COURAGE AND DETERMINED EFFORT.
Carlyle has said that the first requisite to success is carefully to
find your life work and then bravely to carry it out. No soldier
ever won a succession of triumphs, and no business man, no matter
how successful in the end, who did not find his beginning slow,
arduous and discouraging. Courage is a prime essential to
prosperity. The young man's progress may be slow in comparison with
his ambition, but if he keeps a brave heart and sticks persistently
to it, he will surely succeed in the end.
The forceful, energetic character, like the forceful soldier on the
battle-field, not only moves forward to victory himself, but his
example has a stimulating influence on others.
Energy of character has always a power to evoke energy in others. It
acts through sympathy, one of the most influential of human
agencies. The zealous, energetic man unconsciously carries others
along with him. His example is contagious and compels imitation. He
exercises a sort of electric power, which sends a thrill through
every fibre, flows into the nature of those about him, and makes
them give out sparks of fire.
Dr. Arnold's biographer, speaking of the power of this kind exercised
by him over young men, says: "It was not so much an enthusiastic
admiration for true genius, or learning, or eloquence, which stirred
the heart within them; it was a sympathetic thrill, caught from a
spirit that was earnestly at work in the world--whose work was
healthy, sustained and constantly carried forward in the fear of
God--a work that was founded on a deep sense of its duty and its
value."
The beginner should carefully study the lives of men whose undaunted
courage has won in the face of obstacles that would cow weaker
natures.
It is in the season of youth, while the character is forming, that
the impulse to admire is the greatest. As we advance in life we
crystallize into habit and "_Nil admirari_" too often becomes our
motto. It is well to encourage the admiration of great characters
while the nature is plastic and open to impressions; for if the good
are not admired--as young men will have their heroes of some sort--
most probably the great bad may be taken by them for models. Hence it
always rejoiced Dr. Arnold to hear his pupils expressing admiration
of great deeds, or full of enthusiasm for persons or even scenery.
"I believe," said he, "that '_Nil admirari_' is the devil's favorite
text; and he could not choose a better to introduce his pupils into
the more esoteric parts of his doctrine. And therefore I have always
looked upon a man infected with the disorder of anti-romance as one
who has lost the finest part of his nature and his best protection
against everything low and foolish."
Great men have evoked the admiration of kings, popes and emperors.
Francis de Medicis never spoke to Michael Angelo without uncovering,
and Julius III made him sit by his side while a dozen cardinals were
standing. Charles V made way for Titian; and one day when the brush
dropped from the painter's hand, Charles stooped and picked it up,
saying, "You deserve to be served by an emperor."
Bear in mind that nothing so discourages or unfits a man for an
effort as idleness. "Idleness," says Burton, in that delightful old
book "The Anatomy of Melancholy," "is the bane of body and mind, the
nurse of naughtiness, the chief mother of all mischief, one of the
seven deadly sins, the devil's cushion, his pillow and chief
reposal . . . An idle dog will be mangy; and how shall an idle person
escape? Idleness of the mind is much worse than that of the body;
wit, without employment, is a disease--the rust of the soul, a
plague, a hell itself. As in a standing pool, worms and filthy
creepers increase, so do evil and corrupt thoughts in an idle
person; the soul is contaminated . . . Thus much I dare boldly say:
he or she that is idle, be they of what condition they will, never
so rich, so well allied, fortunate, happy--let them have all things
in abundance, all felicity that heart can wish and desire, all
contentment--so long as he, or she, or they, are idle, they shall
never be pleased, never well in body or mind, but weary still,
sickly still, vexed still, loathing still, weeping, sighing,
grieving, suspecting, offended with the world, with every object,
wishing themselves gone or dead, or else carried away with some
foolish fantasy or other.".
Barton says a great deal more to the same effect.
It has been truly said that to desire to possess without being
burdened by the trouble of acquiring is as much a sign of weakness
as to recognize that everything worth having is only to be got by
paying its price is the prime secret of practical strength. Even
leisure cannot be enjoyed unless it is won by effort. If it have not
been earned by work, the price has not been paid for it.
But apart from the supreme satisfaction of winning, the effort
required to accomplish anything is ennobling, and, if there were no
other success it would be its own reward.
