ENAMORED OF ACCURACY
"Antonio Stradivari has an eye
That winces at false work and loves the true."
Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty.--C. SIMMONS.
Genius is the infinite art of taking pains.--CARLYLE.
I hate a thing done by halves. If it be right, do it boldly; if it be
wrong, leave it undone.--GILPIN.
If I were a cobbler, it would be my pride
The best of all cobblers to be;
If I were a tinker, no tinker beside
Should mend an old kettle like me.
OLD SONG.
If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a
better mouse-trap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the
woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.--EMERSON.
"Sir, it is a watch which I have made and regulated myself," said
George Graham of London to a customer who asked how far he could depend
upon its keeping correct time; "take it with you wherever you please.
If after seven years you come back to see me, and can tell me there has
been a difference of five minutes, I will return you your money."
Seven years later the gentleman returned from India. "Sir," said he,
"I bring you back your watch."
"I remember our conditions," said Graham. "Let me see the watch.
Well, what do you complain of?" "Why," said the man, "I have had it
seven years, and there is a difference of more than five minutes."
"Indeed! In that case I return you your money." "I would not part
with my watch," said the man, "for ten times the sum I paid for it."
"And I would not break my word for any consideration," replied Graham;
so he paid the money and took the watch, which he used as a regulator.
He learned his trade of Tampion, the most exquisite mechanic in London,
if not in the world, whose name on a timepiece was considered proof
positive of its excellence. When a person once asked him to repair a
watch upon which his name was fraudulently engraved, Tampion smashed it
with a hammer, and handed the astonished customer one of his own
master-pieces, saying, "Sir, here is a watch of my making."
Graham invented the "compensating mercury pendulum," the "dead
escapement," and the "orrery," none of which have been much improved
since. The clock which he made for Greenwich Observatory has been
running one hundred and fifty years, yet it needs regulating but once
in fifteen months. Tampion and Graham lie in Westminster Abbey,
because of the accuracy of their work.
To insure safety, a navigator must know how far he is from the equator,
north or south, and how far east or west of some known point, as
Greenwich, Paris, or Washington. He could be sure of this knowledge
when the sun is shining, if he could have an absolutely accurate
timekeeper; but such a thing has not yet been made. In the sixteenth
century Spain offered a prize of a thousand crowns for the discovery of
an approximately correct method of determining longitude. About two
hundred years later the English government offered 5,000 pounds for a
chronometer by which a ship six months from home could get her
longitude within sixty miles; 7,500 pounds if within forty miles;
10,000 pounds if within thirty miles; and in another clause 20,000
pounds for correctness within thirty miles, a careless repetition.
The watchmakers of the world contested for the prizes, but 1761 came,
and they had not been awarded. In that year John Harrison asked for a
test of his chronometer. In a trip of one hundred and forty-seven days
from Portsmouth to Jamaica and back, it varied less than two minutes,
and only four seconds on the outward voyage. In a round trip of one
hundred and fifty-six days to Barbadoes, the variation was only fifteen
seconds. The 20,000 pounds was paid to the man who had worked and
experimented for forty years, and whose hand was as exquisitely
delicate in its movement as the mechanism of his chronometer.
"Make me as good a hammer as you know how," said a carpenter to the
blacksmith in a New York village before the first railroad was built;
"six of us have come to work on the new church, and I've left mine at
home." "As good a one as I know how?" asked David Maydole, doubtfully,
"but perhaps you don't want to pay for as good a one as I know how to
make." "Yes, I do," said the carpenter, "I want a good hammer."
It was indeed a good hammer that he received, the best, probably, that
had ever been made. By means of a longer hole than usual, David had
wedged the handle in its place so that the head could not fly off, a
wonderful improvement in the eyes of the carpenter, who boasted of his
prize to his companions. They all came to the shop next day, and each
ordered just such a hammer. When the contractor saw the tools, he
ordered two for himself, asking that they be made a little better than
those of his men. "I can't make any better ones," said Maydole; "when
I make a thing, I make it as well as I can, no matter whom it is for."
