saying to themselves, “I would do this, and I would do that, if I had
leisure.” Now, there is no condition in which the chance of doing any
good is _less_ than in the condition of leisure. The man fully employed
_may_ be able to gratify his good dispositions by improving himself
or his neighbours, or serving the public in some useful way; but the
man who has all his time to dispose of as he pleases, has but a poor
chance, indeed, of doing so. To do increases the capacity of doing;
and it is far less difficult for a man who is in a habitual course of
exertion to exert himself a little more for an extra purpose, than
for the man who does little or nothing to put himself into motion for
the same end. This is owing to a principle of our moral nature, which
is called the _vis inertiæ_, literally, the strength of inactivity,
but which I will explain at once to unlearned persons, by reminding
them, that, to set a common child’s hoop a-going in the first place,
requires a smarter stroke than to keep it in motion afterwards. There
is a reluctance in all things to be set a-going; but when that is got
over, then every thing goes sweetly enough. Just so it is with the
idle man. In losing the _habit_, he loses the _power_ of doing. But a
man who is busy about some regular employment for a proper length of
time every day, can very easily do something else during the remaining
hours; indeed, the recreation of the weary man is apt to be busier than
the perpetual leisure of the idle. As he walks through the world, his
hands hang unmuffled and ready by his side, and he can sometimes do
more by a single touch in passing, than a vacant man is likely to do in
a twelvemonth.
All this is exemplified fully in the actual practice of life. Who,
I would ask, compose the class who perform most of the business of
public charity? It is not those who are highly endowed with wealth and
leisure. It is not in general those whom wealth has placed at ease,
but the class of well-employed traders and manufacturers, who, to
appearance, are entirely engrossed by their own concerns. These men
will snatch an occasional hour from their well-employed lives—perhaps
an hour that ought to be devoted to relaxation—and do you more real
work in that time than an idle man would accomplish in the half of
his yaw-yaw existence. What is curious, if you place the busy trader
on the shelf, as no longer requiring to work for his subsistence, he
immediately loses the power of doing these little superfluous acts of
goodness. In getting out of the way of all exertion, he becomes unable
to do any thing, even when he wishes it. On the same principle, men
never give a job to a lawyer or any body else, who is not pretty well
occupied. And this is from no irrational homage to the name of the man,
as is sometimes thought; it is because the man who does much is most
likely to do more, and most likely to do it well.
Let no man, then, cry for leisure in order to do any thing. Let him
rather pray that he may never have leisure. If he really wishes to do
any good thing, he will always find time for it, by properly arranging
his other employments. The person who thus addresses the public has
acquired the power of doing so, such as it is, not by having had a
great deal of time at his own disposal, but solely by ravishing the
inglorious hours which the most of men spend in unprofitable and
_unenjoyed_ pleasures, and employing them in the cultivation of his
mind. There is an anecdote told of a French author of distinction, who
by regularly employing, in a few jottings, the five minutes which his
wife caused him to wait every day while she dressed for dinner, at
last formed a book; certainly not the least meritorious of his works.
Hazlitt also remarks, that many men walk as much idly upon Pall Mall
in a few years, as would carry them round the globe. In fact, it may
be said that to ask for leisure or time to do any ordinary thing, is
equivalent to a confession that we are indifferent about doing it.
