Chapter XII: Part 12

Then, as to _thoughtlessness_, as a cause for this universally mutual contempt. It must be admitted, I should think, that if we only took a proper consideration of the noble destiny which all partake in common with ourselves, both in respect to the grand moral ends of this life, and the more sublime prospects for the future, we would hardly think meanly of any one, except, as before mentioned, on account of some specific worthlessness. For my part, I wonder how any man can _dare_ to despise a fellow-creature upon other grounds. Is it difference of tongue, of rank, of personal character, of external manners, that makes you despise any one? What, I would ask, are all these distinctions to the great fellowship of our common humanity—the social end which we are working to as parts of a great community—as parts of a glorious world, or the general destiny which awaits us at the close of this brief life? Reflect upon these things before you permit yourself to think lightly of a fellow-creature; or, if these things are of no avail with you, consider what you are yourself, that you thus scorn another. I must say that I have often observed the most contemptible man to be the most contemptuous. There are some men who hardly make any other pretension to the respect of the world, than in so far as they profess to treat _every thing_ cavalierly. But as he who sheds blood must submit to have his blood shed by others, so are these men at length detected, and tossed, as they deserve, in a blanket of their own weaving. Individuals may be assured that it is not by proclaiming a war of contempt against the world, or any large number of its members, that a comfortable situation is to be gained for themselves.

There is a good old national proverb, which tells us that the king’s errand may come in the pedlar’s road—that is to say, a very lofty man may occasionally have to take a favour from one in humble life. This is no mere flattering unction applied by the common people to themselves. It breathes the very spirit of an enlarged and humane philosophy. It tells us that all ranks of men are in reality dependent upon each other, and that every one, filling its proper place, is entitled to its proportion of regard from the rest. Treating the expression in its more limited sense, it instructs us that, in the prospect of our being occasionally obliged to accept of favours from very mean hands, we should never treat any person beneath us with disrespect—as, otherwise, with what grace can we accept of such a favour? On this point I take the liberty to relate a simple anecdote, as told to me some years ago, in illustration of the subject of this essay, by the individual chiefly concerned—the wife of a shopkeeper in a country town in the north of Scotland.

“In —— there lived a poor woman, named Peggy Williamson, a kind of washerwoman, whom every body looked upon as a wretched creature. This despised and not very reputable person had a son, who on one occasion was taken up by the town-officers for some trifling offence, and would have been thrown into prison, if I had not thought the case rather a hard one, and interceded with the magistrate in his behalf. Peggy, with all her faults, was not ungrateful; she came to me, and said she never would forget my kindness.

“A long time after this, in consequence of a particular calamity, my husband’s affairs got into a very hopeless state. I was attending the shop one bleak November day. Few customers were coming in, or likely to come in, and our prospects were gloomy and dull as the atmosphere itself. I never, indeed, since we began business, saw a day when things seemed less promising. The whole street—the whole town—appeared deserted. All was desolate, cold, and wintry; and with the dread of utter ruin impending over us, you may suppose that our spirits were not very good. Well, just while we were in this dolorous state, in came my old friend Peggy Williamson, accompanied by a country girl, who, she said, wanted to provide herself with a number of our wares, being about to be married. This person expended six or eight pounds with us, and we could not help feeling it as a kind of godsend. It was, however, the result of my having at one time done a just, for I can hardly call it a kind, action, to a person whom the most of people despised. Peggy, who was not perhaps aware of the full extent to which we appreciated her good offices, told me very modestly, as she left the shop with her friend, that she was glad to have had it in her power to recommend any body to us for goods, ‘as she never could forget my kindness to Tam.’ I thus satisfied myself, not only that an act of ordinary benevolence is likely to produce its reward where it is least expected, but that some good feeling may exist even in those characters, whom on ordinary principles we may be most inclined to despise.”

Let us judge, then, or at least let us always be inclined to judge, with tenderness, both of persons and of things. Let us not take our impressions of the characters of our fellow-creatures from the little obvious fault or foible which lies upon the surface, and affords, of course, the subject of largest discourse to the superficial; but, dashing aside the weeds which mantle the surface of the character, ascertain the extent and sweetness of the clear water beneath. It is of great importance to men, but especially to young men, to acquire a power of judging correctly and definitely of every thing. They must learn to estimate every thing relatively, and not be prevented from allowing merit, even where it exists in the smallest quantities, by its being mingled with a larger proportion of less worthy qualities. We often find one kind of merit denied, because it is not another. A man of untutored genius is sneered at because he wants learning. A learned man is termed a stupid dunce or a pedant, because he wants genius. The writer of an unpretending narrative is described by some of his invidious fellows as no Hume, or Gibbon, or Robertson. An industrious tradesman is ridiculed as a mere plodder; a farmer is laughed at because he is only acquainted with country affairs. Glasgow is condemned as deficient in the refined professional and literary classes of inhabitants, who reside in Edinburgh; and Edinburgh is scouted for its being “not at all a place of business.” These are vicious habits of thought and speech—if _thought_ there can be in what argues a total absence of every thing like reason.

