[Picture: Cover (somewhat battered)]
SELF HELP
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS OF
CONDUCT AND PERSEVERANCE.
* * * * *
BY SAMUEL SMILES, LL.D.,
AUTHOR OF “LIVES OF THE ENGINEERS,” ETC.
* * * * *
“This above all,—To thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Then canst not then be false to any man.”
SHAKESPEARE.
“Might I give counsel to any young man, I would say to him, try
to frequent the company of your betters. In books and in life,
that is the most wholesome society; learn to admire rightly; the
great pleasure of life is that. Note what great men admired;
they admired great things; narrow spirits admire basely and
worship meanly.”—W. M. THACKERAY.
* * * * *
POPULAR EDITION.
* * * * *
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1897.
PREFACE.
THIS is a revised edition of a book which has already been received with
considerable favour at home and abroad. It has been reprinted in various
forms in America; translations have appeared in Dutch and French, and
others are about to appear in German and Danish. The book has,
doubtless, proved attractive to readers in different countries by reason
of the variety of anecdotal illustrations of life and character which it
contains, and the interest which all more or less feel in the labours,
the trials, the struggles, and the achievements of others. No one can be
better aware than the author, of its fragmentary character, arising from
the manner in which it was for the most part originally composed,—having
been put together principally from jottings made during many
years,—intended as readings for young men, and without any view to
publication. The appearance of this edition has furnished an opportunity
for pruning the volume of some superfluous matter, and introducing
various new illustrations, which will probably be found of general
interest.
In one respect the title of the book, which it is now too late to alter,
has proved unfortunate, as it has led some, who have judged it merely by
the title, to suppose that it consists of a eulogy of selfishness: the
very opposite of what it really is,—or at least of what the author
intended it to be. Although its chief object unquestionably is to
stimulate youths to apply themselves diligently to right
pursuits,—sparing neither labour, pains, nor self-denial in prosecuting
them,—and to rely upon their own efforts in life, rather than depend upon
the help or patronage of others, it will also be found, from the examples
given of literary and scientific men, artists, inventors, educators,
philanthropists, missionaries, and martyrs, that the duty of helping
one’s self in the highest sense involves the helping of one’s neighbours.
It has also been objected to the book that too much notice is taken in it
of men who have succeeded in life by helping themselves, and too little
of the multitude of men who have failed. “Why should not Failure,” it
has been asked, “have its Plutarch as well as Success?” There is,
indeed, no reason why Failure should not have its Plutarch, except that a
record of mere failure would probably be found excessively depressing as
well as uninstructive reading. It is, however, shown in the following
pages that Failure is the best discipline of the true worker, by
stimulating him to renewed efforts, evoking his best powers, and carrying
him onward in self-culture, self-control, and growth in knowledge and
wisdom. Viewed in this light, Failure, conquered by Perseverance, is
always full of interest and instruction, and this we have endeavoured to
illustrate by many examples.
As for Failure _per se_, although it may be well to find consolations for
it at the close of life, there is reason to doubt whether it is an object
that ought to be set before youth at the beginning of it. Indeed, “how
_not_ to do it” is of all things the easiest learnt: it needs neither
teaching, effort, self-denial, industry, patience, perseverance, nor
judgment. Besides, readers do not care to know about the general who
lost his battles, the engineer whose engines blew up, the architect who
designed only deformities, the painter who never got beyond daubs, the
schemer who did not invent his machine, the merchant who could not keep
out of the Gazette. It is true, the best of men may fail, in the best of
causes. But even these best of men did not try to fail, or regard their
failure as meritorious; on the contrary, they tried to succeed, and
looked upon failure as misfortune. Failure in any good cause is,
however, honourable, whilst success in any bad cause is merely infamous.
At the same time success in the good cause is unquestionably better than
failure. But it is not the result in any case that is to be regarded so
much as the aim and the effort, the patience, the courage, and the
endeavour with which desirable and worthy objects are pursued;—
“’Tis not in mortals to command success;
We will do more—deserve it.”
The object of the book briefly is, to re-inculcate these old-fashioned
but wholesome lessons—which perhaps cannot be too often urged,—that youth
must work in order to enjoy,—that nothing creditable can be accomplished
without application and diligence,—that the student must not be daunted
by difficulties, but conquer them by patience and perseverance,—and that,
above all, he must seek elevation of character, without which capacity is
worthless and worldly success is naught. If the author has not succeeded
in illustrating these lessons, he can only say that he has failed in his
object.
Among the new passages introduced in the present edition, may be
mentioned the following:—Illustrious Foreigners of humble origin (pp.
10–12), French Generals and Marshals risen from the ranks (14), De
Tocqueville and Mutual Help (24), William Lee, M.A., and the
Stocking-loom (42), John Heathcoat, M.P., and the Bobbin-net machine
(47), Jacquard and his Loom (55), Vaucanson (58), Joshua Heilmann and the
Combing-machine (62), Bernard Palissy and his struggles (69), Böttgher,
discoverer of Hard Porcelain (80), Count de Buffon as Student (104),
Cuvier (128), Ambrose Paré (134), Claud Lorraine (160), Jacques Callot
(162), Benvenuto Cellini (164), Nicholas Poussin (168), Ary Scheffer
(171), the Strutts of Belper (214), Francis Xavier (238), Napoleon as a
man of business (276), Intrepidity of Deal Boatmen (400), besides
numerous other passages which it is unnecessary to specify.
_London_, _May_, 1866.
INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION.
THE origin of this book may be briefly told.
Some fifteen years since, the author was requested to deliver an address
before the members of some evening classes, which had been formed in a
northern town for mutual improvement, under the following circumstances:—
Two or three young men of the humblest rank resolved to meet in the
winter evenings, for the purpose of improving themselves by exchanging
knowledge with each other. Their first meetings were held in the room of
a cottage in which one of the members lived; and, as others shortly
joined them, the place soon became inconveniently filled. When summer
set in, they adjourned to the cottage garden outside; and the classes
were then held in the open air, round a little boarded hut used as a
garden-house, in which those who officiated as teachers set the sums, and
gave forth the lessons of the evening. When the weather was fine, the
youths might be seen, until a late hour, hanging round the door of the
hut like a cluster of bees; but sometimes a sudden shower of rain would
dash the sums from their slates, and disperse them for the evening
unsatisfied.
Winter, with its cold nights, was drawing near, and what were they to do
for shelter? Their numbers had by this time so increased, that no room
of an ordinary cottage could accommodate them. Though they were for the
most part young men earning comparatively small weekly wages, they
resolved to incur the risk of hiring a room; and, on making inquiry, they
found a large dingy apartment to let, which had been used as a temporary
Cholera Hospital. No tenant could be found for the place, which was
avoided as if the plague still clung to it. But the mutual improvement
youths, nothing daunted, hired the cholera room at so much a week, lit it
up, placed a few benches and a deal table in it, and began their winter
classes. The place soon presented a busy and cheerful appearance in the
evenings. The teaching may have been, as no doubt it was, of a very rude
and imperfect sort; but it was done with a will. Those who knew a little
taught those who knew less—improving themselves while they improved the
others; and, at all events, setting before them a good working example.
Thus these youths—and there were also grown men amongst them—proceeded to
teach themselves and each other, reading and writing, arithmetic and
geography; and even mathematics, chemistry, and some of the modern
languages.
About a hundred young men had thus come together, when, growing
ambitious, they desired to have lectures delivered to them; and then it
was that the author became acquainted with their proceedings. A party of
them waited on him, for the purpose of inviting him to deliver an
introductory address, or, as they expressed it, “to talk to them a bit;”
prefacing the request by a modest statement of what they had done and
what they were doing. He could not fail to be touched by the admirable
self-helping spirit which they had displayed; and, though entertaining
but slight faith in popular lecturing, he felt that a few words of
encouragement, honestly and sincerely uttered, might not be without some
good effect. And in this spirit he addressed them on more than one
occasion, citing examples of what other men had done, as illustrations of
what each might, in a greater or less degree, do for himself; and
pointing out that their happiness and well-being as individuals in after
life, must necessarily depend mainly upon themselves—upon their own
diligent self-culture, self-discipline, and self-control—and, above all,
on that honest and upright performance of individual duty, which is the
glory of manly character.
