Chapter XXXV: What Constitutes Good Citizenship? (3)

When the work was finished, he started, with but a few dollars in his pocket, to travel a long distance home over the Jersey sands, and at length reached South Amboy. He was anxious to get his teams ferried over to Staten Island, and as the money at his disposal was not sufficient for the purpose, he went to an innkeeper, explained the situation and said, "If you will put us across, I'll leave with you one of my horses in pawn, and if I don't send you back six dollars within forty-eight hours you may keep the horse." "I'll do it," said the innkeeper, as he looked into the bright honest eyes of the boy. The horse was soon redeemed.

In the spring of 1810, he applied to his mother for a loan of one hundred dollars with which to buy a boat, having imbibed a strong liking for the sea. Her answer was, "My son, on the twenty-seventh of this month 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 the money." The field was rough and stony, but the work was done in time, and well done. From this small beginning Cornelius Vanderbilt laid the foundation of a colossal fortune. He would often work all night; and, as he was never absent from his post by day, he soon had the best business in New York harbor.

In 1813, when it was expected that New York would be attacked by British ships, all the boatmen, except Cornelius, put in bids to convey provisions to the military posts around New York, naming extremely low rates, as the contractor would be exempted from military duty. "Why don't you send in a bid?" asked his father. "Of what use?" replied young Vanderbilt; "they are offering to do the work at half price. It can't be done at such rates." "Well," said his father, "it can do no harm to try for it." So, to please his father, but with no hope of success, Cornelius made an offer fair to both sides, but did not go to hear the award. When his companions had all returned with long faces, he went to the commissary's office and asked if the contract had been given. "Oh, yes," was the reply; "that business is settled. Cornelius Vanderbilt is the man. What?" he asked, seeing that the youth was apparently thunderstruck, "is it you?" "My name is Cornelius Vanderbilt," said the boatman. "Well," said the commissary, "don't you know why we have given the contract to you? Why, it is because we want this business done, and we know you'll do it."

Here we see how character begets confidence, and how character rests upon industry as the house rests upon its foundation.

[Footnote: Consult Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, Vol. VII., pp. 240, 241; Crofut's "The Vanderbilts and the Story of their Fortune" (1886); also article in Munsey's Magazine, Vol. VI., p. 34.]

XI.

AMBITION.

MEMORY GEMS.

Hope without an object cannot live.--Coleridge

Have an aim in life, or your energies will all be wasted.
--M. C. Peters

Every one should take the helm of his own life, and steer instead of
drifting.--C. C. Everett

Ambition is to life just what steam is to the locomotive.
--J. C. Jaynes

No toil, no hardships can restrain ambitious men inur'd to pain.--Horace

Ambition is one of the great forces of human life. We may describe it as a strong, fixed desire in the heart to get honor, or to attain the best things. It is a kind of hunger or thirst for success that makes men dare danger and trial to satisfy it. A man is of little use in the world unless he have ambition to set him in motion. Small talent with great ambition often does far more than genius without it.

The severest censure that can be passed upon a man is that of the poet, "Everything by turns and nothing long." The words contain a sad revelation of wasted opportunities, wasted powers, wasted life. These words apply, with a painful degree of exactness, to the career of Lord Brougham. Few men have been more richly endowed by nature. Few men have exhibited a greater plasticity of intellect, a greater affluence of mental resources. He was a fine orator, a clear thinker, a ready writer. It is seldom that a man who sways immense audiences by the power of his eloquence attains also to a high position in the ranks of literature. Yet Brougham did this; while, as a lawyer, he gained the most splendid prize of his profession, the Lord Chancellorship of England; and as a scientific investigator, merited and received the applause of scientific men.

All this may seem to indicate success; and, to a certain extent, Brougham was successful. Nevertheless, having been everything by turns and nothing long--having given up to many pursuits the powers which should have been reserved for one or two--he was on the whole, a failure. Not only did he fail to make any permanent mark on the history or literature of his country, but he even outlived his own fame. He was almost forgotten before he died. He frittered away his genius on too many objects.

It has long been a question of debate whether circumstances make men, or men control circumstances. There are those who believe that men are governed by their environments; that their surroundings determine their lives.

The other school of philosophers boldly assert the opposite view. Men may control their surroundings. They are not the sport of the winds of circumstance. Carlyle, who is a member of this school, does not hesitate, in one of his essays, to say that "there have been great crises in the world's history when great men were needed, but they did not appear."

This much is certain, we have many instances in which people have risen above their surroundings. Warren Hastings's case is one in point. Macaulay tells the story with his accustomed brilliancy and attractiveness. When Hastings was a mere child, the ancestral estate, through some mismanagement, passed out of the hands of the family. Warren would often go--for the family remained in the neighborhood--and gaze through the bars upon what had once been his home. He registered a mental vow to regain that estate. That became the ambition of his life; the one great purpose to which he devoted all his energies. Many years passed; Hastings went to other climes; but there was ever with him the determination to get that estate; and he succeeded.