TRUST TO YOURSELF.

This is a glorious principle for the industrious and trading classes of the community, and yet the philosophy of it is not perhaps understood so well as it ought to be.

There is hardly any thing more common in the country than to hear men spoken of who originally, or at some period of their lives, were rich, but were ruined by “_security_”—that is, by becoming bound to too great an extent for the engagements of their neighbours. This must arise in a great measure from an imperfect understanding of the question; and it therefore seems necessary that something should be said in explanation of it.

I would be far from desiring to see men shut up their hearts against each other, and each stand, in the panoply of his own resolutions, determined against every friendly appeal whatsoever. It is possible, however, to be not altogether a churl, and yet to take care lest we be tempted into an exertion of benevolence, dangerous to ourselves, while it is of little advantage to our friends.

Notwithstanding the many ties which connect a man with society, he nevertheless bears largely imprinted on his forehead the original doom, that he must chiefly be dependent on his own labour for subsistence. It is found by all men of experience, that, in so far as one trusts to his own exertions solely, he will be apt to flourish; and, in so far as he leans and depends upon others, he will be the reverse. Nothing can give so good a _general_ assurance of well-doing as the personal activity of the individual, day by day exerted for his own interest. If a man, on the contrary, suddenly finds, in the midst of such a career, a prospect of some patronage which seems likely to enrich him at once, or if he fails into the heritage of some antiquated claims to property or title, which he thinks it necessary to prosecute, it is ten to one that he declines from that moment, and is finally ruined. The only true way to make a happy progress through this world, is to go on in a dogged, persevering pursuit of one good object, neither turning to the right nor to the left, making our business as much as possible our pleasure, and not permitting ourselves to awake from our _dream of activity_—not permitting ourselves to _think that we have been active_—till we suddenly find ourselves at the goal of our wishes, with fortune almost unconsciously within our grasp.

Now, it is a most violent and unhappy disturbance of this system, to be always poking about after large favours from friends, whether for the purpose of adding fuel to what we think a good fire, or preserving a bad one from extinction. All that is obtained in this way is obtained against the very spirit of correct business, and is likely to be only mischievous to both parties. In the first place, it is probable that we shall not make such a good use of money got thus in a slump, without being painfully and gradually won, as of that which is the acquisition of our own daily industry. Then, it is always a presumption against a man that he should require such subsidies; and, accordingly, his commercial reputation is apt to suffer from every request he makes. Next, to consider the case in reference to the friend from whom the demand is made, it is obviously a most unfair thing, that, when men find it so necessary to be cautious in adventuring money on unusual risks, even for their own interest, and are, in such circumstances, so strongly called upon to make themselves acquainted with every circumstance of the case before venturing—when, moreover, they only do so in the prospect of an unusual profit—I say it is unfair, that, when they only adventure money on their own account under these circumstances, they should be called upon occasionally to adventure it for the profit of a friend, without knowing any thing of the likelihood of its turning out well, without being able to take any of those expedients which they would use in their own case for insuring its eventual re-appearance, without the least chance of profit to compensate the risk—trusting the whole, in fact, to the uncertain and hidden sea of another man’s mind, when perhaps they would not trust it upon their own, with a full knowledge of soundings, tide, wind, and pilotage. Men may grant such favours, from their dislike to express such a want of confidence in a friend as a refusal is supposed to intimate. But this proceeds upon the erroneous principle that the refusal indicates want of confidence. In reality, it ought only to be held as indicating a want of confidence in the particular line of use upon which it is to be adventured. When the man _now_ wanting the loan of money expresses himself as certain to reproduce it at the proper time, he pledges too much of his honour; for there cannot be a stronger proof of the unlikelihood of his having money _then_ than his wanting it _now_, so that the uncertainty of the reproduction of the sum could never be greater. The person from whom it is demanded is entitled, therefore, to take care that the petitioner is not deceiving both himself and the individual whom he wishes to supply his necessities.

