Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: Orison Swett Marden]
Pushing to the Front
BY
ORISON SWETT MARDEN
"The world makes way for the determined man."
PUBLISHED BY
The Success Company's
Branch Offices
PETERSBURG, N.Y. ---- TOLEDO ---- DANVILLE
OKLAHOMA CITY ---- SAN JOSE
COPYRIGHT, 1911,
By ORISON SWETT MARDEN.
FOREWORD
This revised and greatly enlarged edition of "Pushing to the Front" is
the outgrowth of an almost world-wide demand for an extension of the
idea which made the original small volume such an ambition-arousing,
energizing, inspiring force.
It is doubtful whether any other book, outside of the Bible, has been
the turning-point in more lives.
It has sent thousands of youths, with renewed determination, back to
school or college, back to all sorts of vocations which they had
abandoned in moments of discouragement. It has kept scores of business
men from failure after they had given up all hope.
It has helped multitudes of poor boys and girls to pay their way
through college who had never thought a liberal education possible.
The author has received thousands of letters from people in nearly all
parts of the world telling how the book has aroused their ambition,
changed their ideals and aims, and has spurred them to the successful
undertaking of what they before had thought impossible.
The book has been translated into many foreign languages. In Japan and
several other countries it is used extensively in the public schools.
Distinguished educators in many parts of the world have recommended its
use in schools as a civilization-builder.
Crowned heads, presidents of republics, distinguished members of the
British and other parliaments, members of the United States Supreme
Court, noted authors, scholars, and eminent people in many parts of the
world, have eulogized this book and have thanked the author for giving
it to the world.
This volume is full of the most fascinating romances of achievement
under difficulties, of obscure beginnings and triumphant endings, of
stirring stories of struggles and triumphs. It gives inspiring stories
of men and women who have brought great things to pass. It gives
numerous examples of the triumph of mediocrity, showing how those of
ordinary ability have succeeded by the use of ordinary means. It shows
how invalids and cripples even have triumphed by perseverance and will
over seemingly insuperable difficulties.
The book tells how men and women have seized common occasions and made
them great; it tells of those of average ability who have succeeded by
the use of ordinary means, by dint of indomitable will and inflexible
purpose. It tells how poverty and hardship have rocked the cradle of
the giants of the race. The book points out that most people do not
utilize a large part of their effort because their mental attitude does
not correspond with their endeavor, so that although working for one
thing, they are really expecting something else; and it is what we
expect that we tend to get.
No man can become prosperous while he really expects or half expects to
remain poor, for holding the poverty thought, keeping in touch with
poverty-producing conditions, discourages prosperity.
Before a man can lift himself he must lift his thoughts. When we shall
have learned to master our thought habits, to keep our minds open to
the great divine inflow of life force, we shall have learned the truths
of human endowment, human possibility.
The book points out the fact that what is called success may be
failure; that when men love money so much that they sacrifice their
friendships, their families, their home life, sacrifice position,
honor, health, everything for the dollar, their life is a failure,
although they may have accumulated money. It shows how men have become
rich at the price of their ideals, their character, at the cost of
everything noblest, best, and truest in life. It preaches the larger
doctrine of equality; the equality of will and purpose which paves a
clear path even to the Presidential chair for a Lincoln or a Garfield,
for any one who will pay the price of study and struggle. Men who feel
themselves badly handicapped, crippled by their lack of early
education, will find in these pages great encouragement to broaden
their horizon, and will get a practical, helpful, sensible education in
their odd moments and half-holidays.
Dr. Marden, in "Pushing to the Front," shows that the average of the
leaders are not above the average of ability. They are ordinary
people, but of extraordinary persistence and perseverance. It is a
storehouse of noble incentive, a treasury of precious sayings. There
is inspiration and encouragement and helpfulness on every page. It
teaches the doctrine that no limits can be placed on one's career if he
has once learned the alphabet and has push; that there are no barriers
that can say to aspiring talent, "Thus far, and no farther."
Encouragement is its keynote; it aims to arouse to honorable exertion
those who are drifting without aim, to awaken dormant ambitions in
those who have grown discouraged in the struggle for success.