After all, would it not appear that the true theory is that of a golden mean between these two extremes? Circumstances sometimes control men or, at any rate, some kind of men; men, especially men of strong will power sometimes control their environments. Circumstances give men an opportunity to display their powers. The fuller study of this subject clearly shows the need of some principles of morality that are not dependent upon any chance companionship, and that may belong to the man himself, and not merely to his surroundings.

An ambition to get on in the world, the steady struggle to get up, to reach higher, is a constant source of education in foresight, in prudence, in economy, in industry and courage; in fact is the great developer of many of the strongest and noblest qualities of character.

The men at the summit fought their way up from the bottom. "John Jacob Astor sold apples on the streets of New York; A. T. Stewart swept out his own store; Cornelius Vanderbilt laid the foundation of his vast fortune with a hundred dollars given him by his mother; Lincoln was a rail splitter; Grant was a tanner; and Garfield was a towboy on a canal."

By hard work and unconquerable perseverance you can rise above the low places of poverty. True, you may never shine in the galaxy of the great ones of this earth, but you may fill your lives and homes with blessings, and make the world wiser and better for your having lived in it. Cash cannot take the place of character. It is far better to be a man, than merely to be a millionaire.

A man who heard Lincoln speak in Norwich, Connecticut, some time before he was nominated for the presidency, was greatly impressed by the closely-knit logic of the speech. Meeting him next day on a train, he asked him how he acquired his wonderful logical powers and such acuteness in analysis. Lincoln replied: "It was my terrible discouragement which did that for me. When I was a young man I went into an office to study law. I saw that a lawyer's business is largely to prove things. I said to myself, 'Lincoln, when is a thing proved?' That was a poser. What constitutes proof? Not evidence; that was not the point. There may be evidence enough, but wherein consists the proof? I groaned over the question, and finally said to myself, 'Ah! Lincoln, you can't tell.' Then I thought, 'What use is it for me to be in a law office if I can't tell when a thing is proved?' So I gave it up and went back home.

"Soon after I returned to the old log cabin, I fell in with a copy of Euclid. I had not the slightest notion what Euclid was, and I thought I would find out. I therefore began, at the beginning, and before spring I had gone through that old Euclid's geometry, and could demonstrate every proposition like a book. Then in the spring, when I had got through with it, I said to myself one day, 'Ah, do you know now when a thing is proved?' And I answered, 'Yes, sir, I do.' 'Then you may go back to the law shop;' and I went."

We may be rightly ambitious in various ways. It is right to be ambitious for _fame and honor_. The love of praise is not bad in itself, but it is a very dangerous motive. Why? Because in order to be popular, one may be tempted to be insincere. Never let the world's applause drown the voice of conscience.

It is right to be ambitious to excel in whatever you do. Slighted work and half-done tasks are sins. "I am as good as they are"; "I do my work as well as they"; are cowardly maxims. Not what others have done, but perfection, is the only true aim, whether it be in the ball-field or in the graver tasks of life.

Many people think that ambition is an evil weed, and ought to be pulled up by the roots. Shakespeare makes Wolsey say,--

"I charge thee, fling away ambition
By that sin fell the angels."

But the great cardinal had abused ambition, and had changed it into a vice. Ambition is a noble quality in itself, but like any other virtue it may be carried to excess, and thus become an evil. Like fire or water, it must be controlled to be safe and useful. Napoleon, while commanding armies, could not command his own ambition; and so he was caged up like a wild beast at St. Helena. A millionaire may be so ambitious for gain as purposely to wreck the fortunes of others. A politician may sell his manhood to gratify his desire for office. Boys and girls may become so ambitious to win their games, or to get the prizes at school, that they are willing to cheat, or take some mean advantage; and then ambition becomes to them not a blessing but a curse.

We ought now and then to stop and test our ambition, just as the engineer tries the steam in the boiler; if we do not, it may in some unexpected moment wreck our lives. There are two ways of finding out whether our ambition is too strong for safety. First, if we discover that ambition is hurting our own character, there is danger. Second, if we find ambition blinding us to the rights of others, it is time to stop. These are the two tests; and so long as your ambition is harming neither your own life nor the lives of others, it is good and wholesome, and will add value and brightness to your life.

GENERAL HAVELOCK.

Henry Havelock, commonly known as "The Hero of Lucknow," was born in England, 1795, just about the time when Napoleon was beginning his brilliant career, and all Europe was a battlefield. As a boy he was rather serious and thoughtful, so that his school fellows used to call him "Old Phlos," a nickname for Old Philosopher. And yet he loved boyish sports, and never was behind any of his companions in courage and daring.

He was not the first scholar in his class, but he was a great reader and took intense delight in stories of war and descriptions of battles. Napoleon was his hero, and he watched all his movements with breathless interest; and soon began to dream of being a soldier, too. Thus was born in the boy's heart that ambition which afterward lifted the man into honor and fame.