Humanity—kindred—friendship—have many claims; and these will always be considered and answered by a man of good feelings. All that is here contended for, is the inconsistency of a system of large accommodations with just business, as well as with the real interests of either of the two parties concerned. Upon the whole, a man will not only be obliging himself in the best manner, but he will also be obliging society in a higher degree than he otherwise could do, if he simply looks well after himself, so that he never _requires_ a favour. Let no man be unduly alarmed at the outcry of “_selfishness_;” it is the only principle which can ever become nearly general, and therefore the only one which can be equal or impartial in its action. When this cry is raised, let the petitioned party always take pains to consider whether he in reality _is_ the selfish person—whether the odium of that bad feeling does not indeed rather lie with the petitioner, who is content, for the purpose of saving himself some present inconvenience, or otherwise advantaging himself, to bring a portion of his friend’s substance into hazard—for hazard, of course, there always is, whenever money leaves the possession of its owner, and in hardly any kind of adventure is it ever in greater peril than when lent, or engaged for, in this manner, without the prospect of a profit. It is, in a great measure, a mere error arising from want of reflection, to suppose that there can only be inhumanity on the part of the individual who refuses to lend or become bound. Inhumanity, of course, there may often be in such refusals; but is there to be no sympathy, on the other hand, for the friend betrayed? Are we only to have pity for the man who wants money—no matter through what causes he wants it—in March, and none for him who is called upon to undertake the risk of having to pay it in June, to his grievous inconvenience? Does pity only acknowledge the present tense, and not the future? Is it so silly a passion that it only feels for the present wants of an individual who goes a-borrowing, and has no regard to the contingent sorrows of him who, without fault of his own, but with every merit to the contrary, is beguiled into a ruin he did not purchase, in the ineffectual attempt, perhaps, to save one who, supposing him to be personally as worthy, was at least the only person with whom blame, if blame there be, can in such a case be said to rest?

SUMMARY.—Fortune is most easily and most certainly to be won by your own unaided exertions. Therefore, depend as little as possible upon prospects of advantages from others, all of whom, you will find, have enough ado with themselves. Be liberal, affable, and kind; but, knowing that you cannot do more injury to society than by greatly injuring yourself, exercise a just caution in giving way to the solicitations of your friends. Never be too ready to convince yourself that it is right to involve yourself largely, in order to help any person into a particular station in society; rather let him begin at the bottom, and he will be all the better fitted for his place, when he reaches it, by having fought his way up through the lower stages.

LEISURE.

The most fallacious ideas prevail respecting leisure. People are always saying to themselves, “I would do this, and I would do that, if I had leisure.” Now, there is no condition in which the chance of doing any good is _less_ than in the condition of leisure. The man fully employed _may_ be able to gratify his good dispositions by improving himself or his neighbours, or serving the public in some useful way; but the man who has all his time to dispose of as he pleases, has but a poor chance, indeed, of doing so. To do increases the capacity of doing; and it is far less difficult for a man who is in a habitual course of exertion to exert himself a little more for an extra purpose, than for the man who does little or nothing to put himself into motion for the same end. This is owing to a principle of our moral nature, which is called the _vis inertiæ_, literally, the strength of inactivity, but which I will explain at once to unlearned persons, by reminding them, that, to set a common child’s hoop a-going in the first place, requires a smarter stroke than to keep it in motion afterwards. There is a reluctance in all things to be set a-going; but when that is got over, then every thing goes sweetly enough. Just so it is with the idle man. In losing the _habit_, he loses the _power_ of doing. But a man who is busy about some regular employment for a proper length of time every day, can very easily do something else during the remaining hours; indeed, the recreation of the weary man is apt to be busier than the perpetual leisure of the idle. As he walks through the world, his hands hang unmuffled and ready by his side, and he can sometimes do more by a single touch in passing, than a vacant man is likely to do in a twelvemonth.

All this is exemplified fully in the actual practice of life. Who, I would ask, compose the class who perform most of the business of public charity? It is not those who are highly endowed with wealth and leisure. It is not in general those whom wealth has placed at ease, but the class of well-employed traders and manufacturers, who, to appearance, are entirely engrossed by their own concerns. These men will snatch an occasional hour from their well-employed lives—perhaps an hour that ought to be devoted to relaxation—and do you more real work in that time than an idle man would accomplish in the half of his yaw-yaw existence. What is curious, if you place the busy trader on the shelf, as no longer requiring to work for his subsistence, he immediately loses the power of doing these little superfluous acts of goodness. In getting out of the way of all exertion, he becomes unable to do any thing, even when he wishes it. On the same principle, men never give a job to a lawyer or any body else, who is not pretty well occupied. And this is from no irrational homage to the name of the man, as is sometimes thought; it is because the man who does much is most likely to do more, and most likely to do it well.

Let no man, then, cry for leisure in order to do any thing. Let him rather pray that he may never have leisure. If he really wishes to do any good thing, he will always find time for it, by properly arranging his other employments. The person who thus addresses the public has acquired the power of doing so, such as it is, not by having had a great deal of time at his own disposal, but solely by ravishing the inglorious hours which the most of men spend in unprofitable and _unenjoyed_ pleasures, and employing them in the cultivation of his mind. There is an anecdote told of a French author of distinction, who by regularly employing, in a few jottings, the five minutes which his wife caused him to wait every day while she dressed for dinner, at last formed a book; certainly not the least meritorious of his works. Hazlitt also remarks, that many men walk as much idly upon Pall Mall in a few years, as would carry them round the globe. In fact, it may be said that to ask for leisure or time to do any ordinary thing, is equivalent to a confession that we are indifferent about doing it.