"I don't believe," said Lord Stanley, in an address to the young men
of Glasgow, "that an unemployed man, however amiable and otherwise
respectable, ever was, or ever can be, really happy. As work is our
life, show me what you can do, and I will show you what you are. I
have spoken of love of one's work as the best preventive of merely
low and vicious tastes. I will go farther and say that it is the
best preservative against petty anxieties and the annoyances that
arise out of indulged self-love. Men have thought before now that
they could take refuge from trouble and vexation by sheltering
themselves, as it wore, in a world of their own. The experiment has
often been tried and always with one result. You cannot escape from
anxiety or labor--it is the destiny of humanity . . . Those who
shirk from facing trouble find that trouble comes to them.
"The early teachers of Christianity ennobled the lot of toil by their
example. 'He that will not work,' said St. Paul, 'neither shall he
eat;' and he glorified himself in that he had labored with his hands
and had not been chargeable to any man. When St. Boniface landed in
Britain, he came with a gospel in one hand, and a carpenter's rule
in the other; and from England he afterward passed over into
Germany, carrying thither the art of building. Luther also, in the
midst of a multitude of other employments, worked diligently for a
living, earning his bread by gardening, building, turning, and even
clock-making."
Coleridge has truly observed, that "if the idle are described as
killing time, the methodical man may be justly said to call it into
life and moral being, while he makes it the distinct object, not
only of the consciousness, but of the conscience. He organizes the
hours and gives them a soul; and by that, the very essence of which
is to fleet and to have been, he communicates an imperishable and
spiritual nature. Of the good and faithful servant, whose energies
thus directed are thus methodized, it is less truly affirmed that he
lives in time than that time lives in him. His days and months and
years, as the stops and punctual marks in the record of duties
performed, will survive the wreck of worlds, and remain extant when
time itself shall be no more."
Washington, also, was an indefatigable man of business. From his
boyhood he diligently trained himself in habits of application, of
study and of methodical work. His manuscript school-books, which are
still preserved, show that, as early as the age of thirteen, he
occupied himself voluntarily, in copying out such things as forms of
receipts, notes of hand, bills of exchange, bonds, indentures,
leases, land warrants and other dry documents, all written out with
great care. And the habits which lie thus early acquired were, in a
great measure the foundation of those admirable business qualities
which he afterward so successfully brought to bear in the affairs of
the government.
The man or woman who achieves success in the management of any great
affair of business is entitled to honor--it may be, to as much as
the artist who paints a picture, or the author who writes a book, or
the soldier who wins a battle. Their success may have been gained in
the face of as great difficulties, and after as great struggles; and
where they have won their battle it is at least a peaceful one and
there is no blood on their hands.
Courage, combined with energy and perseverance, will overcome
difficulties apparently insurmountable. It gives force and impulse
to effort and does not permit it to retreat. Tyndall said of
Faraday, that "in his warm moments he formed a resolution and in his
cool ones he made that resolution good." Perseverance, working in
the right direction, grows with time and when steadily practiced,
even by the most humble, will rarely fail of its reward. Trusting in
the help of others is of comparatively little use. When one of
Michael Angelo's principal patrons died, he said: "I begin to
understand the promises of the world are for the most part vain
phantoms and that to confide in one's self and become something of
worth and value is the best and safest course."
It ought to be a first principle, in beginning life to do with
earnestness what we have got to do. If it is worth doing at all, it
is worth doing earnestly. If it is to be done well at all it must be
done with purpose and devotion.
Whatever may be our profession, let us mark all its bearings and
details, its principles, its instruments, its applications. There is
nothing about it should escape our study. There is nothing in it
either too high or too low for our observation and knowledge. While
we remain ignorant of any part of it, we are so far crippled in its
use; we are liable to be taken at a disadvantage. This may be the
very point the knowledge of which is most needed in some crisis, and
those versed in it will take the lead, while we must be content to
follow at a distance.
Our business, in short, must be the main drain of our intellectual
activities day by day. It is the channel we have chosen for them
they must follow in it with a diffusive energy, filling every nook
and corner. This is a fair test of professional earnestness. When we
find our thoughts running after our business, and fixing themselves
with a familiar fondness upon its details, we may be pretty sure of
our way. When we find them running elsewhere and only resorting with
difficulty to the channel prepared for them, we may be equally sure
we have taken a wrong turn. We cannot be earnest about anything
which does not naturally and strongly engage our thoughts.