There was nothing in the slightest degree new or original in this
counsel, which was as old as the Proverbs of Solomon, and possibly quite
as familiar. But old-fashioned though the advice may have been, it was
welcomed. The youths went forward in their course; worked on with energy
and resolution; and, reaching manhood, they went forth in various
directions into the world, where many of them now occupy positions of
trust and usefulness. Several years after the incidents referred to, the
subject was unexpectedly recalled to the author’s recollection by an
evening visit from a young man—apparently fresh from the work of a
foundry—who explained that he was now an employer of labour and a
thriving man; and he was pleased to remember with gratitude the words
spoken in all honesty to him and to his fellow-pupils years before, and
even to attribute some measure of his success in life to the endeavours
which he had made to work up to their spirit.
The author’s personal interest having in this way been attracted to the
subject of Self-Help, he was accustomed to add to the memoranda from
which he had addressed these young men; and to note down occasionally in
his leisure evening moments, after the hours of business, the results of
such reading, observation, and experience of life, as he conceived to
bear upon it. One of the most prominent illustrations cited in his
earlier addresses, was that of George Stephenson, the engineer; and the
original interest of the subject, as well as the special facilities and
opportunities which the author possessed for illustrating Mr.
Stephenson’s life and career, induced him to prosecute it at his leisure,
and eventually to publish his biography. The present volume is written
in a similar spirit, as it has been similar in its origin. The
illustrative sketches of character introduced, are, however, necessarily
less elaborately treated—being busts rather than full-length portraits,
and, in many of the cases, only some striking feature has been noted; the
lives of individuals, as indeed of nations, often concentrating their
lustre and interest in a few passages. Such as the book is, the author
now leaves it in the hands of the reader; in the hope that the lessons of
industry, perseverance, and self-culture, which it contains, will be
found useful and instructive, as well as generally interesting.
_London_, _September_, 1859.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
SELF-HELP—NATIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL.
Spirit of Self-Help—Institutions and men—Government a Page
reflex of the individualism of a nation—Cæsarism and 1–26
Self-Help—William Dargan on Independence—Patient
labourers in all ranks—Self-Help a feature in the
English character—Power of example and of work in
practical education—Value of biographies—Great men
belong to no exclusive class or rank—Illustrious men
sprung from the ranks—Shakespeare—Various humble
origin of many eminent men—Distinguished
astronomers—Eminent sons of clergymen—Of
attorneys—Illustrious foreigners of humble
origin—Vauquelin, the chemist—Promotions from the
ranks in the French army—Instances of persevering
application and energy—Joseph Brotherton—W. J. Fox—W.
S. Lindsay—William Jackson—Richard Cobden—Diligence
indispensable to usefulness and distinction—The
wealthier ranks not all idlers—Examples—Military
men—Philosophers—Men of science—Politicians—Literary
men—Sir Robert Peel—Lord
Brougham—Lytton—Disraeli—Wordsworth on
self-reliance—De Tocqueville: his industry and
recognition of the help of others—Men their own best
helpers
CHAPTER II.
LEADERS OF INDUSTRY—INVENTORS AND PRODUCERS.
Industry of the English people—Work the best 27–66
educator—Hugh Miller—Poverty and toil not
insurmountable obstacles—Working men as
inventors—Invention of the steam-engine—James Watt:
his industry and habit of attention—Matthew
Boulton—Applications of the steam-engine—The Cotton
manufacture—The early inventors—Paul and
Highs—Arkwright: his early life—Barber, inventor and
manufacturer—His influence and character—The Peels of
South Lancashire—The founder of the family—The first
Sir Robert Peel, cotton-printer—Lady Peel—Rev. William
Lee, inventor of the stocking-frame—Dies abroad in
misery—James Lee—The Nottingham lace manufacture—John
Heathcoat, inventor of the bobbin-net machine—His
early life, his ingenuity, and plodding
perseverance—Invention of his machine—Anecdote of Lord
Lyndhurst—Progress of the lace-trade—Heathcoat’s
machines destroyed by the Luddites—His
character—Jacquard: his inventions and
adventures—Vaucanson: his mechanical genius,
improvements in silk manufacture—Jacquard improves
Vaucanson’s machine—The Jacquard loom adopted—Joshua
Heilmann, inventor of the combing-machine—History of
the invention—Its value
CHAPTER III.
THREE GREAT POTTERS—PALLISSY, BÖTTGHER, WEDGWOOD.
Ancient pottery—Etruscan ware—Luca della Robbia, the 67–93
Florentine sculptor: re-discovers the art of
enamelling—Bernard Pallissy: sketch of his life and
labours—Inflamed by the sight of an Italian cup—His
search after the secret of the enamel—His experiments
during years of unproductive toil—His personal and
family privations—Indomitable perseverance, burns his
furniture to heat the furnace, and success at
last—Reduced to destitution—Condemned to death, and
release—His writings—Dies in the Bastille—John
Frederick Böttgher, the Berlin ‘gold cook’—His trick
in alchemy and consequent troubles—Flight into
Saxony—His detention at Dresden—Discovers how to make
red and white porcelain—The manufacture taken up by
the Saxon Government—Böttgher treated as a prisoner
and a slave—His unhappy end—The Sèvres porcelain
manufactory—Josiah Wedgwood, the English potter—Early
state of English earthenware manufacture—Wedgwood’s
indefatigable industry, skill, and perseverance—His
success—The Barberini vase—Wedgwood a national
benefactor—Industrial heroes
CHAPTER IV.
APPLICATION AND PERSEVERANCE.
Great results attained by simple means—Fortune favours 94–117
the industrious—“Genius is patience”—Newton and
Kepler—Industry of eminent men—Power acquired by
repeated effort—Anecdote of Sir Robert Peel’s
cultivation of memory—Facility comes by
practice—Importance of patience—Cheerfulness—Sydney
Smith—Dr. Hook—Hope an important element in
character—Carey the missionary—Anecdote of Dr.
Young—Anecdote of Audubon the ornithologist—Anecdote
of Mr. Carlyle and his MS. of the ‘French
Revolution’—Perseverance of Watt and
Stephenson—Perseverance displayed in the discovery of
the Nineveh marbles by Rawlinson and Layard—Comte de
Buffon as student—His continuous and unremitting
labours—Sir Walter Scott’s perseverance—John
Britton—Loudon—Samuel Drew—Joseph Hume
CHAPTER V.
HELPS AND OPPORTUNITIES—SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS.
No great result achieved by accident—Newton’s 118–153
discoveries—Dr. Young—Habit of observing with
intelligence—Galileo—Inventions of Brown, Watt, and
Brunel, accidentally suggested—Philosophy in little
things—Apollonius Pergæus and conic sections—Franklin
and Galvani—Discovery of steam power—Opportunities
seized or made—Simple and rude tools of great
workers—Lee and Stone’s opportunities for learning—Sir
Walter Scott’s—Dr. Priestly—Sir Humphry
Davy—Faraday—Davy and Coleridge—Cuvier—Dalton’s
industry—Examples of improvement of time—Daguesseau
and Bentham—Melancthon and Baxter—Writing down
observations—Great note-makers—Dr. Pye Smith—John
Hunter: his patient study of little things—His great
labours—Ambrose Paré the French
surgeon—Harvey—Jenner—Sir Charles Bell—Dr. Marshall
Hall—Sir William Herschel—William Smith the geologist:
his discoveries, his geological map—Hugh Miller: his
observant faculties—John Brown and Robert Dick,
geologists—Sir Roderick Murchison, his industry and
attainments
CHAPTER VI.
WORKERS IN ART.
