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?