At the age of sixteen Havelock began to study law, but he soon tired of it, and three years later obtained an appointment in the army. He now gave himself, with all the love and enthusiasm of his nature, to his chosen profession. He was to be a soldier; and he decided that he would be a thorough one, and would understand the art of war completely. He studied very hard, and it is said that it was his habit to draw with a stick upon the ground the plan of some historic battlefield, then, in imagination fight the battle over again, so that he might clearly see what made the one side lose and the other win.

After eight years of service in England, he was ordered to go to India. There he became a soldier in earnest. It would take too long to tell of the battles he was in, and of the terrible campaigns through which he served. It is enough to say that he always followed where duty led, and always seemed to know just what to do amid the confusion of the battlefield. It was the dream of his life to become a general, but he was doomed, year after year, to stand still and see untried, beardless men promoted above his head. This certainly was hard to bear, but he never lost heart, never sulked, never neglected any opportunity to serve his government. His ambition was to do his best; and this he did, whether the world saw and applauded or not.

Until he reached the age of sixty-two, he was scarcely known outside of India; but then came the occasion that made him famous. All India was in mutiny. The native soldiers, mad with power, were murdering the English in every city. Far up in the interior, at Lucknow, was a garrison of English soldiers, women, and children, hemmed in by thousands of these bloodthirsty Sepoys. To surrender meant a horrible death. To hold the fort meant starvation at last, unless rescue should speedily come.

Although, when the news reached him, he was hundreds of miles away, Havelock undertook to save that little garrison. It seemed an impossible task, and yet with a few hundred brave soldiers, in a country swarming with the enemy, through swamps, over swollen rivers, he fought his way to the gates at Lucknow. And then, beneath a hailstorm of bullets from every house-top, he marched up the narrow street, and never paused until he stood within the fortress walls, and heard the shout of welcome from the lips of the starving men and women. It was a wonderful march, and put him among the great soldiers of history; but it was the direct result of that powerful ambition which had influenced his entire career.

The world rang with applause of his heroism; but praise came too late; for while the queen was making him a baronet, and Parliament was voting him a princely pension, he was dying of a fever within the very city he had so bravely stormed. But his life-work was fully completed, and his name shines brightly among those of the great military heroes of his native land.

[Footnote: See Marshman's "Life of Havelock" (1860); Headley's "Life of Havelock" (1864); Brock's "Life of General Sir Henry Havelock" (1854); Molesworth's "History of England," Vol. III., Chap, ii., and Mitchell's "History of India" (London, 1895).]

XII.

CONCENTRATION.

MEMORY GEMS.

Success grows out of struggles to overcome difficulties.--Smiles

He who follows two hares is sure to catch neither.--Franklin

The important thing in life is to have a great aim and the determination
to attain it.--Goethe

A healthy definite purpose is a remedy for a thousand ills.
--O. S. Marden

The evidence of superior genius is the power of intellectual
concentration.--B. R. Hayden

Concentration begins with the habit of attention. The highest success in learning depends on the power of the learner to command and hold his own attention,--on his ability to concentrate his thought on the subject before him. By the words "habit of attention," we do not mean here the outward, respectful attitude of a docile pupil who listens when his teacher speaks, but something much rarer, much more important, and far more difficult of attainment. We mean that power of the mind by which a person is able to give an intelligent account of what is said, whether in conversation, in lecture, or in sermon; which enables him to grasp at one reading the important points of a problem or a paragraph; and which makes it possible for a student or a reader to so concentrate his attention on what he is doing as to be entirely oblivious, so long as it does not concern him, of what is going on around him.

This is the age of concentration or specialization of energy. The problem of the day is to get ten-horse power out of an engine that shall occupy the space of a one-horse power engine, and no more. Just so society demands a ten-man power out of one individual. It crowns the man who knows one thing supremely, and can do it better than anybody else, even if it be only the art of raising turnips. If he raises the best turnips by reason of concentrating all his energy to that end, he is a benefactor to the race, and is recognized as such. The giants of the race have been men of concentration, who have struck all their blows in one place until they have accomplished their purpose. The successful men of today are men of one overmastering idea, one unwavering aim, men of single and intense purpose. "Scatteration" is the curse of American business life. Too many are like Douglas Jerrold's friend, who could converse in twenty-four languages, but had no ideas to express in any one of them.

"The weakest living creature," says Carlyle, "by concentrating his powers on a single object, can accomplish something; whereas the strongest, by dispersing his over many, may fail to accomplish anything. The drop, by continually falling, bores its passage through the hardest rock. The hasty torrent rushes over it with hideous uproar and leaves no trace behind."

It is interesting to read how, with an immense procession passing up Broadway, the streets lined with people, and the bands playing their loudest, Horace Greeley would sit upon the steps of the Astor House, use the top of his hat for a desk, and write an editorial for the New York _Tribune_ which would be quoted all over the country; and there are many incidents in his career which go to show that his wonderful power of concentration was one of the great secrets of his success.

