, like driftwood, runs against all sorts of snags to which he must yieldsimply because he has no momentum to force them out of his way. What asublime spectacle it is to see a youth going straight to his goal, cutting his way through difficulties, and surmounting obstacles whichdishearten others, as though they were but stepping-stones! Defeat, like a gymnasium, only gives him new power; opposition only doubles hisexertions; dangers only increase his courage. No matter what comes tohim, sickness, poverty, disaster, he never turns his eye from his goal. 

 "_Duos qui sequitur lepores, neutrum capit. _"

CHAPTER XL

WORK AND WAIT

What we do upon some great occasion will probably depend on what wealready are; and what we are will be the result of previous years ofself-discipline. --H. P. LIDDON. 

I consider a human soul without education like marble in a quarry, which shows none of its inherent beauties until the skill of thepolisher sketches out the colors, makes the surface shine, anddiscovers every ornamental cloud, spot, and vein that runs throughoutthe body of it. --ADDISON. 

Use your gifts faithfully, and they shall be enlarged; practise whatyou know, and you shall attain to higher knowledge. --ARNOLD. 

Haste trips up its own heels, fetters and stops itself. --SENECA. 

The more you know, the more you can save yourself and that whichbelongs to you, and do more work with less effort. --CHARLES KINGSLEY. 

"I was a mere cipher in that vast sea of human enterprise, " said HenryBessemer, speaking of his arrival in London in 1831. Although buteighteen years old, and without an acquaintance in the city, he soonmade work for himself by inventing a process of copying bas-reliefs oncardboard. His method was so simple that one could learn in tenminutes how to make a die from an embossed stamp for a penny. Havingascertained later that in this way the raised stamps on all officialpapers in England could easily be forged, he set to work and invented aperforated stamp which could not be forged nor removed from a document. At the public stamp office he was told by the chief that the governmentwas losing 100, 000 pounds a year through the custom of removing stampsfrom old parchments and using them again. 

The chief also fully appreciated the new danger of easy counterfeiting. So he offered Bessemer a definite sum for his process of perforation, or an office for life at eight hundred pounds a year. Bessemer chosethe office, and hastened to tell the good news to a young woman withwhom he had agreed to share his fortune. In explaining his invention, he told how it would prevent any one from taking a valuable stamp froma document a hundred years old and using it a second time. 

"Yes, " said his betrothed, "I understand that; but, surely, if allstamps had a date put upon them they could not at a future time be usedwithout detection. "

This was a very short speech, and of no special importance if we omit asingle word of four letters; but, like the schoolboy's pins which savedthe lives of thousands of people annually by not getting swallowed, that little word, by keeping out of the ponderous minds of the Britishrevenue officers, had for a long period saved the government the burdenof caring for an additional income of 100, 000 pounds a year. And thesame little word, if published in its connection, would renderBessemer's perforation device of far less value than a last year'sbird's nest. He felt proud of the young woman's ingenuity, andpromptly suggested the improvement at the stamp office. 

As a result his system of perforation was abandoned and he was deprivedof his promised office, the government coolly making use from that dayto this, without compensation, of the idea conveyed by that littleinsignificant word. 

So Bessemer's financial prospects were not very encouraging; but, realizing that the best capital a young man can have is a capital wife, he at once entered into a partnership which placed at his command thecombined ideas of two very level heads. The result, after years ofthought and experiment, was the Bessemer process of making steelcheaply, which has revolutionized the iron industry throughout theworld. His method consists simply in forcing hot air from below intoseveral tons of melted pig-iron, so as to produce intense combustion;and then adding enough spiegel-eisen (looking-glass iron), an ore richin carbon, to change the whole mass to steel. 

He discovered this simple process only after trying in vain much moredifficult and expensive methods. 

 "All things come round to him who will but wait. "

The great lack of the age is want of thoroughness. How seldom you finda young man or woman who is willing to take time to prepare for hislife work! A little education is all they want, a little smattering ofbooks, and then they are ready for business. 

"Can't wait" is characteristic of the century, and is written oneverything; on commerce, on schools, on society, on churches. Can'twait for a high school, seminary, or college. The boy can't wait tobecome a youth, nor the youth a man. Youth rush into business with nogreat reserve of education or drill; of course they do poor, feverishwork, and break down in middle life, and many die of old age in theforties. Everybody is in a hurry. Buildings are rushed up so quicklythat they will not stand, and everything is made "to sell. "

Not long ago a professor in one of our universities had a letter from ayoung woman in the West, asking him if he did not think she could teachelocution if she could come to the university and take twelve lessons. Our young people of to-day are not willing to lay broad, deepfoundations. The weary years in preparatory school and collegedishearten them. They only want a "smattering" of an education. Butas Pope says, --

 A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again. 

The shifts to cover up ignorance, and "the constant trembling lest someblunder should expose one's emptiness, " are pitiable. Short cuts andabridged methods are the demand of the hour. But the way to shortenthe road to success is to take plenty of time to lay in your reservepower. Hard work, a definite aim, and faithfulness will shorten theway. Don't risk a life's superstructure upon a day's foundation. 

Patience is Nature's motto. She works ages to bring a flower toperfection. What will she not do for the greatest of her creation?Ages and aeons are nothing to her; out of them she has been carving hergreat statue, a perfect man. 

Johnson said a man must turn over half a library to write one book. When an authoress told Wordsworth she had spent six hours on a poem, hereplied that he would have spent six weeks. Think of Bishop Hallspending thirty years on one of his works! Owens was working on the"Commentary to the Epistle to the Hebrews" for twenty years. Moorespent several weeks on one of his musical stanzas which reads as if itwere a dash of genius. 

Carlyle wrote with the utmost difficulty and never executed a page ofhis great histories till he had consulted every known authority, sothat every sentence is the quintessence of many books, the product ofmany hours of drudging research in the great libraries. Today, "SartorResartus" is everywhere. You can get it for a mere trifle at almostany bookseller's, and hundreds of thousands of copies are scatteredover the world. But when Carlyle brought it to London in 1851, it wasrefused almost contemptuously by three prominent publishers. At lengthhe managed to get it into "Fraser's Magazine, " the editor of whichconveyed to the author the pleasing information that his work had beenreceived with "unqualified disapprobation. "

Henry Ward Beecher sent half a dozen articles to the publisher of areligious paper to pay for his subscription, but they were respectfullydeclined. The publishers of the "Atlantic Monthly" returned MissAlcott's manuscript, suggesting that she had better stick to teaching. One of the leading magazines ridiculed Tennyson's first poems, andconsigned the young poet to temporary oblivion. Only one of RalphWaldo Emerson's books had a remunerative sale. Washington Irving wasnearly seventy years old before the income from his books paid theexpenses of his household. 

In some respects it is very unfortunate that the old system of bindingboys out to a trade has been abandoned. To-day very few boys learn anytrade. They pick up what they know, as they go along, just as astudent crams for a particular examination, just to "get through, "without any effort to see how much he may learn on any subject. 

Think of an American youth spending ten years with Da Vinci on themodel of an equestrian statue that he might master the anatomy of thehorse! Most young American artists would expect, in a quarter of thattime, to sculpture an Apollo Belvidere. 

A rich man asked Howard Burnett to do a little something for his album. Burnett complied and charged a thousand francs. "But it took you onlyfive minutes, " objected the rich man. "Yes, but it took me thirtyyears to learn how to do it in five minutes. "

What the age wants is men who have the nerve and the grit to work andwait, whether the world applaud or hiss; a Mirabeau, who can struggleon for forty years before he has a chance to show the world his vastreserve, destined to shake an empire; a Farragut, a Von Moltke, whohave the persistence to work and wait for half a century for theirfirst great opportunities; a Grant, fighting on in heroic silence, whendenounced by his brother generals and politicians everywhere; a MichaelAngelo, working seven long years decorating the Sistine Chapel with hismatchless "Creation" and the "Last Judgment, " refusing all remunerationtherefor, lest his pencil might catch the taint of avarice; a ThurlowWeed, walking two miles through the snow with rags tied around his feetfor shoes, to borrow the history of the French Revolution, and eagerlydevouring it before the sap-bush fire; a Milton, elaborating "ParadiseLost" in a world he could not see; a Thackeray, struggling oncheerfully after his "Vanity Fair" was refused by a dozen publishers; aBalzac, toiling and waiting in a lonely garret; men whom neitherpoverty, debt, nor hunger could discourage or intimidate; not dauntedby privations, not hindered by discouragements. It wants men who canwork and wait. 

When a young lawyer Daniel Webster once looked in vain through all thelaw libraries near him, and then ordered at an expense of fifty dollarsthe necessary books, to obtain authorities and precedents in a case inwhich his client was a poor blacksmith. He won his case, but, onaccount of the poverty of his client, only charged fifteen dollars, thus losing heavily on the books bought, to say nothing of his time. Years after, as he was passing through New York City, he was consultedby Aaron Burr on an important but puzzling case then pending before theSupreme Court. He saw in a moment that it was just like theblacksmith's case, an intricate question of title, which he had solvedso thoroughly that it was to him now as simple as the multiplicationtable. Going back to the time of Charles II he gave the law andprecedents involved with such readiness and accuracy of sequence thatBurr asked in great surprise if he had been consulted before in thecase. "Most certainly not, " he replied, "I never heard of your casetill this evening. " "Very well, " said Burr, "proceed"; and, when hehad finished, Webster received a fee that paid him liberally for allthe time and trouble he had spent for his early client. 

Albert Bierstadt first crossed the Rocky Mountains with a band ofpioneers in 1859, making sketches for the paintings of Western scenesfor which he had become famous. As he followed the trail to Pike'sPeak, he gazed in wonder upon the enormous herds of buffaloes whichdotted the plains as far as the eye could reach, and thought of thetime when they would have disappeared before the march of civilization. The thought haunted him and found its final embodiment in "The Last ofthe Buffaloes" in 1890. To perfect this great work he had spent twentyyears. 

Everything which endures, which will stand the test of time, must havea deep, solid foundation. In Rome the foundation is often the mostexpensive part of an edifice, so deep must they dig to build on theliving rock. 

Fifty feet of Bunker Hill Monument is under ground; unseen andunappreciated by those who tread about that historic shaft, but it isthis foundation, apparently thrown away, which enables it to standupright, true to the plumb-line through all the tempests that lash itsgranite sides. A large part of every successful life must be spent inlaying foundation stones underground. Success is the child of drudgeryand perseverance and depends upon "knowing how long it takes tosucceed. "

Endurance is a much better test of character than any one act ofheroism, however noble. 

The pianist Thalberg said he never ventured to perform one of hiscelebrated pieces in public until he had played it at least fifteenhundred times. He laid no claim whatever to genius; he said it was alla question of hard work. The accomplishments of such industry, suchperseverance, would put to shame many a man who claims genius. 

Before Edmund Kean would consent to appear in that character which heacted with such consummate skill, The Gentleman Villain, he practisedconstantly before a glass, studying expression for a year and a half. When he appeared upon the stage, Byron, who went with Moore to see him, said he never looked upon so fearful and wicked a face. As the greatactor went on to delineate the terrible consequences of sin, Byronfainted. 

"For years I was in my place of business by sunrise, " said a wealthybanker who had begun without a dollar; "and often I did not leave itfor fifteen or eighteen hours. "

Patience, it is said, changes the mulberry leaf to satin. The giantoak on the hillside was detained months or years in its upward growthwhile its root took a great turn around some rock, in order to gain ahold by which the tree was anchored to withstand the storms ofcenturies. Da Vinci spent four years on the head of Mona Lisa, perhapsthe most beautiful ever painted, but he left therein an artisticthought for all time. 

Said Captain Bingham: "You can have no idea of the wonderful machinethat the German army is and how well it is prepared for war. A chartis made out which shows just what must be done in the case of wars withthe different nations, and every officer's place in the scheme is laidout beforehand. There is a schedule of trains which will supersede allother schedules the moment war is declared, and this is so arrangedthat the commander of the army here could telegraph to any officer totake such a train and go to such a place at a moment's notice. "

A learned clergyman was thus accosted by an illiterate preacher whodespised education: "Sir, you have been to college, I presume?" "Yes, sir, " was the reply. "I am thankful, " said the former, "that the Lordopened my mouth without any learning. " "A similar event, " retorted theclergyman, "happened in Balaam's time. "

A young man just graduated told the President of Trinity College thathe had completed his education, and had come to say good-by. "Indeed, "said the President, "I have just begun my education. "

Many an extraordinary man has been made out of a very ordinary boy: butin order to accomplish this we must begin with him while he is young. It is simply astonishing what training will do for a rough, uncouth, and even dull lad, if he has good material in him, and comes under thetutelage of a skilled educator before his habits become fixed orconfirmed. 

Even a few weeks' or months' drill of the rawest and roughest recruitsin the late Civil War so straightened and dignified stooping anduncouth soldiers, and made them manly, erect, and courteous in theirbearing, that their own friends scarcely knew them. If this change isso marked in the youth who has grown to maturity, what a miracle ispossible in the lad who is taken early and put under a course of drilland systematic training, both physical, mental, and moral! How often aman who is in the penitentiary, in the poorhouse, or among the tramps, or living out a miserable existence in the slums of our cities, rough, slovenly, has slumbering within the rags possibilities which would havedeveloped him into a magnificent man, an ornament to the human raceinstead of a foul blot and ugly scar, had he only been fortunate enoughearly in life to have enjoyed the benefits of efficient and systematictraining!

Laziness begins in cobwebs and ends in iron chains. Edison describedhis repeated efforts to make the phonograph reproduce an aspiratedsound, and added: "From eighteen to twenty hours a day for the lastseven months I have worked on this single word 'specia. ' I said intothe phonograph 'specia, specia, specia, ' but the instrument responded'pecia, pecia, pecia. ' It was enough to drive one mad. But I heldfirm, and I have succeeded. "

The road to distinction must be paved with years of self-denial andhard work. 

Horace Mann, the great author of the common school system ofMassachusetts, was a remarkable example of that pluck and patiencewhich can work and wait. His only inheritance was poverty and hardwork. But he had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and adetermination to get on in the world. He braided straw to earn moneyto buy books for which his soul thirsted. 

Gladstone was bound to win. Although he had spent many years ofpreparation for his life work, in spite of the consciousness ofmarvelous natural endowments which would have been deemed sufficient bymany young men, and notwithstanding he had gained the coveted prize ofa seat in Parliament, yet he decided to make himself master of thesituation; and amid all his public and private duties, he not onlyspent eleven terms more in the study of the law, but also studied Greekconstantly and read every well-written book or paper he could obtain, so determined was he that his life should be rounded out to its fullestmeasure, and that his mind should have broad and liberal culture. 

Ole Bull said: "If I practise one day, I can see the result; if Ipractise two days, my friends can see it; if I practise three days, thegreat public can see it. "

The habit of seizing every bit of knowledge, no matter howinsignificant it may seem at the time, every opportunity, everyoccasion, and grinding them all up into experience, can not beoverestimated. You will find use for all of it. Webster once repeatedwith effect an anecdote which he had heard fourteen years before, andwhich he had not thought of in the meantime. It exactly fitted theoccasion. "It is an ill mason that rejects any stone. "

Webster was once urged to speak on a subject of great importance, butrefused, saying he was very busy and had no time to master the subject. "But, " replied his friend, "a very few words from you would do much toawaken public attention to it. " Webster replied, "If there be so muchweight in my words, it is because I do not allow myself to speak on anysubject until my mind is imbued with it. " On one occasion Webster madea remarkable speech before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard, whena book was presented to him; but after he had gone, his "impromptu"speech, carefully written out, was found in the book which he hadforgotten to take away. 

Demosthenes was once asked to speak on a great and sudden emergency, but replied, "I am not prepared. " In fact, it was thought by many thatDemosthenes did not possess any genius whatever, because he neverallowed himself to speak on any subject without thorough preparation. In any meeting or assembly, when called upon, he would never rise, evento make remarks, it was said, without previously preparing himself. 

Alexander Hamilton said, "Men give me credit for genius. All thegenius I have lies just in this: when I have a subject in hand I studyit profoundly. Day and night it is before me. I explore it in all itsbearings. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort which Imake the people are pleased to call the fruit of genius; it is thefruit of labor and thought. " The law of labor is equally binding ongenius and mediocrity. 

Nelaton, the great surgeon, said that if he had four minutes in whichto perform an operation on which a life depended, he would take oneminute to consider how best to do it. 

"Many men, " says Longfellow, "do not allow their principles to takeroot, but pull them up every now and then, as children do flowers theyhave planted, to see if they are growing. " We must not only work, butalso wait. 

"The spruce young spark, " says Sizer, "who thinks chiefly of hismustache and boots and shiny hat, of getting along nicely and easilyduring the day, and talking about the theater, the opera, or a fasthorse, ridiculing the faithful young fellow who came to learn thebusiness and make a man of himself because he will not join in wastinghis time in dissipation, will see the day, if his useless life is notearlier blasted by vicious indulgences, when he will be glad to accepta situation from the fellow-clerk whom he now ridicules and affects todespise, when the latter shall stand in the firm, dispensing benefitsand acquiring fortune. "

"I have been watching the careers of young men by the thousand in thisbusy city of New York for over thirty years, " said Dr. Cuyler, "and Ifind that the chief difference between the successful and the failureslies in the single element of staying power. Permanent success isoftener won by holding on than by sudden dash, however brilliant. Theeasily discouraged, who are pushed back by a straw, are all the timedropping to the rear--to perish or to be carried along on the stretcherof charity. They who understand and practise Abraham Lincoln's homelymaxim of 'pegging away' have achieved the solidest success. "

The Duke of Wellington became so discouraged because he did not advancein the army that he applied for a much inferior position in the customsdepartment, but was refused. Napoleon had applied for every vacantposition for seven years before he was recognized, but meanwhile hestudied with all his might, supplementing what was considered athorough military education by researches and reflections which inlater years enabled him easily to teach the art of war to veterans whohad never dreamed of his novel combinations. 

Reserves which carry us through great emergencies are the result oflong working and long waiting. Dr. Collyer declares that reserves meanto a man also achievement, --"the power to do the grandest thingpossible to your nature when you feel you must, or some precious thingwill be lost, --to do well always, but best in the crisis on which allthings turn; to stand the strain of a long fight, and still find youhave something left, and so to never know you are beaten, because younever are beaten. "

He only is independent in action who has been earnest and thorough inpreparation and self-culture. "Not for school, but for life, welearn"; and our habits--of promptness, earnestness, and thoroughness, or of tardiness, fickleness, and superficiality--are the thingsacquired most readily and longest retained. 

To vary the language of another, the three great essentials to successin mental and physical labor are Practice, Patience, and Perseverance, but the greatest of these is Perseverance. 

 "Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait. "

CHAPTER XLI

THE MIGHT OF LITTLE THINGS

 Think naught a trifle, though it small appear; Small sands the mountain, moments make the year, And trifles, life. YOUNG. 

It is but the littleness of man that sees no greatness intrifles. --WENDELL PHILLIPS. 

He that despiseth small things shall fall by little andlittle. --ECCLESIASTICUS. 

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. --EMERSON. 

Men are led by trifles. --NAPOLEON. 

 "A pebble on the streamlet scant Has turned the course of many a river. "

"The bad thing about a little sin is that it won't stay little. "

"Arletta's pretty feet, glistening in the brook, made her the mother ofWilliam the Conqueror, " says Palgrave's "History of Normandy andEngland. " "Had she not thus fascinated Duke Robert the Liberal, ofNormandy, Harold would not have fallen at Hastings, no Anglo-Normandynasty could have arisen, no British Empire. "

We may tell which way the wind blew before the Deluge by marking theripple and cupping of the rain in the petrified sand now preservedforever. We tell the very path by which gigantic creatures, whom mannever saw, walked to the river's edge to find their food. 

It was little Greece that rolled back the overflowing tide of Asiaticluxury and despotism, giving instead to Europe and America models ofthe highest political freedom yet attained, and germs of limitlessmental growth. A different result at Plataea would have delayed theprogress of the human race more than ten centuries. 

Among the lofty Alps, it is said, the guides sometimes demand absolutesilence, lest the vibration of the voice bring down an avalanche. 

The power of observation in the American Indian would put many aneducated man to shame. Returning home, an Indian discovered that hisvenison, which had been hanging up to dry, had been stolen. Aftercareful observation he started to track the thief through the woods. Meeting a man on the route, he asked him if he had seen a little, old, white man, with a short gun, and with a small bobtailed dog. The mantold him he had met such a man, but was surprised to find that theIndian had not even seen the one he described, and asked him how hecould give such a minute description of the man he had never seen. "Iknew the thief was a little man, " said the Indian, "because he rolledup a stone to stand on in order to reach the venison; I knew he was anold man by his short steps; I knew he was a white man by his turningout his toes in walking, which an Indian never does; I knew he had ashort gun by the mark it left on the tree where he had stood it up; Iknew the dog was small by his tracks and short steps, and that he had abob-tail by the mark it left in the dust where he sat. "

Two drops of rain, falling side by side, were separated a few inches bya gentle breeze. Striking on opposite sides of the roof of acourt-house in Wisconsin, one rolled southward through the Rock Riverand the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico; while the other enteredsuccessively the Fox River, Green Bay, Lake Michigan, the Straits ofMackinaw, Lake Huron, St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, Detroit River, Lake Erie, Niagara River, Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence River, andfinally reached the Gulf of St. Lawrence. How slight the influence ofthe breeze, yet such was the formation of the continent that a triflingcause was multiplied almost beyond the power of figures to express itsmomentous effect upon the destinies of these companion raindrops. Whocan calculate the future of the smallest trifle when a mud crack swellsto an Amazon and the stealing of a penny may end on the scaffold? Theact of a moment may cause a life's regret. A trigger may be pulled inan instant, but the soul returns never. 

A spark falling upon some combustibles led to the invention ofgunpowder. A few bits of seaweed and driftwood, floating on the waves, enabled Columbus to stay a mutiny of his sailors which threatened toprevent the discovery of a new world. There are moments in historywhich balance years of ordinary life. Dana could interest a class forhours on a grain of sand; and from a single bone, such as no one hadever seen before, Agassiz could deduce the entire structure and habitsof an animal which no man had ever seen so accurately that subsequentdiscoveries of complete skeletons have not changed one of hisconclusions. 

A cricket once saved a military expedition from destruction. Thecommanding officer and hundreds of his men were going to South Americaon a great ship, and, through the carelessness of the watch, they wouldhave been dashed upon a ledge of rock had it not been for a cricketwhich a soldier had brought on board. When the little insect scentedthe land, it broke its long silence by a shrill note, and thus warnedthem of their danger. 

By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation. A little boyin Holland saw water trickling from a small hole near the bottom of adike. He realized that the leak would rapidly become larger if thewater were not checked, so he held his hand over the hole for hours ona dark and dismal night until he could attract the attention ofpassers-by. His name is still held in grateful remembrance in Holland. 

The beetling chalk cliffs of England were built by rhizopods, too smallto be clearly seen without the aid of a magnifying-glass. 

What was so unlikely as that throwing an empty wine-flask in the fireshould furnish the first notion of a locomotive, or that the sicknessof an Italian chemist's wife and her absurd craving for reptiles forfood should begin the electric telegraph. Madame Galvani noticed thecontraction of the muscles of a skinned frog which was accidentallytouched at the moment her husband took a spark from an electricalmachine. She gave the hint which led to the discovery of galvanicelectricity, now so useful in the arts and in transmitting vocal orwritten language. 

"The fate of a nation, " says Gladstone, "has often depended upon thegood or bad digestion of a fine dinner. "

A stamp act to raise 60, 000 pounds produced the American Revolution, awar that cost England 100, 000, 000 pounds. A war between France andEngland, costing more than a hundred thousand lives, grew out of aquarrel as to which of two vessels should first be served with water. The quarrel of two Indian boys over a grasshopper led to the"Grasshopper War. " What mighty contests rise from trivial things!

A young man once went to India to seek his fortune, but, finding noopening, he went to his room, loaded his pistol, put the muzzle to hishead, and pulled the trigger. But it did not go off. He went to thewindow to point it in another direction and try it again, resolved thatif the weapon went off he would regard it as a Providence that he wasspared. He pulled the trigger and it went off the first time. Trembling with excitement he resolved to hold his life sacred, to makethe most of it, and never again to cheapen it. This young man becameGeneral Robert Clive, who, with but a handful of European soldiers, secured to the East India Company and afterwards to Great Britain agreat and rich country with two hundred millions of people. 

The cackling of a goose aroused the sentinels and saved Rome from theGauls, and the pain from a thistle warned a Scottish army of theapproach of the Danes. 

Henry Ward Beecher came within one vote of being elected superintendentof a railway. If he had had that vote America would probably have lostits greatest preacher. What a little thing fixes destiny!

Trifles light as air often suggest to the thinking mind ideas whichhave revolutionized the world. 

A famous ruby was offered to the English government. The report of thecrown jeweler was that it was the finest he had ever seen or heard of, but that one of the "facets" was slightly fractured. That invisiblefracture reduced the value of the ruby thousands of dollars, and it wasrejected from the regalia of England. 

It was a little thing for the janitor to leave a lamp swinging in thecathedral at Pisa, but in that steady swaying motion the boy Galileosaw the pendulum, and conceived the idea of thus measuring time. 

"I was singing to the mouthpiece of a telephone, " said Edison, "whenthe vibrations of my voice caused a fine steel point to pierce one ofmy fingers held just behind it. That set me to thinking. If I couldrecord the motions of the point and send it over the same surfaceafterward, I saw no reason why the thing would not talk. I determinedto make a machine that would work accurately, and gave my assistantsthe necessary instructions, telling them what I had discovered. That'sthe whole story. The phonograph is the result of the pricking of afinger. "

It was a little thing for a cow to kick over a lantern left in ashanty, but it laid Chicago in ashes, and rendered homeless a hundredthousand people. 

Some little weakness, some self-indulgence, a quick temper, want ofdecision, are little things, you say, when placed beside greatabilities, but they have wrecked many a career. 

The Parliament of Great Britain, the Congress of the United States, andrepresentative governments all over the world have come from King Johnsigning the Magna Charta. 

Bentham says, "The turn of a sentence has decided many a friendship, and, for aught we know, the fate of many a kingdom. " Perhaps youturned a cold shoulder but once, and made but one stinging remark, yetit may have cost you a friend forever. 

The sight of a stranded cuttlefish led Cuvier to an investigation whichmade him one of the greatest natural historians in the world. The webof a spider suggested to Captain Brown the idea of a suspension bridge. 

A missing marriage certificate kept the hod-carrier of Hugh Miller fromestablishing his claim to the Earldom of Crawford. The masons wouldcall out, "John, Yearl of Crawford, bring us anither hod o' lime. "

The absence of a comma in a bill which passed through Congress yearsago cost our government a million dollars. A single misspelled wordprevented a deserving young man from obtaining a situation asinstructor in a New England college. 

"I cannot see that you have made any progress since my last visit, "said a gentleman to Michael Angelo. "But, " said the sculptor, "I haveretouched this part, polished that, softened that feature, brought outthat muscle, given some expression to this lip, more energy to thatlimb, etc. " "But they are trifles!" exclaimed the visitor. "It may beso, " replied the great artist, "but trifles make perfection, andperfection is no trifle. " That infinite patience which made MichaelAngelo spend a week in bringing out a muscle in a statue, with morevital fidelity to truth, or Gerhard Dow a day in giving the righteffect to a dewdrop on a cabbage leaf, makes all the difference betweensuccess and failure. 

The cry of the infant Moses attracted the attention of Pharoah'sdaughter, and gave the Jews a lawgiver. A bird alighting on the boughof a tree at the mouth of the cave where Mahomet lay hid turned asidehis pursuers, and gave a prophet to many nations. A flight of birdsprobably prevented Columbus from discovering this continent. When hewas growing anxious, Martin Alonzo Pinzon persuaded him to follow aflight of parrots toward the southwest; for to the Spanish seamen ofthat day it was good luck to follow in the wake of a flock of birdswhen on a voyage of discovery. But for his change of course Columbuswould have reached the coast of Florida. "Never, " wrote Humboldt, "hadthe flight of birds more important consequences. "

The children of a spectacle-maker placed two or more pairs of thespectacles before each other in play, and told their father thatdistant objects looked larger. From this hint came the telescope. 

Every day is a little life; and our whole life but a day repeated. Those that dare lose a day are dangerously prodigal; those that daremisspend it, desperate. What is the happiness of your life made up of?Little courtesies, little kindnesses, pleasant words, genial smiles, afriendly letter, good wishes, and good deeds. One in a million--oncein a lifetime--may do a heroic action. 

Napoleon was a master of trifles. To details which his inferiorofficers thought too microscopic for their notice he gave the mostexhaustive consideration. Nothing was too small for his attention. Hemust know all about the provisions, the horse fodder, the biscuits, thecamp kettles, the shoes. When the bugle sounded for the march tobattle, every officer had his orders as to the exact route which heshould follow, the exact day he was to arrive at a certain station, andthe exact hour he was to leave, and they were all to reach the point ofdestination at a precise moment. It is said that nothing could be moreperfectly planned than his memorable march which led to the victory ofAusterlitz, and which sealed the fate of Europe for many years. Hewould often charge his absent officers to send him perfectly accuratereturns, even to the smallest detail. "When they are sent to me, Igive up every occupation in order to read them in detail, and toobserve the difference between one monthly return and another. Noyoung girl enjoys her novel as much as I do these returns. " Napoleonleft nothing to chance, nothing to contingency, so far as he couldpossibly avoid it. Everything was planned to a nicety before heattempted to execute it. 

Wellington, too, was "great in little things. " He knew no such thingsas trifles. While other generals trusted to subordinates, he gave hispersonal attention to the minutest detail. The history of many afailure could be written in three words, "Lack of detail. " How many alawyer has failed from the lack of details in deeds and importantpapers, the lack of little words which seemed like surplusage, andwhich involved his clients in litigation, and often great losses! Howmany wills are contested from the carelessness of lawyers in theomission or shading of words, or ambiguous use of language!

Not even Helen of Troy, it is said, was beautiful enough to spare thetip of her nose; and if Cleopatra's had been an inch shorter MarkAntony might never have become infatuated with her wonderful charms, and the blemish would have changed the history of the world. AnneBoleyn's fascinating smile split the great Church of Rome in twain, andgave a nation an altered destiny. Napoleon, who feared not to attackthe proudest monarchs in their capitols, shrank from the politicalinfluence of one independent woman in private life, Madame de Staël. 

Cromwell was about to sail for America when a law was passedprohibiting emigration. At that time he was a profligate, havingsquandered all his property. But when he found that he could not leaveEngland he reformed his life. Had he not been detained, who can tellwhat the history of Great Britain would have been?

From the careful and persistent accumulation of innumerable facts, eachtrivial in itself, but in the aggregate forming a mass of evidence, aDarwin extracts his law of evolution, and a Linnaeus constructs thescience of botany. A pan of water and two thermometers were the toolsby which Dr. Black discovered latent heat; and a prism, a lens, and asheet of pasteboard enabled Newton to unfold the composition of lightand the origin of colors. An eminent foreign savant called on Dr. Wollaston, and asked to be shown over those laboratories of his inwhich science had been enriched by so many great discoveries, when thedoctor took him into a little study, and, pointing to an old tea trayon the table, on which stood a few watch glasses, test papers, a smallbalance, and a blow-pipe, said, "There is my laboratory. " A burntstick and a barn door served Wilkie in lieu of pencil and paper. Asingle potato, carried to England by Sir Walter Raleigh in thesixteenth century, has multiplied into food for millions, drivingfamine from Ireland again and again. 

It seemed a small thing to drive William Brewster, John Robinson, andthe poor people of Austerfield and Scrooby into perpetual exile, but asPilgrims they became the founders of a mighty people. 

A few immortal sentences from Garrison and Phillips, a few poems fromLowell and Whittier, and the leaven is at work which will not cease itsaction until the whipping-post and bodily servitude are abolishedforever. 

 "For want of a nail the shoe was lost, For want of a shoe the horse was lost; For want of a horse the rider was lost, and all, "

says Poor Richard, "for want of a horseshoe nail. "

A single remark dropped by an unknown person in the street led to thesuccessful story of "The Bread-winners. " A hymn chanted by thebarefooted friars in the temple of Jupiter at Rome led to the famous"Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. "

"Words are things" says Byron, "and a small drop of ink, falling likedew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhapsmillions, think. "

"I give these books for the founding of a college in this colony"; suchwere the words of ten ministers who in the year 1700 assembled at thevillage of Branford, a few miles east of New Haven. Each of the worthyfathers deposited a few books upon the table around which they weresitting; such was the founding of Yale College. 

Great men are noted for their attention to trifles. Goethe once askeda monarch to excuse him, during an interview, while he went to anadjoining room to jot down a stray thought. Hogarth would makesketches of rare faces and characteristics upon his finger-nails uponthe streets. Indeed, to a truly great mind there are no little things. Trifles light as air suggest to the keen observer the solution ofmighty problems. Bits of glass arranged to amuse children led to thediscovery of the kaleidoscope. Goodyear discovered how to vulcanizerubber by forgetting, until it became red hot, a skillet containing acompound which he had before considered worthless. A ship-worm boringa piece of wood suggested to Sir Isambard Brunel the idea of a tunnelunder the Thames at London. Tracks of extinct animals in the old redsandstone led Hugh Miller on and on until he became the greatestgeologist of his time. Sir Walter Scott once saw a shepherd boyplodding sturdily along, and asked him to ride. This boy was GeorgeKemp, who became so enthusiastic in his study of sculpture that hewalked fifty miles and back to see a beautiful statue. He did notforget the kindness of Sir Walter, and, when the latter died, threw hissoul into the design of the magnificent monument erected in Edinburghto the memory of the author of "Waverley. "

A poor boy applied for a situation at a bank in Paris, but was refused. As he left the door, he picked up a pin. The bank president saw this, called the boy back, and gave him a situation from which he rose untilhe became the greatest banker of Paris, --Laffitte. 

A Massachusetts soldier in the Civil War observed a bird hulling rice, and shot it; taking its bill for a model, he invented a hulling machinewhich has revolutionized the rice business. 

The eye is a perpetual camera imprinting upon the sensitive mentalplates and packing away in the brain for future use every face, everytree, every plant, flower, hill, stream, mountain, every scene upon thestreet, in fact, everything which comes within its range. There is aphonograph in our natures which catches, however thoughtless andtransient, every syllable we utter, and registers forever the slightestenunciation, and renders it immortal. These notes may appear athousand years hence, reproduced in our descendants, in all theirbeautiful or terrible detail. 

"Least of all seeds, greatest of all harvests, " seems to be one of thegreat laws of nature. All life comes from microscopic beginnings. Innature there is nothing small. The microscope reveals as great a worldbelow as the telescope above. All of nature's laws govern the smallestatoms, and a single drop of water is a miniature ocean. 

The strength of a chain lies in its weakest link, however large andstrong all the others may be. We are all inclined to be proud of ourstrong points, while we are sensitive and neglectful of our weaknesses. Yet it is our greatest weakness which measures our real strength. 

A soldier who escapes the bullets of a thousand battles may die fromthe scratch of a pin, and many a ship has survived the shocks oficebergs and the storms of ocean only to founder in a smooth sea fromholes made by tiny insects. 

_Small things become great when a great soul sees them_. A singlenoble or heroic act of one man has sometimes elevated a nation. Manyan honorable career has resulted from a kind word spoken in season orthe warm grasp of a friendly hand. 

 It is the little rift within the lute That by and by will make the music mute, And, ever widening, slowly silence all. TENNYSON. 

 "It was only a glad 'good-morning, ' As she passed along the way, But it spread the morning's glory Over the livelong day. "

 "Only a thought in passing--a smile, or encouraging word, Has lifted many a burden no other gift could have stirred. "

CHAPTER XLII

THE SALARY YOU DO NOT FIND IN YOUR PAY ENVELOPE

The quality which you put into your work will determine the quality ofyour life. The habit of insisting upon the best of which you arecapable, of always demanding of yourself the highest, never acceptingthe lowest or second best, no matter how small your remuneration, willmake all the difference to you between failure and success. 

"If the laborer gets no more than the wages his employer offers him, heis cheated; he cheats himself. "

A boy or a man who works simply for his salary, and is actuated by nohigher motive, is dishonest, and the one whom he most defrauds ishimself. He is cheating himself, in the quality of his daily work, ofthat which all the after years, try as he may, can never give him back. 

If I were allowed but one utterance on this subject, so vital to everyyoung man starting on the journey of life, I would say: "Don't thinktoo much of the amount of salary your employer gives you at the start. Think, rather, of the possible salary you can give yourself, inincreasing your skill, in expanding your experience, in enlarging andennobling yourself. " A man's or a boy's work is material with which tobuild character and manhood. It is life's school for practicaltraining of the faculties, stretching the mind, and strengthening anddeveloping the intellect, not a mere mill for grinding out a salary ofdollars and cents. 

Bismarck was said to have really founded the German Empire when workingfor a small salary as secretary to the German legation in Russia; forin that position he absorbed the secrets of strategy and diplomacywhich later were used so effectively for his country. He worked soassiduously, so efficiently, that Germany prized his services more thanthose of the ambassador himself. If Bismarck had earned only hissalary, he might have remained a perpetual clerk, and Germany a tangleof petty states. 

I have never known an employee to rise rapidly, or even to get beyondmediocrity, whose pay envelope was his goal, who could not seeinfinitely more in his work than what he found in the envelope onSaturday night. That is necessity; but the larger part of the real payof a real man's work is outside of the pay envelope. 

One part of this outside salary is the opportunity of the employee toabsorb the secrets of his employer's success, and to learn from hismistakes, while he is being paid for learning his trade or profession. The other part, and the best of all, is the opportunity for growth, fordevelopment, for mental expansion; the opportunity to become a larger, broader, more efficient man. 

The opportunity for growth in a disciplinary institution, where thepractical faculties, the executive faculties, are brought intosystematic, vigorous exercise at a definite time and for a definitenumber of hours, is an advantage beyond computation. There is noestimating the value of such training. It is the opportunity, myemployee friend, that will help you to make a large man of yourself, which, perhaps, you could not possibly do without being employed insome kind of an institution which has the motive, the machinery, thepatronage to give you the disciplining and training you need to bringout your strongest qualities. And instead of paying for theopportunity of unfolding and developing from a green, ignorant boy intoa strong, level-headed, efficient man, you are paid!

The youth who is always haggling over the question of how many dollarsand cents he will sell his services for, little realizes how he ischeating himself by not looking at the larger salary he can pay himselfin increasing his skill, in expanding his experience, and in makinghimself a better, stronger, more useful man. 

The few dollars he finds in his pay envelope are to this larger salaryas the chips which fly from the sculptor's chisel are to the angelwhich he is trying to call out of the marble. 

You can draw from the faithfulness of your work, from the grand spiritwhich you bring to it, the high purpose which emanates from you in itsperformance, a recompense so munificent that what your employer paysyou will seem insignificant beside it. He pays you in dollars; you payyourself in valuable experience, in fine training, in increasedefficiency, in splendid discipline, in self-expression, in characterbuilding. 

Then, too, the ideal employer gives those who work for him a great dealthat is not found in the pay envelope. He gives them encouragement, sympathy. He inspires them with the possibility of doing somethinghigher, better. 

How small and narrow and really blind to his own interests must be theyouth who can weigh a question of salary against all those privilegeshe receives in exchange for the meager services he is able to renderhis employer. 

Do not fear that your employer will not recognize your merit andadvance you as rapidly as you deserve. It he is looking for efficientemployees, --and what employer is not?--it will be to his own interestto do so, --just as soon as it is profitable. W. Bourke Cockran, himself a remarkable example of success, says: "The man who brings tohis occupation a loyal desire to do his best is certain to succeed. Bydoing the thing at hand surpassingly well, he shows that it would beprofitable to employ him in some higher form of occupation, and, whenthere is profit in his promotion, he is pretty sure to secure it. "

Do you think that kings of business like Andrew Carnegie, JohnWanamaker, Robert C. Ogden, and other lesser powers in the commercialworld would have attained their present commanding success had theyhesitated and haggled about a dollar or two of salary when they begantheir life-work? If they had, they would now probably be working oncomparatively small salaries for other people. It was not salary, butopportunity, that each wanted, --a chance to show what was in him, toabsorb the secrets of the business. They were satisfied with a dollaror two apiece a week, hardly enough to live on, while they werelearning the lessons that made them what they are to-day. No, the boyswho rise in the world are not those who, at the start, split hairsabout salaries. 

Often we see bright boys who have worked, perhaps for years, on smallsalaries, suddenly jumping, as if by magic, into high and responsiblepositions. Why? Simply because, while their employers were payingthem but a few dollars a week, they were paying themselves vastly morein the fine quality of their work, in the enthusiasm, determination, and high purpose they brought to their tasks, and in increased insightinto business methods. 

Colonel Robert C. Clowry, president of the Western Union TelegraphCompany, worked without pay as a messenger boy for months forexperience, which he regarded as worth infinitely more than salary--andscores of our most successful men have cheerfully done the same thing. 

A millionaire merchant of New York told me the story of his rise. "Iwalked from my home in New England to New York, " he said, "where Isecured a place to sweep out a store for three dollars and a half aweek. At the end of a year, I accepted an offer from the firm toremain for five years at a salary of seven dollars and a half a week. Long before this time had expired, however, I had a proposition fromanother large concern in New York to act as its foreign representativeat a salary of three thousand dollars a year. I told the manager thatI was then under contract, but that, when my time should be completed, I should be glad to talk with him in regard to his proposition. " Whenhis contract was nearly up, he was called into the office of the headof the house, and a new contract with him for a term of years at threethousand dollars a year was proposed. The young man told his employersthat the manager of another house had offered him that amount a year ormore before, but that he did not accept it because he wouldn't breakhis contract. They told him they would think the matter over and seewhat they could do for him. Incredible as it may seem, they notifiedhim, a little later, that they were prepared to enter into a ten-yearcontract with him at ten thousand dollars a year, and the contract wasclosed. He told me that he and his wife lived on eight dollars a weekin New York, during a large part of this time, and that, by saving andinvestments, they laid up $117, 000. At the end of his contract, he wastaken into the firm as a partner, and became a millionaire. 

Suppose that this boy had listened to his associates, who probably saidto him, many times: "What a fool you are, George, to work here overtimeto do the things which others neglect! Why should you stay here nightsand help pack goods, and all that sort of thing, when it is notexpected of you?" Would he then have risen above them, leaving them inthe ranks of perpetual employees? No, but the boy who walked onehundred miles to New York to get a job saw in every opportunity a greatoccasion, for he could not tell when fate might be taking his measurefor a larger place. The very first time he swept out the store, hefelt within him the ability to become a great merchant, and hedetermined that he would be. He felt that the opportunity was thesalary. The chance actually to do with his own hands the thing whichhe wanted to learn; to see the way in which princely merchants dobusiness; to watch their methods; to absorb their processes; to maketheir secrets his own, --this was his salary, compared with which thethree dollars and fifty cents looked contemptible. He put himself intotraining, always looking out for the main chance. He never allowedanything of importance to escape his attention. When he was notworking, he was watching others, studying methods, and asking questionsof everybody he came in contact with in the store, so eager was he tolearn how everything was done. He told me that he did not go out ofNew York City for twelve years; that he preferred to study the store, and to absorb every bit of knowledge that he could, for he was boundsome day to be a partner or to have a store of his own. 

It is not difficult to see a proprietor in the boy who sweeps the storeor waits on customers--if the qualities that make a proprietor are inhim--by watching him work for a single day. You can tell by the spiritwhich he brings to his task whether there is in him the capacity forgrowth, expansion, enlargement; an ambition to rise, to be somebody, oran inclination to shirk, to do as little as possible for the largestamount of salary. 

When you get a job, just think of yourself as actually starting out inbusiness for yourself, as really working for yourself. Get as muchsalary as you can, but remember that that is a very small part of theconsideration. You have actually gotten an opportunity to get rightinto the very heart of the great activities of a large concern, to getclose to men who do things; an opportunity to absorb knowledge andvaluable secrets on every hand; an opportunity to drink in, throughyour eyes and your ears, knowledge wherever you go in theestablishment, knowledge that will be invaluable to you in the future. 

Every hint and every suggestion which you can pick up, every bit ofknowledge you can absorb, you should regard as a part of your futurecapital which will be worth more than money capital when you start outfor yourself. 

Just make up your mind that you are going to be a sponge in thatinstitution and absorb every particle of information and knowledgepossible. 

Resolve that you will call upon all of your resourcefulness, yourinventiveness, your ingenuity, to devise new and better ways of doingthings; that you will be progressive, up-to-date; that you will enterinto your work with a spirit of enthusiasm and a zest which know nobounds, and you will be surprised to see how quickly you will attractthe attention of those above you. 

This striving for excellence will make you grow. It will call out yourresources, call out the best thing in you. The constant stretching ofthe mind over problems which interest you, which are to mean everythingto you in the future, will help you expand into a broader, larger, moreeffective man. 

If you work with this spirit, you will form a like habit of accuracy, of close observation; a habit of reading human nature; a habit ofadjusting means to ends; a habit of thoroughness, of system; _a habitof putting your best into everything you do_, which means the ultimateattainment of your maximum efficiency. In other words, if you giveyour best to your employer, the best possible comes back to you inskill, training, shrewdness, acumen, and power. 

Your employer may pinch you on salary, but he can not close your eyesand ears; he can not shut off your perceptive faculties; he can notkeep you from absorbing the secrets of his business which may have beenpurchased by him at an enormous cost of toil and sacrifice and even ofseveral failures. 

On the other hand, it is impossible for you to rob your employer byclipping your hours, shirking your work, by carelessness orindifference, without robbing yourself of infinitely more, of capitalwhich is worth vastly more than money capital--the chance to make a manof yourself, the chance to have a clean record behind you instead of asmirched one. 

If you think you are being kept back, if you are working for too smalla salary, if favoritism puts some one into a position above you whichyou have justly earned, never mind, no one can rob you of your greatestreward, the skill, the efficiency, the power you have gained, theconsciousness of doing your level best, of giving the best thing in youto your employer, all of which advantages you will carry with you toyour next position, whatever it may be. 

Don't say to yourself, "I am not paid for doing this extra work; I donot get enough salary, anyway, and it is perfectly right for me toshirk when my employer is not in sight or to clip my hours when I can, "for this means a loss of self-respect. You will never again have thesame confidence in your ability to succeed; you will always beconscious that you have done a little, mean thing, and no amount ofjuggling with yourself can induce that inward monitor which says"right" to the well-done thing and "wrong" to the botched work, toalter its verdict in your favor. There is something within you thatyou cannot bribe; a divine sense of justice and right that can not beblindfolded. Nothing will ever compensate you for the loss of faith inyourself. You may still succeed when others have lost confidence inyou, but never when you have lost confidence in yourself. If you donot respect yourself; if you do not believe in yourself, your career isat an end so far as its upward tendency is concerned. 

Then again, an employee's reputation is his capital. In the absence ofmoney capital, his reputation means everything. It not only followshim around from one employer to another, but it also follows him whenhe goes into business for himself, and is always either helping orhindering him, according to its nature. 

Contrast the condition of a young man starting out for himself who haslooked upon his position as a sacred trust, a great opportunity, backed, buttressed, and supported by a splendid past, an untarnishedreputation--a reputation for being a dead-in-earnest hard worker, square, loyal, and true to his employer's interests--with that ofanother young man of equal ability starting out for himself, who hasdone just as little work for his salary as possible, and who has goneon the principle that the more he could get out of an employer--themore salary he could get with less effort--the shrewder, smarter man hewas. 

The very reputation of the first young man is splendid credit. He isbacked up by the good opinion of everybody that knows him. People areafraid of the other: they can not trust him. He beat his employer, whyshould not he beat others? Everybody knows that he has not been honestat heart with his employer, not loyal or true. He must work all theharder to overcome the handicap of a bad reputation, a smirched record. 

In other words, he is starting out in life with a heavy handicap, which, if it does not drag him down to failure, will make his burdeninfinitely greater, and success, even a purely commercial success, somuch the harder to attain. 

There is nothing like a good, solid, substantial reputation, a cleanrecord, an untarnished past. It sticks to us through life, and isalways helping us. We find it waiting at the bank when we try toborrow money, or at the jobber's when we ask for credit. It is alwaysbacking us up and helping us in all sorts of ways. 

Young men are sometimes surprised at their rapid advancement. They cannot understand it, because they do not realize the tremendous power ofa clean name, of a good reputation which is backing them. 

I know a young man who came to New York, got a position in a publishinghouse at fifteen dollars a week, and worked five years before hereceived thirty-five dollars a week. 

The other employees and his friends called him a fool for staying atthe office after hours and taking work home nights and holidays, forsuch a small salary; but he told them that the opportunity was what hewas after, not the salary. 

His work attracted the attention of a publisher who offered him sixtydollars a week, and very soon advanced him to seventy-five; but hecarried with him to the new position the same habits of painstaking, hard work, never thinking of the salary, but _regarding the opportunityas everything_. 

Employees sometimes think that they get no credit for trying to do morethan they are paid for; but here is an instance of a young man whoattracted the attention of others even outside of the firm he workedfor, just because he was trying to earn a great deal more than he waspaid for doing. 

The result was, that in less than two years from the time he wasreceiving sixty dollars a week, he went to a third large publishinghouse at ten thousand dollars a year, and also with an interest in thebusiness. 

The salary is of very little importance to you in comparison with thereputation for integrity and efficiency you have left behind you andthe experience you have gained while earning the salary. These are thegreat things. 

In olden times boys had to give years of their time in order to learn atrade, and often would pay their employer for the opportunity. Englishboys used to think it was a great opportunity to be able to get into agood concern, with a chance to work without salary for years in orderto learn their business or trade. Now the boy is paid for learning histrade. 

Many employees may not think it is so very bad to clip their hours, toshirk at every opportunity, to sneak away and hide during businesshours, to loiter when out on business for their employer, to go totheir work in the morning all used up from dissipation; but often whenthey try to get another place their reputation has gone before them, and they are not wanted. 

Others excuse themselves for poor work on the ground that theiremployer does not appreciate their services and is mean to them. Ayouth might just as well excuse himself for his boorish manners andungentlemanly conduct on the ground that other people were mean andungentlemanly to him. 

My young friends, you have nothing to do with your employer's characteror his method of doing things. You may not be able to make him do whatis right, but you can do right yourself. You may not be able to makehim a gentleman, but you can be one yourself; and you can not afford toruin yourself and your whole future just because your employer is notwhat he ought to be. No matter how mean and stingy he may be, youropportunity for the time is with him, and it rests with you whether youwill use it or abuse it, whether you will make of it a stepping-stoneor a stumbling-block. 

The fact is that your present position, your way of doing your work, isthe key that will unlock the door above you. Slighted work, botchedwork, will never make a key to unlock the door to anything but failureand disgrace. 

There is nothing else so valuable to you as an opportunity to build aname for yourself. Your reputation is the foundation for your futuresuccess, and if you slip rotten hours, and slighted, botched work intothe foundation, your superstructure will topple. The foundation mustbe clean, solid, and firm. 

The quality which you put into your work will determine the quality ofyour life. The habit of insisting upon the best of which you arecapable, of always demanding of yourself the highest, never acceptingthe lowest or second best, no matter how small your remuneration, willmake all the difference to you between mediocrity or failure, andsuccess. If you bring to your work the spirit of an artist instead ofan artisan, a burning zeal, an absorbing enthusiasm, these will takethe drudgery out of it and make it a delight. 

Take no chances of marring your reputation by the picayune and unworthyendeavor "to get square" with a stingy or mean employer. Never mindwhat kind of a man he is, resolve that you will approach your task inthe spirit of a master, that whether he is a man of high ideals or not, you will be one. Remember that you are a sculptor and that every actis a chisel blow upon life's marble block. You can not afford tostrike false blows which may mar the angel that sleeps in the stone. Whether it is beautiful or hideous, divine or brutal, the image youevolve from the block must stand as an expression of yourself, of yourideals. Those who do not care how they do their work, if they can onlyget through with it and get their salary for it, pay very dearly fortheir trifling; they cut very sorry figures in life. Regard your workas a great life school for the broadening, deepening, rounding intosymmetry, harmony, beauty, of your God-given faculties, which are uncutdiamonds sacredly intrusted to you for the polishing and bringing outof their hidden wealth and beauty. Look upon it as a man-builder, acharacter-builder, and not as a mere living-getter. Regard theliving-getting, money-making part of your career as a mere incidentalas compared with the man-making part of it. 

The smallest people in the world are those who work for salary alone. The little money you get in your pay envelope is a pretty small, lowmotive for which to work. It may be necessary to secure your bread andbutter, but you have something infinitely higher to satisfy than that;that is, your sense of the right; the demand in you to do your levelbest, to be a man, to do the square thing, the fair thing. Theseshould speak so loud in you that the mere bread-and-butter questionwill be insignificant in comparison. 

Many young employees, just because they do not get quite as much salaryas they think they should, deliberately throw away all of the other, larger, grander remuneration possible for them outside of their payenvelope, for the sake of "getting square" with their employer. Theydeliberately adopt a shirking, do-as-little-as-possible policy, andinstead of getting this larger, more important salary, which they canpay themselves, they prefer the consequent arrested development, andbecome small, narrow, inefficient, rutty men and women, with nothinglarge or magnanimous, nothing broad, noble, progressive in theirnature. Their leadership faculties, their initiative, their planningability, their ingenuity and resourcefulness, inventiveness, and allthe qualities which make the leader, the large, full, complete man, remain undeveloped. While trying to "get square" with their employer, by giving him pinched service, they blight their own growth, strangletheir own prospects, and go through life half men instead of fullmen--small, narrow, weak men, instead of the strong, grand, completemen they might be. 

I have known employees actually to work harder in scheming, shirking, trying to keep from working hard in the performance of their duties, than they would have worked if they had tried to do their best, and hadgiven the largest, the most liberal service possible to theiremployers. The hardest work in the world is that which is grudginglydone. 

Start out with a tacit understanding with yourself that you will be aman, that you will express in your work the highest thing in you, thebest thing in you. You can not afford to debase or demoralize yourselfby bringing out your mean side, the lowest and most despicable thing inyou. 

Never mind whether your employer appreciates the high quality of yourwork or not, or thinks more of you for your conscientiousness, you willcertainly think more of yourself after getting the approval of thatstill small voice within you which says "right" to the noble act. Theeffort always to do your best will enlarge your capacity for doingthings, and will encourage you to push ahead toward larger triumphs. 

Everywhere we see people who are haunted by the ghosts of half-finishedjobs, the dishonest work done away back in their youth. Thesecovered-up defects are always coming back to humiliate them later, totrip them up, and to bar their progress. The great failure army isfull of people who have tried to get square with their employers forthe small salary and lack of appreciation. 

No one can respect himself or have that sublime faith in himself whichmakes for high achievement while he puts half-hearted, mean serviceinto his work. The man who has not learned to fling his whole soulinto his task, who has not learned the secret of taking the drudgeryout of his work by putting the best of himself into it, has not learnedthe first principles of success or happiness. Let other people do thepoor jobs, the botched work, if they will. Keep your standard up. Itis a lofty ideal that redeems the life from the curse of commonness andimparts a touch of nobility to the personality. 

No matter how small your salary, or how unappreciative your employer, bring the entire man to your task; be all there; fling your life intoit with all the energy and enthusiasm you can muster. _Poor workinjures your employer a little, but it may ruin you_. Be proud of yourwork and go to it every morning superbly equipped; go to it in thespirit of a master, of a conqueror. Determine to do your level bestand never to demoralize yourself by doing your second best. 

Conduct yourself in such a way that you can always look yourself in theface without wincing; then you will have a courage born of conviction, of personal nobility and integrity which have never been tarnished. 

