THE SUCCESSFUL MAN IS SELF-MADE.
The crown and glory of life is Character. It is the noblest
possession of a man, constituting a rank in itself, and an estate in
the general good-will; dignifying every station, and exalting every
position in society. It exercises a greater power than wealth, and
secures all the honor without the jealousies of fame. It carries with
it an influence which always tells; for it is the result of proved
honor, rectitude and consistency--qualities which, perhaps, more than
any other, command the general confidence and respect of mankind.
Character is human nature in its best form It is moral order embodied
in the individual. Men of character are not only the conscience of
society, but in every well-governed state they are its best motive
power; for it is moral qualities in the main which rule the world.
Even in war, Napoleon said, the moral is to the physical as ten to
one. The strength, the industry, and the civilization of nations--all
depend upon individual character; and the very foundations of civil
security rest upon it. Laws and institutions are but its outgrowth.
In the just balance of nature individuals, nations and races, will
obtain just so much as they deserve, and no more. And as effect finds
its cause, so surely does quality of character amongst a people
produce its befitting results.
Though a man have comparatively little culture, slender abilities,
and but small wealth, yet, if his character be of sterling worth, he
always commands an influence, whether it be in the workshop, the
counting-house, the mart, or the senate. Canning wisely wrote in
1801, "My road must be through Character to Power; I will try no
other course; and I am sanguine enough to believe that this course,
though not perhaps the quickest, is the surest." You may admire men
of intellect; but something more is necessary before you will trust
them. This was strikingly illustrated in the career of Francis
Horner--a man of whom Sydney Smith said that the Ten Commandments
were stamped upon his countenance. "The valuable and peculiar light,"
says Lord Cockburn, "in which his history is calculated to inspire
every right-minded youth, is this: He died at the age of thirty-
eight; possessed of greater public influence than any other private
man, and admired, beloved, trusted, and deplored by all, except the
heartless or the base. Now let every young man ask--how was this
attained? By rank? He was the son of an Edinburgh merchant. By
wealth? Neither he, nor any of his relations, ever had a superfluous
sixpence. By office? He held but one, and only for a few years, of no
influence, and with very little pay. By talents? His were not
splendid, and he had no genius. Cautious and slow, his only ambition
was to be right. By eloquence? He spoke in calm, good taste, without
any of the oratory that either terrifies or seduces. By any
fascination of manner? His was only correct and agreeable. By what,
then, was it? Merely by sense, industry, good principles, and a good
heart--qualities which no well-constituted mind need ever despair of
attaining. It was the force of his character that raised him; and
this character not impressed upon him by nature, but formed, out of
no peculiarly fine elements, by himself. There were many in the House
of Commons of far greater ability and eloquence. But no one surpassed
him in the combination of an adequate portion of these with moral
worth. Horner was born to show what moderate powers, unaided by
anything whatever except culture and goodness, may achieve, even when
these powers are displayed amidst the competition and jealousy of
public life."
Franklin attributed his success as a public man not to his talents or
his powers of speaking--for these were but moderate--but to his known
integrity of character. Hence, it was, he says, "that I had so much
weight with my fellow-citizens. I was but a bad speaker, never
eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my choice of words, hardly
correct in language, and yet I generally carried my point." Character
creates confidence in men in high station as well as in humble life.
It was said of the first Emperor Alexander of Russia, that his
personal character was equivalent to a constitution. During the wars
of the Fronde, Montaigne was the only man amongst the French gentry
who kept his castle gates unbarred; and it was said of him, that his
personal character was a better protection for him than a regiment of
horse would have been.
That character is power, is true in a much higher sense than that
knowledge is power. Mind without heart, intelligence without conduct,
cleverness without goodness, are powers in their way, but they may be
powers only for mischief. We may be instructed or amused by them; but
it is sometimes as difficult to admire them as it would be to admire
the dexterity of a pickpocket or the horsemanship of a highwayman.