Men who have the right kind of material in them will assert their personality, and rise in spite of a thousand adverse circumstances. You cannot keep them down. Every obstacle seems only to add their ability to get on. The youth Opie earned his bread by sawing wood, but he reached a professorship in the Royal Academy. When but ten years old he showed the material he was made of by a beautiful drawing on a shingle. Antonio Canova was a son of a day laborer; Thorwaldsen's parents were poor; but, like hundreds of others, these men did with their might what their hands found to do, and ennobled their work. They rose by being greater than their calling.

It is fashionable to ridicule the man of one idea; but the men who have changed the face of the world have been men of a single aim. No man can make his mark on this age of specialities who is not a man of one idea, one supreme aim, one master passion. The man who would make himself felt on this bustling planet, must play all his guns on one point. A wavering aim, a faltering purpose, will have no place in the twentieth century. "Mental shiftlessness" is the cause of many a failure. The world is full of unsuccessful men who spend their lives letting empty buckets down into empty wells.

As opposed to men of the latter class, what a sublime picture of determination and patience was that of Charles Goodyear, of New Haven, buried in poverty and struggling with hardships for eleven long years, to make India rubber of practical use! See him in prison for debt; pawning his clothes and his wife's jewelry to get a little money to buy food for his children, who were obliged to gather sticks in the field for fire. Observe the sublime courage and devotion to his idea, when he had no money to bury a dead child, and when his other five were near starvation; when his neighbors were harshly criticising him for his neglect of his family, and calling him insane. But, behold his vulcanized rubber; the result of that heroic struggle, applied to thousands of uses by over sixty thousand employees.

A German knight undertook to make an immense Aeolian harp by stretching wires from tower to tower of his castle. When he finished the harp it was silent; but when the breezes began to blow he heard faint strains like the murmuring of distant music. At last a tempest arose and swept with fury over his castle, and then rich and grand music came from the wires. Ordinary experiences do not seem to touch some lives, to bring out their higher manhood; but when patience and firmness bring forth their fruit it is always of the very finest quality.

It is good to know that great people have done great things through concentration; but it is better still to know that concentration belongs to the everyday life of the everyday boy and girl. Only they must not be selfish about it. Understand the work in hand before it is begun. Don't think of anything else while doing it; and don't dream when learning a lesson. Do one thing at a time and do it quickly and thoroughly. "I go at what I am about," said Charles Kingsley, "as if there was nothing else in the world for the time being." That's the secret of the success of all hard-working men.

S. T. Coleridge possessed marvelous powers of mind, but he had no definite purpose; he lived in an atmosphere of mental dissipation, which consumed his energy and exhausted his stamina, and his life was in many respects a miserable failure. He lived in dreams and died in reverie. He was continually forming plans and resolutions, but to the day of his death they remained resolutions and plans. He was always just going to do something, but never did it. "Coleridge is dead," wrote Charles Lamb to a friend, "and is said to have left behind him above forty thousand treatises on metaphysics and divinity--not one of them complete!"

Commodore MacDonough, on Lake Champlain, concentrated the fire of all his vessels upon the "big ship" of Downie, regardless of the fact that the other British ships were all hurling cannon balls at his little fleet. The guns of the big ship were silenced, and then the others were taken care of easily.

By exercising this art of concentration in a higher degree than did his brother generals, Grant was able to bring the Civil War to a speedy termination. This trait was strongly marked in the character of Washington. The same is true in regard to General Armstrong and the Hampton Institute. That stands as a living monument to his power of concentration. He had a great purpose: the education of the Negro and Indian races; and from the close of the Civil War to the day of his death he labored steadily at that one undertaking, and now the whole country is proud of the outcome of his toil.

People who have concentration never make excuses. They get more done than others, and have a better time doing it. Excuses are signs of shiftlessness. They do not answer in play any better than in lessons or business. Who ever heard of excuses in football-playing? When we go into all our duties with the same earnestness and devotion, we shall find ourselves rapidly rising into one of those foremost places which most of us so greatly desire.

DAVID LIVINGSTONE.

Few men in this century have followed a single purpose through their entire lives with greater devotion than the famous missionary and explorer, David Livingstone.

He was born in Scotland, March 19, 1813, of poor parents. He loved books as a boy, studied hard to know about rocks and plants, worked in a cotton mill and earned money to go to a medical school. He was honest, helped his mother, and read all the books he could. "My reading in the factory," he said, "was carried on by placing the book on a portion of the spinning-jenny, so that I could catch sentence after sentence as I passed at my work. I thus kept up a pretty constant study, undisturbed by the roar of machinery."

Very early Livingstone began to think about being a missionary. He read about travels in Africa, about the work of Henry Martyn, and about the Moravian missions. He heard about China and the need of medical missionaries there; and he says that "from this time my efforts were constantly devoted toward this object without any fluctuation."

Livingstone wanted to go to China; but he met Dr. Moffat, who was then home from Africa, and was persuaded to change his plans. Early in 1841 he reached Algoa Bay, at the south end of Africa. Then he went to Dr. Moffat's mission station at Kuruman; but here he found the missionaries did not work well together, that there were more men than work, so he pushed on into regions where no one had been before. "I really am ambitious," he wrote, "to preach beyond other men's lines. I am determined to go on, and do all I can, while able, for the poor, degraded people in the North."