It is very fair that the busy man should be at ease at last. It is often the object for which he works. Neither can it be allowed that there is any absolute claim upon the wealthy to exert themselves for the good of the community. Wealth must be enjoyed as the possessor pleases, or it is no longer wealth, and one of the objects of industry is taken away. But it would be of vast importance—both to the wealthy idle themselves and to the community—if their tastes could oftener be directed to some beneficial employment within the range of their abilities and influence. It is a shame to those who are entirely at their own disposal, that almost all the general good that is done in the world is done by those who are already overworked. It might rather be expected that the affluent, who have no particular business of their own to attend to, should devote themselves to the general good. This is the more particularly to be expected, when we observe the worse than trifles upon which idle opulence generally employs itself. If actual vice be avoided, the most contemptible frivolities and paltry amusements are sought after, for the purpose of—disgraceful word!—_killing time_. Sometimes we find the universal necessity of doing something, taking a good direction, or one at least rather on goodness’ side. The female part of the affluent world are often found to be actively benevolent; and nothing can be more laudable. But the ells of idle humanity, that every day walk the street in vain, are beyond all mensuration. Now, I am convinced that if these leisurely persons only once fell into the way of employing themselves for some good end, they would find themselves far more comfortable than they are at present. They would suddenly feel the inspiration of a worthy purpose of existence. They would feel the self-importance of active exertion—the majesty of industry; that lofty feeling which even the hard-working housewife feels in increased proportion amidst the sloperies of a washing Saturday, and which gives to the early riser his right to taunt and look down upon all the recumbent part of mankind. The _gentlemen_ must think of it. They must up and be doing. It is, I repeat, a disgrace to them, in this universally busy scene, to let all the laurels of charity and kindness be carried away by those who have enough ado to obtain their own subsistence.

MY NATIVE BAY.

My native bay is calm and bright,
As e’er it was of yore
When, in the days of hope and love,
I stood upon its shore;
The sky is glowing, soft, and blue,
As once in youth it smiled,
When summer seas and summer skies
Where always bright and mild.

The sky—how oft hath darkness dwelt,
Since then, upon its breast;
The sea—how oft have tempests broke
Its gentle dream of rest!
So oft hath darker woe come o’er
Calm self-enjoying thought;
And passion’s storms a wilder scene
Within my bosom wrought.

Now, after years of absence, pass’d
In wretchedness and pain,
I come and find those seas and skies
All calm and bright again.
The darkness and the storm from both
Have trackless pass’d away;
And gentle as in youth, once more
Thou seem’st, my native bay!

Oh, that, like thee, when toil is o’er,
And all my griefs are past,
This ravaged bosom might subside
To peace and joy at last!
And while it lay all calm like thee,
In pure unruffled sleep,
Oh, might a heaven as bright as this
Be mirror’d in its deep!

R. C.

ADVANCEMENT IN LIFE

It is very certain that all men are not born to be Franklins; and, likewise, that if any considerable number of such persons were to arise, their utility and their distinction would be diminished. There is a good old proverb, however—“aim at a silk gown, and you may get a sleeve of it;” which may be followed out, both to the advantage of individuals and to the benefit of the community.

First, there is one great maxim that no youth should ever want before his eyes, namely, that hardly any thing is beyond the attainment of real merit. Let a man set up almost any object before him on entering life, and, if his ambition be of that genuine kind which springs from talent, and is _not too much for his prudence_, there is a strong chance in his favour that a keen and steady pursuit of the object will make him triumph at last. It is very common, when the proposal of a young man’s entry into life is discussed, to hear complaints as to the pre-occupation of every field of adventure by unemployed multitudes. There may occasionally be some cause for this; but the general truth is undeniable, that, in spite of every disadvantage, men are rising daily to distinction in every profession—the broadest shoulders, as usual, making their way best through the crowd. It is the slothful and the fearful that generally make such complaints; and they obviously do so in order to assure themselves that they are not altogether wrong in continuing to misspend their time. When we hear of the overcrowded state of any proposed profession, we are apt to overlook that an immense proportion of those engaged in it are destined, by the weakness of their character, and want of specific qualifications, to make no way for themselves, and must soon be the same, so far as rivalry is concerned, as if they had never entered it. If the entrant, then, has only a well-grounded confidence in his own powers of exertion and perseverance, he need hardly be afraid to enter any profession. With the serious desire of well-doing at heart, and some tolerable share of ability, he is sure very soon to get ahead of a great proportion of those already in the field. Only let him never despair—that is, tell himself it is all in vain, in order that he may become idle with a good conscience—and there is hardly any fear of him.