What your employer thinks of you, what the world thinks of you, is nothalf as important as what you think of yourself. Others are with youcomparatively little through life. _You have to live with yourself dayand night through your whole existence, and you can not afford to tiethat divine thing in you to a scoundrel_. 

CHAPTER XLIII

EXPECT GREAT THINGS OF YOURSELF

"Why, " asked Mirabeau, "should we call ourselves men, unless it be tosucceed in everything everywhere?" Nothing else will so nerve you toaccomplish great things as to believe in your own greatness, in your ownmarvelous possibilities. Count that man an enemy who shakes your faithin yourself, in your ability to do the thing you have set your heart upondoing, for when your confidence is gone, your power is gone. Yourachievement will never rise higher than your self-faith. It would be asreasonable for Napoleon to have expected to get his army over the Alps bysitting down and declaring that the undertaking was too great for him, asfor you to hope to achieve anything significant in life while harboringgrave doubts and fears as to your ability. 

The miracles of civilization have been performed by men and women ofgreat self-confidence, who had unwavering faith in their power toaccomplish the tasks they undertook. The race would have been centuriesbehind what it is to-day had it not been for their grit, theirdetermination, their persistence in finding and making real the thingthey believed in and which the world often denounced as chimerical orimpossible. 

There is no law by which you can achieve success in anything withoutexpecting it, demanding it, assuming it. There must be a strong, firmself-faith first, or the thing will never come. There is no room forchance in God's world of system and supreme order. Everything must havenot only a cause, but a sufficient cause--a cause as large as the result. A stream can not rise higher than its source. A great success must havea great source in expectation, in self-confidence, and in persistentendeavor to attain it. No matter how great the ability, how large thegenius, or how splendid the education, the achievement will never risehigher than the confidence. He can who thinks he can, and he can't whothinks he can't. This is an inexorable, indisputable law. 

It does not matter what other people think of you, of your plans, or ofyour aims. No matter if they call you a visionary, a crank, or adreamer; you must believe in yourself. You forsake yourself when youlose your confidence. Never allow anybody or any misfortune to shakeyour belief in yourself. You may lose your property, your health, yourreputation, other people's confidence, even; but there is always hope foryou so long as you keep a firm faith in yourself. If you never losethat, but keep pushing on, the world will, sooner or later, make way foryou. 

A soldier once took a message to Napoleon in such great haste that thehorse he rode dropped dead before he delivered the paper. Napoleondictated his answer and, handing it to the messenger, ordered him tomount his own horse and deliver it with all possible speed. 

The messenger looked at the magnificent animal, with its superbtrappings, and said, "Nay, General, but this is too gorgeous, toomagnificent for a common soldier. "

Napoleon said, "Nothing is too good or too magnificent for a Frenchsoldier. "

The world is full of people like this poor French soldier, who think thatwhat others have is too good for them; that it does not fit their humblecondition; that they are not expected to have as good things as those whoare "more favored. " They do not realize how they weaken themselves bythis mental attitude of self-depreciation or self-effacement. They donot claim enough, expect enough, or demand enough of or for themselves. 

You will never become a giant if you only make a pygmy's claim foryourself; if you only expect small things of yourself. There is no lawwhich can cause a pygmy's thinking to produce a giant. The statuefollows the model. The model is the inward vision. 

Most people have been educated to think that it was not intended theyshould have the best there is in the world; that the good and thebeautiful things of life were not designed for them, but were reservedfor those especially favored by fortune. They have grown up under thisconviction of their inferiority, and of course they will be inferioruntil they claim superiority as their birthright. A vast number of menand women who are really capable of doing great things, do small things, live mediocre lives, because they do not expect or demand enough ofthemselves. They do not know how to call out their best. 

One reason why the human race as a whole has not measured up to itspossibilities, to its promise; one reason why we see everywhere splendidability doing the work of mediocrity; is because people do not think halfenough of themselves. _We do not realize our divinity; that we are apart of the great causation principle of the universe_. 

We do not think highly enough of our superb birthright, nor comprehend towhat heights of sublimity we were intended and expected to rise, nor towhat extent we can really be masters of ourselves. We fail to see thatwe can control our own destiny: make ourselves do whatever is possible;make ourselves become whatever we long to be. 

"If we choose to be no more than clods of clay, " says Marie Corelli, "then we shall be used as clods of clay for braver feet to tread on. "

The persistent thought that you are not as good as others, that you are aweak, ineffective being, will lower your whole standard of life andparalyze your ability. 

A man who is self-reliant, positive, optimistic, and undertakes his workwith the assurance of success, magnetizes conditions. He draws tohimself the literal fulfilment of the promise, "For unto every one thathath shall be given, and he shall have abundance. "

There is everything in assuming the part we wish to play, and playing itroyally. If you are ambitious to do big things, you must make a largeprogram for yourself, and assume the part it demands. 

There is something in the atmosphere of the man who has a large and trueestimate of himself, who believes that he is going to win out; somethingin his very appearance that wins half the battle before a blow is struck. Things get out of the way of the vigorous, affirmative man, which arealways tripping the self-depreciating, negative man. 

We often hear it said of a man, "Everything he undertakes succeeds, " or"Everything he touches turns to gold. " By the force of his character andthe creative power of his thought, such a man wrings success from themost adverse circumstances. Confidence begets confidence. A man whocarries in his very presence an air of victory, radiates assurance, andimparts to others confidence that he can do the thing he attempts. Astime goes on, he is reenforced not only by the power of his own thought, but also by that of all who know him. His friends and acquaintancesaffirm and reaffirm his ability to succeed, and make each successivetriumph easier of achievement than its predecessor. His self-poise, assurance, confidence, and ability increase in a direct ratio to thenumber of his achievements. As the savage Indian thought that the powerof every enemy he conquered entered into himself, so in reality doesevery conquest in war, in peaceful industry, in commerce, in invention, in science, or in art add to the conqueror's power to do the next thing. 

Set the mind toward the thing you would accomplish so resolutely, sodefinitely, and with such vigorous determination, and put so much gritinto your resolution, that nothing on earth can turn you from yourpurpose until you attain it. 

This very assertion of superiority, the assumption of power, theaffirmation of belief in yourself, the mental attitude that claimssuccess as an inalienable birthright, will strengthen the whole man andgive power to a combination of faculties which doubt, fear, and a lack ofconfidence undermine. 

Confidence is the Napoleon of the mental army. It doubles and treblesthe power of all the other faculties. The whole mental army waits untilconfidence leads the way. 

Even a race-horse can not win the prize after it has once lost confidencein itself. Courage, born of self-confidence, is the prod which bringsout the last ounce of reserve force. 

The reason why so many men fail is because they do not commit themselveswith a determination to win at any cost. They do not have that superbconfidence in themselves which never looks back; which burns all bridgesbehind it. There is just uncertainty enough as to whether they willsucceed to take the edge off their effort, and it is just this littledifference between doing pretty well and flinging all oneself, all hispower, into his career, that makes the difference between mediocrity anda grand achievement. 

If you doubt your ability to do what you set out to do; if you think thatothers are better fitted to do it than you; if you fear to let yourselfout and take chances; if you lack boldness; if you have a timid, shrinking nature; if the negatives preponderate in your vocabulary; ifyou think that you lack positiveness, initiative, aggressiveness, ability; you can never win anything very great until you change yourwhole mental attitude and learn to have great faith in yourself. Fear, doubt, and timidity must be turned out of your mind. 

Your own mental picture of yourself is a good measure of yourself andyour possibilities. If there is no out-reach to your mind, no spirit ofdaring, no firm self-faith, you will never accomplish much. 

A man's confidence measures the height of his possibilities. A streamcan not rise higher than its fountain-head. 

_Power is largely a question of strong, vigorous, perpetual thinkingalong the line of the ambition, parallel with the aim--the great lifepurpose. Here is where power originates. _

The deed must first live in the thought or it will never be a reality;and a strong, vigorous concept of the thing we want to do is a tremendousinitial step. A thought that is timidly born will be timidly executed. There must be vigor of conception or an indifferent execution. 

All the greatest achievements in the world began in longing--in dreamingsand hopings which for a time were nursed in despair, with no light insight. This longing kept the courage up and made self-sacrifice easieruntil the thing dreamed of--the mental vision--was realized. 

"According to your faith be it unto you. " Our faith is a very goodmeasure of what we get out of life. The man of weak faith gets little;the man of mighty faith gets much. 

The very intensity of your confidence in your ability to do the thing youattempt is definitely related to the degree of your achievement. 

If we were to analyze the marvelous successes of many of our self-mademen, we should find that when they first started out in active life theyheld the confident, vigorous, persistent thought of and belief in theirability to accomplish what they had undertaken. Their mental attitudewas set so stubbornly toward their goal that the doubts and fears whichdog and hinder and frighten the man who holds a low estimate of himself, who asks, demands, and expects but little, of or for himself, got out oftheir path, and the world made way for them. 

We are very apt to think of men who have been unusually successful in anyline as greatly favored by fortune; and we try to account for it in allsorts of ways but the right one. The fact is that their successrepresents their expectations of themselves--the sum of their creative, positive, habitual thinking. It is their mental attitude outpictured andmade tangible in their environment. They have wrought--created--whatthey have and what they are out of their constructive thought and theirunquenchable faith in themselves. 

We must not only believe we can succeed, but _we must believe it with allour hearts_. 

We must have a positive conviction that we can attain success. 

No lukewarm energy or indifferent ambition ever accomplished anything. _There must be vigor in our expectation, in our faith_, in ourdetermination, in our endeavor. _We must resolve with the energy thatdoes things_. 

Not only must the desire for the thing we long for be kept uppermost, butthere must be strongly concentrated intensity of effort to attain ourobject. 

As it is the fierceness of the heat that melts the iron ore and makes itpossible to weld it or mold it into shape; as it is the intensity of theelectrical force that dissolves the diamond--the hardest known substance;so _it is the concentrated aim, the invincible purpose_, that winssuccess. Nothing was ever accomplished by a half-hearted desire. 

Many people make a very poor showing in life, because there is no vim, novigor in their efforts. Their resolutions are spineless; there is nobackbone in their endeavor--no grit in their ambition. 

One must have that determination which never looks back and which knowsno defeat; that resolution which burns all bridges behind it and iswilling to risk everything upon the effort. When a man ceases to believein himself--gives up the fight--you can not do much for him except to tryto restore what he has lost--his self-faith--and to get out of his headthe idea that there is a fate which tosses him hither and thither, amysterious destiny which decides things whether he will or not. You cannot do much with him until he comprehends that _he is bigger than anyfate_; that he has within himself a power mightier than any force outsideof him. 

One reason why the careers of most of us are so pinched and narrow, isbecause we do not have a large faith in ourselves and in our power toaccomplish. We are held back by too much caution. We are timid aboutventuring. We are not bold enough. 

Whatever we long for, yearn for, struggle for, and hold persistently inthe mind, we tend to become just in exact proportion to the intensity andpersistence of the thought. _We think ourselves into smallness, intoinferiority by thinking downward_. We ought to think upward, then wewould reach the heights where superiority dwells. The man whose mind isset firmly toward achievement does not appropriate success, _he issuccess_. 

Self-confidence is not egotism. It is knowledge, and it comes from theconsciousness of possessing the ability requisite for what oneundertakes. Civilization to-day rests upon self-confidence. 

A firm self-faith helps a man to project himself with a force that isalmost irresistible. A balancer, a doubter, has no projectile power. Ifhe starts at all, he moves with uncertainty. There is no vigor in hisinitiative, no positiveness in his energy. 

There is a great difference between a man who thinks that "perhaps" hecan do, or who "will try" to do a thing, and a man who "knows" he can doit, who is "bound" to do it; who feels within himself a pulsating power, an irresistible force, equal to any emergency. 

This difference between uncertainty and certainty, between vacillationand decision, between the man who wavers and the man who decides things, between "I hope to" and "I can, " between "I'll try" and "I will"--thislittle difference measures the distance between weakness and power, between mediocrity and excellence, between commonness and superiority. 

The man who does things must be able to project himself with a mightyforce, to fling the whole weight of his being into his work, evergathering momentum against the obstacles which confront him; every issuemust be met wholly, unhesitatingly. He can not do this with a wavering, doubting, unstable mind. 

The fact that a man believes implicitly that he can do what may seemimpossible or very difficult to others, shows that there is somethingwithin him that makes him equal to the work he has undertaken. 

Faith unites man with the Infinite, and no one can accomplish greatthings in life unless he works in oneness with the Infinite. When a manlives so near to the Supreme that the divine Presence is felt all thetime, then he is in a position to express power. 

There is nothing which will multiply one's ability like self-faith. Itcan make a one-talent man a success, while a ten-talent man without itwould fail. 

Faith walks on the mountain tops, hence its superior vision. It seeswhat is invisible to those who follow in the valleys. 

It was the sustaining power of a mighty self-faith that enabled Columbusto bear the jeers and imputations of the Spanish cabinet; that sustainedhim when his sailors were in mutiny and he was at their mercy in a littlevessel on an unknown sea; that enabled him to hold steadily to hispurpose, entering in his diary day after day--"This day we sailed west, which was our course. "

It was this self-faith which gave courage and determination to Fulton toattempt his first trip up the Hudson in the _Clermont_, before thousandsof his fellow citizens, who had gathered to howl and jeer at his expectedfailure. He believed he could do the thing he attempted though the wholeworld was against him. 

What miracles self-confidence has wrought! What impossible deeds it hashelped to perform! It took Dewey past cannons, torpedoes, and mines tovictory at Manila Bay; it carried Farragut, lashed to the rigging, pastthe defenses of the enemy in Mobile Bay; it led Nelson and Grant tovictory; it has been the great tonic in the world of invention, discovery, and art; it has won a thousand triumphs in war and sciencewhich were deemed impossible by doubters and the faint-hearted. 

Self-faith has been the miracle-worker of the ages. It has enabled theinventor and the discoverer to go on and on amidst troubles and trialswhich otherwise would have utterly disheartened them. It has heldinnumerable heroes to their tasks until the glorious deeds wereaccomplished. 

The only inferiority in us is what we put into ourselves. If only webetter understood our divinity we should all have this larger faith whichis the distinction of the brave soul. We think ourselves into smallness. Were we to think upward we should reach the heights where superioritydwells. 

Perhaps there is no other one thing which keeps so many people back astheir low estimate of themselves. They are more handicapped by theirlimiting thought, by their foolish convictions of inefficiency, than byalmost anything else, for _there is no power in the universe that canhelp a man do a thing when he thinks he can not do it_. Self-faith mustlead the way. You can not go beyond the limits you set for yourself. 

_It is one of the most difficult things to a mortal to really believe inhis own bigness_, in his own grandeur; to believe that his yearnings andhungerings and aspirations for higher, nobler things have any basis inreality or any real, ultimate end. But they are, in fact, the signs ofability to match them, of power to make them real. They are thestirrings of the divinity within us; the call to something better, to gohigher. 

No man gets very far in the world or expresses great power untilself-faith is born in him; until he catches a glimpse of his higher, nobler self; until he realizes that his ambition, his aspiration, areproofs of his ability to reach the ideal which haunts him. The Creatorwould not have mocked us with the yearning for infinite achievementwithout giving us the ability and the opportunity for realizing it, anymore than he would have mocked the wild birds with an instinct to flysouth in the winter without giving them a sunny South to match theinstinct. 

_The cause of whatever comes to you in life is within you_. There iswhere it is created. The thing you long for and work for comes to youbecause your thought has created it; because there is something insideyou that attracts it. It comes because there is an affinity within youfor it. _Your own comes to you; is always seeking you_. 

Whenever you see a person who has been unusually successful in any field, remember that he has usually thought himself into his position; hismental attitude and energy have created it; what he stands for in hiscommunity has come from his attitude toward life, toward his fellow men, toward his vocation, toward himself. Above all else, it is the outcomeof his self-faith, of his inward vision of himself; the result of hisestimate of his powers and possibilities. 

The men who have done the great things in the world have been profoundbelievers in themselves. 

If I could give the young people of America but one word of advice, itwould be this--"_Believe in yourself with all your might. _" That is, believe that your destiny is inside of you, that there is a power withinyou which, if awakened, aroused, developed, and matched with honesteffort, will not only make a noble man or woman of you, but will alsomake you successful and happy. 

All through the Bible we find emphasized the miracle-working power offaith. Faith in himself indicates that a man has a glimpse of forceswithin him which either annihilate the obstacles in the way, or make themseem insignificant in comparison with his ability to overcome them. 

Faith opens the door that enables us to look into the soul's limitlesspossibilities and reveals such powers there, such unconquerable forces, that we are not only encouraged to go on, but feel a great consciousnessof added power because we have touched omnipotence, and gotten a glimpseof the great source of things. 

Faith is that something within us which does not guess, but knows. Itknows because it sees what our coarser selves, our animal natures can notsee. It is the prophet within us, the divine messenger appointed toaccompany man through life to guide and direct and encourage him. Itgives him a glimpse of his possibilities to keep him from losing heart, from quitting his upward life struggle. 

Our faith knows because it sees what we can not see. It sees resources, powers, potencies which our doubts and fears veil from us. Faith isassured, is never afraid, because it sees the way out; sees the solutionof its problem. It has dipped in the realms of our finer life our higherand diviner kingdom. All things are possible to him who has faith, because faith sees, recognizes the power that means accomplishment. Ifwe had faith in God and in ourselves we could remove all mountains ofdifficulty, and our lives would be one triumphal march to the goal of ourambition. 

If we had faith enough we could cure all our ills and accomplish themaximum of our possibilities. 

Faith never fails; it is a miracle worker. It looks beyond allboundaries, transcends all limitations, penetrates all obstacles and seesthe goal. 

It is doubt and fear, timidity and cowardice, that hold us down and keepus in mediocrity--doing petty things when we are capable of sublime deeds. 

If we had faith enough we should travel Godward infinitely faster than wedo. 

The time will come when every human being will have unbounded faith andwill live the life triumphant. Then there will be no poverty in theworld, no failures, and the discords of life will all vanish. 

CHAPTER XLIV

THE NEXT TIME YOU THINK YOU ARE A FAILURE

If you made a botch of last year, if you feel that it was a failure, that you floundered and blundered and did a lot of foolish things; ifyou were gullible, made imprudent investments, wasted your time andmoney, don't drag these ghosts along with you to handicap you anddestroy your happiness all through the future. 

Haven't you wasted enough energy worrying over what can not be helped?Don't let these things sap any more of your vitality, waste any more ofyour time or destroy any more of your happiness. 

There is only one thing to do with bitter experiences, blunders andunfortunate mistakes, or with memories that worry us and which kill ourefficiency, and that is to _forget them, bury them_!

To-day is a good time to "leave the low-vaulted past, " to drop theyesterdays, to forget bitter memories. 

Resolve that you will close the door on everything in the past thatpains and can not help you. Free yourself from everything whichhandicaps you, keeps you back and makes you unhappy. Throw away alluseless baggage, drop everything that is a drag, that hinders yourprogress. 

Enter upon to-morrow with a clean slate and a free mind. Don't bemortgaged to the past, and never look back. 

There is no use in castigating yourself for not having done better. 

Form a habit of expelling from your mind thoughts or suggestions whichcall up unpleasant subjects or bitter memories, and which have a badinfluence upon you. 

Every one ought to make it a life-rule to wipe out from his memoryeverything that has been unpleasant, unfortunate. We ought to forgeteverything that has kept us back, has made us suffer, has beendisagreeable, and never allow the hideous pictures of distressingconditions to enter our minds again. There is only one thing to dowith a disagreeable, harmful experience, and that is--_forget it_!

There are many times in the life of a person who does things that areworth while when he gets terribly discouraged and thinks it easier togo back than to push on. But _there is no victory in retreating_. Weshould never leave any bridges unburned behind us, any way open forretreat to tempt our weakness, indecision or discouragement. If thereis anything we ever feel grateful for, it is that we have had courageand pluck enough to push on, to keep going when things looked dark andwhen seemingly insurmountable obstacles confronted us. 

Most people are their own worst enemies. We are all the time"queering" our life game by our vicious, tearing-down thoughts andunfortunate moods. Everything depends upon our courage, our faith inourselves, in our holding a hopeful, optimistic outlook; and yet, whenever things go wrong with us, whenever we have a discouraging dayor an unfortunate experience, a loss or any misfortune, we let thetearing-down thought, doubt, fear, despondency, like a bull in a chinashop, tear through our mentalities, perhaps breaking up and destroyingthe work of years of building up, and we have to start all over again. We work and live like the frog in the well; we climb up only to fallback, and often lose all we gain. 

One of the worst things that can ever happen to a person is to get itinto his head that he was born unlucky and that the Fates are againsthim. There are no Fates, outside of our own mentality. We are our ownFates. We control our own destiny. 

There is no fate or destiny which puts one man down and another up. "It is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. " Heonly is beaten who admits it. The man is inferior who admits that heis inferior, who voluntarily takes an inferior position because hethinks the best things were intended for somebody else. 

You will find that just in proportion as you increase your confidencein yourself by the affirmation of what you wish to be and to do, yourability will increase. 

No matter what other people may think about your ability, never allowyourself to doubt that you can do or become what you long to. Increaseyour self-confidence in every possible way, and you can do this to aremarkable degree by the power of self-suggestion. 

This form of suggestion--talking to oneself vigorously, earnestly--seems to arouse the sleeping forces in the subconscious selfmore effectually than thinking the same thing. 

There is a force in words spoken aloud which is not stirred by goingover the same words mentally. They sometimes arouse slumberingenergies within us which thinking does not stir up--especially if wehave not been trained to think deeply, to focus the mind closely. Theymake a more lasting impression upon the mind, just as words which passthrough the eye from the printed page make a greater impression on thebrain than we get by thinking the same words; as seeing objects ofnature makes a more lasting impression upon the mind than thinkingabout them. A vividness, a certain force, accompanies the spokenword--especially if earnestly, vehemently uttered--which is notapparent to many in merely thinking about what the words express. Ifyou repeat a firm resolve to yourself aloud, vigorously, evenvehemently, you are more likely to carry it to reality than if youmerely resolve in silence. 

We become so accustomed to our silent thoughts that the voicing ofthem, the giving audible expression to our yearnings, makes a muchdeeper impression upon us. 

The audible self-encouragement treatment may be used with marvelousresults in correcting our weaknesses; overcoming our deficiencies. 

Never allow yourself to think meanly, narrowly, poorly of yourself. Never regard yourself as weak, inefficient, diseased, but as perfect, complete, capable. Never even think of the possibility of goingthrough life a failure or a partial failure. Failure and misery arenot for the man who has seen the God-side of himself, who has been intouch with divinity. They are for those who have never discoveredthemselves and their God-like qualities. 

Stoutly assert that there is a place for you in the world, and that youare going to fill it like a man. Train yourself to expect great thingsof yourself. Never admit, even by your manner, that you think you aredestined to do little things all your life. 

It is marvelous what mental strength can be developed by the perpetualaffirmation of vigorous fitness, strength, power, efficiency; these arethoughts and ideals that make a strong man. 

The way to get the best out of yourself is to put things right up toyourself, handle yourself without gloves, and talk to yourself as youwould to a son of yours who has great ability but who is not using halfof it. 

When you go into an undertaking just say to yourself, "Now, this thingis right up to me. I've got to make good, to show the man in me or thecoward. There is no backing out. "

You will be surprised to see how quickly this sort of self-suggestionwill brace you up and put new spirit in you. 

I have a friend who has helped himself wonderfully by talking tohimself about his conduct. When he feels that he is not doing all thathe ought to, that he has made some foolish mistake or has failed to usegood sense and good judgment in any transaction, when he feels that hisstamina and ambition are deteriorating, he goes off alone to thecountry, to the woods if possible, and has a good heart-to-heart talkwith himself something after this fashion:

"Now young man, you need a good talking-to, a bracing-up all along theline. You are going stale, your standards are dropping, your idealsare getting dull, and the worst of it all is that when you do a poorjob, or are careless about your dress and indifferent in your manner, you do not feel as troubled as you used to. You are not making good. This lethargy, this inertia, this indifference will seriously crippleyour career if you're not very careful. You are letting a lot of goodchances slip by you, because you are not as progressive and up-to-dateas you ought to be. 

"In short, you are becoming lazy. You like to take things easy. Nobody ever amounts to much who lets his energies flag, his standardsdroop and his ambition ooze out. Now, I am going to keep right afteryou, young man, until you are doing yourself justice. Thistake-it-easy sort of policy will never land you at the goal you startedfor. You will have to watch yourself very closely or you will be leftbehind. 

"You are capable of something much better than what you are doing. Youmust start out to-day with a firm resolution to make the returns fromyour work greater to-night than ever before. You must make this ared-letter day. Bestir yourself; get the cobwebs out of your head;brush off the brain ash. Think, think, think to some purpose! Do notmull and mope like this. You are only half-alive, man; get a move onyou!"

This young man says that every morning when he finds his standards aredown and he feels lazy and indifferent he "hauls himself over thecoals, " as he calls it, in order to force himself up to a higherstandard and put himself in tune for the day. It is the very firstthing he attends to. 

He forces himself to do the most disagreeable tasks first, and does notallow himself to skip hard problems. "Now, don't be a coward, " he saysto himself. "If others have done this, you can do it. "

By years of stern discipline of this kind he has done wonders withhimself. He began as a poor boy living in the slums of New York withno one to take an interest in him, encourage or push him. Though hehad little opportunity for schooling when he was a small boy, he hasgiven himself a splendid education, mainly since he was twenty-one. Ihave never known any one else who carried on such a vigorous campaignin self-victory, self-development, self-training, self-culture as thisyoung man has. 

At first it may seem silly to you to be talking to yourself, but youwill derive so much benefit from it that you will have recourse to itin remedying all your defects. There is no fault, however great orsmall, which will not succumb to persistent audible suggestion. Forexample, you may be naturally timid and shrink from meeting people; andyou may distrust your own ability. If so, you will be greatly helpedby assuring yourself in your daily self-talks that you are not timid;that, on the contrary, you are the embodiment of courage and bravery. Assure yourself that there is no reason why you should be timid, because there is nothing inferior or peculiar about you; that you areattractive and that you know how to act in the presence of others. Sayto yourself that you are never again going to allow yourself to harborany thoughts of self-depreciation or timidity or inferiority; that youare going to hold your head up and go about as though you were a king, a conqueror, instead of crawling about like a whipped cur; you aregoing to assert your manhood, your individuality. 

If you lack initiative, stoutly affirm your ability to begin things, and to push them to a finish. And always put your resolve into actionat the first opportunity. 

You will be surprised to see how you can increase your courage, yourconfidence, and your ability, if you will be sincere with yourself andstrong and persistent in your affirmations. 

I know of nothing so helpful for the timid, those who lack faith inthemselves, as the habit of constantly affirming their own importance, their own power, their own divinity. The trouble is that we do notthink half enough of ourselves; do not accurately measure our ability;do not put the right estimate upon our possibilities. We berateourselves, belittle, efface ourselves, because we do not see thelarger, diviner man in us. 

Try this experiment the very next time you get discouraged or thinkthat you are a failure, that your work does not amount to much--turnabout face. Resolve that you will go no further in that direction. Stop and face the other way, and _go_ the other way. Every time youthink you are a failure, it helps you to become one, for your thoughtis your life pattern and you can not get away from it. You can not getaway from your ideals, the standard which you hold for yourself, and ifyou acknowledge in your thought that you are a failure, that you can'tdo anything worth while, that luck is against you, that you don't havethe same opportunity that other people have---your convictions willcontrol the result. 

There are thousands of people who have lost everything they valued inthe world, all the material results of their lives' endeavor, and yet, because they possess stout hearts, unconquerable spirits, adetermination to push ahead which knows no retreat, they are just asfar from real failure as before their loss; and with such wealth theycan never be poor. 

A great many people fail to reach a success which matches their abilitybecause they are victims of their moods, which repel people and repelbusiness. 

We avoid morose, gloomy people just as we avoid a picture which makes adisagreeable impression upon us. 

Everywhere we see people with great ambitions doing very ordinarythings, simply because there are so many days when they do not "feellike it" or when they are discouraged or "blue. "

A man who is at the mercy of a capricious disposition can never be aleader, a power among men. 

It is perfectly possible for a well-trained mind to completely rout theworst case of the "blues" in a few minutes; but the trouble with mostof us is that instead of flinging open the mental blinds and letting inthe sun of cheerfulness, hope, and optimism, we keep them closed andtry to eject the darkness by main force. 

The art of arts is learning how to clear the mind of itsenemies--enemies of our comfort, happiness, and success. It is a greatthing to learn to focus the mind upon the beautiful instead of theugly, the true instead of the false, upon harmony instead of discord, life instead of death, health instead of disease. This is not alwayseasy, but it is possible to everybody. It requires only skilfulthinking, the forming of the right thought habits. 

The best way to keep out darkness is to keep the life filled withlight; to keep out discord, keep it filled with harmony; to shut outerror, keep the mind filled with truth; to shut out ugliness, contemplate beauty and loveliness; to get rid of all that is sour andunwholesome, contemplate all that is sweet and wholesome. Oppositethoughts can not occupy the mind at the same time. 

No matter whether you feel like it or not, just affirm that you _must_feel like it, that you _will_ feel like it, that you _do_ feel like it, that you are normal and that you are in a position to do your best. Say it deliberately, affirm it vigorously and it will come true. 

The next time you get into trouble, or are discouraged and think youare a failure, just try the experiment of affirming vigorously, persistently, that all that is real _must_ be good, for God made allthat is, and whatever doesn't seem to be good is not like its creatorand therefore can not be real. Persist in this affirmation. You willbe surprised to see how unfortunate suggestions and adverse conditionswill melt away before it. 

The next time you feel the "blues" or a fit of depression coming on, just get by yourself--if possible after taking a good bath and dressingyourself becomingly--and give yourself a good talking-to. Talk toyourself in the same dead-in-earnest way that you would talk to yourown child or a dear friend who was deep in the mire of despondency, suffering tortures from melancholy. Drive out the black, hideouspictures which haunt your mind. Sweep away all depressing thoughts, suggestions, all the rubbish that is troubling you. Let go ofeverything that is unpleasant; all the mistakes, all the disagreeablepast; just rise up in arms against the enemies of your peace andhappiness; summon all the force you can muster and drive them out. Resolve that no matter what happens you are going to be happy; that youare going to enjoy yourself. 

When you look at it squarely, it is very foolish--almost criminal--togo about this beautiful world, crowded with splendid opportunities, andthings to delight and cheer us, with a sad, dejected face, as thoughlife had been a disappointment instead of a priceless boon. Just sayto yourself, "I am a man and I am going to do the work of a man. It'sright up to me and I am going to face the situation. "

Do not let anybody or anything shake your faith that you can conquerall the enemies of your peace and happiness, and that you inherit anabundance of all that is good. 

We should early form the habit of erasing from the mind alldisagreeable, unhealthy, death-dealing thoughts. We should start outevery morning with a clean slate. We should blot out from our mentalgallery all discordant pictures and replace them with the harmonious, uplifting, life-giving ones. 

The next time you feel jaded, discouraged, completely played out and"blue, " you will probably find, if you look for the reason, that yourcondition is largely due to exhausted vitality, either from overwork, overeating, or violating in some way the laws of digestion, or fromvicious habits of some kind. 

The "blues" are often caused by exhausted nerve cells, due tooverstraining work, long-continued excitement, or over-stimulatednerves from dissipation. This condition is caused by the clamoring ofexhausted nerve cells for nourishment, rest, or recreation. Multitudesof people suffer from despondency and melancholy, as a result of arun-down condition physically, due to their irregular, vicious habitsand a lack of refreshing sleep. 

When you are feeling "blue" or discouraged, get as complete a change ofenvironment as possible. Whatever you do, do not brood over yourtroubles or dwell upon the things which happen to annoy you at thetime. Think the pleasantest, happiest things possible. Hold the mostcharitable, loving thoughts toward others. Make a strenuous effort toradiate joy and gladness to everybody about you. Say the kindest, pleasantest things. You will soon begin to feel a wonderful uplift;the shadows which darkened your mind will flee away, and the sun of joywill light up your whole being. 

Stoutly, constantly, everlastingly affirm that you will become whatyour ambitions indicate as fitting and possible. Do not say, "I shallbe a success sometime"; say, "I am a success. Success is mybirthright. " Do not say that you are going to be happy in the future. Say to yourself, "I was intended for happiness, made for it, and I amhappy now. "

If, however, you affirm, "I am health; I am prosperity; I am this orthat, " but do not believe it, you will not be helped by affirmation. _You must believe what you affirm and try to realise it_. 

Assert your actual possession of the things you need; of the qualitiesyou long to have. Force your mind toward your goal; hold it theresteadily, persistently, for this is the mental state that creates. Thenegative mind, which doubts and wavers, creates nothing. 

"I, myself, am good fortune, " says Walt Whitman. If we could onlyrealize that the very attitude of assuming that we are the realembodiment of the thing we long to be or to attain, that we possess thegood things we long for, not that we possess all the qualities of good, but that we are these qualities--with the constant affirming, "I myselfam good luck, good fortune; I am myself a part of the great creative, sustaining principle of the universe, because my real, divine self andmy Father are one"--what a revolution would come to earth's toilers!

CHAPTER XLV

STAND FOR SOMETHING

The greatest thing that can be said of a man, no matter how much he hasachieved, is that _he has kept his record clean_. 

Why is it that, in spite of the ravages of time, the reputation ofLincoln grows larger and his character means more to the world everyyear? It is because he kept his record clean, and never prostitutedhis ability nor gambled with his reputation. 

Where, in all history, is there an example of a man who was merelyrich, no matter how great his wealth, who exerted such a power forgood, who was such a living force in civilization, as was this poorbackwoods boy? What a powerful illustration of the fact that_character_ is the greatest force in the world!

A man assumes importance and becomes a power in the world just as soonas it is found that he stands for something; that he is not for sale;that he will not lease his manhood for salary, for any amount of moneyor for any influence or position; that he will not lend his name toanything which he can not indorse. 

The trouble with so many men to-day is that they do not stand foranything outside their vocation. They may be well educated, well up intheir specialties, may have a lot of expert knowledge, but they can notbe depended upon. There is some flaw in them which takes the edge offtheir virtue. They may be fairly honest, but you cannot bank on them. 

It is not difficult to find a lawyer or a physician who knows a gooddeal, who is eminent in his profession; but it is not so easy to findone who is a man before he is a lawyer or a physician; whose name is asynonym for all that is clean, reliable, solid, substantial. It is notdifficult to find a good preacher; but it is not so easy to find a realman, sterling manhood, back of the sermon. It is easy to findsuccessful merchants, but not so easy to find men who put characterabove merchandise. What the world wants is men who have principleunderlying their expertness--principle under their law, their medicine, their business; men who stand for something outside of their officesand stores; who stand for something in their community; whose verypresence carries weight. 

Everywhere we see smart, clever, longheaded, shrewd men, but howcomparatively rare it is to find one whose record is as clean as ahound's tooth; who will not swerve from the right; who would ratherfail than be a party to a questionable transaction!

Everywhere we see business men putting the stumbling-blocks ofdeception and dishonest methods right across their own pathway, tripping themselves up while trying to deceive others. 

We see men worth millions of dollars filled with terror; trembling lestinvestigations may uncover things which will damn them in the publicestimation! We see them cowed before the law like whipped spaniels;catching at any straw that will save them from public disgrace!

What a terrible thing to live in the limelight of popular favor, to beenvied as rich and powerful, to be esteemed as honorable andstraightforward, and yet to be conscious all the time of not being whatthe world thinks we are; to live in constant terror of discovery, infear that something may happen to unmask us and show us up in our truelight! But nothing can happen to injure seriously the man who livesfour-square to the world; who has nothing to cover up, nothing to hidefrom his fellows; who lives a transparent, clean life, with never afear of disclosures. If all of his material possessions are swept awayfrom him, he knows that he has a monument in the hearts of hiscountrymen, in the affection and admiration of the people, and thatnothing can happen to harm his real self because he has kept his recordclean. 

Mr. Roosevelt early resolved that, let what would come, whether hesucceeded in what he undertook or failed, whether he made friends orenemies, he would not take chances with his good name--he would partwith everything else first; that he would never gamble with hisreputation; that he would keep his record clean. His first ambitionwas to stand for something, to be a man. Before he was a politician oranything else the man must come first. 

[Illustration: Theodore Roosevelt]

In his early career he had many opportunities to make a great deal ofmoney by allying himself with crooked, sneaking, unscrupulouspoliticians. He had all sorts of opportunities for political graft. But crookedness never had any attraction for him. He refused to be aparty to any political jobbery, any underhand business. He preferredto lose any position he was seeking, to let somebody else have it, ifhe must get smirched in the getting it. He would not touch a dollar, place, or preferment unless it came to him clean, with no trace ofjobbery on it. Politicians who had an "ax to grind" knew it was no useto try to bribe him, or to influence him with promises of patronage, money, position, or power. Mr. Roosevelt knew perfectly well that hewould make many mistakes and many enemies, but he resolved to carryhimself in such a way that even his enemies should at least respect himfor his honesty of purpose, and for his straightforward, "square-deal"methods. He resolved to keep his record clean, his name white, at allhazards. Everything else seemed unimportant in comparison. 

In times like these the world especially needs such men as Mr. Roosevelt--men who hew close to the chalk-line of right and hold theline plumb to truth; men who do not pander to public favor; men whomake duty and truth their goal and go straight to their mark, turningneither to the right nor to the left, though a paradise tempt them. 

Who can ever estimate how much his influence has done toward purgingpolitics and elevating the American ideal. He has changed theview-point of many statesmen and politicians. He has shown them a newand a better way. He has made many of them ashamed of the old methodsof grafting and selfish greed. He has held up a new ideal, shown themthat unselfish service to their country is infinitely nobler than anambition for self-aggrandizement. American patriotism has a highermeaning to-day, because of the example of this great American. Manyyoung politicians and statesmen have adopted cleaner methods and higheraims because of his influence. There is no doubt that tens ofthousands of young men in this country are cleaner in their lives, andmore honest and ambitious to be good citizens, because here is a manwho always stands for the "square deal, " for civic righteousness, forAmerican manhood. 

Every man ought to feel that there is something in him that bribery cannot touch, that influence can not buy; something that is not for sale;something he would not sacrifice or tamper with for any price;something he would give his life for if necessary. 

If a man stands for something worth while, compels recognition forhimself alone, on account of his real worth, he is not dependent uponrecommendations; upon fine clothes, a fine house, or a pull. He is hisown best recommendation. 

The young man who starts out with the resolution to make his characterhis capital, and to pledge his whole manhood for every obligation heenters into, will not be a failure, though he wins neither fame norfortune. No man ever really does a great thing who loses his characterin the process. 

No substitute has ever yet been discovered for honesty. Multitudes ofpeople have gone to the wall trying to find one. Our prisons are fullof people who have attempted to substitute something else for it. 

No man can really believe in himself when he is occupying a falseposition and wearing a mask; when the little monitor within him isconstantly saying, "You know you are a fraud; you are not the man youpretend to be. " The consciousness of not being genuine, not being whatothers think him to be, robs a man of power, honeycombs the character, and destroys self-respect and self-confidence. 

When Lincoln was asked to take the wrong side of a case he said, "Icould not do it. All the time while talking to that jury I should bethinking, 'Lincoln, you're a liar, you're a liar, ' and I believe Ishould forget myself and say it out loud. "

Character as capital is very much underestimated by a great number ofyoung men. They seem to put more emphasis upon smartness, shrewdness, long-headedness, cunning, influence, a pull, than upon downrighthonesty and integrity of character. Yet why do scores of concerns payenormous sums for the use of the name of a man who, perhaps, has beendead for half a century or more? It is because there is power in thatname; because there is character in it; because it stands forsomething; because it represents reliability and square dealing. Thinkof what the name of Tiffany, of Park and Tilford, or any of the greatnames which stand in the commercial world as solid and immovable as therock of Gibraltar, are worth!

Does it not seem strange that young men who know these facts should tryto build up a business on a foundation of cunning, scheming, andtrickery, instead of building on the solid rock of character, reliability, and manhood? Is it not remarkable that so many men shouldwork so hard to establish a business on an unreliable, flimsyfoundation, instead of building upon the solid masonry of honest goods, square dealing, reliability?

A name is worth everything until it is questioned; but when suspicionclings to it, it is worth nothing. There is nothing in this world thatwill take the place of character. There is no policy in the world, tosay nothing of the right or wrong of it, that compares with honesty andsquare dealing. 

In spite of, or because of, all the crookedness and dishonesty that isbeing uncovered, of all the scoundrels that are being unmasked, integrity is the biggest word in the business world to-day. Therenever was a time in all history when it was so big, and it is growingbigger. There never was a time when character meant so much inbusiness; when it stood for so much everywhere as it does to-day. 

There was a time when the man who was the shrewdest and sharpest andcunningest in taking advantage of others got the biggest salary; butto-day the man at the other end of the bargain is looming up as neverbefore. 

Nathan Straus, when asked the secret of the great success of his firm, said it was their treatment of the man at the other end of the bargain. He said they could not afford to make enemies; they could not afford todisplease or to take advantage of customers, or to give them reason tothink that they had been unfairly dealt with, --that, in the long run, the man who gave the squarest deal to the man at the other end of thebargain would get ahead fastest. 

There are merchants who have made great fortunes, but who do not carryweight among their fellow men because they have dealt all their liveswith inferiority. They have lived with shoddy and shams so long thatthe suggestion has been held in their minds until their whole standardsof life have been lowered; their ideals have shrunken; their charactershave partaken of the quality of their business. 

Contrast these men with the men who stood for half a century or more atthe head of solid houses, substantial institutions; men who have alwaysstood for quality in everything; who have surrounded themselves notonly with ability but with men and women of character. 

We instinctively believe in character. We admire people who stand forsomething; who are centered in truth and honesty. It is not necessarythat they agree with us. We admire them for their strength, thehonesty of their opinions, the inflexibility of their principles. 

The late Carl Schurz was a strong man and antagonized many people. Hechanged his political views very often; but even his worst enemies knewthere was one thing he would never go back on, friends or no friends, party or no party--and that was his devotion to principle as he saw it. There was no parleying with his convictions. He could stand alone, ifnecessary, with all the world against him. His inconsistencies, hismany changes in parties and politics, could not destroy the universaladmiration for the man who stood for his convictions. Although heescaped from a German prison and fled his country, where he had beenarrested on account of his revolutionary principles when but a mereyouth, Emperor William the First had such a profound respect for hishonesty of purpose and his strength of character that he invited him toreturn to Germany and visit him, gave him a public dinner, and paid himgreat tribute. 

Who can estimate the influence of President Eliot in enriching anduplifting our national ideas and standards through the thousands ofstudents who go out from Harvard University? The tremendous force andnobility of character of Phillips Brooks raised everyone who camewithin his influence to higher levels. His great earnestness in tryingto lead people up to his lofty ideals swept everything before it. Onecould not help feeling while listening to him and watching him that_there_ was a mighty triumph of character, a grand expression of superbmanhood. Such men as these increase our faith in the race; in thepossibilities of the grandeur of the coming man. We are prouder of ourcountry because of such standards. 

It is the ideal that determines the direction of the life. And what agrand sight, what an inspiration, are those men who sacrifice thedollar to the ideal!

The principles by which the problem of success is solved are right andjustice, honesty and integrity; and just in proportion as a mandeviates from these principles he falls short of solving his problem. 

It is true that he may reach _something_. He may get money, but isthat success? The thief gets money, but does he succeed? Is it anyhonester to steal by means of a long head than by means of a long arm?It is very much more dishonest, because the victim is deceived and thenrobbed--a double crime. 

We often receive letters which read like this:

"I am getting a good salary; but I do not feel right about it, somehow. I can not still the voice within me that says, 'Wrong, wrong, ' to whatI am doing. "

"Leave it, leave it, " we always say to the writers of these letters. "Do not stay in a questionable occupation, no matter what inducement itoffers. Its false light will land you on the rocks if you follow it. It is demoralizing to the mental faculties, paralyzing to thecharacter, to do a thing which one's conscience forbids. "

Tell the employer who expects you to do questionable things that youcan not work for him unless you can put the trade-mark of your manhood, the stamp of your integrity, upon everything you do. Tell him that ifthe highest thing in you can not bring success, surely the lowest cannot. You can not afford to sell the best thing in you, your honor, your manhood, to a dishonest man or a lying institution. You shouldregard even the suggestion that you might sell out for a considerationas an insult. 

Resolve that you will not be paid for being something less than a man;that you will not lease your ability, your education, yourinventiveness, your self-respect, for salary, to do a man's lying forhim; either in writing advertisements, selling goods, or in any othercapacity. 

Resolve that, whatever your vocation, you are going to stand forsomething; that you are not going to be _merely_ a lawyer, a physician, a merchant, a clerk, a farmer, a congressman, or a man who carries abig money-bag; but that you are going to be a _man_ first, last, andall the time. 

CHAPTER XLVI

NATURE'S LITTLE BILL

 Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all. FREDERICK VON LOGAU. 

Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to doevil. --ECCLESIASTES. 

 Man is a watch, wound up at first but never Wound up again: once down he's down forever. HERRICK. 

Old age seizes upon an ill-spent youth like fire upon a rottenhouse. --SOUTH. 

Last Sunday a young man died here of extreme old age attwenty-five. --JOHN NEWTON. 

If you will not hear Reason, she'll surely rap your knuckles. --POORRICHARD'S SAYINGS. 

"Oh! oh! ah!" exclaimed Franklin; "what have I done to merit thesecruel sufferings?" "Many things, " replied the Gout; "you have eatenand drunk too freely, and too much indulged those legs of yours in yourindolence. "

Nature seldom presents her bill on the day you violate her laws. Butif you overdraw your account at her bank, and give her a mortgage onyour body, be sure she will foreclose. She may loan you all you want;but, like Shylock, she will demand the last ounce of flesh. She rarelybrings in her cancer bill before the victim is forty years old. Shedoes not often annoy a man with her drink bill until he is past hisprime, and then presents it in the form of Bright's disease, fattydegeneration of the heart, drunkard's liver, or some similar disease. What you pay the saloon keeper is but a small part of your score. 

We often hear it said that the age of miracles is past. We marvel thata thief dying on the cross should appear that very day in Paradise; butbehold how that bit of meat or vegetable on a Hawarden breakfast tableis snatched from Death, transformed into thought, and on the followingnight shakes Parliament in the magnetism and oratory of a Gladstone. The age of miracles past, when three times a day right before our eyesNature performs miracles greater even than raising the dead? Watchthat crust of bread thrown into a cell in Bedford Jail and devoured bya poor, hungry tinker; cut, crushed, ground, driven by muscles, dissolved by acids and alkalies; absorbed and hurled into themysterious red river of life. Scores of little factories along thisstrange stream, waiting for this crust, transmute it as it passes, asif by magic, here into a bone cell, there into gastric juice, here intobile, there into a nerve cell, yonder into a brain cell. We can nottrace the processes by which this crust arrives at the muscle and acts, arrives at the brain and thinks. We can not see the manipulating handwhich throws back and forth the shuttle which weaves Bunyan'sdestinies, nor can we trace the subtle alchemy which transforms thisprison crust into the finest allegory in the world, the Pilgrim'sProgress. But we do know that, unless we supply food when the stomachbegs and clamors, brain and muscle can not continue to act; and we alsoknow that unless the food is properly chosen, unless we eat itproperly, unless we maintain good digestion by exercise of mind andbody, it will not produce the speeches of a Gladstone or the allegoriesof a Bunyan. 

Truly we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Imagine a cistern whichwould transform the foul sewage of a city into pure drinking water in asecond's time, as the black venous blood, foul with the ashes ofburned-up brain cells and débris of worn-out tissues, is transformed inthe lungs, at every breath, into pure, bright, red blood. Each drop ofblood from that magic stream of liquid life was compounded by a divineChemist. In it float all our success and destiny. In it are theextensions and limits of our possibilities. In it are health and longlife, or disease and premature death. In it are our hopes and ourfears, our courage, our cowardice, our energy or lassitude, ourstrength or weakness, our success or failure. In it aresusceptibilities of high or broad culture, or pinched or narrowfaculties handed down from an uncultured ancestry. From it our bonesand nerves, our muscles and brain, our comeliness or ugliness, allcome. In it are locked up the elements of a vicious or a gentle life, the tendencies of a criminal or a saint. How important is it, then, that we should obey the laws of health, and thus maintain the purityand power of this our earthly River of Life!

"We hear a great deal about the 'vile body, '" said Spencer, "and manyare encouraged by the phrase to transgress the laws of health. ButNature quietly suppresses those who treat thus disrespectfully one ofher highest products, and leaves the world to be peopled by thedescendants of those who are not so foolish. "

Nature gives to him that hath. She shows him the contents of her vaststorehouse, and bids him take all he wants and be welcome. But shewill not let him keep for years what he does not use. Use or lose isher motto. Every atom we do not utilize this great economist snatchesfrom us. 

If you put your arm in a sling and do not use it, Nature will removethe muscle almost to the bone, and the arm will become useless, but inexact proportion to your efforts to use it again she will graduallyrestore what she took away. Put your mind in the sling of idleness, orinactivity, and in like manner she will remove your brain, even toimbecility. The blacksmith wants one powerful arm, and she gives it tohim, but reduces the other. You can, if you will, send all the energyof your life into some one faculty, but all your other faculties willstarve. 

A young lady may wear tight corsets if she chooses, but Nature willremove the rose from her cheek and put pallor there. She will replacea clear complexion with muddy hues and sallow spots. She will takeaway the elastic step, the luster from the eye. 

Don't expect to have health for nothing. Nothing in this world worthanything can be had for nothing. Health is the prize of a constantstruggle. 

Nature passes no act without affixing a penalty for its violation. Whenever she is outraged she will have her penalty, although it take alife. 

A great surgeon stood before his class to perform a certain operationwhich the elaborate mechanism and minute knowledge of modern sciencehad only recently made possible. With strong and gentle hand he didhis work successfully so far as his part of the terrible business went;and then he turned to his pupils and said, "Two years ago a safe andsimple operation might have cured this disease. Six years ago a wiseway of life might have prevented it. We have done our best as the casenow stands, but Nature will have her word to say. She does not alwaysconsent to the repeal of her capital sentences. " Next day the patientdied. 

Apart from accidents, we hold our life largely at will. What businesshave seventy-five thousand physicians in the United States? It is ourown fault that even one-tenth of them get a respectable living. What acommentary upon our modern American civilization that three hundred andfifty thousand people in this country die annually from absolutelypreventable diseases! Seneca said, "The gods have given us a longlife, but we have made it short. " Few people know enough to becomeold. It is a rare thing for a person to die of old age. Only three orfour out of a hundred die of anything like old age. But Natureevidently intended, by the wonderful mechanism of the human body, thatwe should live well up to a century. 

Thomas Parr, of England, lived to the age of one hundred and fifty-twoyears. He was married when he was a hundred and twenty, and did notleave off work until he was a hundred and thirty. The great Dr. Harveyexamined Parr's body, but found no cause of death except a change ofliving. Henry Jenkins, of Yorkshire, England, lived to be a hundredand sixty-nine, and would probably have lived longer had not the kingbrought him to London, where luxuries hastened his death. The courtrecords of England show that he was a witness in a trial a hundred andforty years before his death. He swam across a rapid river when he wasa hundred. 

There is nothing we are more ignorant of than the physiology andchemistry of the human body. Not one person in a thousand cancorrectly locate important internal organs or describe their use in theanimal economy. 

What an insult to the Creator who fashioned them so wonderfully andfearfully in His own image, that the graduates from our high schoolsand even universities, and young women who "finish their education, "become proficient in the languages, in music, in art, and have theculture of travel, but can not describe or locate the various organs orfunctions upon which their lives depend! "The time will come, " saysFrances Willard, "when it will be told as a relic of our primitivebarbarism that children were taught the list of prepositions and thenames of the rivers of Thibet, but were not taught the wonderful lawson which their own bodily happiness is based, and the humanities bywhich they could live in peace and goodwill with those about them. "Nothing else is so important to man as the study and knowledge ofhimself, and yet he knows less of himself than he does of the beastsabout him. 

The human body is the great poem of the Great Author. Not to learn howto read it, to spell out its meaning, to appreciate its beauties, or toattempt to fathom its mysteries, is a disgrace to our civilization. 

What a price mortals pay for their ignorance, let a dwarfed, half-developed, one-sided, short-lived nation answer. 

"A brilliant intellect in a sickly body is like gold in a spentswimmer's pocket. "

Often, from lack of exercise, one side of the brain gradually becomesparalyzed and deteriorates into imbecility. How intimately thefunctions of the nervous organs are united! The whole man mourns for afelon. The least swelling presses a nerve against a bone and causesone intense agony, and even a Napoleon becomes a child. A corn on thetoe, an affection of the kidneys or of the liver, a boil anywhere onthe body, or a carbuncle, may seriously affect the eyes and even thebrain. The whole system is a network of nerves, of organs, offunctions, which are so intimately joined, and related in such closesympathy, that an injury to one part is immediately felt in every other. 

Nature takes note of all our transactions, physical, mental, or moral, and places every item promptly to our debit or credit. 

Let us take a look at a page in Nature's ledger:--

 To damage to the heart in The "irritable heart, " the youth by immoderate athletics, "tobacco heart, " a life of tobacco chewing, cigarette promise impaired or blighted. Smoking, drinking strong tea or coffee, rowing, running to trains, overstudy, excitement, etc. 

 * * * * * * * *

 To one digestive apparatus Dyspepsia, melancholia, years ruined, by eating hurriedly, by of misery to self, anxiety to eating unsuitable or poorly one's family, pity and disgust cooked food, by drinking ice of friends. Water when one is heated, by swallowing scalding drinks, especially tea, which forms tannic acid on the delicate lining of the stomach; or by eating when tired or worried, or after receiving bad news, when the gastric juice can not be secreted, etc. 

 * * * * * * * *

 To one nervous system Years of weakness, disappointed shattered by dissipation, abuses, ambition, hopeless inefficiency, over-excitement, a fast life, _a burnt-out life_. Feverish haste to get riches or fame, hastening puberty by stimulating food, exciting life, etc. 

 * * * * * * * *

 To damage by undue mental Impaired powers of mind, exertion by burning the softening of the brain, "midnight oil, " exhausting the blighted hopes. Brain cells faster than they can be renewed. 

 * * * * * * * *

 To overstraining the brain A disappointed ambition, a trying to lead his class in life of invalidism. College, trying to take a prize, or to get ahead of somebody else. 

 * * * * * * * *

 To hardening the delicate A hardened brain, a hardened and sensitive gray matter of conscience, a ruined the brain and nerves, and home, Bright's disease, fatty ruining the lining membranes of degeneration, nervous the stomach and nervous degeneration, a short, system by alcohol, opium, etc. Useless, wasted life. 

 * * * * * * * *

 By forced balances, here and Accounts closed. Physiological there. And moral bankruptcy. 

Sometimes two or three such items are charged to a single account. Tooffset them, there is placed on the credit side a little feverishexcitement, too fleeting for calm enjoyment, followed by regret, remorse, and shame. Be sure your sins will find you out. They are allrecorded. 

 "The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to scourge us. "

It is a wonder that we live at all. We violate every law of our being, yet we expect to live to a ripe old age. What would you think of a manwho, having an elegant watch delicately adjusted to heat and cold, should leave it on the sidewalk with cases open on a dusty or a rainyday, and yet expect it to keep good time? What would you think of ahouseholder who should leave the doors and windows of his mansion opento thieves and tramps, to winds and dust and rain?