Truthfulness, integrity, and goodness--qualities that hang not on any
man's breath--form the essence of manly character, or, as one of our
old writers has it, "that inbred loyalty unto Virtue which can serve
her without a livery." He who possesses these qualities, united with
strength of purpose, carries with him a power which is irresistible.
He is strong to do good, strong to resist evil, and strong to bear up
under difficulty and misfortune. When Stephen of Colonna fell into
the hands of his base assailants, and they asked him in derision,
"Where is now your fortress?" "Here," was his bold reply, placing his
hand upon his heart. It is in misfortune that the character of the
upright man shines forth with the greatest lustre; and when all else
fails, he takes his stand upon his integrity and his courage.
The rules of conduct followed by Lord Erskine--a man of sterling
independence of principle and scrupulous adherence to truth--are
worthy of being engraven on every young man's heart. "It was a first
command and counsel of my earliest youth," he said, "always to do
what my conscience told me to be a duty, and to leave the consequence
to God. I shall carry with me the memory, and I trust the practice,
of this parental lesson to the grave. I have hitherto followed it,
and I have no reason to complain that my obedience to it has been a
temporal sacrifice. I have found it, on the contrary, the road to
prosperity and wealth, and I shall point out the same path to my
children for their pursuit."
Every man is bound to aim at the possession of a good character as
one of the highest objects of life. The very effort to secure it by
worthy means will furnish him with a motive of exertion; and his idea
of manhood, in proportion as it is elevated, will steady and animate
his motive. It is well to have a high standard of life, even though
we may not be able altogether to realize it. "The youth," says Mr.
Disraeli, "who does not look up will look down; and the spirit that
does not soar is destined perhaps to grovel." George Herbert wisely
writes:
"Pitch thy behavior low, thy projects high, So shall thou humble and
magnanimous be. Sink not in spirit; who aimeth at the sky Shoots
higher much that he that means a tree."
He who has a high standard of living and thinking will certainly do
better than he who has none at all. "Pluck at a gown of gold," says
the Scotch proverb, "and you may get a sleeve o't." Whoever tries for
the highest results cannot fail to reach a point far in advance of
that from which he started; and though the end attained may fall
short of that proposed, still, the very effort to rise, of itself
cannot fail to prove permanently beneficial.
There are many counterfeits of character, but the genuine article is
difficult to be mistaken. Some, knowing its money value, would assume
its disguise for the purpose of imposing upon the unwary. Colonel
Charteris said to a man distinguished for his honesty, "I would give
a thousand pounds for your good name." "Why?" "Because I could make
ten thousand by it," was the knave's reply.
There is a truthfulness in action as well as in words, which is
essential to uprightness of character. A man must really be what he
seems or purposes to be. When an American gentleman wrote to
Granville Sharp, that from respect for his great virtues he had named
one of his sons after him, Sharp replied: "I must request you to
teach him a favorite maxim of the family whose name you have given
him--_Always endeavor to be really what you would wish to appear_.
This maxim, as my father informed me, was carefully and humbly
practiced by _his_ father, whose sincerity, as a plain and honest
man, thereby became the principal feature of his character, both in
public and private life." Every man who respects himself, and values
the respect of others, will carry out the maxim in act--doing
honestly what he purposes to do--putting the highest character into
his work, scrimping nothing, but priding himself upon his integrity
and conscientiousness. Once Cromwell said to Bernard--a clever but
somewhat unscrupulous lawyer, "I understand that you have lately been
vastly wary in your conduct; do not be too confident of this:
subtlety may deceive you, integrity never will." Men whose acts are
at direct variance with their words, command no respect, and what
they say has but little weight: even truths, when uttered by them,
seem to come blasted from their lips.
