THE WILL AND THE WAY
"I will find a way or make one."
Nothing is impossible to the man who can will.--MIRABEAU.
The iron will of one stout heart shall make a thousand quail:
A feeble dwarf, dauntlessly resolved, will turn the tide of battle,
And rally to a nobler strife the giants that had fled.--TUPPER.
In the lexicon of youth which fate reserves for a bright manhood there
is no such word as fail.--BULWER.
When a firm and decisive spirit is recognized, it is curious to see how
the space clears around a man and leaves him room and freedom.--JOHN
FOSTER.
"As well can the Prince of Orange pluck the stars from the sky, as
bring the ocean to the wall of Leyden for your relief," was the
derisive shout of the Spanish soldiers when told that the Dutch fleet
would raise that terrible four months' siege of 1574. But from the
parched lips of William, tossing on his bed of fever at Rotterdam, had
issued the command: "_Break down the dikes: give Holland back to
ocean!_" and the people had replied: "Better a drowned land than a lost
land." They began to demolish dike after dike of the strong lines,
ranged one within another for fifteen miles to their city of the
interior. It was an enormous task; the garrison was starving; and the
besiegers laughed in scorn at the slow progress of the puny insects who
sought to rule the waves of the sea. But ever, as of old, Heaven aids
those who help themselves. On the first and second of October a
violent equinoctial gale rolled the ocean inland, and swept the fleet
on the rising waters almost to the camp of the Spaniards. The next
morning the garrison sallied out to attack their enemies, but the
besiegers had fled in terror under cover of the darkness. The next day
the wind changed, and a counter tempest brushed the water, with the
fleet upon it, from the surface of Holland. The outer dikes were
replaced at once, leaving the North Sea within its old bounds. When
the flowers bloomed the following spring, a joyous procession marched
through the streets to found the University of Leyden, in commemoration
of the wonderful deliverance of the city.
At a dinner party given in 1837, at the residence of Chancellor Kent,
in New York City, some of the most distinguished men in the country
were invited, and among them was a young and rather melancholy and
reticent Frenchman. Professor Morse was also one of the guests, and
during the evening he drew the attention of Mr. Gallatin, then a
prominent statesman, to the stranger, observing that his forehead
indicated a great intellect. "Yes," replied Mr. Gallatin, touching his
own forehead with his finger, "there is a great deal in that head of
his: but he has a strange fancy. Can you believe it? He has the idea
that he will one day be the Emperor of France. Can you conceive
anything more absurd than that?"
It did seem absurd, for this reserved Frenchman was then a poor
adventurer, an exile from his country, without fortune or powerful
connections, and yet, fourteen years later, his idea became a
fact,--his dream of becoming Napoleon III. was realized. True, before
he accomplished his purpose there were long, dreary years of
imprisonment, exile, disaster, and patient labor and hope, but he
gained his ambition at last. He was not scrupulous as to the means
employed to accomplish his ends, yet he is a remarkable example of what
pluck and energy can do.
When Mr. Ingram, publisher of the "Illustrated London News," began life
as a newsdealer at Nottingham, England, he walked ten miles to deliver
a single paper rather than disappoint a customer. Does any one wonder
that such a youth succeeded? Once he rose at two o'clock in the
morning and walked to London to get some papers because there was no
post to bring them. He determined that his customers should not be
disappointed. This is the kind of will that finds a way.
There is scarcely anything in all biography grander than the saying of
young Henry Fawcett, Gladstone's last Postmaster-General, to his
grief-stricken father, who had put out both his eyes by birdshot during
a game hunt: "Never mind, father, blindness shall not interfere with my
success in life." One of the most pathetic sights in London streets,
long afterward, was Henry Fawcett, M. P., led everywhere by a faithful
daughter, who acted as amanuensis as well as guide to her plucky
father. Think of a young man, scarcely on the threshold of active
life, suddenly losing the sight of both eyes and yet by mere pluck and
almost incomprehensible tenacity of purpose, lifting himself into
eminence in any direction, to say nothing of becoming one of the
foremost men in a country noted for its great men!
