THE ACCIDENTS OF LIFE--"SOME MEN ACHIEVE GREATNESS, AND SOME HAVE
GREATNESS THRUST UPON THEM"--A SLIDE--RATTLESNAKES AT THE TOP AND AN
ICY POOL AT THE BOTTOM--A FANCIFUL THEORY.
While we sat thus conversing, our boatmen went down along the beach,
and around a little point that ran out into the lake, to bathe. They
were jolly, but uncultivated men, given to rudeness and profanity of
speech when out of our immediate presence, and by themselves, and we
heard from them, while they were splashing and struggling in the
water, expressions somewhat inelegant as well as profane.
"I have often thought," said Spalding, as we listened to the rude and
sometimes profane speech of our men, "how vast the influence which
circumstances or accident, over which men have no control, have upon
their conduct and destiny in this world, if not in the next. The poet
has well said,
'Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of Ocean bear;
And many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.'
"These rude men are but testifying to the great truth, that man is the
creature, in a greater or less degree, of circumstances; that he is
great or small, polished or rude, wise or simple, according to the
accident of his birth, or the surroundings in the midst of which his
journey of life lays. True, there _are_ intellects that will work
themselves into position, men who will hew their way upward in spite
of the difficulties which beset them, as there are others who will
plunge down to degradation and dishonor, in defiance of tender
rearing, of education, of association, and all the allurements to an
upward career that can be presented to the human understanding. But
these are so rare, that they may be properly regarded as exceptions to
the general rule; so rare, indeed, as to prove its truth. You and I
can look around us, and from among our acquaintances select many men
and women, whose genius and solid understanding, and whose virtues
too, have remained undeveloped, and probably will do so till they die,
from lack of opportunity for their exercise. Accident seems to have
stricken them from their legitimate sphere. Circumstances, for which
they were not responsible, and over which they could exercise no
control, have barred them out from their seeming true position in the
world, and the genius which was intended for the daylight and the
eagle's flight towards the sun, is left to skim in darkness along the
ground, like the course of the mousing owl. We have all seen another
thing, which baffles our philosophy, while it proves the truth of the
theory of which I am speaking. We have seen men, and see them every
day, who, from no quality of heart or mind seem fitted to rise in the
world, occupying commanding positions to which accident has lifted
them; whose genius commands no admiration, whose virtues are of a
doubtful character, and who possess no one quality which entitles them
to our respect or the respect of the world. As the former are the
victims of circumstance, these latter are its creatures. Both are the
sport of fortune; the one class its victims, and the other its
favorites. How is all this to be accounted for? And where rests the
responsibility of failure, and where the credit of success? Are there
accidents floating about among the paths marked out on the chart of
life by the Deity, which jostle his creatures from the destiny
intended for them? Or were men thrown loose upon the currents of life,
to take their chances of good and evil, to be virtuous or vile,
according to the influences among which they were floating, to be
fortunate or otherwise, as the means of advancing themselves drifted
within their reach? If so, where rests the responsibility, I ask
again, of failure, and where the credit of success? Children are born
into the world under strangely different influences. One first sees
the light in the haunts of vice and crime, amidst the corruptions
which fester away down in the depths of a great city. The influences
which surround it are only and always evil. They are such in infancy,
in childhood, in youth, and in manhood. Another is cradled under the
influence of intelligences, piety, virtue; having around it always the
safeguards of refined and Christian civilization. What is the
difference in the degree of responsibility attached to the future of
these antipode beginnings? Can you tell me where, and how these wide,
terribly wide distinctions are to be reconciled? When and where the
career of these germs of being, starting from points so wide asunder,
are to meet, and how the balances of good and evil, of suffering and
enjoyment of sinning and retribution, are to be adjusted at last? I
have been asking myself, too, while listening to the speech of these
men, so thoughtlessly uttered, where these profane epithets, these
impious expressions, are to rest at last? Who can tell whether they do
not go jarring through the universe, marring the music of the spheres,
throwing discord into the anthems of the morning stars when they sing
together, a wail among the glad voices of the sons of God, when they
shout for joy? In this world, and to the dulness of human perception,
when the sound of the impious words has died away, or a smile comes
back to the face clouded by the angry thought, the effect seems to
have ceased; but it may not be so. The word or the thought may be
wandering for ages, vibrating still, away off among the outer
creations of God. The angel that bore them at the beginning from the
lips or the heart, may be flying still, and generations and centuries
may have passed, before his journeying with them shall have ceased.
