By JAMES KERR, M. A.
Who can doubt that the habit of taking pains, the habit of minute
attention, of patient thought and persevering study, is one of the
leading characteristics of genius! To this rule there seems to be no
exception.
We see it illustrated in the lives of our greatest thinkers. Did a
genius like Lord Bacon compose his immortal works with ease, and, as
it were, without effort? Far from it. On the contrary, he took great
pains. They were written and re-written. They were the fruit of much
patient thought, of repeated revision and persistent effort. Thus, we
are told that he transcribed his “Novum Organum” twelve times with
his own hand, each time revising it carefully. He was employed on
this great work at intervals for a period of thirty years. When he
transcribed it he did not merely recopy what he had written, with a few
verbal alterations only, but changed it in substance, so as to bring it
nearer the model in his own mind. This was his constant practice, as we
know from his own words. Writing to a friend, he says—“My great work
goeth forward, and, after my manner, I alter even when I add; so that
nothing is finished till all be finished.”
Who is there among us who would have the patience to write any literary
production in which he might be engaged twelve times over with his
own hand! Think, too, of the patient thought that must have been
bestowed on the work each time it was transcribed! If Bacon’s genius is
immensely greater than what any of us can boast of, do not his patient
thought, his persevering study, his habit of taking pains, exceed ours
in the same proportion!
Bacon’s precept corresponded to his practice. How does the great author
of the inductive method direct us to make discoveries? Not by volatile
flights of fancy, but by patient labor. We are patiently to observe and
make experiments. We are to collect all sorts of facts which have any
bearing on the subject, not even neglecting what may appear trifles. We
are to arrange them under proper heads. We are to examine them under
every aspect, and reflect upon them with deepest thought. Thus only, he
tells us, will discoveries be made worthy of the name.
Let us turn to another great philosopher of our own country. How did
Newton succeed in making his name immortal? The poet says of him—
“Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in night,
God said—Let Newton be, and there was light.”
Yet it was not without effort and painstaking care that he made
his discoveries. The laws of light and gravitation did not reveal
themselves to him at a glance. The process of discovery was much
slower. Let us go to the man himself and learn the secret of his
success. He tells us that he made his discoveries by _always thinking_
about them. This patient thought, this persevering study, this
painstaking care, enabled him at last to succeed where others failed.
This it was, and not mere genius alone, that shed a luster on his name,
which shall last so long as the sun and the moon endure.
To come nearer our own times and to men of less dazzling fame. George
Stephenson, the inventor, we may say, of railways, will be allowed
to have been a great mechanical genius. The lesson we learn from his
life is to take pains and persevere. His inventions were, in no small
degree, the result of careful study. We see the pains he took to
acquaint himself with every detail as to the habits of “the engine”
while still a brakesman. He thus laid the foundation of his future
success in applying the steam-engine to the railway. We read, also,
that when he retired for the night, it was not always to sink into
slumber. He worked out many a difficult problem in bed, and for hours
he would lie awake and turn over in his mind, with painstaking care and
patient thought, how to overcome some mechanical obstacle that stood in
his way.
In the later years of his life, when railways had spread over the
kingdom, he was fond of pointing out to others the difficulties he had
to surmount, and what pains and perseverance had brought him to. It was
not talent, it was not genius, in the ordinary sense of the word, to
which he attributed his success; it was to perseverance. In addressing
young men his grand text was “persevere,” and on this theme the old
man grew eloquent, glowing with the recollections of his own personal
experience.
Hugh Miller was another man of undoubted genius. When we contemplate
such a man rising to distinction both in science and literature, in
spite of the most adverse circumstances, we are apt to think that he
must have been indebted to the native vigor of his mind alone, without
the aid of any extraneous advantages. But what do we find to be the
case? No one can peruse his works without perceiving that he was a
great reader, and that the thoughts of others supplied the food on
which his mind grew. Like Dr. Johnson, he was a robust genius, capable
of grappling with whole libraries. He seems, while yet unknown to
fame, to have ransacked our whole literature, quarrying his way into
many hidden recesses not generally explored. Even classical works,
translated into English, he read with avidity. He says himself—“I have
read Cowper’s ‘Homer’ and Dryden’s ‘Virgil’ again and again, and drunk
in all their beauties.”
This appetite for reading commenced at an early age. When a lad about
twelve he got access to a small library belonging to one of his
neighbors, and was allowed freely to peruse its contents. He says,
casting a glance back to these times:—“I read incessantly; and, as the
appetite for reading becomes stronger the more it is indulged, I felt,
when I had consumed the whole, a still keener craving than before.”