What are our bodies but timepieces made by an Infinite Hand, wound upto run a century, and so delicately adjusted to heat and cold that thetemperature will not vary half a degree between the heat of summer andthe cold of winter whether we live in the regions of eternal frost orunder the burning sun of the tropics? A particle of dust or theslightest friction will throw this wonderful timepiece out of order, yet we often leave it exposed to all the corroding elements. We do notalways keep open the twenty-five miles of ventilating pores in the skinby frequent bathing. We seldom lubricate the delicate wheels of thebody with the oil of gladness. We expose it to dust and cinders, coldand draughts, and poisonous gases. 

How careful we are to filter our water, air our beds, ventilate oursleeping-rooms, and analyze our milk! We shrink from contact withfilth and disease. But we put paper colored with arsenic on our walls, and daily breathe its poisonous exhalations. We frequent theaterscrowded with human beings, many of whom are uncleanly and diseased. Wesit for hours and breathe in upon fourteen hundred square feet of lungtissue the heated, foul, and heavy air; carbonic acid gas from hundredsof gas burners, each consuming as much oxygen as six people; air filledwith shreds of tissue expelled from diseased lungs; poisonous effluviaexhaled from the bodies of people who rarely bathe, from clothingseldom washed, fetid breaths, and skin disease in different stages ofdevelopment. For hours we sit in this bath of poison, and wonder atour headache and lassitude next morning. 

We pour a glass of ice water into a stomach busy in the delicateoperation of digestion, ignorant or careless of the fact that it takeshalf an hour to recover from the shock and get the temperature back toninety-eight degrees, so that the stomach can go on secreting gastricjuice. Then down goes another glass of water with similar results. 

We pour down alcohol which thickens the velvety lining of the stomach, and hardens the soft tissues, the thin sheaths of nerves, and the graymatter of the brain. We crowd meats, vegetables, pastry, confectionery, nuts, raisins, wines, fruits, etc. , into one of the mostdelicately constructed organs of the body, and expect it to take careof its miscellaneous and incongruous load without a murmur. 

After all these abuses we do not give the blood a chance to go to thestomach and help it out of its misery, but summon it to the brain andmuscles, notwithstanding the fact that it is so important to have anextra supply to aid digestion that Nature has made the blood vessels ofthe alimentary canal large enough to contain several times the amountin the entire body. 

Who ever saw a horse leave his oats and hay, when hungry, to wash themdown with water? The dumb beasts can teach us some valuable lessons ineating and drinking. Nature mixes our gastric juice or pepsin andacids in just the right proportion to digest our food, and keep it at_exactly_ the right temperature. If we dilute it, or lower itstemperature by ice water, we diminish its solvent or digestive power, and dyspepsia is the natural result. 

English factory children have received the commiseration of the worldbecause they were scourged to work fourteen hours out of thetwenty-four. But there is many a theoretical republican who is aharsher taskmaster to his stomach than this; who allows it no moreresting time than he does his watch; who gives it no Sunday, noholiday, no vacation in any sense, and who seeks to make his heart beatfaster for the sake of the exhilaration he can thus produce. 

Although the heart weighs a little over half a pound, yet it pumpseighteen pounds of blood from itself, forcing it into every nook andcorner of the entire body, back to itself in less than two minutes. This little organ, the most perfect engine in the world, does a dailywork equal to lifting one hundred and twenty-four tons one foot high, and exerts one-third as much muscle power as does a stout man at hardlabor. If the heart should expend its entire force lifting its ownweight, it would raise itself nearly twenty thousand feet an hour, tentimes as high as a pedestrian can lift himself in ascending a mountain. What folly, then, to goad this willing, hard-working slave to greaterexertions by stimulants!

We must pay the penalty of our vocations. Beware of work that killsthe workman. Those who prize long life should avoid all occupationswhich compel them to breathe impure air or deleterious gases, andespecially those in which they are obliged to inhale dust and filingsfrom steel and brass and iron, the dust in coal mines, and dust fromthreshing machines. Stone-cutters, miners, and steel grinders areshort lived, the sharp particles of dust irritating and inflaming thetender lining of the lung cells. The knife and fork grinders inManchester, England, rarely live beyond thirty-two years. Those whowork in grain elevators and those who are compelled to breathe chemicalpoisons are short lived. 

Deep breathing in dusty places sends the particles of dust into theupper and less used lobes of the lungs, and these become a constantirritant, until they finally excite an inflammation, which may end inconsumption. All occupations in which arsenic is used shorten life. 

Dr. William Ogle, who is authority upon this subject, says, "Of all thevarious influences that tend to produce differences of mortality in anycommunity, none is more potent than the character of the prevailingoccupations. " Finding that clergymen and priests have the lowestdeath-rate, he represented it as one hundred, and by comparison foundthat the rate for inn and hotel servants was three hundred andninety-seven; miners, three hundred and thirty-one; earthenware makers, three hundred and seventeen; file makers, three hundred; innkeepers, two hundred and seventy-four; gardeners, farmers, and agriculturallaborers closely approximating the clerical standard. He gave as thecauses of high mortality, first, working in a cramped or constrainedattitude; second, exposure to the action of poisonous or irritatingsubstances; third, excessive work, mental or physical; fourth, workingin confined or foul air; fifth, the use of strong drink; sixth, differences in liability to fatal accidents; seventh, exposure to theinhalation of dust. The deaths of those engaged in alcoholicindustries were as one thousand five hundred and twenty-one to onethousand of the average of all trades. 

It is very important that occupations should be congenial. Wheneverour work galls us, whenever we feel it to be a drudgery anduncongenial, the friction grinds life away at a terrible rate. 

Health can be accumulated, invested, and made to yield its compoundinterest, and thus be doubled and redoubled. The capital of healthmay, indeed, be forfeited by one misdemeanor, as a rich man may sinkall his property in one bad speculation; but it is as capable of beingincreased as any other kind of capital. 

One is inclined to think with a recent writer that it looks as if therich men kept out of the kingdom of heaven were also excluded from thekingdom of brains. In New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago arethousands of millionaires, some of them running through three or fourgenerations of fortune; and yet, in all their ranks, there is seldom aman possessed of the higher intellectual qualities that flower inliterature, eloquence, or statesmanship. Scarcely one of them hasproduced a book worth printing, a poem worth reading, or a speech worthlistening to. They are struck with intellectual sterility. They go tocollege; they travel abroad; they hire the dearest masters; they keeplibraries among their furniture; and some of them buy works of art. But, for all that, their brains wither under luxury, often by their ownvices or tomfooleries, and mental barrenness is the result. He whoviolates Nature's law must suffer the penalty, though he have millions. The fruits of intellect do not grow among the indolent rich. They areusually out of the republic of brains. Work or starve is Nature'smotto; starve mentally, starve morally, even if you are rich enough toprevent physical starvation. 

How heavy a bill Nature collects of him in whom the sexual instinct hasbeen permitted to taint the whole life with illicit thoughts and deeds, stultifying the intellect, deadening the sensibilities, dwarfing thesoul!

 "I waive the quantum of the sin, The hazard of concealing; But och, it hardens all within, And petrifies the feeling. "

The sense of fatigue is one of Nature's many signals of danger. All weaccomplish by stimulating or crowding the body or mind when tired isworse than lost. Insomnia, and sometimes even insanity, is Nature'spenalty for prolonged loss of sleep. 

One of the worst tortures of the Inquisition was that of keepingvictims from sleeping, often driving them to insanity or death. Melancholy follows insomnia; insanity, both. To keep us in a healthycondition, Nature takes us back to herself, puts us under the ether ofsleep, and keeps us there nearly one-third of our lives, while sheoverhauls and repairs in secret our wonderful mechanism. She takes usback each night wasted and dusty from the day's work, broken, scarred, and injured in the great struggle of life. Each cell of the brain isreburnished and refreshened; all the ashes or waste from the combustionof the tissues is washed out into the blood stream, pumped to thelungs, and thrown out in the breath; and the body is returned in themorning as fresh and good as new. The American honey does not alwayspay for the sting. 

Labor is the eternal condition on which the rich man gains an appetitefor his dinner, and the poor man a dinner for his appetite; but thehabit of constant, perpetual industry often becomes a disease. 

In the Norse legend, Allfader was not allowed to drink from Mirmir'sSpring, the fount of wisdom, until he had left his eye as a pledge. Scholars often leave their health, their happiness, their usefulnessbehind, in their great eagerness to drink deep draughts at wisdom'sfountain. Professional men often sacrifice everything that is valuablein life for the sake of reputation, influence, and money. Business mensacrifice home, family, health, happiness, in the great struggle formoney and power. The American prize, like the pearl in the oyster, isvery attractive, but is too often the result of disease. 

Charles Linnaeus, the great naturalist, so exhausted his brain byover-exertion that he could not recognize his own work, and even forgothis own name. Kirk White won the prize at Cambridge, but it cost himhis life. He studied at night and forced his brain by stimulants andnarcotics in his endeavor to pull through, but he died at twenty-four. Paley died at sixty-two of overwork. He was called "one of thesublimest spirits in the world. "

President Timothy Dwight of Yale College nearly killed himself byoverwork when a young man. When at Yale he studied nine hours, taughtsix hours a day, and took no exercise whatever. He could not beinduced to stop until he became so nervous and irritable that he wasunable to look at a book ten minutes a day. His mind gave way, and itwas a long time before he fully recovered. 

Imagine the surprise of the angels at the death of men and women in theearly prime and vigor of life. Could we but read the notes of theirautopsies we might say less of mysterious Providence at funerals. Theywould run somewhat as follows:--

NOTES FROM THE ANGELS' AUTOPSIES. 

What, is it returned so soon?--a body framed for a century's usereturned at thirty?--a temple which was twenty-eight years in buildingdestroyed almost before it was completed? What have gray hairs, wrinkles, a bent form, and death to do with youth?

Has all this beauty perished like a bud just bursting into bloom, plucked by the grim destroyer? Has she fallen a victim totight-lacing, over-excitement, and the gaiety and frivolity offashionable life?

Here is an educated, refined woman who died of lung starvation. What atax human beings pay for breathing impure air! Nature provides themwith a tonic atmosphere, compounded by the divine Chemist, but theyrefuse to breathe it in its purity, and so must pay the penalty inshortened lives. They can live a long time without water, a longertime without food, clothing, or the so-called comforts of life; theycan live without education or culture, but their lungs must have good, healthful air-food twenty-four thousand times a day if they wouldmaintain health. Oh, that they would see, as we do, the intimateconnection between bad air, bad morals, and a tendency to crime!

Here are the ruins of an idolized son and loving husband. Educated andrefined, what infinite possibilities beckoned him onward at thebeginning of his career! But the Devil's agent offered himimagination, sprightliness, wit, eloquence, bodily strength, andhappiness in _eau de vie_, or "water of life, " as he called it, at onlyfifteen cents a glass. The best of our company tried to dissuade him, but to no avail. The poor mortal closed his "bargain" with thedramseller, and what did he get? A hardened conscience, a ruined home, a diseased body, a muddled brain, a heartbroken wife, wretchedchildren, disappointed friends, triumphant enemies, days of remorse, nights of anguish, an unwept deathbed, an unhonored grave. And only tothink that he is only one of many thousands! "What fools these mortalsbe!"

Did he not see the destruction toward which he was rushing with all thefeverish haste of slavish appetite? Ah, yes, but only when it was toolate. In his clenched hand, as he lay dead, was found a crumpled papercontaining the following, in lines barely legible so tremulous were thenerves of the writer: "Wife, children, and over forty thousand dollarsall gone! I alone am responsible. All has gone down my throat. WhenI was twenty-one I had a fortune. I am not yet thirty-five years old. I have killed my beautiful wife, who died of a broken heart; havemurdered our children with neglect. When this coin is gone I do notknow how I can get my next meal. I shall die a drunken pauper. Thisis my last money, and my history. If this bill comes into the hands ofany man who drinks, let him take warning from my life's ruin. "

What a magnificent specimen of manhood this would have been if his lifehad been under the rule of reason, not passion! He dies of old age atforty, his hair is gray, his eyes are sunken, his complexion sodden, his body marked with the labels of his disease. A physique fit for agod, fashioned in the Creator's image, with infinite possibilities, aphysiological hulk wrecked on passion's seas, and fit only for a dangersignal to warn the race. What would parents think of a captain whowould leave his son in charge of a ship without giving him anyinstructions or chart showing the rocks, reefs, and shoals? Do theynot know that those who sleep in the ocean are but a handful comparedwith those who have foundered on passion's seas? Oh, the sins ofsilence which parents commit against those dearer to them than lifeitself! Youth can not understand the great solicitude of parentsregarding their education, their associations, their welfare generally, and the mysterious silence in regard to their physical natures. Anintelligent explanation, by all mothers to the daughters and by allfathers to the sons, of the mysteries of their physical lives, when atthe right age, would revolutionize civilization. 

This young clergyman killed himself trying to be popular. This studentcommitted suicide by exhausting his brain in trying to lead his class. This young lawyer overdrew his account at Nature's bank, and sheforeclosed by a stroke of paralysis. 

This merchant died at thirty-five by his own hand. His life wasslipping away without enjoyment. He had murdered his capacity forhappiness, and dug his own spiritual grave while making preparationsfor enjoying life. This young society man died of nothing to do anddissipation, at thirty. 

What a miserable farce the life of men and women seems to us! Time, which is so precious that even the Creator will not give a secondmoment until the first is gone, they throw away as though it werewater. Opportunities which angels covet they fling away as of noconsequence, and die failures, because they have "no chance in life. "Life, which seems so precious to us, they spurn as if but a bauble. Scarcely a mortal returns to us who has not robbed himself of years ofprecious life. Scarcely a man returns to us dropping off in genuineold age, as autumn leaves drop in the forest. 

Has life become so cheap that mortals thus throw it away?

CHAPTER XLVII

HABIT--THE SERVANT, --THE MASTER

Habit, if wisely and skilfully formed, becomes truly a secondnature. --BACON. 

 Habit, with its iron sinews, Clasps and leads us day by day. LAMARTINE. 

The chain of habit coils itself around the heart like a serpent, tognaw and stifle it. --HAZLITT. 

You can not, in any given case, by any sudden and single effort, willto be true, if the habit of your life has been insincerity. --F. W. ROBERTSON. 

It is a beautiful provision in the mental and moral arrangement of ournature, that that which is performed as a duty may by frequentrepetition, become a habit; and the habit of stern virtue, so repulsiveto others, may hang around our neck like a wreath of flowers. --PAXTONHOOD. 

"When shall I begin to train my child?" asked a young mother of alearned physician. 

"How old is the child?" inquired the doctor. 

"Two years, sir. "

"Then you have lost just two years, " replied he, gravely. 

"You must begin with his grandmother, " said Oliver Wendell Holmes, whenasked a similar question. 

"At the mouth of the Mississippi, " says Beecher, "how impossible wouldit be to stay its waters, and to separate from each other the dropsfrom the various streams that have poured in on either side, --of theRed River, the Arkansas, the Ohio, and the Missouri, --or to sift, grainby grain the particles of sand that have been washed from theAlleghany, or the Rocky Mountains; yet how much more impossible wouldit be when character is the river, and habits are the side-streams!"

"We sow an act, we reap a habit; we sow a habit, we reap a character. "

While correct habits depend largely on self-discipline, and often onself-denial, bad habits, like weeds, spring up, unaided and untrained, to choke the plants of virtue and as with Canada thistles, allowed togo to seed in a fair meadow, we may have "one day's seeding, ten years'weeding. "

We seldom see much change in people after they get to be twenty-five orthirty years of age, except in going further in the way they havestarted; but it is a great comfort to think that, when one is young, itis almost as easy to acquire a good habit as a bad one, and that it ispossible to be hardened in goodness as well as in evil. 

Take good care of the first twenty years of your life, and you may hopethat the last twenty will take good care of you. 

A writer on the history of Staffordshire tells of an idiot who, livingnear a town clock, and always amusing himself by counting the hour ofthe day whenever the clock struck, continued to strike and count thehour correctly without its aid, when at one time it happened to beinjured by an accident. 

Dr. Johnson had acquired the habit of touching every post he passed inthe street; and, if he missed one, he was uneasy, irritable, andnervous till he went back and touched the neglected post. 

"Even thought is but a habit. "

Heredity is a man's habit transmitted to his offspring. 

A special study of hereditary drunkenness has been made by ProfessorPellman of Bonn University, Germany. He thus traced the careers ofchildren, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren in all parts of thepresent German Empire, until he was able to present tabulatedbiographies of the hundreds descended from some original drunkard. Notable among the persons described by Professor Pellman is Frau AdaJurke, who was born in 1740, and was a drunkard, a thief, and a trampfor the last forty years of her life, which ended in 1800. Herdescendants numbered 834, of whom 709 were traced in local records fromyouth to death. One hundred and six of the 709 were born out ofwedlock. There were 144 beggars, and 62 more who lived from charity. Of the women, 181 led disreputable lives. There were in the family 76convicts, 7 of whom were sentenced for murder. In a period of someseventy-five years, this one family rolled up a bill of costs inalmshouses, prisons, and correctional institutions amounting to atleast 5, 000, 000 marks, or about $1, 250, 000. 

Isaac Watts had a habit of rhyming. His father grew weary of it, andset out to punish him, which made the boy cry out:--

 "Pray, father, on me mercy take, And I will no more verses make. "

A minister had a bad habit of exaggeration, which seriously impairedhis usefulness. His brethren came to expostulate. With extremehumiliation over this fault as they set it forth, he said, "Brethren, Ihave long mourned over this fault, and I have shed _barrels of tears_because of it. " They gave him up as incorrigible. 

Men carelessly or playfully get into habits of speech or act whichbecome so natural that they speak or act as they do not intend, totheir discomfiture. Professor Phelps told of some Andover students, who, for sport, interchanged the initial consonants of adjacent words. "But, " said he, "retribution overtook them. On a certain morning, whenone of them was leading the devotions, he prayed the Lord to 'havemercy on us, feak and weeble sinners. '" The habit had come to possesshim. 

Many speakers have undesirable habits of utterance or gesture. Someare continually applying the hand to some part of the face, the chin, the whiskers; some give the nose a peck with thumb and forefinger;others have the habit characterized as, --

 "Washing the hands with invisible soap In a bowl of invisible water. "

"We are continually denying that we have habits which we have beenpractising all our lives, " says Beecher. "Here is a man who has livedforty or fifty years; and a chance shot sentence or word lances him, and reveals to him a trait which he has always possessed, but which, until now, he had not the remotest idea that he possessed. For fortyor fifty years he has been fooling himself about a matter as plain asthe nose on his face. "

Had the angels been consulted, whether to create man, with thisprinciple introduced, that, _if a man did a thing once, if would beeasier the second time, and at length would be done without effort_, they would have said, "Create!"

Remember that habit is an arrangement, a principle of human nature, which we must use to increase the efficiency and ease of our work inlife. 

"Make sobriety a habit, and intemperance will be hateful; make prudencea habit, and reckless profligacy will be as contrary to the course ofnature in the child, or in the adult, as the most atrocious crimes areto any of us. "

Out of hundreds of replies from successful men as to the probable causeof failure, "bad habits" was in almost every one. 

How easy it is to be nobody; it is the simplest thing in the world todrift down the stream, into bad company, into the saloon; just a littlebeer, just a little gambling, just a little bad company, just a littlekilling of time, and the work is done. 

New Orleans is from five to fifteen feet below high water in theMississippi River. The only protection to the city from the river isthe levee. In May, 1883, a small break was observed in the levee, andthe water was running through. A few bags of sand or loads of dirtwould have stopped the water at first; but it was neglected for a fewhours, and the current became so strong that all efforts to stop itwere fruitless. A reward of five hundred thousand dollars was offeredto any man who would stop it; but it was too late--it could not be done. 

Beware of "small sins" and "white lies. "

A man of experience says: "There are four good habits, --punctuality, accuracy, steadiness, and dispatch. Without the first, time is wasted;without the second, mistakes the most hurtful to our own credit andinterest, and those of others, may be committed; without the third, nothing can be well done; and without the fourth, opportunities ofgreat advantage are lost, which it is impossible to recall. "

Abraham Lincoln gained his clear precision of statement of propositionsby practise, and Wendell Phillips his wonderful English diction byalways thinking and conversing in excellent style. 

"Family customs exercise a vast influence over the world. Children goforth from the parent-nest, spreading the habits they have imbibed overevery phase of society. These can easily be traced to their sources. "

"To be sure, this is only a trifle in itself; but, then, the manner inwhich I do every trifling thing is of very great consequence, becauseit is just in these little things that I am forming my business habits. I must see to it that I do not fail here, even if this is only a smalltask. "

"A physical habit is like a tree grown crooked. You can not go to theorchard, and take hold of a tree grown thus, and straighten it, andsay, 'Now keep straight!' and have it obey you. What can you do? Youcan drive down a stake, and bind the tree to it, bending it back alittle, and scarifying the bark on one side. And if, after that, youbend it back a little more every month, keeping it taut through theseason, and from season to season, at length you will succeed in makingit permanently straight. You can straighten it, but you can not do itimmediately; you must take one or two years for it. "

Sir George Staunton visited a man in India who had committed murder;and in order not only to save his life, but what was of much greaterconsequence to him, his caste, he had submitted to a terriblepenalty, --to sleep for seven years on a bed, the entire top of whichwas studded with iron points, as sharp as they could be withoutpenetrating the flesh. Sir George saw him during the fifth year of hissentence. His skin then was like the hide of a rhinoceros; and hecould sleep comfortably on his bed of thorns, and he said that at theend of the seven years he thought he should use the same bed fromchoice. What a vivid parable of a sinful life! Sin, at first a bed ofthorns, after a time becomes comfortable through the deadening of moralsensibility. 

When the suspension bridge over Niagara River was to be erected, thequestion was, how to get the cable over. With a favoring wind a kitewas elevated, which alighted on the opposite shores. To itsinsignificant string a cord was attached, which was drawn over, then arope, then a larger one, then a cable; finally the great bridge wascompleted, connecting the United States with Canada. 

 First across the gulf we cast Kite-borne threads till lines are passed, And habit builds the bridge at last. 

"Launch your bark on the Niagara River, " said John B. Gough; "it isbright, smooth, and beautiful, Down the stream you glide on yourpleasure excursion. Suddenly some one cries out from the bank, 'Youngmen, ahoy!' 'What is it?'

"'The rapids are below you. ' 'Ha! ha! we have heard of the rapids, butwe are not such fools as to get there. If we go too fast, then weshall up with the helm, and steer to the shore. Then on, boys, don'tbe alarmed--there is no danger. '

"'Young men, ahoy there!' 'What is it?' 'The rapids are below you!''Ha! ha! we will laugh and quaff. What care we for the future? No manever saw it. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. We willenjoy life while we may, will catch pleasure as it flies. There's timeenough to steer out of danger. '

"'Young men, ahoy!' 'What is it?' 'Beware! Beware! The rapids arebelow you!'

"Now you see the water foaming all around. See how fast you pass thatpoint! Up with the helm! Now turn! Pull hard! Quick, quick! Pullfor your lives! Pull till the blood starts from the nostrils, and theveins stand like whip-cords upon the brow! Set the mast in the socket!hoist the sail--ah! ah! it is too late! Shrieking, cursing, howling, blaspheming, over you go. 

"Thousands go over the rapids every year, through the power of habit, crying all the while, 'When I find out that it is injuring me, I willgive it up!'"

A community is often surprised and shocked at some crime. The man wasseen on the street yesterday, or in his store, but he showed noindication that he would commit such crime to-day. Yet the crimecommitted to-day is but a regular and natural sequence of what the mandid yesterday and the day before. It was but a result of the fearfulmomentum of all his past habits. 

A painter once wanted a picture of innocence, and drew from life thelikeness of a child at prayer. The little suppliant was kneeling byhis mother. The palms of his hands were reverently pressed together, and his mild blue eyes were upturned with the expression of devotionand peace. The portrait was much prized by the painter, who hung it upon his wall, and called it "Innocence. " Years passed away, and theartist became an old man. Still the picture hung there. He had oftenthought of painting a counterpart, --the picture of guilt, --but had notfound the opportunity. At last he effected his purpose by paying avisit to a neighboring jail. On the damp floor of his cell lay awretched culprit heavily ironed. Wasted was his body, and hollow hiseyes; vice was visible in his face. The painter succeeded admirably;and the portraits were hung side by side for "Innocence" and "Guilt. "The two originals of the pictures were discovered to be one and thesame person, --first, in the innocence of childhood! second, in thedegradation of guilt and sin and evil habits. 

Will-power can be so educated that it will focus the thought upon thebright side of things, upon objects which lift and elevate. Habits ofcontentment and goodness may be formed the same as any others. 

Walking upon the quarter-deck of a vessel, though at first intolerablyconfining, becomes by custom so agreeable to a sailor that on shore heoften hems himself within the same bounds. Lord Kames tells of a manwho, having relinquished the sea for a country life, reared anartificial mount, with a level summit, resembling a quarter-deck notonly in shape, but in size, where he generally walked. When Franklinwas superintending the erection of some forts on the frontier, as adefense against the Indians, he slept at night in a blanket on a hardfloor; and, on his first return to civilized life, he could hardlysleep in a bed. Captain Ross and his crew, having been accustomed, during their polar wanderings, to lie on the frozen snow or a barerock, afterwards found the accommodations of a whaler too luxurious forthem, and the captain exchanged his hammock for a chair. 

Two sailors, who had been drinking, took a boat off to their ship. They rowed but made no progress; and presently each began to accuse theother of not working hard enough. Lustily they plied the oars, butafter another hour's work still found themselves no farther advanced. By this time they had become tolerably sober; and one of them, lookingover the side, said to the other, "Why, Tom, we haven't pulled theanchor up yet. " And thus it is with those who are anchored tosomething of which they are not conscious, perhaps, but which impedestheir efforts, even though they do their very best. 

"A youth thoughtless, when all the happiness of his home foreverdepends on the chances or the passions of an hour!" exclaims Ruskin. "A youth thoughtless, when his every act is a foundation-stone offuture conduct, and every imagination a fountain of life or death! Bethoughtless in any after years, rather than now, --though, indeed, thereis only one place where a man may be nobly thoughtless, --his deathbed. No thinking should ever be left to be done there. "

Sir James Paget tells us that a practised musician can play on thepiano at the rate of twenty-four notes a second. For each note a nervecurrent must be transmitted from the brain to the fingers, and from thefingers to the brain. Each note requires three movements of a finger, the bending down and raising up, and at least one lateral, making noless than seventy-two motions in a second, each requiring a distincteffort of the will, and directed unerringly with a certain speed, and acertain force, to a certain place. 

Some can do this easily, and be at the same time busily employed inintelligent conversation. Thus, by obeying the law of habit untilrepetition has formed a second nature, we are able to pass thetechnique of life almost wholly over to the nerve centers, leaving ourminds free to act or enjoy. 

All through our lives the brain is constantly educating different partsof the body to form habits which will work automatically from reflexaction, and thus is delegated to the nervous system a large part oflife's duties. This is nature's wonderful economy to release the brainfrom the drudgery of individual acts, and leave it free to command allits forces for higher service. 

Man's life-work is a masterpiece or a botch, according as each littlehabit has been perfectly or carelessly formed. 

It is said that if you invite one of the devil's children to your homethe whole family will follow. So one bad habit seems to have arelationship with all the others. For instance, the one habit ofnegligence, slovenliness, makes it easier to form others equally bad, until the entire character is honeycombed by the invasion of a familyof bad habits. 

A man is often shocked when he suddenly discovers that he is considereda liar. He never dreamed of forming such a habit; but the littlemisrepresentations to gain some temporary end, had, before he was awareof it, made a beaten track in the nerve and brain tissue, until lyinghas become almost a physical necessity. He thinks he can easilyovercome this habit, but he will not. He is bound to it with cords ofsteel; and only by painful, watchful, and careful repetition of theexact truth, with a special effort of the will-power at each act, canhe form a counter trunk-line in the nerve and brain tissue. Society isoften shocked by the criminal act of a man who has always beenconsidered upright and true. But, if they could examine the habit-mapin his nervous mechanism and brain, they would find the beginnings of apath leading directly to his deed, in the tiny repetitions of what heregarded as trivial acts. All expert and technical education is builtupon the theory that these trunk-lines of habit become more and moresensitive to their accustomed stimuli, and respond more and morereadily. 

We are apt to overlook the physical basis of habit. Every repetitionof an act makes us more likely to perform that act, and discovers inour wonderful mechanism a tendency to perpetual repetition, whosefacility increases in exact proportion to the repetition. Finally theoriginal act becomes voluntary from a natural reaction. 

It is cruel to teach the vicious that they can, by mere force ofwill-power, turn "about face, " and go in the other direction, withoutexplaining to them the scientific process of character-building, through habit-formation. What we do to-day is practically what we didyesterday; and, in spite of resolutions, unless carried out in thisscientific way, we shall repeat to-morrow what we have done to-day. How unfortunate that the science of habit-forming is not known bymothers, and taught in our schools, colleges, and universities! It isa science compared with which other departments of education sink intoinsignificance. The converted man is not always told that the greatbattle is yet before him; that he must persistently, painfully, prayerfully, and with all the will-power he possesses, break up the oldhabits, and lay counter lines which will lead to the temple of virtue. He is not told that, in spite of all his efforts, in some unguardedmoment, some old switch may be left open, some old desire may flashalong the line, and that, possibly before he is aware of it, he mayfind himself yielding to the old temptation which he had supposed to beconquered forever. 

An old soldier was walking home with a beefsteak in one hand and abasket of eggs in the other, when some one yelled, "Halt! Attention!"Instantly the veteran came to a stand; and, as his arms took theposition of "attention, " eggs and meat went tumbling into the street, the accustomed nerves responding involuntarily to the old stimulus. 

Paul evidently understood the force of habit. "I find, then, " hedeclares, "the law, that to me who would do good, evil is present. ForI delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I see a differentlaw in my members, warring against the law in my mind, and bringing meinto captivity, under the law of sin, which is in my members. Owretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of thisdeath!" He referred to the ancient custom of binding a murderer faceto face with the dead body of his victim, until suffocated by itsstench and dissolution. 

"I would give a world, if I had it, " said an unfortunate wretch, "to bea true man; yet in twenty-four hours I may be overcome and disgracedwith a shilling's worth of sin. "

 "How shall I a habit break?" As you did that habit make. As you gathered, you must lose; As you yielded, now refuse. Thread by thread the strands we twist, Till they bind us, neck and wrist; Thread by thread the patient hand Must untwine, ere free we stand; As we builded, stone by stone, We must toil unhelped, alone, Till the wall is overthrown. 

CHAPTER XLVIII

THE CIGARETTE

We are so accustomed to the sight and smell of tobacco that we entirelyoverlook the fact that the tobacco of commerce in all its forms is theproduct of a poisonous weed. It is first a narcotic and then anirritant poison. It has its place in all toxicological classificationstogether with its proper antidotes. 

Tobacco has not achieved its almost universal popularity without strongopposition. In England King James launched his famous "Counterblaste"against its use. In Turkey, where men and women are alike slaves toits fascination, tobacco was originally forbidden under severepenalties; the loss of the ears, the slitting of the nostrils and evendeath itself being penalties imposed for the infraction of the lawforbidding the use of tobacco in any form. Since then pipes, cigars, snuff and chewing tobacco have become popularized and tobacco in someform or another is used by almost every nation. The last developmentin the form of tobacco using was the cigarette rolled between thefingers, and the worst form of the cigarette is the manufacturedarticle sold in cheap packages and freely used by boys who in manycases have not reached their teens. 

The manufactured American cigarette seems to be especially deadly inits effect. It is said to contain five and one-half per cent. Ofnicotine, or more than twice as much as the Cuban-made cigarettecontains, and more than six times as much as is contained in theTurkish cigarette. 

I am not going to quarrel with the use of tobacco in general by maturemen. He who has come to man's estate is free to decide for himselfwhether he shall force a poison on his revolting stomach; for thenausea that follows the first use of tobacco is the stomach's attemptto eject the poison which has been absorbed from pipe, cigar, orcigarette. The grown man, too, is able to determine whether he wantsto pay the tax which the use of tobacco levies upon his time, hishealth, his income and his prosperity. The most that can be said ofthe use of tobacco is that if habitual users of the narcotic weed aresuccessful in life they must be successful in spite of the use oftobacco and not because of it; for it is opposed to both reason andcommon sense that the habitual use of a poison in any form shouldpromote the development and exercise of the faculties whose energeticuse is essential to success. 

What I desire to do is to warn the boy, the growing youth, of thebaneful influence of the cigarette on minds yet unformed, on bodies yetin process of development. 

The danger of the cigarette to the growing boy lies first in the factthat it poisons the body. That it does not kill at the outset is dueto the fact that the dose is small and so slowly increased that thebody gradually accommodates itself to this poison as it does tostrychnine, arsenic, opium, and other poisons. But all the time thereis a slow but steady process of physical degeneration. The digestionis affected, the heart is overtaxed, liver and bowels are deranged intheir functions, and as the poison spreads throughout the system thereis a gradual physical deterioration which is marked alike in thecountenance and in the carriage of the body. Any person who cares todo so may prove for himself the poisonous nature of nicotine which isderived from tobacco and taken into the system by those who chew orsmoke. 

Dr. J. J. Kellogg says: "A few months ago I had all the nicotineremoved from a cigarette, making a solution of it. I injected half thequantity into a frog, with the effect that the frog died almostinstantly. The rest was administered to another frog with like effect. Both frogs were full grown, and of average size. The conclusion isevident that a single cigarette contains poison enough to kill twofrogs. A boy who smokes twenty cigarettes a day has inhaled enoughpoison to kill forty frogs. Why does the poison not kill the boy? Itdoes tend to kill him. If not immediately, he is likely to die sooneror later of weak heart, Bright's disease, or some other malady whichscientific physicians everywhere now recognize as a natural result ofchronic nicotine poisoning. "

A chemist, not long since, took the tobacco used in an averagecigarette and soaked it in several teaspoonfuls of water and theninjected a portion of it under the skin of a cat. The cat almostimmediately went into convulsions, and died in fifteen minutes. Dogshave been killed with a single drop of nicotine. 

A single drop of nicotine taken from a seasoned pipe, and applied tothe tongue of a venomous snake has caused almost instant death. 

A Western farmer tried to rear a brood of motherless chickens in hisgreenhouse. But the chickens did not thrive. They refused to eat;their skins became dry and harsh; their feathers were ruffled; theywere feverish and drank constantly. Soon they began to die. As thetemperature and general condition of the greenhouse seemed to beespecially favorable to the rearing of chickens, the florist waspuzzled to determine the cause of their sickness and death. After acareful study of the symptoms he found that the source of the troublearose from the fumes of the tobacco stems burned in the greenhouse todestroy green flies and destructive plant parasites. Though thechickens had always been removed from the greenhouse during the tobaccofumigation and were not returned while any trace of smoke was apparentto the human senses, it was evident that the soil, air, and leaves ofthe plants retained enough of the poison to keep the chickens in acondition of semi-intoxication. The conditions were promptly changed, and the chickens removed to other quarters recovered rapidly and in ashort time were healthy and lively though they were stunted in growthbecause of this temporary exposure to the effects of nicotine. Thesymptoms in the chickens were almost identical with the symptoms ofnicotine poisoning in young boys, and the effects were relatively thesame. 

The most moderate use of the cigarette is injurious to the body andmind of the youth; excessive indulgence leads inevitably to insanityand death. 

A young man died in a Minnesota state institution not long ago, who, five years before, had been one of the most promising young physiciansof the West. "Still under thirty years at the time of his commitmentto the institution, " says the newspaper account of his story, "he hadalready made three discoveries in nervous diseases that had made himlooked up to in his profession. But he smoked cigarettes, --smokedincessantly. For a long time the effects of the habit were notapparent on him. In fact, it was not until a patient died on theoperating table under his hands, and the young doctor went to pieces, that it became known that he was a victim of the paper pipes. But thenhe had gone too far. He was a wreck in mind as well as in body, and heended his days in a maniac's cell. "

Another unfortunate victim of the cigarette was, not long ago, taken tothe Brooklyn Hospital. He was a fireman on the railroad and was onlytwenty-one years old. He said he began smoking cigarettes when a mereboy. Before being taken to the hospital he smoked all night for weekswithout sleep. When in the hospital he recognized none, but calledloudly to everyone he saw to kill him. He would batter his headagainst the wall in the attempt to commit suicide. At length he wastaken to the King's County Hospital in a strait jacket, where deathsoon relieved him of his sufferings. 

Similar results are following the excessive use of cigarettes, everyday and in all sections of the country. 

"Died of heart failure" is the daily verdict on scores of those whodrop down at the desk or in the street. Can not this sudden takingoff, of apparently hale and sturdy men be related, oftentimes to theheart weakness caused by the excessive use of tobacco and particularlyof cigarettes?

Excessive cigarette smoking increases the heart's action verymaterially, in some instances twenty-five or thirty beats a minute. Think of the enormous amount of extra work forced upon this delicateorgan every twenty-four hours! The pulsations are not only greatlyincreased but also very materially weakened, so that the blood is notforced to every part of the system, and hence the tissues are notnourished as they would be by means of fewer but stronger, morevigorous pulsations. 

The indulgence in cigarettes stunts the growth and retards physicaldevelopment. An investigation of all the students who entered YaleUniversity during nine years shows that the cigarette smokers were theinferiors, both in weight and lung capacity, of the non-smokers, although they averaged fifteen months older. 

It has been said that the universal habit of smoking has made Germany"a spectacled nation. " Tobacco greatly irritates the eyes, andinjuriously affects the optic nerves. The eyes of boys who usecigarettes to excess grow dull and weak, and every feature shows themark of the insidious poison. The face is pallid and haggard, thecheeks hollow, the skin drawn, there is a loss of frankness ofexpression, the eyes are shifty, the movements nervous and uncertain, and all this is but preliminary to the ultimate degradation and loss ofself-respect which follow the victim of the cigarette habit, throughyears of misery and failure. 

Side by side with physical deterioration there goes on a process ofmoral degeneration which robs the cigarette smoking boy of refinement, of manners. The moral depravity which follows cigarette habit isappalling. Lying, cheating, swearing, impurity, loss of courage andmanhood, a complete dropping of life's standards, result from suchindulgence. 

Magistrate Crane, of New York City, says: "Ninety-nine out of a hundredboys between the ages of ten and seventeen years who come before mecharged with crime have their fingers disfigured by yellow cigarettestains--I am not a crank on this subject, I do not care to pose as areformer, but it is my opinion that cigarettes will do more than liquorto ruin boys. When you have arraigned before you boys hopelessly deafthrough the excessive use of cigarettes, boys who have stolen theirsisters' earnings, boys who absolutely refuse to work, who do nothingbut gamble and steal, you can not help seeing that there is some directcause, and a great deal of this boyhood crime, is, in my mind, easy totrace to the deadly cigarette. There is something in the poison of thecigarette that seems to get into the system of the boy and to destroyall moral fiber. "

He gives the following probable course of a boy who begins to smokecigarettes: "First, cigarettes. Second, beer and liquors. Third, craps--petty gambling. Fourth, horse-racing--gambling on a biggerscale. Fifth, larceny. Sixth, state prison. "

Another New York City magistrate says: "Yesterday I had before methirty-five boy prisoners. Thirty-three of them were confirmedcigarette smokers. To-day, from a reliable source, I have made thegrewsome discovery that two of the largest cigarette manufacturers soaktheir product in a weak solution of opium. The fact that out ofthirty-five prisoners thirty-three smoked cigarettes might seem toindicate some direct connection between cigarettes and crime. And whenit is announced on authority that most cigarettes are doped with opium, this connection is not hard to understand. Opium is like whisky, --itcreates an increasing appetite that grows with what it feeds upon. Agrowing boy who lets tobacco and opium get a hold upon his senses isnever long in coming under the domination of whisky, too. Tobacco isthe boy's easiest and most direct road to whisky. When opium is added, the young man's chance of resisting the combined forces and escapingphysical, mental, and moral harm is slim, indeed. "

I think the above statement regarding the use of opium by manufacturersis exaggerated. Yet we know that young men of great natural ability, everywhere, some of them in high positions, are constantly losing theirgrip, deteriorating, dropping back, losing their ambition, their push, their stamina, and their energy, because of the cigarette's deadly holdupon them. 

Did you ever watch the gradual deterioration of the cigarette smoker, the gradual withdrawal of manliness and character, the fading out ofpurpose, the decline of ambition; the substitution of the beastly forthe manly, the decline of the divine and the ascendency of the brute?

A very interesting study this, to watch the gradual withdrawal from theface of all that was manly and clean, and all that makes for success. We can see where purity left him and was gradually replaced byvulgarity, and where he began to be cursed by commonness. 

We can see the point at which he could begin to do a bad job or a poorday's work without feeling troubled about it. 

We can tell when he began to lose his great pride in his personalappearance, when he began to leave his room in the morning and to go tohis work without being perfectly groomed. Only a little while beforehe would have been greatly mortified to have been seen by his employersand associates with slovenly dress; but now baggy trousers, unblackenedshoes, soiled linen, frayed neck-tie do not trouble him. 

He is not quite as conscientious about his work as he used to be. Hecan leave a half-finished job, and cut his hours and rob his employer alittle here and there without being troubled seriously. He can write aslipshod letter. He isn't particular about his spelling, punctuation, or handwriting, as formerly. He doesn't mind a little deceit. 

Vulgarity no longer shocks him. He does not blush at the unclean test. Womanhood is not as sacred to him as in his innocent days. He does notreverence women as formerly; and he finds himself laughing at thecoarse jest and the common remarks about them among his associates, when once he would have resented and turned away in disgust. 

Dr. Lewis Bremer, late physician at St. Vincent's Institute for theInsane says, "Basing my opinion upon my experience gained in privatesanitariums and hospitals, I will broadly state that the boy who smokescigarettes at seven will drink whisky at fourteen, take morphine attwenty-five, and wind up at thirty with cocaine and the rest of thenarcotics. "

The saddest effects of cigarette smoking are mental. The physicalsigns of deterioration have their mental correspondencies. Sir WilliamHamilton said: "There is nothing great in matter but man; there isnothing great in man but mind. " The cigarette smoker takes man'sdistinguishing faculty and uncrowns it. He "puts an enemy in his mouthto steal away his brains. "

Anything which impairs one's success capital, which cuts down hisachievement and makes him a possible failure when he might have been agrand success, is a crime against him. Anything which benumbs thesenses, deadens the sensibilities, dulls the mental faculties, andtakes the edge off one's ability, is a deadly enemy, and there isnothing else which effects all this so quickly as the cigarette. It issaid that within the past fifty years not a student at HarvardUniversity who used tobacco has been graduated at the head of hisclass, although, on the average, five out of six use tobacco. 

The symptoms of a cigarette victim resembles those of an opium eater. A gradual deadening, benumbing influence creeps all through the mentaland moral faculties; the standards all drop to a lower level; the wholeaverage of life is cut down, the victim loses that power of mentalgrasp, the grip of mind which he once had. In place of his formerenergy and vim and push, he is more and more inclined to take thingseasy and to slide along the line of the least resistance. He becomesless and less progressive. He dreams more and acts less. Hard workbecomes more and more irksome and repulsive, until work seems drudgeryto him. 

Professor William McKeever, of the Kansas Agricultural College, in thecourse of his findings after an exhaustive study of "The CigaretteSmoking Boy" presents facts which are as appalling as they areundeniable:

"For the past eight years I have been tracing out the cigarette boy'sbiography and I have found that in practically all cases the lad beganhis smoking habit clandestinely and with little thought of itsseriousness while the fond parents perhaps believed that their boy wastoo good to engage in such practise. 

"I have tabulated reports of the condition of nearly 2, 500cigarette-smoking schoolboys, and in describing them physically myinformants have repeatedly resorted to the use of such epithets as'sallow, ' 'sore-eyed, ' 'puny, ' 'squeaky-voiced, ' 'sickly, ''short-winded, ' and 'extremely nervous. ' In my tabulated reports it isshown that, out of a group of twenty-five cases of young collegestudents, smokers, whose average age of beginning was 13, according totheir own admissions they had suffered as follows: Sore throat, four;weak eyes, ten; pain in chest, eight; 'short wind, ' twenty-one; stomachtrouble, ten; pain in heart, nine. Ten of them appeared to be verysickly. The younger the boy, the worse the smoking hurts him in everyway, for these lads almost invariably inhale the fumes; and that is themost injurious part of the practise. "

Professor McKeever made hundreds of sphygmograph records of boysaddicted to the smoking habit. Discussing what the records showed, hesays:

"The injurious effects of smoking upon the boy's mental activities arevery marked. Of the many hundreds of tabulated cases in my possession, several of the very youthful ones have been reduced almost to thecondition of imbeciles. Out of 2, 336 who were attending public school, only six were reported 'bright students. ' A very few, perhaps ten, were 'average, ' and all the remainder were 'poor' or 'worthless' asstudents. The average grades of fifty smokers and fifty non-smokerswere computed from the records of one term's work done in the KansasAgricultural college and the results favored the latter group with adifference of 17. 5 per cent. The two groups represented the same classrank; that is, the same number of seniors, juniors, sophomores, andfreshmen. "

A thorough investigation of the effects of cigarette smoking on boyshas been carried on in one of the San Francisco schools for manymonths. This investigation was ordered because a great many of theboys were inferior to the girls, both mentally and morally. 

It was found that nearly three-fourths of the boys who smokedcigarettes had nervous disorders, while only one of those who did notsmoke had any nervous symptoms. A great many of the cigarette smokershad defective hearing, while only one of those who did not smoke was soafflicted. A large percentage of the boys who smoked were defective inmemory, while only one boy who did not smoke was so affected. A largeportion of the boys who smoked were reported as low in deportment andmorals, while only a very small percentage of those who did not smokewere similarly affected. It was found that the minds of many of thecigarette smokers could not comprehend or grasp ideas as quickly orfirmly as those who did not smoke. Nearly all of the cigarette smokerswere found to be untidy and unclean in their personal appearance, and agreat many of them were truants; but among those who did not smoke nota single boy had been corrected for truancy. Most of the smokersranked very low in their studies as compared with those who did notsmoke. Seventy-nine per cent. Of them failed of promotion, while thepercentage of failure among those who did not smoke was exceedinglysmall. 

Of twenty boy smokers who were under careful observation for severalmonths, nineteen stood below the average of the class, while only twoof those who did not smoke stood below. Seventeen out of the twentywere very poor workers and seemed absolutely incapable of close orcontinuous application to any of their studies. 

Professor Wilkinson, principal of a leading high school, says, "I willnot try to educate a boy with the cigarette habit. It is wasted time. The mental faculties of the boy who smokes cigarettes are blunted. "

Another high school principal says, "Boys who smoke cigarettes arealways backward in their studies; they are filthy in their personalhabits, and coarse in their manners, they are hard to manage and dullin appearance. "

It is apparent therefore that the cigarette habit disqualifies thestudent mentally, that it retards him in his studies, dwarfs hisintellect, and leaves him far behind those of inferior mental equipmentwho do not indulge in the injurious use of tobacco in any form. 

The mental, moral, and physical deterioration from the use ofcigarettes, has been noted by corporations and employers of laborgenerally, until to-day the cigarette devotee finds himself barred frommany positions that are open to those of inferior capabilities, who arenot enslaved by the deadly habit. 

Cigarette smoking is no longer simply a moral question. The greatbusiness world has taken it up as a deadly enemy of advancement, ofachievement. Leading business firms all over the country have put thecigarette on the prohibited list. In Detroit alone, sixty-ninemerchants have agreed not to employ the cigarette user. In Chicago, Montgomery Ward and Company, Hibbard, Spencer and Bartlett, and some ofthe other large concerns have prohibited cigarette smoking among allemployees under eighteen years of age. Marshall Field and Company, andthe Morgan and Wright Tire Company have this rule: "No cigarettes canbe smoked by our employees. " One of the questions on the applicationblanks at Wanamaker's reads: "Do you use tobacco or cigarettes?"

The superintendent of the Linden Street Railway, of St. Louis, says:"Under no circumstances will I hire a man who smokes cigarettes. He isas dangerous on the front of a motor as a man who drinks. In fact, heis more dangerous; his nerves are apt to give way at any moment. If Ifind a car running badly, I immediately begin to investigate to find ifthe man smokes cigarettes. Nine times out of ten he does, and then hegoes, for good. "

The late E. H. Harriman, head of the Union Pacific Railroad system, used to say that they "might as well go to a lunatic asylum for theiremployees as to hire cigarette smokers. " The Union Pacific Railroadprohibits cigarette smoking among its employees. 

The New York, New Haven, and Hartford, the Chicago, Rock Island, andPacific, the Lehigh Valley, the Burlington, and many others of theleading railroad companies of this country have issued orderspositively forbidding the use of cigarettes by employees while on duty. 

Some time ago, twenty-five laborers working on a bridge were dischargedby the roadmasters of the West Superior, Wisconsin Railroad because ofcigarette smoking. The Pittsburg and Western Railroad which is part ofthe Baltimore and Ohio system, gave orders forbidding the use ofcigarettes by its employees on passenger trains and also notifiedpassengers that they must not smoke cigarettes in their coaches. 

In the call issued for the competitive examination for messengerservice in the Chicago Post-office, sometime since, seven hundredapplicants were informed that only the best equipped boys were wantedfor this service, and that under no circumstances would boys who smokedcigarettes be employed. Other post-offices have taken a similar stand. 

If some one should present you with a most delicately adjustedchronometer, --one which would not vary a second in a year--do you thinkit would pay you to trifle with it, to open the case in the dust, toleave it out in the rain overnight, or to put in a drop of glue or achemical which would ruin the delicacy of its adjustment so that itwould no longer keep good time? Would you think it wise to take suchchances?

But the Creator has given you a matchless machine, so delicately andwondrously made that it takes a quarter of a century to bring it toperfection, to complete growth, and yet you presume to trifle with it, to do all sorts of things which are infinitely worse than leaving yourwatch open out of doors overnight, or even in water. 

The great object of the watch is to keep time. The supreme purpose ofthis marvelous piece of human machinery is power. The watch meansnothing except time. If the human machinery does not produce power, itis of no use. 

The merest trifle will prevent the watch from keeping time; but youthink that you can put anything into your human machinery, that you cando all sorts of irrational things with it, and yet you expect it toproduce power--to keep perfect time. It is important that the humanmachine shall be kept as responsive to the slightest impression orinfluence as possible, and the brain should be kept clear so that thethought may be sharp, biting, gripping, so that the whole mentalitywill act with efficiency. And yet you do not hesitate to saturate thedelicate brain-cells with vile drinks, to poison them with nicotine, toharden them with smoke from the vilest of weeds. You expect the man toturn out as exquisite work, to do the most delicate things to retainhis exquisite sense of ability notwithstanding the hardening, thebenumbing influence of cigarette poisoning. 

Let the boy or youth who is tempted to indulge in the first cigaretteask himself--Can I afford to take this enormous risk? Can I jeopardizemy health, my strength, my future, my all, by indulging in a practisewhich has ruined tens of thousands of promising lives?

Let the youth who is tempted say, "No! I will wait until mind and bodyare developed, until I have reached man's estate before I will begin touse tobacco. " Experience proves that those who reach a robust manhoodare rarely willing to sacrifice health and happiness to the cigarettehabit. 

Many years ago an eminent physician and specialist in nervous diseasesput himself on record as holding the firm belief that the evil effectsof the use of tobacco were more lasting and far reaching than theinjurious consequences that follow the excessive use of alcohol. Apartfrom affections of the throat and cancerous diseases of lips and tonguewhich frequently affect smokers there is a physical taint which istransmitted to offspring which handicaps the unfortunate infant "fromits earliest breath. "

The only salvation of the race, said this physician, lay in the factthat women did not smoke. If they too acquired the tobacco habitfuture generations would be stamped by the degeneracy and depravitywhich follow the use of tobacco as surely as they follow the use ofalcohol. 

In view of these facts the increase of cigarette smoking among womenmay well alarm those who have at heart the wellbeing of the risinggeneration. So rapidly has this habit spread that fashionable hotelsand cafes are providing rooms for the especial use of those women wholike to indulge in an after-dinner cigarette. A noted restaurant inNew York recently added an annex to which ladies with their escortsmight retire and smoke. We often see women smoking in New York hotelsand restaurants. 

Not long ago the writer was a guest at a dinner and to his surpriseseveral ladies at the table lighted their cigarettes with as muchcomposure as if it were the most natural thing in the world. 

At a reception recently, I saw the granddaughter of one of America'sgreatest authors smoking cigarettes. 

What a spectacle, to see a descendant so nearly removed from one ofNature's grandest noblemen, a princely gentleman, smoking! And I saidto myself, "What would her grandfather think if he could see this?"

On a train running between London and Liverpool, a compartmentespecially reserved for women smokers has been provided. It is saidthat three American women were the cause of this innovation. Thesuperintendent of one of our largest American railways says that hewould not be surprised if the American roads were compelled to followthe lead of their English brethren. 

It is not unreasonable to suppose that this addiction to the use oftobacco is in many cases inherited. A friend told me of a verycharming young woman who was passionately devoted to tobacco. At atime when it was not usual for women to smoke in public her craving fora cigarette was so strong that she could not deny herself theindulgence. She said her father, a deacon in the church, had been aninveterate smoker, and her love of tobacco dated back to her earliestremembrance. Every woman should use the uttermost of her influence todiscourage the use of the cigarette and enlist the girls as well asboys in her fight against the evil and injurious practise of cigarettesmoking. 

CHAPTER XLIX

THE POWER OF PURITY

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. --SERMON ON THEMOUNT. 

 My strength is as the strength of ten Because my heart is pure. TENNYSON. 

Virtue alone raises us above hopes, fears, and chances. --SENECA. 

 Even from the body's purity the mind Receives a secret sympathetic aid. THOMSON. 

Purity is a broad word with a deep meaning. It denotes far more thansuperficial cleanness. It goes below the surface of guarded speech andpolite manners to the very heart of being. "Out of the heart are theissues of life. " Make the fountain clean and the waters that flow fromit will be pure and limpid. Make the heart clean and the life will beclean. 

Purity is defined as "free from contact with that which weakens, impairs or pollutes. " How forceful then is the converse of thedefinition: Impurity weakens, impairs, and pollutes. It weakens bothmind and body. It impairs the health. It pollutes not only thethoughts but the conduct which inevitably has its beginning and its endin thought. 

Innocence is the state of natural purity. It was the state of Adam andEve in the Garden of Eden. When they sinned "they knew that they werenaked. " They lost innocence never to regain it. But purity may beattained. As an unclean garment may be washed, so the heart may bepurified and made clean. Ghosts of past impurities still may dog us, but they are ghosts that may be laid with an imperative "Get theebehind me, Satan. " They are like the lions that affrighted Bunyan'spilgrim--chained securely. They may roar and threaten, but they arepowerless if we deny their power. The man who is striving for puritywhole-heartedly is like one who sits safely in a guarded house. Oldmemories of evil things like specters may peer in at the windows andmow and gibber at him, but they can not touch him unless he gives thempower, unless he unlocks the door of his heart and bids them enter. 

As the lotus flower grows out of the mud, so may purity and beautyspring up from even the vilest past if we but will it so. 

As purity is power so impurity is impotence, weakness, degeneracy. Many a man goes on in an impure career thinking himself secure, thinking his secret hidden. But impurity, like murder, will out. There was a noted pugilist who was unexpectedly defeated in a greatring battle. People said the fight was a "fake, " that it was a "put upjob. " But those who knew said "impurity. " He had lived an evil, debauched life for several years, and he went into the ring impaired instrength, weakened by his transgressions of the law of pure living. Purity is power; impurity is weakness. 

There is a saying of Scripture which is absolutely scientific: "Be sureyour sin will find you out. " Note this; it is not that your sin willbe found out, but _your_ sin will find _you_ out. Sin recoils on thesinner, and of all sins that surely find us out, the sins againstpurity are the most certain to bring retribution. 