It is very fair that the busy man should be at ease at last. It is
often the object for which he works. Neither can it be allowed that
there is any absolute claim upon the wealthy to exert themselves for
the good of the community. Wealth must be enjoyed as the possessor
pleases, or it is no longer wealth, and one of the objects of industry
is taken away. But it would be of vast importance—both to the wealthy
idle themselves and to the community—if their tastes could oftener
be directed to some beneficial employment within the range of their
abilities and influence. It is a shame to those who are entirely at
their own disposal, that almost all the general good that is done
in the world is done by those who are already overworked. It might
rather be expected that the affluent, who have no particular business
of their own to attend to, should devote themselves to the general
good. This is the more particularly to be expected, when we observe
the worse than trifles upon which idle opulence generally employs
itself. If actual vice be avoided, the most contemptible frivolities
and paltry amusements are sought after, for the purpose of—disgraceful
word!—_killing time_. Sometimes we find the universal necessity of
doing something, taking a good direction, or one at least rather on
goodness’ side. The female part of the affluent world are often found
to be actively benevolent; and nothing can be more laudable. But the
ells of idle humanity, that every day walk the street in vain, are
beyond all mensuration. Now, I am convinced that if these leisurely
persons only once fell into the way of employing themselves for
some good end, they would find themselves far more comfortable than
they are at present. They would suddenly feel the inspiration of a
worthy purpose of existence. They would feel the self-importance of
active exertion—the majesty of industry; that lofty feeling which
even the hard-working housewife feels in increased proportion amidst
the sloperies of a washing Saturday, and which gives to the early
riser his right to taunt and look down upon all the recumbent part of
mankind. The _gentlemen_ must think of it. They must up and be doing.
It is, I repeat, a disgrace to them, in this universally busy scene, to
let all the laurels of charity and kindness be carried away by those
who have enough ado to obtain their own subsistence.
MY NATIVE BAY.
My native bay is calm and bright,
As e’er it was of yore
When, in the days of hope and love,
I stood upon its shore;
The sky is glowing, soft, and blue,
As once in youth it smiled,
When summer seas and summer skies
Where always bright and mild.
The sky—how oft hath darkness dwelt,
Since then, upon its breast;
The sea—how oft have tempests broke
Its gentle dream of rest!
So oft hath darker woe come o’er
Calm self-enjoying thought;
And passion’s storms a wilder scene
Within my bosom wrought.
Now, after years of absence, pass’d
In wretchedness and pain,
I come and find those seas and skies
All calm and bright again.
The darkness and the storm from both
Have trackless pass’d away;
And gentle as in youth, once more
Thou seem’st, my native bay!
Oh, that, like thee, when toil is o’er,
And all my griefs are past,
This ravaged bosom might subside
To peace and joy at last!
And while it lay all calm like thee,
In pure unruffled sleep,
Oh, might a heaven as bright as this
Be mirror’d in its deep!
R. C.
ADVANCEMENT IN LIFE
It is very certain that all men are not born to be Franklins; and,
likewise, that if any considerable number of such persons were to
arise, their utility and their distinction would be diminished. There
is a good old proverb, however—“aim at a silk gown, and you may get
a sleeve of it;” which may be followed out, both to the advantage of
individuals and to the benefit of the community.
First, there is one great maxim that no youth should ever want before
his eyes, namely, that hardly any thing is beyond the attainment of
real merit. Let a man set up almost any object before him on entering
life, and, if his ambition be of that genuine kind which springs from
talent, and is _not too much for his prudence_, there is a strong
chance in his favour that a keen and steady pursuit of the object will
make him triumph at last. It is very common, when the proposal of a
young man’s entry into life is discussed, to hear complaints as to the
pre-occupation of every field of adventure by unemployed multitudes.
There may occasionally be some cause for this; but the general truth
is undeniable, that, in spite of every disadvantage, men are rising
daily to distinction in every profession—the broadest shoulders, as
usual, making their way best through the crowd. It is the slothful and
the fearful that generally make such complaints; and they obviously do
so in order to assure themselves that they are not altogether wrong
in continuing to misspend their time. When we hear of the overcrowded
state of any proposed profession, we are apt to overlook that an
immense proportion of those engaged in it are destined, by the weakness
of their character, and want of specific qualifications, to make no
way for themselves, and must soon be the same, so far as rivalry is
concerned, as if they had never entered it. If the entrant, then, has
only a well-grounded confidence in his own powers of exertion and
perseverance, he need hardly be afraid to enter any profession. With
the serious desire of well-doing at heart, and some tolerable share of
ability, he is sure very soon to get ahead of a great proportion of
those already in the field. Only let him never despair—that is, tell
himself it is all in vain, in order that he may become idle with a good
conscience—and there is hardly any fear of him.