The storekeeper soon ordered two dozen, a supply unheard of in his
previous business career. A New York dealer in tools came to the
village to sell his wares, and bought all the storekeeper had, and left
a standing order for all the blacksmith could make. David might have
grown very wealthy by making goods of the standard already attained;
but throughout his long and successful life he never ceased to study
still further to perfect his hammers in the minutest detail. They were
usually sold without any warrant of excellence, the word "Maydole"
stamped on the head being universally considered a guaranty of the best
article the world could produce.
Character is power, and is the best advertisement in the world.
"We have no secret," said the manager of an iron works employing
thousands of men. "We always try to beat our last batch of rails.
That is all the secret we've got, and we don't care who knows it."
"I don't try to see how cheap a machine I can produce, but how good a
machine," said the late John C. Whitin, of Northbridge, Mass., to a
customer who complained of the high price of some cotton machinery.
Business men soon learned what this meant; and when there was occasion
to advertise any machinery for sale, New England cotton manufacturers
were accustomed to state the number of years it had been in use and
add, as an all-sufficient guaranty of Northbridge products, "Whitin
make."
"Madam," said the sculptor H. K. Brown, as he admired a statue in
alabaster made by a youth in his teens, "this boy has something in
him." It was the figure of an Irishman who worked for the Ward family
in Brooklyn years ago, and gave with minutest fidelity not merely the
man's features and expression, but even the patches in his trousers,
the rent in his coat, and the creases in his narrow-brimmed stove-pipe
hat. Mr. Brown saw the statue at the house of a lady living at
Newburgh-on-the-Hudson. Six years later he invited her brother, J. Q.
A. Ward, to become a pupil in his studio. To-day the name of Ward is
that of the most prosperous of all Americans sculptors.
"Paint me just as I am, warts and all," said Oliver Cromwell to the
artist who, thinking to please the great man, had omitted a mole.
"I can remember when you blacked my father's shoes," said one member of
the House of Commons to another in the heat of debate. "True enough,"
was the prompt reply, "but did I not black them well?"
"It is easy to tell good indigo," said an old lady. "Just take a lump
and put it into water, and if it is good, it will either sink or swim,
I am not sure which; but never mind, you can try it for yourself."
John B. Gough told of a colored preacher who, wishing his congregation
to fresco the recess back of the pulpit, suddenly closed his Bible and
said, "There, my bredren, de Gospel will not be dispensed with any more
from dis pulpit till de collection am sufficient to fricassee dis
abscess."
When troubled with deafness, Wellington consulted a celebrated
physician, who put strong caustic into his ear, causing an inflammation
which threatened his life. The doctor apologized, expressed great
regrets, and said that the blunder would ruin him. "No," said
Wellington, "I will never mention it." "But you will allow me to
attend you, so that people will not withdraw their confidence?" "No,"
said the Iron Duke, "that would be lying."
"Father," said a boy, "I saw an immense number of dogs--five hundred, I
am sure--in our street, last night." "Surely not so many," said the
father. "Well, there were one hundred, I'm quite sure." "It could not
be," said the father; "I don't think there are a hundred dogs in our
village." "Well, sir, it could not be less than ten: this I am quite
certain of." "I will not believe you saw ten even," said the father;
"for you spoke as confidently of seeing five hundred as of seeing this
smaller number. You have contradicted yourself twice already, and now
I cannot believe you." "Well, sir," said the disconcerted boy, "I saw
at least our Dash and another one."
We condemn the boy for exaggerating in order to tell a wonderful story;
but how much more truthful are they who "never saw it rain so before,"
or who call day after day the hottest of the summer or the coldest of
the winter?
There is nothing which all mankind venerate and admire so much as
simple truth, exempt from artifice, duplicity, and design. It exhibits
at once a strength of character and integrity of purpose in which all
are willing to confide.
To say nice things merely to avoid giving offense; to keep silent
rather than speak the truth; to equivocate, to evade, to dodge, to say
what is expedient rather than what is truthful; to shirk the truth; to
face both ways; to exaggerate; to seem to concur with another's
opinions when you do not; to deceive by a glance of the eye, a nod of
the head, a smile, a gesture; to lack sincerity; to assume to know or
think or feel what you do not--all these are but various manifestations
of hollowness and falsehood resulting from want of accuracy.