Young men do not think that listening to an off-color story, oranything that is vulgar, can injure them much, and, for fear ofridicule, they laugh when they hear anything of the kind, even when itis repulsive to them, and when they loathe it. It is a rare thing fora young man to express with emphasis his disapproval. To know lifeproperly is to know the best in it, not the worst. No one ever yet wasmade stronger by his knowledge of impurity or experience in sin. 

_It is said that the mind's phonograph will faithfully reproduce a badstory even up to the point of death_. Do not listen once. You cannever get the stain entirely out of your life. Your character willabsorb the poison. Impurity is especially fatal in its grip upon theyoung, because of the vividness of the youthful imagination and thefacility with which insinuating suggestions enter the youthful thought. 

Our court records show that a very large percentage of criminals begantheir downfall through the fatal contagion of impurity communicatedfrom various associations. 

Remember that you can not tell what may come to you in the future, whathonor or promotion; and you can not afford to take chances upon havinganything in your history which can come up to embarrass you or to keepyou back. A thing which you now look upon as a bit of pleasure maycome up in the future to hamper your progress. The thing you do to-daywhile trying to have a good time may come up to block your progressyears afterwards. 

I know men who have been thrust into positions of honor and publictrust who would give anything in the world if they could blot out someof the unclean experiences of their youth. Things in their earlyhistory, which they had forgotten all about and which they neverexpected to hear from again, are raked up when they become candidatesfor office or positions of trust. These forgotten bits of so-calledpleasure loom up in after-life as insurmountable bars across theirpathway. 

I know a very rich young man who thought he was just having a good timein his youth--sowing his wild oats--who would give a large part of hisvast wealth to-day if he could blot out a few years of his folly. 

It seems strange that men will work hard to build a reputation, andthen throw it all away by some weakness in their character. How manymen there are in this country with great brain power, men who are kingsin their specialties, men who have worked like slaves to achieve theiraims, whose reputations have been practically ruined by the flaw ofimpurity!

Character is a record of our thoughts and acts. That which we thinkabout most, the ideals and motives uppermost in our mind, areconstantly solidifying into character. What we are constantly thinkingabout, and aiming toward and trying to obtain becomes a permanent partof the life. 

The man whose thoughts are low and impure, very quickly gives this bentand tendency to his character. 

The character levels itself with the thought, whether high or low. Noman can have a pure, clean character who does not habitually have pure, clean thoughts. The immoral man is invariably an impurethinker--whatever we harbor in the mind out-pictures itself in the body. 

In Eastern countries the leper is compelled to cry, "Unclean, unclean, "upon the approach of any one not so cursed. What a blessing tohumanity if our modern moral lepers were compelled to cry, "Unclean, unclean, " before they approach innocent victims with their deadlycontagion!

About the vilest thing on earth is a human being whose character is sotainted with impurity that he leaves the slimy trail of the serpentwherever he goes. 

There never was a more beautiful and pathetic prayer than that of thepoor soiled, broken-hearted Psalmist in his hour of shame, "Create inme a clean heart. " "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, whoshall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pureheart. " There are thousands of men who would cut off their right handsto-day to be free from the stain, the poison, of impurity. 

There can be no lasting greatness without purity. Vice honeycombs thephysical strength as well as destroys the moral fiber. Now and againsome man of note topples with a crash to sudden ruin. Yet the cause ofthe moral collapse is not sudden. There has been a slow undermining ofvirtue going on probably for years; then, in an hour when honor, truth, or honesty is brought to a crucial test, the weakened character givesway and there is an appalling commercial or social crash which oftenfinds an echo in the revolver shot of the suicide. 

Tennyson shows the effect of Launcelot's guilty love for Guinevere, inthe great knight's conscious loss of power. His wrongful passionindirectly brought about the death of fair Elaine. He himself at timesshrank from puny men wont to go down before the shadow of his spear. Like a scarlet blot his sin stains all his greatness, and he muses onit remorsefully:

 "For what am I? What profits me my name Of greatest knight? I fought for it and have it. Pleasure to have it, none; to lose it pain; Now grown a part of me: but what use in it? To make men worse by making my sin known? Or sin seem less, the sinner seeming great?"

Later when the knights of the Round Table joined in the search for theHoly Grail, that lost sacred vessel, "The cup, the cup itself from which our Lord Drank at the last sad supper with his own, "

Launcelot was overtaken by his sin and failed ignominiously. OnlyGalahad the Pure was permitted to see the cup unsurrounded by ablinding glory, a fearful splendor of watching eyes and guarding shapes. 

No one is quite the same in his own estimation when he has been onceguilty of contact with impurity. His self-respect has suffered a loss. Something has gone out of his life. His own good opinion of himselfhas suffered deterioration, and he can never face his life-task withquite the same confidence again. Somehow he feels that the world willknow of his soul's debauch and judge him accordingly. 

There is nothing which will mar a life more quickly than theconsciousness of a soul-stain. The loss of self-respect, the loss ofcharacter, is irreparable. 

We are beginning to find that there is an intimate connection betweenabsolute purity _of one's thought and life and his good health, goodthinking, and good work_, a very close connection between the moralfaculties and the physical health; that nothing so exhausts vitalityand vitiates the quality of work and ideals, so takes the edge off ofone's ambition, dulls the brain and aspiration, as impurity of thoughtand life. It seems to blight all the faculties and to demoralize thewhole man, so that his efficiency is very much lessened. He does notspeak with the same authority. The air of the conqueror disappearsfrom his manner. He does not think so clearly; he does not act with sogreat certainty, and his self-faith is lost, because confidence isbased upon self-respect, and he can no longer respect himself when hedoes things which he would not respect in another. 

The fact that his impure acts are done secretly makes no difference. No one can thoroughly respect himself when he does that whichdemoralizes him, which is unbecoming a gentleman, no matter whetherother people know it or not. Impurity blights everything it touches. 

It is not enough to be thought pure and clean and sound. One mustactually _be_ pure and clean and sound morally, or his self-respect isundermined. 

_Purity is power because it means integrity of thought, integrity ofconduct_. _It means wholeness_. The impure man can not be a greatpower, because he can not thoroughly believe in himself when consciousthat he is rotten in any part of his nature. Impurity works likeleaven, which affects everything in a man. The very consciousness thatthe impurity is working within him robs him of power. 

Apart from the moral side of this question, let us show how thesethings affect one's success in life by sapping the energies, weakeningthe nature, lowering one's standards, blurring one's ideals, discouraging one's ambition, and lessening one's vitality and power. 

In the last analysis of success, the mainspring of achievement mustrest in the strength of one's vitality, for, without a stock of healthequal to great emergencies and persistent longevity, even the greatestambition is comparatively powerless. And there is nothing that willsap the life-forces so quickly as dissipation and impure living. 

Is there anything truer than that "To be carnally minded is death?" Ifthe thought is carnal, the body must correspond, must express it insome physical discord. 

Nothing else will destroy the very foundations of vitality quicker thanimpurity of thought and animal self-indulgence. The ideals must bekept bright and the ambition clean-cut. 

Purity of thought means that the mental processes are not clouded, muddy, or clogged by brain ash from a dissipated life, from violationof the laws of health. Pure thought comes from pure blood, and pureblood from a clean, sane life. Purity signifies a great deal besidesfreedom from sensual taint. It means saneness, purity, and quality. 

It has been characteristic of great leaders, men whose greatness hasstood the acid test of time, that they have been virtuous in conduct, pure in thought. 

"I have such a rich story that I want to tell you, " said an officer, who one evening came into the Union camp in a rollicking mood. "Thereare no ladies present, are there?"

General Grant, lifting his eyes from the paper which he was reading, and looking the officer squarely in the eye, said slowly anddeliberately:

"No, but there are gentlemen present. "

"A great trait of Grant's character, " said George W. Childs, "was hispurity. I never heard him express an impure thought, or make anindelicate allusion in any way or shape. There is nothing I ever heardhim say that could not be repeated in the presence of women. If a manwas brought up for an appointment, and it was shown that he was animmoral man, Grant would not appoint him, no matter how great thepressure brought to bear. "

On one occasion, when Grant formed one of a dinner-party of Americansin a foreign city, conversation drifted into references to questionableaffairs, when he suddenly rose and said, "Gentlemen, please excuse me, I will retire. "

It is the glory of a man to have clean lips and a clean mind. It isthe glory of a woman not to know evil, even in her thoughts. 

Isaac Newton's most intimate friend in young manhood was a notedforeign chemist. They were constant associates until one day theItalian told an impure story, after which Newton never would associatewith him. 

"My extreme youth, when I took command of the army of Italy, " saidNapoleon, "rendered it necessary that I should evince great reserve ofmanners and the utmost severity of morals. This was indispensable toenable me to sustain authority over men so greatly my superiors in ageand experience. I pursued a line of conduct in the highest degreeirreproachable and exemplary. In spotless morality I was a Cato, andmust have appeared such to all. I was a philosopher and a sage. Mysupremacy could be retained only by proving myself a better man thanany other man in the army. Had I yielded to human weakness, I shouldhave lost my power. "

The military antagonist and conqueror of Napoleon, the Duke ofWellington, was a man of simple life and austere virtue. When he waslaid to rest in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, "in streamingLondon's central roar, " the poet who wrote his funeral ode was able tosay of him:

 "Whatever record leap to light He never shall be shamed. "

The peril of impurity lies in the insidiousness of the poison. Justone taint of impurity, one glance at a lewd picture, one hearing of anunclean story may begin the fatal corruption of mind and heart. 

 "It is the little rift within the lute That by and by will make the music mute, The little rift within the lover's lute Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit That rotting inward slowly molders all. "

When Bunyan's pilgrim was assailed by temptation he stopped his earswith his fingers and fled for his life. Let the young man who valueshimself, who sets store upon health and has ambition to succeed in hischosen career, be deaf to unclean speech and flee the companionship ofthose who think and speak uncleanness. 

It is the experience of every man who has forsaken vice and turned hisfeet into the paths of virtue that evil memories will, in his holiesthours, leap upon him like a lion from ambush. Into the harmony of thehymn he sings memory will interpolate unbidden, the words of somesensual song. Pictures of his debauches, his past licentiousness, willfill his vision, and the unhappy victim can only beat upon his breastand cry, "Me miserable! Whither shall I flee?" This has been, throughall time, the experience of the men that have sought sanctity inseclusion. The saints, the hermits in their caves, the monks in theircells, could never escape the obsessions of memory which with horriblerealism and scorching vividness revived past scenes of sin. 

A boy once showed to another a book of impure words and pictures. Heto whom the book was shown had it in his hands only a few minutes. Inafter-life he held high office in the church, and years and yearsafterwards told a friend that he would give half he possessed had henever seen it, because its impure images, at the most holy times, wouldarise unbidden to his mind. 

Physicians tell us that every particle of the body changes in a veryfew years; but no chemistry, human or divine, can entirely expunge fromthe mind a bad picture. Like the paintings buried for centuries inPompeii, without the loss of tint or shade, these pictures are asbrilliant in age as in youth. 

Association begets assimilation. We can not mix with evil associationswithout being contaminated; can not touch pitch without being defiled. Impurity is especially fatal in its grip upon the young, because of thevividness of the youthful imagination and the facility with whichinsinuating suggestions enter the youthful thought. 

Indelible and satanic is the taint of the evil suggestive power which alewd, questionable picture or story leaves upon the mind. Nothing elsemore fatally mars the ideals of life and lowers the standard of manhoodand womanhood. 

To read writers whose lines express the utmost possible impurity sodexterously and cunningly that not a vulgar word is used, but rosy, glowing, suggestive language--authors who soften evil and showdeformity with the tints of beauty--what is this but to take the feetout of the straight road into the guiltiest path of seduction?

Very few realize the power of a diseased imagination to ruin a preciouslife. Perhaps the defect began in a little speck of taint. No otherfaculty has such power to curse or bless mankind, to build up or teardown, to ennoble or debauch, to make happy or miserable, or has suchpower upon our destiny, as the imagination. 

Many a ruined life began its downfall in the dry rot of a pervertedimagination. How little we realize that by subtle, moral manufacture, repeated acts of the imagination weave themselves into a mightytapestry, every figure and fancy of which will stand out in livingcolors in the character-web of our lives, to approve or condemn us. 

In many cases where, for no apparent reason, one is making failureafter failure, never reaching, even approximately, the position whichwas anticipated for him, if he would look frankly into his own heart, and searchingly at his own secret habits, he would find that which, hidden, like the worm at the heart of the rose, is destroying andmaking impossible all that ennobles, beautifies, and enriches life. 

"I solemnly warn you, " says Beecher, "against indulging a morbidimagination. In that busy and mischievous faculty begins the evil. Were it not for his airy imagination, man might stand his ownmaster, --not overmatched by the worst part of himself. But ah! thesesummer reveries, these venturesome dreams, these fairy castles, buildedfor no good purposes, --they are haunted by impure spirits, who willfascinate, bewitch, and corrupt you. Blessed are the pure in heart. Blessed art thou, most favored of God, whose THOUGHTS are chastened;whose imagination will not breathe or fly in tainted air, and whosepath hath been measured by the golden reed of purity. "

To be pure in heart is the youth's first great commandment. Do notlisten to men who tell you that "vice is a necessity. " Nothing is anecessity that is wrong, --that debauches self-respect. "All wickednessis weakness. " Vice and vigor have nothing in common. Purity isstrength, health, power. 

Do not imagine that impurity can be hidden! One may as well expect tohave consumption or any other deadly disease, and to look and appearhealthy, as to be impure in thought and mind, and to look and appearmanly and noble souled. Character writes its record in the flesh. 

"No, no, these are not trifles, " said George Whitefield, when a friendasked why he was so particular to bathe frequently, and always have hislinen scrupulously clean; "a minister must be without spot, even in hisgarments. " Purity in a good man can not be carried too far. 

There is a permanency in the stamp left by the sins resulting fromimpure thought that follows even to the grave. Diseases unnameable, the consequences of the Scarlet Sin, the following after the "strangewoman, " write their record in the very bones, literally fulfilling theScripture statement--"Their sins shall lie down with their bones in thedust. "

We often detect in the eye and in the manner the black leper spots ofimpurity long before the youth suspects they have ever been noticed. When there is a scar or a stain upon one's self-respect it is bound toappear on the surface sooner or later. What fearful blots and stainsare left on the characters of those who have to fight for a lifetime torid themselves of a blighting and contaminating influence, moral orphysical!

Chemists tell us that scarlet is the only color which can not bebleached. There is no known chemical which can remove it. So, formerly, scarlet rags were made into blotting paper. When the sacredwriter wished to emphasize the power of Divine forgiveness, of Divinelove, he said: "Even though thy sins be as scarlet, they shall be madewhite as wool!" It certainly takes omnipotent power to expungeimpurity from the mind. There is certainly one sin which only Divinepower can bleach out of the character--the sin of impurity. 

No man can think much of himself when he is conscious of impurityanywhere in his life. And the very knowledge that one is absolutelypure in his thought and clean in his life increases his self-respectand his self-faith wonderfully. 

It is a terrible handicap to be conscious that, however much others maythink of us, we are foul inside, that our thoughts are vile. It doesnot matter that our vicious acts are secret, we can not cover them. 

Whatever we have thought or done will outpicture itself in theexpression, in the bearing. It will be hung out upon the bulletinboard of the face and manner for the world to read. We instinctivelyfeel a person's reality; not what he pretends, but what he is, for weradiate our reality, which often contradicts our words. 

There is only one panacea for impurity. Constant occupation and pure, high thinking are absolutely necessary to a clean life. 

"I should be a poor counselor of young men, " wrote a true friend ofyouth, "if I taught you that purity is possible only by isolation fromthe world. We do not want that sort of holiness which can thrive onlyin seclusion; we want that virile, manly purity which keeps itselfunspotted from the world, even amid its worst debasements, just as thelily lifts its slender chalice of white and gold to heaven, untaintedby the soil in which it grows, though that soil be the reservoir ofdeath and putrefaction. "

Impurity is the forfeiture of manliness. The true man must beuntarnished. James went so far as to declare that this is just whatreligion is. "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father isthis * * to keep himself unspotted from the world. "

Every true man shrinks from uncleanness. He knows what it means. Impurity makes lofty friendships impossible. It robs all of life'sintercourse of its freshness and its joyous innocence. It sullies allbeauty. It does these things chiefly because it separates men from Godand His vision. The best and holiest is barred to the stained man. Impurity makes it impossible for him to appreciate what is pure andfine, dulls his finer perceptions, and he is not given the place whereonly pure and fine things are. 

[Illustration: Helen Keller]

There can be no such thing as an impure gentleman. The two wordscontradict each other. A gentleman must be pure. He need not havefine clothes. He may have had few advantages. But he must be pure andclean. And, if he have all outward grace and gift and be inwardlyunclean, though he may call himself a gentleman, he is a liar and a lie. 

O, young man, guard your heart-purity! Keep innocency! Never lose it;if it be gone, you have lost from the casket the most precious gift ofGod. The first purity of imagination, of thought, and of feeling, ifsoiled, can be cleansed by no fuller's soap. If a harp be broken, artmay repair it; if a light be quenched, the flame may kindle it; but ifa flower be crushed, what art can repair it? If an odor be waftedaway, who can collect or bring it back?

Parents are, in many cases, responsible for the impurity of theirchildren. Through a mistaken sense of delicacy, they allow theawakened, searching mind of the child to get information concerning itsphysical nature from the mind of some boy or girl no better taught thanitself, and so conceive wholly wrong and harmful ideas concerningthings of which it is vitally important that every human being shouldat the outset of life have clear and adequate ideas. Such silence, many times, is fatal, and always foolish, if not criminal. 

"I have noticed, " says William Acton, "that all patients who haveconfessed to me that they have practised vice, lamented that they werenot, when children, made aware of its consequences; and I have beenpressed over and over again to urge on parents, guardians, schoolmasters, and others interested in the education of youth, thenecessity of giving to their charges some warning, some intimation, oftheir danger. To parents and guardians I offer my earnest advice thatthey should, by hearty sympathy and frank explanation, aid theircharges in maintaining pure lives. " What stronger breastplate than aheart untainted?

A prominent writer says: "If young persons poison their bodies andcorrupt their minds with vicious courses, no lapse of time, after areform, is likely to restore them to physical soundness and the soulpurity of their earlier days. "

There is one idea concerning purity which should never have beenconceived, and, having been conceived, should be, once and forever, eternally exploded. It is that purity is different in the differentsexes. 

It would be loosening the foundations of virtue to countenance thenotion that, because of a difference in sex, men are at liberty to setmorality at defiance, and to do with impunity that which, if done by awoman, would stain her character for life. To maintain a pure andvirtuous condition of society, therefore, man as well as woman must bevirtuous and pure, both alike shunning all acts infringing on theheart, character, and conscience, --shunning them as poison, which, onceimbibed, can never be entirely thrown out again. 

Is there any reason why a man should have any license to drag histhoughts through the mud and filth any more than a woman? Is there anysex in principle? Isn't a stain a blot upon a boy's character just asbad as upon a girl's? If purity is so refining and elevating for onesex, why should it not be for the other?

It is incredible that a man should be socially ostracized forcomparatively minor offenses, yet be rotten with immorality and bereceived into the best homes. But, if a woman makes the least falsestep in this direction, she is not only ostracized but treated with theutmost contempt, while the man who was the chief sinner in causing awoman's downfall, society will pardon. 

To put it on the very lowest ground, I am certain that if young menknew and realized the fearful risks to health that they take byindulging in gross impurities they would put them by with a shudder ofdisgust and aversion. It may very easily happen--it very oftenactually does happen--that one single step from the path of purityclouds a man's whole life with misery and unspeakable suffering; andnot only that, but even entails lifelong disease on children yet unborn. 

To return to its Maker at the close of life the marvelous body which Hegave us, scarred by a heedless life, with the heart rotten withimpurity, the imagination filled with vicious images, the characterhoneycombed with vice, is a most ungrateful return for the pricelesslife of opportunity. 

A mind retaining all the dew and freshness of innocence shrinks fromthe very idea of impurity, the very suggestion of it, as if it were sinto have even thought or heard of it, as if even the shadow of the evilwould leave some soil on the unsullied whiteness of the virgin mind. "When modesty is once extinguished, it knows not a return. "

CHAPTER L

THE HABIT OF HAPPINESS

The highest happiness must always come from the exercise of the bestthing in us. 

When you find happiness in anything but useful work, you will be thefirst man or woman to make the discovery. 

If you take an inventory of yourself at the very outset of your careeryou will find that you think you are going to find happiness in thingsor in conditions. Most people think they are going to find the largestpart of their happiness in money, what money will buy or what it willgive them in the way of power, influence, comforts, luxuries. Theythink they are going to find a great deal of their happiness inmarriage. How quickly they find that the best happiness they will everknow is that which must be limited to their own capacity for enjoyment, that their happiness can not come from anything outside of them butmust be developed from within. Many people believe they are going tofind much of their happiness in books, in travel, in leisure, infreedom from the thousand and one anxieties and cares and worries ofbusiness; but the moment they get in the position where they thoughtthey would have freedom many other things come up in their minds andcut off much of the expected joy. When they get money and leisure theyoften find that they are growing selfish, which cuts off a lot of theirhappiness. No man able to work can be idle without feeling a sense ofguilt at not doing his part in the world, for every time he sees thepoor laboring people who are working for him, who are workingeverywhere, he is constantly reminded of his meanness in shifting uponothers what he is able to do and ought to do himself. Idleness is thelast place to look for happiness. Idleness is like a stagnant pool. The moment the water ceases to flow, to work, to do something, allsorts of vermin and hideous creatures develop in it. It becomes torpidand unhealthy giving out miasma and repulsive odors. In the same waywork is the only thing that will keep the individual healthy andwholesome and clean. An idle brain very quickly breeds impurities. 

The married man quickly learns that his domestic happiness depends uponwhat he himself contributes to the partnership, that he can not takeout a great deal without putting a great deal in, for selfishnessalways reaps a mean, despicable harvest. It is only the generous giverwho gets much. There is nothing which will so shrivel up a man; andcontract his capacity for happiness as selfishness. It is always afatal blighter, blaster, disappointer. We must give to get, we must begreat before we can get great enjoyment; great in our motive, grand inour endeavor, sublime in our ideas. 

It is impossible, absolutely unscientific, for a bad person to be trulyhappy; just as impossible as it would be for one to be comfortablewhile lying on a bed of nettles which are constantly pricking him. There is no way under heaven by which a person can be really happywithout being good, clean, square, and true. This does not mean that aperson is happy because he does not use tobacco, drink, gamble, useprofane language or does not do other vicious things. Some of themeanest, narrowest, most contemptible people in the world do none ofthese things but they are uncharitable, jealous, envious, revengeful. They stab you in the back, slander you, cheat you. They may becunning, underhanded, and yet have a fairly good standing in thechurch. No person can be really happy who has a small, narrow, bigoted, uncharitable mind or disposition. Generosity, charity, kindness are absolutely essential to real happiness. Deceitful peoplecan not be happy; they can not respect themselves because they inwardlydespise themselves for deceiving you. A person must be open minded, transparent, simple, in order to be really happy. A person who isalways covering up something, trying to keep things from you, misleading you, deceiving you, can not get away from self-reproach, andhence can not be really happy. 

Selfishness is a fatal enemy of happiness because no one ever does areally selfish thing without feeling really mean, without despisinghimself for it. I have never seen a strong young man sneak into avacant seat in a car and allow an old man or woman with a package or ababy in her arms to stand, without looking as though he knew he haddone a mean, selfish thing. There is a look of humiliation in hisface. We are so constituted that we can not help condemning ourselvesfor our mean or selfish acts. 

The liar is never really happy. He is always on nettles lest hisdeceit betray him. He never feels safe. Dishonesty in all its phasesis fatal to happiness, for no dishonest person can get hisself-approval. Without this no happiness is possible. 

Before you can be really happy, my friend, you must be able to lookback upon a well-spent past, a conscientious, unselfish past. If not, you will be haunted by demons which will destroy your happiness. Ifyou have been mean and selfish, greedy and dishonest with yourfellowmen, all sorts of horrible things will rise out of your moneypile to terrify and to make your happiness impossible. 

In other words, happiness is merely a result of the life work. It willpartake of the exact quality of the motive which you have put into yourlife work. If these motives have been selfish, greedy, grasping, ifcunning and dishonesty have dominated in your career, your happinesswill be marred accordingly. 

You can not complain of your happiness, because it is your own child, the product of your own brain, your own effort. It has been made up ofyour motives, colored by your life aim. It exactly corresponds to thecause which produced it. 

There is the greatest difference in the world between the happinesswhich comes from a sweet, beautiful, unselfish, helpful, sympathetic, industrious, honorable career, and the mean satisfaction which may growto be a part of your marked self if you have lived a selfish, graspinglife. 

What we call happiness is the harvest from our life sowing, ourhabitual thought-sowing, deed-doing. If we have sown selfish, envious, jealous, revengeful, hateful seeds, greedy, grasping seeds, we can notexpect a golden happiness harvest like that which comes from a cleanand unselfish, helpful sowing. 

If our harvest is full of the rank, poisonous weeds of jealousy, envy, dishonesty, cunning, and cruelty, we have no one to blame butourselves, for we sowed the seed which produced that sort of a harvest. 

Somehow some people have an entirely wrong idea of what real happinessis. They seem to think it can be bought, can be had by influence, thatit can be purchased by money; that if they have money they can get thatwonderful, mysterious thing which they call happiness. 

But happiness is a natural, faithful harvest from our sowing. It wouldbe as impossible for selfish seed, greed seed to produce a harvest ofcontentment, of genuine satisfaction, of real joy, as for thistle seedsto produce a harvest of wheat or corn. 

Whatever the quality of your enjoyment or happiness may be, you havepatterned it by your life motive by the spirit in which you haveworked, by the principles which have actuated you. 

A pretty different harvest, I grant, many of us must face, marred withall sorts of hideous, poisonous weeds, but they are all the legitimateproduct of our sowing. No one can rob us of our harvest or change itvery much. Every thought, every act, every motive, whether secret orpublic, is a seed which no power on earth can prevent going to itsharvest of beauty or ugliness, honor or shame. Most people have anidea that happiness is something that can be manufactured. They do notrealize that it can no more be manufactured than wheat or corn can bemanufactured. It must be grown, and the harvest will be like the seed. 

You, young man, make up your mind at the very outset of your careerthat whatever comes to you in life, that whether you succeed or fail, whether you have this or that, there is one thing you will have, andthat is a happy, contented mind, that you will extract your happinessas you go along. You will not take the chances of picking up ordeveloping the happy habit after you get rich, for then you may be tooold. 

Most people postpone their enjoyment until they are disappointed tofind the power of enjoyment has largely gone by and that even if theyhad the means they could not get anything like as much real happinessout of it as they could have gotten as they went along when they wereyounger. Take no chances with your happiness, or the sort of a lifethat can produce it; whatever else you risk, do not risk this. Earlyform the happy habit, the habit of enjoyment every day, no matter whatcomes or does not come to you during the day. Pick crumbs of comfortout of your situation, no matter how unpleasant or disagreeable. 

I know a man who, although poor, can manage to get more comfort out ofa real tough, discouraging situation than any one else I have everseen. I have often seen him when he did not have a dollar to his name, with a wife to support; yet he was always buoyant, happy, cheerful, consented. He would even make fun out of an embarrassing situation, see something ludicrous in his extreme poverty. 

There have never been such conflicting estimates, such varying ideas, regarding any state of human condition as to what constituteshappiness. Many people think that it is purchasable with money, butmany of the most restless, discontented, unhappy people in the worldare rich. They have the means of purchasing what they _thought_ wouldproduce happiness, but the real thing eludes them. On the other hand, some of the poorest people in the world are happy. The fact is thatthere is no possible way of cornering or purchasing happiness for it isabsolutely beyond the reach of money. It is true, we can purchase afew comforts and immunities from some annoyances and worries with moneywhich we can not get without it. On the other hand, the great majorityof people who have inherited money are positively injured by it, because it often stops their own development by taking away the motivefor self-effort and self-reliance. 

When people get money they often stop growing because they depend uponthe money instead of relying upon their own inherent resources. 

Rich people suffer from their indulgences more than poor ones sufferfrom their hardships. 

A great many rich people die with liver and kidney troubles which areeffected both by eating and drinking. The kidneys are very susceptibleto the presence of alcohol. If rich people try to get greaterenjoyment out of life than poor people by eating and drinking, they arelikely very quickly to come to grief. If they try to seek it throughthe avenue of leisure they soon find that an idle brain is one of themost dangerous things in the world--nothing deteriorates faster. Themind was made for continual strong action, systematic, vigorousexercise, and this is possible only when some dominating aim and agreat life purpose leads the way. 

No person can be really healthful whose mind is not usefully andcontinually employed. So there is no possibility of finding realhappiness in idleness if we are able to work. Nature brings awonderful compensatory power to those who are crippled or sick orotherwise disabled from working, but there is no compensation foridleness in those who are able to work. Nature only gives us the useof faculties we employ. "Use or lose" is her motto, and when we ceaseto use a faculty or function it is gradually taken away from us, gradually shrivels and atrophies. 

There is no satisfaction like that which comes from the steady, persistent, honest, conscientious pursuit of a noble aim. There are amultitude of evidences in man's very structure that his marvelousmechanism was intended for action, for constant exercise, and thatidleness and stagnation always mean deterioration and death of power. No man can remain idle without shrinking, shrivelling, constantlybecoming a less efficient man; for he can keep up only those facultiesand powers which he constantly employs, and there is no other possibleway. Nature puts her ban of deterioration and loss of power uponidleness. We see these victims everywhere shorn of power--weak, nerveless, backboneless, staminaless, gritless people, withoutforcefulness, mere nonentities because they have ceased working. Without work mental health is impossible and without health the fullesthappiness is impossible. 

It has been said that happiness is the most delusive thing that manpursues. Yet why need it be a blind search?

If we were to stop the first hundred people we meet on the street andask them what in their experience has given them the most happiness, probably the answer of no two would be alike. 

How interesting and instructive it would be to give a thousand dollarsto each of these hundred people, and without their knowing it, followthem and see what they would do with the money, --what it would mean tothem. 

To some poor youth hungry for an education, with no opportunity to gainit, this money would mean a college education. Another would see inhis money a more comfortable home for his aged parents. To anotherthis money would suggest all sorts of dissipation. Some would seebooks and leisure for self-improvement, a trip abroad. 

We all wear different colored glasses and no two see life with the sametint. 

Some find their present happiness in coarse dissipation; others in aquiet nook with a book. Some find their greatest happiness in friends, in social intercourse; others seek happiness in roving over the earth, always thinking that the greatest enjoyment is in another day, inanother place, a little further on, in the next room, or to-morrow, orin another country. 

_To many people, happiness is never where they are, but almost anywhereelse_. 

Most people lose sight of the simplicity of happiness. They look forit in big, complicated things. Real happiness is perfectly simple. Infact, it is incompatible with complexity. Simplicity is its veryessence. 

I was dining recently with a particularly successful young man who istrying very hard to be happy, but he takes such a complicated, strenuous view of everything that his happiness is always flying fromhim. He drives everything so fiercely, his life is so vigorous, socomplicated, that happiness can not find a home with him very long. Nor does he understand why. He has money, health; but he always hasthat restless far-away, absent-minded gaze into something beyond, and Ido not think he is ever really very happy. His whole manner of livingis extremely complex. He does not seem to know where to findhappiness. He has evidently mistaken the very nature of happiness. Hethinks it consists in making a great show, in having great possessions, in doing things which attract a great deal of attention; but _happinesswould be strangled, suffocated in such an environment_. The essentialsof real happiness are few, simple, and close at hand. 

Happiness is made up of very simple ingredients. It flees from thecomplex life. It evades pomp and show. The heart would starve amidthe greatest luxuries. 

Simple joys and the treasures of the heart and mind make happiness. 

Happiness has very little to do with material things. It is a mentalstate of mind. Real permanent happiness can not be found in meretemporary things, because its roots reach away down into eternalprinciples. 

One of the most pathetic pictures in civilization is the great army ofmen and women searching the world over for happiness, as though itexisted in things rather than in a state of mind. 

The people who have spent years and a fortune trying to find it look ashungry and as lean of contentment and all that makes life desirable aswhen they started out. Chasing happiness all over the world is aboutas silly a business as any human being ever engaged in, for it wasnever yet found by any pursuer. Yet happiness is the simplest thing inthe world. It is found in many a home with carpetless floors andpictureless walls. It knows neither rank, station, nor color, nor doesit recognize wealth. It only demands that it live with a contentedmind and pure heart. It will not live with ostentation; it flees frompretense; it loves the simple life; it insists upon a sweet, healthful, natural environment. It hates the forced and complicated and formal. 

Real happiness flees from the things that pass away; it abides only inprinciple, permanency. 

I have never seen a person who has lived a grasping, greedy, money-chasing life, who was not disappointed at what money has givenhim for his trouble. 

It is only in giving, in helping, that we find our quest. Everywherewe go we see people who are disappointed, chagrined, shocked, to findthat what they thought would be the angel of happiness turned out to beonly a ghost. 

All the misery and the crime of the world rest upon the failure ofhuman beings to understand the principle that _no man can really behappy until he harmonizes with the best thing in him, with the divine, and not with the brute_. No one can be happy who tries to harmonizehis life with his animal instincts. _The God (the good) in him is theonly possible thing that can make him happy_. 

Real happiness can not be bribed by anything sordid or low. Nothingmean or unworthy appeals to it. There is no affinity between them. Founded upon principle, it is as scientific as the laws of mathematics, and he who works his problem correctly will get the happiness answer. 

There is only one way to secure the correct answer to a mathematicalproblem; and that is to work in harmony with mathematical laws. Itwould not matter if half the world believed there was some other way toget the answer, it would never come until the law was followed with theutmost exactitude. 

It does not matter that the great majority of the human race believethere is some other way of reaching the happiness goal. The fact thatthey are discontented, restless, and unhappy shows that they are notworking their problem scientifically. 

We are all conscious that there is another man inside of us, that thereaccompanies us through life a divine, silent messenger, that other, higher, better self, which speaks from the depths of our nature andwhich gives its consent, its "amen" to every right action, and condemnsevery wrong one. 

Man is built upon the plan of honesty, of rectitude--the divine plan. When he perverts his nature by trying to express dishonesty, chicanery, and cunning, of course he can not be happy. 

The very essence of happiness is honesty, sincerity, truthfulness. Hewho would have real happiness for his companion must be clean, straightforward, and sincere. The moment he departs from the right shewill take wings and fly away. 

It is just as impossible for a person to reach the normal state ofharmony while he is practising selfish, grasping methods, as it is toproduce harmony in an orchestra with instruments that are all jangledand out of tune. To be happy, we must be in tune with the infinitewithin us, in harmony with our better selves. There is no way to getaround it. 

There is no tonic like that which comes from doing things worth while. There is no happiness like that which comes from doing our level bestevery day, everywhere; no satisfaction like that which comes fromstamping superiority, putting our royal trade-mark upon everythingwhich goes through our hands. 

Recently a rich young man was asked why he did not work. "I do nothave to, " he said. "Do not have to" has ruined more young men thanalmost anything else. The fact is, Nature never made any provision forthe idle man. Vigorous activity is the law of life; it is the savinggrace, the only thing that can keep a human being from retrograding. Activity along the line of one's highest ambition is the normal stateof man, and he who tries to evade it pays the penalty in deteriorationof faculty, in paralysis of efficiency. Do not flatter yourself thatyou can be really happy unless you are useful. Happiness andusefulness were born twins. To separate them is fatal. 

It is as impossible for a human being to be happy who is habituallyidle as it is for a fine chronometer to be normal when not running. The highest happiness is the feeling of wellbeing which comes to onewho is actively employed doing what he was made to do, carrying out thegreat life-purpose patterned in his individual bent. The practicalfulfilling of the life-purpose is to man what the actual running andkeeping time are to the watch. Without action both are meaningless. 

Man was made to do things. Nothing else can take the place ofachievement in his life. Real happiness without achievement of someworthy aim is unthinkable. One of the greatest satisfactions in thisworld is the feeling of enlargement, of growth, of stretching upwardand onward. No pleasure can surpass that which comes from theconsciousness of feeling one's horizon of ignorance being pushedfarther and farther away--of making headway in the world--of not onlygetting on, but also of getting up. 

Happiness is incompatible with stagnation. A man must feel hisexpanding power lifting, tugging away at a lofty purpose, or he willmiss the joy of living. 

The discords, the bickerings, the divorces, the breaking up of richhomes, and the resorting to all sorts of silly devices by many richpeople in their pursuit of happiness, prove that it does not dwell withthem, that happiness does not abide with low ideals, with selfishness, idleness, and discord. It is a friend of harmony, of truth, of beauty, of affection, of simplicity. 

Multitudes of men have made fortunes, but have murdered their capacityfor enjoyment in the process. How often we hear the remark, "He hasthe money, but can not enjoy it. "

A man can have no greater delusion than that he can spend the bestyears of his life coining all of his energies into dollars, neglectinghis home, sacrificing friendships, self-improvement, and everythingelse that is really worth while, for money, and yet find happiness atthe end!

The happiness habit is just as necessary to our best welfare as thework habit, or the honesty or square-dealing habit. 

No one can do his best, his highest thing, who is not perfectly normal, and happiness is a fundamental necessity of our being. It is anindication of health, of sanity, of harmony. The opposite is a symptomof disease, of abnormality. 

There are plenty of evidences in the human economy that we wereintended for happiness, that it is our normal condition; thatsuffering, unhappiness, discontent, are absolutely foreign and abnormalto our natures. 

There is no doubt that our life was intended to be one grand, sweetsong. We are built upon the plan of harmony, and every form of discordis abnormal. 

There is something wrong when any human being in this world, tuned toinfinite harmonies and beauties that are unspeakable, is unhappy anddiscontented. 

CHAPTER LI

PUT BEAUTY INTO YOUR LIFE

When the barbarians overran Greece, desecrated her temples, anddestroyed her beautiful works of art, even their savageness wassomewhat tamed by the sense of beauty which prevailed everywhere. Theybroke her beautiful statues, it is true; but the spirit of beautyrefused to die, and it transformed the savage heart and awakened evenin the barbarian a new power. From the apparent death of Grecian artRoman art was born. "Cyclops forging iron for Vulcan could not standagainst Pericles forging thought for Greece. " The barbarian's clubwhich destroyed the Grecian statues was no match for the chisel ofPhidias and Praxiteles. 

"What is the best education?" some one asked Plato many centuries ago. "It is, " he replied, "that which gives to the body and to the soul allthe beauty and all the perfection of which they are capable. "

The life that would be complete; that would be sweet and sane, as wellas strong, must be ornamented, softened, and enriched by a love of thebeautiful. 

There is a lack in the make-up of a person who has no appreciation ofbeauty, who does not thrill before a great picture or an entrancingsunset, or a glimpse of beauty in nature. 

Savages have no appreciation of beauty. They have a passion foradornment, but there is nothing to show that their esthetic facultiesare developed. They merely obey their animal instincts and passions. 

But as civilization advances ambition grows, wants multiply, and higherand higher faculties show themselves, until in the highest expressionof civilization, we find aspiration and love of the beautiful mosthighly developed. We find it manifested on the person, in the home, inthe environment. 

The late Professor Charles Eliot Norton of Harvard University, one ofthe finest thinkers of his day, said that beauty has played an immensepart in the development of the highest qualities in human beings; andthat civilization could be measured by its architecture, sculpture, andpainting. 

What an infinite satisfaction comes from beginning early in life tocultivate our finer qualities, to develop finer sentiments, purertastes, more delicate feelings, the love of the beautiful in all itsvaried forms of expression!

One can make no better investment than the cultivation of a taste forthe beautiful, for it will bring rainbow hues and enduring joys to thewhole life. It will not only greatly increase one's capacity forhappiness, but also one's efficiency. 

A remarkable instance of the elevating, refining influence of beautyhas been demonstrated by a Chicago school-teacher, who fitted up in herschool a "beauty corner" for her pupils. It was furnished with astained glass window, a divan covered with an Oriental rug, and a fewfine photographs and paintings, among which was a picture of theSistine Madonna. Several other esthetic trifles, artisticallyarranged, completed the furnishings of the "beauty corner. " Thechildren took great delight in their little retreat, especially in theexquisite coloring of the stained glass window. Insensibly theirconduct and demeanor were affected by the beautiful objects with whichthey daily associated. They became more gentle, more refined, morethoughtful and considerate. A young Italian boy, in particular, whohad been incorrigible before the establishment of the "beauty corner, "became, in a short time, so changed and softened that the teacher wasastonished. One day she asked him what it was that made him so goodlately. Pointing to the picture of the Sistine Madonna the boy said, "How can a feller do bad things when she's looking at him?"

Character is fed largely through the eye and ear. The thousand voicesin nature of bird and insect and brook, the soughing of the windthrough the trees, the scent of flower and meadow, the myriad tints inearth and sky, in ocean and forest, mountain and hill, are just asimportant for the development of a real man as the education hereceives in the schools. If you take no beauty into your life throughthe eye or the ear to stimulate and develop your esthetic faculties, your nature will be hard, juiceless, and unattractive. 

Beauty is a quality of divinity, and to live much with the beautiful isto live close to the divine. "The more we see of beauty everywhere; innature, in life, in man and child, in work and rest, in the outward andthe inward world, the more we see of God (good). "

There are many evidences in the New Testament that Christ was a greatlover of the beautiful especially in nature. Was it not He who said:"Consider the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin;yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these"?

Back of the lily and the rose, back of the landscape, back of allbeautiful things that enchant us, there must be a great lover of thebeautiful and a great beauty-principle. Every star that twinkles inthe sky, every flower, bids us look behind it for its source, points usto the great Author of the beautiful. 

The love of beauty plays a very important part in the poised, symmetrical life. We little realize how much we are influenced bybeautiful people and things. We may see them so often that they becomecommon in our experience and fail to attract much of our consciousattention, but every beautiful picture, every sunset and bit oflandscape, every beautiful face and form and flower, beauty in anyform, wherever we encounter it, ennobles, refines and elevatescharacter. 

There is everything in keeping the soul and mind responsive to beauty. It is a great refreshener, recuperator, life-giver, health promoter. 

Our American life tends to kill the finer sentiments; to discourage thedevelopment of charm and grace as well as beauty; it over-emphasizesthe value of material things and under-estimates that of estheticthings, which are far more developed in countries where the dollar isnot the God. 

As long as we persist in sending all the sap and energy of our beinginto the money-making gland or faculty and letting the social faculty, the esthetic faculty, and all the finer, nobler faculties lie dormant, and even die, we certainly can not expect a well-rounded andsymmetrical life, for only faculties that are used, brain cells thatare exercised, grow; all others atrophy. If the finer instincts in manand the nobler qualities that live in the higher brain areunder-developed, and the coarser instincts which dwell in the lowerbrain close to the brute faculties are over-developed, man must pay thepenalty of animality and will lack appreciation of all that is finestand most beautiful in life. 

"The vision that you hold in your mind, the ideal that is enthroned inyour heart--this you will build your life by, this you will become. "It is the quality of mind, of ideals, and not mere things, that make aman. 

It is as essential to cultivate the esthetic faculties and the heartqualities as to cultivate what we call the intellect. The time willcome when our children will be taught, both at home and in school, toconsider beauty as a most precious gift, which must be preserved inpurity, sweetness, and cleanliness, and regarded as a divine instrumentof education. 

There is no investment which will give such returns as the culture ofthe finer self, the development of the sense of the beautiful, thesublime, and the true; the development of qualities that are crushedout or strangled in the mere dollar-chaser. 

There are a thousand evidences in us that we were intended for templesof beauty, of sweetness, of loveliness, of beautiful ideas, and notmere storehouses for vulgar things. 

There is nothing which will pay so well as to train the finest andtruest, the most beautiful qualities in us in order that we may seebeauty everywhere and be able to extract sweetness from everything. 

Everywhere we go there are a thousand things to educate the best thereis in us. Every sunset, landscape, mountain, hill, and tree hassecrets of charm and beauty waiting for us. In every patch of meadowor wheat, in every leaf and flower, the trained eye will see beautywhich would ravish an angel. The cultured ear will find harmony inforest and field, melody in the babbling brook, and untold pleasure inall Nature's songs. 

Whatever our vocation, we should resolve that we will not strangle allthat is finest and noblest in us for the sake of the dollar, but thatwe will _put beauty into our life at every opportunity_. 

Just in proportion to your love for the beautiful will you acquire itscharms and develop its graces. The beauty thought, the beauty ideal, will outpicture themselves in the face and manner. If you are in lovewith beauty you will be an artist of some kind. Your profession may beto make the home beautiful and sweet, or you may work at a trade; butwhatever your vocation, if you are in love with the beautiful, it willpurify your taste, elevate and enrich your life, and make you an artistinstead of a mere artisan. 

There is no doubt that in the future beauty will play an infinitelygreater part in civilized life than it has thus far. It is becomingcommercialized everywhere. The trouble with us is that the tremendousmaterial-prizes in this land of opportunity are so tempting that wehave lost sight of the higher man. We have developed ourselves alongthe animal side of our nature; the greedy, grasping side. The greatmajority of us are still living in the basement of our beings. Now andthen one rises to the drawing-room. Now and then one ascends to theupper stories and gets a glimpse of the life beautiful, the life worthwhile. 

There is nothing on earth that will so slake the thirst of the soul asthe beauty which expresses itself in sweetness and light. 

An old traveling man relates that once when on a trip to the West hesat next to an elderly lady who every now and then would lean out ofthe open window and pour some thick salt--it seemed to him--from abottle. When she had emptied the bottle she would refill it from ahand-bag. 

A friend to whom this man related the incident told him he wasacquainted with the lady, who was a great lover of flowers and anearnest follower of the precept: "Scatter your flowers as you go, foryou may never travel the same road again. " He said she added greatlyto the beauty of the landscape along the railroads on which shetraveled, by her custom of scattering flower seeds along the track asshe rode. Many roads have thus been beautified and refreshed by thisold lady's love of the beautiful and her effort to scatter beautywherever she went. 

If we would all cultivate a love of the beautiful and scatter beautyseeds as we go through life, what a paradise this earth would become!

What a splendid opportunity a vacation in the country offers to putbeauty into the life; to cultivate the esthetic faculties, which inmost people are wholly undeveloped and inactive! To some it is likegoing into God's great gallery of charm and beauty. They find in thelandscape, the valley, the mountains, the fields, the meadows, theflowers, the streams, the brooks and the rivers, riches that no moneycan buy; beauties that would enchant the angels. But this beauty andglory can not be bought; they are only for those who can see them, appreciate them--who can read their message and respond to theiraffinity. 

Have you never felt the marvelous power of beauty in nature? If not, you have missed one of the most exquisite joys in life. I was oncegoing through the Yosemite Valley, and after riding one hundred milesin a stage-coach over rough mountain roads, I was so completelyexhausted that it did not seem as though I could keep my seat until wetraveled over the ten more miles which would bring us to ourdestination. But on looking down from the top of the mountain I caughta glimpse of the celebrated Yosemite Falls and the surrounding scenery, just as the sun broke through the clouds; and there was revealed apicture of such rare beauty and marvelous picturesqueness that everyparticle of fatigue, brain-fag, and muscle weariness departed in aninstant. My whole soul thrilled with a winged sense of sublimity, grandeur, and beauty, which I had never experienced before, and which Inever can forget. I felt a spiritual uplift which brought tears of joyto my eyes. 

No one can contemplate the wonderful beauties of Nature and doubt thatthe Creator must have intended that man, made in His own image andlikeness, should be equally beautiful. 

Beauty of character, charm of manner, attractiveness and graciousnessof expression, a godlike bearing, are our birthrights. Yet how ugly, stiff, coarse, and harsh in appearance and bearing many of us are! Noone can afford to disregard his good looks or personal appearance. 

But if we wish to beautify the outer, we must first beautify the inner, for every thought and every motion shapes the delicate tracings of ourface for ugliness or beauty. Inharmonious and destructive attitudes ofmind will warp and mar the most beautiful features. 

Shakespeare says: "God has given you one face and you make yourselvesanother. " The mind can make beauty or ugliness at will. 

A sweet, noble disposition is absolutely essential to the highest formof beauty. It has transformed many a plain face. A bad temper, illnature, jealousy, will ruin the most beautiful face ever created. After all, there is no beauty like that produced by a lovely character. Neither cosmetics, massage, nor drugs can remove the lines ofprejudice, selfishness, envy, anxiety, mental vacillation that are theresults of wrong thought habits. 

Beauty is from within. If every human being would cultivate a graciousmentality, not only would what he expressed be artistically beautiful, but also his body. There would indeed be grace and charm, asuperiority about him, which would be even greater than mere physicalbeauty. 

We have all seen even very plain women who, because of the charm oftheir personality, impressed us as transcendently beautiful. Theexquisite soul qualities expressed through the body transformed it intotheir likeness. A fine spirit speaking through the plainest body willmake it beautiful. 

Some one, speaking of Fanny Kemble, said: "Although she was very stoutand short, and had a very red face, yet she impressed me as the supremeembodiment of majestic attributes. I never saw so commanding apersonality in feminine form. Any type of mere physical beauty wouldhave paled to insignificance by her side. "

Antoine Berryer says truly: "There are no ugly women. There are onlywomen who do not know how to look pretty. "

The highest beauty--beauty that is far superior to mere regularity offeature or form--is within reach of everybody. It is perfectlypossible for one, even with the homeliest face, to make herselfbeautiful by the habit of perpetually holding in mind the beautythought, not the thought of mere superficial beauty, but that of heartbeauty, soul beauty, and by the cultivation of a spirit of kindness, hopefulness, and unselfishness. 

The basis of all real personal beauty is a kindly, helpful bearing anda desire to scatter sunshine and good cheer everywhere, and this, shining through the face, makes it beautiful. The longing and theeffort to be beautiful in character can not fail to make the lifebeautiful, and since the outward is but an expression of the inward, amere outpicturing on the body of the habitual thought and dominatingmotives, the face, the manners, and the bearing must follow the thoughtand become sweet and attractive. If you hold the beauty thought, thelove thought, persistently in the mind, you will make such animpression of harmony and sweetness wherever you go that no one willnotice any plainness or deformity of person. 

There are girls who have dwelt upon what they consider theirunfortunate plainness so long that they have seriously exaggerated it. They are not half so plain as they think they are; and, were it not forthe fact that they have made themselves very sensitive andself-conscious on the subject, others would not notice it at all. Infact, if they could get rid of their sensitiveness and be natural, theycould, with persistent effort, make up in sprightliness of thought, incheerfulness of manner, in intelligence, and in cheery helpfulness, what they lack in grace and beauty of face. 

We admire the beautiful face, the beautiful form, but we love the faceillumined by a beautiful soul. We love it because it suggests theideal of the possible perfect man or woman, the ideal which was theCreator's model. 

It is not the outward form of our dearest friend, but our ideal offriendship which he arouses or suggests in us that stirs up and bringsinto exercise our love and admiration. The highest beauty does notexist in the actual. It is the ideal, possible beauty, which theperson or object symbolizes or suggests, that gives us delight. 

Everyone should endeavor to be beautiful and attractive; to be ascomplete a human being as possible. There is not a taint of vanity inthe desire for the highest beauty. 

The love of beauty that confines itself to mere external form, however, misses its deepest significance. Beauty of form, of coloring, of lightand shade, of sound, make our world beautiful; yet the mind that iswarped and twisted can not see all this infinite beauty. It is theindwelling spirit, the ideal in the soul, that makes all thingsbeautiful; that inspires and lifts us above ourselves. 

We love the outwardly beautiful, because we crave perfection, and wecan not help admiring those persons and things that most nearly embodyor measure up to our human ideal. 

But a beautiful character will make beauty and poetry out of theprosiest environment, bring sunshine into the darkest home, and developbeauty and grace amid the ugliest surroundings. 

What would become of us if it were not for the great souls who realizethe divinity of life, who insist upon bringing out and emphasizing itspoetry, its music, its harmony and beauty?

How sordid and common our lives would become but for thesebeauty-makers, these inspirers, these people who bring out all that isbest and most attractive in every place, every situation and condition!

There is no accomplishment, no trait of character, no quality of mind, which will give greater satisfaction and pleasure or contribute more toone's welfare than an appreciation of the beautiful. How many peoplemight be saved from wrong-doing, even from lives of crime, by thecultivation of the esthetic faculties in their childhood! A love ofthe truly beautiful would save children from things which encoarsen andbrutalize their natures. It would shield them from a multitude oftemptations. 

Parents do not take sufficient pains to develop the love andappreciation of beauty in their children. They do not realize that inimpressionable youth, everything about the home, even the pictures, thepaper on the wall, affect the growing character. They should neverlose an opportunity of letting their boys and girls see beautiful worksof art, hear beautiful music; they should make a practise of reading tothem or having them read very often some lofty poem, or inspirationalpassages from some great writer, that will fill their minds withthoughts of beauty, open their souls to the inflow of the Divine Mind, the Divine Love which encompasses us round about. The influences thatmoved our youth determine the character, the success and happiness ofour whole lives. 

Every soul is born responsive to the beautiful, but this instinctivelove of beauty must be fostered through the eye and the mind must becultivated, or it will die. The craving for beauty is as strong in achild of the slums as in a favorite of fortune. "The physical hungerof the poor, the yearning of their stomachs, " says Jacob A. Riis, "isnot half so bitter, or so little likely to be satisfied as theiresthetic hunger, their starving for the beautiful. "

Mr. Riis has often tried to take flowers from his Long Island home tothe "poors" in Mulberry Street, New York. "But they never got there, "he says. "Before I had gone half a block from the ferry I was held upby a shrieky mob of children who cried for the posies and would not letme go another step till I had given them one. And when they got itthey ran, shielding the flower with the most jealous care, to someplace where they could hide and gloat over their treasure. They camedragging big, fat babies and little weazened ones that they might get ashare, and the babies' eyes grew round and big at the sight of thegolden glory from the fields, the like of which had never come theirway. The smaller the baby, and the poorer, the more wistful its look, and so my flowers went. Who could have said them no?

"I learned then what I had but vaguely understood before, that there isa hunger that is worse than that which starves the body and gets intothe newspapers. All children love beauty and beautiful things. It isthe spark of the divine nature that is in them and justifies itself!To that ideal their souls grow. When they cry out for it they aretrying to tell us in the only way they can that if we let the slumstarve the ideal, with its dirt and its ugliness and its hard-troddenmud where flowers were meant to grow, we are starving that which welittle know. A man, a human, may grow a big body without a soul; butas a citizen, as a mother, he or she is worth nothing to thecommonwealth. The mark they are going to leave upon it is the blacksmudge of the slum. 

"So when in these latter days we invade that slum to make homes thereand teach the mothers to make them beautiful; when we gather thechildren into kindergartens, hang pictures in the schools; when webuild beautiful new schools and public buildings and let in the light, with grass and flower and bird, where darkness and foulness werebefore; when we teach the children to dance and play and enjoythemselves--alas! that it should ever be needed--we are trying to wipeoff the smudge, and to lift the heavy mortgage which it put on themorrow, a much heavier one in the loss of citizenship than anycommunity, even the republic, can long endure. We are paying arrearsof debt which we incurred by our sad neglect, and we could be about nobetter business. "

There are many poor children in the slums of New York, Mr. Millionaire, who could go into your drawing-room and carry away from its richcanvases, its costly furnishings, a vision of beauty which you neverperceived in them because your esthetic faculties, your finersensibilities, were early stifled by your selfish pursuit of the dollar. 

