THE MIGHT OF LITTLE THINGS
Think naught a trifle, though it small appear;
Small sands the mountain, moments make the year,
And trifles, life.
YOUNG.
It is but the littleness of man that sees no greatness in
trifles.--WENDELL PHILLIPS.
He that despiseth small things shall fall by little and
little.--ECCLESIASTICUS.
The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.--EMERSON.
Men are led by trifles.--NAPOLEON.
"A pebble on the streamlet scant
Has turned the course of many a river."
"The bad thing about a little sin is that it won't stay little."
"Arletta's pretty feet, glistening in the brook, made her the mother of
William the Conqueror," says Palgrave's "History of Normandy and
England." "Had she not thus fascinated Duke Robert the Liberal, of
Normandy, Harold would not have fallen at Hastings, no Anglo-Norman
dynasty could have arisen, no British Empire."
We may tell which way the wind blew before the Deluge by marking the
ripple and cupping of the rain in the petrified sand now preserved
forever. We tell the very path by which gigantic creatures, whom man
never saw, walked to the river's edge to find their food.
It was little Greece that rolled back the overflowing tide of Asiatic
luxury and despotism, giving instead to Europe and America models of
the highest political freedom yet attained, and germs of limitless
mental growth. A different result at Plataea would have delayed the
progress of the human race more than ten centuries.
Among the lofty Alps, it is said, the guides sometimes demand absolute
silence, lest the vibration of the voice bring down an avalanche.
The power of observation in the American Indian would put many an
educated man to shame. Returning home, an Indian discovered that his
venison, which had been hanging up to dry, had been stolen. After
careful observation he started to track the thief through the woods.
Meeting a man on the route, he asked him if he had seen a little, old,
white man, with a short gun, and with a small bobtailed dog. The man
told him he had met such a man, but was surprised to find that the
Indian had not even seen the one he described, and asked him how he
could give such a minute description of the man he had never seen. "I
knew the thief was a little man," said the Indian, "because he rolled
up a stone to stand on in order to reach the venison; I knew he was an
old man by his short steps; I knew he was a white man by his turning
out his toes in walking, which an Indian never does; I knew he had a
short gun by the mark it left on the tree where he had stood it up; I
knew the dog was small by his tracks and short steps, and that he had a
bob-tail by the mark it left in the dust where he sat."
Two drops of rain, falling side by side, were separated a few inches by
a gentle breeze. Striking on opposite sides of the roof of a
court-house in Wisconsin, one rolled southward through the Rock River
and the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico; while the other entered
successively the Fox River, Green Bay, Lake Michigan, the Straits of
Mackinaw, Lake Huron, St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, Detroit River,
Lake Erie, Niagara River, Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence River, and
finally reached the Gulf of St. Lawrence. How slight the influence of
the breeze, yet such was the formation of the continent that a trifling
cause was multiplied almost beyond the power of figures to express its
momentous effect upon the destinies of these companion raindrops. Who
can calculate the future of the smallest trifle when a mud crack swells
to an Amazon and the stealing of a penny may end on the scaffold? The
act of a moment may cause a life's regret. A trigger may be pulled in
an instant, but the soul returns never.
A spark falling upon some combustibles led to the invention of
gunpowder. A few bits of seaweed and driftwood, floating on the waves,
enabled Columbus to stay a mutiny of his sailors which threatened to
prevent the discovery of a new world. There are moments in history
which balance years of ordinary life. Dana could interest a class for
hours on a grain of sand; and from a single bone, such as no one had
ever seen before, Agassiz could deduce the entire structure and habits
of an animal which no man had ever seen so accurately that subsequent
discoveries of complete skeletons have not changed one of his
conclusions.
A cricket once saved a military expedition from destruction. The
commanding officer and hundreds of his men were going to South America
on a great ship, and, through the carelessness of the watch, they would
have been dashed upon a ledge of rock had it not been for a cricket
which a soldier had brought on board. When the little insect scented
the land, it broke its long silence by a shrill note, and thus warned
them of their danger.
By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation. A little boy
in Holland saw water trickling from a small hole near the bottom of a
dike. He realized that the leak would rapidly become larger if the
water were not checked, so he held his hand over the hole for hours on
a dark and dismal night until he could attract the attention of
passers-by. His name is still held in grateful remembrance in Holland.
The beetling chalk cliffs of England were built by rhizopods, too small
to be clearly seen without the aid of a magnifying-glass.