Sir Joshua Reynolds on the power of industry in 154–201
art—Humble origin of eminent artists—Acquisition of
wealth not the ruling motive with artists—Michael
Angelo on riches—Patient labours of Michael Angelo and
Titian—West’s early success a disadvantage—Richard
Wilson and Zuccarelli—Sir Joshua Reynolds, Blake,
Bird, Gainsborough, and Hogarth, as boy
artists—Hogarth a keen observer—Banks and
Mulready—Claude Lorraine and Turner: their
indefatigable industry—Perrier and Jacques Callot and
their visits to Rome—Callot and the gipsies—Benvenuto
Cellini, goldsmith and musician: his ambition to
excel—Casting of his statue of Perseus—Nicolas
Poussin, a sedulous student and
worker—Duquesnoi—Poussin’s fame—Ary Scheffer: his
hindrances and success—John Flaxman: his genius and
perseverance—His brave wife—Their visit to
Rome—Francis Chantrey: his industry and energy—David
Wilkie and William Etty, unflagging workers—Privations
endured by artists—Martin—Pugin—George Kemp, architect
of the Scott monument—John Gibson, Robert Thorburn,
Noel Paton—James Sharples the blacksmith artist: his
autobiography—Industry of musicians—Handel, Haydn,
Beethoven, Bach, Meyerbeer—Dr. Arne—William Jackson
the self-taught composer
CHAPTER VII.
INDUSTRY AND THE PEERAGE.
The peerage fed from the industrial ranks—Fall of old 202–222
families: Bohuns, Mortimers, and Plantagenets—The
peerage comparatively modern—Peerages originating with
traders and merchants—Richard Foley, nailmaker,
founder of the Foley peerage—Adventurous career of
William Phipps, founder of the Normanby peerage: his
recovery of sunken treasure—Sir William Petty, founder
of the Lansdowne peerage—Jedediah Strutt, founder of
the Belper peerage—William and Edward Strutt—Naval and
Military peers—Peerages founded by lawyers—Lords
Tenterden and Campbell—Lord Eldon: his early struggles
and eventual success—Baron Langdale—Rewards of
perseverance
CHAPTER VIII.
ENERGY AND COURAGE.
Energy characteristic of the Teutonic race—The 223–262
foundations of strength of character—Force of
purpose—Concentration—Courageous working—Words of Hugh
Miller and Fowell Buxton—Power and freedom of
will—Words of Lamennais—Suwarrow—Napoleon and
“glory”—Wellington and “duty”—Promptitude in
action—Energy displayed by the British in India—Warren
Hastings—Sir Charles Napier: his adventure with the
Indian swordsman—The rebellion in India—The
Lawrences—Nicholson—The siege of Delhi—Captain
Hodson—Missionary labourers—Francis Xavier’s missions
in the East—John Williams—Dr. Livingstone—John
Howard—Jonas Hanway: his career—The philanthropic
labours of Granville Sharp—Position of slaves in
England—Result of Sharp’s efforts—Clarkson’s
labours—Fowell Buxton: his resolute purpose and
energy—Abolition of slavery
CHAPTER IX.
MEN OF BUSINESS.
Hazlitt’s definition of the man of business—The chief 263–289
requisite qualities—Men of genius men of
business—Shakespeare, Chaucer, Spenser, Milton,
Newton, Cowper, Wordsworth, Scott, Ricardo, Grote, J.
S. Mill—Labour and application necessary to
success—Lord Melbourne’s advice—The school of
difficulty a good school—Conditions of success in
Law—The industrious architect—The salutary influence
of work—Consequences of contempt for arithmetic—Dr.
Johnson on the alleged injustice of “the
world”—Washington Irving’s views—Practical qualities
necessary in business—Importance of accuracy—Charles
James Fox—Method—Richard Cecil and De Witt: their
despatch of business—Value of time—Sir Walter Scott’s
advice—Promptitude—Economy of
time—Punctuality—Firmness—Tact—Napoleon and Wellington
as men of business—Napoleon’s attention to details—The
‘Napoleon Correspondence’—Wellington’s business
faculty—Wellington in the Peninsula—“Honesty the best
policy”—Trade tries character—Dishonest gains—David
Barclay a model man of business
CHAPTER X.
MONEY—ITS USE AND ABUSE.
The right use of money a test of wisdom—The virtue of 290–313
self-denial—Self-imposed taxes—Economy necessary to
independence—Helplessness of the improvident—Frugality
an important public question—Counsels of Richard
Cobden and John Bright—The bondage of the
improvident—Independence attainable by working
men—Francis Horner’s advice from his father—Robert
Burns—Living within the means—Bacon’s
maxim—Wasters—Running into debt—Haydon’s
debts—Fichte—Dr. Johnson on debt—John Locke—The Duke
of Wellington on debt—Washington—Earl St. Vincent: his
protested bill—Joseph Hume on living too high—Ambition
after gentility—Napier’s order to his officers in
India—Resistance to temptation—Hugh Miller’s case—High
standard of life necessary—Proverbs on money-making
and thrift—Thomas Wright and the reclamation of
criminals—Mere money-making—John Foster—Riches no
proof of worth—All honest industry honourable—The
power of money over-estimated—Joseph Brotherton—True
Respectability—Lord Collingwood
CHAPTER XI.
SELF-CULTURE—FACILITIES AND DIFFICULTIES.
Sir W. Scott and Sir B. Brodie on self-culture—Dr. 314–359
Arnold’s spirit—Active employment salutary—Malthus’s
advice to his son—Importance of physical
health—Hodson, of “Hodson’s Horse”—Dr. Channing—Early
labour—Training in use of tools—Healthiness of great
men—Sir Walter Scott’s athletic sports—Barrow, Fuller,
Clarke—Labour conquers all things—Words of Chatterton,
Ferguson, Stone, Drew—Well-directed labour—Opinions of
Sir Joshua Reynolds, Fowell Buxton, Dr. Ross, F.
Horner, Loyola, and Lord St. Leonards—Thoroughness,
accuracy, decision, and promptitude—The virtue of
patient labour—The mischievous effects of “cramming”
in labour-saving processes and multifarious
reading—The right use of knowledge—Books may impart
learning, but well-applied knowledge and experience
only exhibit wisdom—The Magna Charta men—Brindley,
Stephenson, Hunter, and others, not book-learned yet
great—Self-respect—Jean Paul Richter—Knowledge as a
means of rising—Base views of the value of
knowledge—Ideas of Bacon and Southey—Douglas Jerrold
on comic literature—Danger of immoderate love of
pleasure—Benjamin Constant: his high thinking and low
living—Thierry: his noble character—Coleridge and
Southey—Robert Nicoll on Coleridge—Charles James Fox
on perseverance—The wisdom and strength acquired
through failure—Hunter, Rossini, Davy, Mendelssohn—The
uses of difficulty and adversity—Lyndhurst,
D’Alembert, Carissimi, Reynolds, and Henry Clay on
persistency—Curran on honest poverty—Struggles with
difficulties: Alexander Murray, William Chambers,
Cobbet—The French stonemason turned Professor—Sir
Samuel Romilly as a self-cultivator—John Leyden’s
perseverance—Professor Lee: his perseverance and his
attainments as a linguist—Late learners: Spelman,
Franklin, Dryden, Scott, Boccaccio, Arnold, and
others—Illustrious dunces: Generals Grant, Stonewall
Jackson, John Howard, Davy, and others—Story of a
dunce—Success depends on perseverance
CHAPTER XII.
EXAMPLE—MODELS.
Example a potent instructor—Influence of 360–381
conduct—Parental example—All acts have their train of
consequences—Disraeli on Cobden—Words of Babbage—Human
responsibility—Every person owes a good example to
others—Doing, not saying—Mrs. Chisholm—Dr. Guthrie and
John Pounds—Good models of conduct—The company of our
betters—Francis Horner’s views on personal
intercourse—The Marquis of Lansdowne and
Malesherbes—Fowell Buxton and the Gurney
family—Personal influence of John Sterling—Influence
of artistic genius upon others—Example of the brave an
inspiration to the timid—Biography valuable as forming
high models of character—Lives influenced by
biography—Romilly, Franklin, Drew, Alfieri, Loyola,
Wolff, Horner, Reynolds—Examples of cheerfulness—Dr.
Arnold’s influence over others—Career of Sir John
Sinclair
CHAPTER XIII.
CHARACTER—THE TRUE GENTLEMAN.