The world is full of beautiful things, but the majority have not beentrained to discern them. We can not see all the beauty that liesaround us, because our eyes have not been trained to see it; ouresthetic faculties have not been developed. We are like the lady who, standing with the great artist, Turner, before one of his wonderfullandscapes, cried out in amazement: "Why, Mr. Turner, I can not seethose things in nature that you have put in your picture. "

"Don't you wish you could, madam?" he replied. Just think what raretreats we shut out of our lives in our mad, selfish, insane pursuit ofthe dollar! Do you not wish that you could see the marvels that Turnersaw in a landscape, that Ruskin saw in a sunset? Do you not wish thatyou had put a little more beauty into your life instead of allowingyour nature to become encoarsened, your esthetic faculties blinded andyour finer instincts blighted by the pursuit of the coarser things oflife, instead of developing your brute instincts of pushing, elbowingyour way through the world for a few more dollars, in your effort toget something away from somebody else?

Fortunate is the person who has been educated to the perception ofbeauty; he possesses a heritage of which no reverses can rob him. Yetit is a heritage possible to all who will take the trouble to beginearly in life to cultivate the finer qualities of the soul, the eye, and the heart. "I am a lover of untainted and immortal beauty, "exclaims Emerson. "Oh, world, what pictures and what harmony arethine!"

A great scientist tells us that there is no natural object in theuniverse which, if seen as the Master sees it, coupled with all itsinfinite meaning, its utility and purpose, is not beautiful. Beauty isGod's handwriting. Just as the most disgusting object, if put under amagnifying glass of sufficient power, would reveal beauties undreamedof, so even the most unlovely environment, the most cruel conditions, will, when viewed through the glass of a trained and disciplined mind, show something of the beautiful and the hopeful. A life that has beenrightly trained will extract sweetness from everything; it will seebeauty everywhere. 

Situated as we are in a world of beauty and sublimity, we have no rightto devote practically all of our energies and to sap all our lifeforces in the pursuit of selfish aims, in accumulating material wealth, in piling up dollars. It is our duty to treat life as a glory, not asa grind or a purely business transaction, dealing wholly with money andbread-and-butter questions. Wherever you are, put beauty into yourlife. 

CHAPTER LII

EDUCATION BY ABSORPTION

John Wanamaker was once asked to invest in an expedition to recoverfrom the Spanish Main doubloons which for half a century had lain atthe bottom of the sea in sunken frigates. 

"Young men, " he replied, "I know of a better expedition than this, right here. Near your own feet lie treasures untold; you can have themall by faithful study. 

"Let us not be content to mine the most coal, to make the largestlocomotives, to weave the largest quantities of carpets; but, amid thesounds of the pick, the blows of the hammer, the rattle of the looms, and the roar of the machinery, take care that the immortal mechanism ofGod's own hand--the mind--is still full-trained for the highest andnoblest service. "

The uneducated man is always placed at a great disadvantage. No matterhow much natural ability one may have, if he is ignorant, he isdiscounted. It is not enough to possess ability, it must be madeavailable by mental discipline. 

We ought to be ashamed to remain in ignorance in a land where theblind, the deaf and dumb, and even cripples and invalids, manage toobtain a good education. 

Many youths throw away little opportunities for self-culture becausethey cannot see great ones. They let the years slip by without anyspecial effort at self-improvement, until they are shocked in middlelife, or later, by waking up to the fact that they are still ignorantof what they ought to know. 

Everywhere we go we see men and women, especially from twenty-five toforty years of age, who are cramped and seriously handicapped by thelack of early training. I often get letters from such people, askingif it is possible for them to educate themselves so late in life. Ofcourse it is. There are so many good correspondence schools to-day, and institutions like Chautauqua, so many evening schools, lectures, books, libraries, and periodicals, that men and women who aredetermined to improve themselves have abundant opportunities to do so. 

While you lament the lack of an early education and think it too lateto begin, you may be sure that there are other young men and youngwomen not very far from you who are making great strides inself-improvement, though they may not have half as good an opportunityfor it as you have. 

The first thing to do is to make a resolution, strong, vigorous, anddetermined, that you are going to be an educated man or woman; that youare not going to go through life humiliated by ignorance; that, if youhave been deprived of early advantages, you are going to make up fortheir loss. Resolve that you will no longer be handicapped and placedat a disadvantage for that which you can remedy. 

You will find the whole world will change to you when you change yourattitude toward it. You will be surprised to see how quickly you canvery materially improve your mind after you have made a vigorousresolve to do so. Go about it with the same determination that youwould to make money or to learn a trade. There is a divine hunger inevery normal being for self-expansion, a yearning for growth orenlargement. Beware of stifling this craving of nature forself-unfoldment. 

Man was made for growth. It is the object, the explanation, of hisbeing. To have an ambition to grow larger and broader every day, topush the horizon of ignorance a little further away, to become a littlericher in knowledge, a little wiser, and more of a man--that is anambition worth while. It is not absolutely necessary that an educationshould be crowded into a few years of school life. The best-educatedpeople are those who are always learning, always absorbing knowledgefrom every possible source and at every opportunity. 

I know young people who have acquired a better education, a finerculture, through a habit of observation, or of carrying a book in thepocket to read at odd moments, or by taking courses in correspondenceschools, than many who have gone through college. Youths who are quickto catch at new ideas, and who are in frequent contact with superiorminds, not only often acquire a personal charm, but even, to aremarkable degree, develop mental power. 

The world is a great university. From the cradle to the grave we arealways in God's great kindergarten, where everything is trying to teachus its lesson; to give us its great secret. Some people are always atschool, always storing up precious bits of knowledge. Everything has alesson for them. It all depends upon the eye that can see, the mindthat can appropriate. 

Very few people ever learn how to use their eyes. They go through theworld with a superficial glance at things; their eye pictures are sofaint and so dim that details are lost and no strong impression is madeon the mind. Yet the eye was intended for a great educator. The brainis a prisoner, never getting out to the outside world. It depends uponits five or six servants, the senses, to bring it material, and thelarger part of it comes through the eye. The man who has learned theart of seeing things looks with his brain. 

I know a father who is training his boy to develop his powers ofobservation. He will send him out upon a street with which he is notfamiliar for a certain length of time, and then question him on hisreturn to see how many things he has observed. He sends him to theshow windows of great stores, to museums and other public places to seehow many of the objects he has seen the boy can recall and describewhen he gets home. The father says that this practise develops in theboy a habit of _seeing_ things, instead of merely _looking_ at them. 

When a new student went to the great naturalist, Professor Agassiz ofHarvard, he would give him a fish and tell him to look it over for halfan hour or an hour, and then describe to him what he saw. After thestudent thought he had told everything about the fish, the professorwould say, "You have not really seen the fish yet. Look at it a whilelonger, and then tell me what you see. " He would repeat this severaltimes, until the student developed a capacity for observation. 

If we go through life like an interrogation point, holding an alert, inquiring mind toward everything, we can acquire great mental wealth, wisdom which is beyond all material riches. 

Ruskin's mind was enriched by the observation of birds, insects, beasts, trees, rivers, mountains, pictures of sunset and landscape, andby memories of the song of the lark and of the brook. His brain heldthousands of pictures--of paintings, of architecture, of sculpture, awealth of material which he reproduced as a joy for all time. Everything gave up its lesson, its secret, to his inquiring mind. 

The habit of absorbing information of all kinds from others is ofuntold value. A man is weak and ineffective in proportion as hesecludes himself from his kind. There is a constant stream of power, acurrent of forces running to and fro between individuals who come incontact with one another, if they have inquiring minds. We are allgiving and taking perpetually when we associate together. The achieverto-day must keep in touch with the society around him; he must put hisfinger on the pulse of the great busy world and feel its throbbinglife. He must be a part of it, or there will be some lack in his life. 

A single talent which one can use effectively is worth more than tentalents imprisoned by ignorance. Education means that knowledge hasbeen assimilated and become a part of the person. It is the ability toexpress the power within one, to give out what one knows, that measuresefficiency and achievement. Pent-up knowledge is useless. 

People who feel their lack of education, and who can afford the outlay, can make wonderful strides in a year by putting themselves under goodtutors, who will direct their reading and study along different lines. 

The danger of trying to educate oneself lies in desultory, disconnected, aimless studying which does not give anything like thebenefit to be derived from the pursuit of a definite program forself-improvement. A person who wishes to educate himself at homeshould get some competent, well-trained person to lay out a plan forhim, which can only be effectively done when the adviser knows thevocation, the tastes, and the needs of the would-be student. Anyonewho aspires to an education, whether in country or city, can findsomeone to at least guide his studies; some teacher, clergyman, lawyer, or other educated person in the community to help him. 

There is one special advantage in self-education, --you can adapt yourstudies to your own particular needs better than you could in school orcollege. Everyone who reaches middle life without an education shouldfirst read and study along the line of his own vocation, and thenbroaden himself as much as possible by reading on other lines. 

One can take up, alone, many studies, such as history, Englishliterature, rhetoric, drawing, mathematics, and can also acquire byoneself, almost as effectively as with a teacher, a reading knowledgeof foreign languages. 

The daily storing up of valuable information for use later in life, thereading of books that will inspire and stimulate to greater endeavor, the constant effort to try to improve oneself and one's condition inthe world, are worth far more than a bank account to a youth. 

How many girls there are in this country who feel crippled by the factthat they have not been able to go to college. And yet they have thetime and the material close at hand for obtaining a splendid education, but they waste their talents and opportunities in frivolous amusementsand things which do not count in forceful character-building. 

It is not such a very great undertaking to get all the essentials of acollege course at home, or at least a fair substitute for it. Everyhour in which one focuses his mind vigorously upon his studies at homemay be as beneficial as the same time spent in college. 

Every well-ordered household ought to protect the time of those whodesire to study at home. At a fixed hour every evening during the longwinter there should be by common consent a quiet period for mentalconcentration, for what is worth while in mental discipline, a quiethour uninterrupted by time-thief callers. 

In thousands of homes where the members are devoted to each other, andshould encourage and help each other along, it is made almostimpossible for anyone to take up reading, studying, or any exercise forself-improvement. Perhaps someone is thoughtless and keepsinterrupting the others so that they can not concentrate their minds;or those who have nothing in common with your aims or your earnest lifedrop in to spend an evening in idle chatter. They have no idealsoutside of the bread-and-butter and amusement questions, and do notrealize how they are hindering you. 

There is constant temptation to waste one's evenings and it takes astout ambition and a firm resolution to separate oneself from a jolly, fun-loving, and congenial family circle, or happy-hearted youthfulcallers, in order to try to rise above the common herd of unambitiouspersons who are content to slide along, totally ignorant of everythingbut the requirements of their particular vocations. 

A habit of forcing yourself to fix your mind steadfastly andsystematically upon certain studies, even if only for periods of a fewminutes at a time, is, of itself, of the greatest value. This habithelps one to utilize the odds and ends of time which are unavailable tomost people because they have never been trained to concentrate themind at regular intervals. 

A good understanding of the possibilities that live in spare moments isa great success asset. 

The very reputation of always trying to improve yourself, of seizingevery opportunity to fit yourself for something better, the reputationof being dead-in-earnest, determined to be somebody and to do somethingin the world, would be of untold assistance to you. People like tohelp those who are trying to help themselves. They will throwopportunities in their way. Such a reputation is the best kind ofcapital to start with. 

One trouble with people who are smarting under the consciousness ofdeficient education is that they do not realize the immense value ofutilizing spare minutes. Like many boys who will not save theirpennies and small change because they can not see how a fortune couldever grow by the saving, they can not see how a little studying hereand there each day will ever amount to a good substitute for a collegeeducation. 

I know a young man who never even attended a high school, and yeteducated himself so superbly that he has been offered a professorshipin a college. Most of his knowledge was gained during his odds andends of time, while working hard at his vocation. Spare time meantsomething to him. 

The correspondence schools deserve very great credit for inducinghundreds of thousands of people, including clerks, mill operatives, andemployees of all kinds, to take their courses, and thus save for studythe odds and ends of time which otherwise would probably be thrownaway. We have heard of some most remarkable instances of rapidadvancement which these correspondence school students have made byreason of the improvement in their education. Many students havereaped a thousand per cent on their educational investment. It hassaved them years of drudgery and has shortened wonderfully the road totheir goal. 

Wisdom will not open her doors to those who are not willing to pay theprice in self-sacrifice, in hard work. Her jewels are too precious toscatter before the idle, the ambitionless. 

The very resolution to redeem yourself from ignorance at any cost isthe first great step toward gaining an education. 

Charles Wagner once wrote to an American regarding his little boy, "Mayhe know the price of the hours. God bless the rising boy who will dohis best, for never losing a bit of the precious and God-given time. "

There is untold wealth locked up in the long winter evenings and oddmoments ahead of you. A great opportunity confronts you. What willyou do with it?

CHAPTER LIII

THE POWER OF SUGGESTION

When plate-glass windows first came into use, Rogers, the poet, took asevere cold by sitting with his back to what he supposed was an openwindow in a dining-room but which was really plate-glass. All the timehe was eating he imagined he was taking cold, but he did not dare askto have the window closed. 

We little realize how much suggestion has to do with health. Ininnumerable instances people have been made seriously ill, sometimesfatally so, by others telling them how badly they looked, or suggestingthat they had inherited some fatal disease. 

A prominent New York business man recently told me of an experimentwhich the friends of a robust young man made upon him. It was arrangedthat, beginning in the morning, each one should tell him, when he cameto work, that he was not looking well, and ask him what the troublewas. They were to say it in a way that would not arouse hissuspicions, and note the result. At one o'clock this vigorous youngman had been so influenced by the suggestion that he quit work and wenthome, saying that he was sick. 

There have been many interesting experiments in the Paris hospitalsupon patients in a hypnotic trance, wounds being inflicted by mentalsuggestion. While a cold poker was laid across their limbs, forexample, the subjects were told that they were being seared with ared-hot iron, and immediately the flesh would have the appearance ofbeing severely burned. 

I have known patients to collapse completely at the sight of surgicalinstruments in the operating room. I have heard them say that theycould actually feel the cutting of the knife long before they took theanesthetic. 

Patients are often put to sleep by the injection into their arms of aweak solution of salt and water, which they are led to think ismorphia. Every physician of large experience knows that he can relieveor produce pain simply by suggestion. 

Many a physician sends patients to some famous resort not so much forthe waters or the air as for the miracle which the complete change ofthought effects. 

Even quacks and charlatans are able, by stimulating the hope of thosewho are sick, to produce marvelous cures. 

The mental attitude of the nurse has much to do with the recovery of asick person. If she holds the constant suggestion that the patientwill recover; if she stoutly affirms it, it will be a wonderfulrallying help to the forces which make for life. If, on the otherhand, she holds the conviction that he is going to die, she willcommunicate her belief, and this will consequently depress the patient. 

We are under the influence of suggestion every moment of our wakinglives. Everything we see, hear, feel, is a suggestion which produces aresult corresponding to its own nature. Its subtle power seems toreach and affect the very springs of life. 

The power of suggestion on expectant minds is often little less thanmiraculous. An invalid with a disappointed ambition, who thinks he hasbeen robbed of his chances in life and who has suffered for years, becomes all wrought up over some new remedy which is advertised to domarvels. He is in such an expectant state of mind that he is willingto make almost any sacrifice to obtain the wonderful remedy; and whenhe receives it, he is in such a receptive mood that he respondsquickly, and thinks it is the medicine which has worked the magic. 

Faith in one's physician is a powerful curative suggestion. Manypatients, especially those who are ignorant, believe that the physicianholds the keys of life and death. They have such implicit confidencein him that what he tells them has powerful influence upon them forgood or ill. 

The possibilities of healing power in the affirmative suggestion thatthe patient is going to get well are tremendous. The coming physicianwill constantly reassure his patient verbally, often vehemently, thathe is absolutely bound to recover; he will tell him that there is anomnipotent healing power within him, and that he gets a hint of this inthe power which heals a wound, and which refreshes, renews, andrecreates him during sleep. 

It is almost impossible for a patient to get well while people areconstantly reminding him how ill he looks. His will-power togetherwith all his physical recuperative forces could not counteract theeffect of the reiteration of the sick suggestion. 

Many a sick-room is made a chamber of horrors because of the depressingsuggestion which pervades it. Instead of being filled with sunshine, good cheer, and encouragement, it is often darkened, God's beautifulsunshine shut out; ventilation is poor; everybody has a sad, anxiousface; medicine bottles and surgical apparatus are spread about;everything is calculated to engender disease rather than to encouragehealth and inspire hope. Why, there is enough depressing suggestion insuch a place to make a perfectly well person ill!

What people need is encouragement, uplift, hope. Their naturalresisting powers should be strengthened and developed. Instead oftelling a friend in trouble, despair, or suffering that you feel verysorry for him, try to pull him out of his slough of despond, to arousethe latent recuperative, restorative energies within him. Picture tohim his God image, his better self, which, because it is a part of thegreat immortal principle, is never sick and never out of harmony, cannever be discordant or suffer. 

Right suggestion would prevent a great majority of our divorces. Greatinfatuation for another has been overcome by suggestion in numerousinstances. Many women have been thus cured of a foolish love forimpossible men, as in the case of girls who have become completelyinfatuated with the husband of a friend. Fallen women have beenentirely reclaimed, have been brought to see their better, finer, diviner selves through the power of suggestion. 

The suggestion which comes from a sweet, beautiful, charming characteris contagious and sometimes revolutionizes a whole neighborhood. Weall know how the suggestion of heroic deeds, great records, has arousedthe ambitions and stirred the energies of others to do likewise. Manya life has turned upon a few moments' conversation, upon a littleencouragement, upon the suggestion of an inspiring book. 

Many men who have made their impress upon history, who have leftcivilization a little higher, accomplished what they did largelybecause their ambition was aroused by suggestion; some book or someindividual gave them the first glimpse of their possibility and enabledthem to feel for the first time a thrill of the power within them. 

The suggestion of inferiority is one of the most difficult to overcome. Who can ever estimate the damage to humanity and the lives wreckedthrough it! I know men whose whole careers have been practicallyruined through the constant suggestion, while they were children, thatthey would never amount to anything. 

This suggestion of inferiority has made them so timid and shy and souncertain of themselves that they have never been able to assert theirindividuality. 

I knew a college student whose rank in his class entitled him to thehighest recognition, whose life was nearly ruined by suggestion; heoverheard some of his classmates say that he had no more dignity than agoose, and always made a very poor appearance; that under nocircumstances would they think of electing him as class orator, becausehe would make such an unfortunate impression upon an audience. He hadunusual ability, but his extreme diffidence, timidity, shyness, madehim appear awkward and sometimes almost foolish, --all of which he wouldundoubtedly have overgrown, had he not overheard the criticism of hisclassmates. He thought it meant that he was mentally inferior, andthis belief kept him back ever after. 

What a subtle power there is in the suggestion of the human voice!What emotions are aroused in us by its different modulations! How welaugh and cry, become indignant, revengeful, our feelings leaping fromone extreme to the other, according to the passion-freighted orlove-freighted words which reach our ear; how we sit spell-bound, withbated breath, before the great orator who is playing upon the emotionsof his audience, as a musician plays upon the strings of his harp, nowbringing out tears, now smiles, now pathos, now indignation! The powerof his word-painting makes a wonderful impression. A thousandlisteners respond to whatever he suggests. 

The voice is a great betrayer of our feelings and emotions. It istender when conveying love to our friends; cold, selfish, and without aparticle of sympathy during business transactions when we are trying toget the best of a bargain. 

How we are attracted by a gentle voice, and repulsed by one that isharsh! We all know how susceptible even dogs and horses are to thedifferent modulations of the human voice. They know the tone ofaffection; they are reassured and respond to it. But they arestricken with fear and trembling at the profanity of the master's rage. 

Some natures are powerfully affected by certain musical strains; theyare immediately lifted out of the deepest depression and despondencyinto ecstasy. Nothing has touched them; they have just merely felt asensation through the auditory nerve which aroused and awakened intoactivity certain brain cells and changed their whole mental attitude. 

Music has a decided influence upon the blood pressure in the arteries, and upon the respiration. We all know how it soothes, refreshes, andrests us when jaded and worried. When its sweet harmonies fill thesoul, all cares, worries, and anxieties fly away. 

George Eliot, in "The Mill on the Floss, " gives voice to what some ofus have often, doubtless, felt, when under its magic spell. "Certainstrains of music, " she says, "affect me so strangely that I can neverhear them without changing my whole attitude of mind for a time, and ifthe effect would last, I might be capable of heroism. "

Latimer, Ridley, and hundreds of others went to the stake actuallyrejoicing, the spectators wondering at the smile of ineffable peacewhich illumined their faces above the fierce glare of the flames, atthe hymns of praise and thanksgiving heard amid the roar of cracklingfagots. 

"No, we don't get sick, " said an actor, "because we can't get sick. Patti and a few other stars could afford that luxury, but to themajority of us it is denied. It is a case of 'must' with us; andalthough there have been times when, had I been at home, or a privateman, I could have taken to my bed with as good a right to be sick asany one ever had, I have not done so, and have worn off the attackthrough sheer necessity. It's no fiction that will power is the bestof tonics, and theatrical people understand that they must keep a goodstock of it always on hand. "

A tight-rope walker was so ill with lumbago that he could scarcelymove. But when he was advertised to appear, he summoned all his willpower, and traversed the rope several times with a wheelbarrow, according to the program. When through he doubled up and had to becarried to his bed, "as stiff as a frozen frog. "

Somewhere I have read a story of a poor fellow who went to hanghimself, but finding by chance a pot of money, he flung away the ropeand went hurriedly home. He who hid the gold, when he missed it, hanged himself with the rope which the other man had left. Success isa great tonic, and failure a great depressant. 

The successful attainment of what the heart longs for, as a rule, improves health and happiness. Generally we not only find our treasurewhere our heart is, but our health also. Who has not noticed men ofindifferent health, perhaps even invalids, and men who lacked energyand determination, suddenly become roused to a realization ofunthought-of powers and unexpected health upon attaining some signalsuccess? The same is sometimes true of persons in poor health who havesuddenly been thrown into responsible positions by death of parents orrelatives, or who, upon sudden loss of property, have been forced to dowhat they had thought impossible before. 

An education is a health tonic. Delicate boys and girls, whom parentsand friends thought entirely too slender to bear the strain, oftenimprove in health in school and college. Other things equal, intelligent, cultured, educated people enjoy the best health. There isfor the same reason a very intimate relation between health and morals. A house divided against itself can not stand. Intemperance, violationof chastity, and vice of all kinds are discordant notes in the humaneconomy which tend to destroy the great harmony of life. The body isbut a servant of the mind. A well-balanced, cultured, andwell-disciplined intellect reacts very powerfully upon the physique, and tends to bring it into harmony with itself. On the other hand, aweak, vacillating, one-sided, unsteady, and ignorant mind willultimately bring the body into sympathy with it. Every pure anduplifting thought, every noble aspiration for the good and the true, every longing of the heart for a higher and better life, every loftypurpose and unselfish endeavor, reacts upon the body, makes itstronger, more harmonious, and more beautiful. 

"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. " The body is molded andfashioned by the thought. If a young woman were to try to make herselfbeautiful, she would not begin by contemplating ugliness, or dwellingupon the monstrosities of vice, for their hideous images would bereproduced in her own face and manners. Nor would she try to makeherself graceful by practising awkwardness. We can never gain healthby contemplating disease any more than we can reach perfection bydwelling upon imperfection, or harmony through discord. 

We should _keep a high ideal of health and harmony constantly beforethe mind_; and we should fight every discordant thought and every enemyof harmony as we would fight a temptation to crime. _Never affirm orrepeat about your health what you do not wish to be true_. Do notdwell upon your ailments nor study your symptoms. Never allow yourselfto think that you are not complete master of yourself. Stoutly affirmyour own superiority over bodily ills, and do not acknowledge yourselfthe slave of an inferior power. 

The mind has undoubted power to preserve and sustain physical youth andbeauty, to keep the body strong and healthy, to renew life, and topreserve it from decay, many years longer than it does now. Thelongest lived men and women have, as a rule, been those who haveattained great mental and moral development. They have lived in theupper region of a higher life, beyond the reach of much of the jar, thefriction, and the discords which weaken and shatter most lives. 

Many nervous diseases have been cured by music, while others have beengreatly retarded in their development by it. Anything which keeps themind off our troubles tends to restore harmony throughout the body. 

It is a great thing to form a habit, acquire a reputation, of alwaystalking up and never down, of seeing good things and never bad, ofencouraging and never discouraging, and of always being optimisticabout everything. 

"Send forth loving, stainless, and happy thoughts, and blessings willflow into your hands; send forth hateful, impure, and unhappy thoughts, and curses will rain down upon you and fear and unrest will wait uponyour pillow. "

There is no one principle that is abused to-day in the business worldmore than the law of suggestion. Everywhere in this country we see thepathetic victims of those who make a business of overpowering andcontrolling weaker minds. Thus is suggestion carried even to the pointof hypnotism as is illustrated by unscrupulous salesmen and promoters. 

If a person steals the property of another he is imprisoned, but if hehypnotizes his victim by projecting his own strong trained thought intothe innocent, untrained, unsuspecting victim's mind, overcomes hisobjections, and induces him voluntarily to buy the thing he does notwant and can not afford to buy, perhaps impoverishing himself for yearsso that he and his family suffer for the necessities of life, no lawcan stop him. It would be better and should be considered lesscriminal for a man to go into a home and steal articles of value thanto overpower the minds of the heads of poor families and hypnotize theminto signing contracts for what they have really no right and are notable to buy. 

Solicitors often command big salaries because of their wonderfulpersonal magnetism and great powers of persuasion. The time will comewhen many of these "marvelous persuaders, " with long heads cunninglytrained, traveling about the country, hypnotizing their subjects androbbing them of their hard-earned money, will be regarded as criminals. 

On the other hand, suggestion is used for practical good in businesslife. 

It is now a common practise in many concerns to put in the hands oftheir employees inspiring books and to republish in pamphlet formspecial articles from magazines and periodicals which are calculated tostir the employees to new endeavor, to arouse them to greater actionand make them more ambitious to do bigger things. Schools ofsalesmanship are using very extensively the psychology of business andare giving all sorts of illustrations which will spur men to greaterefficiency. 

The up-to-date merchant shows his knowledge of the power of suggestionfor customers by his fascinating show-windows and display ofmerchandise. 

The restaurant keeper knows the power of suggestion of delicious viandsupon the appetite, and we often see tempting dishes and articles offood displayed in the window or in the restaurant where the eye willcarry the magic suggestion to the brain. 

A person who has been reared in luxury and refinement would be soaffected by the suggestion of uncleanliness and disorderliness in acheap Bowery eating-place that he would lose the keenest appetite. If, however, the same food, cooked in the same way, could be transferred toone of the luxurious Broadway restaurants and served upon delicatechina and spotless linen with entrancing music, the entire conditionwould be reversed. The new suggestion would completely reverse themental and physical conditions. 

The suggestion of the ugly suspicions of a whole nation so overpoweredDreyfus during his trial that it completely neutralized hisindividuality, overbalanced his consciousness of innocence. His wholemanner was that of a guilty person, so that many of his friendsactually believed him guilty. After the verdict, in the presence of avast throng which had gathered to see him publicly disgraced, when hisbuttons and other insignia of office were torn from his uniform, hissword taken from him and broken, and the people were hissing, jeering, and hurling all sorts of anathemas at him, no criminal could haveexhibited more evidence of guilt. The radiations of the guiltysuggestion from millions of people completely over-powered his ownmentality, his individuality, and, although he was absolutely innocent, his appearance and manner gave every evidence of the treason he wasaccused of. 

There is no suggestion so fatal, so insinuating, as that of impurity. Vast multitudes of people have fallen victims to this vicious, subtle, fatal poison. 

Who can depict the tragedies which have been caused by immoral, impuresuggestion conveyed to minds which were absolutely pure, which havenever before felt the taint of contamination? The subtle poisoninginfused through the system makes the entrance of the succeeding vicioussuggestions easier and easier, until finally the whole moral systembecomes saturated with the poison. 

There is a wonderful illustration of the power of suggestion in theexperience of what are called the Stigmatists. These nuns who foryears concentrated all of their efforts in trying to live the life thatChrist did, to enter into all of His sufferings, so completelyconcentrated all of their energies upon the Christ suffering, and sovividly pictured the wounds in their imaginations, that their thoughtreally changed the chemical and physical structure of the tissues andthey actually reproduced the nail marks in the hands and feet and thespear wound as in the side of the crucified Christ. 

These nuns devoted their lives to this reproduction of the physicalevidences of the crucifixion. The fixing of the mind for a long periodof time upon the wounds of the hands, feet, and the side, were sovivid, so concentrated, that the picture was made real in their ownflesh. In addition to the mental picturing, they kept constantlybefore them the physical picture of the crucified Christ, which madetheir mental picture all the more vivid and concentrated. Thereligious ecstasy was so intense that they could actually see Christbeing crucified, and this mental attitude was outpictured in the flesh. 

CHAPTER LIV

THE CURSE OF WORRY

This monster dogs us from the cradle to the grave. There is nooccasion so sacred but it is there. Unbidden it comes to the weddingand the funeral alike. It is at every reception, every banquet; itoccupies a seat at every table. 

No human intellect can estimate the unutterable havoc and ruin wroughtby worry. It has ever forced genius to do the work of mediocrity; ithas caused more failures, more broken hearts, more blasted hopes, thanany other one cause since the dawn of the world. 

_Did you ever hear of any good coming to any human being from worry_?Did it ever help anybody to better his condition? Does it notalways--everywhere--do just the opposite by impairing the health, exhausting the vitality, lessening efficiency?

What have not men done under the pressure of worry! They have plungedinto all sorts of vice; have become drunkards, drug fiends; have soldtheir very souls in their efforts to escape this monster. 

Think of the homes which it has broken up; the ambitions it has ruined;the hopes and prospects it has blighted! Think of the suicide victimsof this demon! If there is any devil in existence, is it not worry, with all its attendant progeny of evils?

Yet, in spite of all the tragic evils that follow in its wake, avisitor from another world would get the impression that worry is oneof our dearest, most helpful friends, so closely do we hug it toourselves and so loath are we to part from it. 

Is it not unaccountable that people who know perfectly well thatsuccess and happiness both depend on keeping themselves in condition toget the most possible out of their energies should harbor in theirminds the enemy of this very success and happiness? Is it not strangethat they should form this habit of anticipating evils that willprobably never come, when they know that anxiety and fretting will notonly rob them of peace of mind and strength and ability to do theirwork, but also of precious years of life?

No man can utilize his normal power who dissipates his nervous energyin useless anxiety. Nothing will sap one's vitality and blight one'sambition or detract from one's real power in the world more than theworrying habit. 

Work kills no one, but worry has killed vast multitudes. It is not thedoing things which injures us so much as the dreading to do them--notonly performing them mentally over and over again, but anticipatingsomething disagreeable in their performance. 

Many of us approach an unpleasant task in much the same condition as arunner who begins his start such a long distance away that by the timehe reaches his objective point--the ditch or the stream which is totest his agility--he is too exhausted to jump across. Worry not onlysaps vitality and wastes energy, but it also seriously affects thequality of one's work. It cuts down ability. A man can not get thehighest quality of efficiency into his work when his mind is troubled. The mental faculties must have perfect freedom before they will giveout their best. A troubled brain can not think clearly, vigorously, and logically. The attention can not be concentrated with anythinglike the same force when the brain cells are poisoned with anxiety aswhen they are fed by pure blood and are clean and unclouded. The bloodof chronic worriers is vitiated with poisonous chemical substances andbroken-down tissues, according to Professor Elmer Gates and other notedscientists, who have shown that the passions and the harmful emotionscause actual chemical changes in the secretions and generate poisonoussubstances in the body which are fatal to healthy growth and action. 

One of the worst forms of worry is the brooding over failure. Itblights the ambition, deadens the purpose and defeats the very objectthe worrier has in view. 

Some people have the unfortunate habit of brooding over their pastlives, castigating themselves for their shortcomings and mistakes, until their whole vision is turned backward instead of forward, andthey see everything in a distorted light, because they are looking onlyon the shadow side. 

The longer the unfortunate picture which has caused trouble remains inthe mind, the more thoroughly it becomes imbedded there, and the moredifficult it is to remove it. 

Are we not convinced that a power beyond our control runs the universe, that every moment of worry detracts from our success capital and makesour failure more probable; that every bit of anxiety and fretfulnessleaves its mark on the body, interrupts the harmony of our physical andmental well-being, and cripples efficiency, and that this condition isat war with our highest endeavor?

Is it not strange that people will persist in allowing little worries, petty vexations, and unnecessary frictions to grind life away at such afearful rate that old age stares them in the face in middle life? Lookat the women who are shriveled and shrunken and aged at thirty, notbecause of the hard work they have done, or the real troubles they havehad, but because of habitual fretting, which has helped nobody, but hasbrought discord and unhappiness to their homes. 

Somewhere I read of a worrying woman who made a list of possibleunfortunate events and happenings which she felt sure would come topass and be disastrous to her happiness and welfare. The list waslost, and to her amazement, when she recovered it, a long timeafterwards, she found that not a single unfortunate prediction in thewhole catalogue of disasters had been realized. 

Is not this a good suggestion for worriers? Write down everythingwhich you think is going to turn out badly, and then put the listaside. You will be surprised to see what a small percentage of thedoleful things ever come to pass. 

It is a pitiable thing to see vigorous men and women, who haveinherited godlike qualities and who bear the impress of divinity, wearing anxious faces and filled with all sorts of fear anduncertainty, worrying about yesterday, to-day, to-morrow--everythingimaginable. 

"Fear runs like a baleful thread through the whole web of life frombeginning to end, " says Dr. Holcomb. "We are born into the atmosphereof fear and dread, and the mother who bore us had lived in the sameatmosphere for weeks and months before we were born. We are afraid ofour parents, afraid of our teachers, afraid of our playmates, afraid ofghosts, afraid of rules and regulations and punishments, afraid of thedoctor, the dentist, the surgeon. Our adult life is a state of chronicanxiety, which is fear in a milder form. We are afraid of failure inbusiness, afraid of disappointments and mistakes, afraid of enemies, open or concealed; afraid of poverty, afraid of public opinion, afraidof accidents, of sickness, of death, and unhappiness after death. Manis like a haunted animal from the cradle to the grave, the victim ofreal or imaginary fears, not only his own, but those reflected upon himfrom the superstitions, self-deceptions, sensory illusions, falsebeliefs, and concrete errors of the whole human race, past and present. "

Most of us are foolish children, afraid of our shadows, so handicappedin a thousand ways that we can not get efficiency into our life work. 

A man who is filled with fear is not a real man. He is a puppet, amannikin, an apology of a man. 

Quit fearing things that may never happen, just as you would quit anybad practise which has caused you suffering. Fill your mind withcourage, hope, and confidence. 

Do not wait until fear thoughts become intrenched in your mind and yourimagination. Do not dwell upon them. Apply the antidote instantly, and the enemies will flee. There is no fear so great or intrenched sodeeply in the mind that it can not be neutralized or entirelyeradicated by its opposite. The opposite suggestion will kill it. 

Once Dr. Chalmers was riding on a stage-coach beside the driver, and henoticed that John kept hitting the off leader a severe crack with hiswhip. When he asked him why he did this, John answered: "Away yonderthere is a white stone; that off leader is afraid of that stone; so bythe crack of my whip and the pain in his legs I want to get his mindoff from it. " Dr. Chalmers went home, elaborated the idea, and wrote"The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. " You must drive out fear byputting a new idea into the mind. 

Fear, in any of its expressions, like worry or anxiety, can not live aninstant in your mind in the presence of the opposite thought, the imageof courage, fearlessness, confidence, hope, self-assurance, self-reliance. Fear is a consciousness of weakness. It is only whenyou doubt your ability to cope with the thing you dread that fear ispossible. Fear of disease, even, comes from a consciousness that youwill not be able to successfully combat it. 

During an epidemic of a dreaded contagious disease, people who areespecially susceptible and full of fear become panic-stricken throughthe cumulative effect of hearing the subject talked about and discussedon every hand and the vivid pictures which come from reading thenewspapers. Their minds (as in the case of yellow fever) become fullof images of the disease, of its symptoms--black vomit, delirium, --andof death, mourning, and funerals. 

If you never accomplish anything else in life, get rid of worry. Thereare no greater enemies of harmony than little anxieties and pettycares. Do not flies aggravate a nervous horse more than his work? Donot little naggings, constantly touching him with the whip, or jerkingat the reins, fret and worry him much more than the labor of drawingthe carriage?

It is the little pin-pricks, the petty annoyances of our everyday life, that mar our comfort and happiness and rob us of more strength than thegreat troubles which we nerve ourselves to meet. It is the perpetualscolding and fault-finding of an irritable man or woman which ruins theentire peace and happiness of many a home. 

The most deplorable waste of energy in human life is caused by thefatal habit of anticipating evil, of fearing what the future has instore for us, and under no circumstances can the fear or worry bejustified by the situation, for it is always an imaginary one, utterlygroundless and without foundation. 

What we fear is invariably something that has not yet happened. Itdoes not exist; hence is not a reality. If you are actually sufferingfrom a disease you have feared, then fear only aggravates every painfulfeature of your illness and makes its fatal issue more probable. 

The fear habit shortens life, for it impairs all the physiologicalprocesses. Its power is shown by the fact that it actually changes thechemical composition of the secretions of the body. Fear victims notonly age prematurely but they also die prematurely. All work done whenone is suffering from a sense of fear or foreboding has littleefficiency. Fear strangles originality, daring, boldness; it killsindividuality, and weakens all the mental processes. Great things arenever done under a sense of fear of some impending danger. Fear alwaysindicates weakness, the presence of cowardice. What a slaughterer ofyears, what a sacrificer of happiness and ambitions, what a miner ofcareers this monster has been! The Bible says, "A broken spirit drieththe bones. " It is well known that mental depression--melancholy--willcheck very materially the glandular secretions of the body andliterally dry up the tissues. 

Fear depresses normal mental action, and renders one incapable ofacting wisely in an emergency, for no one can think clearly and actwisely when paralyzed by fear. 

When a man becomes melancholy and discouraged about his affairs, whenhe is filled with fear that he is going to fail, and is haunted by thespecter of poverty and a suffering family, before he realizes it, heattracts the very thing he dreads, and the prosperity is crushed out ofhis business. But he is a _mental_ failure first. 

If, instead of giving up to his fear, a man would _persist in keepingprosperity in his mind_, assume a hopeful, optimistic attitude, andwould conduct his business in a systematic, economical, far-sightedmanner, actual failure would be comparatively rare. But when a manbecomes discouraged, when he loses heart and grip, and becomespanic-stricken and a victim of worry, he is not in a position to makethe effort which is absolutely necessary to bring victory, and there isa shrinkage all along the line. 

There is not a single redeeming feature about worry or any of itsnumerous progeny. It is always, everywhere, an unmitigated curse. Although there is no reality in fear, no truth behind it, yeteverywhere we see people who are slaves to this monster of theimagination. 

CHAPTER LV

TAKE A PLEASANT THOUGHT TO BED WITH YOU

Shut off your mental steam when you quit work. Lock up your businesswhen you lock up your office or factory at night. Don't drag it intoyour home to mar your evening or to distress your sleep. 

You can not afford to allow the enemies of your peace and happiness toetch their black pictures deeper and deeper into your consciousness. 

Many people lie down to sleep as the camels lie down in the desert, with their packs still on their backs. They do not seem to know how tolay down their burdens, and their minds go on working a large part ofthe night. If you are inclined to worry during the night, to keep yourmental faculties on the strain, taut, it will be a good plan for you tohave a bow in your bedroom and unstring it every night as a reminderthat you should also unstring your mind so that it will not lose itsspringing power. The Indian knows enough to unstring his bow just assoon as he uses it so that it will not lose its resilience. 

If a man who works hard all day uses his brain a large part of thenight, doing his work over and over again, he gets up in the morningweary, jaded. Instead of having a clear, vigorous brain capable ofpowerfully focusing his mind, he approaches his work with all hisstandards down, and with about as much chance of winning as a racehorse who has been driven all night before a contest would have. Noteven a man with the will of a Napoleon could win out under suchconditions. 

It is of the utmost importance to stop the grinding, rasping process inthe brain at night and to keep from wearing life away and wasting one'sprecious vitality. 

Many people become slaves to night worry. They get into a chronichabit of thinking after they retire--especially of contemplating theirtroubles and trials, --and it is a very difficult habit to break. 

It is fundamental to sound health to make it a rule never to discussbusiness troubles and things that vex and irritate one at night, especially just before retiring, for whatever is dominant in the mindwhen one falls asleep continues its influence on the nervous structurelong into the night. 

Some people age more at night than during the daytime, when, it wouldappear, if they must worry at all, the reverse ought to be true. Whenhard at work during the day they do not have much time to think oftheir ailments, their business troubles, their misfortunes. But whenthey retire, the whole brood of troubling thoughts and worry ghostsfill the mind with horrors. They grow older instead of younger, asthey would under the influence of sound, refreshing sleep. 

Mental discord saps vitality, lessens courage, shortens life. It doesnot pay to indulge in violent temper, corroding thoughts, mentaldiscord in any form. Life is too short, too precious, to spend anypart of it in such unprofitable, soul-racking, health-destroyingbusiness. The imagination is particularly active at night, and allunpleasant, disagreeable things seem a great deal worse then than inthe day, because in the silence and darkness imagination magnifieseverything. We have all dreamed of the evening's experience, after wewent to sleep: perhaps it is the refrain of a song or the intensesituation in a play which we live over again. This shows how powerfulimpressions are; how important it is never to retire to rest in a fitof temper, or in an ugly, unpleasant mood. We should get ourselvesinto mental harmony, should become serene and quiet before retiring, and, if possible, lie down smiling, no matter how long it may take tosecure this condition. Never retire with a frown on your brow; with aperplexed, troubled, vexed expression. Smooth out the wrinkles; driveaway all the enemies of your peace of mind, and never allow yourself togo to sleep with critical, cruel, jealous thoughts toward any one. 

It is bad enough to feel inimical toward others when under severeprovocation or in a hot temper, but you certainly can not afforddeliberately to continue this state of mind after the provocation hasceased. The wear and tear upon your nervous system and your healthtakes too much out of you. 

Be at peace with all the world at least once every twenty-four hours. You can not afford to allow the enemies of your happiness and yourmanhood or womanhood to etch their miserable images deeper and deeperinto your life and character as you sleep. 

Many of us with crotchety, sour dispositions and quick temperssometimes have very hard work to be decent in our treatment of others. But we can, at least when we are alone, and away from the people whonettle and antagonize us, forget injuries, quit harboring unpleasantthoughts and hard feelings toward others. 

It is a great thing to form a habit of forgetting and forgiving beforegoing to sleep, of clearing the mind of all happiness and successenemies. If we have been impulsive, foolish, or wicked during the dayin our treatment of others; if we have been holding a vicious, ugly, revengeful, jealous attitude toward others, it is a good time to wipeoff the slate and start anew. It is a blessed thing to put intopractise St. Paul's exhortation to the Ephesians: "Let not the sun godown upon your wrath. "

If you wish to wake up feeling refreshed and renewed, you simply mustretire in a happy, forgiving, cheerful mood. If you go to sleep in anugly mood or while worrying or depressed, you will wake up tired, exhausted and with no elasticity or spring in your brain or buoyancy inyour spirits, for the blood poisoned by worry, by discordant mood, isincapable of refreshing the brain. 

If you have a grudge against another, forget it, wipe it out, erase itcompletely, and substitute a charitable love thought, a kindly, generous thought, before you fall asleep. If you make a habit ofclearing the mind every night of its enemies, of driving them all outbefore you go to sleep, your slumber will be undisturbed by hideousdreams and you will rise refreshed, renewed. 

Clean your mental house before retiring. Throw out everything thatcauses you pain, everything that is disagreeable, undesirable; allunkind thoughts of anger, hatred, jealousy, all selfish, uncharitablethoughts. Do not allow them to print their black hideous pictures uponyour mind. And when you have let go of all the rubbish and have sweptand dusted and garnished your mind, fill it full of the pleasantest, sweetest, happiest, most helpful, encouraging, upliftingthought-pictures possible. 

An evening-happiness bath ought to be the custom in every home. A bathof love and good-will toward every living creature is more importantthan a water bath. 

We should fall asleep in the most cheerful, the happiest possible frameof mind. Our minds should be filled with lofty thoughts--with thoughtsof love and of helpfulness--thoughts which will continue to create thatwhich is helpful and uplifting, which will renew the soul and help usto awake in the morning refreshed and in superb condition for the day'swork. 

If you have any difficulty in banishing unpleasant or torturingthoughts, force yourself to read some good, inspiring book--somethingthat will smooth out your wrinkles and put you in a happy mood;something that will make you see the real grandeur and beauty of life;something that will make you feel ashamed of petty meannesses andnarrow, uncharitable thoughts. 

After a little practise, you will be surprised to see how quickly andcompletely you can change your whole mental attitude so that you willface life the right way before you fall asleep. 

You will be surprised also to find how wonderfully serene, calm, refreshed, and rejuvenated you will be when you wake in the morning, and how much easier it will be to start right, and wear a smile thatwon't come off during the day, than it was when you went to bed in anill-humored, worrying or ugly mood, or full of ungenerous, uncharitablethoughts. 

Unless you tune your mind to harmony for sleep, there will be aconstant strain upon the nervous system. Even if you do manage to goto sleep with a troubled mind, the brain keeps on working and you willwake up exhausted. 

We should take special pains to erase the memory of all unfortunateexperiences of the day, all domestic business or professional troublesand anxieties, in order to retire in a placid, peaceful, harmoniousstate of mind; not only because of the necessity of rising refreshedand invigorated in the morning, but because the character and thedisposition are affected by the condition of the mind upon fallingasleep. Mental discords not only prevent sound sleep but also leave inthe blood poisonous waste from the chemical changes which in turn dullsand impairs the brain action. 

Many business men suffer so much torture at night that some of themactually dread to retire because of the long, tedious, wakeful hours. Financial troubles are particularly exaggerated at night; and even manyoptimists suffer more or less from pessimism then. 

Business men ought to know how to turn off brain power when they arenot using it. They would not think of leaving or closing theirfactories at night without turning off the machinery power. Why shouldthey then attempt to go to sleep without turning off their mentalpower? It is infinitely important to one's health to turn off mentalpower when not actually using it to produce something. 

When you get through your regular day's work, why allow your preciousenergy to dribble away in little worries? Why carry your businesshome, take it to bed with you, and waste your life forces inineffective thinking? Why permit a great leakage of mental energy anda waste of life-force? You must learn to shut off mental steam whenyou quit work. 

Many men use up almost as much mental energy in the evening and in arestless night as during their actual work in the day. 

Refresh, renew, rejuvenate yourself by play and pleasant recreation. Play as hard as you work; have a jolly good time, and then you will getthat refreshing, invigorating sleep which gives an overplus of energy, a buoyancy of spirit which will make you eager to plunge into the nextday's work. 

No matter how tired or busy you are, or how late you retire, make it arule never to go to sleep without erasing every unfortunate impression, every disagreeable experience, every unkind thought, every particle ofenvy, jealousy, and selfishness, from the mind. _Just imagine that thewords "harmony, " "good cheer, " and "good will to every living creature"are written all over your sleeping room in letters of light_. 

People who have learned the art of putting themselves into harmony withall the world before they retire, of never harboring a thought ofjealousy, hatred, envy, revenge, or ill-will of any kind against anyhuman being, get a great deal more out of sleep and retain their youthmuch longer and are much more efficient than those who have the habitof reviewing their disagreeable experiences and thinking about alltheir troubles and trials in the night. 

Make it a rule to put the mind into harmony and a good-will attitudewhen retiring, and you will be surprised to see how much fresher, younger, stronger and more normal you will become. 

I know people whose lives have been completely revolutionized by thisexperiment of putting themselves in tune before going to sleep. Formerly they were in the habit of retiring in a bad mood; tired, discouraged over anticipated evils and all sorts of worries andanxieties. They would worry over the bad things in their business, theunfortunate conditions in their affairs, and their mistakes, and woulddiscuss their misfortunes at night with their wives. The result wasthat their minds were in an upset condition when they fell asleep, andthese melancholy, black, ugly pictures, so exaggerated in awfulvividness in the stillness, became etched deeper and deeper into theirminds, and they awoke in the morning weary and exhausted, instead offeeling, as every one should, like a newly-made creature with freshambition and invigorated determination. 

Form the habit of making a call upon the Great Within of you beforeretiring. Leave the message of up-lift, of self-betterment, self-enlargement, which you yearn for and long to realize but do notknow how to bring about. Registering this call, this demand forsomething higher and nobler, in your subconsciousness, _putting itright up to yourself_, will work like a leaven during the night; andafter a while all the building forces within you will help to unite infurthering your aim; in helping you to realize your vision. 

There are marvelous possibilities for health building, successbuilding, happiness building, in the preparation of the mind beforegoing to sleep by impressing, declaring, picturing as vividly aspossible our ideals of ourselves, what we would like to become and whatwe long to accomplish. You will be surprised to see how quickly thatwonderful force in your subjective self will begin to shape thepattern, to copy the model which you thus give it. In these greatinterior creative, restorative forces lies the great secret of life. Blessed is he who findeth it. 

CHAPTER LVI

THE CONQUEST OF POVERTY

No one can become prosperous while he really expects or half expects toremain poor. We tend to get what we expect, and to expect nothing isto get nothing. 

When every step you take is on the road to failure, how can you hope toarrive at the success goal?

Prosperity begins in the mind and is impossible while the mentalattitude is hostile to it. It is fatal to work for one thing and toexpect something else, because everything must be created mentallyfirst and is bound to follow its mental pattern. 

Most people do not face life in the right way. They neutralize a largepart of their effort because their mental attitude does not correspondwith their endeavor, so that while working for one thing they arereally expecting something else. They discourage, drive away, the verything they are pursuing by holding the wrong mental attitude towardsit. They do not approach their work with that assurance of victorywhich attracts, which forces results, that determination and confidencewhich knows no defeat. 

To be ambitious for wealth and yet always expecting to be poor, to bealways doubting your ability to get what you long for, is like tryingto reach East by traveling West. There is no philosophy which willhelp a man to succeed when he is always doubting his ability to do so, and thus attracting failure. 

The man who would succeed must think success, must think upward. Hemust think progressively, creatively, constructively, inventively, and, above all, optimistically. 

You will go in the direction in which you face. If you look towardspoverty, towards lack, you will go that way. If, on the other hand, you turn squarely around and refuse to have anything to do withpoverty, --to think it, --live it, or recognize it--you will then beginto make progress towards the goal of plenty. 

As long as you radiate doubt and discouragement, you will be a failure. If you want to get away from poverty, you must keep your mind in aproductive, creative condition. In order to do this you must thinkconfident, cheerful, creative thoughts. The model must precede thestatue. _You must see a new world before you can live in it_. 

If the people who are down in the world, who are side-tracked, whobelieve that their opportunity has gone forever, that they can neverget on their feet again, only knew the power of reversal of theirthought, they could easily get a new start. 

If you would attract good fortune you must get rid of doubt. As longas that stands between you and your ambition, it will be a bar thatwill cut you off. You must have faith. No man can make a fortunewhile he is convinced that he can't. The "I can't" philosophy haswrecked more careers than almost anything else. Confidence is themagic key that unlocks the door of supply. 

I never knew a man to be successful who was always talking aboutbusiness being bad. The habit of looking down, talking down, is fatalto advancement. 

The Creator has bidden every man to look up, not down. He made him toclimb, not to grovel. _There is no providence which keeps a man inpoverty, or in painful or distressing circumstances_. 

The Creator never put vast multitudes of people on this earth toscramble for a limited supply, as though He were not able to furnishenough for all. There is nothing in this world which men desire andstruggle for, and that is good for them, of which there is not enoughfor everybody. 

Take the thing we need most--food. We have not begun to scratch thepossibilities of the food supply in America. 

The State of Texas could supply food, home, and luxuries to every man, woman, and child on this continent. As for clothing, there is materialenough in the country to clothe all its inhabitants in purple and finelinen. We have not begun yet to touch the possibilities of ourclothing and dress supply. The same is true of all of the othernecessities and luxuries. We are still on the outer surface ofabundance, a surface covering kingly supplies for every individual onthe globe. 

[Illustration: William McKinley]

When the whale ships in New Bedford Harbor and other ports were rottingin idleness, because the whale was becoming extinct, Americans becamealarmed lest we should dwell in darkness; but the oil wells came to ourrescue with abundant supply. And then, when we began to doubt thatthis source would last, Science gave us the electric light. 

There is building material enough to give every person on the globe amansion finer than any that a Vanderbilt or Rothschild possesses. Itwas intended that we should all be rich and happy; that we should havean abundance of all the good things the heart can crave. We shouldlive in the realization that there is an abundance of power where ourpresent power comes from, and that we can draw upon this great sourcefor as much as we can use. 

There is something wrong when the children of the King of kings goabout like sheep hounded by a pack of wolves. There is something wrongwhen those who have inherited infinite supply are worrying about theirdaily bread; are dogged by fear and anxiety so that they can not takeany peace; that their lives are one battle with want; that they arealways under the harrow of worry, always anxious. There is somethingwrong when people are so worried and absorbed in making a living thatthey can not make a life. 

We were made for happiness, to express joy and gladness, to beprosperous. The trouble with us is that we do not trust the law ofinfinite supply, but close our natures so that abundance cannot flow tous. In other words, we do not obey the law of attraction. We keep ourminds so pinched and our faith in ourselves so small, so narrow, thatwe strangle the inflow of supply. Abundance follows a law as strict asthat of mathematics. If we obey it, we get the flow; if we strangleit, we cut it off. The trouble is not in the supply; there isabundance awaiting everyone on the globe. 

Prosperity begins in the mind, and is impossible with a mental attitudewhich is hostile to it. We can not attract opulence mentally by apoverty-stricken attitude which is driving away what we long for. Itis fatal to work for one thing and to expect something else. No matterhow much one may long for prosperity, a miserable, poverty-stricken, mental attitude will close all the avenues to it. The weaving of theweb is bound to follow the pattern. Opulence and prosperity can notcome in through poverty-thought and failure-thought channels. Theymust be created mentally first. We must think prosperity before we cancome to it. 

How many take it for granted that there are plenty of good things inthis world for others, comforts, luxuries, fine houses, good clothes, opportunity for travel, leisure, but not for them! They settle downinto the conviction that these things do not belong to them, but arefor those in a very different class. 

But why are you in a different class? Simply because you thinkyourself into another class; think yourself into inferiority; becauseyou place limits for yourself. You put up bars between yourself andplenty. You cut off abundance, make the law of supply inoperative foryou, by shutting your mind to it. _And by what law can you expect toget what you believe you can not get_? _By what philosophy can youobtain the good things of the world when you are thoroughly convincedthat they are not for you_?

_One of the greatest curses of the world is the belief in the necessityof poverty_. Most people have a strong conviction that some mustnecessarily be poor; that they were made to be poor. But there was nopoverty, no want, no lack, in the Creator's plan for man. There neednot be a poor person on the planet. The earth is full of resourceswhich we have scarcely yet touched. We have been poor in the verymidst of abundance, simply because of our own blighting limitingthought. 

We are discovering that thoughts are things, that they are incorporatedinto the life and form part of the character, and if we harbor the fearthought, the lack thought, if we are afraid of poverty, of coming towant, this poverty thought, fear thought incorporates itself in thevery life texture and makes us the magnet to attract more poverty likeitself. 

It was not intended that we should have such a hard time getting aliving, that we should just manage to squeeze along, to get together afew comforts, to spend about all of our time making a living instead ofmaking a life. The life abundant, full, free, beautiful, was intendedfor us. 