What was so unlikely as that throwing an empty wine-flask in the fire
should furnish the first notion of a locomotive, or that the sickness
of an Italian chemist's wife and her absurd craving for reptiles for
food should begin the electric telegraph. Madame Galvani noticed the
contraction of the muscles of a skinned frog which was accidentally
touched at the moment her husband took a spark from an electrical
machine. She gave the hint which led to the discovery of galvanic
electricity, now so useful in the arts and in transmitting vocal or
written language.
"The fate of a nation," says Gladstone, "has often depended upon the
good or bad digestion of a fine dinner."
A stamp act to raise 60,000 pounds produced the American Revolution, a
war that cost England 100,000,000 pounds. A war between France and
England, costing more than a hundred thousand lives, grew out of a
quarrel as to which of two vessels should first be served with water.
The quarrel of two Indian boys over a grasshopper led to the
"Grasshopper War." What mighty contests rise from trivial things!
A young man once went to India to seek his fortune, but, finding no
opening, he went to his room, loaded his pistol, put the muzzle to his
head, and pulled the trigger. But it did not go off. He went to the
window to point it in another direction and try it again, resolved that
if the weapon went off he would regard it as a Providence that he was
spared. He pulled the trigger and it went off the first time.
Trembling with excitement he resolved to hold his life sacred, to make
the most of it, and never again to cheapen it. This young man became
General Robert Clive, who, with but a handful of European soldiers,
secured to the East India Company and afterwards to Great Britain a
great and rich country with two hundred millions of people.
The cackling of a goose aroused the sentinels and saved Rome from the
Gauls, and the pain from a thistle warned a Scottish army of the
approach of the Danes.
Henry Ward Beecher came within one vote of being elected superintendent
of a railway. If he had had that vote America would probably have lost
its greatest preacher. What a little thing fixes destiny!
Trifles light as air often suggest to the thinking mind ideas which
have revolutionized the world.
A famous ruby was offered to the English government. The report of the
crown jeweler was that it was the finest he had ever seen or heard of,
but that one of the "facets" was slightly fractured. That invisible
fracture reduced the value of the ruby thousands of dollars, and it was
rejected from the regalia of England.
It was a little thing for the janitor to leave a lamp swinging in the
cathedral at Pisa, but in that steady swaying motion the boy Galileo
saw the pendulum, and conceived the idea of thus measuring time.
"I was singing to the mouthpiece of a telephone," said Edison, "when
the vibrations of my voice caused a fine steel point to pierce one of
my fingers held just behind it. That set me to thinking. If I could
record the motions of the point and send it over the same surface
afterward, I saw no reason why the thing would not talk. I determined
to make a machine that would work accurately, and gave my assistants
the necessary instructions, telling them what I had discovered. That's
the whole story. The phonograph is the result of the pricking of a
finger."
It was a little thing for a cow to kick over a lantern left in a
shanty, but it laid Chicago in ashes, and rendered homeless a hundred
thousand people.
Some little weakness, some self-indulgence, a quick temper, want of
decision, are little things, you say, when placed beside great
abilities, but they have wrecked many a career.
The Parliament of Great Britain, the Congress of the United States, and
representative governments all over the world have come from King John
signing the Magna Charta.
Bentham says, "The turn of a sentence has decided many a friendship,
and, for aught we know, the fate of many a kingdom." Perhaps you
turned a cold shoulder but once, and made but one stinging remark, yet
it may have cost you a friend forever.
The sight of a stranded cuttlefish led Cuvier to an investigation which
made him one of the greatest natural historians in the world. The web
of a spider suggested to Captain Brown the idea of a suspension bridge.
A missing marriage certificate kept the hod-carrier of Hugh Miller from
establishing his claim to the Earldom of Crawford. The masons would
call out, "John, Yearl of Crawford, bring us anither hod o' lime."
The absence of a comma in a bill which passed through Congress years
ago cost our government a million dollars. A single misspelled word
prevented a deserving young man from obtaining a situation as
instructor in a New England college.
"I cannot see that you have made any progress since my last visit,"
said a gentleman to Michael Angelo. "But," said the sculptor, "I have
retouched this part, polished that, softened that feature, brought out
that muscle, given some expression to this lip, more energy to that
limb, etc." "But they are trifles!" exclaimed the visitor. "It may be
so," replied the great artist, "but trifles make perfection, and
perfection is no trifle." That infinite patience which made Michael
Angelo spend a week in bringing out a muscle in a statue, with more
vital fidelity to truth, or Gerhard Dow a day in giving the right
effect to a dewdrop on a cabbage leaf, makes all the difference between
success and failure.