The present writer entertains some different ideas respecting original humility of circumstances from what are generally prevalent. The common notion is, that humble circumstances are a great obstruction at the outset of life, and that the more difference between a man’s origin and his eventual condition, the greater is the wonder, and the greater his merit. Since it appears, however, that so large a proportion of distinguished men were poor at the beginning, a question may naturally arise, are not men just the more apt, on that account, to become eminent? Although we are all familiar as possible with instances of fortunes made from nothing, it will be found, on recollection, that cases are comparatively rare of men who began with fortunes having ended by greatly increasing them. Many a poor boy has made twenty thousand pounds before he was forty years of age; but few who had ten thousand at the age of majority are found to double it with their years. Here—here is a reason for hope. The fact is, large sums are not to be acquired without an appreciation and an understanding of the meanest financial details. To make pounds, we must know the value of shillings; we must have felt before how much good could sometimes be done, how much evil could sometimes be avoided, _by the possession of a single penny_! For want of this knowledge, the opulent youth squanders or otherwise loses more, perhaps, than he gains. But he who has risen from the ranks knows the value and powers of every sum, from the lowest upwards, and, _as saving is the better part of the art of acquiring money_, he never goes back a step—his whole march is ONWARD. At the very worst, it is only a question of time. Say one man begins at twenty with a good capital, and another at the same age with none. For want of experience, and through other causes above mentioned, it is not likely that the former person has made much advance within the first ten years. Now, ten years is an immense space to the individual who only commenced with good resolutions. In that time, if he has not accumulated actual money, he may quite well have secured good reputation and credit, which, prudently managed, is just money of another kind. And so, while still a young man, he is pretty much upon a par with him who seemed to start with such superior advantages. In fact, fortune, or original good circumstances, appear to the present writer as requisites of a very unimportant character, compared with talent, power of application, self-denial, and honourable intentions. The _fortunate_—to use the erroneous language of common life—are selected from those who have possessed the latter indispensable qualifications in their best combinations: and as it is obvious that young men of fortune (necessarily the smaller class) have only a chance, according to their numbers, of possessing them, it follows, as a clear induction, that the great mass of the prosperous were originally poor.

TALENT.—It is a common cry that those who succeed best in life are the dullest people, and that talent is too fine a quality for common pursuits. There cannot be a greater fallacy than this. It may be true that some decidedly stupid people succeed through the force of a dogged resolution, which hardly any man of superior genius could have submitted to. But I am disposed to dispute, in a great measure, the existence of talent, where I do not find it at once productive of superior address in ordinary affairs, and attended by a magnanimity which elevates the possessor above all paltry and vicious actions. The genius which only misleads its possessor from the paths of prudence, or renders him a ridiculous and intolerable member of society, is too much allied to Bedlam to be taken into account; and in reality, there is nowhere so much of what is called genius as in the madhouses.[6] The imputation of dulness to a man who has prospered in life, will be found by impartial inquirers, in nine cases out of ten, to be a mere consolatory appliance to the self-love of one who has neither had the talent nor the morality to prosper in life himself. Let every man, then, who possesses this gift, rejoice in it with all his heart, and seek by every means to give it proper guidance and direction.

APPLICATION is another of the indispensable requisites. Detached efforts, though they may individually be great, can never tell so well in the aggregate as a regular and constant exertion, where the doings of one day fortify and improve the doings of the preceding, and lead on with certainty to the better doings of the next. It is not economical to work by fits and starts; more exertion is required, by that system, for a certain end, than what is necessary in the case of a continuous effort, and thus the irregular man is apt to fall far behind his rivals. Men of ability are apt to despise application as a mean and grubbing qualification—which is only a piece of overweening self-love on their part, and likely to be the very means of frustrating all the proper results of their ability. On the other hand, the industrious man is apt to despair for want of ability—not seeing that the clever fellows are liable to the weakness we describe, which causes them to be constantly giving way in the race to mere plodders. Besides, while few faults are more common than an over-estimation of one’s self, it is equally obvious that many men only discover their abilities by chance, and that all of us possess latent powers, which might be turned to good account, if we only knew and had confidence in them. No man, therefore, should be too easily dashed on the subject of his abilities. He should try, and, with the aid of a persevering industry, he may do wonders such as he never dreamt of.

SELF-DENIAL.—Perhaps among all the qualifications which, in a combined form, lead to fortune, none is more absolutely indispensable than this. A man may have talent, may have application, both in abundance; but if he cannot resist vulgar temptations, all is in vain. The Scotch, as a nation, are characterised immensely by self-denial, and it is the main ground of their prosperity both at home and abroad. It is one of the noblest of the virtues, if not, indeed, the sole virtue which creates all the rest. If we are obliged at every moment to abandon some sacred principle in order to gratify a paltry appetite; if the extensive future is perpetually to be sacrificed for the sake of the momentary present; if we are to lead a life of Esau-like bargains from the first to the last—then we are totally unfit for any purpose above the meanest. Self-indulgence makes brutes out of gods; self-denial is the tangent line by which human nature trenches upon the divine. Now, self-indulgence is not inherent except in very few natures; it is almost invariably the result of “evil communications” in youth, and generally becomes a mere use or habit. The most of error arises from the contagion of example. A youth at first debauches himself because he sees others do it; he feels, all the time, as if he were sacrificing merely to the glory of bravado; and there is far more of martyrdom in it than is generally supposed. But though a person at first smokes in order to show how much disgust he can endure, he soon comes to have a real liking for tobacco. And thus, for the paltriest indulgences, which only are so from vicious habit, and perhaps, after all, involve as much dissatisfaction as pleasure, we daily see the most glorious and ennobling objects cast, as it were, into hell-fire.

