THE IMPORTANCE OF CORRECT HABITS.
As has been stated, habit is the basis of character. Habit is the
persistent repetition of acts physical, mental, and moral. No matter
how much thought and ability a young man may have, failure is sure
to follow bad habits. While correct habits depend largely on self-
discipline, and often on self-denial, bad habits, like pernicious
weeds, spring up unaided and untrained to choke out the plants of
virtue. It is easy to destroy the seed at the beginning, but its
growth is so rapid, that its evil effects may not be perceptible
till the roots have sapped every desirable plant about it.
No sane youth ever started out with the resolve to be a thief, a
tramp, or a drunkard. Yet it is the slightest deviation from honesty
that makes the first. It is the first neglect of a duty that makes
the second. And it is the first intoxicating glass that makes the
third. It is so easy not to begin, but the habit once formed and the
man is a slave, bound with galling, cankering chains, and the
strength of will having been destroyed, only God's mercy can cast
them off.
Next to the moral habits that are the cornerstone of every worthy
character, the habit of industry should be ranked. In "this day and
generation," there is a wild desire on the part of young men to leap
into fortune at a bound, to reach the top of the ladder of success
without carefully climbing the rounds, but no permanent prosperity
was ever gained in this way.
There have been men, who through chance, or that form of speculation,
that is legalized gambling, have made sudden fortunes; but as a rule
these fortunes have been lost in the effort to double them by the
quick and speculative process.
Betters and gamblers usually die poor. But even where young men have
made a lucky stroke, the result is too often a misfortune. They
neglect the necessary, persistent effort. The habit of industry is
ignored. Work becomes distasteful, and the life is wrecked, looking
for chances that never come.
There have been exceptional cases, where men of immoral habits, but
with mental force and unusual opportunities have won fortunes. Some
of these will come to the reader's mind at once, but he will be
forced to confess that he would not give up his manhood and
comparative poverty, in exchange for such material success.
The best equipment a young man can have for the battle of life is a
conscience void of offense, sound common sense, and good health. Too
much importance cannot be attached to health. It is a blessing we do
not prize till it is gone. Some are naturally delicate and some are
naturally strong, but by habit the health of the vigorous may be
ruined, and by opposite habits the delicate may be made healthful
and strong.
No matter the prospects and promises of overwork, it is a species of
suicide to continue it at the expense of health. Good men in every
department and calling, stimulated by zeal and an ambition
commendable in itself, have worked till the vital forces were
exhausted, and so were compelled to stop all effort in the prime of
life and on the threshold of success.
The best preservers of health are regularity in correct hygienic
habits, and strict temperance. Alexander Stephens, of Georgia, it is
said contracted consumption when a child, and his friends did not
believe he would live to manhood, yet by correct habits, he not only
lived the allotted time of the Psalmist, but he did an amount of
work that would have been impossible to a much stronger man, without
his method of life.
It should not be forgotten that good health is quite as much
dependent on mental as on physical habits. Worry, sensitiveness, and
temper have hastened to the grave many an otherwise splendid
character.
The man of business must needs be subject to strict rule and system.
Business, like life, is managed by moral leverage; success in both
depending in no small degree upon that regulation of temper and
careful self-discipline, which give a wise man not only a command
over himself, but over others. Forbearance and self-control smooth
the road of life, and open many ways which would otherwise remain
closed. And so does self-respect; for as men respect themselves, so
will they usually, respect the personality of others.
It is the same in politics as in business. Success in that sphere of
life is achieved less by talent than by temper, less by genius than
by character. If a man have not self-control, he will lack patience,
be wanting in tact, and have neither the power of governing himself
nor managing others. When the quality most needed in a prime
minister was the subject of conversation in the presence of Mr.
Pitt, one of the speakers said it was "eloquence;" another said it
was "knowledge;" and a third said it was "toil." "No," said Pitt,
"it is patience!" And patience means self-control, a quality in
which he himself was superb. His friend George Rose has said of him
that he never once saw Pitt out of temper.
A strong temper is not necessarily a bad temper. But the stronger the
temper, the greater is the need of self-discipline and self-control.
Dr. Johnson says men grow better as they grow older, and improve
with experience; but this depends upon the width and depth and
generousness of their nature. It is not men's faults that ruin them
so much as the manner in which they conduct themselves after the
faults have been committed. The wise will profit by the suffering
they cause, and eschew them for the future; but there are those on
whom experience exerts no ripening influence, and who only grow
narrower and bitterer, and more vicious with time.
What is called strong temper in a young man, often indicates a large
amount of unripe energy, which will expend itself in useful work if
the road be fairly opened to it. It is said of Girard that when he
heard of a clerk with a strong temper, he would readily take him
into his employment, and set him to work in a room by himself;
Girard being of opinion that such persons were the best workers, and
that their energy would expend itself in work if removed from the
temptation of quarrel.
There is a great difference between a strong temper, "a righteous
indignation," and that irritability that curses its possessor and
all who come near him.
