There is not a more common error of self-deception than a habit of
considering our stations in life so ill-suited to our powers, as to be
unworthy of calling out a full and proper exercise of our virtues and
talents.
As society is constituted, there cannot be _many_ employments which
demand very brilliant talents, or great delicacy of taste, for their
proper discharge. The great bulk of society is composed of plain,
plodding men, who move “right onwards” to the sober duties of their
calling. At the same time the universal good demands that those whom
nature has greatly endowed should be called from the ordinary track to
take up higher and more ennobling duties. England, happily for us, is
full of bright examples of the greatest men raised from the meanest
situations; and the education which England is now beginning to bestow
upon her children will multiply these examples. But a partial and
incomplete diffusion of knowledge will also multiply the victims of that
evil principle which postpones the discharge of present and immediate
duties, for the anticipations of some destiny above the labours of a
handicraftsman, or the calculations of a shopkeeper. Years and
experience, which afford us the opportunity of comparing our own powers
with those of others, will, it is true, correct the inconsistent
expectations which arise from a want of capacity to set the right value
on ourselves. But the wisdom thus gained may come too late. The object
of desire may be found decidedly unattainable, and existence is then
wasted in a sluggish contempt of present duties; the spirit is broken;
the temper is soured; habits of misanthropy and personal neglect creep
on; and life eventually becomes a tedious and miserable pilgrimage of
never-satisfied desires. Youth, however, is happily not without its
guide, if it will take a warning from example. Of the highly-gifted men
whose abandonment of their humble calling has been the apparent
beginning of a distinguished career, we do not recollect an instance of
one who did not pursue that humble calling with credit and success until
the occasion presented itself for exhibiting those superior powers which
nature occasionally bestows. Benjamin Franklin was as valuable to his
master as a printer’s apprentice, as he was to his country as a
statesman and a negotiator, or to the world as a philosopher. Had he not
been so, indeed, it may be doubted whether he ever would have taken his
rank among the first statesmen and philosophers of his time. One of the
great secrets of advancing in life is to be ready to take advantage of
those opportunities which, if a man really possesses superior abilities,
are sure to present themselves some time or other. As the poet expresses
it, “There is a _tide_ in the affairs of men,”--an ebbing and flowing of
the unstable element on which they are borne,--and if this be only
“taken at the flood,” the “full sea” is gained on which “the voyage of
their life” may be made with ease and the prospect of a happy issue. But
we should remember, that for those who are not _ready_ to embark at the
moment when their tide is at its flood, that tide may never serve again;
and nothing is more likely to be a hinderance at such a moment than the
distress which is certain to follow a neglect of our ordinary business.
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