We are by no means hostile to all amusement. The mass of men require a certain quantity of amusement almost as regularly as their daily food. But amusement may be noxious or innocent, moderate or immoderate. The amusements which can be enjoyed in the domestic circle, or without company at all, are the safest; there is great danger in all which require an association of individuals to carry them into effect. Upon the whole, a multitude of bosom friends is the most pernicious evil that ever besets a man in the world. Each becomes a slave to the depraved appetites of the rest, and is at last ulcerated all over with their various evil practices. At the very best, he is retarded to the general pace, and never finds it possible to get a single vantage hour, in order to steal a march upon his kind.

HONOURABLE INTENTIONS are also indispensably necessary. The reverse is simply want of sense and understanding; for it is obvious to every one who has seen the least of human life, that infinitely more is lost in reputation and _means and opportunities of well-doing_, by an attempt to gain an undue advantage, than what can in general cases be gained. If we had to live only for a short time certain, trickery might be the most expedient course, so far as this world is concerned; but if a man contemplates a life above a single twelvemonth, he will endeavour, by the guarded correctness of his actions, to acquire the good character which tends so much to eventual prosperity. The dishonest man, in one sense, may be termed the most monstrous of all self-flatterers; he thinks he can cheat the whole of the remaining part of mankind—which certainly is no trifling compliment. He soon finds, however, that he was seen through all the time by those whom he thought mere children, and his blindness and silly arrogance receive their deserved punishment. Even where the depravity may be of a very slight kind, it is alike in vain. In ordinary transactions, the one party deals with the other exactly according to his character; if the one be in general disposed to overreach, the other is just proportionably on his guard; so that there is no result but trouble, and a bad name. One thing should be strongly impressed upon such persons: they are far more generally understood and watched than they are aware of; for the world, so long as it can simply take care of itself without much difficulty, is not disposed to adopt the dangerous task of a monitor. The police-officer knows of many rogues whom he passes every day on the street; he never lays hold of any, unless for some particular offence.

Such are the principal qualities necessary for advancement in life, though any one of them, without much or any of the other, will, if not counteracted by negative properties, be sure to command a certain degree of success. He who is about to start in the race would do well to ponder upon the difficulties he has to encounter, and make up a manful resolution to meet them with a full exertion of all his powers. To revert to the general question—what is it that enables one man to get in advance of his fellows? The answer is obvious: it can only be his _doing_ more than the generality of them, or his _enduring more privation_ than they are generally inclined to do [that is, self-denial], in order that he may acquire _increased power of doing_. The fault of most unsuccessful persons is their want of an adequate idea of what is to be _done_, and what is to be _endured_. They enter business as into a game or a sport, and they are surprised, after a time, to find that there is a principle in the affair they never before took into account—namely, the tremendous competition of other men. Without being able to do and suffer as much as the _best_ men of business, the _first_ place is not to be gained; without being able to do and suffer as much as the second order of men of business, the _second_ place is not to be gained; and so on. New candidates should therefore endeavour to make an estimate of the duties necessary for attaining a certain point, and not permit themselves to be thrown out in the race for want of a proper performance of those duties. They should either be pretty certain of possessing the requisite powers of exertion and endurance, or aim at a lower point, to which their powers may seem certainly adequate.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] This remark is borrowed from the conversation of a medical friend.

CONTROLLERS-GENERAL.

It is a prevailing notion, that people are all so exclusively engrossed with their own concerns in this world, as to have no time or opportunity to take the least interest in those of their neighbours. No idea could be more mistaken. The truth is, a great many people—perhaps a _third_ of the population of large towns, and _three-fourths_ of those in small ones—are far more anxious about the concerns of their neighbours than about their own. In fact, society in this respect resembles the ape department in a menagerie, where, it is said, every individual chatterer neglects his own pan of meat (opposite his cage), and stretches with all his might to reach the mess of some distant companion in captivity, who, on his part, tries, with equal straining and exertion, to rob some other friend. The case, however, differs immensely as to intention. The monkeys, as we seriously believe, act thus from a wish to eat all the neighbouring pans of meat in the first place, after which they think it will be time enough to attend coolly to their own. But human beings look after each other’s morals and worldly prosperity through the most generous impulses. They think it selfish to be always attending to their own affairs, and that it would be an utter defiance of the greatest law of nature, if they were only to look after themselves. Our own business requires, perhaps, the first attention, but common justice to our race demands that all our _spare_ time, at least, should be devoted to a supervision of the concerns of other people, and a surveillance of their moral conduct. We are to love our neighbours as ourselves, and, in order to testify that we love them, we are to do as we do with children, castigate them properly whenever they misbehave.