The cry of the infant Moses attracted the attention of Pharoah's
daughter, and gave the Jews a lawgiver. A bird alighting on the bough
of a tree at the mouth of the cave where Mahomet lay hid turned aside
his pursuers, and gave a prophet to many nations. A flight of birds
probably prevented Columbus from discovering this continent. When he
was growing anxious, Martin Alonzo Pinzon persuaded him to follow a
flight of parrots toward the southwest; for to the Spanish seamen of
that day it was good luck to follow in the wake of a flock of birds
when on a voyage of discovery. But for his change of course Columbus
would have reached the coast of Florida. "Never," wrote Humboldt, "had
the flight of birds more important consequences."
The children of a spectacle-maker placed two or more pairs of the
spectacles before each other in play, and told their father that
distant objects looked larger. From this hint came the telescope.
Every day is a little life; and our whole life but a day repeated.
Those that dare lose a day are dangerously prodigal; those that dare
misspend it, desperate. What is the happiness of your life made up of?
Little courtesies, little kindnesses, pleasant words, genial smiles, a
friendly letter, good wishes, and good deeds. One in a million--once
in a lifetime--may do a heroic action.
Napoleon was a master of trifles. To details which his inferior
officers thought too microscopic for their notice he gave the most
exhaustive consideration. Nothing was too small for his attention. He
must know all about the provisions, the horse fodder, the biscuits, the
camp kettles, the shoes. When the bugle sounded for the march to
battle, every officer had his orders as to the exact route which he
should follow, the exact day he was to arrive at a certain station, and
the exact hour he was to leave, and they were all to reach the point of
destination at a precise moment. It is said that nothing could be more
perfectly planned than his memorable march which led to the victory of
Austerlitz, and which sealed the fate of Europe for many years. He
would often charge his absent officers to send him perfectly accurate
returns, even to the smallest detail. "When they are sent to me, I
give up every occupation in order to read them in detail, and to
observe the difference between one monthly return and another. No
young girl enjoys her novel as much as I do these returns." Napoleon
left nothing to chance, nothing to contingency, so far as he could
possibly avoid it. Everything was planned to a nicety before he
attempted to execute it.
Wellington, too, was "great in little things." He knew no such things
as trifles. While other generals trusted to subordinates, he gave his
personal attention to the minutest detail. The history of many a
failure could be written in three words, "Lack of detail." How many a
lawyer has failed from the lack of details in deeds and important
papers, the lack of little words which seemed like surplusage, and
which involved his clients in litigation, and often great losses! How
many wills are contested from the carelessness of lawyers in the
omission or shading of words, or ambiguous use of language!
Not even Helen of Troy, it is said, was beautiful enough to spare the
tip of her nose; and if Cleopatra's had been an inch shorter Mark
Antony might never have become infatuated with her wonderful charms,
and the blemish would have changed the history of the world. Anne
Boleyn's fascinating smile split the great Church of Rome in twain, and
gave a nation an altered destiny. Napoleon, who feared not to attack
the proudest monarchs in their capitols, shrank from the political
influence of one independent woman in private life, Madame de Staël.
Cromwell was about to sail for America when a law was passed
prohibiting emigration. At that time he was a profligate, having
squandered all his property. But when he found that he could not leave
England he reformed his life. Had he not been detained, who can tell
what the history of Great Britain would have been?
From the careful and persistent accumulation of innumerable facts, each
trivial in itself, but in the aggregate forming a mass of evidence, a
Darwin extracts his law of evolution, and a Linnaeus constructs the
science of botany. A pan of water and two thermometers were the tools
by which Dr. Black discovered latent heat; and a prism, a lens, and a
sheet of pasteboard enabled Newton to unfold the composition of light
and the origin of colors. An eminent foreign savant called on Dr.
Wollaston, and asked to be shown over those laboratories of his in
which science had been enriched by so many great discoveries, when the
doctor took him into a little study, and, pointing to an old tea tray
on the table, on which stood a few watch glasses, test papers, a small
balance, and a blow-pipe, said, "There is my laboratory." A burnt
stick and a barn door served Wilkie in lieu of pencil and paper. A
single potato, carried to England by Sir Walter Raleigh in the
sixteenth century, has multiplied into food for millions, driving
famine from Ireland again and again.