Character a man’s best possession—Character of Francis 382–408
Horner—Franklin—Character is power—The higher
qualities of character—Lord Erskine’s rules of
conduct—A high standard of life
necessary—Truthfulness—Wellington’s character of
Peel—Be what you seem—Integrity and honesty of
action—Importance of habits—Habits constitute
character—Growth of habit in youth—Words of Robertson
of Brighton—Manners and morals—Civility and
kindness—Anecdote of Abernethy—True
politeness—Great-hearted men of no exclusive rank or
class—William and Charles Grant, the “Brothers
Cheeryble”—The true gentleman—Lord Edward
Fitzgerald—Honour, probity, rectitude—The gentleman
will not be bribed—Anecdotes of Hanway, Wellington,
Wellesley, and Sir C. Napier—The poor in purse may be
rich in spirit—A noble peasant—Intrepidity of Deal
boatmen—Anecdotes of the Emperor of Austria and of two
English navvies—Truth makes the success of the
gentleman—Courage and gentleness—Gentlemen in
India—Outram, Henry Lawrence—Lord Clyde—The private
soldiers at Agra—The wreck of the _Birkenhead_—Use of
power, the test of the Gentleman—Sir Ralph
Abercrombie—Fuller’s character of Sir Francis Drake
CHAPTER I.
SELF-HELP—NATIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL.
“The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the
individuals composing it.”—_J. S. Mill_.
“We put too much faith in systems, and look too little to men.”—_B.
Disraeli_.
“HEAVEN helps those who help themselves” is a well-tried maxim, embodying
in a small compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of
self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and,
exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of
national vigour and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in
its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is
done _for_ men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus
and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to
over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render
them comparatively helpless.
Even the best institutions can give a man no active help. Perhaps the
most they can do is, to leave him free to develop himself and improve his
individual condition. But in all times men have been prone to believe
that their happiness and well-being were to be secured by means of
institutions rather than by their own conduct. Hence the value of
legislation as an agent in human advancement has usually been much
over-estimated. To constitute the millionth part of a Legislature, by
voting for one or two men once in three or five years, however
conscientiously this duty may be performed, can exercise but little
active influence upon any man’s life and character. Moreover, it is
every day becoming more clearly understood, that the function of
Government is negative and restrictive, rather than positive and active;
being resolvable principally into protection—protection of life, liberty,
and property. Laws, wisely administered, will secure men in the
enjoyment of the fruits of their labour, whether of mind or body, at a
comparatively small personal sacrifice; but no laws, however stringent,
can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken
sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means of individual action,
economy, and self-denial; by better habits, rather than by greater
rights.
The Government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the reflex
of the individuals composing it. The Government that is ahead of the
people will inevitably be dragged down to their level, as the Government
that is behind them will in the long run be dragged up. In the order of
nature, the collective character of a nation will as surely find its
befitting results in its law and government, as water finds its own
level. The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and
corrupt ignobly. Indeed all experience serves to prove that the worth
and strength of a State depend far less upon the form of its institutions
than upon the character of its men. For the nation is only an aggregate
of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of
the personal improvement of the men, women, and children of whom society
is composed.
National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and
uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness,
and vice. What we are accustomed to decry as great social evils, will,
for the most part, be found to be but the outgrowth of man’s own
perverted life; and though we may endeavour to cut them down and
extirpate them by means of Law, they will only spring up again with fresh
luxuriance in some other form, unless the conditions of personal life and
character are radically improved. If this view be correct, then it
follows that the highest patriotism and philanthropy consist, not so much
in altering laws and modifying institutions, as in helping and
stimulating men to elevate and improve themselves by their own free and
independent individual action.
It may be of comparatively little consequence how a man is governed from
without, whilst everything depends upon how he governs himself from
within. The greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a despot, great
though that evil be, but he who is the thrall of his own moral ignorance,
selfishness, and vice. Nations who are thus enslaved at heart cannot be
freed by any mere changes of masters or of institutions; and so long as
the fatal delusion prevails, that liberty solely depends upon and
consists in government, so long will such changes, no matter at what cost
they may be effected, have as little practical and lasting result as the
shifting of the figures in a phantasmagoria. The solid foundations of
liberty must rest upon individual character; which is also the only sure
guarantee for social security and national progress. John Stuart Mill
truly observes that “even despotism does not produce its worst effects so
long as individuality exists under it; and whatever crushes individuality
_is_ despotism, by whatever name it be called.”
Old fallacies as to human progress are constantly turning up. Some call
for Cæsars, others for Nationalities, and others for Acts of Parliament.
We are to wait for Cæsars, and when they are found, “happy the people who
recognise and follow them.” {4} This doctrine shortly means, everything
_for_ the people, nothing _by_ them,—a doctrine which, if taken as a
guide, must, by destroying the free conscience of a community, speedily
prepare the way for any form of despotism. Cæsarism is human idolatry in
its worst form—a worship of mere power, as degrading in its effects as
the worship of mere wealth would be. A far healthier doctrine to
inculcate among the nations would be that of Self-Help; and so soon as it
is thoroughly understood and carried into action, Cæsarism will be no
more. The two principles are directly antagonistic; and what Victor Hugo
said of the Pen and the Sword alike applies to them, “Ceci tuera cela.”
[This will kill that.]
The power of Nationalities and Acts of Parliament is also a prevalent
superstition. What William Dargan, one of Ireland’s truest patriots,
said at the closing of the first Dublin Industrial Exhibition, may well
be quoted now. “To tell the truth,” he said, “I never heard the word
independence mentioned that my own country and my own fellow townsmen did
not occur to my mind. I have heard a great deal about the independence
that we were to get from this, that, and the other place, and of the
great expectations we were to have from persons from other countries
coming amongst us. Whilst I value as much as any man the great
advantages that must result to us from that intercourse, I have always
been deeply impressed with the feeling that our industrial independence
is dependent upon ourselves. I believe that with simple industry and
careful exactness in the utilization of our energies, we never had a
fairer chance nor a brighter prospect than the present. We have made a
step, but perseverance is the great agent of success; and if we but go on
zealously, I believe in my conscience that in a short period we shall
arrive at a position of equal comfort, of equal happiness, and of equal
independence, with that of any other people.”
All nations have been made what they are by the thinking and the working
of many generations of men. Patient and persevering labourers in all
ranks and conditions of life, cultivators of the soil and explorers of
the mine, inventors and discoverers, manufacturers, mechanics and
artisans, poets, philosophers, and politicians, all have contributed
towards the grand result, one generation building upon another’s labours,
and carrying them forward to still higher stages. This constant
succession of noble workers—the artisans of civilisation—has served to
create order out of chaos in industry, science, and art; and the living
race has thus, in the course of nature, become the inheritor of the rich
estate provided by the skill and industry of our forefathers, which is
placed in our hands to cultivate, and to hand down, not only unimpaired
but improved, to our successors.
The spirit of self-help, as exhibited in the energetic action of
individuals, has in all times been a marked feature in the English
character, and furnishes the true measure of our power as a nation.
Rising above the heads of the mass, there were always to be found a
series of individuals distinguished beyond others, who commanded the
public homage. But our progress has also been owing to multitudes of
smaller and less known men. Though only the generals’ names may be
remembered in the history of any great campaign, it has been in a great
measure through the individual valour and heroism of the privates that
victories have been won. And life, too, is “a soldiers’ battle,”—men in
the ranks having in all times been amongst the greatest of workers. Many
are the lives of men unwritten, which have nevertheless as powerfully
influenced civilisation and progress as the more fortunate Great whose
names are recorded in biography. Even the humblest person, who sets
before his fellows an example of industry, sobriety, and upright honesty
of purpose in life, has a present as well as a future influence upon the
well-being of his country; for his life and character pass unconsciously
into the lives of others, and propagate good example for all time to
come.
Daily experience shows that it is energetic individualism which produces
the most powerful effects upon the life and action of others, and really
constitutes the best practical education. Schools, academies, and
colleges, give but the merest beginnings of culture in comparison with
it. Far more influential is the life-education daily given in our homes,
in the streets, behind counters, in workshops, at the loom and the
plough, in counting-houses and manufactories, and in the busy haunts of
men. This is that finishing instruction as members of society, which
Schiller designated “the education of the human race,” consisting in
action, conduct, self-culture, self-control,—all that tends to discipline
a man truly, and fit him for the proper performance of the duties and
business of life,—a kind of education not to be learnt from books, or
acquired by any amount of mere literary training. With his usual weight
of words Bacon observes, that “Studies teach not their own use; but that
is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation;” a remark
that holds true of actual life, as well as of the cultivation of the
intellect itself. For all experience serves to illustrate and enforce
the lesson, that a man perfects himself by work more than by
reading,—that it is life rather than literature, action rather than
study, and character rather than biography, which tend perpetually to
renovate mankind.