THE PUBLISHERS.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE MAN AND THE OPPORTUNITY
II. WANTED--A MAN
III. BOYS WITH NO CHANCE
IV. THE COUNTRY BOY
V. OPPORTUNITIES WHERE YOU ARE
VI. POSSIBILITIES IN SPARE MOMENTS
VII. HOW POOR BOYS AND GIRLS GO TO COLLEGE
VIII. YOUR OPPORTUNITY CONFRONTS YOU--WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH IT?
IX. ROUND BOYS IN SQUARE HOLES
X. WHAT CAREER?
XI. CHOOSING A VOCATION
XII. CONCENTRATED ENERGY
XIII. THE TRIUMPHS OF ENTHUSIASM
XIV. "ON TIME," OR, THE TRIUMPH OF PROMPTNESS
XV. WHAT A GOOD APPEARANCE WILL DO
XVI. PERSONALITY AS A SUCCESS ASSET
XVII. If YOU CAN TALK WELL
XVIII. A FORTUNE IN GOOD MANNERS
XIX. SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND TIMIDITY FOES TO SUCCESS
XX. TACT OR COMMON SENSE
XXI. ENAMORED OF ACCURACY
XXII. DO IT TO A FINISH
XXIII. THE REWARD OF PERSISTENCE
XXIV. NERVE--GRIP, PLUCK
XXV. CLEAR GRIT
XXVI. SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES
XXVII. USES OF OBSTACLES
XXVIII. DECISION
XXIX. OBSERVATION AS A SUCCESS FACTOR
XXX. SELF-HELP
XXXI. THE SELF-IMPROVEMENT HABIT
XXXII. RAISING OF VALUES
XXXIII. PUBLIC SPEAKING
XXXIV. THE TRIUMPHS OF THE COMMON VIRTUES
XXXV. GETTING AROUSED
XXXVI. THE MAN WITH AN IDEA
XXXVII. DARE
XXXVIII. THE WILL AND THE WAY
XXXIX. ONE UNWAVERING AIM
XL. WORK AND WAIT
XLI. THE MIGHT OF LITTLE THINGS
XLII. THE SALARY YOU DO NOT FIND IN YOUR PAY ENVELOPE
XLIII. EXPECT GREAT THINGS OF YOURSELF
XLIV. THE NEXT TIME YOU THINK YOU ARE A FAILURE
XLV. STAND FOR SOMETHING
XLVI. NATURE'S LITTLE BILL
XLVII. HABIT--THE SERVANT,--THE MASTER
XLVIII. THE CIGARETTE
XLIX. THE POWER OF PURITY
L. THE HABIT OF HAPPINESS
LI. PUT BEAUTY INTO YOUR LIFE
LII. EDUCATION BY ABSORPTION
LIII. THE POWER OF SUGGESTION
LIV. THE CURSE OF WORRY
LV. TAKE A PLEASANT THOUGHT TO BED WITH YOU
LVI. THE CONQUEST OF POVERTY
LVII. A NEW WAY OF BRINGING UP CHILDREN
LVIII. THE HOME AS A SCHOOL OF GOOD MANNERS
LIX. MOTHER
LX. WHY SO MANY MARRIED WOMEN DETERIORATE
LXI. THRIFT
LXII. A COLLEGE EDUCATION AT HOME
LXIII. DISCRIMINATION IN READING
LXIV. READING A SPUR TO AMBITION
LXV. WHY SOME SUCCEED AND OTHERS FAIL
LXVI. RICH WITHOUT MONEY
ILLUSTRATIONS
Orison Swett Marden . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
House in which Abraham Lincoln was born
Ulysses S. Grant
William Ewart Gladstone
John Wanamaker
Jane Addams
Thomas Alva Edison
Henry Ward Beecher
Lincoln studying by the firelight
Marshall Field
Joseph Jefferson [Transcriber's note: Jefferson was a prominent actor
during the latter half of the 1800's.]
Theodore Roosevelt
Helen Keller
William McKinley
Julia Ward Howe
Mark Twain
PUSHING TO THE FRONT
CHAPTER I
THE MAN AND THE OPPORTUNITY
No man is born into this world whose work is not born with him.--LOWELL.
