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With 12 superb illustrations. Price in cloth, $1 25. 7. GERMAN TALES. By Berthold Auerbach. Price in cloth, $1.00. 8. A VISIT TO MY DISCONTENTED COUSIN. A Novelette. Price in cloth, $1.00. 9. MORE HAPPY THOUGHTS. By F. C. Burnand. Price in Cloth, $1.00. Other volumes mil follow the above at convenient intervals. ROBERTS BROT^HERS, Publishers, Boston. ■ E S SAY S WRITTEN IN THE INTERVALS OF BUSINESS. TO WHICH IS ADDED AN ESSAY ON ORGANIZATION IN DAILY LIFE. By ARTHUR HELPS, t: AUTHOR OF "friends IN COUNCIL," "COMPANIONS OF MY SOLITUDK,*' "realmah'' "casimir maremma.' BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1872. fA^<,i.^^,., 3^r£?B of JOHN WILSON AND SON, Cambridge. CONTENTS. WRITTEN IN THE INTERVALS OF BUSINESS. The First Part. PACK On Practical Wisdom 7 Aids to Contentment 12 On Self-Discipline 20 On our Judgments of Other Men 26 On the Exercise of Benevolence 35 Domestic Rule 42 Advice 51 Secrecy ry The Second Part. On the Education of a Man of Business ... 65 On the Transaction of Business 73 On the Choice and Management of Agents . . 82 iv CONTENTS. PAGE On the Treatment of Suitors 86 Interviews 90 Of Councils, Commissions, and, in General, of Bodies of Men called together to Counsel OR TO Direct 9S Party-Spirit 105 ON ORGANIZATION IN DAILY LIFE. Introduction 115 On Organization in Daily Life 119 Conversation in a Railway Carriage .... 193 ESSAYS WRITTEN IN THE INTERVALS OF BUSINESS. THE FIRST PART. " And he that knows how little certainty there is in human discourses, and how we know in part, and prophesie in part, and that of every thing whereof we know a little we are ignorant in much more, must either be content with such proportion as the things will bear, or as himself can get, or else he must never seek to alter or to persuade any man to be of his opinion. For the greatest part of discourses that are in the whole world is nothing but a heap of probable inducements, plausibilities, and witty entertainments ; and the throng of notices is not unlike the accidents of a battel, in which every man tells a new tale, something that he saw, mingled with a great many things which he saw not ; his eyes and his fear joyning together equally in the instructions and the illusion, these make up the stories." Jeremy Taylor's Dudor Duhitantiunt. PART I. ON PRACTICAL WISDOM. "r)RACTICAL wisdom acts in the mind as gravi- tation does in the material world : combining, keeping things in their places, and maintaining a mutual dependence amongst the various parts of our system. It is for ever reminding us where we are, and what we can do, not in fancy, but in real life. It does not permit us to wait for dainty duties, pleas- ant to the imagination, but insists upon our doing those which are before us. It is always inclined to make much of what it possesses ; and is not given to ponder over those schemes which might have been carried on, if what is irrevocable had been other than it is. It does not suffer us to waste our energies in regret. In journeying with it we go towards the sun, and the shadow of our burden falls behind us. 8 ESSAYS. In bringing any thing to completion, the means which it looks for are not the shortest, nor the neatest, nor the best that can be imagined. They have, however, this advantage, that they happen to be within reach. We are liable to make constant mistakes about the nature of practical wisdom, until we come to perceive that it consists not in any one predominant faculty or disposition, but rather in a certain har- mony amongst all the faculties and affections of the man. Where this harmony exists, there are likely to be well-chosen ends, and means judiciously adapted. But, as it is, we see numerous instances of men who, with great abilities, accomplish noth- ing, and we are apt to vary our views of practical wisdom according to the particular failings of these men. Sometimes we think it consists in having a definite purpose, and being constant to it. But take the case of a deeply selfish person : he will be constant enough to his purpose, and it will be a definite one. Very likely, too, it may not be found- ed upon unreasonable expectations. The object which he has in view may be a small thing ; but being as close to his eyes as to his heart; there will be times when he can see nothing, above it or ON PRACTICAL WISDOM. n beyond it, or beside it. And so he may fail in practical wisdom. Sometimes it is supposed that practical wisdom is not likely to be found amongst imaginative per- sons. And this is very ti'ue, if you mean by " im- aginative persons " those who have an excess of imagination. For in the mind, as in the body, general dwarfishness is often accompanied by a disproportionate size of some part. The large hands and feet of a dwarf seem to have devoured his stature. But if you mean tliat imagination, of itself, is something inconsistent with practical wis- dom, I think you will find that your opinion is not founded on experience. On the contrary, I believe that there have been few men who have done great things in the world who have not had a large power of imagination. For imagination, if it be subject to reason, is its " slave of the lamp." It is a common error to suppose that practical wisdom is something Epicurean in its nature, which makes no difficulties, takes things as they come, is desirous of getting rid rather than of completing, and which, in short, is never troublesome. And from a fancy of this kind, many persons are con- sidered speculative merely because they are of a . searching nature ; and are not satisfied with small lO ESSAYS. expedients, and such devices as serve to conceal the ills they cannot cure. And if to be practical is to do things in such a w^ay as to leave a great deal for other people to undo at some future, and no very distant period, — then, certainly, these scrutin- izing, pains-taking sort of persons are not practical. For it is their nature to prefer a good open visible rent to a time-serving patch. I do not mean to say that they may not resort to patching as a means of delay. But they w^ill not permit themselves to fancy that they have done a thing, w^hen they have only hit upon some expedient for putting off the doing. Bacon says, " In this theatre of man's life, God and angels only should be lookers-on ; that contem- plation and action ought ever to be united, a con- junction like unto that of the two highest planets, Saturn the planet of rest, and Jupiter the planet of action." It is in this conjunction, which seems to Bacon so desirable, that practical wisdom delights ; and on that account it is supposed by some men to have a tinge of baseness in it. They do not know that practical wisdom is as far from what they term expediency, as it is from impracticability itself. They see how much of compromise there is in all ON PRACTICAL WISDOM. n human affairs. At the same time, they do not per- ceive that this compromise, which should be the nice Hmit between wilfulness and a desertion of the light that is within us, is the thing of all others which requires the diligent exercise of that upright- ness which they fear to put in peril, and wMch, they persuade themselves, will be strengthened by inactivity. They fancy, too, that high moral re- solves and great principles are not for daily use, and that there is no room for them in the affairs of this life. This is an extreme delusion. For how is the world ever made better? Not by mean little schemes which some men fondly call practical, not by setting one evil thing to counteract another, but by the introduction of those principles of action which are looked upon at first as theories, but which are at last acknowledged and acted upon as common truths. The men who first introduce these prin- ciples are practical men, though the practices which such principles create may not come into being in the lifetime of their founders. % 12 ESSAYS. AIDS TO CONTENTMENT. 'THHE first object of this Essay is to suggest some antidotes against the manifold ingenuity of selftormenting. For instance, how much fretting might be pre- vented by a thorough conviction that there can be no such thing as unmixed good in this world ! In ignorance of this, how many a man, after having made a free choice in any matter, contrives to find innumerable causes for blaming his judgment! Blue and green having been the only colors put before him, he is dissatisfied with himself because he omitted to choose pure white. Shenstone has worked out the whole process. with fidelity. " We are oftentimes in suspense betwixt the choice of different pursuits. We choose one at last doubting- ly, and with an unconquered hankering after the other. We find the scheme which we have chosen answer our expectations but indifferently, — most worldly projects will. -We therefore repent of our choice, and immediately fancy happiness in the paths which we decline ; and this heightens our uneasiness. We might at least escape the aggrava- tion of it. It is not improbable we had been more AIDS TO CONTENTMENT. j^ unhappy, but extremely probable we had not been less so, had we made a different decision." A great deal of discomfort arises from over-sensi- tiveness about what people may say of you or your actions. This requires to be blunted. Consider whether any thing that you can do will have much connection with what they will say. And, besides, it may be doubted whether they will say any thing at all about you. Many unhappy persons seem to imagine that they are always in an amphitheatre, with the assembled world as spectators ; whereas, all the while, they are playing to empty benches. They fancy, too, that they form the particular theme of every passer-by. If, however, they must listen to imaginary conversations about themselves, they might, at any rate, defy the proverb, and insist upon hearing themselves well spoken of. Well, but suppose that it is no fancy ; and that you really are the object of unmerited obloqu3\ What then? It has been well said, that in that case the abuse does not touch you ; that if you are guiltless, it ought not to hurt your feelings any more than if it were said of another person, with whom you are not even acquainted. You may answer that this false description of you is often believed J. ESSAYS. in by those whose good opinion is of importance to your welfare. That certainly is a palpable injury ; and the best mode of bearing up against it is to endeavor to form some just estimate of its nature and extent. Measure it by the worldly harm which is done to you. Do not let your imagination con- jure up all manner of apparitions of scorn, and contempt, and universal hissing. It is partly your own fault if the calumny is believed in by those who ought to know you, and in whose affections you live. That should be a circle within which no poisoned dart can reach you. And for the rest, for the injury done you in the world's estimation, it is simply a piece of ill-fortune, about which it is neither wise nor decorous to make much moaning. A little thought will sometimes prevent you from being discontented at not meeting with the gratitude which you have expected. If you were only to measure your expectations of gratitude by the extent of benevolence which you have expended, you would seldom have occasion to call people ungrate- ful. But many persons are in the habit of giving such a factitious value to any services which they may render, that there is but little chance of their being contented with what they are likely to get in AIDS TO CONTENTMENT. 15 return ; which, however, may be quite as much as they deserve. Besides, it is a common thing for people to ex- pect from gratitude what affection alone can give. There are many topics which may console you when you are displeased at not being as much esteemed as you think you ought to be. You may begin by observing that people in general will not look about for anybody's merits, or admire any thing which does not come in their way. You may con- sider how satirical would be any praise which should not be based upon a just appreciation of your merits ; you may reflect how few of your fellow- creatures can have the opportunity of forming a just judgment about you ; you may then go further, and think how few of those few are persons whose judgment would influence you deeply in other matters ; and you may conclude by imagining that such persons do estimate you fairly, though perhaps you never hear it. The heart of man seeks for sympathy, and each of us craves a recognition of his talents and his labors. But this craving is in danger of becoming morbid, unless it be constantly kept in check by calm reflection on its vanity, or by dwelling upon the 1 5 ESSAYS. very different and far higher motives which should actuate us. That man has fallen into a pitiable state of moral sickness, in whose eyes the good opinion of his fellow-men is the test of merit, and their applause the principal reward for exertion. A habit of mistrust is the torment of some people. It taints their love and their friendship. They take up small causes of offence. They expect their friends to show the same aspect to them at all times ; which is more than human nature can do. They try ex- periments to ascertai i whether they are sufficiently loved ; they watch* n irrowly the effects of absence, and require their frie nds to prove to them that the intimacy is exactly u pon the same footing as it was before. Some perso is acquire these suspicious ways from a natural diffidence in themselves, for which they are often loved the more ; and they might find ample comfort in that, if they could but believe it. With others, these habits arise from a selfishness which cannot be satisfied. And their endeavors should be to uproot such a disposition, not to soothe it. Contentment abides with truth. And you will generally suffer for wishing to appear other than AIDS TO CONTENTMENT. 1 7 what you are ; whether it be richer or greater or more learned. The mask soon becomes an instru- ment of torture. f Fit objects to employ the intervals of life are among the greatest aids to contentment that a man can possess. The lives of many pei:sons are an alternation of the one engrossing pursuit, and a sort of listless apathy. They are either grinding, or do- ing nothing. Now to those who are half their lives fiercely busy, the remaining half is often torpid with- out quiescence. A man should have some pursuits which may be always in his power, and to which he may turn gladly in his hours of recreation. And if the intellect requires thus to be provided with perpetual objects, what must it be with the affections ? Depend upon it, the most fatal idleness is that of the heart. And the man who feels weary of life may be sure that he does not love his fellow- creatures as he ought. You cannot hope for any thing like contentment so long as you continue to attach that ridiculous de- gree of importance to the events of this life which so many people are inclined to do. Observe the effect which it has upon them : they are most uncomfort- 1 3 ESSAYS. able if their little projects do not turn out according to their fancy — nothing is to be angular to them ; they regard external things as the only realities ; and as they have fixed their abode here, they must have it arranged to their mind. In all they undertake, they feel the anxiety of a gambler, and not the calm- ness of a laboring man. It is, however, the suc- cess or failure of their efforts, and not the motives for their endeavor, which gives them this concern. " It will be all the same a hundred years hence." So says the Epicurean as he saunters by. The Christian exhorts them to extend their hopes and their fears to the far future. But they are up to their lips in the present, though they taste it none the more for that. And so they go on, fretting and planning and contending ; until an event, about which of all their anxieties they have felt the least anxious, sweeps them and their cobwebs away from the face of the earth. I have no intention of putting forward specifics for real aflS^ictions, or pretending to teach refined methods for avoiding grief. As long, however, as there is any thing to be done in a matter, the time for grieving about it has not come. But when the subject for grief is fixed and inevitable, sorrow AIDS TO CONTENTMENT. i^ is to be borne like pain. It is only a paroxysm of either that can justify us in neglecting the duties which no bereavement can lessen, and which no sorrow can leave us without. And we may re- member that sorrow is at once the lot, the trial, and the privilege of man. Most of the aids to contentment above suggested are, comparatively, superficial ones ; and, though they may be serviceable, there is much in human nature that they cannot touch. Even Pagans were wont to look for more potent remedies. They could not help seeking for some great idea to rest upon ; something to still the throbbings of their souls ; some primeval mystery which should be answerable for the miseries of life. Such was their idea of Necessity, the source of such systems as the Stoic and the Epicurean. Christianity rests upon very different foundations. And surely a Christian's reliance on divine goodness, and his full belief in another world, should console him under serious affliction, and bear the severer test of supporting him against that under-current of vexations which is not wanting in the smoothest life. 20 ESS A TS. ON SELF-DISCIPLINE. 