Mr. Motley compares William the Silent to Washington, whom he in many
respects resembled. The American, like the Dutch patriot, stands out
in history as the very impersonation of dignity, bravery, purity,
and personal excellence. His command over his feelings, even in
moments of great difficulty and danger, was such as to convey the
impression, to those who did not know him intimately, that he was a
man of inborn calmness and almost impassiveness of disposition. Yet
Washington was by nature ardent and impetuous; his mildness,
gentleness politeness, and consideration for others, were the result
of rigid self-control and unwearied self-discipline, which he
diligently practiced even from his boyhood. His biographer says of
him, that "his temperament was ardent, his passions strong, and,
amidst the multiplied scenes of temptation and excitement through
which he passed, it was his constant effort, and ultimate triumph,
to check the one and subdue the other." And again: "His passions
were strong, and sometimes they broke out with vehemence, but he had
the power of checking them in an instant. Perhaps self-control was
the most remarkable trait of his character. It was in part the
effect of discipline; yet he seems by nature to have possessed this
power in a degree which has been denied to other men."
The Duke of Wellington's natural temper, like that of Napoleon, was
strong in the extreme and it was only by watchful self-control that
he was enabled to restrain it. He studied calmness and coolness in
the midst of danger, like any Indian chief. At Waterloo, and
elsewhere, he gave his orders in the most critical moments without
the slightest excitement, and in a tone of voice almost more than
usually subdued.
Abraham Lincoln in his early manhood was quick tempered and
combative, but he soon learned self-control and, as all know, became
as patient as he was forceful and sympathetic. "I got into the habit
of controlling my temper in the Black Hawk war," he said to Colonel
Forney, "and the good habit stuck to me as bad habits do to so
many."
Patience is a habit that pays for its own cultivation and the
biographies of earth's greatest men, prove that it was one of their
most conspicuous characteristics.
One who loves right can not be indifferent to wrong, or wrong-doing.
If he feels warmly, he will speak warmly, out of the fullness of his
heart. We have, however, to be on our guard against impatient scorn.
The best people are apt to have their impatient side, and often the
very temper which makes men earnest, makes them also intolerant. "Of
all mental gifts, the rarest is intellectual patience; and the last
lesson of culture is to believe in difficulties which are invisible
to ourselves."
One of Burns' finest poems, written in his twenty-eighth year, is
entitled "A Bard's Epitaph." It is a description, by anticipation,
of his own life. Wordsworth has said of it:
"Here is a sincere and solemn avowal; a public declaration from his
own will; a confession at once devout, poetical, and human; a
history in the shape of a prophecy." It concludes with these lines:
"Reader, attend--whether thy soul
Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole,
Or darkling grubs this earthly hole
In low pursuit;
Know--prudent, cautious self-control,
Is Wisdom's root."
Truthfulness is quite as much a habit and quite as amendable to
cultivation as falsehood. Deceit may meet with temporary success,
but he who avails himself of it can be sure that in the end his "sin
will find him out." The credit of the truthful, reliable man stands
when the cash of a trickster might be doubted. "His word is as good
as his bond," is one of the highest compliments that can be paid to
the business man.
Be truthful not only in great things, but in all things. The
slightest deviation from this habit may be the beginning of a career
of duplicity, ending in disgrace.
But truthfulness, like the other virtues, should not be regarded as a
trade mark, a means to success. It brings its own reward in the
nobility it gives the character. An exception might be made here as
to that form of military deceit known as "stratagem," but it is the
duty of the enemy to expect it, and so guard against it. The word of
a soldier involves his honor, and if he pledges that word, to even a
foeman, he will keep it with his life.
Like our own Washington, Wellington was a severe admirer of truth. An
illustration may be given. When afflicted by deafness, he consulted
a celebrated aurist, who, after trying all remedies in vain,
determined, as a last resource, to inject into the ear a strong
solution of caustic. It caused the most intense pain, but the
patient bore it with his usual equanimity. The family physician
accidentally calling one day, found the duke with flushed cheeks and
blood-shot eyes, and when he rose he staggered about like a drunken
man. The doctor asked to be permitted to look at his ear, and then
he found that a furious inflammation was going on, which, if not
immediately checked, must shortly reach the brain and kill him.
Vigorous remedies were at once applied, and the inflammation was
checked. But the hearing of that ear was completely destroyed. When
the aurist heard of the danger his patient had run, through the
violence of the remedy he had employed, he hastened to Apsley House
to express his grief and mortification; but the duke merely said:
"Do not say a word more about it--you did all for the best." The
aurist said it would be his ruin when it became known that he had
been the cause of so much suffering and danger to his grace. "But
nobody need know any thing about it: keep your own counsel, and,
depend upon it, I won't say a word to any one." "Then your grace
will allow me to attend you as usual, which will show the public
that you have not withdrawn your confidence from me?" "No," replied
the duke, kindly but firmly; "I can't do that, for that would be a
lie." He would not act a falsehood any more than he would speak one.
But lying assumes many forms--such as diplomacy, expediency, and
moral reservation; and, under one guise or another, it is found more
or less pervading all classes of society. Sometimes it assumes the
form of equivocation or moral dodging--twisting and so stating the
things said as to convey a false impression--a kind of lying which a
Frenchman once described as "walking round about the truth."
There are even men of narrow minds and dishonest natures, who pride
themselves upon their Jesuitical cleverness in equivocation, in
their serpent-wise shirking of the truth and getting out of moral
backdoors, in order to hide their real opinions and evade the
consequences of holding and openly professing them. Institutions or
systems based upon any such expedients must necessarily prove false
and hollow. "Though a lie be ever so well dressed," says George
Herbert, "it is ever overcome." Downright lying, though bolder and
more vicious, is even less contemptible than such kind of shuffling
and equivocation.