It is lamentable to think how negligent some large classes of society are respecting the affairs of their neighbours. In large cities, the more actively engaged citizens go on from year to year in the pursuit of their own advantage, never casting a single thought upon their next-door neighbours, unless, perhaps, to make a transient inquiry into the state of their credit. Is it not fortunate, that, while the men are thus apt to get wrapped up in their own sordid interests, the fairer and more generous part of the race are still in general sufficiently at leisure to see after their neighbours? What _would_ society do without these amiable controllers-general?—or what would society do, if these amiable controllers were to get so much engaged too, as to have no time for the affairs of their friends? It is dreadful even to think of such a calamity. How many poor improvident wretches would, in such an event, be left to sink or swim as chance directed! How naughty the world at large would become!

Let us contemplate the delightful picture of one of these friends of society. She is generally a person very much at leisure; for without leisure, that natural preference of our own concerns to those of others precludes all exertion of the faculty: she is also, in general, placed in a tolerably secure position in the world, whence she may survey, with compassionate and patronising eyes, the poor strugglers beneath her. Virtuous she is, as virtuous can be; that is to say, she is altogether beyond temptation. Herself and all her own immediate friends have been fortunate; therefore she has a kind of prescriptive title to speak freely of the misfortunes of others. It is incredible what exertions this amiable person will make to procure data for her remarks, or, to speak more properly, grounds whereon she may proceed in her benevolent exertions. Charity being an excuse for every thing, she will even descend so far from her dignity as to institute inquiries, through servants and children, into the concerns of those persons whom she has taken under her patronage. Her own Betty, having the same turn with herself, takes frequent opportunities of visiting the kitchens of her friends; and all the remarks that the girl has been able to make upon the external state of things there, and all the prattle she has been able to pick up from the servants in that house, is brought home and faithfully detailed to her mistress, who accidentally, for that purpose, opens a conversation with her. Nor is this all. Through the impulse of her benevolent wishes, the good lady will often take information from her servant, which _she_ has learned from another servant, respecting the concerns of a family in which that other servant has perhaps a sister or a friend; her sincere desire of doing good being so strong as to reconcile her to every possibility of misrepresentation, which a story may be supposed to undergo in its progress through so many mouths. It is also to be observed, that she is not exclusively attentive to the concerns of those whom she actually knows. The acquaintances of her acquaintances, and their acquaintances again, even to the third generation, she will inquire about with equal solicitude; and if she knows any thing disagreeable connected with your friends, or any thing that might be thought to unfit them for your acquaintance, she always very kindly lets you hear of it, so that you may be _quite upon your guard_.

“What do you think?” the talk, perhaps, thus proceeds; “they say she is such a _fine lady_ that she never enters her kitchen: she never knows any day what is to be for dinner: all that kind of thing she leaves to her servants. And such quantities of company they keep! Hardly a night but what there are more or less visitors. A neighbour of ours, Mrs Blackwell, has an aunt who lives opposite them; and _she_ says that the racket is without end. I’m sure I was just saying to our goodman the other day, that if _we_ were to go on in such a way [be it marked, the speaker is reputed to be in infinitely better circumstances than the party commented on], we could not go on long. Puir young things! I’m greatly concerned about them—although, to be sure, it’s not _my_ business. I was at the school with her mother, and I would like to see them keep right, if it were possible. Young folk are often newfangled about things at first. They think every body that they see is their friend—and its ‘this one, come to your supper,’ and ‘that one, come to your dinner,’ as if they could not get past it. When they come to my time o’ life, they’ll not be sae flush.”

“They say she’s highly accomplished,” thus runs another strain of remarks; “plays on the piano-forte and harp—draws—speaks French and Italian. That would be all very well if _he_ had a fortune to keep it up; but a poor man’s wife! Commend me to a woman that can darn her husband’s stockings, and help to get ready his dinner. I think there’s naething like a gude plain education—reading, writing, and sewing—what mair does a woman need? The goodman and I were often advised to send our girls to learn music, but I never thought it their station. It just puts a parcel o’ nonsense into a girl’s head. Our lasses never learned ony thing but what they could mak a gude use o’; while, there’s Mary Foster does nothing but read novells from morning till night; she’s one o’ your fine misses. If our girls were to bring a novell into our house, I would put it at the back of the fire, though there was na another novell i’ the world.”