The true character acts rightly, whether in secret or in the sight of
men. That boy was well trained who, when asked why he did not pocket
some pears, for nobody was there to see, replied, "Yes, there was; I
was there to see myself; and I don't intend ever to see myself do a
dishonest thing." This is a simple but not inappropriate illustration
of principle, or conscience, dominating in the character, and
exercising a noble protectorate over it; not merely a passive
influence, but an active power regulating the life. Such a principle
goes on moulding the character hourly and daily, growing with a force
that operates every moment. Without this dominating influence,
character has no protection, but is constantly liable to fall away
before temptation; and every such temptation succumbed to, every act
of meanness or dishonesty, however slight, causes self-degradation.
It matters not whether the act be successful or not, discovered or
concealed; the culprit is no longer the same, but another person; and
he is pursued by a secret uneasiness, by self-reproach, or the
workings of what we call conscience, which is the inevitable doom of
the guilty.
And here it may be observed how greatly the character may be
strengthened and supported by the cultivation of good habits. Man, it
has been said, is a bundle of habits; and habit is second nature.
Metastasio entertained so strong an opinion as to the power of
repetition in act and thought, that he said, "All is habit in
mankind, even virtue itself." Butler, in his "Analogy," impresses the
importance of careful self-discipline and firm resistance to
temptation, as tending to make virtue habitual, so that at length it
may become more easy to do good than to give way to sin. "As habits
belonging to the body," he says, "are produced by external acts, so
habits of the mind are produced by the execution of inward practical
purposes, i.e., carrying them into act, or acting upon them--the
principles of obedience, veracity, justice, and charity." And again,
Lord Brougham says, when enforcing the immense importance of training
and example in youth, "I trust everything, under God, to habit, on
which, in all ages, the lawgiver, as well as the schoolmaster, has
mainly placed his reliance; habit, which makes everything easy, and
cast the difficulties upon the deviation from a wonted course." Thus,
make sobriety a habit and intemperance will be hateful; make prudence
a habit, and reckless profligacy will become revolting to every
principle of conduct which regulates the life of the individual.
Hence the necessity for the greatest care and watchfulness against
the inroad of any evil habit; for the character is always weakest at
that point at which it has once given way; and it is long before a
principle restored can become as firm as one that has never been
moved. It is a fine remark of a Russian writer, that "Habits are a
necklace of pearls: untie the knot, and the whole unthreads."
Wherever formed, habit acts involuntarily and without effort; and it
is only when you oppose it, that you find how powerful it has become.
What is done once and again, soon gives facility and proneness. The
habit at first may seem to have no more strength than a spider's web;
but, once formed, it binds us with a chain of iron. The small events
of life, taken singly, may seem exceedingly unimportant, like snow
that falls silently, flake by flake; yet accumulated, these
snowflakes form the avalanche.
Self-respect, self-help, application, industry, integrity--all are of
the nature of habits, not beliefs. Principles, in fact, are but the
names which we assign to habits; for the principles are words, but
the habits are the things themselves: benefactors or tyrants,
according as they are good or evil. It thus happens that as we grow
older, a portion of our free activity and individuality becomes
suspended in habit; our actions become of the nature of fate; and we
are bound by the chains which we have woven around ourselves.
It is indeed scarcely possible to overestimate the importance of
training the young to virtuous habits. In them they are the easiest
formed, and when formed, they last for life; like letters cut on the
bark of a tree, they grow and widen with age. "Train up a child in
the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."
The beginning holds within it the end; the first start on the road of
life determines the direction and the destination of the journey.
Remember, before you are five-and-twenty you must establish a
character that will serve you all your life. As habit strengthens
with age, and character becomes formed, and turning into a new path
becomes more and more difficult. Hence, it is often harder to unlearn
that to learn; and for this reason the Grecian flute-player was
justified who charged double fees to those pupils who had been taught
by an inferior master. To uproot and old habit is sometimes a more
painful thing, and vastly more difficult, than to wrench out a tooth.
