THE WILL AND THE WAY.
"The 'way' will be found by a resolute will."
"I will find a way or make one."
Nothing is impossible to the man who can will.--MIRABEAU.
A politician weakly and amiably in the right is no match for a
politician tenaciously and pugnaciously in the wrong.--E. P. WHIPPLE.
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.
"Man alone can perform the impossible. They can who think they can.
Character is a perfectly educated will."
The education of the will is the object of our existence. For the
resolute and determined there is time and opportunity.--EMERSON.
Invincible determination, and a right nature, are the levers that move
the world.--PRESIDENT PORTER.
In the lexicon of youth which fate reserves for a bright manhood there
is no such word as fail.--BULWER.
Perpetual pushing and assurance put a difficulty out of countenance and
make a seeming difficulty give way.--JEREMY COLLIER.
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.
The star of the unconquered will,
He rises in my breast,
Serene, and resolute and still,
And calm and self-possessed.
LONGFELLOW.
"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.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: WALTER SCOTT]
"The Wizard of the North."
"So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, 'Thou must,'
The youth replies, 'I can.'"
* * * * * *
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 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 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?"
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 it was proposed to unite England and America by steam, Dr. Lardner
delivered a lecture before the Royal Society "proving" that steamers
could never cross the Atlantic, because they could not carry coal
enough to produce steam during the whole voyage. The passage of the
steamship Sirius, which crossed in nineteen days, was fatal to
Lardner's theory. When it was proposed to build a vessel of iron, many
persons said: "Iron sinks--only wood can float:" but experiments proved
that the miracle of the prophet in making iron "swim" could be
repeated, and now not only ships of war, but merchant vessels, are
built of iron or steel. A will found a way to make iron float.
Mr. Ingram, publisher of the "London Illustrated News," who lost his
life on Lake Michigan, walked ten miles to deliver a single paper
rather than disappoint a customer, when he began life as a newsdealer
at Nottingham, England. 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 bird-shot
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. Most youth would
have succumbed to such a misfortune, and would never have been heard
from again. But fortunately for the world, there are yet left many
Fawcetts, many Prescotts, Parkmans, Cavanaghs.
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.
Who can deny that where there is a will, as a rule, there's a way?
When Grant was a boy he could not find "can't" in the dictionary. It
is the men who have no "can't" in their dictionaries that make things
move.
"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 cannot indorse the preposterous 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 by a stubborn will. We merely 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 the obstacles, as
a rule, 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 extraordinary abilities, good
education, good character, and large experience, often have to fight
their way for years to obtain even very ordinary situations. Every one
knows that there are thousands of young men, both in the city and in
the country, of superior ability, 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, and our station in life.
Many young men who are nature's noblemen, who are natural leaders, are
working under superintendents, foremen, and managers infinitely their
inferiors, but whom circumstances have placed above them and will keep
there, unless some emergency makes merit indispensable. No, the race
is not always to the swift.
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 cannot
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; that no amount of sun-staring can ever make an eagle out of a
crow.
The simple truth is that a will strong enough to keep a man continually
striving for things not wholly beyond his powers will carry him in time
very far toward his chosen goal.
The greatest thing a man can do in this world is to make the most
possible out of the stuff that has been given to him. This is success,
and there is no other.
While it is true that our circumstances or environments do affect us,
in most things they do not prevent our growth. The corn that is now
ripe, whence comes it, and what is it? Is it not large or small,
stunted wild maize or well-developed ears, according to the conditions
under which it has grown? Yet its environments cannot make wheat of
it. Nor can our circumstances alter our nature. It is part of our
nature, and wholly within our power, greatly to change and to take
advantage of our circumstances, so that, unlike the corn, we can rise
much superior to our natural surroundings simply because we can thus
vary and improve the surroundings. In other words, man can usually
build the very road on which he is to run his race.
It is not a question of what some one else can do or become, which
every youth should ask himself, but what can I do? How can I develop
myself into the grandest possible manhood?
So far, then, from the power of circumstances being a hindrance to men
in trying to build for themselves an imperial highway to fortune, these
circumstances constitute the very quarry out of which they are to get
paving-stones for the road.
While it is true that the will-power cannot perform miracles, yet that
it is almost omnipotent, that it 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."
"There is nobody," says a Roman Cardinal, "whom Fortune does not visit
once in his life: but when she finds he is not ready to receive her,
she goes in at the door, and out through the window." Opportunity is
coy. The careless, the slow, the unobservant, the lazy fail to see it,
or clutch at it when it has gone. The sharp fellows detect it
instantly, and catch it when on the wing.
Show me a man who is, according to popular prejudice, 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, or conceited,
or trifling; lacks character, enthusiasm, or some other requisite for
success.
Disraeli says that man is not the creature of circumstances, but that
circumstances are the creatures of men.
What has chance ever done in the world? Has it built any cities? Has
it invented any telephones, any telegraphs? Has it built any
steamships, established any universities, any asylums, any hospitals?