The courageous daughter who was eyes to her father was herself a
marvelous example of pluck and determination. For the first time in
the history of Oxford College, which reaches back centuries, she
succeeded in winning the post which had only been gained before by
great men, such as Gladstone,--the post of senior wrangler. This
achievement had had no parallel in history up to that date, and
attracted the attention of the whole civilized world. Not only had no
woman ever held this position before, but with few exceptions it had
only been held by men who in after life became highly distinguished.
"Circumstances," says Milton, "have rarely favored famous men. They
have fought their way to triumph through all sorts of opposing
obstacles."
The true way to conquer circumstances is to be a greater circumstance
yourself.
Yet, while desiring to impress in the most forcible manner possible the
fact that will-power is necessary to success, and that, other things
being equal, the greater the will-power, the grander and more complete
the success, we can not indorse the theory that there is nothing in
circumstances or environments, or that any man, simply because he has
an indomitable will, may become a Bonaparte, a Pitt, a Webster, a
Beecher, a Lincoln. We must temper determination with discretion, and
support it with knowledge and common sense, or it will only lead us to
run our heads against posts. We must not expect to overcome a stubborn
fact merely by a stubborn will. We only have the right to assume that
we can do anything within the limit of our utmost faculty, strength,
and endurance. Obstacles permanently insurmountable bar our progress
in some directions, but in any direction we may reasonably hope and
attempt to go we shall find that, as a rule, they are either not
insurmountable or else not permanent. The strong-willed, intelligent,
persistent man will find or make a way where, in the nature of things,
a way can be found or made.
Every schoolboy knows that circumstances do give clients to lawyers and
patients to physicians; place ordinary clergymen in extraordinary
pulpits; place sons of the rich at the head of immense corporations and
large houses, when they have very ordinary ability and scarcely any
experience, while poor young men with unusual ability, good education,
good character, and large experience, often have to fight their way for
years to obtain even very mediocre situations; that there are thousands
of young men of superior ability, both in the city and in the country,
who seem to be compelled by circumstances to remain in very ordinary
positions for small pay, when others about them are raised by money or
family influence into desirable places. In other words, we all know
that the best men do not always get the best places; circumstances do
have a great deal to do with our position, our salaries, our station in
life.
Every one knows that there is not always a way where there is a will;
that labor does not always conquer all things; that there are things
impossible even to him that wills, however strongly; that one can not
always make anything of himself he chooses; that there are limitations
in our very natures which no amount of will-power or industry can
overcome.
But while it is true that the will-power can not perform miracles, yet
that it is almost omnipotent, and can perform wonders, all history goes
to prove. As Shakespeare says:--
Men at some time are masters of their fates;
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Show me a man who according to popular prejudice is a victim of bad
luck, and I will show you one who has some unfortunate crooked twist of
temperament that invites disaster. He is ill-tempered, conceited, or
trifling; lacks character, enthusiasm, or some other requisite for
success.
Disraeli said that man is not the creature of circumstances, but that
circumstances are the creatures of men.
Believe in the power of will, which annihilates the sickly, sentimental
doctrine of fatalism,--you must, but can't, you ought, but it is
impossible.
Give me the man who faces what he must,
"Who breaks his birth's invidious bar,
And grasps the skirts of happy chance,
And breasts the blows of circumstance,
And grapples with his evil star."
The indomitable will, the inflexible purpose, will find a way or make
one. There is always room for a man of force.
"He who has a firm will," says Goethe, "molds the world to himself."
"People do not lack strength," says Victor Hugo, "they lack will."
"He who resolves upon any great end, by that very resolution has scaled
the great barriers to it, and he who seizes the grand idea of
self-cultivation, and solemnly resolves upon it, will find that idea,
that resolution, burning like fire within him, and ever putting him
upon his own improvement. He will find it removing difficulties,
searching out, or making means; giving courage for despondency, and
strength for weakness."
Nearly all great men, those who have towered high above their fellows,
have been remarkable above all things else for their energy of will.