We find no lying, no inaccuracy, no slipshod business in nature. Roses
blossom and crystals form with the same precision of tint and angle
to-day as in Eden on the morning of creation. The rose in the queen's
garden is not more beautiful, more fragrant, more exquisitely perfect,
than that which blooms and blushes unheeded amid the fern-decked brush
by the roadside, or in some far-off glen where no human eye ever sees
it. The crystal found deep in the earth is constructed with the same
fidelity as that formed above ground. Even the tiny snowflake whose
destiny is to become an apparently insignificant and a wholly unnoticed
part of an enormous bank, assumes its shape of ethereal beauty as
faithfully as though preparing for some grand exhibition. Planets rush
with dizzy sweep through almost limitless courses, yet return to
equinox or solstice at the appointed second, their very movement being
"the uniform manifestation of the will of God."
The marvelous resources and growth of America have developed an
unfortunate tendency to overstate, overdraw, and exaggerate. It seems
strange that there should be so strong a temptation to exaggerate in a
country where the truth is more wonderful than fiction. The positive
is stronger than the superlative, but we ignore this fact in our
speech. Indeed, it is really difficult to ascertain the exact truth in
America. How many American fortunes are built on misrepresentation
that is needless, for nothing else is half so strong as truth.
"Does the devil lie?" was asked of Sir Thomas Browne. "No, for then
even he could not exist." Truth is necessary to permanency.
In Siberia a traveler found men who could see the satellites of Jupiter
with the naked eye. These men have made little advance in
civilization, yet they are far superior to us in their accuracy of
vision. It is a curious fact that not a single astronomical discovery
of importance has been made through a large telescope, the men who have
advanced our knowledge of that science the most working with ordinary
instruments backed by most accurately trained minds and eyes.
A double convex lens three feet in diameter is worth $60,000. Its
adjustment is so delicate that the human hand is the only instrument
thus far known suitable for giving the final polish, and one sweep of
the hand more than is needed, Alvan Clark says, would impair the
correctness of the glass. During the test of the great glass which he
made for Russia, the workmen turned it a little with their hands.
"Wait, boys, let it cool before making another trial," said Clark; "the
poise is so delicate that the heat from your hands affects it."
Mr. Clark's love of accuracy has made his name a synonym of exactness
the world over.
"No, I can't do it, it is impossible," said Webster, when urged to
speak on a question soon to come up, toward the close of a
Congressional session. "I am so pressed with other duties that I
haven't time to prepare myself to speak upon that theme." "Ah, but,
Mr. Webster, you always speak well upon any subject. You never fail."
"But that's the very reason," said the orator, "because I never allow
myself to speak upon any subject without first making that subject
thoroughly my own. I haven't time to do that in this instance. Hence
I must refuse."
Rufus Choate would plead before a shoemaker justice of the peace in a
petty case with all the fervor and careful attention to detail with
which he addressed the United States Supreme Court.
"Whatever is right to do," said an eminent writer, "should be done with
our best care, strength, and faithfulness of purpose; we have no scales
by which we can weigh our faithfulness to duties, or determine their
relative importance in God's eyes. That which seems a trifle to us may
be the secret spring which shall move the issues of life and death."
"There goes a man that has been in hell," the Florentines would say
when Dante passed, so realistic seemed to them his description of the
nether world.
"There is only one real failure in life possible," said Canon Farrar;
"and that is, not to be true to the best one knows."
"It is quite astonishing," Grove said of Beethoven, "to find the length
of time during which some of the best known instrumental melodies
remained in his thoughts till they were finally used, or the crude,
vague, commonplace shape in which they were first written down. The
more they are elaborated, the more fresh and spontaneous they become."