Was there any chance in Caesar's crossing the Rubicon? What had chance
to do with Napoleon's career, with Wellington's, or Grant's, or Von
Moltke's? Every battle was won before it was begun. What had luck to
do with Thermopylae, Trafalgar, Gettysburg? Our successes we ascribe
to ourselves; our failures to destiny.
Man is not a helpless atom in this vast creation, with a fixed
position, and naught to do but obey his own polarity.
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 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."
It is only the ignorant and superficial who believe in fate. "The
first step into thought lifts this mountain of necessity." "Fate is
unpenetrated causes." "They may well fear fate who have any infirmity
of habit or aim: but he who rests on what he is has a destiny beyond
destiny, and can make mouths at fortune."
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, "moulds 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. Will makes a
way, even through seeming impossibilities. "It is the half a neck
nearer that shows the blood and wins the race; the one march more that
wins the campaign: the five minutes more of unyielding courage that
wins the fight." Again and again had the irrepressible Carter Harrison
been consigned to oblivion by the educated and moral element of
Chicago. Nothing could keep him down. He was invincible. A son of
Chicago, he had partaken of that nineteenth century miracle, that
phoenix-like nature of the city which, though she was burned, caused
her to rise from her ashes and become a greater and a grander Chicago,
a wonder of the world. Carter Harrison would not down. He entered the
Democratic Convention and, with an audacity rarely equaled, in spite of
their protest, boldly declared himself their candidate. Every
newspaper in Chicago, save the "Times," his own paper, bitterly opposed
his election: but notwithstanding all opposition, he was elected by
twenty thousand majority. The aristocrats hated him, the moral element
feared him, but the poor people believed in him: he pandered to them,
flattered them, till they elected him. While we would not by any means
hold Carter Harrison up to youth as a model, yet there is a great
lesson in his will-power and wonderful tenacity of purpose.
"The general of a large army may be defeated," said Confucius, "but you
cannot 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."
Years ago, a young mechanic took a bath in the river Clyde. While
swimming from shore to shore he discerned a beautiful bank,
uncultivated, and he then and there resolved to be the owner of it, and
to adorn it, and to build upon it the finest mansion in all the
borough, and name it in honor of the maiden to whom he was espoused.
"Last summer," says a well-known American, "I had the pleasure of
dining in that princely mansion, and receiving this fact from the lips
of the great shipbuilder of the Clyde." That one purpose was made the
ruling passion of his life, and all the energies of his soul were put
in requisition for its accomplishment.
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
rudeness of frontier society, 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 hadn't 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. While he
was in the legislature, John F. Stuart, an eminent lawyer of
Springfield, told him how Clay had even inferior chances to his, had
got all of the education he had in a log schoolhouse without windows or
doors; and finally induced Lincoln to study law.
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 strings "in lieu of
a dinner." See young Lord Eldon, before daylight copying Coke on
Littleton over and over again. History is full of such examples. He
who will pay the price for victory needs never fear final defeat. Why
were the Roman legionaries victorious?
"For Romans, in Rome's quarrels,
Spared neither land nor gold,
Nor son, nor wife, nor limb nor life,
In the brave days of old."
Fowell Buxton, writing to one of his sons, says: "I am sure that a
young man may be very much what he pleases."
Dr. Mathews has well said that "there is hardly a word in the whole
human vocabulary which is more cruelly abused than the word 'luck.' To
all the faults and failures of men, their positive sins and their less
culpable shortcomings, it is made to stand a godfather and sponsor. Go
talk with the bankrupt man of business, who has swamped his fortune by
wild speculation, extravagance of living, or lack of energy, and you
will find that he vindicates his wonderful self-love by confounding the
steps which he took indiscreetly with those to which he was forced by
'circumstances,' and complacently regarding himself as the victim of
ill-luck. Go visit the incarcerated criminal, who has imbued his hands
in the blood of his fellow-man, or who is guilty of less heinous
crimes, and you will find that, joining the temptations which were easy
to avoid with those which were comparatively irresistible, he has
hurriedly patched up a treaty with conscience, and stifles its
compunctious visitings by persuading himself that, from first to last,
he was the victim of circumstances. Go talk with the mediocre in
talents and attainments, the weak-spirited man who, from lack of energy
and application, has made but little headway in the world, being
outstripped in the race of life by those whom he had despised as his
inferiors, and you will find that he, too, acknowledges the all-potent
power of luck, and soothes his humbled pride by deeming himself the
victim of ill-fortune. In short, from the most venial offense to the
most flagrant, there is hardly any wrong act or neglect to which this
too fatally convenient word is not applied as a palliation."
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, then conquered Europe.
What a lesson is Napoleon's life for the sickly, wishy-washy, dwarfed,
sentimental "dudes," hanging about our cities, country, and
universities, complaining of their hard lot, dreaming of success, and
wondering why they are left in the rear in the great race of life.
Success in life is dependent largely upon the willpower, 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, not the power to produce."