Things don't turn up in this world until somebody turns them
up.--GARFIELD.
Vigilance in watching opportunity; tact and daring in seizing upon
opportunity; force and persistence in crowding opportunity to its
utmost of possible achievement--these are the martial virtues which
must command success.--AUSTIN PHELPS.
"I will find a way or make one."
There never was a day that did not bring its own opportunity for doing
good that never could have been done before, and never can be
again.--W. H. BURLEIGH.
"Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute;
What you can do, or dream you can, _begin_ it."
"If we succeed, what will the world say?" asked Captain Berry in
delight, when Nelson had explained his carefully formed plan before the
battle of the Nile.
"There is no if in the case," replied Nelson. "That we shall succeed
is certain. Who may live to tell the tale is a very different
question." Then, as his captains rose from the council to go to their
respective ships, he added: "Before this time to-morrow I shall have
gained a peerage or Westminster Abbey." His quick eye and daring
spirit saw an opportunity of glorious victory where others saw only
probable defeat.
"Is it POSSIBLE to cross the path?" asked Napoleon of the engineers who
had been sent to explore the dreaded pass of St. Bernard. "Perhaps,"
was the hesitating reply, "it is within the limits of _possibility_."
"FORWARD THEN," said the Little Corporal, without heeding their account
of apparently insurmountable difficulties. England and Austria laughed
in scorn at the idea of transporting across the Alps, where "no wheel
had ever rolled, or by any possibility could roll," an army of sixty
thousand men, with ponderous artillery, tons of cannon balls and
baggage, and all the bulky munitions of war. But the besieged Massena
was starving in Genoa, and the victorious Austrians thundered at the
gates of Nice, and Napoleon was not the man to fail his former comrades
in their hour of peril.
When this "impossible" deed was accomplished, some saw that it might
have been done long before. Others excused themselves from
encountering such gigantic obstacles by calling them insuperable. Many
a commander had possessed the necessary supplies, tools, and rugged
soldiers, but lacked the grit and resolution of Bonaparte, who did not
shrink from mere difficulties, however great, but out of his very need
made and mastered his opportunity.
Grant at New Orleans had just been seriously injured by a fall from his
horse, when he received orders to take command at Chattanooga, so
sorely beset by the Confederates that its surrender seemed only a
question of a few days; for the hills around were all aglow by night
with the camp-fires of the enemy, and supplies had been cut off.
Though in great pain, he immediately gave directions for his removal to
the new scene of action.
On transports up the Mississippi, the Ohio, and one of its tributaries;
on a litter borne by horses for many miles through the wilderness; and
into the city at last on the shoulders of four men, he was taken to
Chattanooga. Things assumed a different aspect immediately. _A
master_ had arrived who was _equal to the situation_. The army felt
the grip of his power. Before he could mount his horse he ordered an
advance, and although the enemy contested the ground inch by inch, the
surrounding hills were soon held by Union soldiers.
Were these things the result of chance, or were they compelled by the
indominable determination of the injured General?
Did things _adjust themselves_ when Horatius with two companions held
ninety thousand Tuscans at bay until the bridge across the Tiber had
been destroyed?--when Leonidas at Thermopylae checked the mighty march
of Xerxes?--when Themistocles, off the coast of Greece, shattered the
Persian's Armada?--when Caesar, finding his army hard pressed, seized
spear and buckler, fought while he reorganized his men, and snatched
victory from defeat?--when Winkelried gathered to his heart a sheaf of
Austrian spears, thus opening a path through which his comrades pressed
to freedom?--when for years Napoleon did not lose a single battle in
which he was personally engaged?--when Wellington fought in many climes
without ever being conquered?--when Ney, on a hundred fields, changed
apparent disaster into brilliant triumph?--when Perry left the disabled
_Lawrence_, rowed to the _Niagara_, and silenced the British
guns?--when Sheridan arrived from Winchester just as the Union retreat
was becoming a rout, and turned the tide by riding along the
line?--when Sherman, though sorely pressed, signaled his men to hold
the fort, and they, knowing that their leader was coming, held it?