By these steps he rose to eminence. He thus became a distinguished
man. His mind was enriched by much reading. It received a training
which qualified him in future years to become a geologist of the first
rank, to write on scientific subjects in a style of rare beauty, so
picturesque and expressive that men of distinguished parts have said
they would give their “left hand” if they could only imitate it, and,
in a word, to handle skilfully any subject to which he turned his
attention, not excepting just and delicate criticism on some of our
less known poets.
Among men of science there are few, if any, whose writings have made
a greater impression on the present generation than those of Charles
Darwin. How were his works produced? Not by fits and starts. Not by
flights of fancy. He is penetrated by the true scientific spirit, and
steadily pursues his object for years, patiently accumulating facts,
and by their light drawing conclusions in which, though men may differ
on some points, there will always be found large portions of solid
truth. Let us see, for example, how his remarkable book on the “Origin
of Species” was produced. It was not struck out at a blow, but was the
labor of years and of much patient thought. He himself says of it:—“On
my return home it occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps
be made out on this question by patiently accumulating and reflecting
on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing upon it.”
He steadily pursued his object from that time, for more than twenty
years, and then his work was published to the world.
This is the way in which great works on science are produced. The
author takes great pains. He steadily pursues his object for years,
with patient thought and unremitting attention, leaving no stone
unturned. It is this that accomplishes great things, and not mere
flight of untutored genius.
It is needless to say that his latest work, on the modest subject of
earth-worms, exhibits the same painstaking care, the same laborious
study, and the same patient accumulation of facts.
Hitherto the examples adduced have been more of a scientific than
literary character. If, leaving science, we take a glance at general
literature, it will be found that those also who come to the front
as writers in this branch of learning are, without exception,
distinguished by their habit of taking pains with the subject in hand.
Were the writings of the brilliant Macaulay the outpourings of pure
genius, unaided by painstaking labor and diligent study? Far from it.
When he wrote on any subject he was unwearied in his researches. No
amount of labor appalled him. Even when husbanding his resources, and
engaged in no particular literary task, he read continually, laying in
a store for future use. To read was his passion and delight. It was his
solace under all circumstances. It cheered him in his Indian exile. In
turning over the pages of his life we are absolutely struck with awe
at his insatiable appetite for books. It would be difficult to find an
example of anyone in these modern times whose reading, especially in
the Greek and Roman classics, took so wide a range. He read, not only
in his study, but in his long walks he had always a book with him,
which he read incessantly.
Nothing is said in his life of his habits of composition, but there
can be little doubt that his clear and vigorous style was not formed
without much study and practice. In addition to his admirable prose
style, he had great facility in writing verses. How did he acquire
it? By long continued practice. He says, in a letter to one of his
sisters:—“As you like my verses, I will some day or other write you
a whole rhyming letter. I wonder whether any other man ever wrote
doggerel so easily. I run it off just as fast as my pen can move. This
comes of a schoolboy habit of writing verses all day long.”
Of our modern prose writers, there are few whose writings are more easy
to read than those of Charles Dickens. They look like the spontaneous
outpourings of genius, flowing freely from his pen without effort.
And yet, in point of fact, he took great pains with what he wrote.
When engaged on “Little Dorrit” he jots down these words in his
journal:—“Now to work again. The story lies before me strong and clear.
Not to be easily told; for nothing of that kind is to be easily done
that I know of.”
Then, in another direction, look at the pains he took in preparing
his “Readings” for the public. He learned them all by heart, so as to
have no mechanical drawback in looking after the words. He was also
at great pains to correct his pronunciation, and cultivate the habit
of self-possession. As the reputation of these “Readings” widened, he
was ambitious that they should grow better and better. When engaged
in giving a series of readings, he used to repeat them to himself,
often twice a day, and with exactly the same pains as at night when
before his audience. He felt that nothing could be done well, that no
great perfection could be reached, without taking pains. We are here
reminded of Mrs. Siddons, who played the character of Lady Macbeth
for thirty years. Such was her solicitude to act the part well, that
she invariably read over the play, once more, on the morning of the
performance, and with such care as always to discover something new in
the character which she had not observed before.
* * * * *
Whoso acts a hundred times with high moral principle before he
speaks once of it, that is a man whom one could bless and clasp to
one’s heart. I am far from saying that he is on that account free
from faults, but the _plus et minus_, the degree of striving after
perfection and virtue, determines the value of the man.—_George
Forster._