Try and reform an habitually indolent, or improvident, or drunken
person, and in a large majority of cases you will fail. For the habit
in each case has wound itself in and through life until it has become
an integral part of it, and can not be uprooted. Hence, as Mr. Lynch
observes, "the wisest habit of all is the habit of care in the
formation of good habits."
Even happiness itself may become habitual. There is a habit of
looking at the bright side of things, and also of looking at the dark
side. Dr. Johnson said that the habit of looking at the best side of
a thing is worth more to a man than a thousand pounds a year. And we
possess the power, to a great extent, of so exercising the will as to
direct the thoughts upon objects calculated to yield happiness and
improvement rather than their opposites. In this way the habit of
happy thought may be made to spring up like any other habit. And to
bring up men or women with a genial nature of this sort, a good
temper, and a happy frame of mind is, perhaps, of even more
importance, in may cases, than to perfect them in much knowledge and
many accomplishments.
As daylight can be seen through very small holes, so little things
will illustrate a person's character. Indeed, character consists in
little acts, well and honorably performed; daily life being the
quarry from which we build it up, and rough-hew the habits which form
it. One of the most marked tests of character is the manner in which
we conduct ourselves toward others. A graceful behavior toward
superiors, inferiors, and equals, is a constant source of pleasure.
It pleases others because it indicates respect for their personality;
but it gives tenfold more pleasure to ourselves. Every man may, to a
large extent, be a self-educator in good behavior, as in everything
else; he can be civil and kind, if he will, though he have not a cent
in his pocket. Gentleness in society is like the silent influence of
light, which gives color to all nature; it is far more powerful than
loudness or force, and far more fruitful. It pushes its way quietly
and persistently, like the tiniest daffodil in spring, which raises
the clod and thrusts it aside by the simple persistency of growing.
Even a kind look will give pleasure and confer happiness. In one of
Robertson's letters, he tells of a lady who related to him "the
delight, the tears of gratitude, which she had witnessed in a poor
girl to whom, in passing I gave a kind look on going out of church on
Sunday. What a lesson! How cheaply happiness can be given! What
opportunities we miss of doing an angel's work! I remember doing it,
full of sad feelings, passing on, and thinking no more about it; and
it gave an hour's sunshine to a human life, and lightened the load of
life to a human heart for a time."
Morals and manners, which give color to life, are of much greater
importance than laws, which are but their manifestations. The law
touches us here and there, but manners are about us everywhere,
pervading society like the air we breathe. Good manners, as we call
them, are neither more nor less than good behavior; consisting of
courtesy and kindness; benevolence being the preponderating element
in all kinds of mutually beneficial and pleasant intercourse amongst
human beings. "Civility," said Lady Montague, "costs nothing and buys
everything." The cheapest of all things is kindness, its exercise
requiring the least possible trouble and self-sacrifice. "Win
hearts," said Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, "and you have all men's
hearts and purses." If we would only let nature act kindly, free from
affectation and artifice, the results on social good humor and
happiness would be incalculable. The little courtesies which form the
small change of life, may separately appear of little intrinsic
value, but they acquire their importance from repetition and
accumulation. They are like the spare minutes, or the groat a day,
which proverbially produce such momentous results in the course of a
twelvemonth, or in a lifetime.
Manners are the ornament of action; and there is a way of speaking a
kind word, or of doing a kind thing, which greatly enhances its
value. What seems to be done with a grudge, or as an act of
condescension, is scarcely accepted as a favor. Yet there are men who
pride themselves upon their gruffness; and though they may possess
virtue and capacity, their manner is often such as to render them
almost insupportable. It is difficult to like a man who, though he
may not pull your nose, habitually wounds your self-respect, and
takes a pride in saying disagreeable things to you. There are others
who are dreadfully condescending, and cannot avoid seizing upon every
small opportunity of making their greatness felt. When Abernethy was
canvassing for the office of surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital,
he called upon such a person--a rich grocer, one of the governors.