Leonardo da Vinci would walk across Milan to change a single tint or
the slightest detail in his famous picture of the Last Supper. "Every
line was then written twice over by Pope," said his publisher Dodsley,
of manuscript brought to be copied. Gibbon wrote his memoir nine
times, and the first chapters of his history eighteen times. Of one of
his works Montesquieu said to a friend: "You will read it in a few
hours, but I assure you it has cost me so much labor that it has
whitened my hair." He had made it his study by day and his dream by
night, the alpha and omega of his aims and objects. "He who does not
write as well as he can on every occasion," said George Ripley, "will
soon form the habit of not writing well on any occasion."
An accomplished entomologist thought he would perfect his knowledge by
a few lessons under Professor Agassiz. The latter handed him a dead
fish and told him to use his eyes. Two hours later he examined his new
pupil, but soon remarked, "You haven't really looked at the fish yet.
You'll have to try again." After a second examination he shook his
head, saying, "You do not show that you can use your eyes." This
roused the pupil to earnest effort, and he became so interested in
things he had never noticed before that he did not see Agassiz when he
came for the third examination. "That will do," said the great
scientist. "I now see that you can use your eyes."
Reynolds said he could go on retouching a picture forever.
The captain of a Nantucket whaler told the man at the wheel to steer by
the North Star, but was awakened towards morning by a request for
another star to steer by, as they had "sailed by the other."
Stephen Girard was precision itself. He did not allow those in his
employ to deviate in the slightest degree from his iron-clad orders.
He believed that no great success is possible without the most rigid
accuracy in everything. He did not vary from a promise in the
slightest degree. People knew that his word was not "pretty good," but
_absolutely_ good. He left nothing to chance. Every detail of
business was calculated and planned to a nicety. He was as exact and
precise even in the smallest trifles as Napoleon; yet his brother
merchants attributed his superior success to good luck.
In 1805 Napoleon broke up the great camp he had formed on the shores of
the English Channel, and gave orders for his mighty host to defile
toward the Danube. Vast and various as were the projects fermenting in
his brain, however, he did not content himself with giving the order,
and leaving the elaboration of its details to his lieutenants. To
details and minutiae which inferior captains would have deemed too
microscopic for their notice, he gave such exhaustive attention that
before the bugle had sounded for the march he had planned the exact
route which every regiment was to follow, the exact day and hour it was
to leave that station, and the precise moment when it was to reach its
destination. These details, so thoroughly premeditated, were carried
out to the letter, and the result of that memorable march was the
victory of Austerlitz, which sealed the fate of Europe for ten years.
When a noted French preacher speaks in Notre Dame, the scholars of
Paris throng the cathedral to hear his fascinating, eloquent, polished
discourses. This brilliant finish is the result of most patient work,
as he delivers but five or six sermons a year.
When Sir Walter Scott visited a ruined castle about which he wished to
write, he wrote in a notebook the separate names of grasses and wild
flowers growing near, saying that only by such means can a writer be
natural.
The historian, Macaulay, never allowed a sentence to stand until it was
as good as he could make it.
Besides his scrapbooks, Garfield had a large case of some fifty
pigeonholes, labeled "Anecdotes," "Electoral Laws and Commissions,"
"French Spoliation," "General Politics," "Geneva Award,"
"Parliamentary Decisions," "Public Men," "State Politics," "Tariff,"
"The Press," "United States History," etc.; every valuable hint he
could get being preserved in the cold exactness of black and white.
When he chose to make careful preparation on a subject, no other
speaker could command so great an array of facts. Accurate people are
methodical people, and method means character.
"Am offered 10,000 bushels wheat on your account at $1.00. Shall I
buy, or is it too high?" telegraphed a San Francisco merchant to one in
Sacramento. "No price too high," came back over the wire instead of
"No. Price too high," as was intended. The omission of a period cost
the Sacramento dealer $1,000. How many thousands have lost their
wealth or lives, and how many frightful accidents have occurred through
carelessness in sending messages!
"The accurate boy is always the favored one," said President Tuttle.
"Those who employ men do not wish to be on the constant lookout, as
though they were rogues or fools. If a carpenter must stand at his
journeyman's elbow to be sure his work is right, or if a cashier must
run over his bookkeeper's columns, he might as well do the work himself
as employ another to do it in that way; and it is very certain that the
employer will get rid of such a blunderer as soon as he can."