Let us put up a new image, a new ideal of plenty, of abundance. Havewe not worshiped the God of poverty, of lack, of want, about longenough? Let us hold the thought that God is our great supply, that ifwe can keep in tune, in close touch with Him, so that we can feel ourat-one-ness with Him, the great Source of all supply, abundance willflow to us and we shall never again know want. 

There is nothing which the human race lacks so much as unquestioned, implicit confidence in the divine source of all supply. We ought tostand in the same relation to the Infinite Source as the child does toits parents. The child does not say, "I do not dare eat this food forfear that I may not get any more. " It takes everything with absoluteconfidence and assurance that all its needs will be supplied, thatthere is plenty more where these things came from. 

We do not have half good enough opinions of our possibilities; do notexpect half enough of ourselves; we do not demand half enough, hencethe meagerness, the stinginess of what we actually get. We do notdemand the abundance which belongs to us, hence the leanness, the lackof fulness, the incompleteness of our lives. We do not demand royallyenough. We are content with too little of the things worth while. _Itwas intended that we should live the abundant life_, that we shouldhave plenty of everything that is good for us. No one was meant tolive in poverty and wretchedness. _The lack of anything that isdesirable is not natural to the constitution of any human being_. 

Erase all the shadows, all the doubts and fears, and the suggestions ofpoverty and failure from your mind. When you have become master ofyour thought, when you have once learned to dominate your mind, youwill find that things will begin to come your way. Discouragement, fear, doubt, lack of self-confidence, are the germs which have killedthe prosperity and happiness of tens of thousands of people. 

Every man must play the part of his ambition. If you are trying to bea successful man you must play the part. If you are trying todemonstrate opulence, you must play it, not weakly, but vigorously, grandly. You must feel opulent, you must think opulence, you mustappear opulent. Your bearing must be filled with confidence. You mustgive the impression of your own assurance, that you are large enough toplay your part and to play it superbly. Suppose the greatest actorliving were to have a play written for him in which the leading partwas to represent a man in the process of making a fortune--a great, vigorous, progressive character, who conquered by his very presence. Suppose this actor, in playing the part, were to dress like anunprosperous man, walk on the stage in a stooping, slouchy, slipshodmanner, as though he had no ambition, no energy or life, as though hehad no real faith that he could ever make money or be a success inbusiness; suppose he went around the stage with an apologetic, shrinking, skulking manner, as much as to say, "Now, I do not believethat I can ever do this thing that I have attempted; it is too big forme. Other people have done it, but I never thought that I should everbe rich or prosperous. Somehow good things do not seem to be meant forme. I am just an ordinary man, I haven't had much experience and Ihaven't much confidence in myself, and it seems presumptuous for me tothink I am ever going to be rich or have much influence in the world. "What kind of an impression would he make upon the audience? Would hegive confidence, would he radiate power or forcefulness, would he makepeople think that that kind of a weakling could create a fortune, couldmanipulate conditions which would produce money? Would not everybodysay that the man was a failure? Would they not laugh at the idea ofhis conquering anything?

_Poverty itself is not so bad as the poverty thought_. _It is theconviction that we are poor and must remain so that is fatal_. It isthe attitude of mind that is destructive, the facing toward poverty, and feeling so reconciled to it that one does not turn about face andstruggle to get away from it with a determination which knows noretreat. 

If we can conquer _inward poverty_, we can soon conquer poverty ofoutward things, for, when we change the mental attitude, the physicalchanges to correspond. 

Holding the poverty thought, keeps us in touch with poverty-stricken, poverty-producing conditions; and the constant thinking of poverty, talking poverty, living poverty, makes us mentally poor. This is theworst kind of poverty. 

We can not travel toward prosperity until the mental attitude facesprosperity. As long as we look toward despair, we shall never arriveat the harbor of delight. 

The man who persists in holding his mental attitude toward poverty, orwho is always thinking of his hard luck and failure to get on, can byno possibility go in the opposite direction, where the goal ofprosperity lies. 

There are multitudes of poor people in this country who are _halfsatisfied to remain in poverty_, and who have ceased to make adesperate struggle to rise out of it. They may work hard, but theyhave lost the hope, the expectation of getting an independence. 

Many people keep themselves poor by fear of poverty, allowingthemselves to dwell upon the possibility of coming to want, of nothaving enough to live upon, by allowing themselves to dwell uponconditions of poverty. 

When you make up your mind that you are done with poverty forever; thatyou will have nothing more to do with it; that you are going to eraseevery trace of it from your dress, your personal appearance, yourmanner, your talk, your actions, your home; that you are going to showthe world your real mettle; that you are no longer going to pass for afailure; that you have set your face persistently toward betterthings--a competence, an independence--and that nothing on earth canturn you from your resolution, you will be amazed to find what areenforcing power will come to you, what an increase of confidence, reassurance, and self-respect. 

Resolve with all the vigor you can muster that, since there are plentyof good things in the world for everybody, you are going to have yourshare, without injuring anybody else or keeping others back. It wasintended that you should have a competence, an abundance. It is yourbirthright. You are success organized, and constructed for happiness, and you should resolve to reach your divine destiny. 

CHAPTER LVII

A NEW WAY OF BRINGING UP CHILDREN

 "Only a thought, but the work it wrought Could never by tongue or pen be taught, But it ran through a life like a thread of gold, And the life bore fruit a hundredfold. "

Not long ago there was on exhibition in New York a young horse whichcan do most marvelous things; and yet his trainer says that only fiveyears ago he had a very bad disposition. He was fractious, and wouldkick and bite, but now instead of displaying his former viciousness, heis obedient, tractable, and affectionate. He can readily count andreckon up figures, can spell many words, and knows what they mean. 

In fact this horse seems to be capable of learning almost anything. Five years of kindness have completely transformed the vicious yearlingcolt. He is very responsive to kindness, but one can do nothing withhim by whipping or scolding him. His trainer says that in all the fiveyears he has never touched him with a whip but once. 

I know a mother of a large family of children who has never whipped butone of them, and that one only once. 

When her first child was born people said she was too good-natured tobring up children, that she would spoil them, as she would not corrector discipline them, and would do nothing but love them. But this lovehas proved the great magnet which has held the family together in amarvelous way. Not one of those children has gone astray. They haveall grown up manly and womanly, and love has been wonderfully developedin their natures. Their own affection responded to the mother's loveand has become their strongest motive. To-day all her children lookupon "Mother" as the grandest figure in the world. She has brought outthe best in them because she saw the best in them. The worst did notneed correcting or repressing, because the expulsive power of astronger affection drove out of the nature or discouraged thedevelopment of vicious tendencies which, in the absence of a greatlove, might have become dominant and ruined the life. 

Love is a healer, a life-giver, a balm for our hurts. All through theBible are passages which show the power of love as a healer andlife-lengthener. "With long life will I satisfy him, " said thePsalmist, "because he hath set his love upon me. "

When shall we learn that the great curative principle is love, thatlove heals because it is harmony? There can be no discord where itreigns. Love is serenity, is peace and happiness. 

Love is the great disciplinarian, the supreme harmonizer, the truepeacemaker. It is the great balm for all that blights happiness orbreeds discontent, a sovereign panacea for malice, revenge, and all thebrutal propensities. As cruelty melts before kindness, so the evilpassions and their antidote in sweet charity and loving sympathy. 

The mother is the supreme shaper of life and destiny. 

Many a mother's love for her children has undoubtedly stayed theravages of some fatal disease. Her conviction that she was necessaryto them and her great love for them have braced her, and have enabledher to successfully cope with the enemies of her life for a long time. 

One mother I know seems to have the magical art of curing nearly allthe ills of her children by love. If any member of the family has anydisagreeable experience, is injured or pained, hurt or unhappy, heimmediately goes to the mother for the universal balm, which heals alltroubles. 

This mother has a way of drawing the troubled child out of discord intothe zone of perpetual harmony. If he is swayed by jealousy, hatred, oranger, she applies the love solvent, the natural antidote for thesepassion poisons. She knows that scolding a child when he is alreadysuffering more than he can bear is like trying to put out a fire withkerosene. 

Our orphan asylums give pathetic illustration of how quickly the childmind matures and ages prematurely without the uplift and enrichment ofthe mother love, the mother sympathy, --parental protection and homeinfluence. 

It is well known that children who lose their parents and are adoptedby their grandparents and live in the country, where they do not havean opportunity to mingle much with other children, adopt the mannersand mature vocabulary of their elders, for they are very imitative, andbecome little men and women before they are out of their youth. 

Think of a child reared in the contaminating atmosphere of the slums, where everything is dripping with suggestions of vulgarity andwickedness of every description! Think of his little mind being filledwith profanity, obscenity, and filth of all kinds! Is it any wonderthat he becomes so filled with vicious, criminal suggestions that hetends to become like his environment?

Contrast such a child with one that is brought up in an atmosphere ofpurity, refinement, and culture, and whose mind is always filled withnoble, uplifting suggestions of the true, the beautiful, and thelovely. What a difference in the chances of these two children, andwithout any special effort or choice of their own! One mind is trainedupward, towards the light, the other downward, towards darkness. 

What chance has a child to lead a noble life when all his firstimpressionable years are saturated with the suggestion of evil, whenjealousy and hatred, revenge, quarreling and bickering, all that is lowand degrading, fill his ears and eyes?

How important it is that the child should only hear and see and betaught that which will make for beauty and for truth, for lovelinessand grandeur of character!

We ought to have a great deal of charity for those whose early liveshave been soaked in evil, criminal, impurity thoughts. 

The minds of children are like the sensitive plates of a photographer, recording every thought or suggestion to which they are exposed. Theseearly impressions make up the character and determine the futurepossibility. 

If you would encourage your child and help him to make the most ofhimself, inject bright, hopeful, optimistic, unselfish pictures intohis atmosphere. To stimulate and inspire his confidence andunselfishness means growth, success, and happiness for him in hisfuture years, while the opposite practice may mean failure and misery. 

It is of infinitely more importance to hold the right thought towards achild, the confident, successful, happy, optimistic thought, than toleave him a fortune without this. With his mind properly trained hecould not fail, could not be unhappy, without reversing the wholeformative process of his early life. 

Keep the child's mind full of harmony, of truth, and there will be noroom for discord, for error. 

It is cruel constantly to remind children of their deficiencies orpeculiarities. Sensitive children are often seriously injured by thesuggestion of inferiority and the exaggeration of defects which mighthave been entirely overcome. This everlasting harping against the baddoes not help the child half as much as keeping his little mind full ofthe good, the beautiful, and the true. The constant love suggestion, purity suggestion, nobility suggestion will so permeate the life aftera while that there will be nothing to attract the opposite. It will beso full of sunshine, so full of beauty and love, that there will belittle or no place for their opposites. 

The child's self-confidence should be buttressed, braced, andencouraged in every possible way; not that he should be taught tooverestimate his ability and his possibilities, but the idea that he isGod's child, that he is heir to an Infinite inheritance, magnificentpossibilities, should be instilled into the very marrow of his being. 

A great many boys, especially those who are naturally sensitive, shy, and timid, are apt to suspect that they lack the ability which othershave. It is characteristic of such youths that they distrust their ownability and are very easily discouraged or encouraged. It is a sin toshake or destroy a child's self-confidence, to reflect upon his abilityor to suggest that he will never amount to much. These discouragingwords, like initials cut in the sapling, grow wider and wider with theyears, until they become great ugly scars in the man. 

Most parents do not half realize how impressionable children are, andhow easily they may be injured or ruined by discouragement or ridicule. Children require a great deal of appreciation, praise, andencouragement. They live upon it. It is a great tonic to them. Onthe other hand, they wither very quickly under criticism, blame, ordepreciation. Their sensitive natures can not stand it. It is theworst kind of policy to be constantly blaming, chiding them, andpositively cruel, bordering on criminality even, to suggest to themthat they are mentally deficient or peculiar, that they are stupid anddull, and that they will probably never amount to anything in the world. 

How easy it is for a parent or teacher to ruin a child's constructiveability, to change a naturally, positive creative mind to a negative, non-producing one, by chilling the child's enthusiasm, by projectinginto his plastic mind the idea that he is stupid, dull, lazy, a"blockhead" and good-for-nothing; that he will never amount toanything; that it is foolish for him to try to be much, because he hasnot the ability or physical stamina to enable him to accomplish whatmany others do. Such teaching would undermine the brightest intellect. 

I have known of an extremely sensitive, timid boy who had a great dealof natural ability, but who developed very slowly, whose whole futurewas nearly ruined by his teacher and parents constantly telling himthat he was stupid and dull, and that he probably never would amount toanything. A little praise, a little encouragement, would have made asuperb man of this youth, because he had the material for the making ofone. But he actually believed that he was not up to the ordinarymental standard; he was thoroughly convinced that he was mentallydeficient, and this conviction never entirely left him. 

We are beginning to discover that it is much easier to attract than tocoerce. Praise and encouragement will do infinitely more for childrenthan threats and punishment. The warm sunshine is more than a matchfor the cold, has infinitely more influence in developing the bud, theblossom, and the fruit than the wind and the tempest, which suppresswhat responds voluntarily to the genial influence of the sun's rays. 

We all know how boys will work like troopers under the stimulus ofencouragement and praise. Many parents and teachers know this, and howfatal the opposite policy is. But unfortunately a great majority donot appreciate the magic of praise and appreciation. 

Pupils will do anything for a teacher who is always kind, considerate, and interested in them; but a cross, fractious, nagging one so arousestheir antagonism that it often proves a fatal bar to their progress. There must be no obstruction, no ill-feeling between the teacher andthe pupil, if the best results are to be obtained. 

Many parents are very much distressed by the waywardness of theirchildren; but this waywardness is often more imaginary than real. Alarge part of children's pranks and mischief is merely the outcome ofexuberant youthful spirits, which must have an outlet, and if they aresuppressed, their growth is fatally stunted. They are so full of life, energy, and so buoyant that they can not keep still. They _must_ do_something_. Give them an outlet for their animal spirits. Love isthe only power that can regulate and control them. 

Do not try to make men of your boys or women of your girls. It is notnatural. Love them. Make home just as happy a place as possible, andgive them rein, freedom. Encourage them in their play, for they arenow in their fun age. Many parents ruin the larger, completer, fullerdevelopment of their children by repressing them, destroying theirchildhood, their play days, by trying to make them adults. There isnothing sadder in American life than the child who has been robbed ofits childhood. 

Children are little animals, sometimes selfish, often cruel, due to thefact that some parts of their brain develop faster than others, so thattheir minds are temporarily thrown out of balance, sometimes even tocruel or criminal tendencies, but later the mind becomes moresymmetrical and the vicious tendencies usually disappear. Their moralfaculties and sense of responsibility unfold more slowly than othertraits, and of course, they will do mischievous things; but it is afatal mistake to be always suppressing them. They must give out theirsurplus energy in some way. Encourage them to romp. Play with them. It will keep you young, and will link them to you with hooks of steel. Do not be afraid of losing your dignity. If you make home thehappiest, most cheerful place on earth for your children, if you lovethem enough, there is little danger of their becoming bad. 

Thousands of parents by being so severe with their children, scoldingand criticizing them and crushing their childhood, make them secretiveand deceitful instead of open and transparent, and estrange them anddrive them away from home. 

A man ought to look back upon the home of his childhood as the Eden ofhis life, where love reigned, instead of as a place where a long-facedseverity and harshness ruled, where he was suppressed and hisfun-loving spirits snuffed out. 

Every mother, whether she realizes it or not, is constantly using thepower of suggestion in rearing her children, healing all their littlehurts. She kisses the bumps and bruises and tells the child all iswell again, and he is not only comforted, but really believes that thekiss and caress have magic to cure the injury. The mother isconstantly antidoting and neutralizing the child's little troubles anddiscords by giving the opposite thought and applying the love-elixir. 

It is possible, through the power of suggestion, to develop in childrenfaculties upon which health, success, and happiness depend. Most of usknow how dependent our efficiency is upon our moods, our courage, hope. If the cheerful, optimistic faculties were brought out and largelydeveloped in childhood, it would change our whole outlook upon life, and we would not drag through years of half-heartedness, discouragement, and mental anguish, our steps dogged by fear, apprehension, anxiety, and disappointment. 

One reason why we have such poor health is because we have been steepedin poor-health thought from infancy. We have been saturated with theidea that pain, physical suffering, and disease, are a part of life;necessary evils which can not be avoided. We have had it so instilledinto us that robust health is the exception and could not be expectedto be the rule that we have come to accept this unfortunate conditionof things as a sort of fate from which we can not hope to get away. 

The child hears so much sick talk, is cautioned so much about thedangers of catching all sorts of diseases, that he grows up with theconviction that physical discords, aches, pains, all discomfort andsuffering, are a necessary part of his existence, that at any timedisease is liable to overtake him and ruin his happiness and thwart hiscareer. 

Think of what the opposite training would do for the child; if he weretaught that health is the ever-lasting fact and that disease is but themanifestation of the absence of harmony! Think what it would mean tohim if he were trained to believe that abounding health, rich, full, complete, instead of sickness, that certainty instead of uncertaintywere his birthright! Think what it would mean for him to _expect_ thisduring all his growing years, instead of building into hisconsciousness the opposite, instead of being saturated with the sickthought and constantly being cautioned against disease and the dangerof contracting it!

The child should be taught that God never created disease, and neverintended that we should suffer; that we were made for abounding healthand happiness, made for enjoyment not for pain--made to be happy, notmiserable, to express harmony, not discord. 

Children are extremely credulous. They are inclined to believeeverything that an adult tells them, especially the nurse, the fatherand mother, and their older brothers and sisters. Even the things thatare told them in jest they take very seriously; and their imaginationsare so vivid and their little minds so impressionable that they magnifyeverything. They are often punished for telling falsehoods, when thefault is really due to their excessively active imagination. 

Many ignorant or thoughtless parents and nurses constantly use fear asa means of governing children. They fill their little minds full ofall sorts of fear stories and terror pictures which may mar their wholelives. They often buy soothing syrups and all sorts of sleepingpotions to prevent the little ones from disturbing their rest at night, or to keep them quiet and from annoying them in the day time, and thusare liable to stunt their brain development. 

Even if children were not seriously injured by fear, it would be wickedto frighten them, for it is wrong to deceive them. If there isanything in the world that is sacred to the parent or teacher, it isthe unquestioned confidence of children. 

I believe that the beginnings of deterioration in a great many peoplewho go wrong could be traced to the forfeiting of the children'srespect and confidence by the parents and teachers. We all know fromexperience that confidence once shaken is almost never entirelyrestored. Even when we forgive, we seldom forget; the suspicion oftenremains. There should never be any shadows between the child and hisparents and teachers. He should always be treated with the utmostfrankness, transparency, sincerity. The child's respect is wortheverything to his parents. Nothing should induce them to violate it orto shake it. It should be regarded as a very sacred thing, a mostprecious possession. 

Think of the shock which must come to a child when he grows up anddiscovers that those he has trusted implicitly and who seemed almostlike gods to him have been deceiving him for years in all sorts of ways!

I have heard mothers say that they dreaded to have their children growup and discover how they had deceived them all through their childhood;to have them discover that they had resorted to fear, superstition, andall sorts of deceits in order to govern or influence them. 

Whenever you are tempted to deceive a child again, remember that thetime will come when _he will understand_, and that he will receive aterrible shock when he discovers that you, up to whom he has lookedwith such implicit trust, such simple confidence, have deceived him. 

Parents should remember that every distressing, blood-curdling storytold to a child, every superstitious fear instilled into his younglife, the mental attitude they bear towards him, the whole treatmentthey accord him, are making phonographic records in his nature whichwill be reproduced with scientific exactness in his future life. 

Whatever you do, never punish a child when he is suffering with fear. It is a cruel thing to punish children the way most mothers andteachers do, anyway; but to punish a child when he is already quiveringwith terror is extremely distressing, and to whip a child when you areangry is brutal. Many children never quite forget or forgive a parentor teacher for this cruelty. 

Parents, teachers, friends often put a serious stumbling-block in theway of a youth by suggesting that he ought to study for the ministry, or the law; to be a physician, an engineer, or enter some otherprofession or business for which he may be totally unfitted. I know aman whose career was nearly ruined by the suggestion of his grandmotherwhen he was a child that she would educate him for the church, and thatit was her wish for him to become a clergyman. 

It was not that she saw in the little child any fitness for this holyoffice, but because _she wanted a clergyman in the family_, and sheoften reminded him that he must not disappoint her. The boy, whoidolized his grandmother, pondered this thought until he became a youngman. The idea possessed him so strongly that every time he tried tomake a choice of a career the picture of a clergyman rushed first tohis mind, and, although he could see no real reason why he shouldbecome a clergyman, the suggestion that he ought to worked like leavenin his nature and kept him from making any other choice until too lateto enable him to succeed to any great extent. 

I know a most brilliant and marvelously fascinating woman who isextremely ambitious to make a name for herself, but she is almosttotally lacking in her ability to apply herself, even in the line whereher talent is greatly marked. She seems to be abundantly endowed inevery faculty and quality except this. Now, if her parents had knownthe secret of correcting mental deficiencies, building up weakfaculties, this girl could have been so trained that she would probablyhave had a great career and made a world-wide name for herself. 

I have in mind another woman, a most brilliant linguist, who speaksfluently seven languages. She is a most fascinating conversationalistand impresses one as having read everything, but, although in goodhealth, she is an object of charity to-day, simply because she hasnever developed her practical faculties at all, and this because shewas never trained to work, to depend upon herself even in little thingswhen she was a child. She was fond of her books, was a most brilliantscholar, but never learned to be practical or to do anything herself. Her self-reliance and independence were never developed. All of herearly friends predicted a brilliant future for her, but because of thevery consciousness of possessing so many brilliant qualities and of thefact that she was flattered during all her student life and not obligedto depend upon herself for anything, she continued to exercise herstrong scholarship faculties only, little dreaming that the neglect todevelop her weaker ones would wreck her usefulness and her happiness. 

It is not enough to possess ability. We must be able to use iteffectively, and whatever interferes with its activity to that extentkills efficiency. There are many people who are very able in mostqualities and yet their real work is seriously injured and oftenpractically ruined, or they are thrown into the mediocre class, owingto some weakness or deficiency which might have been entirely remediedby cultivation and proper training in earlier life. 

I know a man of superb ability in nearly every respect who is so timidand shy that he does not dare push himself forward or put himself inthe position of greatest advantage, does not dare _begin_ things. Consequently his whole life has been seriously handicapped. 

If children could only be taught to develop a positive, creative mind, it would be of infinitely more value and importance to them thaninheriting a fortune with a non-productive one. Youths should betaught that the most valuable thing to learn in life next to integrityis how to build their minds up to the highest possible producing point, the highest possible state of _creative efficiency_. 

The most important part of the education of the future will be toincrease the chances of success in life and lessen the danger offailure and the wrecking of one's career by building up weak anddeficient faculties, correcting one-sided tendencies, so that theindividual will become more level-headed, better balanced, and have amore symmetrical mind. 

Many students leave school and college knowing a great deal, butwithout a bit of improvement in their self-confidence, their initiativeability. They are just as timid, shy, and self-depreciatory as beforeentering. 

Now, what advantage is it to send a youth out into the world with ahead full of knowledge but without the confidence or assurance to useit effectively, or the ability to grapple with life's problems withthat vigor and efficiency which alone can bring success?

It is an unpardonable reflection upon a college which turns out youthswho dare not say their souls are their own, who have not developed avigorous self-confidence, assurance, and initiative. Hundreds ofstudents are turned out of our colleges every year who would almostfaint away if they were suddenly called upon to speak in public, toread a resolution, or even to put a motion. 

The time will come when an education will enable a youth while upon hisfeet in public to express himself forcefully, to use the ability he hasand summon his knowledge quickly. He will be so trained inself-control, in self-confidence, in level-headedness, that he will notbe thrown off his guard in an emergency. The future education willmean that what the student knows will be _available_, that he canutilize it at will, that he will be trained to use it _efficiently_. 

Many of our graduates leave college every year as weak and inefficientin many respects as when they began their education. What is educationfor if it is not to train the youth to be the master of his faculties, master of every situation, able to summon all of his reserves ofknowledge and power at will?

A college graduate, timid, stammering, blushing, and confused, whensuddenly called upon to use his knowledge whether in public orelsewhere, ought to be an unknown thing. Of what use is educationwhich can not be summoned at will? Of what good are the reserves oflearning which can not be marshaled quickly when we need them, which donot help one to be master of himself and the situation, whatever it maybe?

The time will come when no child will be allowed to grow up withoutbeing taught to believe in himself, to have great confidence in hisability. This will be a most important part of his education, for ifhe believes in himself _enough_, he will not be likely to allow asingle deficient faculty or weakness to wreck his career. 

He should be reared in the conviction that he was sent into this worldwith a mission and that he is going to deliver it. 

Every youth should be taught that it was intended he should fill aplace in the world which no one else can fill; that he should expect tofill it, and train himself for it; taught that he was made in theCreator's image, that in the truth of his being he is divine, perfect, immortal, and that the image of God can not fail. He should be taughtto think grandly of himself, to form a sublime estimate of hispossibilities and of his future. This will increase his self-respectand self-development in well-proportioned living. 

CHAPTER LVIII

THE HOME AS A SCHOOL OF GOOD MANNERS

Not long ago I visited a home where such exceptionally good breedingprevailed and such fine manners were practised by all the members ofthe family, that it made a great impression upon me. 

This home is the most remarkable school of good manners, refinement, and culture generally, I have ever been in. The parents are bringingup their children to practise their best manners on all occasions. They do not know what company manners mean. 

The boys have been taught to treat their sisters with as much deferenceas though they were stranger guests. The politeness, courtesy, andconsideration which the members of this family show toward one anotherare most refreshing and beautiful. Coarseness, gruffness, lack ofdelicacy find no place there. 

Both boys and girls have been trained from infancy to make themselvesinteresting, and to entertain and try to make others happy. 

The entire family make it a rule to dress before dinner in the evening, just as they would if special company were expected. 

Their table manners are specially marked. At table every one issupposed to be at his best, not to bring any grouch, or a long or sadface to it, but to contribute his best thought, his wittiest sayings, to the conversation. Every member of the family is expected to do hisbest to make the meal a really happy occasion. There is a sort ofrivalry to see who can be the most entertaining, or contribute thespiciest bits of conversation. There is no indication of dyspepsia inthis family, because every one is trained to laugh and be happygenerally, and laughter is a fatal enemy of indigestion. 

The etiquette of the table is also strictly observed. Every member ofthe family tries to do just the proper thing and always to be mindfulof others' rights. Kindness seems to be practised for the joy of it, not for the sake of creating a good impression on friends oracquaintances. There is in this home an air of peculiar refinementwhich is very charming. The children are early taught to greet callersand guests cordially, heartily, in real Southern, hospitable fashion, and to make them feel that they are very welcome. They are taught tomake every one feel comfortable and at home, so that there will be nosense of restraint. 

As a result of this training the children have formed a habit of goodbehavior and are considered an acquisition to any gathering. They arenot embarrassed by the awkward slips and breaks which are so mortifyingto those who only wear their company manners on special occasions. 

A stranger would almost think this home was a school of good breeding, and it is a real treat to visit these people. It is true the parentsin this family have the advantage of generations of fine breeding andSouthern hospitality back of them, which gives the children a greatnatural advantage. There is an atmosphere of chivalry and cordialityin this household which is really refreshing. 

Many parents seem to expect that their children will pick up their goodmanners outside of the home, in school, or while visiting. This is afatal mistake. Every home should be a school of good manners and goodbreeding. The children should be taught that there is nothing moreimportant than the development of an interesting personality, anattractive presence, and an ability to entertain with grace and ease. They should be taught that the great object of life is to develop asuperb personality, a noble manhood and womanhood. 

There is no art like that of a beautiful behavior, a fine manner, nowealth greater than that of a pleasing personality. 

CHAPTER LIX

MOTHER

"All that I am or hope to be, " said Lincoln, after he had becomePresident, "I owe to my angel mother. "

"My mother was the making of me, " said Thomas Edison, recently. "Shewas so true, so sure of me; and I felt that I had some one to live for;some one I must not disappoint. "

"All that I have ever accomplished in life, " declared Dwight L. Moody, the great evangelist, "I owe to my mother. "

"To the man who has had a good mother, all women are sacred for hersake, " said Jean Paul Richter. 

The testimony of great men in acknowledgment of the boundless debt theyowe to their mothers would make a record stretching from the dawn ofhistory to to-day. Few men, indeed, become great who do not owe theirgreatness to a mother's love and inspiration. 

How often we hear people in every walk of life say, "I never could havedone this thing but for my mother. She believed in me, encouraged mewhen others saw nothing in me. "

"A kiss from my mother made me a painter, " said Benjamin West. 

A distinguished man of to-day says: "I never could have reached mypresent position had I not known that my mother expected me to reachit. From a child she made me feel that this was the position sheexpected me to fill; and her faith spurred me on and gave me the powerto attain it. "

Everything that a man has and is he owes to his mother. From her hegets health, brain, encouragement, moral character, and all his chancesof success. 

"In the shadow of every great man's fame walks his mother, " saysDorothy Dix. "She has paid the price of his success. She went downinto the Valley of the Shadow to give him life, and every day for yearsand years thereafter she toiled incessantly to push him on toward hisgoal. 

"She gave the labor of her hands for his support; she poured into himambition when he grew discouraged; she supplemented his weakness withher strength; she filled him with her hope and faith when his ownfailed. 

"At last he did the Big Thing, and people praised him, and acclaimedhim, and nobody thought of the quiet, insignificant little woman in thebackground, who had been the real power behind the throne. Sometimeseven the king himself forgets who was the kingmaker. "

Many a man is enjoying a fame which is really due to a self-effacing, sacrificing mother. People hurrah for the governor, or mayor, orcongressman, but the real secret of his success is often tucked away inthat little unknown, unappreciated, unheralded mother. His educationand his chance to rise may have been due to her sacrifices. 

It is a strange fact that our mothers, the molders of the world, shouldget so little credit and should be so seldom mentioned among theworld's achievers. The world sees only the successful son; the motheris but a round in the ladder upon which he has climbed. Her name orface is seldom seen in the papers; only her son is lauded and held upto our admiration. Yet it was that sweet, pathetic figure in thebackground that made his success possible. 

The woman who merits the greatest fame is the woman who gives abrilliant mind to the world. The mothers of great men and womendeserve just as much honor as the great men and women themselves, andthey will receive it from the better understanding of the coming days. 

"A wife may do much toward polishing up a man and boosting him up theladder, but unless his mother first gave him the intellect toscintillate and the muscles to climb with, the wife labors in vain, "continues Dorothy Dix, in the _Evening Journal_. 

"You can not make a clod shine. You can not make a mollusk aspire. You must have the material to work with, to produce results. 

"By the time a man is married his character is formed, and he changesvery little. His mother has made him; and no matter how hard shetries, there is very little that his wife can do toward altering him. 

"It is not the philosophies, the theories, the code of ethics that aman acquires in his older years that really influence him. It is thethings that he learned at his mother's knee, the principles that sheinstilled in him in his very cradle, the taste and habits that sheformed, the strength and courage that she breathed into him. 

"It is the childish impressions that count. It is the memory ofwhispered prayers, of bedtime stories, of old ideals held unfalteringlybefore a boy's gaze; it is half-forgotten songs, and dim visions ofheroes that a mother taught her child to worship, that make the verywarp and woof of the soul. 

"It is the pennies, that a mother teaches a boy to save and theself-denial that she inculcates in doing it, that form the realfoundation of the fortune of the millionaire. 

"It is the mother that loves books, and who gives her sons her love oflearning, who bestows the great scholars, the writers, and orators, onthe world. 

"It is the mother that worships science, who turns the eyes of thechild upon her breast up to the wonder of the stars, and who teachesthe little toddler at her side to observe the marvel of beast, andbird, and flower, and all created things, whose sons become the greatastronomers and naturalists, and biologists. "

The very atmosphere that radiates from and surrounds the mother is theinspiration and constitutes the holy of holies of family life. 

"In my mother's presence, " said a prominent man, "I become for the timetransformed into another person. "

How many of us have felt the truth of this statement! How ashamed wefeel when we meet her eyes, that we have ever harbored an unholythought, or dishonorable suggestion! It seems impossible to do wrongwhile under that magic influence. What revengeful plans, what thoughtsof hatred and jealousy, have been scattered to the four winds while inthe mother's presence! Her children go out from communion with herresolved to be better men, nobler women, truer citizens. 

"How many of us have stood and watched with admiration the returningvictor of some petty battle, cheering until we were hoarse, exhaustingourselves with the vehemence of our enthusiasm, " says a writer, "whenright beside us, possibly touching our hand, was one greater than he?One whose battle has not been petty--whose conflict has not been ofshort duration, but has for us fought many a severe fight. 

"When we had the scarlet fever or diphtheria and not one would comenear us, who held the cup of cold water to our fever-parched lips? Whobent over us day and night and fought away with almost supernaturalstrength the greatest of all enemies--death? The world's greatestheroine--Mother! Who is it that each Sunday dinner-time chose the neckof the chicken that we might have the juicy wing or breast or leg? Whois it stays home from the concert, the social, the play, that we may gowith the others and not be stinted for small change? Who is itcrucifies her love of pretty clothes, her desire for good things, herlonging for pleasure that we may have all these? Who is it? Mother!"

The greatest heroine in the world is the mother. No one else makessuch sacrifices, or endures anything like the suffering that sheuncomplainingly endures for her children. 

What is the giving of one's life in battle or in a wreck at sea to saveanother, in comparison with the perpetual sacrifice of many mothers ofa living death lasting for half a century or more? How the world'sheroes dwindle in comparison with the mother heroine! There is no onein the average family, the value of whose services begins to comparewith those of the mother, and yet there is no one who is more generallyneglected or taken advantage of. She must remain at home evenings, andlook after the children, when the others are out having a good time. Her cares never cease. She is responsible for the housework, for thepreparation of meals; she has the children's clothes to make or mend, there is company to be entertained, darning to be done, and a score oflittle duties which must often be attended to at odd moments, snatchedfrom her busy days, and she is often up working at night, long afterevery one else in the house is asleep. 

No matter how loving or thoughtful the father may be, the heavierburdens, the greater anxieties, the weightier responsibilities of thehome, of the children, usually fall on the mother. Indeed, the veryvirtues of the good mother are a constant temptation to the othermembers of the family, especially the selfish ones, to take advantageof her. They seem to take it for granted that they can put all theirburdens on the patient, uncomplaining mother; that she will always doanything to help out, and to enable the children to have a good time;and in many homes, sad to say, the mother, just because of hergoodness, is shamefully imposed upon and neglected. "Oh, mother won'tmind, mother will stay at home. " How often we hear remarks like thisfrom thoughtless children!

It is always the poor mother on whom the burden falls; and the patheticthing is that she rarely gets much credit or praise. 

Many mothers in the poor and working classes practically sacrifice allthat most people hold dearest in life for their children. Theydeliberately impair their health, wear themselves out, make all sortsof sacrifices, to send a worthless boy to college. They take inwashing, go out house-cleaning, do the hardest and most menial work, inorder to give their boys and girls an education and the benefit ofpriceless opportunities that they never had; yet, how often, they arerewarded only with total indifference and neglect!

Some time ago I heard of a young girl, beautiful, gay, full of spiritand vigor, who married and had four children. Her husband diedpenniless, and the mother made the most heroic efforts to educate thechildren. By dint of unremitting toil and unheard of sacrifices andprivations she succeeded in sending the boys to college and the girlsto a boarding-school. When they came home, pretty, refined girls andstrong young men, abreast with all the new ideas and tastes of theirtimes, she was a worn-out, commonplace old woman. They had their ownpursuits and companions. She lingered unappreciated among them for twoor three years, and then died, of some sudden failure of the brain. The shock of her fatal illness woke them to consciousness of the truth. They hung over her, as she lay prostrate, in an agony of grief. Theoldest son, as he held her in his arms, cried: "You have been a goodmother to us!" Her face brightened, her eyes kindled into a smile, andshe whispered: "You never said so before, John. " Then the light diedout, and she was gone. 

Many men spend more money on expensive caskets, flowers, and emblems ofmourning than they ever spent on their poor, loving, self-sacrificingmothers for many years while alive. Men who, perhaps, never thought ofcarrying flowers to their mothers in life, pile them high on theircoffins. 

Who can ever depict the tragedies that have been enacted in the heartsof American mothers, who have suffered untold tortures from neglect, indifference, and lack of appreciation?

What a pathetic story of neglect many a mother's letters from hergrown-up children could tell! A few scraggy lines, a few sentences nowand then, hurriedly written and mailed--often to ease a troubledconscience--mere apologies for letters, which chill the mother heart. 

I know men who owe their success in life to their mother; who havebecome prosperous and influential, because of the splendid training ofthe self-sacrificing mother, and whose education was secured at aninestimable cost to her, and yet they seldom think of carrying to herflowers, confectionery, or little delicacies, or of taking her to aplace of amusement, or of giving her a vacation or bestowing upon herany of the little attentions and favors so dear to a woman's heart. They seem to think she is past the age for these things, that she nolonger cares for them, that about all she expects is enough to eat anddrink, and the simplest kind of raiment. 

These men do not know the feminine heart which never changes in theserespects, except to grow more appreciative of the little attentions, the little considerations, and thoughtful acts which meant so much tothem in their younger days. 

Not long ago I heard a mother, whose sufferings and sacrifices for herchildren during a long and trying struggle with poverty should havegiven her a monument, say, that she guessed she'd better go to an oldladies' home and end her days there. What a picture that was! An agedwoman with white hair and a sweet, beautiful face; with a wonderfullight in her eye; calm, serene, and patient, yet dignified, whosechildren, all of whom are married and successful, made her feel as ifshe were a burden! They live in luxurious homes, but have neveroffered to provide a home for the poor, old rheumatic mother, who forso many years slaved for them. They put their own homes, stocks, andother property in their wives' names, and while they pay the rent oftheir mother's meagerly furnished rooms and provide for her actualneeds, they apparently never think what joy it would give her to ownher own home, and to possess some pretty furnishings, and a fewpictures. 

In many cases men through thoughtlessness do not provide generously fortheir mothers even when well able to. They seem to think that a mothercan live most anywhere, and most anyway; that if she has enough tosupply her necessities she is satisfied. Just think, you prosperousbusiness men, how you would feel if the conditions were reversed, ifyou were obliged to take the dependent, humiliating position of yourmother!

Whatever else you are obliged to neglect, take no chances of givingyour mother pain by neglecting her, and of thus making yourselfmiserable in the future. 

The time may come when you will stand by her bedside, in her lastsickness, or by her coffin, and wish that you had exchanged a little ofyour money for more visits and more attentions and more little presentsto your mother; when you will wish that you had cultivated her more, even at the cost of making a little less money. 

There is no one else in this world who can take your mother's place inyour life. And there is no remorse like that which comes from theremembrance of ill-treating, abusing, or being unkind to one's mother. These things stand out with awful vividness and terrible clearness whenthe mother is gone forever from sight, and you have time to contrastyour treatment with her long suffering, tenderness, and love, and heryears of sacrifice for you. 

One of the most painful things I have ever witnessed was the anguish ofa son who had become wealthy and in his prosperity neglected themother, whose sacrifices alone had made his success possible. He didnot take the time to write to her more than twice a year, and then onlybrief letters. He was too busy to send a good long letter to the poorold lonely mother back in the country, who had risked her life andtoiled and sacrificed for years for him! Finally, when he was summonedto her bedside in the country, in her last sickness, and realized thathis mother had been for years without the ordinary comforts of life, while he had been living in luxury, he broke down completely. Andwhile he did everything possible to alleviate her suffering, in the fewlast days that remained to her on earth, and gave her an imposingburial, what torture he must have suffered, at this pitiful picture ofhis mother who had sacrificed everything for him!

"The regrets for thoughtless acts and indifference to admonitions nowfelt and expressed by many living sons of dead mothers will, in time, be felt and expressed by the living sons of living mothers, " saysRichard L. Metcalfe, in the "Commoner. " "The boys of to-day who do notunderstand the value of the mother's companionship will yet sing--withthose who already know--this song of tribute and regret:

 "'The hours I spent with thee, dear heart, Are as a string of pearls to me; I count them over, every one apart, My rosary. 

 "'Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer, To still a heart in absence wrung; I tell each bead unto the end, and there A cross is hung. 

 "'O memories that bless--and burn! Oh mighty gain and bitter loss! I kiss each bead and strive at last to learn To kiss the cross, Sweet heart, To kiss the cross. '"

No man worthy of the name ever neglects or forgets his mother. 

I have an acquaintance, of very poor parentage, who had a hard struggleto get a start in the world; but when he became prosperous and builthis beautiful home, he finished a suite of rooms in it especially forhis mother, furnished them with all conveniences and comforts possible, and insisted upon keeping a maid specially for her. Although she liveswith her son's family, she is made to feel that this part of the greathome is her own, and that she is as independent as though she lived inher own house. Every son should be ambitious to see his mother as wellprovided for as his wife. 

Really great men have always reverenced and cared tenderly for theirmothers. President McKinley provided in his will that, first of all, his mother should be made comfortable for life. 

The first act of Garfield, after he was inaugurated President, was tokiss his aged mother, who sat near him, and who said this was theproudest and happiest moment of her life. 

Ex-President Loubet of France, even after his elevation to thepresidency, took great pride in visiting his mother, who was a humblemarket gardener in a little French village. A writer on one occasion, describing a meeting between this mother and her son, says: "Her notedson awaited her in the market-place, as she drove up in her little cartloaded with vegetables. Assisting his mother to alight, the FrenchPresident gave her his arm and escorted her to her accustomed seat. Then holding over her a large umbrella, to shield her from thethreatening weather, he seated himself at her side, and mother and sonenjoyed a long talk together. "

I once saw a splendid young college graduate introduce his poor, plainly dressed old mother to his classmates with as much pride anddignity as though she was a queen. Her form was bent, her hands werecalloused, she was prematurely old, and much of this deterioration wascaused by all sorts of drudgery to help her boy to pay his collegeexpenses. 

I have seen other college men whose mothers had made similarsacrifices, and who were ashamed to have them attend their graduatingexercises, ashamed to introduce them to their classmates. 

Think of the humiliation and suffering of the slave mother, who hasgiven all the best of her life to a large family, battling with povertyin her efforts to dignify her little home, and to give her children aneducation, when she realizes that she is losing ground intellectually, yet has no time or strength for reading, or self-culture, noopportunity for broadening her mental outlook by traveling or minglingwith the world! But this is nothing compared to the anguish sheendures, when, after the flower of her youth is gone and there isnothing left of her but the ashes of a burned-out existence, the shredsof a former superb womanhood, she awakes to the consciousness that herchildren are ashamed of her ignorance and desire to keep her in thebackground. 

From babyhood children should be taught to look up to, not down ontheir mother. For that reason she should never appear before them inslovenly raiment, nor conduct herself in any way that would lessentheir respect. She should keep up her intellectual culture that theymay not advance beyond her understanding and sympathies. 

No matter how callous or ungrateful a son may be, no matter how low hemay sink in vice or crime, he is always sure of his mother's love, always sure of one who will follow him even to his grave, if she isalive and can get there; of one who will cling to him when all othershave fled. 

It is forever true, as Kipling poignantly expresses it in his beautifulverses on "Mother Love":

 "'If I were hanged on highest hill, Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine! I know whose love would follow still, Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!

 "'If I were drowned in the deepest sea, Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine! I know whose tears would come down to me, Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!

 "'If I were cursed of body and soul, Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine! I know whose prayer's would make me whole! Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!'"

One of the saddest sights I have ever seen was that of a poor, old, broken-down mother, whose life had been poured into her children, making a long journey to the penitentiary to visit her boy, who hadbeen abandoned by everybody but herself. Poor old mother! It did notmatter that he was a criminal, that he had disgraced his family, thateverybody else had forsaken him, that he had been unkind to her--themother's heart went out to him just the same. She did not see thehideous human wreck that crime had made. She saw only her darling boy, the child that God had given her, pure and innocent as in his childhood. 

Oh, there is no other human love like this, which follows the childfrom the cradle to the grave, never once abandons, never once forsakeshim, no matter how unfortunate or degenerate he may become. 

"So your best girl is dead, " sneeringly said a New York magistrate to ayoung man who was arrested for attempting suicide. "Who was she?"Without raising his eyes, the unfortunate victim burst into tears andreplied, "She was my mother!" The smile vanished from the magistrate'sface and, with tears in his eyes, he said, "Young man, go and try to bea good man, for your mother's sake. " How little we realize whattragedy may be going on in the hearts of those whom we sneeringlycondemn!

What movement set on foot in recent years, deserves heartier supportthan that for the establishment of a national Mothers' Day?

The day set apart as Mothers' Day by those who have inaugurated thismovement is _the second Sunday in May_. Let us unite in doing all wecan to make it a real Mothers' Day, by especially honoring our mothers;in the flesh, those of us who are so fortunate as to have our motherswith us; in the spirit, those who are not so fortunate. 

If away from her, write a good, loving letter, or telephone ortelegraph to the best mother who ever lived--your mother. Send hersome flowers, an appropriate present; go and spend the day with her, orin some other way make her heart glad. Show her that you appreciateher, and that you give her credit for a large part of your success. 

Let us do all we can to make up for past neglect of the little-known, half-appreciated, unheralded mothers who have had so little credit inthe past, and are so seldom mentioned among the world's achievers, byopenly, and especially in our hearts, paying our own mothers everytribute of honor, respect, devotion, and gratitude that love and asense of duty can suggest. Let us acknowledge to the world the greatdebt we owe them by wearing, every one of us, boy and girl, man andwoman, on Mothers' Day, a white carnation--the flower chosen as thesymbol and emblem of motherhood. 

Happily chosen emblem! What could more fittingly represent motherhoodwith its whiteness symbolizing purity; its lasting qualities, faithfulness; its fragrance, love; its wide field of growth, charity;its form, beauty!

What an impressive and beautiful tribute to motherhood it would be fora whole nation to unite one day in wearing its chosen emblem, and insong and speech, and other appropriate exercises, to honor its mothers!

CHAPTER LX

WHY SO MANY MARRIED WOMEN DETERIORATE

A woman writes me: "You would laugh if you knew the time I have had ingetting the dollar which I enclose for your inspiring magazine. I wouldget a pound less of butter, a bar less of soap. I never have a cent ofmy own. Do you think it wrong of me to deceive my husband in this way?I either have to do this or give up trying at all. "

There are thousands of women who work harder than their husbands andreally have more right to the money, who are obliged to practise allsorts of deceit in order to get enough to buy clothing and other thingsessential to decent living. 

The difficulty of extracting money from an unwilling husband has been thebeginning of thousands of tragedies. The majority of husbands areinclined to exert a censorship over their wives' expenditures. I haveheard women say that they would go without necessary articles of clothingand other requirements just as long as possible and worry for days andweeks before they could summon courage to ask for money, because theydreaded a scene and the consequent discord in the home. Many women makeit a rule never to ask for money, except when the husband is leaving thehouse and in a hurry to get away. The disagreeable scene is thus cut asshort as possible, as he has not time then to go into all the details ofhis wife's alleged extravagances and find out what has become of everycent of the money given her on some similar previous occasion. 

The average man does not begin to realize how it humiliates his wife tofeel that she must ask him for fifty cents, a dollar, or five dollarsevery time she needs it, and to tell him just exactly what she is goingto do with it, and then perhaps be met with a sharp reproof for herextravagance of foolish expenditures. 

Men who are extremely kind and considerate with their wives in mostthings are often contemptibly mean regarding money matters. Many a manwho is generous with his tips and buys expensive cigars and orders costlylunches for himself and friends at the club because he wants to beconsidered a "good fellow, " will go home at night and bicker with hiswife over the smallest expenditure, destroying the whole peace of thehousehold, when perhaps she does not spend as much upon herself as hedoes for cigars and drink. 

Why is it that men are so afraid to trust their wives with money whenthey trust them implicitly with everything else, especially as women areusually much more economical than men would be in managing the home andproviding for the children? A large part of the friction in the averagehome centers around money matters and could be avoided by a simple, definite understanding between husband and wife, and a businessarrangement of household finances. A regular advance to the wife for thehousehold and a certain sum for personal use which she need not accountfor, would do more to bring about peace and harmony in the majority ofhomes than almost anything else. 

To be a slave to the home, as many women are, and then to be obliged toassume the attitude of a beggar for every little bit of money she needsfor herself, or to have to give an accounting for every cent she spendsand tell her lord and master what she did with her last money before shecan get any more, is positively degrading. 

When the husband gets ready to regard his wife as an equal partner in themarriage firm instead of as an employee with one share in amillion-dollar company, or as merely a housekeeper; when he is willing toregard his income as much his wife's as his own and not put her in theposition of a beggar for every penny she gets; when he will grant her thesame privileges he demands for himself; when he is willing to allow hiswife to live her own life in her own way without trying to "boss" her, weshall have more true marriages, happier homes, a higher civilization. 

Some one says that a man is never so happy as when he has a few dollarshis wife knows nothing about. And there is a great deal of truth in it. Men who are perfectly honest with their wives about most things are oftensecretive about money matters. They hoodwink them regarding theirincomes and especially about any ready cash they have on hand. 

No matter how much the average man may think of his wife, or howconsiderate he may be in other matters, he rarely considers that she hasthe same right to his cash that he has, although he may be boasting tooutsiders of her superior management in matters of economy. He feelsthat he is the natural guardian of the money, as he makes it; that he hasa little more right to it than has his wife, and that he must protect itand dole it out to her. 

What disagreeable experiences, unfortunate bickerings, misunderstandingsand family prejudice could be avoided if newly-married women would insistupon having a certain proportion of the income set aside for themaintenance of the home and for their own personal needs, without thecensorship of their husbands and without being obliged to give anitemized account of their expenditures!

It is a rare thing to find a man who does not waste ten times as muchmoney on foolish things as does his wife, and yet he would make ten timesthe talk about his wife's one-tenth foolishness as his own ten-tenths. 

On the other hand, thousands of women, starving for affection, protestagainst their husband's efforts to substitute money for it--to satisfytheir cravings, their heart-hunger, with the things that money can buy. 

It is an insult to womanhood to try to satisfy her nature with materialthings, while the affections are famishing for genuine sympathy and love, for social life, for contact with the great, throbbing world outside. Women do admire beautiful things; but there is something they admireinfinitely more. Luxuries do not come first in any real woman's desires. She prefers poverty with love to luxury with an indifferent or lovelesshusband. 

How gladly would these women whose affections are blighted by coldindifference or the unfaithfulness of their husbands, exchange theirliberal allowance, their luxuries, for genuine sympathy and affection!

One of the most pathetic spectacles in American life is that of thefaded, outgrown wife, standing helpless in the shadow of her husband'sprosperity and power, having sacrificed her youth, beauty, andambition--nearly everything that the feminine mind holds dear--to enablean indifferent, selfish, brutish husband to get a start in the world. 

It does not matter that in her unselfish effort to help him she burned upmuch of her attractiveness over the cooking stove; that she lost more ofit at the washtub, in scrubbing and cleaning, and rearing and caring fortheir children during the slavery of her early married life; it does notmatter how much she suffered during those terrible years of poverty andprivation. Just as soon as the selfish husband begins to get prosperous, finds that he is succeeding, feels his power, he often begins to beashamed of the woman who has given up everything to make his successpossible. 

It is a sad thing to see any human being whose life is blighted by thelack of love; but it is doubly pathetic to see a woman who has giveneverything to the man she loved and who gets in return only her board andclothes and an allowance, great or small. 

Some men seem to think that the precept, "Man does not live by breadalone, " was not meant to include woman. They can not understand why sheshould not be happy and contented if she has a comfortable home andplenty to eat and wear. They would be surprised to learn that many awife would gladly give up luxuries and live on bread and water, if shecould only have her husband's sympathy in her aspirations, his help andencouragement in the unfolding of her stifled talents. 

I know a very able, promising young man who says that if he had had arich father he never would have developed his creative power; that hisambition would have been strangled; that it was the desperate struggle tomake a place for himself in the world that developed the real man in him. 

This young man married a poor girl who had managed by the hardest kind ofwork and sacrifice to pay her way through college. She had just begun todevelop her power, to feel her wings, when her husband caged her in hishome, took away her highest incentive for self-development. He said thata man who could not support a wife without her working had no business tomarry. He dressed his wife like a queen; gave her horses and carriagesand servants. But all the time he was discouraging her from developingher self-reliance, taking away all motives for cultivating herresourcefulness and originality. 

At first the wife was very eager to work. Her ambition rebelled againstthe gilded chains by which she was bound. She was restless, nervous, andlonged to use her powers to do something for herself and the world. 

But her husband did not believe in a woman doing the things she wished todo. He wanted his wife to look pretty and fresh when he returned fromhis business at night; to keep young and to shine in society. He wasproud of her beauty and vivacity. He thought he loved her, but it was aselfish love, for real love has a tender regard for a person's highestgood, for that person's sake. 

Gradually the glamour of society, the lethe of a luxurious life, paralyzed her ambition, which clamored less and less peremptorily forrecognition, until at length she subsided into a life of almost totalinaction. 

Multitudes of women in this country to-day are vegetating in luxurioushomes, listless, ambitionless, living narrow, superficial, rutty lives, because the spur of necessity has been taken away from them; becausetheir husbands, who do not want them to work, have taken them out of anambition-arousing environment. 

But a life of leisure is not the only way of paralyzing the developmentof a wife's individuality. It can be done just as effectively by herbecoming a slave of her family. I believe that the average wife isconfined to her home a great deal too much. 

Many women do not seem to have any existence outside of the little homeorbit; do not have any special interests or pleasures to speak of apartfrom their husbands. They have been brought up to think that wives havevery little purpose in life other than to be the slaves and playthings oftheir lords and masters, to bear and bring up children, and to keepmeekly in the background. 

The wife who wishes to hold her husband's affection, if he is ambitious, must continue to grow, must keep pace with him mentally. She must make acontinual investment in self-improvement and in intellectual charm sothat her mental growth will compensate for the gradual loss of physicalcharm. She must keep her husband's admiration, and if he is aprogressive man he is not likely to admire a wife who stands stillmentally. Admiration is a very important part of love. 

You may be very sure that if you have an ambitious husband you must dosomething to keep up with him besides lounging, idling about the home, reading silly novels, dressing stylishly and waiting for him to return atnight. If he sees that your sun rises and sets in him, that you havelittle interest outside, that you are not broadening and deepening yourlife in other ways by extending your interests, reaching out forself-enlargement, self-improvement, he will be disappointed in you, andthis will be a great strain upon his love. 

It is impossible for a girl who has had only a little schooling toappreciate the transforming power that comes from liberal education andbroad culture. For the sake of her husband and children and her ownpeace of mind and satisfaction, she should try to improve herself inevery possible way. Think of what it means to be able to surround one'shome with an atmosphere of refinement, culture and superior intelligence!The quality of one's own ideals has a great deal to do with the qualityof the ideals of one's family. 

Even considered alone from the standpoint of self-protection, as asafeguard, a woman ought to get a liberal education; a college education, if possible. The conditions of home life in this country are such thatit is very difficult for the wife to keep up with her husband's growth, to keep pace with him, because he is constantly in an ambition-arousing, stimulating environment. Unless she is unusually ambitious and has greatpower of application and concentration and plenty of leisure, she islikely to drop behind her husband. 

As a rule, the husband has infinitely more to encourage and stimulate himthan has the wife. Success itself is a tremendous tonic. Theconsciousness of perpetual triumph, of conquering things, is a greatstimulus. 

It is true that women have developed more admirable and loving qualitiesin their home life than have men; but during all these centuries, whilewomen have been shut up in the home, men have been touching hands withthe great, busy world, absorbing knowledge of human nature and broadeningtheir minds by coming into contact with men and things. They havedeveloped independence, stamina, strength, by being compelled to solvethe larger, more practical problems of life. 