'T^HERE Is always some danger of self-discipline leading to a state of self-confidence ; and the more so, when the motives for it are of a poor and worldly character, or the results of it outward only, and superficial. But surely when a man has got the better of any bad habit or evil disposition, his sensa- tions should not be those of exultation only : ought they not rather to be akin to the shuddering faintness with which he would survey a chasm that he had been guided to avoid, or with which he would recall to mind a dubious deadly struggle which had termi- nated in his favor ? The sense of danger is never, perhaps, so fully apprehended as when the danger has been overcome. Self-discipline is grounded on self-knowledge. A man may be led to resolve upon some general course of self-discipline by a faint glimpse of his moral degradation : let him not be contented with that small insight. His first step in self-discipline should be to attempt to have something like an adequate idea of the extent of the disorder. The deeper he goes in this matter the better : he must ON SELF-DISCIPLINE. 21 try to probe his own nature thoroughly. Men often make use of what self-knowledge they may possess to frame for themselves skilful flattery, or to amuse themselves in fancying what such persons as they are would do under various imaginary circum- stances. For flatteries and for fancies of this kind, not much depth of self-knowledge is required ; but he who wants to understand his own nature for the purposes of self-discipline, must strive to learn the whole truth about himself, and not shrink from tell- ing it to his own soul : — *'To thine own self be true> And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man." The old courtier Polonius meant this for world- ly wisdom ; but it may be construed much more deeply. Imagine the soul, then, thoroughly awake to its state of danger, and the whole energies of the man devoted to self-improvement. At this point, there often arises a habit of introspection which is too limited in its nature : we scrutinize each action as if it were a thing by itself, independent and self- originating; and so our scrutiny does less good, 22 JESSA YS. perhaps, than might be expected from the pain it gives and the resolution it requires. Any truthful examination into our actions must be good ; but we ought not to be satisfied with it, until it becomes both searching and progressive. Its aim should be not only to investigate instances, but to discover principles. Thus, — suppwDse that our ^conscience upbraids us for any particular bad habit : we then regard each instance of it with intense self-reproach, and long for an opportunity of proving the amend- ment which seems certain to arise from our pangs of regret. The trial comes ; and sometimes our former remorse is remembered, and saves us ; and sometimes it is forgotten, and our conduct is as bad as it was before our conscience was awakened. Now in such a case we should begin at the begin- ning, and strive to discover where it is that we are wrong in the heart. This is not to be done by weighing each particular instance, and observing after what interval it occurred, and whether with a little more, or a little less, temptation than usual : instead of dwelling chiefly on mere circumstances of this kind, we should try and get at the sub- stance of the thing, so as to ascertain what funda- mental precept of God is violated by the habit in question. That precept we should make our ON SELF-DISCIPLIN'E. 23 study ; and then there is more hope of a permanent amendment. Infinite toil would not enable you to sweep away a mist ; but, by ascending a little, you may often look over it altogether. So it is with our moral improvement : we wrestle fiercely with a vicious habit, which would have no hold upon us if we ascended into a higher moral atmosphere As I have heard suggested, it is by adding to our good purposes, and nourishing the affections which are rightly placed, that we shall best be able to combat the bad ones. By adopting such a course you will not have yielded to your enemy, but will have gone, in all humility, to form new alliances : you will then resist an evil habit with the strength which you have gained in carrying out a good one. You will find, too, that when you set your heart upon the things that are worthy of it, the small selfish ends, which used to be so dear to it, will appear almost disgusting: you will wonder that they could have had such hold upon you. In the same way, if you extend and deepen your sympathies, the prejudices which have hitherto clung obstinately to you will fall away, your former H £88 A YS. uncharitableness will seem absolutely distasteful : you will have brought home to it feelings and opinions with which it cannot live. Man, a creature of twofold nature, body and soul, should have both parts of that nature engaged in any matter in which he is concerned : spirit and form must both enter into it. It is idol-worship to substitute the form for the spirit ; but it is a vam philosophy which seeks to dispense with the form All this applies to self-discipline. See how most persons love to connect some out- ward circumstance with their good resolutions: they resolve on commencing the new year with a surrender of this bad habit: they will alter their conduct as soon as they are at such a place. The mind thus shows its feebleness ; but we must not conclude that the support it naturally seeks is use- less. At the same time that we are to turn our chief attention to the attainment of right principles, we cannot safely neglect any assistance which may strengthen us in contending against bad habits : far is it from the spirit of true humility to look down upon such assistance. Who would not be glad to have the ring of Eastern story, which should remind the wearer by its change of color of his ON SELF-DISCIPLINE. 25 want of shame ? Still these auxiliaries partake of a mechanical nature : we must not expect more from them than they can give : they may serve as aids to memory ; they may form landmarks, as it were, of our progress ;• but they cannot, of them- selves, maintain that progress. It is in a similar spirit that we should treat what may be called prudential considerations. We may listen to the suggestions of prudence, and find them an aid to self-discipline ; but we should never rest upon them. While we do not fail to make the due use of them, we must never forget that they do not go to the root of the matter. Prudence may enable a man to conquer the world,*but not to rule his own heart : it may change one evil passion for another ; but it is not a thing of potency enough to make a man change his nature. Prayer is a constant source of invigoration to self- discipline: not the thoughtless praying, which is a thing of custom ; but that which is sincere, intense, watchful. Let a man ask himself whether he reall}'' would have the thing he prays for : let him think, while he is praying for a spirit of forgiveness, whether even at that moment he is disposed to give up the luxury of anger. If not, what a horrible 25 ESSAYS. mockery it is ! To think that a man can find noth- ing better to do, in the presence of his Creator, than telling off so many words: alone with his God, and repeating his task like a child ; longing to get rid of it, and indifferent to its meaning ! 3><«C ON OUR JUDGMENTS OF OTHER MEN. TN forming these lightly, we wrong ourselves, and those whom we judge. In scattering such things abroad, we endow our unjust thoughts with a life which we cannot take away, and become false witnesses to pervert the judgments of the world in general. Who does not feel that to describe with fidelity the least portion of the en- tangled nature that is within him would be no easy matter.? And yet the same man who feels this, and who, perhaps, would be ashamed of talking at hazard about the properties of a flower, of a weed, of some figure in geometry, will put forth his guesses about the character of his brother-man, as if he had the fullest authority for all that he was saying. ON OUR JUDGMENTS OF OTHER MEN. 2*1 But perhaps we are not wont to make such rash remarks ourselves : we are only pleased to receive them with the most obliging credence from the lips of any person we may chance to meet with. Such credulity is any thing but blameless. We cannot think too seriously of the danger of taking upon trust these off-hand sayings, and of the positive guilt of uttering them as if they were our own, or had been assayed by our observation. How much we should be ashamed if we knew the slight grounds of some of those uncharitable judgments to which we lend the influence of our name by repeating them! And even if we repeat such things only as we have good reason to believe in, we should still be in no hurry to put them forward, especially if they are sentences of condemnation. There is a maxim of this kind which Thomas ^ Kempis, in his chapter " de prudentia in agendis," has given with all the force of expression that it merits. " Ad banc etiam pertinet, non quibuslibet hominum verbis credere ; nee audita vel credita^ mox ad aliorum aures effunderey There are certain things quite upon the surface of a man's character: there are certain obvious facts in any man's conduct ; and there are persons who, being very^ much before the world, offer 28 ESSAYS. plenty of materials for judging about them. Such circumstances as these may fairly induce you to place credence in a general opinion, which, how- ever, you have no means of verifying in any way for yourself; but in no case should you suffer your- self to be carried away at olice by the current sayings about men's characters and conduct. If you do, you are helping to form a mob. Consider what these sayings are : how seldom they embody the character discussed ; or go far to exhaust the question, if it is one of conduct. It is well if they describe a part with faithfulness, or give indications from which a shrewd and impartial thinker may deduce some true conclusions. Again, these say- ings may be true in themselves, but the prominence given to them may lead to very false impressions. Besides, how many of them must be formed upon the opinion of a few persons, and those, perhaps, forward thinkers. You feel that you yourself would be liable to make mistakes of all kinds if you had to form an independent judgment in the matter : do not too readily suppose that the general opinions you hear are free from such mistakes merely because they are made, or appear to you to be made, by a great many people. ON OUR JUDGMENTS OF OTHER MEN. 29 If we come to analyze the various opinions we hear of men's character and conduct, there must be many which are formed wrongly, though sincerely, either from imperfect information or erroneous reasoning. There will be others which are the simple result of the prejudices and passions of the persons judging, of their humors, and sometimes even of their ingenuity. There will be others grounded on total misrepresentations which arise from imperfect hearing, or from some entire mis take, or from a report being made by a person who understood so little of the matter that it was not possible for him to convey, with any thing like accuracy, what he heard about it. Then there are the careless things which are said in general conversation, but which often have as much appar- ent weight as if they had been well considered. Sometimes these various causes are combined ; and the result is, that an opinion of some man's char- acter and conduct gets abroad which is formed after a wrong method, by prejudiced persons, upon a false statement of facts, respecting a matter which they cannot possibly understand ; and this is then left to be inflated by Folly, and blown about by Idleness. There is an excellent passage in Wollaston*s 20 ESSAYS. Religion of Nature upon this subject, where he says, " The good or bad repute of men depends in a great measure upon mean people, who carry their stories from family to family, and propagate them ■very fast : like little insects, which lay apace, and the less the faster. There are few, very few, who have the opportunity and the will and the ability to represent tilings truly. Beside the matters of fact themselves, there are many circumstances which, before sentence is passed, ought to be known and weighed, and yet scarce ever can be known but to the person himself who is concerned. He may have other views, and another sense of things, than his judges have ; and what he under- stands, what he feels, what he intends, may be a secret confined to his own breast. Or perhaps the censurer, notwithstanding this kind of men talk as if they were infallible, may be mistaken himself in his opinion, and judge that to be wrong which in truth is right." Few people have imagination enough to enter into the delusions of others, or indeed to look at the actions of any other person with any prejudices but their own. Perhaps, however, it would be nearer the truth to say that few people are in the habit of employing their imagination in the service of ON OUR JUDGMENTS OF OTHER MEN. ^j charity. Most persons require its magic aid to gild their castles in the air ; to conduct them along those fancied triumphal processions in which they themselves play so conspicuous a part ; to conquer enemies for them without battles ; and to make "^ them virtuous without effort. This is what \hey want their imagination for: they cannot spare it for any little errand of charity. And sometimes when men do think charitably, they are afraid to speak out, for fear of being considered stupid or credulous. We have been considering the danger of adopt- ing current sayings about men's character and con- duct ; but suppose we consider, in detail, the difficulty of forming an original opinion on these matters, especially if we have not a personal knowl- edge of the men of whom we speak. In the first place, we seldom know with sufficient exactness the facts upon which w^e judge ; and a little thing may make a great difference when we come to investigate motives. But the report of a transaction sometimes represents the real facts no better than the labored variation does the simple air; which, amidst so many shakes and flourishes, might not be recognized even by the person who composed it. 22 £SSAY8. Then, again, how can we ensure that we rightly interpret those actions which we exactly know? Perhaps one of the first motives that we look for is self-interest, when we want to explain an action ; but we have scarcely ever such a knowledge of the nature and fortunes of another, as to be able to decide what is his interest, much less what it may appear to him to be : besides, a man's fancies, his envy, his wilfulness, every day interfere with and override his interests. He will know this himself, and will often try to conceal it by inventing motives of self-interest to account for his doing what he has a mind to do. It is well to be thoroughly impressed with a sense of the difficulty of judging about others ; still, judge we must, and sometimes very hastily: the purposes of life require it. We have, however, more and better materials, sometimes, than we are aware of: we must not imagine that they are always deep- seated and recondite : they often lie upon the sur- face. Indeed, the primary character of a man is especially discernible in trifles ; for then he acts, as it were, almost unconsciously. It is upon the method of observing and testing these things, that a just knowledge of individual men in great measure de- ON OUR JUDGMENTS OF OTHER MEN. ^3 pends. You may learn more of a person even by a little converse with him than by a faithful outline of his history. The most important of his actions may be any thing but the most significant of the man ; for they are likely to be the results of many things besides his nature. To understand that, I doubt whether you might not learn more from a good por- trait of him, than from two or three of the most prominent actions of his life. Indeed, if men did not express much of their nature in their manners, appearance, and general bearing, we should be at a sad loss to make up our minds how to deal with each other. In judging of others, it is important to distinguish those parts of the character and intellect which are easily discernible from those which require much observation. In the intellect, we soon perceive whether a man has wit, acuteness, or logical power. It is not easy to discover whether he has judgment. And it requires some study of the man to ascertain whether he. has practical wisdom ; which, indeed, is a result of high moral as well as intellectual qualities. In the moral nature, we soon detect selfishness, egotism, and exaggeration. Carelessness about truth is soon found out ; you see it in a thousand 3 24 JESS ATS. little things. On the other hand, it is very difficult to come to a right conclusion about a man's temper, until you have seen a great deal of him. Of his tastes, some will lie on the surface, others not ; for there is a certain resei*ve about most people in speaking of the things they like best. Again, it is always a hard matter to understand any man's feelings. Nations differ in their modes of expressing feelings, and how much more indi- vidual men ! There are certain cases in which we are peculiarly liable to err in our judgments of others. Thus, I think, we are all disposed to dislike, in a manner disproportionate to their demerits, those who offend us by pretension of any kind. We are apt to fancy that they despise us ; whereas, all the while, per- haps, they are only courting our admiration. There are people who wear the worst part of their char- acters outwards : they offend our vanity ; they rouse our fears ; and under these influences we omit to consider how often a scornful man is tender-hearted, and an assuming man one who longs to be popular and to please. Then there are characters of such a different kind from our own, that we are without the means of measuring and appreciating them. A man who ON THE EXERCISE OF BENEVOLENCE. 