The present writer entertains some different ideas respecting original
humility of circumstances from what are generally prevalent. The common
notion is, that humble circumstances are a great obstruction at the
outset of life, and that the more difference between a man’s origin
and his eventual condition, the greater is the wonder, and the greater
his merit. Since it appears, however, that so large a proportion of
distinguished men were poor at the beginning, a question may naturally
arise, are not men just the more apt, on that account, to become
eminent? Although we are all familiar as possible with instances of
fortunes made from nothing, it will be found, on recollection, that
cases are comparatively rare of men who began with fortunes having
ended by greatly increasing them. Many a poor boy has made twenty
thousand pounds before he was forty years of age; but few who had ten
thousand at the age of majority are found to double it with their
years. Here—here is a reason for hope. The fact is, large sums are
not to be acquired without an appreciation and an understanding of
the meanest financial details. To make pounds, we must know the value
of shillings; we must have felt before how much good could sometimes
be done, how much evil could sometimes be avoided, _by the possession
of a single penny_! For want of this knowledge, the opulent youth
squanders or otherwise loses more, perhaps, than he gains. But he who
has risen from the ranks knows the value and powers of every sum, from
the lowest upwards, and, _as saving is the better part of the art of
acquiring money_, he never goes back a step—his whole march is ONWARD.
At the very worst, it is only a question of time. Say one man begins
at twenty with a good capital, and another at the same age with none.
For want of experience, and through other causes above mentioned, it
is not likely that the former person has made much advance within the
first ten years. Now, ten years is an immense space to the individual
who only commenced with good resolutions. In that time, if he has
not accumulated actual money, he may quite well have secured good
reputation and credit, which, prudently managed, is just money of
another kind. And so, while still a young man, he is pretty much upon
a par with him who seemed to start with such superior advantages. In
fact, fortune, or original good circumstances, appear to the present
writer as requisites of a very unimportant character, compared with
talent, power of application, self-denial, and honourable intentions.
The _fortunate_—to use the erroneous language of common life—are
selected from those who have possessed the latter indispensable
qualifications in their best combinations: and as it is obvious that
young men of fortune (necessarily the smaller class) have only a
chance, according to their numbers, of possessing them, it follows,
as a clear induction, that the great mass of the prosperous were
originally poor.
TALENT.—It is a common cry that those who succeed best in life are
the dullest people, and that talent is too fine a quality for common
pursuits. There cannot be a greater fallacy than this. It may be
true that some decidedly stupid people succeed through the force of
a dogged resolution, which hardly any man of superior genius could
have submitted to. But I am disposed to dispute, in a great measure,
the existence of talent, where I do not find it at once productive of
superior address in ordinary affairs, and attended by a magnanimity
which elevates the possessor above all paltry and vicious actions. The
genius which only misleads its possessor from the paths of prudence,
or renders him a ridiculous and intolerable member of society, is too
much allied to Bedlam to be taken into account; and in reality, there
is nowhere so much of what is called genius as in the madhouses.[6]
The imputation of dulness to a man who has prospered in life, will be
found by impartial inquirers, in nine cases out of ten, to be a mere
consolatory appliance to the self-love of one who has neither had the
talent nor the morality to prosper in life himself. Let every man,
then, who possesses this gift, rejoice in it with all his heart, and
seek by every means to give it proper guidance and direction.