Biographies of great, but especially of good men, are nevertheless most
instructive and useful, as helps, guides, and incentives to others. Some
of the best are almost equivalent to gospels—teaching high living, high
thinking, and energetic action for their own and the world’s good. The
valuable examples which they furnish of the power of self-help, of
patient purpose, resolute working, and steadfast integrity, issuing in
the formation of truly noble and manly character, exhibit in language not
to be misunderstood, what it is in the power of each to accomplish for
himself; and eloquently illustrate the efficacy of self-respect and
self-reliance in enabling men of even the humblest rank to work out for
themselves an honourable competency and a solid reputation.
Great men of science, literature, and art—apostles of great thoughts and
lords of the great heart—have belonged to no exclusive class nor rank in
life. They have come alike from colleges, workshops, and
farmhouses,—from the huts of poor men and the mansions of the rich. Some
of God’s greatest apostles have come from “the ranks.” The poorest have
sometimes taken the highest places; nor have difficulties apparently the
most insuperable proved obstacles in their way. Those very difficulties,
in many instances, would ever seem to have been their best helpers, by
evoking their powers of labour and endurance, and stimulating into life
faculties which might otherwise have lain dormant. The instances of
obstacles thus surmounted, and of triumphs thus achieved, are indeed so
numerous, as almost to justify the proverb that “with Will one can do
anything.” Take, for instance, the remarkable fact, that from the
barber’s shop came Jeremy Taylor, the most poetical of divines; Sir
Richard Arkwright, the inventor of the spinning-jenny and founder of the
cotton manufacture; Lord Tenterden, one of the most distinguished of Lord
Chief Justices; and Turner, the greatest among landscape painters.
No one knows to a certainty what Shakespeare was; but it is
unquestionable that he sprang from a humble rank. His father was a
butcher and grazier; and Shakespeare himself is supposed to have been in
early life a woolcomber; whilst others aver that he was an usher in a
school and afterwards a scrivener’s clerk. He truly seems to have been
“not one, but all mankind’s epitome.” For such is the accuracy of his
sea phrases that a naval writer alleges that he must have been a sailor;
whilst a clergyman infers, from internal evidence in his writings, that
he was probably a parson’s clerk; and a distinguished judge of
horse-flesh insists that he must have been a horse-dealer. Shakespeare
was certainly an actor, and in the course of his life “played many
parts,” gathering his wonderful stores of knowledge from a wide field of
experience and observation. In any event, he must have been a close
student and a hard worker; and to this day his writings continue to
exercise a powerful influence on the formation of English character.
The common class of day labourers has given us Brindley the engineer,
Cook the navigator, and Burns the poet. Masons and bricklayers can boast
of Ben Jonson, who worked at the building of Lincoln’s Inn, with a trowel
in his hand and a book in his pocket, Edwards and Telford the engineers,
Hugh Miller the geologist, and Allan Cunningham the writer and sculptor;
whilst among distinguished carpenters we find the names of Inigo Jones
the architect, Harrison the chronometer-maker, John Hunter the
physiologist, Romney and Opie the painters, Professor Lee the
Orientalist, and John Gibson the sculptor.
From the weaver class have sprung Simson the mathematician, Bacon the
sculptor, the two Milners, Adam Walker, John Foster, Wilson the
ornithologist, Dr. Livingstone the missionary traveller, and Tannahill
the poet. Shoemakers have given us Sir Cloudesley Shovel the great
Admiral, Sturgeon the electrician, Samuel Drew the essayist, Gifford the
editor of the ‘Quarterly Review,’ Bloomfield the poet, and William Carey
the missionary; whilst Morrison, another laborious missionary, was a
maker of shoe-lasts. Within the last few years, a profound naturalist
has been discovered in the person of a shoemaker at Banff, named Thomas
Edwards, who, while maintaining himself by his trade, has devoted his
leisure to the study of natural science in all its branches, his
researches in connexion with the smaller crustaceæ having been rewarded
by the discovery of a new species, to which the name of “Praniza
Edwardsii” has been given by naturalists.
Nor have tailors been undistinguished. John Stow, the historian, worked
at the trade during some part of his life. Jackson, the painter, made
clothes until he reached manhood. The brave Sir John Hawkswood, who so
greatly distinguished himself at Poictiers, and was knighted by Edward
III. for his valour, was in early life apprenticed to a London tailor.
Admiral Hobson, who broke the boom at Vigo in 1702, belonged to the same
calling. He was working as a tailor’s apprentice near Bonchurch, in the
Isle of Wight, when the news flew through the village that a squadron of
men-of-war was sailing off the island. He sprang from the shopboard, and
ran down with his comrades to the beach, to gaze upon the glorious sight.
The boy was suddenly inflamed with the ambition to be a sailor; and
springing into a boat, he rowed off to the squadron, gained the admiral’s
ship, and was accepted as a volunteer. Years after, he returned to his
native village full of honours, and dined off bacon and eggs in the
cottage where he had worked as an apprentice. But the greatest tailor of
all is unquestionably Andrew Johnson, the present President of the United
States—a man of extraordinary force of character and vigour of intellect.
In his great speech at Washington, when describing himself as having
begun his political career as an alderman, and run through all the
branches of the legislature, a voice in the crowd cried, “From a tailor
up.” It was characteristic of Johnson to take the intended sarcasm in
good part, and even to turn it to account. “Some gentleman says I have
been a tailor. That does not disconcert me in the least; for when I was
a tailor I had the reputation of being a good one, and making close fits;
I was always punctual with my customers, and always did good work.”
Cardinal Wolsey, De Foe, Akenside, and Kirke White were the sons of
butchers; Bunyan was a tinker, and Joseph Lancaster a basket-maker.
Among the great names identified with the invention of the steam-engine
are those of Newcomen, Watt, and Stephenson; the first a blacksmith, the
second a maker of mathematical instruments, and the third an
engine-fireman. Huntingdon the preacher was originally a coalheaver, and
Bewick, the father of wood-engraving, a coalminer. Dodsley was a
footman, and Holcroft a groom. Baffin the navigator began his seafaring
career as a man before the mast, and Sir Cloudesley Shovel as a
cabin-boy. Herschel played the oboe in a military band. Chantrey was a
journeyman carver, Etty a journeyman printer, and Sir Thomas Lawrence the
son of a tavern-keeper. Michael Faraday, the son of a blacksmith, was in
early life apprenticed to a bookbinder, and worked at that trade until he
reached his twenty-second year: he now occupies the very first rank as a
philosopher, excelling even his master, Sir Humphry Davy, in the art of
lucidly expounding the most difficult and abstruse points in natural
science.
Among those who have given the greatest impulse to the sublime science of
astronomy, we find Copernicus, the son of a Polish baker; Kepler, the son
of a German public-house keeper, and himself the “garçon de cabaret;”
d’Alembert, a foundling picked up one winter’s night on the steps of the
church of St. Jean le Rond at Paris, and brought up by the wife of a
glazier; and Newton and Laplace, the one the son of a small freeholder
near Grantham, the other the son of a poor peasant of Beaumont-en-Auge,
near Honfleur. Notwithstanding their comparatively adverse circumstances
in early life, these distinguished men achieved a solid and enduring
reputation by the exercise of their genius, which all the wealth in the
world could not have purchased. The very possession of wealth might
indeed have proved an obstacle greater even than the humble means to
which they were born. The father of Lagrange, the astronomer and
mathematician, held the office of Treasurer of War at Turin; but having
ruined himself by speculations, his family were reduced to comparative
poverty. To this circumstance Lagrange was in after life accustomed
partly to attribute his own fame and happiness. “Had I been rich,” said
he, “I should probably not have become a mathematician.”
The sons of clergymen and ministers of religion generally, have
particularly distinguished themselves in our country’s history. Amongst
them we find the names of Drake and Nelson, celebrated in naval heroism;
of Wollaston, Young, Playfair, and Bell, in science; of Wren, Reynolds,
Wilson, and Wilkie, in art; of Thurlow and Campbell, in law; and of
Addison, Thomson, Goldsmith, Coleridge, and Tennyson, in literature.