3^ has no humor, how difficult for him to understand one who has ! But of all the errors in judging of others, some of the worst are made in judging of those who are nearest to us. They think that we have entirely- made up our minds about them, and are apt to show us that sort of behavior only which they know we expect. Perhaps, too, they fear us, or they are con- vinced that we do not and cannot sympathize with them. And so we move about in a mist, and talk of phantoms as if they were living men, and think that we understand those who never interchange any discourse with us but the talk of the market-place ; or if they do, it is only as players who are playing a part, set down in certain words, to be eked out with the stage gestures for each affection, who would deem themselves little else than mad if they were to say out to us any thing of their own. >>«ur social rela- tions which Christianity opens to us. We should then see that benevolence is not a thing to be taken up by chance, and put by at once to make way for eyer)^ employment which savors of self-interest. Benevolence is the largest part of our business, beginning with our home duties, and extending itself to the utmost verge of- humanity. A vague feeling of kindness towards our fellow-creatures is no state of mind to rest in. It is not enough for us to be able to say that nothing of human interest is alien to us, and that we give our acquiescence, or ON THE EXERCISE OF BENEVOLENCE. ai indeed our transient assistance, to any scheme of benevolence that may come in our way. No : in promoting the welfare of others we must toil ; we must devote to it earnest thought, constant care, and zealous endeavor. What is more, we must do all this with patience ; and be ready, in the same cause, to make an habitual sacrifice of our own tastes and wishes. Nothing short of this is the visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked, which our creed requires of us. Kindness to animals is no unworthy exercise of benevolence. We hold that the life of brutes per- ishes with their breath, and that they are never to be clothed again with consciousness. The inevitable shortness then of their existence should plead for them touchingly. The insects on the surface of the water, poor ephemeral things, who would need- lessly abridge their dancing pleasure of to-day.? Such feelings we should have towards the whole animate creation. To those animals, over which we are masters for however short a time, we have positive duties to perform. This seems too obvious to be insisted upon ; but there are persons who act as though they thought they could buy the right of ill-treating any of God's creatures. A2 ESSAYS. We should never in any way consent to the ill- treatment of animals, because the fear of ridicule, or some other fear, prevents our interfering. As to there being any thing really trifling in any act of humanity, however slight, it is moral blindness to suppose so. The few moments in the course of each day which a man absorbed in some worldly pursuit may carelessly expend in kind words or tri- fling charities to those around him, and kindness to an animal is one of these, are perhaps, in the sight of Heaven, the only time that he has lived to any purpose worthy of recording. 3j<«C DOMESTIC RULE. npACITUS says of Agricola, that " he governed his family, which many find to be a harder task than to govern a province.** And the worst of this difficulty is, that its existence is frequently unperceived, until it comes to be pressingly felt. For either a man thinks that he must needs under- stand those whom he sees daily, and also, perhaps, that it is no great matter whether he understand them or not, if he is resolved to do his duty by them ; DOMESTIC RULE. 4- or he believes that in domestic rule there is much license, an-d that each occasion is to be dealt with by some law made at the time, or after ; or he imagines that any domestic matter which he may leave to-day omitted or ill-done can be repaired at his leisure, when the concerns of the outer world are not so pressing as they are at present. But each day brings its own duties, and carries them along with it ; and they are as waves broken on the shore, many like them coming after, but none ever the same. And amongst all his duties, as there are none in which a man acts more by himself and can do more harm with less outcry from the world, so there are none requiring more forethought and watchfulness than those which arise from his domestic relations. Nor can there be a reasonable hope of his fulfilling those duties while he is ignorant of the feelings, however familiar he may be with the countenances, of those around him. The extent and power of domestic rule are veiy great: but this is often overlooked by the persons who possess it ; and they are rather apt to under- rate the influence of their own authority. They can hardly imagine how strongly it is felt by others, 44 ESSAYS. unless they see it expressed in something outward. The effects of this mistake are often increased by another, which comes into operation when men are deahng with their inferiors in rank and education : in which case, they are rather apt to fancy that the natural sense of propriety, which would put the right limit to familiar intercourse, belongs only to the well-educated or the well-born. And from either of these causes, or both united, they are led, perhaps, to add to their authority by a harshness not their own, rather than to impair it, as they fancy, by that degree of freedom which they must allow to those around them, if they would enter into their feelings and understand their dispositions. Perhaps there are some persons who think that they can manage very well without this familiar intercourse ; and certainly there is but little occasion for knowing much about the nature of those whom you intend only to restrain. Coercion, however, is but a small part of government. We should always be most anxious to avoid pro- voking the rebel spirit of the will in those who are intrusted to our guidance : we should not attempt to tie them up to their duties, like galley-slaves to their labor. We should be very careful that, in DOMESTIC RULE. a^ our anxiety to get the outward part of an action per- formed to our mind, we do not destroy that germ of spontaneousness which could alone give any sig- nificance to the action. God has allowed free will to man, for the choice of good or evil ; and is it likely that it is left to us to make our fellow- creatures virtuous by word of command ? We may insist upon a routine of proprieties being performed with soldierlike • precision ; but there is no drilling of men's hearts. It is a great thing to maintain the just limits of domestic authority, and to place it upon its right foundation. You cannot make reason conform to it. It may be fair to insist upon a certain thing being done, but not that others should agree with you in saying that it is the best thing that could have been done ; for there cannot be a shorter way of making them hypocritical. Your submitting the matter at all to their judgments may be gratuitous ; but if you do so, you must remember that the Courts of Reason recognize no difference of persons. Your wishes may fairly outweigh their arguments ; but this of course is foreign to the reasonableness or unreasonableness of the thing itself, considered independently. Domestic Rule is founded upon truth and love. If it has not both of these, it is nothing better than a despotism. It requires the perpetual exercise of love in its most extended form. You have to learn the dis- positions of those under you, and to teach them to understand yours. In order to do this, you must sympathize with them, and convince them of your doing so ; for upon your sympathy v^ill often depend their truthfulness. Thus, you must persuade a child to place confidence in you, if you wish to form an open, upright character. You cannot terrify it into habits of truth. On the contrary, are not its earliest falsehoods caused by fear, much oftener than from a wish to obtain any of its little ends by deceit ? How often the complaint is heard from those in domestic authority, that they are not confided in ! But they forget how hard it is for an inferior to confide in a superior, and that he will scarcely venture to do so without the hope of some sympathy on the part of the latter ; and the more so, as half our confidences are about our follies, or what we deem such. Every one who has paid the slightest attention to this subject knows that domestic rule is built upon justice, and therefore upon truth ; but it may not have been observed what evils will arise from even DOMESTIC RULE. ^tj a slight deviation into conventionality. For in- stance, there is a common expression about " over- looking trifles." But vs^hat many persons should say, when they use this expression, is, — That they affect not to observe something, w^hen there is no reason why they should not openly recognize it. Thus they contrive to make matters of offence out of things which really have no harm in them. Or the expression means that they do not care to take notice of something which they really believe to be wrong ; and as it is not of much present annoyance to them, they persuade themselves that it is not of much harm to those who practise it. In either case, it is their duty to look boldly at the matter. The greater quantity of truth and distinctness you can throw into your proceedings, the better. Con- nivance creates uncertainty, and gives an example of slyness ; and very often you will find that you connive at some practice, merely because you have not made up your mind whether it is right or wrong, and you wish to spare yourself the trouble of think- ing. All this Is falsehood. Whatever you allow in the way of pleasure or of liberty, to those under your control, you should do it heartily: you should recognize it entirely, encourage it, and enter into it. If, on the contrary, 48 ESSAYS. you do not care for their pleasures, or sympathize with their happiness, how can you expect to obtain their confidence? And when you tell them that you consult their welfare, they, look upon it as some abstract idea of your own. They will doubt whether you can know what is best for them, if they have good reason for thinking that you are likely to leave their particular views of happiness entirely out of the account. We come next to consider some of the various means which may be made use of in Domestic Rule. Of course it is obvious that his own example must be the chief means in any man*s power, by which he can illustrate and enforce those duties which he seeks to impress upon his household. Next to this, praise and blame are among the strongest means which he possesses ; and they should not depend upon his humor. He should not throw a bit of praise at his dependants by way of making up for a previous display of anger not warranted by the occasion. Ridicule is in general to be avoided ; not that it is inefficient, perhaps, for the present purpose, but because it tends to make a poor and world-fearing character. It is too strong a remedy; and can DOMESTIC RULE. ^g seldom be applied with such just precision as to neutralize the evil aimed at, without destroying, at the same time, something that is good. Still less should it even appear that ridicule is directed against that which is good in itself, or which may be the beginning of goodness.- There is, perhaps, more gentleness required in dealing with the infant virtues, than even with the vices, of those under our guidance. We should be very kind to any attempt at amendment. An idle sneer, or a look of incredulity, has been the death of many a good resolve. We should also be very cautious in reminding those who now would fain be wiser, of their rash sayings of evil, of their early and uncharitable judgments of others ; other- wise we run a great risk of hardening them in evil. This is especially to be guarded against with the young ; for never, having felt the mutability of all human things, nor having lived long enough to discover that his former certainties are among the strangest things which a man looks back upon in the vista of the past : not perceiving that time is told by that pendulum, man, which goes backwards and forwards in its progress ; nor dreaming that the way to some opinions may lie through their opposites, — they are mightily ashamed of incon- 3 ro £SSA YS. sistency, and may be made to look upon reparation as a crime. The following are some general maxims which may be of service to any one in domestic authority. The first is to make as few crimes as he can ; and not to lay down those rules of practice, which, from a careful observation of their consequences he has ascertained to be salutary, as if they were so many innate truths which all persons alike must at once and fully comprehend. Let him not attempt to regulate other people's pleasures by his own tastes. In commanding, it will not always be superfluous for him to reflect whether the thing commanded is possible. In punishing, he should not consult his anger; nor in remitting punishment, his ease. Let him consider whether any part of what he is inclined to call disobedience may have resulted from an insufficient expression of his own wishes. He should be inclined to trust largely. ADVICK ADVICE. 51 \ DVICE is sure of a hearing when it coincides with our previous conclusions, and therefore comes in the shape of praise or of encouragement. It is not unwelcome when we derive it for ourselves, by applying the moral of some other person's life to our own, though the points of resemblance which bring it home may be far from flattering, and the advice itself far from palatable. We can even endure its being addressed to us by another, when it is interwoven with regret at some error, not of . ours, but of his ; and when we see that he throws in a little advice to us, by way of introducing, with more grace, a full recital of his own misfortunes. But in general it is with advice as with taxation : we can endure very little of either, if they come to us in the direct way. They must not thrust them- selves upon us. We do not understand their knock- ing at our doors ; besides, they always choose such inconvenient times, and are for ever talking of arrears. There is a wide difference between the advice which is thrust upon you, and that which you have ^3 ESSAYS, to seek for ; the general carelessness of the one, and the caution of the other, are to be taken into account. In sifting the latter, you must take care to separate the decorous part of it. I mean all that which the adviser puts in, because he thinks the world would expect it from a person of his character and station, — all that which was to sound well to a third party, of whom, perhaps, the adviser stands somewhat in awe. You cannot expect him to neglect his own safety. The oracles will Philippize as long as Philip is the master ; but still they have an inner meaning for Athenian ears. It is a disingenuous thing to ask for advice, when you mean assistance ; and it will be a just punishment if you get that which you pretended to want. There is a still greater insincerity in affect- ing to care about another's advice, when you lay the circumstances before him only for the chance of his sanctioning a course which you had previously resolved on. This practice is noticed by Rochefou- cauld, who has also laid bare the falseness of those givers of advice who have hardly heard to the end of your story, before they have begun to think how they can advise upon it to their own interest, or their own renown. ADVICE. 53 It is a maxim of prudence that when you advise a man to do something which is for your own interest as well as for his, you should put your own motive for advising him full in view, with all the weight that belongs to it. If you conceal the interest which you have in the matter, and he should afterwards discover it, he will be resolutely deaf even to that part of the argument which fairly does concern himself. If the lame man had endeavored to per- suade his blind friend that it was pure charity which induced him to lend the use of his eyes, you may be certain that he never would have been carried home, though it was the other's interest to carry him. To get extended views, you should consult with persons who differ from you in disposition, circum- stances, and modes of thought. At the same time, the most practicable advice may often be obtained from those who are of a similar nature to yourself, or who understand you so thoroughly that they are sure to make their advice personal. This advice will contain sympathy ; for as it has been said, a man always sympathizes to a certain extent with what he understands. It will not, perhaps, be the soundest advice that can be given in the abstract, 54 ESSAYS. but it may be that which you can best profit by ; for you may be able to act up to it with some consistency. This applies more particularly when the advice is wanted for some matter which is not of a temporary nature, and where a course of action will have to be adopted. It is observed in T/ze Statesman with much truth, " Nothing can be for a man's interest in the long-run which is not founded on his character." For similar reasons, when you have to give advice, you should never forget whom you are addressing, and what is practicable for him. You should not look about for the wisest thing which can be said, but for that which your friend has the heart to undertake, and the ability to accomplish. You must sometimes feel with him, before you can possibly think for him. There is more need of keeping this in mind, the greater you know the difference to be between your friend's nature and your own. Your advice should not degenerate into comparisons between what would have been your conduct, and what was your friend's. You should be able to take the matter up at the point at which it is brought to you. It is very well to go back, and to show him what might or what ought to have been done, if it throws any light upon what is to be done ; or ADVICE. 