History furnishes thousands of examples of men who have seized
occasions to accomplish results deemed impossible by those less
resolute. Prompt decision and whole-souled action sweep the world
before them.
True, there has been but one Napoleon; but, on the other hand, the Alps
that oppose the progress of the average American youth are not as high
or dangerous as the summits crossed by the great Corsican.
Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. _Seize common occasions
and make them great_.
On the morning of September 6, 1838, a young woman in the Longstone
Lighthouse, between England and Scotland, was awakened by shrieks of
agony rising above the roar of wind and wave. A storm of unwonted fury
was raging, and her parents could not hear the cries; but a telescope
showed nine human beings clinging to the windlass of a wrecked vessel
whose bow was hanging on the rocks half a mile away. "We can do
nothing," said William Darling, the light-keeper. "Ah, yes, we must go
to the rescue," exclaimed his daughter, pleading tearfully with both
father and mother, until the former replied: "Very well, Grace, I will
let you persuade me, though it is against my better judgment." Like a
feather in a whirlwind the little boat was tossed on the tumultuous
sea, but, borne on the blast that swept the cruel surge, the shrieks of
those shipwrecked sailors seemed to change her weak sinews into cords
of steel. Strength hitherto unsuspected came from somewhere, and the
heroic girl pulled one oar in even time with her father. At length the
nine were safely on board. "God bless you; but ye're a bonny English
lass," said one poor fellow, as he looked wonderingly upon this
marvelous girl, who that day had done a deed which added more to
England's glory than the exploits of many of her monarchs.
"If you will let me try, I think I can make something that will do,"
said a boy who had been employed as a scullion at the mansion of Signer
Faliero, as the story is told by George Cary Eggleston. A large
company had been invited to a banquet, and just before the hour the
confectioner, who had been making a large ornament for the table, sent
word that he had spoiled the piece. "You!" exclaimed the head servant,
in astonishment; "and who are you?" "I am Antonio Canova, the grandson
of Pisano, the stone-cutter," replied the pale-faced little fellow.
"And pray, what can you do?" asked the major-domo. "I can make you
something that will do for the middle of the table, if you'll let me
try." The servant was at his wits' end, so he told Antonio to go ahead
and see what he could do. Calling for some butter, the scullion
quickly molded a large crouching lion, which the admiring major-domo
placed upon the table.
Dinner was announced, and many of the most noted merchants, princes,
and noblemen of Venice were ushered into the dining-room. Among them
were skilled critics of art work. When their eyes fell upon the butter
lion, they forgot the purpose for which they had come in their wonder
at such a work of genius. They looked at the lion long and carefully,
and asked Signer Faliero what great sculptor had been persuaded to
waste his skill upon such a temporary material. Faliero could not
tell; so he asked the head servant, who brought Antonio before the
company.
When the distinguished guests learned that the lion had been made in a
short time by a scullion, the dinner was turned into a feast in his
honor. The rich host declared that he would pay the boy's expenses
under the best masters, and he kept his word. Antonio was not spoiled
by his good fortune, but remained at heart the same simple, earnest,
faithful boy who had tried so hard to become a good stone-cutter in the
shop of Pisano. Some may not have heard how the boy Antonio took
advantage of this first great opportunity; but all know of Canova, one
of the greatest sculptors of all time.
_Weak men wait for opportunities, strong men make them_.
"The best men," says E. H. Chapin, "are not those who have waited for
chances but who have taken them; besieged the chance; conquered the
chance; and made chance the servitor."
There may not be one chance in a million that you will ever receive
unusual aid; but opportunities are often presented which you can
improve to good advantage, if you will only _act_.
The lack of opportunity is ever the excuse of a weak, vacillating mind.
Opportunities! Every life is full of them. Every lesson in school or
college is an opportunity. Every examination is a chance in life.
Every patient is an opportunity. Every newspaper article is an
opportunity. Every client is an opportunity. Every sermon is an
opportunity. Every business transaction is an opportunity,--an
opportunity to be polite,--an opportunity to be manly,--an opportunity
to be honest,--an opportunity to make friends. Every proof of
confidence in you is a great opportunity. Every responsibility thrust
upon your strength and your honor is priceless. Existence is the
privilege of effort, and when that privilege is met like a man,
opportunities to succeed along the line of your aptitude will come
faster than you can use them. If a slave like Fred Douglass, who did
not even own his body, can elevate himself into an orator, editor,
statesman, what ought the poorest white boy to do, who is rich in
opportunities compared with Douglass?