Lord Hardinge, Colonel Edwardes, and Major Hodson, so honourably known in
Indian warfare, were also the sons of clergymen. Indeed, the empire of
England in India was won and held chiefly by men of the middle class—such
as Clive, Warren Hastings, and their successors—men for the most part
bred in factories and trained to habits of business.
Among the sons of attorneys we find Edmund Burke, Smeaton the engineer,
Scott and Wordsworth, and Lords Somers, Hardwick, and Dunning. Sir
William Blackstone was the posthumous son of a silk-mercer. Lord
Gifford’s father was a grocer at Dover; Lord Denman’s a physician; judge
Talfourd’s a country brewer; and Lord Chief Baron Pollock’s a celebrated
saddler at Charing Cross. Layard, the discoverer of the monuments of
Nineveh, was an articled clerk in a London solicitor’s office; and Sir
William Armstrong, the inventor of hydraulic machinery and of the
Armstrong ordnance, was also trained to the law and practised for some
time as an attorney. Milton was the son of a London scrivener, and Pope
and Southey were the sons of linendrapers. Professor Wilson was the son
of a Paisley manufacturer, and Lord Macaulay of an African merchant.
Keats was a druggist, and Sir Humphry Davy a country apothecary’s
apprentice. Speaking of himself, Davy once said, “What I am I have made
myself: I say this without vanity, and in pure simplicity of heart.”
Richard Owen, the Newton of Natural History, began life as a midshipman,
and did not enter upon the line of scientific research in which he has
since become so distinguished, until comparatively late in life. He laid
the foundations of his great knowledge while occupied in cataloguing the
magnificent museum accumulated by the industry of John Hunter, a work
which occupied him at the College of Surgeons during a period of about
ten years.
Foreign not less than English biography abounds in illustrations of men
who have glorified the lot of poverty by their labours and their genius.
In Art we find Claude, the son of a pastrycook; Geefs, of a baker;
Leopold Robert, of a watchmaker; and Haydn, of a wheelwright; whilst
Daguerre was a scene-painter at the Opera. The father of Gregory VII.
was a carpenter; of Sextus V., a shepherd; and of Adrian VI., a poor
bargeman. When a boy, Adrian, unable to pay for a light by which to
study, was accustomed to prepare his lessons by the light of the lamps in
the streets and the church porches, exhibiting a degree of patience and
industry which were the certain forerunners of his future distinction.
Of like humble origin were Hauy, the mineralogist, who was the son of a
weaver of Saint-Just; Hautefeuille, the mechanician, of a baker at
Orleans; Joseph Fourier, the mathematician, of a tailor at Auxerre;
Durand, the architect, of a Paris shoemaker; and Gesner, the naturalist,
of a skinner or worker in hides, at Zurich. This last began his career
under all the disadvantages attendant on poverty, sickness, and domestic
calamity; none of which, however, were sufficient to damp his courage or
hinder his progress. His life was indeed an eminent illustration of the
truth of the saying, that those who have most to do and are willing to
work, will find the most time. Pierre Ramus was another man of like
character. He was the son of poor parents in Picardy, and when a boy was
employed to tend sheep. But not liking the occupation he ran away to
Paris. After encountering much misery, he succeeded in entering the
College of Navarre as a servant. The situation, however, opened for him
the road to learning, and he shortly became one of the most distinguished
men of his time.
The chemist Vauquelin was the son of a peasant of Saint-André-d’Herbetot,
in the Calvados. When a boy at school, though poorly clad, he was full
of bright intelligence; and the master, who taught him to read and write,
when praising him for his diligence, used to say, “Go on, my boy; work,
study, Colin, and one day you will go as well dressed as the parish
churchwarden!” A country apothecary who visited the school, admired the
robust boy’s arms, and offered to take him into his laboratory to pound
his drugs, to which Vauquelin assented, in the hope of being able to
continue his lessons. But the apothecary would not permit him to spend
any part of his time in learning; and on ascertaining this, the youth
immediately determined to quit his service. He therefore left
Saint-André and took the road for Paris with his havresac on his back.
Arrived there, he searched for a place as apothecary’s boy, but could not
find one. Worn out by fatigue and destitution, Vauquelin fell ill, and
in that state was taken to the hospital, where he thought he should die.
But better things were in store for the poor boy. He recovered, and
again proceeded in his search of employment, which he at length found
with an apothecary. Shortly after, he became known to Fourcroy the
eminent chemist, who was so pleased with the youth that he made him his
private secretary; and many years after, on the death of that great
philosopher, Vauquelin succeeded him as Professor of Chemistry. Finally,
in 1829, the electors of the district of Calvados appointed him their
representative in the Chamber of Deputies, and he re-entered in triumph
the village which he had left so many years before, so poor and so
obscure.
England has no parallel instances to show, of promotions from the ranks
of the army to the highest military offices; which have been so common in
France since the first Revolution. “La carrière ouverte aux talents” has
there received many striking illustrations, which would doubtless be
matched among ourselves were the road to promotion as open. Hoche,
Humbert, and Pichegru, began their respective careers as private
soldiers. Hoche, while in the King’s army, was accustomed to embroider
waistcoats to enable him to earn money wherewith to purchase books on
military science. Humbert was a scapegrace when a youth; at sixteen he
ran away from home, and was by turns servant to a tradesman at Nancy, a
workman at Lyons, and a hawker of rabbit skins. In 1792, he enlisted as
a volunteer; and in a year he was general of brigade. Kleber, Lefèvre,
Suchet, Victor, Lannes, Soult, Massena, St. Cyr, D’Erlon, Murat,
Augereau, Bessières, and Ney, all rose from the ranks. In some cases
promotion was rapid, in others it was slow. Saint Cyr, the son of a
tanner of Toul, began life as an actor, after which he enlisted in the
Chasseurs, and was promoted to a captaincy within a year. Victor, Duc de
Belluno, enlisted in the Artillery in 1781: during the events preceding
the Revolution he was discharged; but immediately on the outbreak of war
he re-enlisted, and in the course of a few months his intrepidity and
ability secured his promotion as Adjutant-Major and chief of battalion.
Murat, “le beau sabreur,” was the son of a village innkeeper in Perigord,
where he looked after the horses. He first enlisted in a regiment of
Chasseurs, from which he was dismissed for insubordination: but again
enlisting, he shortly rose to the rank of Colonel. Ney enlisted at
eighteen in a hussar regiment, and gradually advanced step by step:
Kleber soon discovered his merits, surnaming him “The Indefatigable,” and
promoted him to be Adjutant-General when only twenty-five. On the other
hand, Soult {15} was six years from the date of his enlistment before he
reached the rank of sergeant. But Soult’s advancement was rapid compared
with that of Massena, who served for fourteen years before he was made
sergeant; and though he afterwards rose successively, step by step, to
the grades of Colonel, General of Division, and Marshal, he declared that
the post of sergeant was the step which of all others had cost him the
most labour to win. Similar promotions from the ranks, in the French
army, have continued down to our own day. Changarnier entered the King’s
bodyguard as a private in 1815. Marshal Bugeaud served four years in the
ranks, after which he was made an officer. Marshal Randon, the present
French Minister of War, began his military career as a drummer boy; and
in the portrait of him in the gallery at Versailles, his hand rests upon
a drum-head, the picture being thus painted at his own request.
Instances such as these inspire French soldiers with enthusiasm for their
service, as each private feels that he may possibly carry the baton of a
marshal in his knapsack.
The instances of men, in this and other countries, who, by dint of
persevering application and energy, have raised themselves from the
humblest ranks of industry to eminent positions of usefulness and
influence in society, are indeed so numerous that they have long ceased
to be regarded as exceptional. Looking at some of the more remarkable,
it might almost be said that early encounter with difficulty and adverse
circumstances was the necessary and indispensable condition of success.