55 if you have any other good purpose in such conver- sation. But remember that comment, however judicious, is not advice ; and that advice should always tend to something practicable. The advice which we have been just speaking of is of that kind which relates to points of conduct. If you want to change a man's principles, you may have to take him out of himself, as it were ; to show him fully the intense difference between your own. views and his, and to trace up that difference to its source. Your object is not to make him do the best with what he has, but to induce him to throw some- thing away altogether. There are occasions on which a man feels that he has so fully made up his mind that hardly any thing could move him ; and at the same time he knows that he shall meet with much blame from those whose good opinion is of value to him, if he acts according to that mind. Let him not think to break his fall by asking their advice beforehand. As it is, they will be severe upon him for not having con- sulted them ; but they will be outrageous, if, after having consulted them, he then acts in direct oppo- sition to their counsel. Besides, they will not be so inclined to parade the fact of their not having been 56 ESSAYS. consulted, as they would of their having given judicious advice which was unhappily neglected. I am not speaking of those instances in which a man is bound to consult others, but of such as con- stantly occur, where his consulting them is a thing which may be expected, but is not due. In seeking for a friend to advise you, look for uprightness in him, rather than for ingenuity. It frequently happens that all you want is moral strength. You can discern consequences well enough, but cannot make up your mind to bear them. Let your Mentor also be a person of nice conscience, for such a one is less likely to fall into that error to which we are all so liable, of advising our friends to act with less forbearance and with less generosity, than we should be inclined to show ourselves, if the case were our own. " If I were you " is a phrase often on our lips ; but we take good care not to disturb our identity, not to quit the disengaged position of a bystander. We recom- mend the course w^e might pursue if we were acting for you in your absence, but such as you never ought to undertake in your own behalf. Besides being careful for your own sake about the persons whom you go to for advice, you should SECRECY. ^7 be careful also for theirs. It is an act of selfishness unnecessarily to consult those who are likely to feel a peculiar difficulty or delicacy in being your advisers, and who, perhaps, had better not be informed at all about the matter. 3>«^C SECRECY. 1 p OR once that secrecy is formally imposed upon you, it is implied a hundred times by the con- current circumstances. All that your friend says to you, as to his friend, is intrusted to you only. Much of what a man tells you in the hour of affliction, in sudden anger, or in any outpouring of his heart, should be sacred. In his craving for sympathy, he has spoken to you as to his own soul. To repeat what you have heard in social inter- course is sometimes a sad treachery ; and when it is not treacherous, it is often foolish. For you com- monly relate but a part of what has happened ; and even if you are able to relate that part with fairness, it is still as likely to be misconstrued as a word of many meanings, in a foreign tongue, without the context. 58 ESSAYS. There are few conversations which do not imply some degree of mutual confidence, however slight. And in addition to that which is said in confidence, there is generally something which is peculiar, though not confidential ; which is addressed to the present company alone, though not confided to their secrecy. It is meant for them, or for persons like them, and they are expected to understand it rightly. So that when a man has no scruple in repeating all that he hears to anybody that he meets, he pays but a poor compliment to himself; for he seems to take it for granted that what was said in his presence would have been said, in the same words, at any time, aloud, and in the market-place. In short, that he is the average man of mankind ; which I doubt much whether any man would like to consider himself. On the other hand, there is an habitual and un- meaning reserve in some men, which makes secrets without any occasion ; and it is the least to say of such things that they are needless. Sometimes it proceeds from an innate shyness or timidity of disposition ; sometimes from a temper naturally suspicious ; or it may be the result of having been frequently betrayed or oppressed. From whatever cause it comes, it is a failing. As cunning is some men's strength, so this sort of reserve is some men's SECRECY. ^g prudence. The man who does not know when, or how much, or to whom to confide, will do well in maintaining a Pythagorean silence. It is his best course. I would not have him change it on any account ; I only wish him not to mistake it for wisdom. That happy union of frankness and reserve which is to be desired comes not by studying rules, either for candor or for caution. It results chiefly from an uprightness of purpose, enlightened by a pro- found and delicate care for the feelings of others. This will go very far in teaching us what to confide, and what to conceal, in bur own affairs ; what to repeat, and what to suppress, in those of other people. The stone in which nothing is seen, and the polished metal which reflects all things, are both alike hard and insensible. When a matter is made public, to proclaim that it had ever been confided to your secrecy may be no trifling breach of confidence ; and it is the only one which is then left for you to commit. With respect to the kind of people to be trusted, it may be observed that grave, proud men are very 5o ESSAYS. safe confidants ; and that those persons, who have ever had to conduct any business in which secrecy was essential, are likely to acquire a habit of reserve for all occasions. On the other hand, it is a question whether a secret will escape sooner by means of a vain man or a simpleton. There are some people who play with a secret until at last it is suggested by their manner to some shrewd person who knows a little of the circumstances connected with it. There are others whom it is unsafe to trust : not that they are vain, and so wear the secret as an ornament ; not that they are foolish, and so let it drop by accident ; not that they are treacherous, and sell it for their own advantage. But they are simple-minded people, with whom the world has gone smoothly, who would not themselves make any mischief of th^ secret which they disclose, and therefore do not see what harm can come of telling it. Before you make any confidence, you should con sider whether the thing you wish to confide is of weight enough to be a secret. Your small secrets require the greatest care. Most persons suppose that they have kept them sufficiently when they have been silent about them for a certain time ; and SECRECY. 6l- this is hardly to be wondered at, if there is nothing in their nature to remind a person that they were told to him as secrets. There is sometimes a good reason for using con- cealment even with your dearest friends. It is that you may be less liable to be reminded of your anxieties when you have resolved to put them aside. Few persons have tact enough to perceive when to be silent, and when to offer you counsel or condo- lence. You should be careful not to intrust another unnecessarily with a secret which it may be a hard matter for him to keep, and which may expose him to somebody's displeasure, when it is hereafter dis- covered that he was the object of your confidence. Your desire for aid, or for sympathy, is not to be indulged by dragging other people into your mis- fortunes. There is as much responsibility in imparting your own secrets, as in keeping those of your neighbor. THE SECOND PART. " The wisdom touching negotiation or business hath not been hitherto col- lected into writing, to the great derogation of learning, and the professors of learning. For from this root springeth chiefly that note or opinion, which by U3 is expressed in adage to this eflfect, ' that there is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom ' For of the three wisdoms which we have^set down to pertain to civil life, for wisdom of behavior, it is by learned men for the most part despised, as an inferior to virtue, and an enemy to medita- tion ; for wisdom of government, they acquit themselves well when they are called to it, but that happeneth to few; but for the wisdom of business, wherein man's life is most conversant, there be no books of it, except some few scattered advertisements, that have no proportion to the magnitude of this subject. For if books were written of this, as the other, I doubt not but learned men with mean experience would far excel men of long experience without learning, and outshoot them in their own bow." Bacon's Advancement of Learning PART II. ON THE EDUCATION OF A MAN OF BUSINESS. nr^HE essential qualities for a man of business ■ are of a moral nature : these are to be culti- Tated first. He must learn betimes to love truth. That same love of truth will be found a potent charm to bear him safely through the w^orld's entan- glements ; I mean safely in the most vi^orldly sense. Besides, the love of truth not only makes a man act with more simplicity, and therefore with less chance of error, but it conduces to the highest intellectual development. The following passage in The Statesman gives the reason : " The corre- spondencies of wisdom and goodness are manifold ; and that they will accompany each other is to Ki inferred, not only because men's wisdom makes them good, but also because their gcfodness makes them wise. Questions of right and wrong are a 5 C6 ' ESSAYS. perpetual exercise of the faculties of those who are solicitous as to the righi": and wrong of what they do and see ; at. d a deep interest of the heart in these questions carries with it a deeper cul- tivation of the understanding than can be easily effected by any other excitement to intellectual activity. " What has just been said of the love of truth applies also to other moral qualities. / Thus, charity enlightens the understanding quite as much as it purifies the heart.^ And indeed knowl- edge is not more girt about with power than goodness is with wisdom. The next thing in the training of one who is to become a man of business will be for him to form principles ; for without these, when thrown on the sea of action, he will be without rudder and com- pass. They are the best results of study. Whether it is history, or political economy, or ethics, that he is studying, these principles are to be the reward of his labor. A principle resembles a law in the physical world ; though it can seldom have the same certainty, as the facts which it has to explain and embrace do not admit of being weighed or numbered with the same exactness as material EDUCATION OF A MAN OF BUSINESS. 67 things. The principles which our student adopts at first may be unsound, may be insufficient, but he must not neglect to form some ; and must only nourish a love of truth that will not allow him to hold to any, the moment that he finds them to be erroneous. Much depends upon the temperament of a man of business. It should be hopeful, that it may bear him up against the faint-heartedness, the folly, the falsehood, and the numberless discouragements which even a prosperous man will have to endure. It should also be calm ; for else he may be driven wild by any great pressure of business, and lose his time, and his head, in rushing from one unfinished thing, to begin something else. Now this wished-for conjunction of the calm and the hopeful is very rare. It is, however, in every man's power to study well his own temperament, and to provide against the defects in it. A habit of thinking for himself is one which may be acquired by the solitary student. But the habit of deciding for himself, so indispensable to a man of business, is not to be gained by study. Decision is a thing that cannot be fully exercised until it is 58 JESS ATS. actually wanted. You cannot play at deciding. You must have realities to deal with. It is true that the formation of principles, which has been spoken of before, requires decision ; but it is of that kind which depends upon deliberate judgment: whereas, the decision which is wanted in the world's business must ever be within call, and does not judge sb much as it foresees and chooses. This kind of decision is to be found in those who have been thrown early on their own resources, or who have been brought up in great freedom. It would be difficult to lay down any course of study, not technical, that would be peculiarly fitted to form a man of business. He should be brought up in the habit of reasoning closely ; and to insure this, there is hardly any thing better for him than the study of geometry. In any course of study to be laid down for him, something like universality should be aimed at, which not only makes the mind agile, but gives variety of information. Such a system will make him acquainted with many modes of thought, with various classes of facts, and will enable him to understand men better. EDUCATION OF A MAN OF BUSINESS. 69 There will be a time in his youth which may, perhaps, be well spent in those studies which are of a metaphysical nature. In the investigation of some of the great questions of philosophy, a breadth and a tone may be given to a man's mode of thinking, which will afterwards be of signal use to him in the business of every-day life. We cannot enter here into a description of the technical studies for a man of business ; but I may point out that there are works which soften the transition from the schools to the world, and which are particularly needed in a system of education, like our own, consisting of studies for the most part remote from real life. These works are such as tend to give the student that interest in the common things about him which he has scarcely ever been called upon to feel. They show how imagination and philosophy can be woven into practical wisdom. ( Such are the writings of Bacon. His lucid order, his grasp of the subject, the com- prehensiveness of his views, his knowledge of mankind, — the greatest perhaps that has ever been distinctly given out by any uninspired man, — the practical nature of his purposes, and his respect 70 ESSAYS. for any thing of human interest, render Bacon's works unrivalled in their fitness to form the best men for the conduct of the highest affairs. It is not, however, so much the thing studied, as the manner of studying it. Our student is not intended to become a learned man, but a man of business ; not a " full man," but a " ready man." He must be taught to arrange and express what he knows. For this purpose let him employ him- self in making digests, arranging and classifying materials, writing narratives, and in deciding upon conflicting evidence. All these exercises require method. He must expect that his early at- tempts will be clumsy ; he begins, perhaps, by dividing his subject in any way that occurs to him, with no other view than that of treating separate portions of it separately ; he does not per- ceive, at first, what things are of one kind, and what of another, and what should be the logical order of their following. But from such rude be- ginnings, method is developed ; and there is hardly any degree of toil for which he would not be compensated by such a result. He will have a sure reward in the clearness of his own views, and in the facility of explaining them to others. People bring their attention to the man who gives EDUCATION OF A MAN OF BUSINESS. tji them most profit for it ; and this will be one who is a master of method. Our student should begin soon to cultivate a fluency in writing: I do not mean a flow of words, but a habit of expressing his thoughts with accuracy, with brevity, and with readiness ; which can only be acquired by practice early in life. You find persons who, from neglect in this part of their education, can express themselves briefly and accurately, but only after much care and labor. And again, you meet with others who cannot express themselves accurately, although they have method in their thoughts, and can write with readiness ; but they have not been accustomed to look to the precise meaning of words : and such people are apt to fall into the common error of indulging in a great many words, as if it were from a sort of hope that some of them might be to the purpose. In the style of a man of business nothing is to be aimed at but plainness and precision. For instance, a close repetition of the same word for the same thing need not be avoided. The aver- sion to such repetitions may be carried too far in all kinds of writing. In literature, however, 72 ESSAYS. you are sel(^om brought to account for mislead- ing people ; but in business you may soon be called upon to pay the penalty for having shunned the word which would exactly have expressed your meaning. I cannot conclude this essay better than by endeavoring to describe what sort of person a consummate man of business should be. He should be able to fix his attention on details, and be ready to give every kind of argument a hearing. This will not encumber him, for he must have been practised before- hand in the exercise of his intellect, and be strong in principles. One man collects mate- rials together, and there they remain, a shapeless heap ; another, possessed of method, can arrange what he has collected : but such a man as I would describe, by the aid of principles, goes farther, and builds with his materials. He should be courageous. The courage, how- ever, required in civil affairs, is that which be- longs rather to the able commander than the mere soldier. But any kind of courage is serviceable. Besides a stout heart, he should have a patient temperament, and a vigorous but disciplined im- agination ; and then he will plan boldly, and with ON THE TRANSACTION OF BUSINESS. h^ large extent of view, execute calmly, and not be stretching out his hand for things not yet within his grasp. He will let opportunities grow before his eyes, until they are ripe to be seized. He will think steadily over possible failure, in order to provide a remedy or a retreat. There will be the strength of repose about him. He must have a deep sense of responsibility. He must believe in the power and vitality of truth ; and in all he does or says should be anxious to express as much truth as possible. His feeling of responsibility and love of truth will almost inevitably endow him with diligence, accuracy, and discreetness, — those commonplace requisites for a good man of business, without which all the rest may never come to be " trans- lated into action." 