For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.
Longfellow.
To-day! To-day! It is ours, with all its magic possibilities of being
and doing. Yesterday, with its mistakes, misdeeds, lost opportunities,
and failures, is gone forever. With the morrow we are not immediately
concerned. It is but a promise yet to be fulfilled. Hidden behind the
veil of the future, it may dimly beckon us, but it is yet a shadowy,
unsubstantial vision, one that we, perhaps, never may realize. But
to-day, the Here, the Now, that dawned upon us with the first hour of
the morn, is a reality, a precious possession upon the right use of
which may depend all our future of happiness and success, or of misery
and failure; for
"This day we fashion Destiny, our web of Fate we spin."
Lest he should forget that Time's wings are swift and noiseless, and so
rapidly bear our to-days to the Land of Yesterday, John Ruskin,
philosopher, philanthropist, and tireless worker though he was, kept
constantly before his eyes on his study table a large, handsome block
of chalcedony, on which was graven the single word "To-day." Every
moment of this noble life was enriched by the right use of each passing
moment.
A successful merchant, whose name is well-known throughout our country,
very tersely sums up the means by which true success may be attained.
"It is just this," he says: "Do your best every day, whatever you have
in hand."
This simple rule, if followed in sunshine and in storm, in days of
sadness as well as days of gladness, will rear for the builder a Palace
Beautiful more precious than pearls of great price, more enduring than
time.
"THE MILL BOY OF THE SLASHES"
A picturesque, as well as pathetic figure, was Henry Clay, the little
"Mill Boy of the Slashes," as he rode along on the old family horse to
Mrs. Darricott's mill. Blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked, and bare-footed,
clothed in coarse shirt and trousers, and a time-worn straw hat, he sat
erect on the bare back of the horse, holding, with firm hand, the rope
which did duty as a bridle. In front of him lay the precious sack,
containing the grist which was to be ground into meal or flour, to feed
the hungry mouths of the seven little boys and girls who, with the
widowed mother, made up the Clay family.
It required a good deal of grist to feed so large a family, especially
when hoecake was the staple food, and it was because of his frequent
trips to the mill, across the swampy region called the "Slashes," that
Henry was dubbed by the neighbors "The Mill Boy of the Slashes."
The lad was ambitious, however, and, very early in life, made up his
mind that he would win for himself a more imposing title. He never
dreamed of winning world-wide renown as an orator, or of exchanging his
boyish sobriquet for "The Orator of Ashland." But he who forms high
ideals in youth usually far outstrips his first ambition, and Henry had
"hitched his wagon to a star."
This awkward country boy, who was so bashful, and so lacking in
self-confidence that he hardly dared recite before his class in the log
schoolhouse, DETERMINED TO BECOME AN ORATOR.
Henry Clay, the brilliant lawyer and statesman, the American
Demosthenes who could sway multitudes by his matchless oratory, once
said, "In order to succeed a man must have a purpose fixed, then let
his motto be VICTORY OR DEATH." When Henry Clay, the poor country boy,
son of an unknown Baptist minister, made up his mind to become an
orator, he acted on this principle. No discouragement or obstacle was
allowed to swerve him from his purpose. Since the death of his father,
when the boy was but five years old, he had carried grist to the mill,
chopped wood, followed the plow barefooted, clerked in a country
store,--did everything that a loving son and brother could do to help
win a subsistence for the family.
In the midst of poverty, hard work, and the most pitilessly unfavorable
conditions, the youth clung to his resolve. He learned what he could at
the country schoolhouse, during the time the duties of the farm
permitted him to attend school. He committed speeches to memory, and
recited them aloud, sometimes in the forest, sometimes while working in
the cornfield, and frequently in a barn with a horse and an ox for his
audience.
In his fifteenth year he left the grocery store where he had been
clerking to take a position in the office of the clerk of the High
Court of Chancery. There he became interested in law, and by reading
and study began at once to supplement the scanty education of his
childhood. To such good purpose did he use his opportunities that in
1797, when only twenty years old, he was licensed by the judges of the
court of appeals to practice law.
When he moved from Richmond to Lexington, Kentucky, the same year to
begin practice for himself, he had no influential friends, no patrons,
and not even the means to pay his board. Referring to this time years
afterward, he said, "I remember how comfortable I thought I should be
if I could make one hundred pounds Virginia money (less than five
hundred dollars) per year; and with what delight I received the first
fifteen-shilling fee."
Contrary to his expectations, the young lawyer had "immediately rushed
into a lucrative practice." At the age of twenty-seven he was elected
to the Kentucky legislature. Two years later he was sent to the United
States Senate to fill out the remainder of the term of a senator who
had withdrawn. In 1811 he was elected to Congress, and made Speaker of
the national House of Representatives. He was afterward elected to the
United States Senate in the regular way.
Both in Congress and in the Senate Clay always worked for what he
believed to be the best interests of his country. Ambition, which so
often causes men to turn aside from the paths of truth and honor, had
no power to tempt him to do wrong. He was ambitious to be president,
but would not sacrifice any of his convictions for the sake of being
elected. Although he was nominated by his party three times, he never
became president. It was when warned by a friend that if he persisted
in a certain course of political conduct he would injure his prospects
of being elected, that he made his famous statement, "I would rather be
right than be president."
Clay has been described by one of his biographers as "a brilliant
orator, an honest man, a charming gentleman, an ardent patriot, and a
leader whose popularity was equaled only by that of Andrew Jackson."
Although born in a state in which wealth and ancient ancestry were
highly rated, he was never ashamed of his birth or poverty. Once when
taunted by the aristocratic John Randolph with his lowly origin, he
proudly exclaimed, "I was born to no proud paternal estate. I inherited
only infancy, ignorance, and indigence."
He was born in Hanover County, Virginia, on April 12, 1777, and died in
Washington, June 29, 1852. With only the humble inheritance which he
claimed--"infancy, ignorance, and indigence"--Henry Clay made himself a
name that wealth and a long line of ancestry could never bestow.