The business man and the professional man are really in a perpetualschool, a great practical university. The strenuous life, howeverdangerous, is essentially educative. The man has the incalculableadvantage of a great variety of experiences and of freshness of view. Heis continually coming in contact with new people, new things, beingmolded by a vast number of forces in the busy world which never touch thewife. 

If women, equally with men, do not continue to grow and expand aftermarriage, how can we expect race improvement? Woman must ascend tohigher, wider planes, or both man and woman must descend. "Male andfemale created He them. " There is no separating them; they must rise orfall together. 

 "The woman's cause is man's; they rise or sink Together, dwarfed or godlike, bond or free. "

Many a man has tired of his wife because she has not kept pace with him;because, instead of growing broader and keener as the years pass, she hasbecome narrow. It never occurs to him that the fault may be wholly hisown. In the early years of their married life he perhaps laughed at her"dreams, " as he called her longings for self-improvement. Hediscouraged, if he did not actually oppose, every effort she made to growto the full stature of her womanhood. His indifference or hostilityquenched the hopes she had indulged before marriage. The bitterness ofher disappointment crushed her spirit. She lost her buoyancy andenthusiasm and gradually sank to the level of a household drudge. Andthe husband wonders what has changed the joyous, high-spirited girl hemarried into the dull, apathetic woman who now performs her duties likean automaton. 

There are to-day thousands of wives doing the work of ordinaryhousemaids, who, putting it on a low standard, are smothering ability toearn perhaps more money than the men who enslave them, if they only hadan opportunity to unfold the powers which God has given them; but theyhave been brought up from infancy to believe that marriage is the onlyreal career for a woman, that these longings and hungerings forself-expression are to be smothered, covered up by the larger duties of awife and mother. 

If the husbands could change places with their wives for a year, theywould feel the contracting, narrowing influence in which the average wifelives. Their minds would soon cease to reach out, they would quicklyfeel the pinching, paralyzing effect of the monotonous existence, ofdoing the same things every day, year in and year out. The wives, on theother hand, would soon begin to broaden out. Their lives would becomericher, fuller, more complete, from contact with the world, from theconstant stretching of their minds over large problems. 

I have heard men say that remaining in the home on Sundays or holidaysjust about uses them up; that it is infinitely harder and more tryingthan the same time spent in their occupations, and that while they lovetheir children their incessant demands, the noise and confusion woulddrive them to drink if they had to bear it all the time. Strong menadmit that they can not stand these little nerve-racking vexations of thehome. Yet they wonder why the wife and mother is nervous, and seem tothink that she can bear this sort of thing three hundred and sixty-fivedays in the year without going away and getting relief for a half-dozendays during the whole time. Few men would exchange places with theirwives. Their hours are shorter, and when their day's work is done, it isdone, while a wife and mother not only works all day, but is also likelyto be called during the night. If any one is disturbed in the night bythe children, it is the mother; rarely the father. 

How long would men continue to conduct their business offices orfactories with the primitive, senseless methods in vogue in the averagekitchen to-day? Man puts all his inventiveness, his ingenuity, inimproving methods, in facilitating his business and getting the drudgeryout of his work in his office and factory, but the wife and mother stillplods along in an ill-fitted kitchen and laundry. And yet our greatestmodern inventor has said that the cares of the home could be reduced to aminimum and the servant problem solved if the perfectly practicabledevices, for lightening household labor were adopted in the home!

"But, " many of our men readers will say, "is there any profession in theworld grander than that of home making? Can anything be morestimulating, more elevating, than home making and the rearing ofchildren? How can such a vocation be narrowing or monotonous?"

Of course it is grand. There is nothing grander in the universe than thework of a true wife, a noble mother. But it would require theconstitution of a Hercules, an infinitely greater patience than that of aJob, to endure such work with almost no change or outside variety, yearin and year out, as many wives and mothers do, without breaking down. 

The average man does not appreciate how almost devoid of incentives tobroadmindedness, to many-sidedness, to liberal growth, the home life ofmany women is. 

There is a disease called arrested development, in which the stature ofthe adult remains that of a child, all physical growth and expansionhaving stopped. 

One of the most pitiable phases of American life and one of the mostdiscouraging elements in our civilization is the suppressed wife who isstruggling with arrested development after marriage. 

I have known of beautiful young wives who went to their husbands with thesame assurance of confidence and trust as to their hopes and ambitionswith which a child would approach its mother, only to meet with a brutalrebuff for even venturing to have an ambition which did not directlyenhance the husband's comfort or convenience in his home. 

It is a strange fact that most men think that when a woman marries shegoes to her new home with as rigid vows as the monks take on entering themonastery, or the nuns the convent, and they regard the suggestion of acareer for her, which does not directly bear upon the home, as domestictreason. 

There are some women, especially sensitive ones, who would never againtell their husbands of their hopes and aspirations after they had beenlaughed at and ridiculed a few times, but would be forever silent, evenwhen the canker of bitter disappointment was consuming them. 

Suppose a girl has the brains and the ability of a George Eliot and shemarries a young business man who thinks that writing articles or books ordevoting a large part of her time to music is all nonsense; that herplace is at home, taking care of it and bringing up her children, anddenies her the right to exercise her talent. How would he like to havethe conditions reversed? It is true that woman is peculiarly fitted forthe home, and every normal woman should have a home of her own, but hercareer should not be confined or limited to it any more than a man's. Ido not see why she should not be allowed to live the life normal to her;why she should be denied the right of self-expression, any more than theman. And I regard that man as a tyrant who tries to cramp her in thenatural expression of her ambition or sneers at, nags, and criticizes herfor seeking to bring out, to unfold, the sacred thing which the Creatorhas given her. This is one of her inalienable rights which no man shoulddare interfere with. If he does, he deserves the unhappiness which islikely to come to his home. 

A wife should neither be a drudge nor a dressed-up doll; she shoulddevelop herself by self-effort, just as her husband develops himself. She should not put herself in a position where her inventiveness, resourcefulness, and individuality will be paralyzed by lack of motive. 

We hear a great deal about the disinclination of college girls to marry. If this is a fact, it is largely due to the unfairness of men. The moreeducation girls get, the more they will hesitate to enter a condition ofslavery, even under the beautiful guise of home. 

Is it any wonder that so many girls refuse to marry, refuse to takechances of suppressing the best thing in them? Is it any wonder thatthey protest against putting themselves in a position where they will notbe able to deliver to the world the sacred message which the Creator hasgiven them?

I believe in marriage, but I do not believe in that marriage whichparalyzes self-development, strangles ambition, discourages evolution andself-growth, and which takes away the life purpose. 

To be continually haunted by the ghosts of strangled talents andsmothered faculties prevents real contentment and happiness. Many a homehas been made miserable, not because the husband was not kind andaffectionate, not because there was not enough to eat and to wear, butbecause the wife was haunted with unrealized hopes and disappointedambitions and expectations. 

Is there anything more pitiful than such a stifled life with its crushedhopes? Is there anything sadder than to go through life conscious oftalents and powers which we can not possibly develop; to feel that thebest thing in us must be strangled for the want of opportunity, for thelack of appreciation even by those who love us best; to know that we cannever by any possibility reach our highest expression, but must live asordid life when under different conditions a higher would be possible?

A large part of the marital infelicity about which we hear so much comesfrom the husband's attempt to cramp his wife's ambition and to suppressher normal expression. A perversion of native instinct, a constantstifling of ambition, and the longing to express oneself naturally, gradually undermine the character and lead to discontentment andunhappiness. A mother who is cramped and repressed transmits the seedsof discontent and one-sided tendencies to her children. 

The happiest marriages are those in which the right of husband and wifeto develop broadly and naturally along individual lines has beenrecognized by each. The noblest and most helpful wives and mothers arethose who develop their powers to their fullest capacity. 

Woman is made to admire power, and she likes to put herself under thedomination of a masterful man and rest in his protection. But it must bea _voluntary_ obedience which comes from admiration of original force, ofsturdy, rugged, masculine qualities. 

The average man can not get away from the idea of his wife's service tohim personally; that she is a sort of running mate, not supposed to winthe race, but to help to pull him along so that _he_ will win it. He cannot understand why she should have an ambition which bears no directrelation to his comfort, his well-being, his getting on in the world. 

The very suggestion of woman's inferiority, that she must stand in theman's shadow and not get ahead of him, that she does not have quite thesame rights in anything that he has, the same property rights, the samesuffrage rights; in other words, the whole suggestion of woman'sinferiority, has been a criminal wrong to her. Many women who areadvocating woman's suffrage perhaps would not use the ballot if they hadit. Their fight is one for freedom to do as they please, to live theirown lives in their own way. The greatest argument in the woman'ssuffrage movement is woman's protest against unfair, unjust treatment bymen. Man's opposition to woman suffrage is merely a relic of theold-time domestic barbarism. It is but another expression of hisdetermination to "boss" everybody and everything about him. 

The time will come when men will be ashamed that they ever opposedwoman's suffrage. Think of a man considering it right and just for hismost ignorant workman to have an equal vote with himself on publicmatters and yet denying the right to his educated wife and daughters!

CHAPTER LXI

THRIFT

"Mony a mickle makes a muckle. "--SCOTCH PROVERB. 

"A penny saved is a penny earned. "--ENGLISH SAYING. 

"Beware of little extravagances; a small leak will sink a bigship. "--FRANKLIN. 

"No gain is more certain than that which proceeds from the economical useof what we have. "--LATIN PROVERB. 

"Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can. "--JOHN WESLEY. 

"All fortunes have their foundation laid in economy. "--J. G. HOLLAND. 

In the philosophy of thrift, the unit measure of prosperity is always thesmallest of coins current. Thrift is measured not by the pound but bythe penny, not by the dollar but by the cent. Thus any person in receiptof an income or salary however small finds it in his power to practisethrift and to lay the foundation of prosperity. 

The word thrift in its origin means the grasping or holding fast thethings that we have. It implies economy, carefulness, as opposed towaste and extravagance. It involves self-denial and frugal living forthe time being, until the prosperity which grows out of thrift permitsthe more liberal indulgence of natural desires. 

One of the primary elements of thrift is to spend less than you earn, tosave something however small from the salary received, to lay aside atregular intervals when possible some part of the money earned or made, inprovision for the future. 

"Every boy should realize, in starting out, that he can never accumulatemoney unless he acquires the habit of saving, " said Russell Sage. "Evenif he can save only a few cents at the beginning, it is better thansaving nothing at all; and he will find, as the months go on, that itbecomes easier for him to lay by a part of his earnings. It issurprising how fast an account in a savings bank can be made to grow, andthe boy who starts one and keeps it up stands a good chance of enjoying aprosperous old age. Some people who spend every cent of their income ontheir living expenses are always bewailing the fact that they have neverbecome rich. They pick out some man who is known to have made a fortuneand speak of him as being 'lucky. ' There is practically no such thing asluck in business, and the boy who depends upon it to carry him through isvery likely not to get through at all. The men who have made a successof their lives are men who started out right when they were boys. Theystudied while at school, and when they went to work, they didn't expectto be paid wages for loafing half the time. They weren't always on thelookout for an 'easy snap' and they forged ahead, not waiting always forthe opportunities that never came, and bewailing the supposed fact thattimes are no longer what they used to be. "

"A young man may have many friends, " says Sir Thomas Lipton, "but he willfind none so steadfast, so constant, so ready to respond to his wants, socapable of pushing him ahead, as a little leather-covered book, with thename of a bank on the cover. Saving is the first great principle ofsuccess. It creates independence, it gives a young man standing, itfills him with vigor, it stimulates him with proper energy; in fact, itbrings to him the best part of any success, --happiness and contentment. "

It is estimated that if a man will begin at twenty years of age to lay bytwenty-six cents every working day, investing at seven per cent. Compoundinterest, he will at seventy years of age have amassed thirty-twothousand dollars. 

"Economy is wealth. " This proverb has been repeated to most of us untilwe are either tired of it or careless of it, but it is well to rememberthat a saying becomes a proverb because of its truth and significance. Many a man has proved that if economy is not actual wealth, it is, inmany cases, potentially so. 

Professor Marshall, the noted English economist, estimates that$500, 000, 000 is spent annually by the British working classes for thingsthat do nothing to make their lives nobler or happier. At a meeting ofthe British Association, the president, in an address to the economicsection, expressed his belief that the simple item of food-waste alonewould justify the above-mentioned estimate. One potent cause of wasteto-day is that very many of the women do not know how to buyeconomically, and are neither passable cooks nor good housekeepers. Edward Atkinson estimated that in the United States the waste from badcooking alone is over a hundred million dollars a year!

"Provided he has some ability and good sense to start with, is thrifty, honest, and economical, " said Philip D. Armour, "there is no reason whyany young man should not accumulate money and attain so-called success inlife. " When asked to what qualities he attributed his own success, Mr. Armour said: "I think that thrift and economy had much to do with it. Iowe much to my mother's training and to a good line of Scotch ancestors, who have always been thrifty and economical. "

"A young man should cultivate the habit of always saving something, " saidthe late Marshall Field, "however small his income. " It was by living upto this principle that Mr. Field became the richest and most successfulmerchant in the world. When asked by an interviewer, whom I sent to himon one occasion, what he considered the turning point in his career, heanswered, "Saving the first five thousand dollars I ever had, when Imight just as well have spent the modest salary I made. Possession ofthat sum, once I had it, gave me the ability to meet opportunities. ThatI consider the turning point. "

The first savings prove the turning point in many a young man's career. But it is true that the lack of thrift is one of the greatest curses ofmodern civilization. Extravagance, ostentatious display, a desire tooutshine others, is a vice of our age, and especially of our country. Some one has said that "investigation would place at the head of the listof the cause of poverty, wastefulness inherited from wasteful parents. "

"If you know how to spend less than you get, " said Franklin, "you havethe philosopher's stone. " The great trouble with many young people isthat they do not acquire the saving habit at the start, and never findthe "philosopher's stone. " They don't learn to spend less than they get. If they learned that lesson in time, they would have little difficulty inmaking themselves independent. It is this first saving that counts. 

John Jacob Astor said it cost him more to get the first thousand dollarsthan it did afterwards to get a hundred thousand; but if he had not savedthe first thousand, he would have died poor. 

"The first thing that a man should learn to do, " says Andrew Carnegie, "is to save his money. By saving his money he promotes thrift, --the mostvalued of all habits. Thrift is the great fortune-maker. It draws theline between the savage and the civilized man. Thrift not only developsthe fortune, but it develops, also, the man's character. "

The savings bank is one of the greatest encouragements to thrift, becauseit pays a premium on deposits in the form of interest on savings. One ofthe greatest benefits ever extended by this government to its citizens isthe opening of Postal Savings Banks where money can be deposited withabsolute security against loss, because the Federal Government would haveto fail before the bank could fail. The economies which enable a man tostart a savings account are not usually pinching economies, not thestinting of the necessaries of life, but merely the foregoing of selfishpleasures and indulgences which not only drain the purse but sap thephysical strength and undermine the health of brain and body. 

The majority of people do not even try to practise self-control; are notwilling to sacrifice present enjoyment, ease, for larger future good. They spend their money at the time for transient gratification, for thepleasure of the moment, with little thought for to-morrow, and then theyenvy others who are more successful, and wonder why they do not get onbetter themselves. They store up neither money nor knowledge for thefuture. The squirrels know that it will not always be summer. Theystore food for the winter, which their instinct tells them is coming; butmultitudes of human beings store nothing, consume everything as they goalong, so that when sickness or old age come, there is no reserve, nothing to fall back upon. They have sacrificed their future for thepresent. 

The facility with which loose change slips away from these people is mostinsidious and unaccountable. I know young men who spend more forunnecessary things, what they call "incidentals"--cigars, drinks, allsorts of sweets, soda-water and nick-nacks of various kinds--than fortheir essentials, board, clothes, rooms. Then they wonder where alltheir money goes to, as they never keep any account of it, and rarelyrestrain a desire. They do not realize it when they fling out a nickelhere and a dime there, pay a quarter for this and a quarter for that; butin a week it counts up, and in a year it amounts to a large sum. 

"He never lays up a cent" is an expression which we hear every dayregarding those who earn enough to enable them to save a competence. 

A short time ago, a young man in New York complained to a friend ofpoverty and his inability to save money. 

"How much do you spend for luxuries?" asked the friend. 

"Luxuries!" answered the young man, "if by luxuries you mean cigars and afew drinks, I don't average, --including an occasional cigar or a glass oflight wine for a friend, --over six dollars a week. Most of the boysspend more, but I make it a rule to be moderate in my expenditures. "

"Ten years ago, " declared the friend, "I was spending about the sameevery week for the same things, and paying thirty dollars a month forfive inconvenient rooms up four flights of stairs. I had just marriedthen, and one day I told my wife that I longed to have her in a placebefitting her needs and refinement. 'John, ' was her reply, 'If you loveme well enough to give up two things which are not only useless, butextremely harmful to you, we can, for what those things alone cost, own apretty home in ten years. '

"She sat down by me with a pencil and paper, and in less than fiveminutes had demonstrated that she was right. You dined with me in thesuburbs the other day, and spoke of the beauty and convenience of ourcottage. That cottage cost three thousand dollars, and every dollar ofit was my former cigar and drink money. But I gained more than a happywife and pretty home by saving; I gained self-control, better health, self-respect, a truer manhood, a more permanent happiness. I desireevery young man who is trying to secure pleasure through smoking anddrinking, whether moderately or immoderately, to make use of hisjudgment, and pencil and paper, and see if he is not forfeiting in anumber of directions far more than he is gaining. "

There is an impressive fact in the Gospel story of the Prodigal Son. Thestatement "he wasted his substance in riotous living" means more thanthat he wasted his funds. It implies that he wasted _himself_. And themost serious phase of all waste is not the waste of substance but thewaste of self, of one's energy, capital, the lowering of morals, theundermining of character, the loss of self-respect which thriftencourages and promotes. 

Thrift is not only one of the foundation-stones of a fortune, but alsoone of character. The habit of thrift improves the quality of thecharacter. 

The saving of money usually means the saving of a man. It means cuttingoff indulgences or avoiding vicious habits which are ruinous. It oftenmeans health in the place of dissipation. It often means a clear insteadof a cloudy and muddled brain. 

Furthermore, the saving habit indicates an ambition to get on and up inthe world. It develops a spirit of independence, of self-reliance. Alittle bank account or an insurance policy indicates a desire to improveone's condition, to look up in life. It means hope, it means ambition, adetermination to "make good. "

People believe in the young man, who, without being mean or penurious, saves a part of his income. It is an indication of many sterlingqualities. Business men naturally reason that if a young man is savinghis money, he is also saving his energy, his vitality, from being wasted, that he is looking up in the world, and not down; that he is longheaded, wise; that he is determined not to sacrifice the larger gain of thefuture for the gratification of the hour. 

A snug little bank account will add to your self-respect andself-confidence, because it shows that you have practicability, a littlemore independence. You can look the world in the face with a little moreassurance, you can stand a little more erect and face the future withmore confidence, if you know that there stands between yourself and wanta little ready money or a safe investment of some kind. 

The very consciousness that there is something back of you that willprove a barrier to the wolf which haunts so many human beings, and whichis a terror and an efficiency destroyer to so many, will strengthen andbuttress you at every point. It will relieve you from worry and anxietyabout the future; it will unlock your faculties, release them from therestraint and suppression which uncertainty, fear, and doubt impose, andleave you free to do your best work. 

Another great aid and incentive to thrift is the life insurance policy. "Primarily devised for the support of widows and orphans, life insurancepractise has been developed so as to include the secure investment ofsurplus earnings in conjunction with the insurance of a sum payable atdeath. "

I am a great believer in the efficiency of savings-banks as characterbuilders; but life insurance has some greater advantages, especially infurnishing that imperious "must, " that spur of necessity so important asa motive to most people. 

People can put money into savings-banks when they get it, provided somestronger desire does not overcome the inclination; but they feel thatthey _must_ pay their insurance premium. 

Then again, money obtainable just by signing the name is so easilywithdrawn for spending in all sorts of ways. This is one reason why Ioften recommend life insurance to young people as a means of saving. Ithas been of untold value as an object-lesson of the tremendouspossibilities in acquiring the saving habit. 

I believe that life insurance is doing a great deal to induce the habitof saving. When a young man on a salary or a definite income takes outan insurance policy he has a definite aim. He has made up his mindpositively to save so much money every year from his income to pay hispremium. Then it is easier for him to say "No, " to the hundred-and-onealluring temptations to spend his money for this and that. He can say"No, " then with emphasis, because he knows he must keep up his insurance. 

An insurance policy has often changed the habits of an entire family fromthriftlessness and spendthrift tendencies to thrift and order. The veryfact that a certain amount must be saved from the income every week, orevery month, or every year, has often developed the faculty of prudenceand economy of the entire household. Everybody is cautioned to becareful because the premium must be paid. And oftentimes it is the firstsign of a program or order, --system in the home. 

The consciousness of a sacred obligation to make payments on that whichmeans protection for those dear to you often shuts out a great deal offoolishness, and cuts out a lot of temptation to spend money forself-gratification and to cater to one's weak tendencies. 

The life insurance policy has thus proved to be a character insurance aswell, an insurance against silly expenditures, an insurance against one'sown weak will power, or vicious, weak tendencies; a real protectionagainst one's self, one's real enemy. 

Among the sworn enemies of thrift may be named going into debt, borrowingmoney, keeping no itemized account of daily expenditures, and buying onthe instalment plan. That great English preacher Spurgeon said thatdebt, dirt, and the devil made up the trinity of evil. And debt candiscount the devil at any time for possibilities of present personaltorment. The temptations to go into debt are increasing rapidly. Onevery hand in the cities one may read such advertisements as "We TrustYou, " "Your Credit is Good With Us, " and with these statements comeoffers of clothing, furniture, and what not "on easy payments. " But asthe Irishman remarked after an experience with the instalment purchase offurniture: "Onaisy payments they sure are. " As a matter of fact, theeasy payments take all the ease and comfort out of life--they are easyonly for the man who receives them. 

Beware of the delusions of buying on the instalment plan. There arethousands of poor families in this country who buy organs and sets ofbooks and encyclopedias, lightning rods, farming implements, and allsorts of things which they might get along without, because they can payfor them a little at a time. In this way, they keep themselves poor. They are always pinching, sacrificing, to save up for the agent when hecomes around to collect. 

All through the South there are poor homes of both colored and whitefamilies, where there are not sufficient cooking utensils and knives, forks, and spoons to enable the members to eat with comfort, and yet youwill find expensive things in their homes which they have bought on theinstalment plan, and which keep them poor for years trying to pay forthem. 

As far as borrowing money is concerned the bitter experience of countlessmen and women is crystallized in that old saying: "He that goes aborrowing goes a sorrowing. " There is a world of safety for the man whofollows Shakespeare's advice: "Neither a borrower nor a lender be. "

It is sometimes said flippantly that "poverty is no disgrace but it'smighty uncomfortable. " And yet poverty is often a real disgrace. Peopleborn to poverty may rise above it. People who have poverty thrust uponthem may overcome it. In this great land of abundance and opportunitypoverty is in most cases a disgrace and a reproach. 

Dr. Johnson said to Boswell, "I admonish you avoid poverty, thetemptation and worry it breeds. " There is something humiliating in beingpoor. The very consciousness that we have _nothing to show for ourendeavor_ besides a little character and the little we have done, isanything but encouraging. Somehow, we feel that we have not amounted tomuch, and we know the world looks upon us in the same way if we have notmanaged to accumulate something. It is a reflection upon our businessability, upon our judgment, upon our industry. It is not so much for themoney, as for what it means to have earned and saved money; it is theidea of thrift. If we have not been thrifty, if we have not savedanything, the world will look upon us as good for nothing, as partialfailures, as either lazy, slipshod, or extravagant. They regard us aseither not having been able to make money, or if we have, not being ableto save it. 

But let it be remembered that thrift is not parsimony not miserliness. It often means very liberal spending. It is a perpetual protest againstputting the emphasis on the wrong thing. 

No one should make the mistake of economizing to the extent of plantingseeds, and then denying liberal nourishment to the plants that grow fromthem; of conducting business without advertising; or of saving a littleextra expense by pinching on one's table or dress. "A dollar saved is adollar earned, " but a dollar spent well and liberally is often severaldollars earned. A dollar saved is often very many dollars lost. Theprogressive, generous spirit, nowadays, will leave far behind the plodderthat devotes time to adding pennies that could be given to making dollars. 

The only value a dollar has is its buying power. "No matter how manytimes it has been spent, it is still good. " Hoarded money is of no moreuse than gold so inaccessible in old Mother Earth that it will never feelthe miner's pick. There is plenty in this world, if we keep it movingand keep moving after it. Imagine everybody in the world stingy, livingon the principle of "We can do without that, " or "Our grandfathers gotalong without such things, and I guess I can. " What would become of ourparks, grand buildings, electrical improvements; of music and art? Whatwould become of labor that nurses a tree from a forest to a piano or apalace car? What would become of those dependent upon the finished work?What would happen, what panic would follow, if everybody turned stingy, is indefinable. 

"So apportion your wants that your means may exceed them, " says Bulwer. "With one hundred pounds a year I may need no man's help; I may at leasthave 'my crust of bread and liberty. ' But with five thousand pounds ayear, I may dread a ring at my bell; I may have my tyrannical master inservants whose wages I can not pay; my exile may be at the fiat of thefirst long-suffering man who enters judgement against me; for the fleshthat lies nearest my heart, some Shylock may be dusting his scales andwhetting his knife. Every man is needy who spends more than he has; noman is needy who spends less. I may so ill manage that, with fivethousand a year, I purchase the worst evils of poverty, --terror andshame; I may so well manage my money that, with one hundred pounds ayear, I purchase the best blessings of wealth, --safety and respect. "

CHAPTER LXII

A COLLEGE EDUCATION AT HOME

"Tumbling around in a library" was the phrase Oliver Wendell Holmes usedin describing in part his felicities in boyhood. One of the mostimportant things that wise students get out of their schooldays is afamiliarity with books in various departments of learning. The abilityto pick out from a library what is needed in life is of the greatestpractical value. It is like a man selecting his tools for intellectualexpansion and social service. "Men in every department of practicallife, " says President Hadley of Yale, "men in commerce, intransportation, or in manufactures--have told me that what they reallywanted from our colleges was men who have this selective power of usingbooks efficiently. The beginnings of this kind of knowledge are bestlearned in any home fairly well furnished with books. "

Libraries are no longer a luxury, but a necessity. A home without booksand periodicals and newspapers is like a house without windows. Childrenlearn to read by being in the midst of books; they unconsciously absorbknowledge by handling them. No family can now afford to be without goodreading. 

Children who are well supplied with dictionaries, encyclopedias, histories, works of reference, and other useful books, will educatethemselves unconsciously, and almost without expense, and will learn manythings of their own accord in moments which would otherwise be wasted;and which, if learned in schools, academies, or colleges, would cost tentimes as much as the expense of the books would be. Besides, homes arebrightened and made attractive by good books, and children stay in suchpleasant homes; while those whose education has been neglected areanxious to get away from home, and drift off and fall into all manner ofsnares and dangers. 

It is astonishing how much a bright child will absorb from being broughtup in the atmosphere of good books, being allowed to constantly use them, to handle them, to be familiar with their bindings and titles. It is agreat thing for children to be brought up in the atmosphere of books. 

Many people never make a mark on a book, never bend down a leaf, orunderscore a choice passage. Their libraries are just as clean as theday they bought them, and, often, their minds are just about as clean ofinformation. Don't be afraid to mark your books. Make notes in them. They will be all the more valuable. One who learns to use his books inearly life, grows up with an increasing power for effective usefulness. 

It is related that Henry Clay's mother furnished him with books by herown earnings at the washtub. 

Wear threadbare clothes and patched shoes if necessary, but do not pinchor economize on books. If you can not give your children an academiceducation you can place within their reach a few good books which willlift them above their surroundings, into respectability and honor. 

Is not one's early home the place where he should get his principaltraining for life? It is here we form habits which shape our careers, and which cling to us as long as we live. It is here that regular, persistent mental training should fix the life ever after. 

I know of pitiable cases where ambitious boys and girls have longed toimprove themselves, and yet were prevented from doing so by thepernicious habits prevailing in the home, where everybody else spent theevenings talking and joking, with no effort at self-improvement, nothought of higher ideals, no impulse to read anything better than acheap, exciting story. The aspiring members of the family were teasedand laughed at until they got discouraged and gave up the struggle. 

If the younger ones do not want to read or study themselves, they willnot let anybody else so inclined do so. Children are naturallymischievous, and like to tease. They are selfish, too, and can notunderstand why anyone else should want to go off by himself to read orstudy when they want him to play. 

Were the self-improvement habit once well established in a home, it wouldbecome a delight. The young people would look forward to the study hourwith as much anticipation as to playing. 

Were it possible for every family that squanders precious time, to spendan evening in such a home, it would be an inspiration. A bright, alert, intelligent, harmonious atmosphere so pervades a self-improving home thatone feels insensibly uplifted and stimulated to better things. 

I know a New England family in which all the children and the father andmother, by mutual consent, set aside a portion of each evening for studyor some form of self-culture. After dinner, they give themselvescompletely to recreation. They have a regular romp and play, and all thefun possible for an hour. Then when the time comes for study, the entirehouse becomes so still that you could hear a pin drop. Everyone is inhis place reading, writing, studying, or engaged in some form of mentalwork. No one is allowed to speak or disturb anyone else. If any memberof the family is indisposed, or for any reason does not feel likeworking, he must at least keep quiet and not disturb the others. Thereis perfect harmony and unity of purpose, an ideal condition for study. Everything that would scatter the efforts or cause the mind to wander, all interruptions that would break the continuity of thought, iscarefully guarded against. More is gained in one hour of close, uninterrupted study, than in two or three broken by many interruptions, or weakened by mind wandering. 

Sometimes the habits of a home are revolutionized by the influence of oneresolute youth who declares himself, taking a stand and announcing that, as for himself, he does not propose to be a failure, that he is going totake no chances as to his future. The moment he does this, he stands outin strong contrast with the great mass of young people who are throwingaway their opportunities and have not grit and stamina enough to doanything worth while. 

The very reputation of always trying to improve yourself in everypossible way, of being dead in earnest, will attract the attention ofeverybody who knows you, and you will get many a recommendation forpromotion which never comes to those who make no special effort to climbupward. 

There is a great deal of time wasted even in the busiest lives, which, ifproperly organized, might be used to advantage. 

Many housewives who are so busy from morning to night that they reallybelieve they have no time for reading books, magazines, or newspaperswould be amazed to find how much they would have if they would morethoroughly systematize their work. Order is a great time saver, and wecertainly ought to be able to so adjust our living plan that we can havea fair amount of time for self-improvement, for enlarging life. Yet manypeople think that their only opportunity for self-improvement dependsupon the time left after everything else has been attended to. 

What would a business man accomplish if he did not attend to importantmatters until he had time that was not needed for anything else? Thegood business man goes to his office in the morning and plunges rightinto the important work of the day. He knows perfectly well that if heattends to all the outside matters, all the details and little thingsthat come up, sees everybody that wants to see him, and answers all thequestions people want to ask, that it will be time to close his officebefore he gets to his main business. 

Most of us manage somehow to find time for the things we love. If one ishungry for knowledge, if one yearns for self-improvement, if one has ataste for reading, he will make the opportunity. 

Where the heart is, there is the treasure. Where the ambition is, thereis time. 

It takes not only resolution but also determination to set asideunessentials for essentials, things pleasant and agreeable to-day for thethings that will prove best for us in the end. There is alwaystemptation to sacrifice future good for present pleasure; to put offreading to a more convenient season, while we enjoy idle amusements orwaste the time in gossip or frivolous conversation. 

The greatest things of the world have been done by those who systematizedtheir work, organized their time. Men who have left their mark on theworld have appreciated the preciousness of time, regarding it as thegreat quarry. 

If you want to develop a delightful form of enjoyment, to cultivate a newpleasure, a new sensation which you have never before experienced, beginto read good books, good periodicals, regularly every day. Do not tireyourself by trying to read a great deal at first. Read a little at atime, but read some every day, no matter how little. If you are faithfulyou will soon acquire a taste for reading--the reading habit; and itwill, in time, give you infinite satisfaction, unalloyed pleasure. 

In a gymnasium, one often sees lax, listless people, who, instead ofpursuing a systematic course of training to develop all the muscles ofthe body, flit aimlessly from one thing to another, exercising withpulley-weights for a minute or two, taking up dumb-bells and throwingthem down, swinging once or twice on parallel bars, and so fritteringaway time and strength. Far better it would be for such people to stayaway from a gymnasium altogether, for their lack of purpose andcontinuity makes them lose rather than gain muscular energy. A man orwoman who would gather strength from gymnastic exercise must set about itsystematically and with a will. He must put mind and energy into thework, or else continue to have flabby muscles and an undeveloped body. 

[Illustration: Julia Ward Howe]

The physical gymnasium differs only in kind from the mental one. Thoroughness and system are as necessary in one as in the other. It isnot the tasters of books--not those who sip here and there, who take upone book after another, turn the leaves listlessly and hurry to theend, --who strengthen and develop the mind by reading. 

To get the most from your reading you must read with a purpose. To sitdown and pick up a book listlessly, with no aim except to pass away time, is demoralizing. It is much as if an employer were to hire a boy, andtell him he could start when he pleased in the morning, work when he feltlike it, rest when he wanted to, and quit when he got tired!

Never go to a book you wish to read for a purpose, if you can possiblyavoid it, with a tired, jaded mentality. If you do, you will get thesame in kind from it. Go to it fresh, vigorous, and with active, neverpassive, faculties. This practise is a splendid and effective cure formind-wandering, which afflicts so many people, and which is encouraged bythe multiplicity of and facility of obtaining reading matter at thepresent day. 

What can give greater satisfaction than reading with a purpose, and thatconsciousness of a broadening mind that follows it, and growth, ofexpansion, of enriching the life, the consciousness that we are pushingignorance, bigotry, and whatever clouds the mind and hampers progress alittle further away from us?

The kind of reading that counts, that makes mental fiber and stamina isthat upon which the mind is concentrated; approaching a book with allone's soul intent upon its contents. 

How few people ever learn to concentrate their attention. Most of uswaste a vast amount of precious time dawdling and idling. We sit orstand over our work without thinking. Our minds are blank much of thetime. 

Passive reading is even more harmful in its effects than desultoryreading. It no more strengthens the brain than sitting down in agymnasium develops the body. The mind remains inactive, in a sort ofindolent revery, wandering here and there, without focusing anywhere. Such reading takes the spring and snap out of the mental faculties, weakens the intellect, and makes the brain torpid and incapable ofgrappling with great principles and difficult problems. 

What you get out of a book is not necessarily what the author puts intoit, but what you bring to it. If the heart does not lead the head; ifthe thirst for knowledge, the hunger for a broader and deeper culture, are not the motives for reading, you will not get the most out of a book. But, if your thirsty soul drinks in the writer's thought as the parchedsoil absorbs rain, then your latent possibilities and the potency of yourbeing, like delayed germs and seeds in the soil, will spring forth intonew life. 

When you read, read as Macaulay did, as Carlyle did, as Lincoln did--asdid every great man who has profited by his reading--with your whole soulabsorbed in what you read, with such intense concentration that you willbe oblivious of everything else outside of your book. 

"Reading furnishes us only with the materials of knowledge, " said JohnLocke; "it is thinking that makes what we read ours. "

In order to get the most out of books, the reader must be a thinker. Themere acquisition of facts is not the acquisition of power. To fill themind with knowledge that can not be made available is like filling ourhouses with furniture and bric-à-brac until we have no room to move about. 

Food does not become physical force, brain, or muscle until it has beenthoroughly digested and assimilated, and has become an integral part ofthe blood, brain, and other tissues. Knowledge does not become poweruntil digested and assimilated by the brain, until it has become a partof the mind itself. 

If you wish to become intellectually strong, after reading with theclosest attention, form this habit: frequently close your book and sitand think, or stand and walk and think--but think, contemplate, reflect. Turn what you have read over and over in your mind. 

It is not yours until you have assimilated it by your thought. When youfirst read it, it belongs to the author. It is yours only when itbecomes an integral part of you. 

Many people have an idea that if they keep reading everlastingly, if theyalways have a book in their hands at every leisure moment, they will, ofnecessity, become full-rounded and well-educated. 

But they might just as well expect to become athletes by eating at everyopportunity. It is even more necessary to think than to read. Thinking, contemplating what we have read, is what digestion and assimilation areto the food. 

Some of the biggest fools I know are always cramming themselves withknowledge. But they never think. When they get a few minutes' leisurethey grab a book and go to reading. In other words, they are alwayseating intellectually, but never digesting their knowledge orassimilating it. 

I know a young man who has formed such a habit of reading that he isalmost never without a book, a magazine, or a paper. He is alwaysreading at home, on the cars, at the railway stations, and he hasacquired a vast amount of knowledge. He has a perfect passion forknowledge, and yet his mind seems to have been weakened by this perpetualbrain stuffing. 

By every reader let Milton's words be borne in mind:

 "Who reads Incessantly, and to his reading brings not A spirit and judgment equal or superior, . . . Uncertain and unsettled still remains, Deep versed in books and shallow in himself, Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge, As children gathering pebbles on the shore. "

When Webster was a boy, books were scarce, and so precious that he neverdreamed that they were to be read only once, but thought they ought to becommitted to memory, or read and re-read until they became a part of hisvery life. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning says, "We err by reading too much, and out ofproportion to what we think. I should be wiser, I am persuaded, if I hadnot read half as much; should have had stronger and better exercisedfaculties, and should stand higher in my own appreciation. "

Those who live more quietly do not have so many distracting influences, and consequently think more deeply and reflect more than others. They donot read so much but they are better readers. 

You should bring your mind to the reading of a book, or to the study ofany subject, as you take an ax to the grindstone; not for what you getfrom the stone, but for the sharpening of the ax. 

The greatest advantage of books does not always come from what weremember of them, but from their suggestiveness, their character-buildingpower. 

"It is not in the library, but in yourself, " says Fr. Gregory, "in yourself-respect and your consciousness of duty nobly done--that you are tofind the 'Fountain of Youth, ' the 'Elixir of Life, ' and all the otherthings that tend to preserve life's freshness and bloom. 

"It is a grand thing to read a good book--it is a grander thing to live agood life--and in the living of such life is generated the power thatdefies age and its decadence. "

It is not the ability, the education, the knowledge that one has thatmakes the difference between men. The mere possession of knowledge isnot always the possession of power; knowledge which has not become a partof yourself, knowledge which can not swing into line in an emergency isof little use, and will not save you at the critical moment. 

To be effective, a man's education must become a part of himself as hegoes along. All of it must be worked up into power. A little practicaleducation that has become a part of one's being and is always available, will accomplish more in the world than knowledge far more extensive thatcan not be utilized. 

No one better illustrates what books will do for a man, and what athinker will do with his books, than Gladstone, who was always fargreater than his career. He rose above Parliament, reached out beyondpolitics, and was always growing. He had a passion for intellectualexpansion. His peculiar gifts undoubtedly fitted him for the church, orhe would have made a good professor at Oxford or Cambridge. But, circumstances led him into the political arena, and he adapted himselfreadily to his environment. He was an all round well read man, whothought his way through libraries and through life. 

One great benefit of a taste for reading, and access to the book world, is the service it renders as a diversion and a solace. 

What a great thing to be able to get away from ourselves, to fly awayfrom the harassing, humiliating, discouraging, depressing things aboutus, to go at will to a world of beauty, joy, and gladness!

If a person is discouraged or depressed by any great bereavement orsuffering, the quickest and the most effective way of restoring the mindto its perfect balance, to its normal condition, is to immerse it in asane atmosphere, an uplifting, encouraging, inspiring atmosphere, and themost good in the world is found in the best books. I have known peoplewho were suffering under the most painful mental anguish, from losses andshocks which almost unbalanced their minds, to be completelyrevolutionized in their mental state by the suggestive power which camefrom becoming absorbed in a great book. 

Everywhere we see rich old men sitting around the clubs, smoking, lookingout of the windows, lounging around hotels, traveling about, uneasy, dissatisfied, not knowing what to do with themselves, because they hadnever prepared for this part of their lives. They put all their energy, ambition, everything into their vocation. 

I know an old gentleman who has been an exceedingly active business man. He has kept his finger upon the pulse of events. He has known what hasbeen going on in the world during his whole active career. And he is nowas happy and as contented as a child in his retirement, because he hasalways been a great reader, a great lover of his kind. 

People who keep their minds bent in one direction too long at a time soonlose their elasticity, their mental vigor, freshness, spontaneity. 

If I were to quote Mr. Dooley, it would be:--"Reading is not thinking;reading is the next thing this side of going to bed for resting the mind. "

To my own mind, however, I would rather cite that versatile Englishman, Lord Rosebery. In a speech at the opening of a Carnegie library at WestCalder, Midlothian, he made a characteristic utterance upon the value ofbooks, saying in substance:

"There is, however, one case in which books are certainly an end inthemselves, and that is to refresh and to recruit after fatigue. Whenthe object is to refresh and to exalt, to lose the cares of this world inthe world of imagination, then the book is more than a means. It is anend in itself. It refreshes, exalts, and inspires the man. From anywork, manual or intellectual, the man with a happy taste for books comesin tired and soured and falls into the arms of some great author, whoraises him from the ground and takes him into a new heaven and a newearth, where he forgets his bruises and rests his limbs, and he returnsto the world a fresh and happy man. "

"Who, " asks Professor Atkinson, "can overestimate the value of goodbooks, those strips of thought, as Bacon so finely calls them, voyagingthrough seas of time, and carrying their precious freight so safely fromgeneration to generation? Here are finest minds giving us the bestwisdom of present and past ages; here are the intellects gifted farbeyond ours, ready to give us the results of lifetimes of patientthought, imaginations open to the beauty of the universe. "

The lover of good books can never be very lonely; and, no matter where heis, he can always find pleasant and profitable occupation and the best ofsociety when he quits work. 

Who can ever be grateful enough for the art of printing; grateful enoughto the famous authors who have put their best thoughts where we can enjoythem at will? There are some advantages of intercourse with great mindsthrough their books over meeting them in person. The best of them livein their books, while their disagreeable peculiarities, theiridiosyncrasies, their objectionable traits are eliminated. In theirbooks we find the authors at their best. Their thoughts are selected, winnowed in their books. Book friends are always at our service, neverannoy us, rasp or nettle us. No matter how nervous, tired, ordiscouraged one may be, they are always soothing, stimulating, uplifting. 

We may call up the greatest writer in the middle of the night when we cannot sleep, and he is just as glad to see us as at any other time. We arenot excluded from any nook or corner in the great literary world; we canvisit the most celebrated people that ever lived without an appointment, without influence, without the necessity of dressing or of observing anyrules of etiquette. We can drop in upon a Milton, a Shakespeare, anEmerson, a Longfellow, a Whittier without a moment's notice and receivethe warmest welcome. 

"You get into society, in the widest sense, " says Geikie, "in a greatlibrary, with the huge advantage of needing no introductions, and notdreading repulses. From that great crowd you can choose what companionsyou please, for in the silent levees of the immortals there is no pride, but the highest is at the service of the lowest, with a grand humility. You may speak freely with any, without a thought of your inferiority; forbooks are perfectly well bred, and hurt no one's feelings by anydiscriminations. "

"It is not the number of books, " says Professor William Mathews, "which ayoung man reads that makes him intelligent and well informed, but thenumber of well-chosen ones that he has mastered, so that every valuablethought in them is a familiar friend. "

It is only when books have been read and reread with ever deepeningdelight, that they are clasped to the heart, and become what Macaulayfound them to be, the old friends who are never found with new faces, whoare the same to us in our wealth and in our poverty, in our glory and inour obscurity. No one gets into the inmost heart of a beautiful poem, agreat history, a book of delicate humor, or a volume of exquisite essays, by reading it once or twice. He must have its precious thoughts andillustrations stored in the treasure-house of memory, and brood over themin the hours of leisure. 

"A book may be a perpetual companion. Friends come and go, but the bookmay beguile all experiences and enchant all hours. "

"The first time, " says Goldsmith, "that I read an excellent book, it isto me just as if I had gained a new friend; when I read over a book Ihave perused before, it resembles the meeting with an old one. "

"No matter how poor I am, " says William Ellery Channing, "no matterthough the prosperous of my own time will not enter my obscure dwelling;if the sacred writers will enter and take up their abode under myroof--if Milton will cross my threshold to sing to me of Paradise; andShakespeare to open to me the worlds of imagination and the workings ofthe human heart, --I shall not pine for want of intellectualcompanionship, though excluded from what is called the best society inthe place where I live. "

"Books, " says Milton, "do preserve as in a violl, the purest efficacieand extraction of that living intellect that bred them. A good Booke isthe pretious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalm'd and treasur'd up onpurpose to a Life beyond Life. "

"A book is good company, " said Henry Ward Beecher. "It comes to yourlonging with full instruction, but pursues you never. It is not offendedat your absent-mindedness, nor jealous if you turn to other pleasures, ofleaf, or dress, or mineral, or even of books. It silently serves thesoul without recompense, not even for the hire of love. And yet morenoble, it seems to pass from itself, and to enter the memory, and tohover in a silvery transformation there, until the outward book is but abody and its soul and spirit are flown to you, and possess your memorylike a spirit. "

CHAPTER LXIII

DISCRIMINATION IN READING

A few books well read, and an intelligent choice of those few, --theseare the fundamentals for self-education by reading. 

If only a few well chosen, it is better to avail yourself of choicesothers have already made--old books, the standard works tested by manygenerations of readers. If only a few, let them be books of highestcharacter and established fame. Such books are easily found even insmall public libraries. 

For the purpose of this chapter, which is to aid in forming a taste forreading, there should be no confusion of choice by naming too manybooks of one author. If you read one and like it, you can easily findanother. 

It is a cardinal rule that if you do not like a book, do not read it. What another likes, you may not. Any book list is suggestive; it canbe binding only on those who prize it. Like attracts like. 

Did you ever think that the thing you are looking for is looking foryou; that it is the very law of affinities to get together?

If you are coarse in your tastes, vicious in your tendencies, you donot have to work very hard to find coarse vicious books; they areseeking you by the very law of attraction. 

One's taste for reading is much like his taste for food. Dull booksare to be avoided, as one refuses food disagreeable to him; to someoneelse the book may not be dull, nor the food disagreeable. Wholenations may eat cabbage, or stale fish, while I like neither. Ultimately, therefore, every reader must make his own selection, andfind the book that finds him. Any one not a random reader will soonselect a short shelf of books that he may like better than a longershelf that exactly suits some one else. Either will be a shelf of goodbooks, neither a shelf of the best books, since if best for you or me, they may not be best for everybody. 

A most learned man in India, in turning the leaves of a book, as heread, felt a little prick in his finger; a tiny snake dropped out andwriggled out of sight. The pundit's finger began to swell, then hisarm; and in an hour, he was dead. 

Who has not noticed in the home a snake in a book that has changed thecharacter of a boy through its moral poison so that he was never quitethe same again?

How well did Carlyle divide books into sheep and goats. 

It is probable that the careers of the majority of criminals in ourprisons to-day might have been vastly different if the character oftheir reading when young had been different; had it been up-lifting, wholesome, instead of degrading. 

"Christian Endeavor" Clark read a notice conspicuously posted in alarge city:--"All boys should read the wonderful story of the desperadobrothers of the Western plains, whose strange and thrilling adventuresof successful robbery and murder have never before been equaled. Pricefive cents. " The next morning, Dr. Clark read in a newspaper of thatcity that seven boys had been arrested for burglary, and four storesbroken into by the "gang. " One of the ringleaders was only ten yearsold. At their trial, it appeared that each had invested five cents inthe story of border crime. "Red-eyed Dick, the Terror of the Rockies, "or some such story has poisoned many a lad's life. A seductive, demoralizing book destroys the ambition unless for vicious living. Allthat was sweet, beautiful, and wholesome in the character before seemsto vanish, and everything changes after the reading of a single badbook. It has aroused the appetite for more forbidden pleasures, untilit crowds out the desire for everything better, purer, healthier. Mental dissipation from this exciting literature, often dripping withsuggestiveness of impurity, giving a passport to the prohibited; thisis fatal to all soundness of mind. 

A lad once showed to another a book full of words and pictures ofimpurity. He only had it in his hands a few moments. Later in life heheld high office in the church, and years afterward told a friend thathe would have given half he possessed had he never seen it. 

Light, flashy stories, with no intention in them, seriously injured themind of a brilliant young lady, I once knew. Like the drug fiend whosebrain has been stupefied, her brain became completely demoralized byconstant mental dissipation. Familiarity with the bad, ruins the tastefor the good. Her ambition and ideas of life became completelychanged. Her only enjoyment was the excitement of her imaginationthrough vicious books. 

Nothing else will more quickly injure a good mind than familiarity withthe frivolous, the superficial. Even though they may not be actuallyvicious, the reading of books which are not true to life, which carryhome no great lesson, teach no sane or healthful philosophy, but aremerely written to excite the passions, to stimulate a morbid curiosity, will ruin the best of minds in a very short time. It tends to destroythe ideals and to ruin the taste for all good reading. 

Read, read, read all you can. But never read a bad book or a poorbook. Life is too short, time too precious, to spend it in readinganything but the best. 

Any book is bad for you, the reading of which takes away your desirefor a better one. 

Many people still hold that it is a bad thing for the young to readworks of fiction. They believe that young minds get a moral twist fromreading that which they know is not true, the descriptions of mereimaginary heroes and heroines, and of things which never happened. Now, this is a very narrow, limited view of a big question. Thesepeople do not understand the office of the imagination; they do notrealize that many of the fictitious heroes and heroines that live inour minds, even from childhood's days, are much more real in theirinfluence on our lives than some of those that exist in flesh and blood. 

Dickens' marvelous characters seem more real to us than any we haveever met. They have followed millions of people from childhood to oldage, and influenced their whole lives for good. Many of us would lookupon it as a great calamity to have these characters of fiction blottedout of our memory and their influence taken out of our lives. 

Readers are sometimes so wrought up by a good work of fiction, theirminds are raised to such a pitch of courage and daring, all theirfaculties so sharpened and braced, their whole nature so stimulated, that they can for the time being attempt and accomplish things whichwere impossible to them without the stimulus. 

This, it seems to me, is one of the great values of fiction. If it isgood and elevating, it is a splendid exercise of all the mental andmoral faculties; it increases courage; it rouses enthusiasm; it sweepsthe brain-ash off the mind, and actually strengthens its ability tograsp new principles and to grapple with the difficulties of life. 

Many a discouraged soul has been refreshened, re-invigorated, has takenon new life by the reading of a good romance. I recall a bit offiction, called "The Magic Story, " which has helped thousands ofdiscouraged souls, given them new hope, new life, when they were readyto give up the struggle. 

The reading of good fiction is a splendid imagination exerciser andbuilder. It stimulates it by suggestions, powerfully increases itspicturing capacity, and keeps it fresh and vigorous and wholesome, anda wholesome imagination plays a very great part in every sane andworthy life. It makes it possible for us to shut out the mostdisagreeable past, to shut out at will all hideous memories of ourmistakes, failures, and misfortunes; it helps us to forget our troubleand sorrows, and to slip at will into a new, fresh world of our ownmaking, a world which we can make as beautiful, as sublime, as we wish. The imagination is a wonderful substitute for wealth, luxuries, and formaterial things. No matter how poor we may be, or how unfortunate, wemay be bedridden even, we can by its aid travel round the world, visitits greatest cities, and create the most beautiful things for ourselves. 

Sir John Herschel tells an amusing anecdote illustrating the pleasurederived from a book, not assuredly of the first order. In a certainvillage the blacksmith had got hold of Richardson's novel "Pamela, orVirtue Rewarded, " and used to sit on his anvil in the long summerevenings and read it aloud to a large and attentive audience. It is byno means a short book, but they fairly listened to it all. "At length, when the happy turn of fortune arrived, which brings the hero andheroine together, and sets them living long and happily according tothe most approved rules, the congregation were so delighted as to raisea great shout, and, procuring the church keys, actually set the parishbells ringing. "

"It all comes back to us now, " said the brilliant editor of the"Interior" not long ago, "that winter evening in the old home. Thecurtains are down, the fire is sending out a cheerful warmth and theshaded lamps diffusing a well-tempered radiance. The lad of fifteen isbent over a borrowed volume of sea tales. For hours he reads on, oblivious of all surroundings, until parental attention is drawn towardhim by the unusual silence. The boy is seen to be trembling from headto foot with suppressed excitement. A fatherly hand is laid upon thevolume, closing it firmly, and the edict is spoken, 'No more novels forfive years. ' And the lad goes off to bed, half glad, half grieved, wondering whether he has found fetters or achieved freedom. 

"In truth he had received both; for that indiscriminating commandforbade to him during a formative period of his life works which wouldhave kindled his imagination, enriched his fancy, and heightened hispower of expression; but if it closed to him the Garden of Hesperides, it also saved him from a possible descent to the Inferno; it madeheroes of history, not demigods of mythology, his companions, andreserved to maturer years those excursions in the literature of theimagination which may lead a young man up to heaven or as easily draghim down to hell. 

"The boy who is permitted to saturate his mind with stories of 'battle, murder, and sudden death, ' is fitting himself, as the records of ourjuvenile courts show, for the penitentiary or perhaps the gallows. Noman can handle pitch without defilement. We may choose our books, butwe can not choose their effects. We may plant the vine or sow thethistle, but we can not command what fruit each shall bear. We mayloosely select our library, but by and by it will fit us close as aglove. 

"There was never such a demand for fiction as now, and never largeropportunities for its usefulness. Nothing has such an attraction forlife as life. But what the heart craves is not 'life as it is. ' It islife as it ought to be. We want not the feeble but the forceful; notthe commonplace but the transcendent. Nobody objects to the 'purposenovel' except those who object to the purpose. Dealing as it does inthe hands of a great master, with the grandest passions, the mosttender emotions, the divinest hopes, it can portray all these spiritualforces in their majestic sweep and uplift. And as a matter of history, we have seen the novel achieve in a single generation the task at whichthe homily had labored ineffectively for a hundred years. Realizingthis, it is safe to say that there is not a theory of the philosopher, a hope of the reformer, or a prayer of the saint which does noteventually take form in a story. The novel has wings, while logicplods with a staff. In the hour it takes the metaphysician to definehis premises, the story-teller has reached the goal--and after himtumbles the crowd tumultuous. "

With the assistance of Rev. Dr. E. P. Tenney, I venture upon thefollowing lists of books in various lines of reading:

_Fiction_

"The Arabian Nights Entertainment. "

"Stories from the Arabian Nights" (Riverside School Library), containsmany of the more famous stories. 50 c. 

Irving Bachelder's [Transcriber's note: "Bacheller"?] "Eben Holden, " isa good book. 400, 000 copies were sold. 

J. M. Barrie's "Little Minister, " a story of Scottish life, is verybright reading. 

Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress, " is one of the most famous of allegories. 

Cervantes' "Don Quixote" is so widely known that any well-read manshould know it. Its humor never grows old. 

Ralph Connor's three books, --"The Man from Glengarry, " "Black Rock, "and "The Sky Pilot, "--have sold 400, 000 copies. 

Of George W. Cable's books, "The Cavalier, " and "Old Creole Days" areamong the best. 

Dinah Mulock Craik's "John Halifax, Gentleman, " is of rare merit. 

C. E. Craddock's (pseudonym), "In the Tennessee Mountains" isentertaining. A powerful story of mountain-life. 

Of F. Marion Crawford's stories, among the best are "Mr. Isaacs" and"A Roman Singer. "

Alexander Dumas' "Count of Monte Christo" [Transcriber's note:"Cristo"?] is a world-famous romance. 