3K«C ON THE TRANSACTION OF BUSINESS. *" I ^HIS subject may be divided into two parts. I. Dealing with others about business. 2. Dealing with the business itself. 74 £SSA YS. I. Dealing with others about Business, The first part of the general subject embraces the choice and management of agents, the trans- action of business by means of interviews, the choice of colleagues and the use of councils. Each of these topics will be treated separately. There remain, however, certain general rules with respect to our dealings with others, which may naturally find a place here. In your converse with the world avoid any thing like a juggling dexterity. The proper use of dex- terity Is to prevent 3^our being circumvented by the cunning of others. It should not be aggres- sive. Concessions and compromises form a large and a very important part of our dealings with others. Concessions must generally be looked upon as distinct defeats ; and you must expect no gratitude for them. I am far from saying that it may not be wise to make concessions, but this will be done more wisely when you understand the nature of them. In making compromises, do not think to gain much by concealing your views and wishes. You ON THE TRANSACTION OF BUSINESS. ^ fj^ are as likely to suffer from its not being known how to please or satisfy you, as from any attempt to over- reach you, grounded on a knowledge of your wishes. Delay is in some instances to be adopted ad- visedly. It sometimes brings a person to reason when nothing else could ; when his mind is so occupied with one idea, that he completely over- estimates its relative importance. He can hardly be brought to look at the subject calmly by any force of reasoning. For this disease time is the only doctor. A good man of business is very watchful, over both himself and others, to prevent things from being carried against his sense of right in mo- ments of lassitude. After a matter has been much discussed, whether to the purpose or not, there comes a time when all parties are anxious that it should be settled ; and there is then some danger of the handiest way of getting rid of the matter being taken for the best. It is often worth while to bestow much pains in gaining over foolish people to your way of think- ing ; and you should do it soon. Your reasons will 76 ASSAYS. always have some weight with the wise. But if at first you omit to put your arguments before the foolish, they will form their prejudices ; and a fool is often very consistent, and very fond of repetition. He will be repeating his folly in season and out of season, until at last it has a hearing ; and it is hard if it does not sometimes chime in with external circumstances. A man of business should take care to consult occasionally with persons of a nature quite different from his own. To very few are given all the qualities requisite to form a good man of business. Thus a man may have the sternness and the fixed- ness of purpose so necessary in the conduct of affairs, yet these qualities prevent him, perhaps, from entering into the characters of those about him. He is likely to want tact. He will be unprepared for the extent of versatility and vacillation in other men. But these defects and oversights might be remedied by consulting with persons whom he knows to be possessed of the qualities supplement- ary to his own. Men of much depth of mind can bear a great deal of counsel ; for it does not easily deface their own character, nor render their pur- poses indistinct. ON THE TRANSACTION OF BUSINESS. ijtj 2. Dealing with the Business itself. The first thing to be considered in this division of the subject is the collection and arrangement of your materials. Do not fail to begin with the earliest history of the matter under consideration. Be careful not to give way to any particular theory, while you are merely collecting materials, lest it should influence you in the choice of them. You must work for yourself; for what you reject may be as important for you to have seen and thought about, as what you adopt : besides, it gives you a command of the subject, and a comparative fear- lessness of surprise, which you will never have, if you rely on other people for your materials. In some cases, however, you may save time by not laboring much, beforehand, at parts of the subject which are nearly sure to be worked out in discus- sion. When you have collected and arranged your in- formation, there comes the task of deciding upon it. To make this less difficult, you must use method, and practise economy in thinking. You must not weary yourself by considering the same thing in the same way ; just oscillating over it, as it were ; ^3 ESSAYS. seldom making much progress, and not marking the little that you have made. You must not lose your attention in reveries about the subject, but must bring yourself to the point by such questions as these: What has been done? What is the state of the case at present? What can be done next? What ought to be done? Express in writing the answers to your questions. Use the pen : there is no magic in it, but it prevents the mind from staggering about. It forces you to methodize your thoughts. It enables you to survey the matter with a less tired eye. Whereas in thinking vaguely, you not only lose time, but you acquire a familiarity with the husk of the subject, which is absolutely injurious. Your apprehension becomes dull ; you establish associations of ideas which occur again and again to distract your attention ; and you become more tired than if you had really been employed in mastering the subject. When you have arrived at your decision, you have to consider how you shall convey it. In doing this, be sure that you very rarely, if ever, say any thing which is not immediately relevant to the subject. Beware of indulging in maxims, in abstract propo- sitions, or in any thing of that kind. Let your sub- ject fill the whole of what you say. Human affairs ON TEE TRANSACTION OF BUSINESS. ^r^ are so wide, subtle, and complicated, that the most sagacious man had better content himself with pronouncing upon those points alone upon which his decision is called for. It will often be a nice question whether or not to state the motives for your decisions. Much will depend upon the nature of the subject, upon the party whom you have to address, and upon your power of speaking out the whole truth. When you can give all your motives, it will in most cases be just to others, and eventually good for yourself, to do so. If you can only state some of them, then you must consider whether they are likely to mis- lead, or whether they tend to the full truth. And for your own sake there is this to be considered in giving only a part of your reasons : that those which you give are generally taken to be the whole, or at any rate the best that you have. And, here- after, you may find yourself precluded from using an argument which turns out to be a very sound, one, which had great weight with you, but which you were at the time unwilling, or did not think it necessary, to put forward. When you have to communicate the motives for an unfavorable decision, you will naturally study how to convey them so as to give least pain, and to So ^!S3A YS. insure least discussion. These are not unworthy objects ; but they are immediate ones, and therefore likely to have their full weight with you. Beware that your anxiety to attain them does not carry you into an implied falsehood ; for, to say the least of it, evil is latent in that. Each day's converse with the world ought to confirm us in the maxim that a bold but not unkind sincerity should be the ground- work of all our dealings. It will often be necessary to make a general state- ment respecting the history of some business. It should be lucid, yet not overburdened with details. It must have method not merely running through it, but visible upon it: it must have method in its form. You must build it up, beginning at the beginning, giving each part its due weight, and not hurrying over those steps which happen to be peculiarly familiar to yourself. You must thorough- ly enter into the ignorance of others, and so avoid forestalling your conclusions. The best teachers are those who can seem to forget what they know full well ; who work out results, which have be- come axioms in their minds, with all the interest of a beginner, and with footsteps no longer than his. ON THE TRANSACTION OF BUSINESS. 8 1 It is a good practice to draw up, and put on record, an abstract of the reasons upon which you have come to a decision on any complicated sub- ject ; so that if it is referred to, there is but little labor in making yourself master of it again. Of course this practice will be more or less necessary, according as your decision has been conveyed with a reserved or with a full statement of the reasons upon which it was grounded. Of all the correspondence you receive, a concise record should be kept ; which should also contain a note of what was done upon any letter, and of where it was sent to, or put away. Documents relating to the same subject should be carefully brought together. You should endeavor to establish such a system of arranging your papers as may insure their being readily referred to, and yet not require too much time and attention to be carried into daily practice. Fac-similes should be kept of all the letters which you send out. These seem little things ; and so they are, unless you neglect them. 82 ESSAYS. ON THE CHOICE AND MANAGEMENT OF AGENTS. 'T^HE choice of agents is a difficult matter, but any labor that you may bestow upon it is likely to be well repaid ; for you have to choose persons for whose faults you are to be punished ; to whom you are to be the whipping-boy. In the choice of an agent, it is not sufficient to ascertain what a man knows, or to make a cata- logue of his qualities ; but you have to find out how he will perform a particular service. You may be right in concluding that such an office requires certain qualities, and you may discern that such a man possesses most of them ; and in the absence of any means of ijiaking a closer trial, you may have done the best that you could do. But some deficiency, or some untoward combina- tion of these qualities, may unfit him for the office. Hence the value of any opportunity, however slight, of observing his conduct in matters similar to those for which you want him. Our previous knowledge of men will sometimes mislead us entirely, even when we apply it to CHOICE AND MANAGEMENT OF AGENTS. 83 circumstances but little different, as we think, from those in which we have actually observed their behavior. For instance, 3^ou might naturally imagine that a man who shows an irritable tem- per in his conversation is likely to show a similar temper throughout the conduct of his business. But experience does not confirm this ; for you will often find that men who are intemperate in speech are cautious in writing. The best agents are, in general, to be found amongst those persons who have a strong sense of responsibility. Under this feeling a man will be likely to grudge no pains : he will pay attention to minute things ; and, what is of much importance, he will prefer being considered ever so stupid, rather than pretend to understand his orders before he does so. You should behave to your subordinate agents in such a manner that they should not be afraid to be frank with you. They should be able to comment freely upon your directions, and may thus become your best counsellors. For those who are intrusted with the execution of any work are likely to see things which have been overlooked by the person who designed it, however sagacious he may be. S4 ESSAT8. You must not interfere unnecessarily with your agents, as it gives them the habit of leaning too much upon you. Sir Walter Scott says of Can- ning, " I fear he works himself too hard, under the great error of trying to do too much with his own hand, and to see every thing with his own eyes. Whereas the greatest general and the first statesman must, in many cases, be content to use the eyes and fingers of others, and hold themselves contented with the exercise of the greatest care in the choice of implements." Most men of vigorous minds and nice perceptions will be apt to interfere too much ; but it should always be one of the chief objects of a person in authority to train up those around him to do without him. He should try to give them some self-reliance. It should be his aim to create a standard as to the way in which things ought to be done, not to do them all himself. That standard is likely to be maintained for some time, in case of his absence, illness, or death ; and it will be applied daily to many things that must be done without a careful inspection on his part, even when he is in full vigor. With respect to those agents whom you employ to represent you, your inclination should be to treat CHOICE AND MANAGEMENT OF AGENTS. 85 them with hearty confidence. In justice to them, as well as for your own sake, the limits which you lay down for their guidance should be precise. Within those limits you should allow them a large discretionary power. You must be careful not to blame your agent for departing from your orders, when in fact the discrepancy which you notice is nothing more than the usual difference in the ways in which different men set about the same object, even when they employ similar means for its accomplishment. For a difference of this kind you should have been prepared. But if you are in haste to blame your representative, your captious- ness may throw a great burden upon him unneces- sarily. It is not the success of the undertaking only that he will thenceforward be intent upon : he will be anxious that each step should be done exactly after your fancy. And this may embarrass him, render him indecisive, and lead to his failing alto- gether. The surest way to make agents do their work is to show them that their efforts are appreciated with nicety. For this purpose, you should not only be very careful in your promotions and rewards ; but, in your daily dealings with them, you should beware 86 ESSAYS. of making slight or haphazard criticisms on any of their proceedings. Your praise should not Only be right in the substance, but put upon the right foundation : it should point to their most strenuous and most judicious exertion. I do not mean that it should always be given at the time -of those exer- tions being made, but it should show that they had not passed by unnoticed. 3j»;c ON THE TREATMENT OF SUITORS. 'T^HE maxim, " Pars beneficii est, quod petitur "^ si bene neges," is misinterpreted by many people. They construe " bene " kindly^ which is right ; but they are inclined to fancy that this kind- ness consists in courtesy, rather than in explicitness and truth. You should be very loath to encourage expecta- tions in a suitor, which you have not then the power of fulfilling, or of putting in a course of fulfilment ; for Hope, an architect above rules, can build, in reverse, a pyramid upon a point. From a very little origin there ofter arises a wildness of expecta- ON THE TREATMENT OF SUITORS. 