The great man behind the counter seeing the great surgeon enter
immediately assumed the grand air toward the supposed suppliant for
his vote. "I presume, sir," he said, "you want my vote and interest
at this momentous epoch of your life." Abernethy, who hated humbugs,
and felt nettled at the tone, replied: "No, I don't; I want a
pennyworth of figs; come, look sharp and wrap them up; I want to be
off!"
The gentleman is eminently distinguished for his self-respect. He
values his character--not so much of it only as can be seen by
others, but as he sees himself; having regard for the approval of his
inward monitor. And, as he respects himself, so, by the same law,
does he respect others. Humanity is sacred in his eyes; and thence
proceed politeness and forbearance, kindness and charity. It is
related of Lord Edward Fitzgerald that, while traveling in Canada, in
company with the Indians, he was shocked by the sight of a poor squaw
trudging along laden with her husband's trappings, while the chief
himself walked on unencumbered. Lord Edward at once relieved the
squaw of her pack by placing it upon his own shoulders--a beautiful
instance of what the French call _politesse de coeur_--the inbred
politeness of the true gentleman.
The true gentleman has a keen sense of honor--scrupulously avoiding
mean actions. His standard of probity in word and action is high. He
does not shuffle or prevaricate, dodge or skulk; but is honest,
upright and straightforward. His law is rectitude--action in right
lines. When he says _yes_, it is a law; and he dares to say the
valiant _no_ at the fitting season.
Riches and rank have no necessary connection with genuine gentlemanly
qualities. The poor man may be a true gentleman--in spirit and in
daily life. He may be honest, truthful, upright, polite, temperate,
courageous, self-respecting, and self-helping--that is, be a true
gentleman. The poor man with a rich spirit is in all ways superior to
the rich man with a poor spirit. To borrow S. Paul's words, the
former is as "having nothing, yet possessing all things," while the
other, though possessing all things, has nothing. The first hopes
everything, and fears nothing; the last hopes nothing, and fears
everything. Only the poor in spirit are really poor. He who has lost
all, but retains his courage, cheerfulness, hope, virtue, and self-
respect, is still rich. For such a man, the world is, as it were,
held in trust; his spirit dominating over its grosser cares, he can
still walk erect, a true gentleman.
Occasionally, the brave and gentle character may be found under the
humblest garb. Here is an old illustration, but a fine one. Once on a
time, when the Adige suddenly overflowed its banks, the bridge of
Verona was carried away with the exception of the centre arch, on
which stood a house, whose inhabitants supplicated help from the
windows, while the foundations were visibly giving way. "I will give
a hundred French louis," said the Count Spolverini, who stood by, "to
any person who will venture to deliver those unfortunate people." A
young peasant came forth from the crowd, seized a boat, and pushed
into the stream. He gained the pier, received the whole family into
the boat, and made for the shore, where he landed them in safety.
"Here is your money, my brave young fellow," said the count. "No,"
was the answer of the young man, "I do not sell my life; give the
money to this poor family, who have need of it." Here spoke the true
spirit of the gentleman, though he was in the garb of a peasant.
There is perhaps no finer example in all history of the self-made man
than George Washington. It may be argued that he belonged to a good
family, and that his family was amongst the richest in the country at
that time. This is true, yet there is not a boy who graduates to-day
at our grammar schools who has not had far better educational
advantages than had Washington. But he was self-taught, and he so
prepared himself that no duty that required him, ever found him
deficient. At an age when most young men are thinking about striking
out for themselves, Washington occupied with success and honor
positions requiring courage, judgment, and decision. He grew with his
own deserved advance, until at length by his own splendid efforts, he
found himself, in the words of Adams, "First in war, first in peace,
and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
With all the avenues of life open to him, or ready to be opened, if
he will but boldly knock, the young man starting out in life to-day
has every advantage. If he will carefully study over the splendid
examples we have cited, and follow along the lines that led to their
success, his own prosperity can no longer be a matter for doubt.