Of Julius Caesar it was said by a contemporary that it was his activity
and giant determination, rather than his military skill, that won his
victories. The youth who starts out in life determined to make the
most of his eyes and let nothing escape him which he can possibly use
for his own advancement; who keeps his ears open for every sound that
can help him on his way, who keeps his hands open that he may clutch
every opportunity, who is ever on the alert for everything which can
help him to get on in the world, who seizes every experience in life
and grinds it up into paint for his great life's picture, who keeps his
heart open that he may catch every noble impulse, and everything which
may inspire him,--that youth will be sure to make his life successful;
there are no "ifs" or "ands" about it. If he has his health, nothing
can keep him from final success.
No tyranny of circumstances can permanently imprison a determined will.
The world always stands aside for the determined man.
"The general of a large army may be defeated," said Confucius, "but you
can not defeat the determined mind of a peasant."
The poor, deaf pauper, Kitto, who made shoes in the almshouse, and who
became the greatest of Biblical scholars, wrote in his journal, on the
threshold of manhood: "I am not myself a believer in impossibilities: I
think that all the fine stories about natural ability, etc., are mere
rigmarole, and that every man may, according to his opportunities and
industry, render himself almost anything he wishes to become."
Lincoln is probably the most remarkable example on the pages of
history, showing the possibilities of our country. From the poverty in
which he was born, through the rowdyism of a frontier town, the
discouragement of early bankruptcy, and the fluctuations of popular
politics, he rose to the championship of union and freedom.
Lincoln's will made his way. When his friends nominated him as a
candidate for the legislature, his enemies made fun of him. When
making his campaign speeches he wore a mixed jean coat so short that he
could not sit down on it, flax and tow-linen trousers, straw hat, and
pot-metal boots. He had nothing in the world but character and friends.
When his friends suggested law to him, he laughed at the idea of his
being a lawyer. He said he had not brains enough. He read law
barefoot under the trees, his neighbors said, and he sometimes slept on
the counter in the store where he worked. He had to borrow money to
buy a suit of clothes to make a respectable appearance in the
legislature, and walked to take his seat at Vandalia,--one hundred
miles.
See Thurlow Weed, defying poverty and wading through the snow two
miles, with rags for shoes, to borrow a book to read before the
sap-bush fire. See Locke, living on bread and water in a Dutch garret.
See Heyne, sleeping many a night on a barn floor with only a book for
his pillow. See Samuel Drew, tightening his apron string "in lieu of a
dinner." History is full of such examples. He who will pay the price
for victory need never fear final defeat.
Paris was in the hands of a mob, the authorities were panic-stricken,
for they did not dare to trust their underlings. In came a man who
said, "I know a young officer who has the courage and ability to quell
this mob." "Send for him; send for him; send for him," said they.
Napoleon was sent for, came, subjugated the mob, subjugated the
authorities, ruled France and then conquered Europe.
Success in life is dependent largely upon the will-power, and whatever
weakens or impairs it diminishes success. The will can be educated.
That which most easily becomes a habit in us is the will. Learn, then,
to will decisively and strongly; thus fix your floating life, and leave
it no longer to be carried hither and thither, like a withered leaf, by
every wind that blows. "It is not talent that men lack, it is the will
to labor; it is the purpose."
It was the insatiable thirst for knowledge which held to his task,
through poverty and discouragement, John Leyden, a Scotch shepherd's
son. Barefoot and alone, he walked six or eight miles daily to learn
to read, which was all the schooling he had. His desire for an
education defied the extremest poverty, and no obstacle could turn him
from his purpose. He was rich when he discovered a little bookstore,
and his thirsty soul would drink in the precious treasures from its
priceless volumes for hours, perfectly oblivious of the scanty meal of
bread and water which awaited him at his lowly lodging. Nothing could
discourage him from trying to improve himself by study. It seemed to
him that an opportunity to get at books and lectures was all that any
man could need. Before he was nineteen, this poor shepherd boy with no
chance had astonished the professors of Edinburgh by his knowledge of
Greek and Latin.
Hearing that a surgeon's assistant in the Civil Service was wanted,
although he knew nothing whatever of medicine, he determined to apply
for it. There were only six months before the place was to be filled,
but nothing would daunt him, and he took his degree with honor. Walter
Scott, who thought this one of the most remarkable illustrations of
perseverance, helped to fit him out, and he sailed for India.
