Getting Ready.
When I have written a quarter part of this paper the horse and wagon will
be brought round, and I shall call for Ferguson and Putnam to go with me
for a swim. When I stop at Ferguson's house, he will himself come to the
door with his bag of towels,--I shall not even leave the wagon,--Ferguson
will jump in, and then we shall drive to Putnam's. When we come to
Putnam's house, Ferguson will jump out and ring the bell. A girl will come
to the door, and Ferguson will ask her to tell Horace that we have come
for him. She will look a little confused, as if she did not know where he
was, but she will go and find him. Ferguson and I will wait in the wagon
three or four minutes and then Horace will come. Ferguson will ask him if
he has his towels, and he will say, "O no, I laid them down when I was
packing my lunch," and he will run and get them. Just as we start, he
will ask me to excuse him just a moment, and he will run back for a letter
his father wants him to post as we come home. Then we shall go and have a
good swim together. [Footnote: P. S.--We have been and returned, and all
has happened substantially as I said.]
Now, in the regular line of literature made and provided for young people,
I should go on and make out that Ferguson, simply by his habit of
promptness and by being in the right place when he is needed, would rise
rapidly to the highest posts of honor and command, becoming indeed Khan of
Tartary, or President of the United States, as the exigencies and costume
of the story might require. But Horace, merely from not being ready on
occasion, would miserably decline, and come to a wretched felon's end;
owing it, indeed, only to the accident of his early acquaintance with
Ferguson, that, when the sheriff is about to hang him, a pardon arrives
just in time from him (the President). But I shall not carry out for you
any such horrible picture of these two good fellows' fates. In my
judgment, one of these results is almost as horrible as is the other. I
will tell you, however, that the habit of being ready is going to make for
Ferguson a great deal of comfort in this world, and bring him in a great
deal of enjoyment. And, on the other hand, Horace the Unready, as they
would have called him in French history, will work through a great deal of
discomfort and mortification before he rids himself of the habit which I
have illustrated for you. It is true that he has a certain rapidity, which
somebody calls "shiftiness," of resolution and of performance, which gets
him out of his scrapes as rapidly as he gets in. But there is a good deal
of vital power lost in getting in and getting out, which might be spent to
better purpose,--for pure enjoyment, or for helping other people to pure
enjoyment.
The art of getting ready, then, shall be the closing subject of this
little series of papers. Of course, in the wider sense, all education
might be called the art of getting ready, as, in the broadest sense of
all, I hope all you children remember every day that the whole of this
life is the getting ready for life beyond this. Bear that in mind, and you
will not say that this is a trivial accomplishment of Ferguson's, which
makes him always a welcome companion, often and often gives him the power
of rendering a favor to somebody who has forgotten something, and, in
short, in the twenty-four hours of every day, gives to him "all the time
there is." It is also one of those accomplishments, as I believe, which
can readily be learned or gained, not depending materially on temperament
or native constitution. It comes almost of course to a person who has his
various powers well in hand,--who knows what he can do, and what he cannot
do, and does not attempt more than he can perform. On the other hand, it
is an accomplishment very difficult of acquirement to a boy who has not
yet found what he is good for, who has forty irons in the fire, and is
changing from one to another as rapidly as the circus-rider changes, or
seems to change, from Mr. Pickwick to Sam Weller.
Form the habit, then, of looking at to-morrow as if you were the master
of to-morrow, and not its slave. "There's no such word as fail!" That is
what Richelieu says to the boy, and in the real conviction that you can
control such circumstances as made Horace late for our ride, you have the
power that will master them. As Mrs. Henry said to her husband, about
leaping over the high bar,--"Throw your heart over, John, and your heels
will go over." That is a very fine remark, and it covers a great many
problems in life besides those of circus-riding. You are, thus far, master
of to-morrow. It has not outflanked you, nor circumvented you at any
point. You do not propose that it shall. What, then, is the first thing to
be sought by way of "getting ready," of preparation?
It is vivid imagination of to-morrow. Ask in advance, What time does the
train start? _Answer_, "Seven minutes of eight." What time is breakfast?
_Answer_, "For the family, half past seven." Then I will now, lest it be
forgotten, ask Mary to give me a cup of coffee at seven fifteen; and, lest
she should forget it, I will write it on this card, and she may tuck the
card in her kitchen-clock case. What have I to take in the train?