This feeling sent him into the great wilderness to find what opportunities it afforded. In 1852 he started on his first great journey, made more discoveries, and crossed Africa from east to west, and then back again to the east coast. It was hard work; many were the difficulties; and his life was often in peril. Yet he saw Africa as no one before had seen it; and when he returned to England in 1857 he found himself famous, honored on every hand, and everybody ready to help on his great and noble work.

In 1859 he returned to Africa with men and money to explore further, and to see what could be done for the good of the country. He explored the Zambezi river, on the east coast; and became familiar with that side of Africa,--its people, rivers, lakes, and mountains. He returned home in 1864, but went back the next year to seek out the source of the Nile. In 1865 he started on his longest and last journey, going this time to the northwest. This was the hardest and most perilous of all his journeys; for he was often sick, his men were not faithful, the country was in a state of war, his money gave out; and he was in a very bad condition when Henry M. Stanley found him in 1871.

Stanley furnished him with money and men, and he started again for the great interior region to discover the source of the Nile, and then to return home and die. He was now sixty years old, his health had given way, but he persisted in the effort to finish his work. He grew weaker from month to month, but would not turn back. Finally, on May 1, 1873, his men found him on his knees in his tent, dead; but the results of his patient and persevering efforts will never die.

[Footnote: Consult Livingstone's "Last Journals" (1874); Blaikie's "Life of Livingstone;" and Stanley's "How I found Livingstone" (1873).]

XIII.

SELF-CONTROL.

MEMORY GEMS.

Self-mastery is the essence of heroism.--Emerson

He who reigns within himself is more than a king.--Milton

I have only one counsel for you--Be master!--Napoleon

Self-control is essential to happiness and usefulness.--E. A. Horton

He is a fool who cannot be angry; but he is a wise man who will
not.--Old Proverb

Some one has said "Self-control is only courage under another form"; but we think it is far more than that. It is the master of all the virtues, courage included. If it is not so, how can it so control them as to develop a pure and noble character? The self-control which we commend has its root in true self-respect. The wayward, drifting youth or man cannot respect himself. He knows that there is no decision of character in drifting with the current, no enterprise, spirit, or determination. He must look the world squarely in the face, and say, "I am a man," or he cannot respect himself; and he must stem the current and row up stream to command his destiny.

Self-control is at the root of all the virtues. Let a man yield to his impulses and passions, and from that moment he gives up his moral freedom. "Teach self-denial and make its practice pleasurable," says Walter Scott, "and you create for the world a destiny more sublime than ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer."

This may seem to be a very strong statement, but it is fully sustained by the experience of great men like Dr. Cuyler, who said, not long ago, "I have been watching the careers of young men by the thousand in this busy city of New York for over thirty years, and I find that the chief difference between the successful and the unsuccessful lies in the single element of 'staying-power.'"

Think of a man just starting out in life to conquer the world being at the mercy of his own appetites and passions! He cannot stand up and look the world in the face when he is the slave of what should be his own servants. He cannot lead who is led. There is nothing which gives certainty and direction to the life of a man who is not his own master. If he has mastered all but one appetite, passion, or weakness, he isstill a slave; it is the weakest point that measures the strength of character.

It was the self-discipline of a man who had never looked upon war until he was forty, that enabled Oliver Cromwell to create an army which never fought without victory, yet which retired into the ranks of industry as soon as the government was established, each soldier being distinguished from his neighbors only by his superior diligence, sobriety, and regularity in the pursuits of peace.

Many of the greatest characters in history illustrate this trait. Take, as a single instance, the case of the Duke of Wellington, whose career was marked by a persistent watchfulness over his irritable and explosive nature. How well he conquered himself, let the story of his deeds tell. The field of his great victory, which was Napoleon's overthrow, could not have been won but for this power of subduing himself.

In ordinary life the application is the same. He who would lead must first command himself. The time of test is when everybody is excited or angry or dismayed; then the well-balanced mind comes to the front. To say, "No" in the face of glowing temptation is a part of this power.

A very striking illustration is recorded in the life of Horace Greeley. Offended by a pungent article, a gentleman called at the _Tribune_ office and inquired for the editor. He was shown into a little seven-by-nine sanctum, where Greeley sat, with his head close down to his paper, scribbling away at a rapid rate. The angry man began by asking if this was Mr. Greeley. "Yes, sir; what do you want?" said the editor, quickly, without once looking up from his paper. The irate visitor then began using his tongue, with no deference to the rules of propriety, good breeding, or reason. Meantime Mr. Greeley continued to write. Page after page was dashed off in the most impetuous style, with no change of features, and without paying the slightest attention to the visitor. Finally, after about twenty minutes of the most impassioned scolding ever poured out in an editor's office, the angry man became disgusted, and abruptly turned to walk out of the room. Then, for the first time, Mr. Greeley looked up, rose from his chair, and slapping the gentleman familiarly on his shoulder, in a pleasant tone of voice said: "Don't go, friend; sit down, sit down, and free 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."