"It is a fanciful idea, that whatever we say or think, is immortal;
that every word we utter goes ringing through the universe forever;
that every thought of the heart becomes a creation, a thing of
vitality in some shape, starting forward among the things of some sort
of life, never to die! I have sometimes, in my dreamy hours,
speculated upon the truth of such a theory, and reasoned with myself
in favor of its reality. All I can say in its favor, however, is that
I cannot disprove it. It may be true, or it may not. There are other
mysteries quite as incomprehensible, the results of which we can see,
without being able to penetrate the darkness in which they dwell. But
assuming its truth, and appreciating the consequences which would
follow, we should rule the tongue with a sterner sway, and guard the
heart with a more watchful care than is our wont. Think of the obscene
word becoming a living entity, the profane oath a thing of life; the
filthy or impure thought, assuming form and vitality, all starting
forward to exist forever among the creations of infinite purity. Who
would own one of these ogres in comparison with the beautiful things
of God? Who would say of the obscene word, the profane oath, or the
filthy or impious thought, 'this is mine. I made it. I am the author
of its being--its creator!' And yet it may be so. If it is, there are
few of us who have not thrown into life much, very much to mar the
harmonies of nature, to throw discord among the spheres."
"Your statement," remarked Smith, "that accident has much to do with
making or marring the fortunes of men, is doubtless true. Men are
destroyed by accident, and their lives are sometimes saved by it. And
if you'll put away metaphysics, come out of the cloud in which you
have hid yourself in your dreamy speculations, I will furnish you with
a case in point, showing that a man may get into a very unpleasant
predicament, where he runs a great risk and gets some hard knocks, and
yet be able to thank God for it, in perfect earnestness of spirit. A
case of the kind came under my own observation, and while there was
not much philosophy, or abstract speculation about it, there was a
great deal of hard practical fact. It happened when I was a boy, at
the old homestead, in the valley that stretches to the southwest from
the head of Crooked Lake. That valley is hemmed in by high and steep
hills, and at the tune of which I speak, was much more beautiful in my
view than it is now. There was no village there then, and the farms
which stretched from hill to hill were greatly less valuable than they
are now; but the woods and pastures, and meadows, lay exactly in the
right places, and had among them partridges, and squirrels, and
pigeons, and cattle, and sheep enough to make things pleasant;
besides, there were plenty of trout in those days, in the stream that
flows along through the valley midway between the hills. On the north
side, coming down through a gorge, or 'the gulf,' as we used to call
it, was a stream which, in the dry season of the year, was a little
brook, trickling over the rocks, but which, in the spring freshets, or
when the clouds emptied themselves on the mountain, was a wild,
foaming, roaring, and resistless torrent. In following this stream
into 'the gulf,' you walked on a level plain between walls of rock,
rising two or three hundred feet on either hand, and a dozen or more
rods apart, until you came to 'the falls,' down which the stream
rushed with a plunge and a roar, when its back was up, or over which,
in the dry season, it quietly rippled. These 'falls' were not
perpendicular, but steep as the roof of a Dutch barn, and it was a
great feat to climb them when the stream was low. Ascending about
fifty feet, you came to a broad flat rock, large and smooth as a
parlor floor, and which in the summer season was dry. Well, one day,
in company with a boy who was visiting me, I went up to the 'falls,'
and we concluded to climb the shelving rocks to the 'table;' and
taking off our shoes and stockings, entered upon the perilous
ascent--for such to some extent it was. Hands and feet, fingers and
toes, were all put in requisition. My friend began the ascent before I
did, and was half way up when I started. I ought to have said, that at
the foot of the 'falls,' was a basin, worn away by the torrent, and in
which the water, clear and cold, then stood to the depth of three or
four feet. We were toiling painfully up, when I heard a rush above,
and in an instant my friend came like an arrow past me, sliding down
the shelving rocks on his back, or rather in a half-sitting posture,
his rear to the rocks. I won't undertake to say that the fire flew as
he went by me, for the rocks were slate, and therefore such a
phenomenon was not likely to occur, but the entire absence of the seat
of my friend's pantaloons, and the blood that trickled down to his
toes, showed that the friction was considerable. As he passed me, I
heard him exclaim, 'thank God,' and the next instant he plunged into
the cold water at the base of the falls. What there was to be thankful
for in such a descent over the rocks, I could not at the time
comprehend, as the chances were in favor of a broken back, or neck, or
some other consummation equally out of the range of gratitude, in an
ordinary way. He came up out of the water blowing and snorting like a
porpoise with a cold in his head, and waded to the shore. 'Come down,'
he shouted, which I did, not quite so far or fast as he did, but fast
enough to make an involuntary plunge, head foremost, into the pool at
the bottom. The occasion of his catastrophe was this: he had ascended
so near the table rock, that his hands were upon it, and was lifting
himself up, when, as his eyes came above the surface, the edge upon
which his hands with most of his weight rested, gave way, and he
started for the basin below. But he had a view of what satisfied him
that to this accident he owed his life, and it was a sense of
gratitude for his escape, that prompted the exclamation I heard as he
went bumping past me. Coiled on the rock above, and within reach of
his face, were several large rattlesnakes, and he always insisted that
one made a spring at him, as his hands gave way, and he put out for
the basin into which he plunged. He was a good deal bruised, but his
escape from the poisonous reptiles reconciled him to that."