It is the idle man, not the great worker, who is always complaining
that he has no time or opportunity. Some young men will make more out
of the odds and ends of opportunities which many carelessly throw away
than other will get out of a whole life-time. Like bees, they extract
honey from every flower. Every person they meet, every circumstance of
the day, adds something to their store of useful knowledge or personal
power.
"There is nobody whom Fortune does not visit once in his life," says a
cardinal; "but when she finds he is not ready to receive her, she goes
in at the door and out at the window."
Cornelius Vanderbilt saw his opportunity in the steamboat, and
determined to identify himself with steam navigation. To the surprise
of all his friends, he abandoned his prosperous business and took
command of one of the first steamboats launched, at a salary of one
thousand dollars a year. Livingston and Fulton had acquired the sole
right to navigate New York waters by steam, but Vanderbilt thought the
law unconstitutional, and defied it until it was repealed. He soon
became a steamboat owner. When the government was paying a large
subsidy for carrying the European mails, he offered to carry them free
and give better service. His offer was accepted, and in this way he
soon built up an enormous freight and passenger traffic.
Foreseeing the great future of railroads in a country like ours, he
plunged into railroad enterprises with all his might, laying the
foundation for the vast Vanderbilt system of to-day.
Young Philip Armour joined the long caravan of Forty-Niners, and
crossed the "Great American Desert" with all his possessions in a
prairie schooner drawn by mules. Hard work and steady gains carefully
saved in the mines enabled him to start, six years later, in the grain
and warehouse business in Milwaukee. In nine years he made five
hundred thousand dollars. But he saw his great opportunity in Grant's
order, "On to Richmond." One morning in 1864 he knocked at the door of
Plankinton, partner in his venture as a pork packer. "I am going to
take the next train to New York," said he, "to sell pork 'short.'
Grant and Sherman have the rebellion by the throat, and pork will go
down to twelve dollars a barrel." This was his opportunity. He went
to New York and offered pork in large quantities at forty dollars per
barrel. It was eagerly taken. The shrewd Wall Street speculators
laughed at the young Westerner, and told him pork would go to sixty
dollars, for the war was not nearly over. Mr. Armour, however, kept on
selling, Grant continued to advance. Richmond fell, pork fell with it
to twelve dollars a barrel, and Mr. Armour cleared two millions of
dollars.
John D. Rockefeller saw his opportunity in petroleum. He could see a
large population in this country with very poor lights. Petroleum was
plentiful, but the refining process was so crude that the product was
inferior, and not wholly safe. Here was Rockefeller's chance. Taking
into partnership Samuel Andrews, the porter in a machine shop where
both men had worked, he started a single barrel "still" in 1870, using
an improved process discovered by his partner. They made a superior
grade of oil and prospered rapidly. They admitted a third partner, Mr.
Flagler, but Andrews soon became dissatisfied. "What will you take for
your interest?" asked Rockefeller. Andrews wrote carelessly on a piece
of paper, "One million dollars." Within twenty-four hours Mr.
Rockefeller handed him the amount, saying, "Cheaper at one million than
ten." In twenty years the business of the little refinery, scarcely
worth one thousand dollars for building and apparatus, had grown into
the Standard Oil Trust, capitalized at ninety millions of dollars, with
stock quoted at 170, giving a market value of one hundred and fifty
millions.
These are illustrations of seizing opportunity for the purpose of
making money. But fortunately there is a new generation of
electricians, of engineers, of scholars, of artists, of authors, and of
poets, who find opportunities, thick as thistles, for doing something
_nobler than merely amassing riches_. Wealth is not an end to strive
for, but an opportunity; not the climax of a man's career, but an
incident.
Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, a Quaker lady, saw her opportunity in the prisons
of England. From three hundred to four hundred half-naked women, as
late as 1813, would often be huddled in a single ward of Newgate,
London, awaiting trial. They had neither beds nor bedding, but women,
old and young, and little girls, slept in filth and rags on the floor.