The British House of Commons has always contained a considerable number
of such self-raised men—fitting representatives of the industrial
character of the people; and it is to the credit of our Legislature that
they have been welcomed and honoured there. When the late Joseph
Brotherton, member for Salford, in the course of the discussion on the
Ten Hours Bill, detailed with true pathos the hardships and fatigues to
which he had been subjected when working as a factory boy in a cotton
mill, and described the resolution which he had then formed, that if ever
it was in his power he would endeavour to ameliorate the condition of
that class, Sir James Graham rose immediately after him, and declared,
amidst the cheers of the House, that he did not before know that Mr.
Brotherton’s origin had been so humble, but that it rendered him more
proud than he had ever before been of the House of Commons, to think that
a person risen from that condition should be able to sit side by side, on
equal terms, with the hereditary gentry of the land.
The late Mr. Fox, member for Oldham, was accustomed to introduce his
recollections of past times with the words, “when I was working as a
weaver boy at Norwich;” and there are other members of parliament, still
living, whose origin has been equally humble. Mr. Lindsay, the
well-known ship owner, until recently member for Sunderland, once told
the simple story of his life to the electors of Weymouth, in answer to an
attack made upon him by his political opponents. He had been left an
orphan at fourteen, and when he left Glasgow for Liverpool to push his
way in the world, not being able to pay the usual fare, the captain of
the steamer agreed to take his labour in exchange, and the boy worked his
passage by trimming the coals in the coal hole. At Liverpool he remained
for seven weeks before he could obtain employment, during which time he
lived in sheds and fared hardly; until at last he found shelter on board
a West Indiaman. He entered as a boy, and before he was nineteen, by
steady good conduct he had risen to the command of a ship. At
twenty-three he retired from the sea, and settled on shore, after which
his progress was rapid “he had prospered,” he said, “by steady industry,
by constant work, and by ever keeping in view the great principle of
doing to others as you would be done by.”
The career of Mr. William Jackson, of Birkenhead, the present member for
North Derbyshire, bears considerable resemblance to that of Mr. Lindsay.
His father, a surgeon at Lancaster, died, leaving a family of eleven
children, of whom William Jackson was the seventh son. The elder boys
had been well educated while the father lived, but at his death the
younger members had to shift for themselves. William, when under twelve
years old, was taken from school, and put to hard work at a ship’s side
from six in the morning till nine at night. His master falling ill, the
boy was taken into the counting-house, where he had more leisure. This
gave him an opportunity of reading, and having obtained access to a set
of the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ he read the volumes through from A to
Z, partly by day, but chiefly at night. He afterwards put himself to a
trade, was diligent, and succeeded in it. Now he has ships sailing on
almost every sea, and holds commercial relations with nearly every
country on the globe.
Among like men of the same class may be ranked the late Richard Cobden,
whose start in life was equally humble. The son of a small farmer at
Midhurst in Sussex, he was sent at an early age to London and employed as
a boy in a warehouse in the City. He was diligent, well conducted, and
eager for information. His master, a man of the old school, warned him
against too much reading; but the boy went on in his own course, storing
his mind with the wealth found in books. He was promoted from one
position of trust to another—became a traveller for his house—secured a
large connection, and eventually started in business as a calico printer
at Manchester. Taking an interest in public questions, more especially
in popular education, his attention was gradually drawn to the subject of
the Corn Laws, to the repeal of which he may be said to have devoted his
fortune and his life. It may be mentioned as a curious fact that the
first speech he delivered in public was a total failure. But he had
great perseverance, application, and energy; and with persistency and
practice, he became at length one of the most persuasive and effective of
public speakers, extorting the disinterested eulogy of even Sir Robert
Peel himself. M. Drouyn de Lhuys, the French Ambassador, has eloquently
said of Mr. Cobden, that he was “a living proof of what merit,
perseverance, and labour can accomplish; one of the most complete
examples of those men who, sprung from the humblest ranks of society,
raise themselves to the highest rank in public estimation by the effect
of their own worth and of their personal services; finally, one of the
rarest examples of the solid qualities inherent in the English
character.”
In all these cases, strenuous individual application was the price paid
for distinction; excellence of any sort being invariably placed beyond
the reach of indolence. It is the diligent hand and head alone that
maketh rich—in self-culture, growth in wisdom, and in business. Even
when men are born to wealth and high social position, any solid
reputation which they may individually achieve can only be attained by
energetic application; for though an inheritance of acres may be
bequeathed, an inheritance of knowledge and wisdom cannot. The wealthy
man may pay others for doing his work for him, but it is impossible to
get his thinking done for him by another, or to purchase any kind of
self-culture. Indeed, the doctrine that excellence in any pursuit is
only to be achieved by laborious application, holds as true in the case
of the man of wealth as in that of Drew and Gifford, whose only school
was a cobbler’s stall, or Hugh Miller, whose only college was a Cromarty
stone quarry.
Riches and ease, it is perfectly clear, are not necessary for man’s
highest culture, else had not the world been so largely indebted in all
times to those who have sprung from the humbler ranks. An easy and
luxurious existence does not train men to effort or encounter with
difficulty; nor does it awaken that consciousness of power which is so
necessary for energetic and effective action in life. Indeed, so far
from poverty being a misfortune, it may, by vigorous self-help, be
converted even into a blessing; rousing a man to that struggle with the
world in which, though some may purchase ease by degradation, the
right-minded and true-hearted find strength, confidence, and triumph.
Bacon says, “Men seem neither to understand their riches nor their
strength: of the former they believe greater things than they should; of
the latter much less. Self-reliance and self-denial will teach a man to
drink out of his own cistern, and eat his own sweet bread, and to learn
and labour truly to get his living, and carefully to expend the good
things committed to his trust.”
Riches are so great a temptation to ease and self-indulgence, to which
men are by nature prone, that the glory is all the greater of those who,
born to ample fortunes, nevertheless take an active part in the work of
their generation—who “scorn delights and live laborious days.” It is to
the honour of the wealthier ranks in this country that they are not
idlers; for they do their fair share of the work of the state, and
usually take more than their fair share of its dangers. It was a fine
thing said of a subaltern officer in the Peninsular campaigns, observed
trudging alone through mud and mire by the side of his regiment, “There
goes 15,000_l._ a year!” and in our own day, the bleak slopes of
Sebastopol and the burning soil of India have borne witness to the like
noble self-denial and devotion on the part of our gentler classes; many a
gallant and noble fellow, of rank and estate, having risked his life, or
lost it, in one or other of those fields of action, in the service of his
country.
Nor have the wealthier classes been undistinguished in the more peaceful
pursuits of philosophy and science. Take, for instance, the great names
of Bacon, the father of modern philosophy, and of Worcester, Boyle,
Cavendish, Talbot, and Rosse, in science. The last named may be regarded
as the great mechanic of the peerage; a man who, if he had not been born
a peer, would probably have taken the highest rank as an inventor. So
thorough is his knowledge of smith-work that he is said to have been
pressed on one occasion to accept the foremanship of a large workshop, by
a manufacturer to whom his rank was unknown. The great Rosse telescope,
of his own fabrication, is certainly the most extraordinary instrument of
the kind that has yet been constructed.
But it is principally in the departments of politics and literature that
we find the most energetic labourers amongst our higher classes. Success
in these lines of action, as in all others, can only be achieved through
industry, practice, and study; and the great Minister, or parliamentary
leader, must necessarily be amongst the very hardest of workers. Such
was Palmerston; and such are Derby and Russell, Disraeli and Gladstone.
These men have had the benefit of no Ten Hours Bill, but have often,
during the busy season of Parliament, worked “double shift,” almost day
and night. One of the most illustrious of such workers in modern times
was unquestionably the late Sir Robert Peel. He possessed in an
extraordinary degree the power of continuous intellectual labour, nor did
he spare himself. His career, indeed, presented a remarkable example of
how much a man of comparatively moderate powers can accomplish by means
of assiduous application and indefatigable industry. During the forty
years that he held a seat in Parliament, his labours were prodigious. He
was a most conscientious man, and whatever he undertook to do, he did
thoroughly. All his speeches bear evidence of his careful study of
everything that had been spoken or written on the subject under
consideration. He was elaborate almost to excess; and spared no pains to
adapt himself to the various capacities of his audience. Withal, he
possessed much practical sagacity, great strength of purpose, and power
to direct the issues of action with steady hand and eye. In one respect
he surpassed most men: his principles broadened and enlarged with time;
and age, instead of contracting, only served to mellow and ripen his
nature. To the last he continued open to the reception of new views,
and, though many thought him cautious to excess, he did not allow himself
to fall into that indiscriminating admiration of the past, which is the
palsy of many minds similarly educated, and renders the old age of many
nothing but a pity.