Of George Eliot, "Silas Marner" is the best of the short stories, and"Romola" the best of the long. "Adam Bede" ranks barely second to"Silas Marner. "

Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" remains a classic among earlier Englishnovels. 

Edward Everett Hale's "Man without a Country" will be read as long asthe American flag flies. 

Hawthorne's "Mosses from an Old Manse" are stories of unique interest, and "The Scarlet Letter" is known to all well-read people. 

Of Rudyard Kipling, read "Kim, " and "The Man Who Would be King. "

Pierre Loti's "Iceland Fisherman" is translated by A. F. De Koven. McClurg, $1. 00. 

S. Weir Mitchell's "Hugh Wynne" sold 125, 000 copies. 

Thomas Nelson Page's "Gordon Keith" sold 200, 000 copies. 

If you read only one of Walter Scott's novels, take "Ivanhoe, " or "TheTalisman. " Five more of those most read are likely to follow. 

Henryk Sienkiewicz's "Quo Vadis" is most notable. 

Robert L. Stevenson's "Treasure Island, " and "Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, " and "The Merry Men and Other Tales, " are fair examples of thecharm and insight of this author. 

He who reads Frank Stockton's "Rudder Grange" is likely to read more ofthis author's books. 

Mrs. H. B. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is still one of the greatstories of the world. 

Of Mark Twain, "Huckleberry Finn, " "The Innocents Abroad, " and the"Story of Joan of Arc" are representative volumes. 

Miss Warner's "Wide, Wide World" is unique in American fiction. 

John Watson's "Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush, " sold 200, 000 copies inAmerica. 

Lew Wallace's "Ben Hur" is the greatest of scriptural romances. 

Thirty-eight books by twenty-eight authors. It would have been easierto name a hundred authors and two hundred books. 

I will add from "The Critic" a list whose sales have reached sixfigures:--

_Books of Every-day Life_

 "David Harum, " by Westcott . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 727, 000 "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, " by Alice Hegan Rice 345, 000 "The Virginian, " by Owen Wister . . . . . . . . . . . 250, 000 "Lovey Mary, " by Alice Hegan Rice . . . . . . . . . . 188, 000 "The Birds' Christmas Carol, " by Mrs. Wiggin . . . . . 100, 000 "The Story of Patsy, " by Mrs. Wiggin . . . . . . . . . 100, 000 "The Leopard's Spots, " by Thomas G. Dixon, Jr. . . . 125, 000

_Romantic_

 "Richard Carvel, " by Winston Churchill . . . . . . . . 400, 000 "The Crisis, " by Winston Churchill . . . . . . . . . . 400, 000 "Graustark, " by G. B. McCutcheon . . . . . . . . . . . 300, 000 "The Eternal City, " by Hall Caine . . . . . . . . . . 175, 000 "Dorothy Vernon, " by Charles Major . . . . . . . . . . 150, 000 "The Manxman, " by Hall Caine . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113, 000 "When Knighthood Was in Flower, " by Charles Major . . 400, 000 "To Have and to Hold, " by Miss Johnston . . . . . . . 300, 000 "Audrey, " by Miss Johnston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165, 000 "The Helmet of Navarre, " by Bertha Runkle . . . . . . 100, 000

CHAPTER LXIV

READING A SPUR TO AMBITION

The great use in reading is for self-discovery. Inspirational, character-making, life-shaping books are the main thing. 

Cotton Mather's "Essay to Do Good" influenced the whole career ofBenjamin Franklin. 

There are books that have raised the ideals and materially influencedentire nations. 

Who can estimate the value of books that spur ambition, that awakenslumbering possibilities?

Are we ambitious to associate with people who inspire us to noblerdeeds? Let us then read uplifting books, which stir us to make themost of ourselves. 

We all know how completely changed we sometimes are after reading abook which has taken a strong, vigorous hold upon us. 

Thousands of people have found themselves through the reading of somebook, which has opened the door within them and given them the firstglimpse of their possibilities. I know men and women whose whole liveshave been molded, the entire trend of their careers completely changed, uplifted beyond their dreams by the books they have read. 

When Senator Petters of Alabama went to California on horseback in1849, he took with him a Bible, Shakespeare, and Burns's poems. Hesaid that those books read and thought about, on the great plains, forever after spoiled him for reading poorer books. "The silence, thesolitude, " he said, "and the strange flickering light of the camp fire, seemed to bring out the tremendous significance of those great books;and I treasure them to-day as my choicest possessions. "

Marshall Field and other proprietors of the great business houses ofChicago petitioned the school authorities for improved instructionalong moral lines, affirming that the boys needed religious ideas tomake them more reliable in business affairs. 

It has been said by President White of Cornell that, --"The great thingneeded to be taught in this country is _truth, simple ethics, thedistinction between right and wrong_. Stress should be laid upon _whatis best in biography_, upon _noble deeds and sacrifices_, especiallythose which show that the greatest man is not the greatest orator, orthe tricky politician. They are a curse; what we need is _noble men_. National loss comes as the penalty for frivolous boyhood and girlhood, that gains no moral stamina from wholesome books. "

If youths learn to feed on the thoughts of the great men and women ofall times, they will never again be satisfied with the common or low;they will never again be satisfied with mediocrity; they will aspire tosomething higher and nobler. 

A day which is passed without treasuring up some good thought is notwell spent. Every day is a leaf in the book of life. Do not waste aday any more than you would tear out leaves from the book of life. 

The Bible, such manuals as "Daily Strength for Daily Needs, " such booksas Professor C. C. Everett's "Ethics for Young People"; Lucy ElliottKeeler's "If I Were a Girl Again"; "Beauty through Hygiene, " by Dr. Emma F. Walker, such essays as Robert L. Stevenson's "Gentlemen" (inhis "Familiar Studies of Men and Books") Munger's "On the Threshold";John Ruskin's "Sesame and Lilies"--these are the books that make youngmen and maidens so trustworthy that the Marshall Fields and JohnWanamakers want their aid in the conduct of great business concerns. Blessed are they who go much farther in later years, and who becomefamiliar with those

 "Olympian bards who sang Divine ideas below, Which always find us young And always keep us so. "

The readers who do not know the Concord philosopher Emerson, and thegreat names of antiquity, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Plato, haveyet great pleasures to come. 

Aside from reading fiction, books of travel are of the best for mentaldiversion; then there are Nature Studies, and Science and Poetry, --allaffording wholesome recreation, all of an uplifting character, and someof them opening up study specialties of the highest order, as in thegreat range of books classified as Natural Science. 

The reading and study of poetry is much like the interest one takes inthe beauties of natural scenery. Much of the best poetry is indeed apoetic interpretation of nature. Whittier and Longfellow and Bryantlead their readers to look on nature with new eyes, as Ruskin openedthe eyes of Henry Ward Beecher. 

A great deal of the best prose is in style and sentiment of a truepoetic character, lacking only the metrical form. To become familiarwith Tennyson and Shakespeare, and the brilliant catalogue of Britishpoets is in itself a liberal education. Rolfe's Shakespeare is inhandy volumes, and so edited as to be of most service. Palgrave's"Golden Treasury" of the best songs and lyrical poems in the Englishlanguage was edited with the advice and collaboration of Tennyson. His"Children's Treasury" of lyrical poetry is most attractive. Emerson'sParnassus, and Whittier's "Three Centuries of Song" are excellentcollections of the most famous poems of the ages. 

Of Books of Travel, here are a dozen titles, where one might easilyname twelve hundred:--

Edmondo de Amicis, --"Holland and Its People, " and his "Constantinople. "

Frank T. Bullen's "Cruise of the Cachelot Round the World After SpermWales. "

J. M. Hoppin's "Old England. "

Clifton Johnson, "Among English Hedgerows. "

W. D. Howell's "Venetian Life"; "Italian Journeys. "

Irving's "Sketch Book, " and the "Alhambra. "

Henry James, "Portraits of Places. "

Arthur Smith's "Chinese Characteristics, " and especially his "VillageLife in China. "

It would be impossible to list books more interesting and more usefulthan most fiction, which may be called Nature Studies. 

I will name a few books that will certainly incite the reader to searchfor more:--

Ernest Ingersoll's "Book of the Ocean. "

Professor E. S. Holder's "The Sciences, " a reading book for children. 

Jean Mace's "History of a Mouthful of Bread. "

E. A. Martin's "Story of a Piece of Coal. "

Professor Charles A. Young's "The Sun, " revised edition 1895. 

Serviss' "Astronomy with an Opera-Glass, " "Pleasures of the Telescope, ""The Skies and the Earth. "

Thoreau's "Walden; or Life in the Woods. "

Mrs. F. T. Parsons' (Smith) Dana. "According to Seasons"; talks aboutthe flowers in the order of their appearance in the woods and fields. Describes wild flowers in order of blooming, with information abouttheir haunts and habits. Also, by the same author, "How to Know theWild Flowers". Describes briefly more than 400 varieties common eastof Chicago, grouping them by color. 

Seton-Thompson's "Wild Animals I have Known"; of which 100, 000 copieshave been sold. 

F. A. Lucas' "Animals of the Past"

Bradford Towey's "Birds in the Bush, " and "Everyday Birds. "

President D. S. Jordan's "True Tales of Birds and Beasts. "

D. L. Sharp's "A Watcher in the Woods. "

W. H. Gibson's "Sharp Eyes. "

M. W. Morley's "The Bee-people. "

Never before was a practical substitute for a college education at homemade so cheap, so easy, and so attractive. Knowledge of all kinds isplaced before us in a most attractive and interesting manner. The bestof the literature of the world is found to-day in thousands of Americanhomes where fifty years ago it could only have been obtained by therich. 

What a shame it is that under such conditions as these an Americanshould grow up ignorant, should be uneducated in the midst of suchmarvelous opportunities for self-improvement! Indeed, most of the bestliterature in every line to-day appears in the current periodicals, inthe form of short articles. Many of our greatest writers spend a vastamount of time in the drudgery of travel and investigation in gatheringmaterial for these articles, and the magazine publishers pay thousandsof dollars for what a reader can get for ten or fifteen cents. Thusthe reader secures for a trifle in periodicals or books the results ofmonths and often years of hard work and investigation of our greatestwriters. 

A New York millionaire, --a prince among merchants, --took me over hispalatial residence on Fifth Avenue, every room of which was a triumphof the architect's, of the decorator's, and of the upholsterer's art. I was told that the decorations of a single sleeping-room had cost tenthousand dollars. On the walls were paintings secured at fabulousprices, and about the rooms were pieces of massive and costlyfurniture, and draperies representing a small fortune, and carpets onwhich it seemed almost sacrilege to tread covered the floors. Butthere was scarcely a book in the house. He had expended a fortune forphysical pleasures, comforts, luxury, and display. It was pitiful tothink of the physical surfeit and mental starvation of the children ofsuch a home as that. When I went out, he told me that he came to thecity a poor boy, with all his worldly possessions done up in a littlered bandana. "I am a millionaire, " he said, "but I want to tell youthat I would give half I have to-day for a decent education. "

Many a rich man has confessed to confidential friends and his own heartthat he would give much of his wealth, --all, if necessary, --to see hisson a manly man, free from the habits which abundance has formed andfostered till they have culminated in sin and degradation and perhapscrime; and has realized that, in all his ample provision, he has failedto provide that which might have saved his son and himself from lossand torture, --good books. 

There is a wealth within the reach of the poorest mechanic andday-laborer in this country that kings in olden times could notpossess, and that is the wealth of a well-read, cultured mind. In thisnewspaper age, this age of cheap books and periodicals, there is noexcuse for ignorance, for a coarse, untrained mind. To-day no one isso handicapped, if he have health and the use of his faculties, that hecan not possess himself of wealth that will enrich his whole life, andenable him to converse and mingle with the most cultured people. Noone is so poor but that it is possible for him to lay hold of thatwhich will broaden his mind, which will inform and improve him, andlift him out of the brute stage of existence into their god-like realmof knowledge. 

"No entertainment is so cheap as reading, " says Mary Wortley Montague;"nor any pleasure so lasting. " Good books elevate the character, purify the taste, _take the attractiveness out of low pleasures_, andlift us upon a higher plane of thinking and living. 

"A great part of what the British spend on books, " says Sir JohnLubbock, "they save in prisons and police. "

It seems like a miracle that the poorest boy can converse freely withthe greatest philosophers and scientists, statesmen, warriors, authorsof all time with little expense, that the inmates of the humblest cabinmay follow the stories of the nations, the epochs of history, the storyof liberty, the romance of the world, and the course of human progress. 

Have you just been to a well educated sharp-sighted employer to findwork? You did not need to be at any trouble to tell him the names ofthe books you have read, because they have left their indelible markupon your face and your speech. Your pinched, starved vocabulary, yourlack of polish, your slang expressions, tell him of the trash you havegiven your precious time to. He knows that you have not rightlysystemized your hours. He knows that thousands of young men and womenwhose lives are crowded to overflowing with routine work and duties, manage to find time to keep posted on what is going on in the world, and for systematic, useful reading. 

Carlyle said that a collection of books is a university. What a pitythat the thousands of ambitious, energetic men and women who missedtheir opportunities for an education at the school age, and feelcrippled by their loss, fail to catch the significance of this, fail torealize the tremendous cumulative possibilities of that greatlife-improver that admirable substitute for a college or universityeducation--reading. 

"Of the things which man can do or make here below, " it was said by thesage of Chelsea, "by far the most momentous, wonderful, and worthy, arethe things we call Books! Those poor bits of rag-paper with black inkon them; from the Daily Newspaper to the sacred Hebrew Book, what havethey not done, what are they not doing?"

President Schurmann of Cornell, points with pride to a few books in hislibrary which he says he bought when a poor boy by going many a daywithout his dinner. 

The great German Professor Oken was not ashamed to ask ProfessorAgassiz to dine with him on potatoes and salt, that he might save moneyfor books. 

King George III, used to say that lawyers do not know so much more lawthan other people; but they know better where to find it. 

A practical working knowledge of how to find what is in the book world, relating to any given point, is worth a vast deal from a financialpoint of view. And by such knowledge, one forms first an acquaintancewith books, then friendship. 

"When I consider, " says James Freeman Clarke, "what some books havedone for the world, and what they are doing, how they keep up our hope, awaken new courage and faith, soothe pain, give an ideal of life tothose whose homes are hard and cold, bind together distant ages andforeign lands, create new worlds of beauty, bring down truths fromheaven, --I give eternal blessings for this gift. "

For the benefit of the younger readers we give below a list of fortyjuveniles. 

Aesop's "Fables. "

Louise M. Alcott's "Little Women, " "Little Men, " which stood at the topof a list of books chosen in eleven thousand elementary class-rooms inNew York. 

T. B. Aldrich's "Story of a Bad Boy. "

Anderson's "Fairy Tales. "

Amelia E. Barr's "The Bow of Orange Ribbon, " a book for girls. 

"Black Beauty. "

E. S. Brooks, "True Story of General Grant. "

Bulfinch's "Children's Lives of Great Men, " "Age of Chivalry, " and "Ageof Fable. "

Bullen's "Log of a Sea Waif. "

Burnett's "Little Lord Fauntleroy, " and "Sara Crewe, " the latter a bookfor girls. 

Butterworth's "Zig-Zag Journeys. "

Carleton Coffin's, "Boys' of '76. "

Eva Lovett Carson's "The Making of a Girl. "

Ralph Connor's "Gwen, " a book for girls. 

Louis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland, " and "Through the Looking Glass. "

Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast. "

"De Amicin's Cuore, " which has sold 200, 000 in Italy. 

DeFoe's "Robinson Crusoe. "

Mary Mapes Dodge, "Hans Brinker, " or "The Silver Skates, " "Life inHolland. "

Eugene Field's "A Little Book of Profitable Tales. " It has sold200, 000 copies. 

Grimm's "Fairy Tales. "

Habberton's "Helen's Babies. "

E. E. Hale's "Boy Heroes. "

Chandler Harris' "Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country; Whatthe Children Saw and Heard There. " Fantastic tale interweaving negroanimal stories and other Georgia folklore with modern inventions. "Mr. Rabbit At Home"; sequel to "Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His QueerCountry. " Animal stories told to children. 

Charles Kingsley's "Water Babies. "

Kipling's "Jungle Books, " which have sold 175, 000 copies. 

Knox's "Boy Travelers. "

Lanier's "Boy Froissart, " and "Boy's King Arthur. "

Edward Lear's "Nonsense Books. "

Mabie's "Norse Stories. "

Samuel's "From the Forecastle to the Cabin. " The experiences of theauthor who ran away from home and shipped as cabin boy; points outdangers that beset a seafaring life. 

Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney's "Faith Gartney's Girlhood. "

Kate Douglas Wiggin's "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. "

Not long ago President Eliot of Harvard College aroused widespreadcontroversy over his selection of a library of books, which might becontained on a five-foot shelf. We append his selections as indicativeof the choice of a great scholar and educator. 

The following sixteen titles may be had in Everyman's Library, cloth350. Net per volume; leather 70 c. Net per volume:

_President Eliot's Five-Foot Shelf_

Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography. 

Sir Thomas Browne's "Religio Medici. "

"Confessions of St. Augustine. "

Shelley's "The Cenci" (contained in volume two of the complete works). 

Emerson's "English Traits, " and "Representative Men. "

Emerson's Essays. 

Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales. "

Bacon's Essays. 

Walton's "Complete Angler. "

Milton's Poems. 

Goethe's "Faust. "

Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus. "

Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations. "

Browning's "Blot on the Scutcheon" (contained in volume one of thepoems). 

Dante's "Divine Comedy. "

Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress. "

Thomas Á. Kempis' "Imitation of Christ. "

Burns's "Tam O'Shanter. "

Dryden's "Translation of the Aeneid. "

Walton's Lives of Donne, and Herbert. 

Ben Johnson's "Volpone. "

Smith's "Wealth of Nations. "

Plutarch's "Lives. "

Letters of Pliny. 

Cicero's Select Letters. 

Plato's "Phaedrus. "

Epictetus' Discourses. 

Socrates' "Apology and Crito. "

Beaumont and Fletcher's "Maid's Tragedy. "

Milton's Tractate on Education. 

Bacon's "New Atlantis. "

Darwin's "Origin of Species. "

Webster's "Duchess of Malfi. "

Dryden's "All for Love. "

Thomas Middleton's "The Changeling. "

John Woolman's Journal. 

"Arabian Nights. "

Tennyson's "Becket. "

Penn's "Fruits of Solitude. "

Milton's "Areopagitica. "

The following list of books is offered as suggestive of profitablelines of reading for all classes and tastes:

_Books on Nature_

Thoreau's, "Cape Cod, " "Maine Woods, " "Excursions. "

Burroughs' "Ways of Nature, " "Wake Robin, " "Signs and Seasons, ""Pepacton. "

Jefferies' "Life of the Fields, " "Wild Life in a Southern Country, " and"Idylls of Field and Hedgerow. "

Lubbock's "Beauties of Nature. "

Maeterlinck's "Life of the Bee. "

Thompson's "My Winter Garden. "

Warner's "My Summer in a Garden. "

Van Dyke's "Little Rivers, " "Fisherman's Luck. "

White's "The Forest. "

Mrs. Wright's "Garden of a Commuter's Wife. "

Wordsworth's and Bryant's Poems. 

_Novels Descriptive of American Life_

Simms' "The Partisan. "

Cooper's "The Spy. "

Hawthorne's "The House of the Seven Gables. "

Cable's "Old Creole Days, " "The Grandissimes. "

Howells' "The Rise of Silas Lapham. "

Howells' "A Hazard of New Fortunes. "

Eggleston's "A Hoosier Schoolmaster. "

Bret Harte's "Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Stories. "

Mary Hallock Foote's "The Led-Horse Claim. "

Octave Thanet's "Heart of Toil, " "Stories of a Western Town. "

Wister's "The Virginian, " "Lady Baltimore. "

E. Hopkinson Smith's "The Fortune of Oliver Horn. "

Thomas Nelson Page's "Short Stories, " and "Red Rock. "

Mrs. Delands' "Old Chester Tales. "

J. L. Allen's "Flute and Violin, " "The Choir Invisible. "

Frank Norris' "The Octopus, " "The Pit"

Garland's "Main Traveled Roads. "

Miss Jewett's "Country of the Pointed Firs, " "The Tory Lover. "

Miss Wilkins' "New England Nun, " "Pembroke. "

Churchill's "The Crisis, " "Coniston, " "Mr. Crewe's Career. "

Brander Matthews' "His Father's Son. "

S. Weir Mitchell's "Hugh Wynne. "

Fox's "The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come. "

Mrs. Wharton's "The House of Mirth. "

Robert Grant's "Unleavened Bread. "

Robert Herrick's "The Common Lot, " "The Memoirs of an American Citizen. "

Grace E. King's "Balcony Stories. "

_Books Which Interpret American Ideals_

Emerson's Addresses and Essays. 

Lowell's Essay on Democracy. 

Lincoln's Inaugural Addresses. 

Booker T. Washington's "Up from Slavery. "

Jacob Riis' "The Making of An American. "

Higginson's "The New World and the New Book. "

Brander Matthews' "Introduction to American Literature. "

Whittier's "Snow-Bound. "

Louise Manley's "Southern Literature. "

Thomas Nelson Page's "The Old South. "

E. J. Turner's "The Rise of the New West"

Churchill's "The Crossing. "

James Bryce's "American Commonwealth. "

_Some of the Best Biographies_

"Life of Sir Walter Scott, " Lockhart. 

"Life of Frederick the Great, " Carlyle. 

"Alfred Lord Tennyson, " by his son. 

"Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, " by his son. 

Plutarch's "Lives. "

"Lives of Seventy of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors andArchitects, " Vasari. 

"Cicero and His Friends, " Boissier. 

"Life of Samuel Johnson, " Boswell. 

Autobiography of Leigh Hunt. 

"Memoirs of My Life and Writings, " Gibbon. 

Autobiography of Martineau. 

"Life of John Sterling, " Carlyle. 

"Life and Times of Goethe, " Grimm. 

"Life and Letters of Macaulay, " Trevelyan. 

"Life of Charles James Fox, " Trevelyan. 

"Life of Carlyle, " Froude. 

Benvenuto Cellini's Autobiography. 

Boswell's "Johnson. "

Trevelyan's "Life of Macaulay. "

Carlyle's, "Frederick the Great. "

Stanley's, "Thomas Arnold. "

Hughes', "Alfred the Great. "

Mrs. Kingsley's, "Charles Kingsley. "

Lounsbury's, "Cooper. "

Greenslet's, "Lowell, " and "Aldrich. "

Mims', "Sidney Lanier. "

Wister's, "Seven Ages of Washington. "

Grant's Autobiography. 

Morley's, "Chatham. "

Harrison's, "Cromwell. "

W. Clark Russell's, "Nelson. "

Morse's, "Benjamin Franklin. "

_Twenty-four American Biographies_

"Abraham Lincoln, " Schurz. 

"Life of George Washington, " Irving. 

"Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect, " Eliot. 

"Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife, " Hawthorne. 

"Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, " Higginson. 

"James Russell Lowell, " Greenslet. 

"Life of Francis Parkman, " Farnham. 

"Edgar Alien Poe, " Woodberry. 

Autobiography of Joseph Jefferson. 

"Walt Whitman, " Perry. 

"Life and Letters of Whittier, " Pickard. 

"James Russell Lowell and His Friends, " Hale. 

"George Washington, " Wilson. 

Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. 

"Story of My Life, " Helen Keller. 

"Autobiography of a Journalist, " Stillman. 

"Autobiography of Seventy Years, " Hoar. 

"Life of Thomas Bailey Aldrich, " Greenslet. 

"Life of Alice Freeman Palmer, " Palmer. 

"Personal Memoirs, " Grant. 

"Memoirs, " Sherman. 

"Memoirs of Ralph Waldo Emerson, " Cabot. 

"Sidney Lanier, " Mims. 

"Life of J. Fenimore Cooper, " Lounsbury. 

The books enumerated have been selected as examples of the best intheir respective classes. Even those books of fiction chosen, primarily, for entertainment, are instructive and educational. Whetherthe reader's taste runs to history, biography, travel, nature study, orfiction, he may select any one of the books named in these respectiveclassifications and be assured of possessing a volume worthy of readingand ownership. 

It is the author's hope and desire that the list of books he has given, limited as it is, may prove of value to those seeking self-education, and that the books may encourage the disheartened, stimulate ambition, and serve as stepping stones to higher ideals and nobler purposes inlife. 

CHAPTER LXV

WHY SOME SUCCEED AND OTHERS FAIL

Life's highway is strewn with failures, just as the sea bed is strewnwith wrecks. 

A large percentage of those who embark in commercial undertakings fail, according to the records of commercial agencies. 

Why do men fail? Why do adventures into business, happily launched, terminate in disastrous wreck?

Why do the few succeed and the many fail? Some failures are relativeand not absolute; a partial success is achieved; a success that goeslimping along through life; but the goal of ambition is unreached, theheart's desire unattained. 

There are so many elements that enter into business that it isimpossible to more than indicate them. Health, natural aptitude, temperament, disposition, a right start and in the right place, hereditary traits, good judgment, common sense, level-headedness, etc. , are all factors which enter into one's chance of success in life. Thebest we can do in one chapter is to hang out the red flag over thedangerous places; to chart the rocks and shoals, whereon multitudes ofvessels, which left the port of youth with flying colors, favoringbreezes and every promise of a successful voyage, have been wrecked andlost. 

The lack of self-confidence and lack of faith in one's ideas in one'smission in life have caused innumerable failures. 

People who don't get on and who don't know why, do not realize thepower of trifles to mar a career, what little things are killing theirbusiness or injuring their profession; do not realize how little thingsinjure their credit; such as the lack of promptness in paying bills, ormeeting a note at the bank. 

Many men fail because they thought they had the field and were in nodanger from competition, so that the heads of the firm took it easy, orbecause some enterprising up-to-date, progressive young man came totown, and, before they realized it, took their trade away from them, because they got into a rut, and didn't keep up-to-date stock and anattractive store. 

They don't realize what splendid salesmen, an attractive place ofbusiness, up-to-date methods, and courteous treatment of customers mean. 

Men often fail because they do not realize that creeping paralysis, caused by dry rot, is gradually strangling their business. Manybusiness men fail because they dare not look their business conditionsin the face when things go wrong, and do not adopt heroic methods, butcontinue to use palliatives, until the conditions are beyond cure, evenwith a surgeon's knife. 

Lots of men fail because they don't know how to get rid of deadwood intheir establishment, or retain non-productive employees, who withslip-shod methods, and indifference drive away more business than theproprietors can bring in by advertising. 

Many other men fail because they tried bluff in place of capital, andproper training, or because they didn't keep up with the times. 

Lots of young people fail to get ahead and plod along in mediocritybecause they never found their place. They are round pegs in squareholes. Others are not capable of coping with antagonism. Favoritismof proprietors and managers has killed many a business. A multitude ofmen fail to get on because they take themselves too seriously. Theydeliver their goods in a hearse, employ surly, unaccommodating clerks. Bad business manners have killed many a business. Slave-drivingmethods, inability to get along with others, lack of system, defectiveorganizing ability, have cut short many a career. 

A great many men are ruined by "side-lines" things outside theirregular vocation. Success depends upon efficiency, and efficiency isimpossible without intense, persistent concentration. Many travelingmen think that they can pick up a little extra money and increase theirincome by taking up some "side-line. " But it is always the small man, never the big one, who has a "side-line. " Many of these men remainsmall, and are never able to rise to a big salaried position becausethey split up their endeavor, dissipate their energy. "Side-lines" aredangerous because they divert the mind, scatter effort, and nothinggreat can be accomplished without _intense concentration_. 

Many people are always driving success away from them by theirantagonistic manner, and their pessimistic thought. _They work for onething, but expect something else_. They don't realize that theirmental attitude must correspond with their ambition; that if they areworking hard to get on, they must expect prosperity, and not kill theirprospects by their adverse mental attitude--their doubts and fears. 

Lots of men are ruined by "a sure thing, " an inside tip, buying stockson other people's judgment. 

Many people fail because they lose their grit after they fail, or whenthey get down, they don't know how to get up. Many are victims oftheir moods, slaves of despondency. Courage and an optimistic outlookupon life are imperative to the winner. Fear is fatal to success. Many a young man fails because he can not multiply himself in others, can not delegate his work, is lost in detail. Other men fail in anattempt to build up a big business; their minds are not trained tograsp large subjects, to generalize, to make combinations; they are notself-reliant, depending upon other people's judgment and advice. 

Many a man who works hard himself, does not know how to handle men, anddoes not know how to use other people's brains. 

Thousands of youths fail to get on because they never fall in love withtheir work. Work that is drudgery never succeeds. 

Fifty years ago, a stable-boy cleaned the horses of a prosperous hotelproprietor, who drove into Denver for supplies. That boy becameGovernor of Colorado, and later the hotel-keeper, with shatteredfortunes, was glad to accept a place as watchman at the hand of theformer stable-boy. 

Life is made up of such contrasts. Every successful man, in whateverdegree and in whatever line, has, at every step of his life, been onseemingly equal terms with hundreds of his fellows who, later, reachedno such measure of success as he. Every miserable failure has had atsome time as many chances, and at least as much possibility ofcultivating the same qualities, as the successful people have had atsome time in their lives. 

Since humble birth and handicaps of every sort and degree have notprevented success in the determined man; since want has often spurredto needed action and obstacles but train to higher leaping, why shouldmen fail? What causes the failures and half-successes that make up thegenerality of mankind?

The answer is manifold, but its lesson is plain. As one writer hasexpressed it, "_Every mainspring of success is a mainspring of failure, when wound around the wrong way. _" Every opportunity for advancement, for climbing for success, is just as much an opportunity for failure. Every success quality can be turned to one's disadvantage throughexcessive development or wrong use. No matter how broad and strong thedike may be, if a little hole lets the water through, ruin and disasterare sure. Possession of almost all the success-qualities may beabsolutely nullified by one or two faults or vices. Sometimes one ortwo masterful traits of character will carry a person to success, inspite of defects that are a serious clog. 

The numerous failures who wish always to blame their misfortunes uponothers, or upon external circumstances, find small comfort instatistics compiled by those who have investigated the subject. Inanalyzing the causes of business failure in a recent year_Bradstreet's_ found that seven-tenths were due to faults of thosefailing, and only three-tenths to causes entirely beyond their control. Faults causing failure, with per cent. Of failures caused by each, aregiven as follows: incompetence, 19 per cent. ; inexperience, 7. 8 percent. ; lack of capital, 30. 3 per cent. ; unwise granting of credit, 3. 6per cent. ; speculation, 2. 3 per cent. It may be explained that "lackof capital" really means attempting to do too much with inadequatecapital. This is a purely commercial analysis of purely commercialsuccess. Character delinquencies must be read between the lines. 

Forty successful men were induced, not long ago, to answer in detailthe question, "What, in your observation, are the chief causes of thefailure in life of business or professional men?" The causesattributed by these representative men were as follows:

Bad habits; bad judgment; bad luck; bad associates; carelessness ofdetails; constant assuming of unjustifiable risks; desire to becomerich too fast; drinking; dishonest dealings; desire of retrenchment;dislike to say no at the proper time; disregard of the Golden Rule;drifting with the tide; expensive habits of life; extravagance: envy;failure to appreciate one's surroundings; failure to grasp one'sopportunities; frequent changes from one business to another; foolingaway of time in pursuit of a so-called good time, gambling;inattention; incompetent assistants; incompetency; indolence; jealousy. Lack of attention to business; of application; of adaptation; ofambition; of business methods; of capital; of conservatism; of closeattention to business; of confidence in self; of careful accounting; ofcareful observation; of definite purpose; of discipline in early life;of discernment of character; of enterprise; of energy; of economy; offaithfulness; of faith in one's calling; of industry; of integrity; ofjudgment; of knowledge of business requirements; of manly character; ofnatural ability; of perseverance; of pure principles; of propercourtesy toward people; of purpose; of pluck; of promptness in meetingbusiness engagements; of system. Late hours; living beyond one'sincome; leaving too much to one's employees; neglect of details; noinborn love for one's calling; over-confidence in the stability ofexisting conditions; procrastination; speculative mania; selfishness;self-indulgence in small vices; studying ease rather than vigilance;social demoralization; thoughtless marriages; trusting one's work toothers; undesirable location; unwillingness to pay the price ofsuccess; unwillingness to bear early privations; waste; yielding tooeasily to discouragement. 

Surely, here is material enough for a hundred sermons if one cared topreach them. Without attempting to discuss all these causes offailure, some few may be profitably examined. 

No youth can hope to succeed who is timid, who lacks faith in himself, who has not the courage of his convictions, and who always seeks forcertainty before he ventures. "Self-distrust is the cause of most ofour failures, " said one. "In the assurance of strength there isstrength, and they are the weakest, however strong, who have no faithin themselves or their powers. "

"The ruin which overtakes so many merchants, " said another, "is due, not so much to their lack of business talent, as to their lack ofbusiness nerve. How many lovable persons we see in trade, endowed withbrilliant capacities, but cursed with yielding dispositions--who areresolute in no business habits and fixed in no business principles--whoare prone to follow the instincts of a weak good nature, against theominous hints of a clear intelligence; now obliging this friend byindorsing an unsafe note, and then pleasing that neighbor by sharinghis risk in a hopeless speculation, and who, after all the capital theyhave earned by their industry and sagacity has been sunk in benevolentattempts to assist blundering or plundering incapacity, are doomed, intheir bankruptcy, to be the mark of bitter taunts from growlingcreditors and insolent pity from a gossiping public. "

Scattering one's forces has killed many a man's success. Withdrawal ofthe best of yourself from the work to be done is sure to bring finaldisaster. Every particle of a man's energy, intellect, courage, andenthusiasm is needed to win success in one line. Draw off part of thesupply of any one or all of these, and there is danger that what isleft will not suffice. A little inattention to one's business at acritical point is quite sufficient to cause shipwreck. The pilot whopays attention to a pretty passenger is not likely to bring his ship toport. Attractive side issues, great schemes, and flattering promisesof large rewards, too often lure the business or professional man fromthe safe path in which he may plod on to sure success. Many a manfails to become a great man, by splitting into several small ones, choosing to be a tolerable Jack-at-all-trades, rather than to be anunrivalled specialist. 

Lack of thoroughness is another great cause of failure. The world isovercrowded with men, young and old, who remain stationary, fillingminor positions, and drawing meager salaries, simply because they havenever thought it worth while to achieve mastery in the pursuits theyhave chosen to follow. 

Lack of education has caused many failures; if a man has successqualities in him, he will not long lack such education as is absolutelynecessary to his success. He will walk fifty miles if necessary toborrow a book, like Lincoln. He will hang by one arm to a street lamp, and hold his book with the other, like a certain Glasgow boy. He willstudy between anvil blows, like Elihu Burritt; he will do some of thethousand things that other noble strugglers have done to fight againstcircumstances that would deprive them of what they hunger for. 

"The five conditions of failure, " said H. H. Vreeland, president of theMetropolitan Street Railway Company of New York, "may be roughlyclassified thus: first, laziness, and particularly mental laziness;second, lack of faith in the efficiency of work; third, reliance on thesaving grace of luck; fourth, lack of courage, initiative andpersistence: fifth, the belief that the young man's job affects hisstanding, instead of the young man's affecting the standing of his job. "

Look where you will, ask of whom you will, and you will find that notcircumstances, but personal qualities, defects and deficiencies, causefailures. This is strongly expressed by a wealthy manufacturer whosaid: "Nothing else influences a man's career in life so much as hisdisposition. He may have capacity, knowledge, social position, ormoney to back him at the start; but it is his disposition that willdecide his place in the world at the end. Show me a man who is, according to popular prejudice, a victim of bad luck, and I will showyou one who has some unfortunate, crooked twist of temperament thatinvites disaster, He is ill-tempered, or conceited, or trifling, orlacks enthusiasm. "

There are some men whose failure to succeed in life is a problem toothers, as well as to themselves. They are industrious, prudent, andeconomical; yet after a long life of striving, old age finds them stillpoor. They complain of ill luck, they say fate is against them. Butthe real truth is that their projects miscarry, because they mistakemere activity for energy. Confounding two things essentiallydifferent, they suppose that if they are always busy, they must ofnecessity be advancing their fortunes; forgetting that labormisdirected is but a waste of activity. 

The worst of all foes to success is sheer, downright laziness. Thereis no polite synonym for laziness. Too many young men are afraid towork. They are lazy. They aim to find genteel occupations, so thatthey can dress well, and not soil their clothes, and handle things withthe tips of their fingers. They do not like to get their shouldersunder the wheel, and they prefer to give orders to others, or figure asmasters, and let some one else do the drudgery. There is no place inthis century for the lazy man. He will be pushed to the wall. Laborever will be the inevitable price for everything that is valuable. 

A metropolitan daily newspaper not long ago invited confessions byletter from those who felt that their lives had been failures. Thenewspaper agreed not to disclose the name or identity of any personmaking such a confession, and requested frank statements. Twoquestions were asked: "Has your life been a failure? Has your businessbeen a failure?"

Some of the replies were pitiable in the extreme. 

Some attributed their failures to a cruel fate which seemed to pursuethem and thwart all their efforts, some to hereditary weaknesses, deformities, and taints, some to a husband or a wife, others to"inhospitable surroundings, " and "cruel circumstances. "

It is worthy of note that not one of these failures mentioned lazinessas a cause. 

Here are some of the reasons they did give:

"J. P. T. " considered that his life was a failure from too much genius. He said he thought he could do anything, and therefore he couldn't waitto graduate from college, but left and began the practise of law, wasprincipal of an academy, overworked himself, and had too many irons inthe fire. He failed, he said, from dissipating his energies, andhaving too much confidence in men. 

"Rutherford, " said he had four chances to succeed in life, but lostthem all. The first cause of his failure was lack of perseverance. Hetired of the sameness and routine of his occupation. His secondshortcoming was too great liberality, too much confidence in others. Third, economy was not in his dictionary. Fourth, "I had too muchhope, even in the greatest extremities. " Fifth, "I believed too muchin friends and friendships. I couldn't read human nature, and did notmake allowance enough for mistakes. " Sixth, "I never struck myvocation. " Seventh, "I had no one to care for, to spur me on to dosomething in the world. I am seventy years old, never drank, never hadbad habits, always attended church. But I am as poor as when I startedfor myself. "

"G. C. S. " failed dismally. "My weakness was building air-castles. Ihad a burning desire to make a name in the world, and came to New Yorkfrom the country. Rebuffed, discouraged, I drifted. I had no heartfor work. I lacked ability and push, without which no life can be asuccess. "

"Lacked ability and push. "--Push _is_ ability. Laziness is lack ofpush. Nothing can take the place of push. Push means industry andendurance and everlasting stick-to-it-ive-ness. 

"A somewhat varied experience of men has led me, the longer I live, "said a great man, "to set less value on mere cleverness; to attach moreand more importance to industry and physical endurance. "

Goethe said that industry is nine-tenths of genius, and Franklin thatdiligence is the mother of good luck. A thousand other tongues andpens have lauded work. Idleness and shiftlessness may be set down ascausing a large part of the failures of the world. 

On every side we see persons who started out with good educations andgreat promise, but who have gradually "gone to seed. " Their earlyambition oozed out, their early ideals gradually dropped to lowerstandards. Ambition is a spring that sets the apparatus going. Allthe parts may be perfect, but the lack of a spring is a fatal defect. Without wish to rise, desire to accomplish and to attain, no life willsucceed largely. 

"Chief among the causes which bring positive failure or a disappointingportion of half success to thousands of honest strugglers isvacillation, " said Thomas B. Bryan. 

Many a business man has made his fortune by promptly deciding at somenice juncture to expose himself to a considerable risk. Yet manyfailures are caused by ill-advised changes and causeless vacillation ofpurpose. The vacillating man, however strong in other respects, isalways pushed aside in the race of life by the determined man, thedecisive man, who knows what he wants to do and does it; even brainsmust give way to decision. One could almost say that no life everfailed that was steadfastly devoted to one aim, if that aim were not initself unworthy. 

I am a great believer in a college education, but a great many collegegraduates have made failures of their lives who might have succeededhad they not gone to college, because they depended upon theoretical, impractical knowledge to help them on, and were not willing to begin atthe bottom after graduation. 

On every hand we see men who did well in college, but who do verypoorly in life. They stood high in their classes, were conscientious, hard workers, but somehow when they get out into life, they do not seemable to catch on. They are not practical. It would be hard to tellwhy they never get ahead, but there seems to be something lacking intheir make-up, some screw loose somewhere. These brilliant graduates, but indifferently successful men, are often enigmas to themselves. They don't understand why they don't get on. 

There is no doubt that ill-health is often the cause of failure, butthis is often due to a wrong mental attitude, wrong thinking. Thepessimistic, discouraged mental attitude is very injurious to goodhealth. Worry, fear, anxiety, jealousy, extreme selfishness, poisonthe system, so that it does not perform its functions perfectly, andwill cause much ill-health. 

A complete reversal of the mental attitude would bring robust health tomultitudes of those who suffer from "poor health. " If people wouldonly think right, and live right, ill-health would be very rare. Awrong mental attitude is the cause of a large part of physicalweakness, disease, and suffering. 

It has been said that the two chief factors of success are industry andhealth. But the history of human triumphs over difficulties shows thatthe sick, the crippled, the deformed, have often outrun the strong andhale to the goal of success, in spite of tremendous physical handicaps. Many such instances are cited in other chapters of this volume. 

Where men have built an abiding success, industry and perseverance haveproven the foundation stone? of their great achievements. Every manmay lay this foundation and build on it for himself. Whatever a man'snatural advantages may be, great or small, industry and perseveranceare his, if he chooses. By the exercise of these qualities he mayrise, as others have done, to success, if like Palissy he

 "Labors and endures and waits And what he can not find creates. "

WHEN IS SUCCESS A FAILURE?

When you are doing the lower while the higher is possible. 

When you are not a cleaner, finer, larger man on account of yourlife-work. 

When you live only to eat, drink, have a good time, and accumulatemoney. 

When you do not carry a higher wealth in your character than in yourpocketbook. 

When your highest brain cells have been crowded out of business bygreed. 

When it has made conscience an accuser, and shut the sunlight out ofyour life. 

When all sympathy has been crushed out by selfish devotion to yourvocation. 

When the attainment of your ambition has blighted the aspirations andcrushed the hopes of others. 

When you plead that you never had time to cultivate your friendships, politeness, or good manners. 

When you have lost on your way your self-respect, your courage, yourself-control, or any other quality of manhood. 

When you do not overtop your vocation; when you are not greater as aman than as a lawyer, a merchant, a physician, or a scientist. 

When you have lived a double life and practised double-dealing. 

When it has made you a physical wreck--a victim of "nerves" and moods. 

When the hunger for more money, more land, more houses and bonds hasgrown to be your dominant passion. 

When it has dwarfed you mentally and morally, and robbed you of thespontaneity and enthusiasm of youth. When it has hardened you to theneeds and sufferings of others, and made you a scorner of the poor andunfortunate. 

When there is a dishonest or a deceitful dollar in your possession;when your fortune spells the ruin of widows and orphans, or thecrushing of the opportunities of others. 

When your absorption in your work has made you practically a strangerto your family. 

When you go on the principle of getting all you can and giving aslittle as possible in return. 

When your greed for money has darkened and cramped your wife's life, and deprived her of self-expression, of needed rest and recreation, oramusement of any kind. 

When the nervous irritability engendered by constant work, withoutrelaxation, has made you a brute in your home and a nuisance to thosewho work for you. 

When you rob those who work for you of what is justly their due, andthen pose as a philanthropist by contributing a small fraction of yourunjust gains to some charity or to the endowment of some publicinstitution. 

CHAPTER LXVI

RICH WITHOUT MONEY

Let others plead for pensions; I can be rich without money, byendeavoring to be superior to everything poor. I would have myservices to my country unstained by any interested motive. --LORDCOLLINGWOOD. 

I ought not to allow any man, because he has broad lands, to feel thathe is rich in my presence. I ought to make him feel that I can dowithout his riches, that I can not be bought, --neither by comfort, neither by pride, --and although I be utterly penniless, and receivingbread from him, that he is the poor man beside me. --EMERSON. 

He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealthof nature. --SOCRATES. 

 My crown is in my heart, not on my head, Nor decked with diamonds and Indian stones, Nor to be seen: my crown is called content; A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy. SHAKESPEARE. 

Many a man is rich without money. Thousands of men with nothing intheir pockets are rich. 

A man born with a good, sound constitution, a good stomach, a goodheart and good limbs, and a pretty good head-piece is rich. 

Good bones are better than gold, tough muscles than silver, and nervesthat carry energy to every function are better than houses and land. 

"Heart-life, soul-life, hope, joy, and love, are true riches, " saidBeecher. 

Why should I scramble and struggle to get possession of a littleportion of this earth? This is my world now; why should I envy othersits mere legal possession? It belongs to him who can see it, enjoy it. I need not envy the so-called owners of estates in Boston or New York. They are merely taking care of my property and keeping it in excellentcondition for me. For a few pennies for railroad fare whenever I wishI can see and possess the best of it all. It has cost me no effort, itgives me no care; yet the green grass, the shrubbery, and the statueson the lawns, the finer sculptures and the paintings within, are alwaysready for me whenever I feel a desire to look upon them. I do not wishto carry them home with me, for I could not give them half the carethey now receive; besides, it would take too much of my valuable time, and I should be worrying continually lest they be spoiled or stolen. Ihave much of the wealth of the world now. It is all prepared for mewithout any pains on my part. All around me are working hard to getthings that will please me, and competing to see who can give them thecheapest. The little that I pay for the use of libraries, railroads, galleries, parks, is less than it would cost to care for the least ofall I use. Life and landscape are mine, the stars and flowers, the seaand air, the birds and trees. What more do I want? All the ages havebeen working for me; all mankind are my servants. I am only requiredto feed and clothe myself, an easy task in this land of opportunity. 

A millionaire pays a big fortune for a gallery of paintings, and somepoor boy or girl comes in, with open mind and poetic fancy, and carriesaway a treasure of beauty which the owner never saw. A collectorbought at public auction in London, for one hundred and fifty-sevenguineas, an autograph of Shakespeare; but for nothing a schoolboy canread and absorb the riches of "Hamlet. "

"Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enoughto cover. " "A man may as soon fill a chest with grace, or a vesselwith virtue, " says Phillips Brooks, "as a heart with wealth. "

Shall we seek happiness through the sense of taste or of touch? Shallwe idolize our stomachs and our backs? Have we no higher missions, nonobler destinies? Shall we "disgrace the fair day by a pusillanimouspreference of our bread to our freedom"?

What does your money say to you: what message does it bring to you?Does it say to you, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die"?Does it bring a message of comfort, of education, of culture, oftravel, of books, of an opportunity to help your fellow-men or is themessage "More land, more thousands and millions"? What message does itbring you? Clothes for the naked, bread for the starving, schools forthe ignorant, hospitals for the sick, asylums for the orphans, or ofmore for yourself and none for others? Is it a message of generosityor of meanness, breadth or narrowness? Does it speak to you ofcharacter? Does it mean a broader manhood, a larger aim, a noblerambition, or does it cry, "More, more, more"?

Are you an animal loaded with ingots, or a man filled with a purpose?He is rich whose mind is rich, whose thought enriches the intellect ofthe world. 

A sailor on a sinking vessel in the Caribbean Sea eagerly filled hispockets with Spanish dollars from a barrel on board while hiscompanions, about to leave in the only boat, begged him to seek safetywith them. But he could not leave the bright metal which he had solonged for and idolized, and when the vessel went down he was preventedby his very riches from reaching shore. 

"Who is the richest of men?" asked Socrates. "He who is content withthe least, for contentment is nature's riches. "

In More's "Utopia" gold was despised. Criminals were forced to wearheavy chains of it, and to have rings of it in their ears; it was putto the vilest uses to keep up the scorn of it. Bad characters werecompelled to wear gold head-bands. Diamonds and pearls were used todecorate infants, so that the youth would discard and despise them. 

"Ah, if the rich were as rich as the poor fancy riches!" exclaimsEmerson. 

In excavating Pompeii a skeleton was found with the fingers clenchedround a quantity of gold. A man of business in the town of Hull, England, when dying, pulled a bag of money from under his pillow, whichhe held between his clenched fingers with a grasp so firm as scarcelyto relax under the agonies of death. 

 "Oh! blind and wanting wit to choose, Who house the chaff and burn the grain; Who hug the wealth ye cannot use, And lack the riches all may gain. "

Poverty is the want of much, avarice the want of everything. 

A poor man while scoffing at the wealthy for not enjoying themselveswas met by a stranger who gave him a purse, in which he was always tofind a ducat. As fast as he took one out another was to drop in, buthe was not to begin to spend his fortune until he had thrown away thepurse. He took ducat after ducat out, but continually procrastinatedand put off the hour of enjoyment until he had got "a little more, " anddied at last counting his millions. 

A beggar was once met by Fortune, who promised to fill his wallet withgold, as much as he might desire, on condition that whatever touchedthe ground should turn at once to dust. The beggar opened his wallet, asked for more and yet more, until the bag burst. The gold fell to theground, and all was lost. 

When the steamer _Central America_ was about to sink, the stewardess, having collected all the gold she could from the staterooms, and tiedit in her apron, jumped for the last boat leaving the steamer. Shemissed her aim, fell into the water and the gold carried her down headfirst. 

Franklin said money never made a man happy yet; there is nothing in itsnature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one. A great bank account cannever make a man rich. It is the mind that makes the body rich. Noman is rich, however much money or land he may possess, who has a poorheart. If that is poor, he is poor indeed, though he own and rulekingdoms. He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according towhat he has. 

Some men are rich in health, in constant cheerfulness, in a mercurialtemperament which floats them over troubles and trials enough to sink ashipload of ordinary men. Others are rich in disposition, family, andfriends. There are some men so amiable that everybody loves them; socheerful that they carry an atmosphere of jollity about them. 

The human body is packed full of marvelous devices, of wonderfulcontrivances, of infinite possibilities for the happiness andenrichment of the individual. No physiologist, inventor, nor scientisthas ever been able to point out a single improvement, even in theminutest detail, in the mechanism of the human body. No chemist hasever been able to suggest a superior combination in any one of theelements which make up the human structure. 

[Illustration: Mark Twain]

One of the first great lessons of life is to learn the true estimate ofvalues. As the youth starts out in his career all sorts of wares willbe imposed upon him and all kinds of temptations will be used to inducehim to buy. His success will depend very largely upon his ability toestimate properly, not the apparent but the real value of everythingpresented to him. Vulgar Wealth will flaunt her banner before hiseyes, and claim supremacy over everything else. A thousand differentschemes will be thrust into his face with their claims for superiority. Every occupation and vocation will present its charms and offer itsinducements in turn. The youth who would succeed must not allowhimself to be deceived by appearance, but must place the emphasis oflife upon the right thing. 

Raphael was rich without money. All doors opened to him, and he wasmore than welcome everywhere. His sweet spirit radiated sunshinewherever he went. 

Henry Wilson, the sworn friend of the oppressed, whose one question, asto measures or acts, was ever "Is it right; will it do good?" was richwithout money. So scrupulous had this Natick cobbler been not to makehis exalted position a means of worldly gain, that when he came to beinaugurated as Vice-President of the country, he was obliged to borrowof his fellow-senator, Charles Sumner, one hundred dollars to meet thenecessary expenses of the occasion. 

Mozart, the great composer of the "Requiem, " left barely enough moneyto bury him, but he has made the world richer. 

A rich mind and noble spirit will cast over the humblest home aradiance of beauty which the upholsterer and decorator can neverapproach. Who would not prefer to be a millionaire of character, ofcontentment, rather than possess nothing but the vulgar coins of aCroesus? Whoever uplifts civilization, though he die penniless, isrich, and future generations will erect his monument. 

An Asiatic traveler tells us that one day he found the bodies of twomen laid upon the desert sand beside the carcass of a camel. They hadevidently died from thirst, and yet around the waist of each was alarge store of jewels of different kinds, which they had doubtless beencrossing the desert to sell in the markets of Persia. 

The man who has no money is poor, but one who has nothing but money ispoorer. He only is rich who can enjoy without owning; he is poor whothough he have millions is covetous. There are riches of intellect, and no man with an intellectual taste can be called poor. He is richas well as brave who can face compulsory poverty and misfortune withcheerfulness and courage. 

We can so educate the will power that it will focus the thoughts uponthe bright side of things, and upon objects which elevate the soul, thus forming a habit of happiness and goodness which will make us rich. The habit of making the best of everything and of always looking on thebright side is a fortune in itself. 

He is rich who values a good name above gold. Among the ancient Greeksand Romans honor was more sought after than wealth. Rome was imperialRome no more when the imperial purple became an article of traffic. 

Diogenes was captured by pirates and sold as a slave. His purchaserreleased him, giving him charge of his household and of the educationof his children. Diogenes despised wealth and affectation, and livedin a tub. "Do you want anything?" asked Alexander the Great, greatlyimpressed by the abounding cheerfulness of the philosopher under suchcircumstances. "Yes, " replied Diogenes, "I want you to stand out of mysunshine and not take from me what you can not give me. " "Were I notAlexander, " exclaimed the great conqueror, "I would be Diogenes. "

"Do you know, sir, " said a devotee of Mammon to John Bright, "that I amworth a million sterling?" "Yes, " said the irritated but calm-spiritedrespondent, "I do; and I know that it is all you are worth. "

What power can poverty have over a home where loving hearts are beatingwith a consciousness of untold riches of the head and heart?

St. Paul was never so great as when he occupied a prison cell under thestreets of Rome; and Jesus Christ reached the height of His successwhen, smitten, spat upon, tormented, and crucified, He cried in agony, and yet with triumphant satisfaction, "It is finished. "

Don't start out in life with a false standard; a truly great man makesofficial position and money and houses and estates look so tawdry, somean and poor, that we feel like sinking out of sight with our cheaplaurels and our gold. 

One of the great lessons to teach in this century of sharp competitionand the survival of the fittest is how to be rich without money and tolearn how to live without success according to the popular standard. 

In the poem, "The Changed Cross, " a weary woman is represented asdreaming that she was led to a place where many crosses lay, crosses ofdivers shapes and sizes. The most beautiful one was set in jewels ofgold. It was so tiny and exquisite that she changed her own plaincross for it, thinking she was fortunate in finding one so much lighterand lovelier. But soon her back began to ache under the glitteringburden, and she changed it for another, very beautiful and entwinedwith flowers. But she soon found that underneath the flowers werepiercing thorns which tore her flesh. At last she came to a very plaincross without jewels, without carving, and with only the word, "Love, "inscribed upon it. She took this one up and it proved the easiest andbest of all. She was amazed, however, to find that it was her oldcross which she had discarded. 

It is easy to see the jewels and the flowers in other people's crosses, but the thorns and heavy weight are known only to the bearers. Howeasy other people's burdens seem to us compared with our own! We donot realize the secret burdens which almost crush the heart, nor theyears of weary waiting for delayed success--the aching hearts longingfor sympathy, the hidden poverty, the suppressed emotion in other lives. 

William Pitt, the Great Commoner, considered money as dirt beneath hisfeet compared with the public interest and public esteem. His handswere clean. 

The object for which we strive tells the story of our lives. Men andwomen should be judged by the happiness they create in those aroundthem. Noble deeds always enrich, but millions of mere dollars mayimpoverish. _Character is perpetual wealth_, and by the side of himwho possesses it the millionaire who has it not seems a pauper. 

Invest in yourself, and you will never be poor. Floods can not carryyour wealth away, fire can not burn it, rust can not consume it. 

"If a man empties his purse into his head, " says Franklin, "no man cantake it from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the bestinterest. "

 Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood. TENNYSON.