It is said that in nunneries, where there is neither vice, nor the possibility of it, the ladies, if unable to talk real scandal, make up for it by censorious remarks upon the most trifling foibles in their companions, or upon the most unimportant failures in the performance of the most unimportant duties. If a holy sister has been observed to smile at a wrong moment, if she has miscounted a bead, or tripped in her gown while walking in a procession, there is as much prattle about it as if she had committed a real offence. Just so, in a country town, every trivial incident becomes a subject of comment for those amiable people who make a point of attending to every body’s business but their own. The consequence is, that every person moves in a country town as if he were upon an ambuscading party: he sends by stratagem for every necessary of life which he requires: he takes all kinds of by-ways and back roads to escape observation, and cannot so much as cross the street without fearing he will be circumvented. Any thing like a good round thumping impropriety is hailed in such a place like rain in a drought. The most of the matters of remark are very small deer, hardly worth hunting down. When one of a more important character arises, it is quite a godsend. Suppose, for instance, the failure of some unfortunate merchant, who has been ruined by mere simplicity of character. The country people, somehow, have a most exaggerated idea of the mischiefs of bankruptcy. A bankrupt, in their eyes, is a person of distinguished criminality—almost enough to make him be regarded as a world’s wonder. In proportion, therefore, to their previous remarks for the edification of the unhappy man, is their wholesome severity afterwards. They are surprised to find that, after such an event, he still bears the ordinary shape of a human being—that he has not become signalised by some external transfiguration, of a kind sufficiently awful to indicate his offence. Another thing they are astonished at—that the family of a bankrupt should continue to have the usual appetites of human beings—that they should not, indeed, have altogether ceased to eat, drink, or sleep. The following is very nearly a conversation which really occurred, on such an occasion, in a somewhat humble rank of mercantile life.

“Weel, hae ye heard the news?”

“What news, woman?”

“Ou, hae ye no heard it?—James Sinclair’s shop’s no open this mornin’—that’s a’.”

“Aih, weel, has it come to that at last? I aye thought it. It was easy seeing _yon_ could na stand lang. Sic ongauns as they had for a while—sic dresses—sic parties! But every thing comes to its level at last. I wonder folk dinna think shame to gang on sae wi’ other folk’s siller. It’s a perfect black-burning disgrace. And _she’s_ just as muckle to blame as _him_. There was hersell, just last Sunday eight days, at the kirk wi’ a new pelisse and a bannet, and the laddies ilk ane o’ them wi’ new leather caps. I’se warrand there was nae bannocks ever seen in their house—naething but gude wheat bread. Whenever a bairn whinged for a piece, it buid to get a shave o’ the laiff. Atweel, her grandfather, auld George Morrison, was na sae ill to serve. Mony a claut o’ cauld parritch he gat frae my aunty Jess, and was thankfu’ to get them.”

“Na, but, woman, I saw Jamie himsell gaun up the street this mornin’, and a superfine coat on his back just the same as ever. Na, the lass was seen this forenoon getting a leg o’ lamb—a fifteenpence leg it was, for our Jenny got the neebor o’t—the same as if naething ava had happened. But, of course, this’ll no gang on lang. They’ll be roupit out, stab and stow, puir thochtless creatures; and I’m sure I dinna ken what’s to come o’ them. She has nae faither’s house to gang back to now. They’ll hae to set up some bit sma’ public, I reckon.”

“Heaven keep us a’ frae extravagance—I had never ony brow o’ that new plan she had o’ pitting black silk ribands round the callants’ necks, instead o’ cotton napkins.”

Such are a few of the remarks of our good friends the controllers-general of society; and we are very sure that few people alive but what must look upon them as a most useful, most exemplary, and most benevolent class of persons.

A TURN FOR BUSINESS.

Next to a thorough grounding in good principles, perhaps the thing most essential to success in life is a habit of communicating easily with the world. By entering readily into conversation with others, we not only acquire information by being admitted to the stores which men of various modes of thinking have amassed, and thereby gain an insight into the peculiarities of human character, but those persons into whose society we may be accidentally thrown are gratified to think that they have been able to afford instruction. Seeing that we appreciate their favourite subject, they conceive a high opinion of our penetration, and not unfrequently exert themselves wonderfully to promote our interests. Men in business, particularly, who have this happy turn of being able to slide as it were into discourse, and to throw it into that train which is best suited to the capacities and humours of others, are wonderfully indebted to it for the run of customers it entices to their shops. A stately, grave, or solemn manner, is very inappropriate in measuring stuffs by the yard; and though a man be penetrated by the deepest sense of gratitude, if his bow be stiff, and his countenance not of a relaxing cast, he makes not half so favourable an impression as another who may not perhaps be a more deserving person in the main, but has a more graceful method of acknowledging his obligations. It is astonishing, too, at how cheap a rate good-will is to be purchased. An insinuating way of testifying satisfaction with the pleasantness of the weather, is often a very effectual way of extending popularity; it is regarded as an act of condescension when addressed to some, while with others it is received as the indication of a happy temperament, which is at all times attractive. A person who “has little to say,” or, in other words, who does not deign to open his mouth except when it is indispensably necessary, never proves generally acceptable. You will hear such a one described as “a very good sort of man _in his way_;” but people rather avoid him. He has neither the talent of conversing in an amusing vein himself, nor of leading on others to do so; and they are only the arrantest babblers who are contented with an inanimate listener. I remember a striking example of the various fortune of two persons in the same profession, who happened to be of those different dispositions.