"If you make a good pin," said a successful manufacturer, "you will
earn more than if you make a bad steam-engine."
"There are women," said Fields, "whose stitches always come out, and
the buttons they sew on fly off on the mildest provocation; there are
other women who use the same needle and thread, and you may tug away at
their work on your coat, or waistcoat, and you can't start a button in
a generation."
"Carelessness," "indifference," "slouchiness," "slipshod financiering,"
could truthfully be written over the graves of thousands who have
failed in life. How many clerks, cashiers, clergymen, editors, and
professors in colleges have lost position and prestige by carelessness
and inaccuracy!
"You would be the greatest man of your age, Grattan," said Curran, "if
you would buy a few yards of red tape and tie up your bills and
papers." Curran realized that methodical people are accurate, and, as
a rule, successful.
Bergh tells of a man beginning business who opened and shut his shop
regularly at the same hour every day for weeks, without selling two
cents' worth, yet whose application attracted attention and paved the
way to fortune.
A. T. Stewart was extremely systematic and precise in all his
transactions. Method ruled in every department of his store, and for
every delinquency a penalty was rigidly enforced. His eye was upon his
business in all its ramifications; he mastered every detail and worked
hard.
From the time Jonas Chickering began to work for a piano-maker, he was
noted for the pains and care with which he did everything. To him
there were no trifles in the manufacturing of pianos. Neither time nor
labor was of any account to him, compared with accuracy and knowledge.
He soon made pianos in a factory of his own. He determined to make an
instrument yielding the fullest and richest volume of melody with the
least exertion to the player, withstanding atmospheric changes, and
preserving its purity and truthfulness of tone. He resolved that each
piano should be an improvement upon the one which preceded it;
perfection was his aim. To the end of his life he gave the finishing
touch to each of his instruments, and would trust it to no one else.
He permitted no irregularity in workmanship or sales, and was
characterized by simplicity, transparency, and straightforwardness.
He distanced all competitors. Chickering's name was such a power that
one piano-maker had his name changed to Chickering by the Massachusetts
legislature, and put it on his pianos; but Jonas Chickering sent a
petition to the legislature, and the name was changed back. Character
has a commercial as well as an ethical value.
Joseph M. W. Turner was intended by his father for a barber, but he
showed such a taste for drawing that a reluctant permission was given
for him to follow art as a profession. He soon became skilful, but as
he lacked means he took anything to do that came in his way, frequently
illustrating guide-books and almanacs. But although the pay was very
small the work was never careless. His labor was worth several times
what he received for it, but the price was increased and work of higher
grade given him simply because men seek the services of those who are
known to be faithful, and employ them in as lofty work as they seem
able to do. And so he toiled upward until he began to employ himself,
his work sure of a market at some price, and the price increasing as
other men began to get glimpses of the transcendent art revealed in his
paintings, an art not fully comprehended even in our day. He surpassed
the acknowledged masters in various fields of landscape work, and left
matchless studies of natural scenery in lines never before attempted.
What Shakespeare is in literature, Turner is in his special field, the
greatest name on record.
The demand for perfection in the nature of Wendell Phillips was
wonderful. Every word must exactly express the shade of his thought;
every phrase must be of due length and cadence; every sentence must be
perfectly balanced before it left his lips. Exact precision
characterized his style. He was easily the first forensic orator
America has produced. The rhythmical fulness and poise of his periods
are remarkable.
Alexandre Dumas prepared his manuscript with the greatest care. When
consulted by a friend whose article had been rejected by several
publishers, he advised him to have it handsomely copied by a
professional penman, and then change the title. The advice was taken,
and the article eagerly accepted by one of the very publishers who had
refused it before. Many able essays have been rejected because of poor
penmanship. We must strive after accuracy as we would after wisdom, or
hidden treasure or anything we would attain. Determine to form exact
business habits. Avoid slipshod financiering as you would the plague.
Careless and indifferent habits would soon ruin a millionaire. Nearly
every very successful man is accurate and painstaking. Accuracy means
character, and character is power.