87 tion which quite astounds you. Like the Fisherman in the Arabian NigJits^ when you see " a genie twice as high as the greatest of giants," you may well wonder how he could have come out of so small a vessel ; but in your case there will be no chance of persuading the monster to ensconce him- self again, for the purpose of convincing you that such a feat is not impossible. In addition also to the natural delusions of hope, there is sometimes the artifice of pretending to take your words for more than they are well known to mean. There is a deafness peculiar to suitors : they should therefore be answered as much as possible in writ- ing. The answers should be expressed in simple terms ; and all phrases should be avoided which are not likely to convey a clear idea to the man who hears them for the first time. There are many persons who really do not understand forms of writing which may have become common to you. When they find that courteous expressions mean nothing, they think that a wilful deception has been practised upon them. And, in general, you should consider that people will naturally put the largest construction upon every ^jmbiguous expression, and S8 ESSAYS. every term of courtesy which can be made to express any thing at all in their favor. It will often be necessary to see applicants ; and in this case you must bear in mind that you have not only the delusions of hope and the misinterpre- tation of language to contend against, but also the imperfection of men's memories. If possible, therefore, do not let the interview be the termina- tion of the matter: let it lead to something in writing, so that you may have an opportunity of recording what you wished to express. Avoid a promising manner, as people will be apt to find words for it. Do not resort to evasive answers for the purpose only of bringing the interview to a close ; nor shrink from giving a distinct denial, merely because the person to whom you ought to give it is before you, and you would have to witness any pain which it might occasion. Let not that balance of justice which Corruption could not alter one hair's breadth be altogether disturbed by Sen- sibility. To determine in what cases the refusal of a suit should be accompanied by reasons, is a matter of considerable difficulty. It must depend very much on what portion of the truth you are able to bring forward. This was mentioned before as a general ON TEE TREATMENT OF SUITORS S9 principle in the transaction of business, and it may be well to abide by it in answering applications. You will naturally endeavor to give somewhat of a detailed explanation when you are desirous of show- ing respect to the person whom you are addressing ; but if the explanation is not a sound or a complete one, it would be better to see whether the respect could not be shown in some other way. In many cases, and especially when the suit is a mere project of effrontery, it will perhaps be prudent to refuse, without entering at all upon the grounds of your refusal. In an explanation addressed to the applicant, you will be apt to omit the special reasons for your refusal, as they are likely to be such as would mortify his self-love ; and so you lay yourself open to an accusation of unfairness, when he finds, perhaps, that you have selected some other person, who came as fully within the scope of your general objections as he did himself. Therefore, where you are not required, and do not like to give special reasons, it may often be the best course simply to refuse, or to couch your refusal in impregnable generalities. Remember that in giving any reason at all for refusing, you lay some foundation for a future request. OO ESSAYS. Those who have constantly to deal with suitors are in danger of giving way too much to disgust at the intrusion, importunity, and egotism, which they meet with. As an antidote to this, they should remember that the suit which is a matter of busi- ness to them, and which perhaps, from its hope- lessness, they look upon with little interest, seems to the suitor himself a thing of absorbing impor- tance. And they should expect a man in distress to be as unreasonable as a sick person, and as much occupied by his own disorder. 5>S>j most likely to prevail. But any Cabinet that should commence the heroic effort of an organ- ization for peace would lay down lines on which the noble vessel would hereafter be built. And, whether the attempt should prove fruitless or not, it ought to be made by statesmen, if statesmanship is to hold the high place in the world which it has hitherto maintained. Free- dom has not been gained by any nation without great and continuous efforts, which have been attended by any thing but continuous and un- varying success. Peace also is not to be gained but by great and skilful labor, and through much adversity of every kind. It is one of those triumphs which are not won without being planned for. Vague wishes will not produce it. We should not content our- selves with merely waiting for it, as san- guine men In desperate circumstances wait for some signal piece of good luck that should inevitably retrieve their affairs. It will more assuredly come by being worked for ; and it is not a good beyond the power of skilful organization, long and patiently directed, to attain. 1 58 ^^ ESSAY ON I shall venture to add that there is a use of organization to which it has seldom been applied, and indeed where its application will at first be held to be ludicrous ; and that is the organization of pleasure. Inexperienced people imagine that festivity is an easy, haphazard sort of thing, that merely requires certain means and appliances, and that all will then go straight and right. But anybody who has tried to entertain 300 persons will speak very differently. Indeed, throughout nature we may see that it is not the material, but the use of it, that gives the great result. Perhaps the air we breathe affords the most striking illustration of that fact which is anywhere to be found. In the atmosphere the elements are mechanically mixed, and they give life and health. Combine the same elements chemically, and they furnish the most deadly poison. All life would stop on this globe, if the nitrogen and oxygen in the air were chemi- cally combined. Indeed throughout chemistry a similar law is visible. It is two of this, and three of that, and five of the other, that make some useful compound. Change one of these numbers ever so little, and you have quite a different result ; perhaps a noxious one. These ORGANIZATION IN DAILY LIFE. 169 seem rather grand illustrations to apply to the organization of pleasure and festivity ; but they Organization are faithful illustrations, and of universal appli- ° ^ ^^^""• cation. For want of attending to a judicious combination of means, on most occasions of festivity, from an assembly at the grandest duke's dovsrn to a picnic in the country amongst country people, you may generally prophesy failure. The primary fact of number is seldom attended to, though you would imagine that this was one of the first things to be thought of. What is suitable for 200 is totally unsuitable for 270 ; and yet that additional 70 is often thrown in with the greatest carelessness. Hence it is that from crowding of people, from the want of judicious ingress and egress, from an unskilful position of furniture, from an inapt choice of guests, from a want of judicious introduction, most festivities are failures. Dances are given at which nobody can dance : assemblages of brilliant and conversable personages are collected together; but they cannot move about pleas- antly, and often their great souls are devoted to the serious questions of how they shall get out of that corner in which they are imprisoned, and how they shall eventually make their escape ihq an essay on from the party. Yet a little forethought and organization would have set all these things to rights. Our public amusements partake the same faults. There seems to be no knowledge that each living being requires a certain portion of air to recreate itself with, and that there is noth- ing but detriment for it without that necessary portion of air. An all-wise Providence has fixed that rule ; and it is no good attempting to Theatres, ignore it. There might be a theatre that should help to rent)vate the drama, and should be the delight of the world ; but if it is to do so in modern times, it must be so organized as regards its lighting, airing, warming, and especially as regards its facility of ingress and egress, as to combine all the necessary elements of reasonable comfort. The same law applies to the pleasures of the poor. Drunkenness is the great evil of the world. You will never remove it until you have organized better pleasures for the poor, especially those pleasures which should make drunkenness a slower affair. The fact that drunkenness is mostly managed in gin-palaces without sitting down is, alone a most disastrous ORGANIZATION IN DAILY LIFE. 171 circumstance. You see this when contrasting the habits of our own and of foreign nations. Put a man in a room where he can play domi- noes, read newspapers, and have what he con- siders good talk ; and you will observe that he will not drink as fast or as deep or as strongly as he otherwise would. In short there would be other things to amuse him besides drinking ; and what does he drink for, but to amuse him- self, and to forget troubles of every kind } It may be observed, generally, as regards ^he force of organization, that very few people appreciate ^"'"^^.''^ ^" the force of numbers.* For instance, as I have before said, it would astonish a person who has not tried it, to find how long it will take to divide and apportion victuals amongst 300 persons. And the same ignorance is visible in all dealings with crowds. Hardly anybody sufficiently con- siders what will give way under the pressure of * More than this : few of us have any power of accurately estimating number. On a clear night there are, it is said, but two thousand stars visible to an observer of ordinary powers of vision. Most persons, we have little doubt, imagine that they have seen thousands upon thousands. 172 AN ESSAY ON a crowd, or how easy it Is by skilful subdivision to diminish the threatened danger. What a road will bear ; what a bridge will carry ; how much labor animals can endure ; and, in fact, at what rate large bodies of men and sustenance can be efficiently moved, — are questions that may concern, at some critical moment, the supremacy of an empire. And the nation that has the best organizers to the front will be the Napoleon's i^^^ion that will win the day. The first Napo- skiU in Or- jgQj^ ^^g^ jj^ general, very skilful, prompt, and foreseeing in organization ; but in his latter days a defect pervaded his mode of organizing, which was fatal to him. He fell into routine and paper- work. I believe it was noticed in his ^ Leipsic campaign that there were wonderful plans drawn up by him on paper, and circulated as orders of the day : but parts of them could not be executed : they were not applicable to the state of facts ; and he was too imperious to listen to such remarks from his subordinates as, "Please your Majesty, nothing more can be done in this than is possible." Organization In short, all Organization must be followed up. should not be ^ 1 1 1 1 • • 1 t • inanimate. It should not be an mammate, but a livmg, growing thing, prepared to meet the endless ORGANIZATION IN DAILY LIFE. 73 chances and changes which take. place in this mutable world. Hence, in a consummate organ- izer, you require a versatility which can abandon to resume ; which expands in order afterwards to contract ; which has such a sense of the main result to be obtained, that it can sacrifice at once immense preparations no longer applicable to the shifting circumstances. This, of course, is the triumph of genius. The looker-on may call it haphazard work ; but it is really the highest form of organization. In a certain town in China, at the Hotel of Unfailmg the Three Perfections, the passers-by are in- business not formed that all sorts of business are negotiated hitherto ° attained by with Unfailing Success.* What skill in the con- Western . . nations. duct of business may have been attamed by that aged, punctilious, and literate people, the -Chi- nese, who, according to their own account, have lived so many more thousand years upon the earth than other nations, we, a juvenile product * " By dint of looking on all sides, we at last espied a sign, on which was written in large Chinese characters, ' Hotel of the Three Perfections, lodging for travellers on Horse or Camel ; all sorts of business negotiated with Unfailing Success.' " — Hue's Tartary, Thibet, and China, chapter 5. 174 AN ESSAY ON of recent civilization, cannot presume to deter- mine. But, in these western parts of the world, we certainly have not yet attained the art of negotiating all sorts of business with unfailing success. On the contrary, our affairs are full of failure ; and, in laying down plans for organiza- tion, there is hardly ever allowance enough made for these failures, especially as regards the Failures to human agcuts, who are to be employed. It is ilr °^* almost amusing to hear the way in which men scheme out a public office, or propose arrange- ndents for military or naval service. If it is a public office, they divide it, perhaps, into departments, at the head of each one of which, they say, there is to be a clever man. Perhaps, too, it is provided that he is to be chosen out of the ranks of men already in the oflSce. But, unfortunately, aptitude in a lower department does not necessarily infer aptitude in a higher ; and even a power of choosing men, which is unfettered, and which is really exercised with the best intentions, will not always ensure a good choice, simply because you cannot find out whether men can w^ork well in a particular way until they have been tried in it. As a notable instance of this, it may be obsei*ved that some ORGANIZATION IN DAILY LIFE. ^75 men's faculties are benumbed by responsibility ; while, on the contrary, the faculties of others are quickened by it ; and the man whom you thought frivolous, light, indolent, or indifferent, is, all of a sudden, changed by responsibility into a being of another character. Many other reasons might be adduced ; * but, whatever the reasons may be, the fact is certain, that, choose as you will, you must make a large allowance for failures. Hence, in any organiza- tion of men to do any work, you must provide something like autocratic power resident in some Autocratic power, one person, who must find the men to do the work, especially when the need for good men is urgent. When the elder Pitt chose Wolfe to take the command in Canada, it was not that any system of military organization had brought Wolfe into that position naturally ; but the min- ister heard of the man ; sent for him ; looked at him ; asked him whether he could do the work * For instance, before you have had some experi- ence of the way in which a man handles business, how can you know whether he will divide to metho- dize, or divide to subtilize? Bacon says: "He that doth not divide will never enter well into business ; and he that divideth too much will never come out of it clearly." 