There is a very special demand for the cultivation of this trait and the kindred grace of patience at the present time. "Can't wait" is characteristic of the century, and is written on everything; on commerce, on schools, on societies, on churches. Can't wait for high school seminary or college. The boy can't wait to become a youth, nor the youth a man. Young men rush into business with no great reserve of education or drill; of course they do poor, feverish work, and break down in middle life, and may die of old age at forty, if not before. Everybody is in a hurry; and to be able, amid this universal rush, to hold one's self in check, and to stick to a single object until it is fully accomplished, will carry us a long way toward success.

Endurance is a much better test of character than any one act of heroism, however noble. It was many years of drudgery, and reading a thousand volumes, that enabled George Eliot to get fifty thousand dollars for "Daniel Deronda."

Edison in describing his repeated efforts to make the phonograph reproduce a sibilant sound, says, "From eighteen to twenty hours a day for the last seven months I have worked on this single word 'specia.' I said into the phonograph 'specia, specia, specia;' but the instrument responded 'pecia, pecia, pecia.' It was enough to drive one mad. But I held firm, and I have succeeded."

Years of patient apprenticeship make a man a good mechanic. It takes longer to form the artisan. The trained intellect requires a longer period still. Henry Ward Beecher sent a half-dozen articles to the publishers of a religious paper to pay for his subscription, but they were "respectfully declined." One of the leading magazines ridiculed Tennyson's first poems, and consigned the young poet to oblivion. Only one of Ralph Waldo Emerson's books had a remunerative sale. Washington Irving was nearly seventy years old before the income from his books paid the expenses of his household. Who does not see that if these men had lost their grip upon themselves, the world would have been deprived of many of its rarest literary treasures?

A great many rules have been given for securing and increasing this trait. A large number rest on mere policy, and are good only for the surface; they do not go to the center. Others are too radical, and tear up the roots, leaving one without energy or ambition. The aim should be to keep the native force unabated, but to give it wiser guidance.

A fair amount of self-examination is good. Self-knowledge is a preface to self-control. The wise commander knows the weak and strong points of his fort. Too much self-inspection leads to morbidness; too little, conducts to careless, hasty action. The average American does not know himself well enough; he proceeds with a boastful confidence, and is always in the right, so he thinks. If we are conscious of a failing we naturally strive against it.

There are two chief aims which, if held in view, will surely strengthen our self-control; one is attention to conscience, the other is a spirit of good-will. The lawless nature, not intending to live according to right, is always breaking over proper restraints,--is suspicious and quarrelsome. And he who has not the disposition to love his fellow-men, grows more and more petulant, disagreeable, and unfair.

You must also learn to guard your weak point. For example: Have you a hot, passionate temper? If so, a moment's outbreak, like a rat-hole in a dam, may flood all the work of years. One angry word sometimes raises a storm that time itself cannot allay. A single angry word has lost many a friend. The man who would succeed in any great undertaking must hold all his faculties under perfect control; they must be disciplined and drilled, until they quickly and cheerfully obey the will.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

For the special illustration of this lesson we select a couple of incidents from the life of George Washington.

Washington had great power of wrath, inheriting the high, hasty temper of his mother. Tobias Lear, his intimate friend and private secretary, says that in the winter of 1791, an officer brought a letter telling of General St. Clair's disastrous defeat by the Indians. It must be delivered to the President himself. He left his family and guests at table, glanced over the contents, and, when he rejoined them, seemed as calm as usual. But afterward, when he and Lear were alone, walked the room, silent a while, and then he broke out in great agitation, "It is all over. St. Clair is defeated, routed; the officers nearly all killed, the men by wholesale; the disaster complete; too shocking to think of, and a surprise into the bargain!" He walked about, much agitated, and his wrath became terrible. "Yes!" he burst forth, "here on this very spot, I took leave of him. I wished him success and honor. 'You have your instructions,' I said, 'from the Secretary of War. I had myself a strict eye to them, and will add but one word, BEWARE OF A SURPRISE! You know how the Indians fight!'

"He went off with this, as my last solemn warning, thrown into his ears; and yet, to suffer that army to be cut to pieces, hacked, butchered, tomahawked, by a surprise,--the very thing I guarded him against! O God! O God! he is worse than a murderer! How can he answer for it to his country? The blood of the slain is upon him; the curse of widows and orphans; the curse of Heaven!"

His emotions were awful. After a while he cooled a little, and sat down, and said: "This must not go beyond this room. General St. Clair shall have justice. I looked through the despatches, saw the whole disaster, but not all the particulars. I will receive him without displeasure; I will hear him without prejudice. He shall have full justice!"