APPLICATION is another of the indispensable requisites. Detached
efforts, though they may individually be great, can never tell so well
in the aggregate as a regular and constant exertion, where the doings
of one day fortify and improve the doings of the preceding, and lead on
with certainty to the better doings of the next. It is not economical
to work by fits and starts; more exertion is required, by that system,
for a certain end, than what is necessary in the case of a continuous
effort, and thus the irregular man is apt to fall far behind his
rivals. Men of ability are apt to despise application as a mean and
grubbing qualification—which is only a piece of overweening self-love
on their part, and likely to be the very means of frustrating all the
proper results of their ability. On the other hand, the industrious
man is apt to despair for want of ability—not seeing that the clever
fellows are liable to the weakness we describe, which causes them to
be constantly giving way in the race to mere plodders. Besides, while
few faults are more common than an over-estimation of one’s self, it is
equally obvious that many men only discover their abilities by chance,
and that all of us possess latent powers, which might be turned to good
account, if we only knew and had confidence in them. No man, therefore,
should be too easily dashed on the subject of his abilities. He should
try, and, with the aid of a persevering industry, he may do wonders
such as he never dreamt of.
SELF-DENIAL.—Perhaps among all the qualifications which, in a combined
form, lead to fortune, none is more absolutely indispensable than this.
A man may have talent, may have application, both in abundance; but if
he cannot resist vulgar temptations, all is in vain. The Scotch, as
a nation, are characterised immensely by self-denial, and it is the
main ground of their prosperity both at home and abroad. It is one
of the noblest of the virtues, if not, indeed, the sole virtue which
creates all the rest. If we are obliged at every moment to abandon
some sacred principle in order to gratify a paltry appetite; if the
extensive future is perpetually to be sacrificed for the sake of the
momentary present; if we are to lead a life of Esau-like bargains from
the first to the last—then we are totally unfit for any purpose above
the meanest. Self-indulgence makes brutes out of gods; self-denial
is the tangent line by which human nature trenches upon the divine.
Now, self-indulgence is not inherent except in very few natures; it is
almost invariably the result of “evil communications” in youth, and
generally becomes a mere use or habit. The most of error arises from
the contagion of example. A youth at first debauches himself because he
sees others do it; he feels, all the time, as if he were sacrificing
merely to the glory of bravado; and there is far more of martyrdom in
it than is generally supposed. But though a person at first smokes in
order to show how much disgust he can endure, he soon comes to have
a real liking for tobacco. And thus, for the paltriest indulgences,
which only are so from vicious habit, and perhaps, after all, involve
as much dissatisfaction as pleasure, we daily see the most glorious and
ennobling objects cast, as it were, into hell-fire.
We are by no means hostile to all amusement. The mass of men require a
certain quantity of amusement almost as regularly as their daily food.
But amusement may be noxious or innocent, moderate or immoderate. The
amusements which can be enjoyed in the domestic circle, or without
company at all, are the safest; there is great danger in all which
require an association of individuals to carry them into effect. Upon
the whole, a multitude of bosom friends is the most pernicious evil
that ever besets a man in the world. Each becomes a slave to the
depraved appetites of the rest, and is at last ulcerated all over with
their various evil practices. At the very best, he is retarded to the
general pace, and never finds it possible to get a single vantage hour,
in order to steal a march upon his kind.
HONOURABLE INTENTIONS are also indispensably necessary. The reverse
is simply want of sense and understanding; for it is obvious to every
one who has seen the least of human life, that infinitely more is
lost in reputation and _means and opportunities of well-doing_, by an
attempt to gain an undue advantage, than what can in general cases
be gained. If we had to live only for a short time certain, trickery
might be the most expedient course, so far as this world is concerned;
but if a man contemplates a life above a single twelvemonth, he will
endeavour, by the guarded correctness of his actions, to acquire
the good character which tends so much to eventual prosperity. The
dishonest man, in one sense, may be termed the most monstrous of all
self-flatterers; he thinks he can cheat the whole of the remaining part
of mankind—which certainly is no trifling compliment. He soon finds,
however, that he was seen through all the time by those whom he thought
mere children, and his blindness and silly arrogance receive their
deserved punishment. Even where the depravity may be of a very slight
kind, it is alike in vain. In ordinary transactions, the one party
deals with the other exactly according to his character; if the one
be in general disposed to overreach, the other is just proportionably
on his guard; so that there is no result but trouble, and a bad name.