It seemed a small thing to drive William Brewster, John Robinson, and
the poor people of Austerfield and Scrooby into perpetual exile, but as
Pilgrims they became the founders of a mighty people.
A few immortal sentences from Garrison and Phillips, a few poems from
Lowell and Whittier, and the leaven is at work which will not cease its
action until the whipping-post and bodily servitude are abolished
forever.
"For want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For want of a shoe the horse was lost;
For want of a horse the rider was lost, and all,"
says Poor Richard, "for want of a horseshoe nail."
A single remark dropped by an unknown person in the street led to the
successful story of "The Bread-winners." A hymn chanted by the
barefooted friars in the temple of Jupiter at Rome led to the famous
"Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."
"Words are things" says Byron, "and a small drop of ink, falling like
dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps
millions, think."
"I give these books for the founding of a college in this colony"; such
were the words of ten ministers who in the year 1700 assembled at the
village of Branford, a few miles east of New Haven. Each of the worthy
fathers deposited a few books upon the table around which they were
sitting; such was the founding of Yale College.
Great men are noted for their attention to trifles. Goethe once asked
a monarch to excuse him, during an interview, while he went to an
adjoining room to jot down a stray thought. Hogarth would make
sketches of rare faces and characteristics upon his finger-nails upon
the streets. Indeed, to a truly great mind there are no little things.
Trifles light as air suggest to the keen observer the solution of
mighty problems. Bits of glass arranged to amuse children led to the
discovery of the kaleidoscope. Goodyear discovered how to vulcanize
rubber by forgetting, until it became red hot, a skillet containing a
compound which he had before considered worthless. A ship-worm boring
a piece of wood suggested to Sir Isambard Brunel the idea of a tunnel
under the Thames at London. Tracks of extinct animals in the old red
sandstone led Hugh Miller on and on until he became the greatest
geologist of his time. Sir Walter Scott once saw a shepherd boy
plodding sturdily along, and asked him to ride. This boy was George
Kemp, who became so enthusiastic in his study of sculpture that he
walked fifty miles and back to see a beautiful statue. He did not
forget the kindness of Sir Walter, and, when the latter died, threw his
soul into the design of the magnificent monument erected in Edinburgh
to the memory of the author of "Waverley."
A poor boy applied for a situation at a bank in Paris, but was refused.
As he left the door, he picked up a pin. The bank president saw this,
called the boy back, and gave him a situation from which he rose until
he became the greatest banker of Paris,--Laffitte.
A Massachusetts soldier in the Civil War observed a bird hulling rice,
and shot it; taking its bill for a model, he invented a hulling machine
which has revolutionized the rice business.
The eye is a perpetual camera imprinting upon the sensitive mental
plates and packing away in the brain for future use every face, every
tree, every plant, flower, hill, stream, mountain, every scene upon the
street, in fact, everything which comes within its range. There is a
phonograph in our natures which catches, however thoughtless and
transient, every syllable we utter, and registers forever the slightest
enunciation, and renders it immortal. These notes may appear a
thousand years hence, reproduced in our descendants, in all their
beautiful or terrible detail.
"Least of all seeds, greatest of all harvests," seems to be one of the
great laws of nature. All life comes from microscopic beginnings. In
nature there is nothing small. The microscope reveals as great a world
below as the telescope above. All of nature's laws govern the smallest
atoms, and a single drop of water is a miniature ocean.
The strength of a chain lies in its weakest link, however large and
strong all the others may be. We are all inclined to be proud of our
strong points, while we are sensitive and neglectful of our weaknesses.
Yet it is our greatest weakness which measures our real strength.
A soldier who escapes the bullets of a thousand battles may die from
the scratch of a pin, and many a ship has survived the shocks of
icebergs and the storms of ocean only to founder in a smooth sea from
holes made by tiny insects.
_Small things become great when a great soul sees them_. A single
noble or heroic act of one man has sometimes elevated a nation. Many
an honorable career has resulted from a kind word spoken in season or
the warm grasp of a friendly hand.
It is the little rift within the lute
That by and by will make the music mute,
And, ever widening, slowly silence all.
TENNYSON.
"It was only a glad 'good-morning,'
As she passed along the way,
But it spread the morning's glory
Over the livelong day."
"Only a thought in passing--a smile, or encouraging word,
Has lifted many a burden no other gift could have stirred."