No one seemed to care for them, and the Government merely furnished
food to keep them alive. Mrs. Fry visited Newgate, calmed the howling
mob, and told them she wished to establish a school for the young women
and the girls, and asked them to select a schoolmistress from their own
number. They were amazed, but chose a young woman who had been
committed for stealing a watch. In three months these "wild beasts,"
as they were sometimes called, became harmless and kind. The reform
spread until the Government legalized the system, and good women
throughout Great Britain became interested in the work of educating and
clothing these outcasts. Fourscore years have passed, and her plan has
been adopted throughout the civilized world.
A boy in England had been run over by a car, and the bright blood
spurted from a severed artery. No one seemed to know what to do until
another boy, Astley Cooper, took his handkerchief and stopped the
bleeding by pressure above the wound. The praise which he received for
thus saving the boy's life encouraging him to become a surgeon, the
foremost of his day.
"The time comes to the young surgeon," says Arnold, "when, after long
waiting, and patient study and experiment, he is suddenly confronted
with his first critical operation. The great surgeon is away. Time is
pressing. Life and death hang in the balance. Is he equal to the
emergency? Can he fill the great surgeon's place, and do his work? If
he can, he is the one of all others who is wanted. _His opportunity
confronts him_. He and it are face to face. Shall he confess his
ignorance and inability, or step into fame and fortune? It is for him
to say."
Are you prepared for a great opportunity?
"Hawthorne dined one day with Longfellow," said James T. Fields, "and
brought a friend, with him from Salem. After dinner the friend said,
'I have been trying to persuade Hawthorne to write a story based upon a
legend of Acadia, and still current there,--the legend of a girl who,
in the dispersion of the Acadians, was separated from her lover, and
passed her life in waiting and seeking for him, and only found him
dying in a hospital when both were old.' Longfellow wondered that the
legend did not strike the fancy of Hawthorne, and he said to him, 'If
you have really made up your mind not to use it for a story, will you
let me have it for a poem?' To this Hawthorne consented, and promised,
moreover, not to treat the subject in prose till Longfellow had seen
what he could do with it in verse. Longfellow seized his opportunity
and gave to the world 'Evangeline, or the Exile of the Acadians.'"
Open eyes will discover opportunities everywhere; open ears will never
fail to detect the cries of those who are perishing for assistance;
open hearts will never want for worthy objects upon which to bestow
their gifts; open hands will never lack for noble work to do.
Everybody had noticed the overflow when a solid is immersed in a vessel
filled with water, although no one had made use of his knowledge that
the body displaces its exact bulk of liquid; but when Archimedes
observed the fact, he perceived therein an easy method of finding the
cubical contents of objects, however irregular in shape.
Everybody knew how steadily a suspended weight, when moved, sways back
and forth until friction and the resistance of the air bring it to
rest, yet no one considered this information of the slightest practical
importance; but the boy Galileo, as he watched a lamp left swinging by
accident in the cathedral at Pisa, saw in the regularity of those
oscillations the useful principle of the pendulum. Even the iron doors
of a prison were not enough to shut him out from research. He
experimented with the straw of his cell, and learned valuable lessons
about the relative strength of tubes and rods of equal diameters.
For ages astronomers had been familiar with the rings of Saturn, and
regarded them merely as curious exceptions to the supposed law of
planetary formation; but Laplace saw that, instead of being exceptions,
they are the sole remaining visible evidences of certain stages in the
invariable process of star manufacture, and from their mute testimony
he added a valuable chapter to the scientific history of Creation.
There was not a sailor in Europe who had not wondered what might lie
beyond the Western Ocean, but it remained for Columbus to steer boldly
out into an unknown sea and discover a new world.
Innumerable apples had fallen from trees, often hitting heedless men on
the head as if to set them thinking, but Newton was the first to
realize that they fall to the earth by the same law which holds the
planets in their courses and prevents the momentum of all the atoms in
the universe from hurling them wildly back to chaos.