Webster was very poor even after he entered Dartmouth College. A
friend sent him a recipe for greasing his boots. Webster wrote and
thanked him, and added: "But my boots needs other doctoring, for they
not only admit water, but even peas and gravel-stones." Yet he became
one of the greatest men in the world. Sydney Smith said: "Webster was
a living lie, because no man on earth could be as great as he looked."
Carlyle said of him: "One would incline at sight to back him against
the world."
What seemed to be luck followed Stephen Girard all his life. No matter
what he did, it always seemed to others to turn to his account.
Being a foreigner, unable to speak English, short, stout, and with a
repulsive face, blind in one eye, it was hard for him to get a start.
But he was not the man to give up. He had begun as a cabin boy at
thirteen, and for nine years sailed between Bordeaux and the French
West Indies. He improved every leisure minute at sea, mastering the
art of navigation.
At the age of eight he had first discovered that he was blind in one
eye. His father, evidently thinking that he would never amount to
anything, would not help him to an education beyond that of mere
reading and writing, but sent his younger brothers to college. The
discovery of his blindness, the neglect of his father, and the chagrin
of his brothers' advancement soured his whole life.
When he began business for himself in Philadelphia, there seemed to be
nothing he would not do for money. He bought and sold anything, from
groceries to old junk; he bottled wine and cider, from which he made a
good profit. Everything he touched prospered.
He left nothing to chance. His plans and schemes were worked out with
mathematical care. His letters written to his captains in foreign
ports, laying out their routes and giving detailed instructions, are
models of foresight and systematic planning. He never left anything of
importance to others. He was rigidly accurate in his instructions, and
would not allow the slightest departure from them. He used to say that
while his captains might save him money by deviating from instructions
once, yet they would cause loss in ninety-nine other cases.
He never lost a ship, and many times that which brought financial ruin
to many others, as the War of 1812, only increased his wealth.
Everybody, especially his jealous brother merchants, attributed his
great success to his luck. While undoubtedly he was fortunate in
happening to be at the right place at the right time, yet he was
precision, method, accuracy, energy itself. What seemed luck with him
was only good judgment and promptness in seizing opportunities, and the
greatest care and zeal in improving them to their utmost possibilities.
The mathematician tells you that if you throw the dice, there are
thirty chances to one against your turning up a particular number, and
a hundred to one against your repeating the same throw three times in
succession: and so on in an augmenting ratio.
Many a young man who has read the story of John Wanamaker's romantic
career has gained very little inspiration or help from it toward his
own elevation and advancement, for he looks upon it as the result of
good luck, chance, or fate. "What a lucky fellow," he says to himself
as he reads; "what a bonanza he fell into!" But a careful analysis of
Wanamaker's life only enforces the same lesson taught by the analysis
of most great lives, namely, that a good mother, a good constitution,
the habit of hard work, indomitable energy, determination which knows
no defeat, decision which never wavers, a concentration which never
scatters its forces, courage which never falters, self-mastery which
can say No, and stick to it, strict integrity and downright honesty, a
cheerful disposition, unbounded enthusiasm in one's calling, and a high
aim and noble purpose insure a very large measure of success.
Youth should be taught that there is something in circumstances; that
there is such a thing as a poor pedestrian happening to find no
obstruction in his way, and reaching the goal when a better walker
finds the drawbridge up, the street blockaded, and so fails to win the
race; that wealth often does place unworthy sons in high positions;
that family influence does gain a lawyer clients, a physician patients,
an ordinary scholar a good professorship; but that, on the other hand,
position, clients, patients, professorships, managers' and
superintendents' positions do not necessarily constitute success. He
should be taught that in the long run, as a rule, _the best man does
win the best place_, and that persistent merit does succeed.
There is about as much chance of idleness and incapacity winning real
success or a high position in life, as there would be in producing a
"Paradise Lost" by shaking up promiscuously the separate words of
Webster's Dictionary, and letting them fall at random on the floor.
Fortune smiles upon those who roll up their sleeves and put their
shoulders to the wheel; upon men who are not afraid of dreary, dry,
irksome drudgery, men of nerve and grit who do not turn aside for dirt
and detail.