The second incident is told as follows: In 1775, at Cambridge, the army was destitute of powder. Washington sent Colonel Glover to Marblehead for a supply of that article, which was said to be there. At night the colonel returned, found Washington in front of his headquarters, pacing up and down. Glover saluted. The general, without returning his salute, asked, roughly: "Have you got the powder?" "No, sir." Washington broke out at first with terrible severity of speech, and then said: "Why did you come back, sir, without it?" "Sir, there is not a kernel of powder in Marblehead." Washington walked up and down a minute or two, in great agitation, and then said: "Colonel Glover, here is my hand, if you will take it and forgive me. The greatness of our danger made me forget what is due to you and to myself."

Such victories as these show self-control at its very best; and they ought to make us all see its value and importance.

[Footnote: See Seeley's "Story of Washington" (1893), and the excellent article in Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, Vol. VI., pp. 376-382.]

XIV.

PEKSEVERANCE.

MEMORY GEMS.

Every noble work is at first impossible.--Carlyle

Victory belongs to the most persevering.--Napoleon

Our greatest glory is, not in never falling, but in rising every time we
fall.--Goldsmith

Success in most things depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.
--Montesquieu

Perseverance is failing nineteen times and succeeding the twentieth.
--Dr J. Anderson

Perseverance depends on three things,--purpose, will, enthusiasm. He who has a purpose is always concentrating his forces. By the will, constantly educated, the hope and plan are prevented from evaporating into dreams, and a little gain is all the time being added. Enthusiasm keeps the interest up, and makes the obstacles seem small. Young people often call perseverance plodding, and look with impatience on careful, steady efforts of any kind. It is plodding in a certain sense, but by it the mountain is scaled; whereas the impetuous nature soon tires, or is injured, and the climb is over, half-finished. The founders of New England did not believe in "chances." They did believe in work. The young man who thinks to get on by mere smartness and by idling, meets failure at last.

But there is a higher outlook. Life is in a sense a battle; certainly there is an unending struggle within ourselves to make the better part rule the worse. Perseverance is the master impulse of the firmest souls, and holds the key to those treasure-houses of knowledge from which the world has drawn its wealth both of wisdom and of moral worth.

Great men never wait for opportunities; they make them. Nor do they wait for facilities or favoring circumstances; they seize upon whatever is at hand, work out their problem, and master the situation. A young man determined and willing, will find a way or make one. Great men have found no royal road to their triumph. It is always the old route, by way of industry and perseverance.

Bunyan wrote his "Pilgrim's Progress" on the untwisted papers used to cork the bottles of milk brought for his meals. Gifford wrote his first copy of a mathematical work, when a cobbler's apprentice, on small scraps of leather; and Rittenhouse, the astronomer, first calculated eclipses on his plow handle.

"Circumstances," says Milton, "have rarely favored famous men. They have fought their way to triumph through all sorts of opposing obstacles. The greatest thing a man can do in this world is to make the most possible out of the stuff that has been given to him. This is success, and there is no other."

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 who said, "I know a young officer who has the courage and ability to quell this mob." "Send for him; send for him," said they. Napoleon was sent for, came, subjugated the mob, subjugated the authorities, ruled France, then conquered Europe.

One of the first lessons of life is to learn how to get victory out of defeat. It takes courage and stamina, when mortified and embarrassed by humiliating disaster, to seek in the wreck or ruins the elements of future conquest. Yet this measures the difference between those who succeed and those who fail. You cannot measure a man by his failures. You must know what use he makes of them.

Always watch with great interest a young man's first failure. It is the index of his life, the measure of his success-power. The mere fact of his failure has interest; but how did he take his defeat? What did he do next? Was he discouraged? Did he slink out of sight? Did he conclude that he had made a mistake in his calling, and dabble in something else? Or was he up and at it again with a determination that knows no defeat?

There is something grand and inspiring in a young man who fails squarely after doing his level best, and then enters the contest again and again with undaunted courage and redoubled energy. Have no fears for the youth who is not disheartened at failure.

Raleigh failed, but he left a name ever to be linked with brave effort and noble character. Kossuth did not succeed, but his lofty career, his burning words, and his ideal fidelity will move men for good as long as time shall last. O'Connell did not win his cause, but he did achieve enduring fame as an orator, patriot, and apostle of liberty.

President Lincoln was asked, "How does Grant impress you as a leading general?" "The greatest thing about him is his persistency of purpose," he replied. "He is not easily excited, and he has the grip of a bulldog. When he once gets his teeth in nothing can shake him off."

Chauncey Jerome's education was limited to three months in the district school each year until he was ten, when his father took him into his blacksmith shop at Plymouth, Connecticut, to make nails. Money was a scarce article with young Chauncey. His father died when he was eleven, and his mother was forced to send him out to earn a living on a farm. At fourteen he was apprenticed for seven years to a carpenter, who gave him only board and clothes. One day he heard people talking of Eli Terry, of Plymouth, who had undertaken to make two hundred clocks in one lot. "He'll never live long enough to finish them," said one. "If he should," said another, "he could not possibly sell so many. The very idea is ridiculous."

Chauncey pondered long over this rumor, for it had long been his dream to become a great clock-maker. He tried his hand at the first opportunity, and soon learned to make a wooden clock. When he got an order to make twelve at twelve dollars apiece he thought his fortune was made.