Lightning had dazzled the eyes, and thunder had jarred the ears of men
since the days of Adam, in the vain attempt to call their attention to
the all-pervading and tremendous energy of electricity; but the
discharges of Heaven's artillery were seen and heard only by the eye
and ear of terror until Franklin, by a simple experiment, proved that
lightning is but one manifestation of a resistless yet controllable
force, abundant as air and water.
Like many others, these men are considered great, simply because they
improved opportunities common to the whole human race. Read the story
of any successful man and mark its moral, told thousands of years ago
by Solomon: "Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand
before kings." This proverb is well illustrated by the career of the
industrious Franklin, for he stood before five kings and dined with two.
He who improves an opportunity sows a seed which will yield fruit in
opportunity for himself and others. Every one who has labored honestly
in the past has aided to place knowledge and comfort within the reach
of a constantly increasing number.
Avenues greater in number, wider in extent, easier of access than ever
before existed, stand open to the sober, frugal, energetic and able
mechanic, to the educated youth, to the office boy and to the
clerk--avenues through which they can reap greater successes than ever
before within the reach of these classes in the history of the world.
A little while ago there were only three or four professions--now there
are fifty. And of trades, where there was one, there are a hundred now.
"What is its name?" asked a visitor in a studio, when shown, among many
gods, one whose face was concealed by hair, and which had wings on its
feet. "Opportunity," replied the sculptor. "Why is its face hidden?"
"Because men seldom know him when he comes to them." "Why has he wings
on his feet?" "Because he is soon gone, and once gone, cannot be
overtaken."
"Opportunity has hair in front," says a Latin author; "behind she is
bald; if you seize her by the forelock, you may hold her, but, if
suffered to escape, not Jupiter himself can catch her again."
But what is the best opportunity to him who cannot or will not use it?
"It was my lot," said a shipmaster, "to fall in with the ill-fated
steamer _Central America_. The night was closing in, the sea rolling
high; but I hailed the crippled steamer and asked if they needed help.
'I am in a sinking condition,' cried Captain Herndon. 'Had you not
better send your passengers on board directly?' I asked. 'Will you not
lay by me until morning?' replied Captain Herndon. 'I will try,' I
answered 'but had you not better send your passengers on board _now_?'
'Lay by me till morning,' again shouted Captain Herndon.
"I tried to lay by him, but at night, such was the heavy roll of the
sea, I could not keep my position, and I never saw the steamer again.
In an hour and a half after he said, 'Lay by me till morning,' his
vessel, with its living freight, went down. The captain and crew and
most of the passengers found a grave in the deep."
Captain Herndon appreciated the value of the opportunity he had
neglected when it was beyond his reach, but of what avail was the
bitterness of his self-reproach when his last moments came? How many
lives were sacrificed to his unintelligent hopefulness and indecision!
Like him the feeble, the sluggish, and the purposeless too often see no
meaning in the happiest occasions, until too late they learn the old
lesson that the mill can never grind with the water which has passed.
Such people are always a little too late or a little too early in
everything they attempt. "They have three hands apiece," said John B.
Gough; "a right hand, a left hand, and a little behindhand." As boys,
they were late for school, and unpunctual in their home duties. That
is the way the habit is acquired; and now, when responsibility claims
them, they think that if they had only gone yesterday they would have
obtained the situation, or they can probably get one to-morrow. They
remember plenty of chances to make money, or know how to make it some
other time than now; they see how to improve themselves or help others
in the future, but perceive no opportunity in the present. They cannot
_seize their opportunity_.
Joe Stoker, rear brakeman on the ---- accommodation train, was
exceedingly popular with all the railroad men. The passengers liked
him, too, for he was eager to please and always ready to answer
questions. But he did not realize the full responsibility of his
position. He "took the world easy," and occasionally tippled; and if
any one remonstrated, he would give one of his brightest smiles, and
reply, in such a good-natured way that the friend would think he had
over-estimated the danger: "Thank you. I'm all right. Don't you
worry."
One evening there was a heavy snowstorm, and his train was delayed.
Joe complained of extra duties because of the storm, and slyly sipped
occasional draughts from a flat bottle. Soon he became quite jolly;
but the conductor and engineer of the train were both vigilant and
anxious.