The youth should be taught that "he alone is great, who, by a life
heroic, conquers fate"; that "diligence is the mother of good luck";
that nine times out of ten what we call luck or fate is but a mere
bugbear of the indolent, the languid, the purposeless, the careless,
the indifferent; that, as a rule, the man who fails does not see or
seize his opportunity. Opportunity is coy, is swift, is gone, before
the slow, the unobservant, the indolent, or the careless can seize
her:--
"In idle wishes fools supinely stay:
Be there a will and wisdom finds a way."
It has been well said that the very reputation of being strong-willed,
plucky, and indefatigable is of priceless value. It often cows enemies
and dispels at the start opposition to one's undertakings which would
otherwise be formidable.
It is astonishing what men who have come to their senses late in life
have accomplished by a sudden resolution.
Arkwright was fifty years of age when he began to learn English grammar
and improve his writing and spelling. Benjamin Franklin was past fifty
before he began the study of science and philosophy. Milton, in his
blindness, was past the age of fifty when he sat down to complete his
world-known epic, and Scott at fifty-five took up his pen to redeem a
liability of $600,000. "Yet I am learning," said Michael Angelo, when
threescore years and ten were past, and he had long attained the
highest triumphs of his art.
Even brains are second in importance to will. The vacillating man is
always pushed aside in the race of life. It is only the weak and
vacillating who halt before adverse circumstances and obstacles. A man
with an iron will, with a determination that nothing shall check his
career, is sure, if he has perseverance and grit, to succeed. We may
not find time for what we would like, but what we long for and strive
for with all our strength, we usually approximate, if we do not fully
reach.
I wish it were possible to show the youth of America the great part
that the will might play in their success in life and in their
happiness as well. The achievements of will-power are simply beyond
computation. Scarcely anything in reason seems impossible to the man
who can will strong enough and long enough.
How often we see this illustrated in the case of a young woman who
suddenly becomes conscious that she is plain and unattractive; who, by
prodigious exercise of her will and untiring industry, resolves to
redeem herself from obscurity and commonness; and who not only makes up
for her deficiencies, but elevates herself into a prominence and
importance which mere personal attractions could never have given her!
Charlotte Cushman, without a charm of form or face, climbed to the very
top of her profession. How many young men, stung by consciousness of
physical deformity or mental deficiencies, have, by a strong,
persistent exercise of will-power, raised themselves from mediocrity
and placed themselves high above those who scorned them!
History is full of examples of men and women who have redeemed
themselves from disgrace, poverty, and misfortune by the firm
resolution of an iron will. The consciousness of being looked upon as
inferior, as incapable of accomplishing what others accomplish; the
sensitiveness at being considered a dunce in school, has stung many a
youth into a determination which has elevated him far above those who
laughed at him, as in the case of Newton, of Adam Clark, of Sheridan,
Wellington, Goldsmith, Dr. Chalmers, Curran, Disraeli and hundreds of
others.
It is men like Mirabeau, who "trample upon impossibilities"; like
Napoleon, who do not wait for opportunities, but make them; like Grant,
who has only "unconditional surrender" for the enemy, who change the
very front of the world.
"I can't, it is impossible," said a foiled lieutenant to Alexander.
"Be gone," shouted the conquering Macedonian, "there is nothing
impossible to him who will try."
Were I called upon to express in a word the secret of so many failures
among those who started out in life with high hopes, I should say
unhesitatingly, they lacked will-power. They could not half will.
What is a man without a will? He is like an engine without steam, a
mere sport of chance, to be tossed about hither and thither, always at
the mercy of those who have wills. I should call the strength of will
the test of a young man's possibilities. Can he will strong enough,
and hold whatever he undertakes with an iron grip? It is the iron grip
that takes the strong hold on life. "The truest wisdom," said
Napoleon, "is a resolute determination." An iron will without
principle might produce a Napoleon; but with character it would make a
Wellington or a Grant, untarnished by ambition or avarice.
"The undivided will
'Tis that compels the elements and wrings
A human music from the indifferent air."