176 AN ESSAY ON that was to be done ; and, judging from his answer, and from the whole bearing of the man, that he was the right kind of person, resolved, on his own responsibility, to appoint him. No system can supply the place of personal knowl- edge and judgment ; but a system maybe so organized as always to allow room for the exer- cise of this knowledge and judgment. Trial of Or- In forming any organization, it is most de- sirable to get in some way or other a trial of it ; so that it shall meet with all the strain that it will have to encounter in real life, and yet, if it should break down, the failure should not be absolutely disastrous. It is said that one of the great firms, whose business it is to build locomotive engines, never allows an engine to go out of the yard, until it has travelled a thousand miles in that yard. This is as it should be ; and a like precaution might be adopted in many other matters. The necessity for these trials and rehearsals arises, of course, out of the weakness of our nature. Even the largest and most foreseeing minds are apt to overlook or forget some small thing which yet is requisite for success. And thus harmonious ORGANIZATION IN DAILY LIFE. 177 working can only be insured by previous trial. How much this is requisite is nowhere better seen than in the getting-up of an amateur play. All the performers shall know their parts thoroughly well, and be very clever men and women ; but the rehearsal discloses to them a rehearsal, many small points of dialogue, and dexterous little arrangements of " properties," which have to be arbitrarily settled and provided for beforehand, if the performance is to go off well and smoothly. It is likely that considerable dis- couragement will be felt after the first rehearsal has taken place ; but that discouragement, lead- ing to adaptation of all kinds, is often the parent of a sure success. Everybody will admit the ti'uth of the foregoing remarks, and even think them somewhat commonplace. But yet what many of us do not see is, that we could institute more trials, experiments, and rehearsals More triads might be than we do adopt ; and we should institute them instituted. if we were once deeply convinced of the exceed- ing and peculiar benefit of all such trials. In building, for example, hardly any labor is thrown away which is given to very accurate models made in the first instance, — models not only of the proposed building, but of the buildings 13 1^8 ^^ ESSAY ON- which surround It. The same remark applies to works of art, especially to those of a public character, in which, if models were made, not only of the work of art proposed, but of all that vfTould come near it and be In the same purview, much absurdity and irrelevance would be prevented. Again, in the disposition and arrangement of troops for offence or defence, frequent trials of their capability for movement are essential to the efficiency of the force ; and I suppose a general would rather have under his command fifty thousand men, of whose powers of movement and concentration he had had some experience, than a hundred thousand of equal worth in other respects, but of whose powers of movement he knew nothing. It is only by these experiments that we learn to make due allowance for adverse and peculiar circum- stances. The effects of fair weather, rainy weather, or snowy weather, on the movements of troops or of the materials for war, will only be thoroughly ascertained by practical experi- ment. The Duke of Wellington, after observ- ing, with the late Lord Londonderry, a review of an immense number of Russian troops, made some such observation as the following : ORGANIZATION IN DAILY LIFE. 17^ "You see, Charles, this is all very fine ; but I think our little army could move round about them in every direction in a way that would astonish them." The Duke knew from experi- ence what he could do with his little army. It is for reasons similar to the above that it is so valuable to gain the advantage of a new eye to look upon any matter of organization. Honest criticism is always very valuable to a man of settled purposes who can bear a great deal of criticism without being overpowered by it. And nowhere is criticism likely to be criticism. more available than when it is addressed to systems of organization. I have no doubt that there is not a system of organization exist- ing in this country, however well devised, which, if submitted in all its details to a shrewd man of organizing nature, might not in some point or other be considerably improved by his suggestions. The people who are engaged in working out any thing soon come to love the mode of working, and to believe in it a little more than they should do. The cold unpreju- diced eye of a bystander, called in for consulta- The workers tion, will see things to which the wisest men "^^^ft^"^ ° dull about engaged in the working of the organization improving it. l8o ^N ESSAY ON have become somewhat blind. An indolent boy, probably devoted to marbles, was set to work in a complicated system of machinery to conduct some small operation, which he found could be managed just as well by con- necting two parts of the machinery with a string, while he was thus left free to play with his marbles. That circumstance led to an improvement in a certain branch of machinery. It is true that in this instance the improvement was found out in practice ; but discoveries of a similar kind are often more likely to be made by a shrewd stranger than by those who are so accustomed to the practical management of the machine, that they have lost In some measure the power of criticising, and have ceased to look out for improvements. Readiness of Readlness of resource must always be a great element in the good working of any organiza- tion. It may not be wanted in the mind of the person who plans the organization. He has, or ought to have, plenty of time to form his plans, and abundance of opportunity for consul- tation with others ; but in execution ready and fertile minds are requisite. It must be owned ORGANIZATION IN DAILY LIFE. igj that it Is difficult to discover this readiness by any formal examination, but a little converse with a man may soon lead to the discovery of whether he is a ready man or not. As I said before, I have advisedly taken all manner of commonplace instances to illustrate this essay ; and I now choose a humorous and trivial one. In a remote country place there was a building ^^ example suddenly to be prepared and used for a festal of readiness J r r of resource occasion. The work was done in a hurry, and there was no opportunity for any rehearsal of the festivity. The carpenters did not leave off working until the time when, with sharp ears, the sound of approaching wheels might be heard. The building was lighted up ; but owing to the roof being lined with a dark canvas, and to other circumstances, the lighting was totally inadequate. The managers looked at one anothei: in dismay ; not that all the dismay on their countenances could be seen, on account of the general dimness that prevailed. " What is to be done ? " they exclaimed. A young man standing by said, " Seize upon the carriage-lamps : they will furnish us an abun- dant supply of light." Others w^ere quick enough to discern the modes by which these lamps might 1 82 ^N ESSAY ON be attached to the building. A remedy was thus provided, and that which would have been an egregious failure was turned into a complete success. Now this is one of those cases in which people exclaim, How obvious a remedy ! how sure we are that we should have thought of that! But probably no one would have thought of it; at any rate no one but a man of ready resource. The young man's reply to that difficult question is equal in value to nine good answers on the Peloponnesian War, an ample account of the digamma, eleven solutions of sums in decimal fractions, not to mention three accurate lists of kings, given in reply to ques- tions set by examiners for the Civil Service. I am not ridiculing these functionaries. They have no opportunity of testing men in this way ; but these little things are famous tests, and are among the best proofs of the highest qualities. And they are only to be got at by personal knowledge. The result is that the most service- able men are not to be found out by any me- chanical system, be the mechanism ever so good. Let no man say, because an organism con- tinues to exist, and has continued for a long ORGANIZATION IN DAILY LIFE. 183 time, that its organization is therefore good. It Tenacity of is astonishing what a long time a thing will last or^ni^g. which has yet lost its chief meaning and savor. All people have a conservative element in them ; and, besides, the want of time prevents men from looking closely into an existing institution, and considering whether it. serves the purpose they mean it to serve. And so the organism goes on like an old tree that has long ceased to make any accretions of vitality, that is dying at the root, and dying at the branches, and putting forth fewer leaves and smaller fruit every year. But still, to the unobservant eye, it seems very strong ; and it is not until the day of its fall that men find out how decayed it was, and wonder that it could have stood upright so long. This tenacity in certain organisms, and the unwillingness of men to interfere with them, even when they suspect them to be of little use, or perhaps a hindrance rather than a service, must be taken largely into account by those who would propose any new organization to take the place of what has been a long time before the eyes of the world. The passport system affords an example of The passport organization which is deserving of notice, es- ^y^*®™- 184 ^^^ ESSAY ON pecially as regards what has been said above respecting the tenacity of certain organisms. It has often happened that a man has seen some- thing flourishing in his own times, which he is well aware will in future cease to exist, and of which he would like to leave an accurate account on record for the benefit of future ages. If any person were, with that view, to seek to describe the passport system, he would be greatly puz- zled. It is not that he could not give a fair account of the physical and material aspect of the system ; but he would feel that posterity would ask, at the outset, and before entering into any details, what wefe the main drift and meaning of the system. And he would be unable to give any satisfactory reply to this question. Does it serve to protect the head of the State from the danger of assassination.'* Does it in any way prevent insubordination, or check conspiracy? He will be obliged to answer in the negative. The most dangerous man in Europe would find no difficulty in going where he listed. What reason, there fore, can be given for such a system being main tained ? It is grievous, onerous, and expensive. It vexes innocent people, discourages con;imerce, ORGANIZATION IN DAILY LIFE. 185 and creates general dissatisfaction. It cannot justly be replied that it gives- employment to many persons ; and that despotic monarchs fear to do away with the system for fear of its dis- tressing private individuals. Nothing would be easier than to give ample compensation to the persons at present employed ; and no grievance to the subject could be made out of the abolition of such a system. This peculiar case of organ- ization has been cited for two reasons. First, it affords a notable instance of an utter want of thought as to the object to be attained. If the object is to protect states and monarchs from the intrusion of dangerous men into their dominions, the passport system ought to be made a thou- The passport sand times more strict. It should be dealt with like persecution in matters of faith, which will succeed, as the history of the world shows, if sufficiently severe and continuous ; but a perse- cution which pinches, but does not suppress, is merely an irritant, and not an absorbent. Secondly, this passport system affords an in- stance of an organism of which the spirit has long ago died out, but which stands upright, and may seem to have some strength and mean- ing in it, merely because it cumbers the earth and is a decided hindrance. 1 86 -^^ ESSAY ON Various kinds of organization have been con- sidered in this essay. Many hindrances to good organization have been pointed out, and some few^ furtherances have been shown ; but, after all, what must be mainly relied upon is to get the organizing man. It may be asked what are the nearest gifts to this power of organization that is so much wanted in the world? How can we divine whether a man will be a good organizer, or Qualities of whether he will not? This is a question that a good Organizer. Can hardly be answered except by some observa- tion of the particular man. Apprehensiveness has been declared to be necessary. This quality may soon be discerned in any person. More- over, what method there is in any man's mode of working may readily be observed if only a little of the man's work is submitted for inspec- tion. There are other qualifications, however, which are more difficult to be discerned. Two essential qualities in a good organizer are a thorough and constant perception of the end in view, and a power of dealing with masses of details, never forgetting that they are details, and not becoming their slave. It requires much con- verse with a man before you can ascertain his ORGANIZATION IN DAILY LIFE. 187 qualifications in either of the foregoing respects, especially the former. It must take some time to ascertain of any man that he is clear and con- stant in his main purpose, and is not to be led away from it by the dexterous fulfilment (de- vised by himself or others) of smaller ends and aims. Then, again, a man may be judiciously apprehensive, methodical, clear and constant in his purpose, and great in the mastery of details, so far as the research into them and the putting them in some kind of order is concerned ; but he may not be skilful in putting them afterwards Deficiency in their right places. There is a want of pro- °^ certam •^ men m the portion in his work. He knows what work is last toxich of to be done, and what kind of machinery must ^^^^ be invented to do it. He has skilfully collected and methodized his materials. But he cannot fit them well together in the order in which they are to work. And this peculiar kind of skill can hardly be predicated of any man until you have seen him in action. Such are the difficulties which must beset the search after skilful organizers ; which cannot be an easy task, whether it be undertaken by a monarch in search of a minister, or a minister in search of a general or of a head of a- civil 1 88 ^^ ESSAY ON department ; or whether, in lower spheres, it is the search on the part of a number of individ- uals banded together in some social or commer- cial enterprise for a man to organize victory for them. This phrase of organizing victory was applied, I believe, to Carnot ; and it does not give organization more than its due. It may easily be inferred, if what has been Examina- above Stated has any truth in it, that all exami- tionsmaynot . i -i i i i i • i • • . bring out the ^^^tions that should merely deal with acquisition, Organizer. -^quJ^^ probably fail in enabling us to discern the man of an organizing mind. The knowl- edge that was to be acquired lay before the man. His powers of taking it up are one thing : his powers of working it are another. He has dealt with the past ; you will want him to deal with the future. I suspect it is often imagined that eloquent men are deficient in powers of organization. But there is no truth in this ; for, as far as the eloquent man shows method and foresight in his speaking, he shows qualities which fit him for organization. The same holds good of great writers as well as of great speakers. It is an immense error to suppose that men who have shown themselves excellent in imagi- ORGANIZATION IN DAILY LIFE. 189 nation are, on that account, deficient in practi- imaginative cal powers. It is said that Lord Byron would ^"'^ ^'^™^^ •^ '' men not have made a skilful politician. There is no deficient in powers of Oi^ doubt that Goethe and Sir Walter Scott * were ganization. first-rate men of business. It happened to the writer of this essay to be once concerned with others in a very diflicult transaction, in reference to which communications were addressed to them by all manner of people. The two com- munications which, for clearness of view and mastery of details, were thought to be pre-emi- nent, came from two remarkable men of letters. The writer was afterwards not surprised to hear that one is a consummate manager of private theatricals, and that the parish of the other is a model parish. There is a certain learned Dean of the present day f who is perhaps the best chairman of a committee that can be met with ; and, in fact, literature, science, and art would be found in all ages to supply men peculiarly capa- * Any errors of Sir Walter in his own affairs do not conclusively militate against this statement. Gen- erous men are particularly apt to neglect their own affairs, and to commit errors in them which they would not commit in the affairs of others intrusted to them. Observe the life of Lord Bacon in proof of this. t 1862. 190 AN ESSAY ON ble for the practical management of the ordi- nary affairs of life, and who would be likely to excel in organization, as they have already done something which requires organizing skill.* Finally, in any work that a man has done some of his aptitude for organization may be obsei"ved. A quibbling, crotchety person lacks, of course, the nature fitted to organize. A san- guine person lacks the nature to commence organization, although he may be able to main- tain it when it is placed in his hands. Pliancy and firmness are both needed. A judicious abid- ance by rules, and holding to the results of expe- rience, are good ; but not less so, are a judicious setting aside of rules, and a declining to be bound by incomplete experience. War furnishes * Anybody who has watched Mr. Carlyle's skill in attaining any information he cares to obtain must see that he could have been an excellent man of business. His drafts and his despatches might have been ex- pressed in language not strictly in accordance with that of routine, but they would have been full of insight and foresight, and practicality of all kinds. Again, no one has ventured to say that Mr. John Stuart Mill's learning, imagination, and logical powers have at all dimmed his reputation as an accomplished administrator. ORGANIZATION IN DAILY LIFE. i^i the best illustrations of what U wanted in this respect. Drill Is a good thing ; but drill Is not to master us. To keep within reach of our sup- plies is a needful thing ; but splendid movements have been executed in contravention to this rule. To have a base for our operations Is no doubt a good military rule ; but, occasionally, baseless operations have effected great results in war. And other instances might be multiplied with- out end. In conclusion, we cannot do better than turn again to Nature. In her organization there are the " vital force" which makes the plant grow, and the substances, organic and inorganic, which supply its sustenance. These latter correspond to our preparations of material, our rules, regu- lations, and ordinances, without a supply of which the organizing faculty will die, but which often smother it, or at least obstruct Its growth. On the other hand, without these rules, forms, regulations, and preparations, the organizing faculty ends in mere ideas, and shrewd prophet- ic insight, leading, however, to no good result. CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. •^ I ^HE foregoing essay had been written some time ago. It had been printed, and privately circulated ; and, to tell the truth, I had almost for- gotten its existence, when I was fully reminded of it by the following circumstance. We authors fancy we seldom hear the truth about ourselves, or our productions. Criticism, we tliink, is, for the most part, rather careless, and needs not be much attended to. When it is elaborate, if it be friendly, we fancy