Between two stations the train came to a quick halt. The engine had
blown out its cylinder head, and an express was due in a few minutes
upon the same track. The conductor hurried to the rear car, and
ordered Joe back with a red light. The brakeman laughed and said:
"There's no hurry. Wait till I get my overcoat."
The conductor answered gravely, "Don't stop a minute, Joe. The express
is due."
"All right," said Joe, smilingly. The conductor then hurried forward
to the engine.
But the brakeman did not go at once. He stopped to put on his
overcoat. Then he took another sip from the flat bottle to keep the
cold out. Then he slowly grasped the lantern and, whistling, moved
leisurely down the track.
He had not gone ten paces before he heard the puffing of the express.
Then he ran for the curve, but it was too late. In a horrible minute
the engine of the express had telescoped the standing train, and the
shrieks of the mangled passengers mingled with the hissing escape of
steam.
Later on, when they asked for Joe, he had disappeared; but the next day
he was found in a barn, delirious, swinging an empty lantern in front
of an imaginary train, and crying, "Oh, that I had!"
He was taken home, and afterwards to an asylum, and there is no sadder
sound in that sad place than the unceasing moan, "Oh, that I had! Oh,
that I had!" of the unfortunate brakeman, whose criminal indulgence
brought disaster to many lives.
"Oh, that I had!" or "Oh, that I had not!" is the silent cry of many a
man who would give life itself for the opportunity to go back and
retrieve some long-past error.
"There are moments," says Dean Alford, "which are worth more than
years. We cannot help it. There is no proportion between spaces of
time in importance nor in value. A stray, unthought-of five minutes
may contain the event of a life. And this all-important moment--who
can tell when it will be upon us?"
"What we call a turning-point," says Arnold, "is simply an occasion
which sums up and brings to a result previous training. Accidental
circumstances are nothing except to men who have been trained to take
advantage of them."
The trouble with us is that we are ever looking for a princely chance
of acquiring riches, or fame, or worth. We are dazzled by what Emerson
calls the "shallow Americanism" of the day. We are expecting mastery
without apprenticeship, knowledge without study, and riches by credit.
Young men and women, why stand ye here all the day idle? Was the land
all occupied before you were born? Has the earth ceased to yield its
increase? Are the seats all taken? the positions all filled? the
chances all gone? Are the resources of your country fully developed?
Are the secrets of nature all mastered? Is there no way in which you
can utilize these passing moments to improve yourself or benefit
others? Is the competition of modern existence so fierce that you must
be content simply to gain an honest living? Have you received the gift
of life in this progressive age, wherein all the experience of the past
is garnered for your inspiration, merely that you may increase by one
the sum total of purely animal existence?
Born in an age and country in which knowledge and opportunity abound as
never before, how can you sit with folded hands, asking God's aid in
work for which He has already given you the necessary faculties and
strength? Even when the Chosen People supposed their progress checked
by the Red Sea, and their leader paused for Divine help, the Lord said,
"Wherefore criest thou unto me? Speak unto the children of Israel,
_that they go forward_."
With the world full of work that needs to be done; with human nature so
constituted that often a pleasant word or a trifling assistance may
stem the tide of disaster for some fellow man, or clear his path to
success; with our own faculties so arranged that in honest, earnest,
persistent endeavor we find our highest good; and with countless noble
examples to encourage us to dare and to do, each moment brings us to
the threshold of some new opportunity.
Don't _wait_ for your opportunity. _Make it_,--make it as the
shepherd-boy Ferguson made his when he calculated the distances of the
stars with a handful of glass beads on a string. Make it as George
Stephenson made his when he mastered the rules of mathematics with a
bit of chalk on the grimy sides of the coal wagons in the mines. Make
it, as Napoleon made his in a hundred "impossible" situations. Make
it, as _all leaders of men_, in war and in peace, have made their
chances of success. Golden opportunities are nothing to laziness, but
industry makes the commonest chances golden.
"There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures."
"'Tis never offered twice; seize, then, the hour
When fortune smiles, and duty points the way;
Nor shrink aside to 'scape the specter fear,
Nor pause, though pleasure beckon from her bower;
But bravely bear thee onward to the goal."