_Answer_, "Father's foreign letters, to save the English mail, my own
'Young Folks' to be bound, and Fanny's breast-pin for a new pin." Then I
hang my hand-bag now on the peg under my hat, put into it the "Young
Folks" and the breast-pin box, and ask father to put into it the English
letters when they are done. Do you not see that the more exact the work of
the imagination on Tuesday, the less petty strain will there be on memory
when Wednesday comes? If you have made that preparation, you may lie in
bed Wednesday morning till the very moment which shall leave you time
enough for washing and dressing; then you may take your breakfast
comfortably, may strike your train accurately, and attend to your
commissions easily. Whereas Horace, on his method of life, would have to
get up early to be sure that his things were brought together, in the
confusion of the morning would not be able to find No. 11 of the "Young
Folks," in looking for that would lose his breakfast, and afterwards would
lose the train, and, looking back on his day, would find that he rose
early, came to town late, and did not get to the bookbinder's, after all.
The relief from such blunders and annoyance comes, I say, in a lively
habit of imagination, forecasting the thing that is to be done. Once
forecast in its detail, it is very easy to get ready for it.
Do you not remember, in "Swiss Family Robinson," that when they came to a
very hard pinch for want of twine or scissors or nails, the mother,
Elizabeth, always had it in her "wonderful bag"? I was young enough when I
first read "Swiss Family" to be really taken in by this, and to think it
magic. Indeed, I supposed the bag to be a lady's work-bag of beads or
melon-seeds, such as were then in fashion, and to have such quantities of
things come out of it was in no wise short of magic. It was not for many,
many years that I observed that Francis sat on this bag in his tub, as
they sailed to the shore. In those later years, however, I also noticed a
sneer of Ernest's which I had overlooked before. He says, "I do not see
anything very wonderful in taking out of a bag the same thing you have
put into it." But his wise father says that it is the presence of mind
which in the midst of shipwreck put the right things into the bag which
makes the wonder. Now, in daily life, what we need for the comfort and
readiness of the next day is such forecast and presence of mind, with a
vivid imagination of the various exigencies it will bring us to.
Jo Matthew was the most prompt and ready person, with one exception, whom
I have ever had to deal with. I hope Jo will read this. If he does, will
he not write to me? I said to Jo once when we were at work together in the
barn, that I wished I had his knack of laying down a tool so carefully
that he knew just where to find it. "Ah," said he, laughing, "we learned
that in the cotton-mill. When you are running four looms, if something
gives way, it will not do to be going round asking where this or where
that is." Now Jo's answer really fits all life very well. The tide will
not wait, dear Pauline, while you are asking, "Where is my blue bow?" Nor
will the train wait, dear George, while you are asking, "Where is my
Walton's Arithmetic?"
We are all in a great mill, and we can master it, or it will master us,
just as we choose to be ready or not ready for the opening and shutting of
its opportunities.
I remember that when Haliburton was visiting General Hooker's
head-quarters, he arrived just as the General, with a brilliant staff, was
about to ride out to make an interesting examination of the position. He
asked Haliburton if he would join them, and, when Haliburton accepted the
invitation gladly, he bade an aid mount him. The aid asked Haliburton what
sort of horse he would have, and Haliburton said he would--and he knew he
could--"ride anything." He is a thorough horseman. You see what a pleasure
it was to him that he was perfectly ready for that contingency, wholly
unexpected as it was. I like to hear him tell the story, and I often
repeat it to young people, who wonder why some persons get forward so much
more easily than others. Warburton, at the same moment, would have had to
apologize, and say he would stay in camp writing letters, though he would
have had nothing to say. For Warburton had never ridden horses to water or
to the blacksmith's, and could not have mounted on the stupidest beast in
the head-quarters encampment. The difference between the two men is simply
that the one is ready and the other is not.
Nothing comes amiss in the great business of preparation, if it has been
thoroughly well learned. And the strangest things come of use, too, at the
strangest times. A sailor teaches you to tie a knot when you are on a
fishing party, and you tie that knot the next time when you are patching
up the Emperor of Russia's carriage for him, in a valley in the Ural
Mountains. But "getting ready" does not mean the piling in of a heap of
accidental accomplishments. It means sedulously examining the coming duty
or pleasure, imagining it even in its details, decreeing the utmost
punctuality so far as you are concerned, and thus entering upon them as a
knight armed from head to foot. This is the man whom Wordsworth
describes,--
"Who, if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for human kind,
Is happy as a Lover; and attired
With sudden brightness, like a man inspired;
And through the heat of conflict keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw;
Or if an unexpected call succeed,
Come when it will, is equal to the need."
The End.