The indefatigable industry of Lord Brougham has become almost proverbial.
His public labours have extended over a period of upwards of sixty years,
during which he has ranged over many fields—of law, literature, politics,
and science,—and achieved distinction in them all. How he contrived it,
has been to many a mystery. Once, when Sir Samuel Romilly was requested
to undertake some new work, he excused himself by saying that he had no
time; “but,” he added, “go with it to that fellow Brougham, he seems to
have time for everything.” The secret of it was, that he never left a
minute unemployed; withal he possessed a constitution of iron. When
arrived at an age at which most men would have retired from the world to
enjoy their hard-earned leisure, perhaps to doze away their time in an
easy chair, Lord Brougham commenced and prosecuted a series of elaborate
investigations as to the laws of Light, and he submitted the results to
the most scientific audiences that Paris and London could muster. About
the same time, he was passing through the press his admirable sketches of
the ‘Men of Science and Literature of the Reign of George III.,’ and
taking his full share of the law business and the political discussions
in the House of Lords. Sydney Smith once recommended him to confine
himself to only the transaction of so much business as three strong men
could get through. But such was Brougham’s love of work—long become a
habit—that no amount of application seems to have been too great for him;
and such was his love of excellence, that it has been said of him that if
his station in life had been only that of a shoe-black, he would never
have rested satisfied until he had become the best shoe-black in England.
Another hard-working man of the same class is Sir E. Bulwer Lytton. Few
writers have done more, or achieved higher distinction in various
walks—as a novelist, poet, dramatist, historian, essayist, orator, and
politician. He has worked his way step by step, disdainful of ease, and
animated throughout by the ardent desire to excel. On the score of mere
industry, there are few living English writers who have written so much,
and none that have produced so much of high quality. The industry of
Bulwer is entitled to all the greater praise that it has been entirely
self-imposed. To hunt, and shoot, and live at ease,—to frequent the
clubs and enjoy the opera, with the variety of London visiting and
sight-seeing during the “season,” and then off to the country mansion,
with its well-stocked preserves, and its thousand delightful out-door
pleasures,—to travel abroad, to Paris, Vienna, or Rome,—all this is
excessively attractive to a lover of pleasure and a man of fortune, and
by no means calculated to make him voluntarily undertake continuous
labour of any kind. Yet these pleasures, all within his reach, Bulwer
must, as compared with men born to similar estate, have denied himself in
assuming the position and pursuing the career of a literary man. Like
Byron, his first effort was poetical (‘Weeds and Wild Flowers’), and a
failure. His second was a novel (‘Falkland’), and it proved a failure
too. A man of weaker nerve would have dropped authorship; but Bulwer had
pluck and perseverance; and he worked on, determined to succeed. He was
incessantly industrious, read extensively, and from failure went
courageously onwards to success. ‘Pelham’ followed ‘Falkland’ within a
year, and the remainder of Bulwer’s literary life, now extending over a
period of thirty years, has been a succession of triumphs.
Mr. Disraeli affords a similar instance of the power of industry and
application in working out an eminent public career. His first
achievements were, like Bulwer’s, in literature; and he reached success
only through a succession of failures. His ‘Wondrous Tale of Alroy’ and
‘Revolutionary Epic’ were laughed at, and regarded as indications of
literary lunacy. But he worked on in other directions, and his
‘Coningsby,’ ‘Sybil,’ and ‘Tancred,’ proved the sterling stuff of which
he was made. As an orator too, his first appearance in the House of
Commons was a failure. It was spoken of as “more screaming than an
Adelphi farce.” Though composed in a grand and ambitious strain, every
sentence was hailed with “loud laughter.” ‘Hamlet’ played as a comedy
were nothing to it. But he concluded with a sentence which embodied a
prophecy. Writhing under the laughter with which his studied eloquence
had been received, he exclaimed, “I have begun several times many things,
and have succeeded in them at last. I shall sit down now, but the time
will come when you will hear me.” The time did come; and how Disraeli
succeeded in at length commanding the attention of the first assembly of
gentlemen in the world, affords a striking illustration of what energy
and determination will do; for Disraeli earned his position by dint of
patient industry. He did not, as many young men do, having once failed,
retire dejected, to mope and whine in a corner, but diligently set
himself to work. He carefully unlearnt his faults, studied the character
of his audience, practised sedulously the art of speech, and
industriously filled his mind with the elements of parliamentary
knowledge. He worked patiently for success; and it came, but slowly:
then the House laughed with him, instead of at him. The recollection of
his early failure was effaced, and by general consent he was at length
admitted to be one of the most finished and effective of parliamentary
speakers.
Although much may be accomplished by means of individual industry and
energy, as these and other instances set forth in the following pages
serve to illustrate, it must at the same time be acknowledged that the
help which we derive from others in the journey of life is of very great
importance. The poet Wordsworth has well said that “these two things,
contradictory though they may seem, must go together—manly dependence and
manly independence, manly reliance and manly self-reliance.” From
infancy to old age, all are more or less indebted to others for nurture
and culture; and the best and strongest are usually found the readiest to
acknowledge such help. Take, for example, the career of the late Alexis
de Tocqueville, a man doubly well-born, for his father was a
distinguished peer of France, and his mother a grand-daughter of
Malesherbes. Through powerful family influence, he was appointed Judge
Auditor at Versailles when only twenty-one; but probably feeling that he
had not fairly won the position by merit, he determined to give it up and
owe his future advancement in life to himself alone. “A foolish
resolution,” some will say; but De Tocqueville bravely acted it out. He
resigned his appointment, and made arrangements to leave France for the
purpose of travelling through the United States, the results of which
were published in his great book on ‘Democracy in America.’ His friend
and travelling companion, Gustave de Beaumont, has described his
indefatigable industry during this journey. “His nature,” he says, “was
wholly averse to idleness, and whether he was travelling or resting, his
mind was always at work. . . . With Alexis, the most agreeable
conversation was that which was the most useful. The worst day was the
lost day, or the day ill spent; the least loss of time annoyed him.”
Tocqueville himself wrote to a friend—“There is no time of life at which
one can wholly cease from action, for effort without one’s self, and
still more effort within, is equally necessary, if not more so, when we
grow old, as it is in youth. I compare man in this world to a traveller
journeying without ceasing towards a colder and colder region; the higher
he goes, the faster he ought to walk. The great malady of the soul is
cold. And in resisting this formidable evil, one needs not only to be
sustained by the action of a mind employed, but also by contact with
one’s fellows in the business of life.” {25}
Notwithstanding de Tocqueville’s decided views as to the necessity of
exercising individual energy and self-dependence, no one could be more
ready than he was to recognise the value of that help and support for
which all men are indebted to others in a greater or less degree. Thus,
he often acknowledged, with gratitude, his obligations to his friends De
Kergorlay and Stofells,—to the former for intellectual assistance, and to
the latter for moral support and sympathy. To De Kergorlay he
wrote—“Thine is the only soul in which I have confidence, and whose
influence exercises a genuine effect upon my own. Many others have
influence upon the details of my actions, but no one has so much
influence as thou on the origination of fundamental ideas, and of those
principles which are the rule of conduct.” De Tocqueville was not less
ready to confess the great obligations which he owed to his wife, Marie,
for the preservation of that temper and frame of mind which enabled him
to prosecute his studies with success. He believed that a noble-minded
woman insensibly elevated the character of her husband, while one of a
grovelling nature as certainly tended to degrade it. {26}
In fine, human character is moulded by a thousand subtle influences; by
example and precept; by life and literature; by friends and neighbours;
by the world we live in as well as by the spirits of our forefathers,
whose legacy of good words and deeds we inherit. But great,
unquestionably, though these influences are acknowledged to be, it is
nevertheless equally clear that men must necessarily be the active agents
of their own well-being and well-doing; and that, however much the wise
and the good may owe to others, they themselves must in the very nature
of things be their own best helpers.