It was this 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 could daunt him, and in six months' time he actually 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 need 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. His
coming to Philadelphia seemed a lucky accident. A sloop was seen one
morning off the mouth of Delaware Bay floating the flag of France and a
signal of distress. Young Girard was captain of this sloop, and was on
his way to a Canadian port with freight from New Orleans. An American
skipper, seeing his distress, went to his aid, but told him the
American war had broken out, and that the British cruisers were all
along the American coast, and would seize his vessel. He told him his
only chance was to make a push for Philadelphia. Girard did not know
the way, and had no money. The skipper loaned him five dollars to get
the service of a pilot who demanded his money in advance.
His sloop passed into the Delaware just in time to avoid capture by a
British war vessel. He sold the sloop and cargo in Philadelphia, and
began business on the capital. 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 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. In 1780, he resumed the
New Orleans and St. Domingo trade, in which he had been engaged at the
breaking out of the Revolution. Here great success again attended him.
He had two vessels lying in one of the St. Domingo ports when the great
insurrection on that island broke out. A number of the rich planters
fled to his vessels with their valuables, which they left for safe
keeping while they went back to their estates to secure more. They
probably fell victims to the cruel negroes, for they never returned,
and Girard was the lucky possessor of $50,000 which the goods brought
in Philadephia.
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. 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 instruction from which they were never
allowed to deviate under any circumstances, 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. Once, when a captain
returned and had saved him several thousand dollars by buying his cargo
of cheese in another port than that in which he had been instructed to
buy, Girard was so enraged, although he was several thousand dollars
richer, that he discharged the captain on the spot, notwithstanding the
latter had been faithful in his service for many years, and thought he
was saving his employer a great deal of money by deviating from his
instructions.
Girard lived in a dingy little house, poorer than that occupied by many
of his employees. He married a servant girl of great beauty, but she
proved totally unfitted for him, and died at last in the insane asylum.
Girard never lost a ship, and many times what brought financial ruin to
many others, as the War of 1812, only increased his wealth. 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.
Luck is not God's price for success: that is altogether too cheap, nor
does he dicker with men.
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. What is luck? Is it, as
has been suggested, a blind man's buff among the laws? a ruse among the
elements? a trick of Dame Nature? Has any scholar defined luck? any
philosopher explained its nature? any chemist shown its composition?
Is luck that strange, nondescript fairy, that does all things among men
that they cannot account for? If so, why does not luck make a fool
speak words of wisdom; an ignoramus utter lectures on philosophy?
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, a determination which knows
no defeat, a decision which never wavers, a concentration which never
scatters its forces, courage which never falters, a self-mastery which
can say No, and stick to it, an "ignominious love of detail," 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, manager's and
superintendent's 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 the man who fails, as a rule, 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.
"If Eric's in robust health, and has slept well, and is at the top of
his condition, and thirty years old at his departure from Greenland,"
says Emerson, "he will steer west and his ships will reach
Newfoundland. But take Eric out and put in a stronger and bolder man,
and the ships will sail six hundred, one thousand, fifteen hundred
miles further, and reach Labrador and New England. There is no chance
in results." Obstacles tower before the living man like mountain
chains, stopping his path and hindering his progress. He surmounts
them by his energy. He makes a new path over them. He climbs upon
them to mountain heights. They cannot stop him. They do not much
delay him. He transmutes difficulties into power, and makes temporary
failures into stepping-stones to ultimate success.
How many might have been giants who are only dwarfs. How many a one
has died "with all his music in him."
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 an
enormous liability. "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, if he has perseverance and grit, is sure 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. Hunger breaks through stone walls; stern necessity will find a
way or make one.
Success is also a great physical as well as mental tonic, and tends to
strengthen the will-power. Dr. Johnson says: "Resolutions and success
reciprocally produce each other." Strong-willed men, as a rule, are
successful men, and great success is almost impossible without it.
A man who can resolve vigorously upon a course of action, and turns
neither to the right nor the left, though a paradise tempt him, who
keeps his eyes upon the goal, whatever distracts him, is sure of
success. We could almost classify successes and failures by their
various degrees of will-power. Men like Sir James Mackintosh,
Coleridge, La Harpe, and many others who have dazzled the world with
their brilliancy, but who never accomplished a tithe of what they
attempted, who were always raising our expectations that they were
about to perform wonderful deeds, but who accomplished nothing worthy
of their abilities, have been deficient in will-power. One talent with
a will behind it will accomplish more than ten without it. The great
linguist of Bologna mastered a hundred languages by taking them singly,
as the lion fought the bulls.
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 also. 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. "Whatever you wish, that you are; for such is the force of the
human will, joined to the Divine, that whatever we wish to be
seriously, and with a true intention, that we become." While this is
not strictly true, yet there is a deal of truth in it.
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. "We have but what we make, and every good is
locked by nature in a granite hand, sheer labor must unclench."
What cares Henry L. Bulwer for the suffocating cough, even though he
can scarcely speak above a whisper? In the House of Commons he makes
his immortal speech on the Irish Church just the same.
"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. What chance is there in this
crowding, pushing, selfish, greedy world, where everything is pusher or
pushed, for a young man with no will, no grip 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
'T is that compels the elements and wrings
A human music from the indifferent air."