A man with knowledge but without energy is a home furnished but not
inhabited; a man with energy but no knowledge, a house dwelt in but
unfurnished.
Mr. Sharp[91] counsels us: “Prefer a life of energy to a life of
inaction. There are always kind friends enough ready to preach up
caution and delay, &c. Yet it is impossible to lay down any general rule
of a prudential kind. Every one must be judged of after a careful review
of all its circumstances; for if one, only one, be overlooked, the
decision may be injurious or fatal. Thus, there will ever be many
conflicting reasons for and against a spirit of enterprise and a habit
of caution.
“Those who advise others to withstand the temptations of hope will
always appear to be wiser than they really are, for how often can it be
made certain that the rejected and untried hazard would have been
successful? Besides, those who dissuade us from action have corrupt but
powerful allies in our indolence, irresolution, and cowardice. To
despond is very easy, but it requires works as well as faith to engage
successfully in a difficult undertaking.
“There are, however, few difficulties that hold out against real
attacks: they fly, like the visible horizon, before those who advance. A
passionate desire and an unwearied will can perform impossibilities, or
what seem to be so to the cold and the feeble. If we do but go on, some
unseen path will open among the hills.
“We must not allow ourselves to be discouraged by the apparent
disproportion between the result of single efforts and the magnitude of
the obstacles to be encountered. Nothing great or good is to be obtained
without courage and industry; but courage and industry must have sunk in
despair, and the world must have remained unornamented and unimproved,
if men had nicely compared the effect of a single stroke of the chisel
with the pyramid to be raised, or of a single impression of the spade
with the mountain to be levelled.
* * * * *
“Efforts, it must not be forgotten, are as indispensable as desires. The
globe is not to be circumnavigated by one wind. ‘It is better to wear
out than to rust,’ says Bishop Cumberland. ‘There will be time enough
for repose in the grave,’ said Nicole to Pascal. In truth, the proper
rest for man is change of occupation.
“The toils as well as risks of an active life are commonly overrated, so
much may be done by the diligent use of ordinary opportunities; but they
must not always be waited for. We must not only strike the iron while it
is hot, but strike it till ‘it is made hot.’ Herschel, the great
astronomer, declares that 90 or 100 hours, clear enough for observation,
cannot be called an unproductive year.
“The lazy, the dissipated, and the fearful, should patiently see the
active and the bold pass them in the course. They must bring down their
pretensions to the level of their talents. Those who have not energy to
work must learn to be humble, and should not vainly hope to unite the
incompatible enjoyments of indolence and enterprise, of ambition and
self-indulgence.”
These lines of fair encouragement are the advice of a man of the world,
but whose feelings had not become blunted by his intercourse with the
world: he was one of the most cheerful, amiable, and happy beings it
ever fell to our lot to know; his joyous manner was the true index to
his large and sound heart.
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Footnote 91:
Mr. Richard Sharp, F.R.S., and some time M.P. for Port-Arlington, in
Ireland. He was celebrated for his conversational talents, and hence
was known as “Conversation Sharp.” At Fridley-farm, Sir James
Macintosh, and other distinguished men of his day, were frequently Mr.
Sharp’s guests. Of his volume of _Letters, Essays, and Poems_, a third
edition appeared in 1834.
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