One thing should be strongly impressed upon such persons: they are
far more generally understood and watched than they are aware of; for
the world, so long as it can simply take care of itself without much
difficulty, is not disposed to adopt the dangerous task of a monitor.
The police-officer knows of many rogues whom he passes every day on the
street; he never lays hold of any, unless for some particular offence.
Such are the principal qualities necessary for advancement in life,
though any one of them, without much or any of the other, will, if
not counteracted by negative properties, be sure to command a certain
degree of success. He who is about to start in the race would do well
to ponder upon the difficulties he has to encounter, and make up a
manful resolution to meet them with a full exertion of all his powers.
To revert to the general question—what is it that enables one man to
get in advance of his fellows? The answer is obvious: it can only
be his _doing_ more than the generality of them, or his _enduring
more privation_ than they are generally inclined to do [that is,
self-denial], in order that he may acquire _increased power of doing_.
The fault of most unsuccessful persons is their want of an adequate
idea of what is to be _done_, and what is to be _endured_. They enter
business as into a game or a sport, and they are surprised, after
a time, to find that there is a principle in the affair they never
before took into account—namely, the tremendous competition of other
men. Without being able to do and suffer as much as the _best_ men of
business, the _first_ place is not to be gained; without being able
to do and suffer as much as the second order of men of business, the
_second_ place is not to be gained; and so on. New candidates should
therefore endeavour to make an estimate of the duties necessary for
attaining a certain point, and not permit themselves to be thrown out
in the race for want of a proper performance of those duties. They
should either be pretty certain of possessing the requisite powers of
exertion and endurance, or aim at a lower point, to which their powers
may seem certainly adequate.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] This remark is borrowed from the conversation of a medical friend.
CONTROLLERS-GENERAL.
It is a prevailing notion, that people are all so exclusively
engrossed with their own concerns in this world, as to have no time or
opportunity to take the least interest in those of their neighbours. No
idea could be more mistaken. The truth is, a great many people—perhaps
a _third_ of the population of large towns, and _three-fourths_ of
those in small ones—are far more anxious about the concerns of their
neighbours than about their own. In fact, society in this respect
resembles the ape department in a menagerie, where, it is said, every
individual chatterer neglects his own pan of meat (opposite his cage),
and stretches with all his might to reach the mess of some distant
companion in captivity, who, on his part, tries, with equal straining
and exertion, to rob some other friend. The case, however, differs
immensely as to intention. The monkeys, as we seriously believe, act
thus from a wish to eat all the neighbouring pans of meat in the first
place, after which they think it will be time enough to attend coolly
to their own. But human beings look after each other’s morals and
worldly prosperity through the most generous impulses. They think it
selfish to be always attending to their own affairs, and that it would
be an utter defiance of the greatest law of nature, if they were only
to look after themselves. Our own business requires, perhaps, the first
attention, but common justice to our race demands that all our _spare_
time, at least, should be devoted to a supervision of the concerns of
other people, and a surveillance of their moral conduct. We are to love
our neighbours as ourselves, and, in order to testify that we love
them, we are to do as we do with children, castigate them properly
whenever they misbehave.
It is lamentable to think how negligent some large classes of society
are respecting the affairs of their neighbours. In large cities, the
more actively engaged citizens go on from year to year in the pursuit
of their own advantage, never casting a single thought upon their
next-door neighbours, unless, perhaps, to make a transient inquiry into
the state of their credit. Is it not fortunate, that, while the men are
thus apt to get wrapped up in their own sordid interests, the fairer
and more generous part of the race are still in general sufficiently at
leisure to see after their neighbours? What _would_ society do without
these amiable controllers-general?—or what would society do, if these
amiable controllers were to get so much engaged too, as to have no time
for the affairs of their friends? It is dreadful even to think of such
a calamity. How many poor improvident wretches would, in such an event,
be left to sink or swim as chance directed! How naughty the world at
large would become!