One night he happened to think that a cheap clock could be made of brass as well as of wood, and would not shrink, swell, or warp appreciably in any climate. He acted on the idea, and became the first great manufacturer of brass clocks. He made millions at the rate of six hundred a day, exporting them to all parts of the globe.

A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring success from hard surroundings, is the price of all great achievements. The man who has not fought his way upward, and does not bear the scar of desperate conflict, does not know the highest meaning of success.

Columbus was dismissed as a fool from court after court, but he pushed his suit against an unbelieving and ridiculing world. Rebuffed by kings, scorned by queens, he did not swerve a hair's breadth from the overmastering 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. Neither threats, ridicule, storms, leaky vessels, nor mutiny of sailors, could shake his mighty purpose.

Lucky for the boy who can say, "In the bright lexicon of youth there is no such word as _fail_." We do not care for the men who change with every wind! Give us men like mountains, who change the winds. You cannot at one dash rise into eminence. You must hammer it out by steady and rugged blows.

A man can get what he wants if he pays the price--persistent, plodding perseverance. Never doubt the result; victory will be yours. There may be ways to fortune shorter than the old, dusty highway; but the staunch men in the community all go on this road. If you want to do anything, don't stand back waiting for a better chance to arise, but rush in and seize it; and then cling to it with all the power you possess until you have made it serve the purpose for which you desired it, or yield the good which you believe it to contain.

The lack of perseverance is the cause of many a failure. We do not stand by our plans faithfully. Fashion, or criticism, or temporary weariness, or fickleness of taste, leads us off; and we have to begin our work all over. Look at the history of every noted invention; read the lives of musicians who were born with genius, but wrought out triumph by perseverance; and you will find abundant proof that without perseverance nothing valuable can be accomplished.

GEORGE STEPHENSON.

George Stephenson's struggle for the adoption of his locomotive is another noteworthy case in point. People said "he is crazy"; "his roaring steam engine will set the houses on fire with its sparks"; "the smoke will pollute the air"; "the carriage makers and coachmen will starve for want of work." So intense was the opposition, that for three whole days the matter was debated in the House of Commons; and on that occasion a government inspector said that if a locomotive ever went ten miles an hour, he would undertake to eat a stewed engine for breakfast. "What can be more palpably absurd and ridiculous than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as horses?" asked a writer in the English _Quarterly Review_ for March, 1825. "We trust that Parliament will, in all the railways it may grant, _limit the speed to eight or nine miles an hour_, which we entirely agree, with Mr. Sylvester, is as great as can be ventured upon."

This article referred to Stephenson's proposition to use his newly invented locomotive instead of horses on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, then in process of construction. The company referred the matter to two leading English engineers, who reported that steam would be desirable only when used in stationary engines one and a half miles apart, drawing the cars by means of ropes and pulleys.

But Stephenson persuaded them to test his idea by offering a prize of about twenty-five hundred dollars for the best locomotive produced at a trial to take place October 6, 1829. On the eventful day, long waited for, thousands of spectators assembled to watch the competition of four engines, the "Novelty," the "Rocket," the "Perseverance," and the "Sanspareil." The "Perseverance" could make but six miles an hour, and so was ruled out, as the conditions called for at least ten. The "Sanspareil" made an average of fourteen miles an 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 of fifteen miles an hour, the highest rate attained being twenty-nine. This was Stephenson's locomotive, and so fully vindicated his theory that the idea of stationary engines on a railroad was completely exploded. He had picked up the fixed engines which the genius of Watt had devised, and set them on wheels to draw men and merchandise, against the most direful predictions of the foremost engineers of his day.

[Footnote: See Smiles' "Life of George Stephenson" (new ed., 1874); Jeaffreson and Pole's "Life of Robert Stephenson" (1864), and article in Johnson's Cyclopedia, Vol. VII., p. 740.]

XV.

PROMPTNESS.

MEMORY GEMS.

One to-day is worth two to-morrows.--Franklin

Whilst we are considering when we are to begin, it is often too late to
act.--Quintilian

By the street of by and by one arrives at the house of never.--Cervantes

When a fool makes up his mind, the market has gone by.--Spanish Proverb

The individual who is habitually tardy in meeting an appointment, will
never be respected or successful in life.--W. Fisk

Promptness and punctuality are among the greatest blessings and comforts of life. For lack of these qualities, some of the greatest men have failed. Most men have abundant opportunities for promoting and securing their own happiness. Time should be made the most of. Stray moments, saved and improved, may yield many brilliant results. It is astonishing how much can be done by using up the odds and ends of time in leisure hours. We must be prompt to catch the minutes as they fly, and make them yield the treasures they contain, or they will be lost to us forever. "In youth the hours are golden, in mature years they are silvern, in old age they are leaden." "The man who at twenty knows nothing, at thirty does nothing, at forty has nothing." Yet the Italian proverb adds, "He who knows nothing is confident in everything."