we discern the hand of a friend. If hostile, we flatter ourselves that we detect an enemy. Not that anybody is blessed with many enemies who can write elaborate criticisms ; but still our outraged feelings are apt to insist upon the existence of personal dislike when our works are unfavorably treated. There is one place, however, where we must admit that we are likely to hear the truth about ourselves, and our productions. The fact is that 13 1^4 ESSAY ON ORGANIZATION. Truth has, in these latter days, grown tired of living in such a damp place as the bottom of a well ; and, moreover, like the rest of the world, has become restless, and fond of travelling hither and thither, in a railway carriage. At any rate that is where I think I met with a great deal of truthful com- ment on the foregoing essay. It happened thus : I had taken my place in a railway carriage for the north of England, and was looking forward with some doubt as to the nature of my journey through the long day, which I knew would depend much upon the quality, pleasant or otherwise, of my companions. I watched them well as they took their places in the carriage. Three arrived together. One was a middle-aged man, with a worn, anxious look, carelessly dressed, partially bald, and very weary-looking. I could not help thinking that 1 had seen the face before ; and, carefully interrogating my memory, I recol- lected that he was an influential person at some public office — an Under-Secretary of State, or some- thing of that kind ; and that he had been present with the minister when receiving a deputation of which I had been a member. I remembered that he had asked one or two very shrewd questions, which were not those we were prepared to answer ; CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE, jgr and that we had quarrelled a little amongst our- selves when attempthig to answer them, which had given the minister a great advantage. The other two passengers were, as I afterwards found out, lawyers going to the Assizes at . One of them was a jovial-looking, rubicund, imperative man, who is a leading member of the Circuit. As will afterwards be seen, he is a man who indulges in unmeasured assertions, and whose language on all occasions is strong. The other was a very refined young man, with a long sharp nose, and a subtle expression of countenance, who evidently delighted in nice points of difference, and who seemed to think that he neg- lected his duty if he allowed any statement to pass unquestioned. From his careful mode of expres- sion I conjectured that he was one of those young lawyers who write a great deal for the liigher branches of the press ; but he had now got a case at the Assizes, which he much rejoiced to talk over with his rubicund friend and leader. There were two places left ; and these were soon filled by a lady, accompanied by a sickly-looking deformed boy or youth (for it was diflicult to tell his age) of whom she took the most tender care. The lawyers and the statesman were not accom- panied by any friends ; and their chief attachments jq5 essay on organization. seemed to be to their carpet-bags and their luggage. Troops of friends, however, came with the lady and the sickly youth ; and I observed that on parting she contrived to say something pleasant, or hopeful, or kindly, to each one of them. The sickly youth gazed languidly at his friends in all the apathy of sickness, but condescended to give a nod or two, as the train moved slowly off. The lady, who was of an uncertain age, making us doubt whether she was the mother or the aunt or the sister of the sickly boy, was one of those in whose eyes a history may be read. Pleasant and gracious, witty and sad, was the expression of her features, which were irregularly beautiful. Her voice was extremely sweet ; and instinctively every one in the carriage wished to pay some attention to her, which was easily done by making every arrangement for the comfort of the sick youth. I thought to myself, something may be made out of this party ; and the journey will not be dull, espe- cially as the eyes of our rubicund friend in the corner gleam with an imperious merriment. He will be sure to break the ice of silence. I was little prepared, however, for what immediately happened. The pale young lawyer pulled out of his pocket my unfortunate essay, and said to the Statesman, " This CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 107 is the pamphlet which the Serjeant and I were talking to you about at dinner yesterday. There are lots of things in it to be questioned, as I think, — so does the Serjeant, — but your business is Organization ; and when you have skimmed it over, we might have some talk about it." " Skimmed it over," said I to myself; " and this is the way even the intelligent part of the public — men with noses like that — talk of productions which have cost us poor devils nights and days of anxious thought." The " skimming-over " was effected in half an hour by the Statesman ; and an animated conversa- tion then began, of which I will endeavor to give some notion to the reader. As I must distinguish the personages, I will call the elder lawyer the " First Lavk^yer," and the young man the " Second Lawyer," as we distinguish two bandits in a theatri- cal piece. The Under-Secretary I will call " the Statesman." Then there are " the Lady," and *' the Sickly Youth ; " and, lastly, there is myself, *' the Author." Second Lawyer. Well, sir, you have skimmed it over now. Of course I did not mean to say that the fellow {this is the respectful recognition we have amongst the public) was always clear in his 1^8 ESSAY ON ORGANIZATION. ideas. Sometimes his organization is active ; some- times it is passive. Sometimes he merely means a plan ; sometimes a policy : and sometimes his organization is only forethought. But there is a sort of an idea running through it all, which it might be w^orth v^^hile to consider. First Lawyer. I w^ould have one of them attached to the front of the engine of all the express trains, and no damages v^hatever should be recover- able if he vi^ere smashed to atoms. Second Lawyer. My learned friend is not so precise as he would be if he were arguing before Lord Chief Justice Cockburn ; but by " them " he certainly means railway directors ; and he is evi- dently thinking of that part of the essay which relates to railway organization. First Lawyer. The author is quite right when he speaks of the want of organization there. The station where we shall stop to dine is a place where no animal but an ostrich could get a dinner. The book by which we have labored to ascertain our times of departure and arrival is a conglomeration of hideous confusion, which can be likened to noth- ing but the state of European policy at the present moment. If a fire should arise in this very car- riage, six estimable persons would be needlessly CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 1 99 burnt alive ; two lawyers, of whose eminence, pres- ent and to come, it does not become me to speak ; one statesman ; a fair lady who would evidently be missed by a large circle of loving friends ; an intel- ligent youth ; and a great ship-owner, or manufac- turer {this he said with a slight hozv to me; though why he should have assumed that I was a ship- owner or manufacturer.^ I could not see, I returned the bow, merely saying the words " Not great, sir"). I hope the world would miss us, and that, if we were burnt alive, some simple process would be invented by which the passengers in any carriage could communicate with the guard. The Author. One of the things most wanted in the world is to bring special knowledge into general use. Second Lawyer. I don't see what you mean, or how it applies. The Author. Well, it will be difficult to ex- plain. But what I mean is this : you see a difficulty overcome here, by this person ; and you know of various persons here and there who are laboring, or who ought to labor, against the same difficulty ; and the special knowledge necessary never seems to reach their benighted minds. I have often fancied I should like to take out a 200 ESSAY ON ORGANIZATION. party of innkeepers, or a board of directors, on a travelling excursion, simply to show them how things are better done elsewhere. The Statesman. Oh ! if you want to improve the administration of railways, I will tell you how to do it. Look out for a very ingenious, sickly man, with a large family — The Lady. Poor fellow ! The Statesjnan — And give him 4,000/. a year as an inspector of railways. Let him make short reports, in good English, of his sufferings on the different railways ; specifj'ing names, dates, and every particular. He must be bound to travel, occasionally, with his whole family, in the depth of winter. The Lady. And only to receive 4,000/. a year } I cannot think, sir, that you have had much expe- rience of travelling with large families. Second Lazuyer. But do we not know all about these sufferings at present ? The Statesman. Not sufficiently in detail. An ordinary person would be ashamed to describe these minutias ; but it must be this man's business. Besides, seriously speaking, he would meet with great differences of treatment. One thing is well managed on this railway, another on that. H^ CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 201 would be able to praise, as well as to blame. There is one railway I know of, on which, to my judg- ment, the coupling of the carriages is not sufficiently attended to. There is another railway on which I have never found the same fault. My inspector would tell the world these things, and an effect would be produced upon the traffic of these lines. First Lawyer. An official man is always an official man, and has a wild belief in the value of reports. According to him all celestial influences attend !Blue Books. The Author. Now, here is an instance of an organization proposed. I do not say whether it is wise or unwise, feasible or unfeasible ; but it indi-- Gates something that may be done in the required direction. Did time permit, I could give many more instances of the advantages of bringing spe- cial knowledge to bear. And railway organiza- tion — The Statesman. Oh ! railway organization is sure to be attended to ultimately, when there have been eight or ten great accidents, happening near together in point of time, and during the session of Parliament — for that is impsrative. But political and official organization are what I confess interest me most. 202 ESSAY ON ORGANIZATION. The Author. I think you are right. I maintain that the world is more foolish now than it ever was. Look at France and England going on just like two vulgar people in a small town, outbidding each other in frantic expenses. First Lawyer. I think I was not so far wrong in putting this gentleman down as a ship-owner, or manufacturer — probably one of the peace party. The Statestnan. But yet, sir, you cannot main- tain that our war expenditure is needless, and that our ministers are wrong in urging on the national defences ? The Author. I do not say that they are wrong. If I were in their place, I have no doubt I should do as they do. But I maintain that, if there were skil- ful political organization in the great Euroj^ean family of nations, or even if there were skilful organization among the more intelligent men of each individual country (for they are all against war), this ruinous armed peace would have more chance of being brought to an end in our time. Second Lawyer. Then you have read the pam- phlet, sir.'* The Author. Yes. It has been lying about upon our table at home, and I have often taken it up. CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 203 The Lady. It hardly becomes me to put in a word amongst you learned gentlemen ; but I must say, for the honor of our sex, that, if we had the management of affairs, we should not spend quite so much money as you gentlemen do upon warlike engines. Charles tells me [who is Charles^ I won del'? I hate Charles'] that one of these iron vessels costs 400,000/. We women should think a great deal, and perhaps talk a little, before we expended that sum — I^irst Lawyer — In any thing but fancy goods, madam. (We alllaughed,) The Lady. Well, there would at any rate be something beautiful to show for our money. Second Lawyer. And do you think you would long delight in these " fancy goods " my learned friend speaks of, if there were not some of these dark floating creatures to defend the fancy goods, and the fair wearers thereof } The Lady. I do not know. I am sure, though, we should not spend the money so recklessly as you do. We should keep more of it to buy tea and sugar with, and to improve our homes. The ladies in France would do the same, and so it would come to the same thing in the end. Second Lawyer. You mean, madam, that both 204 ESSAY ON ORGANIZATION, nations would be equally unprepared for defence, and that both nations would be far more comfort- able, if the women had the management of affairs. First Lawyer. I am sure, madam, you do manage us. The Lady. No. You get away from us, and talk all night in Parliament, and vote away our money without our having any thing to say to it ; and then come back again, and say how much you have worked for your country. First Lawyer. There is no arguing with a lady. She overcomes us at all points. The Statesma7t. What a theme the present troubles in America * would have given the author to show the want of organization ! All the mis- chief there has risen from disorganization, political, social, military. If there had been an organized policy on the part of the North, war might never have been. Second Lawyer. There, permit me to say, sir, you fall into the. error of the author. You mean that If there had been a profound and logical state- ment of the nature of the dispute, and of the reme- dies to be aimed at, war might have been prevented. But that is not organization. * This was written in 1862. CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 205 The Author. I do not know. It is the result of organization, and it is the organization of thought. The Statesman, Well, never mind the author. He must take care of himself against the critics. But to return to the subject. I admit that the Nor- thern Americans have shown great want of organi- zation ; but that has not been their only or perhaps their chief fault. Now, look at their wonderful boastfulness. There was a sentence in the Presi- dent's last speech, that I think is, without exception, the most boastful and absurd I ever read in any pub- lic document. I have read not a few Blue Books, and assisted in the compounding of not a few of them ; but I never read any thing like this. Second Lawyer. Well, what is " this" .? The Statesman. The President said that in many of his regiments there were men fit to form a Cab- inet, a Council, a Congress — perhaps even a Court. Now, from my position, I have seen a good many of the men who do form Cabinets and Councils and Congresses ; and even of those who are in no great estimation with the public, the majority are rather remarkable personages. In looking round upon the men of our year \nodding to the Ser- jeanf] at Oxford, you probably find only one or 206 ESSAY ON ORGANIZATION, two fit to be in a Cabinet, a Council, a Congress, or even to adorn a Court ; and yet an American regiment of volunteers is to furnish complete Coun- cils, Cabinets, and Congresses ! The absurdity is " tempestuous," as Sir Charles Wetherall would have said. I felt, when I read that sentence of the Presi- dent's, that much evil must come upon a people whose chief magistrate could utter such wild non sense unrebuked. If there were any British states- man so absurd as to endeavor to put such a sentence before the chief personage in the land, to be uttered by her, we all must feel that there would be a refu- sal to utter it. And yet no doubt the Queen has as high an opinion of her regiments as the President can justly have of his. First Lawyer. You are quite right. The ab- surdity is gigantic. The Statesman. Future historians will ask why there was not more sympathy In England with the Northern Americans at the present crisis. We care a great deal about slavery : we naturally feel much for a people speaking our own language, and having many of our own modes of thinking ; there are, in short, hundreds of ties between the two peoples : but their boasting has disgusted, and to a certain extent alienated us. CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 207 Moreover, however much we were disposed to sympathize with the North, we could not approve of nor adopt their language in speaking of the South. We did not think that " rebels " was the right word to apply to the men of the South ; and we could not imagine that a union would ever be cemented by conquest. The Author. The Americans are mistaken if they suppose that there are not a great many per- sons in England, who feel the deepest and most painful interest in the present hideous contest. For my own part, I could sit down and mourn, and utter doleful Jeremiads without end. But, to tell the truth, my sorrowing is not so much for the combatants, or for the present genera- tion : they have their amusement, and their excite- ment. My grief is for poor people in the future, who will know, as we know, the full bitterness of large taxation. It was a comfort to think that there was at least one people on the earth to whom the tax-gatherer was not a terror ; who, after the death of a head of a family, were not to see their moth- er's trinkets and their father's old familiar watch appraised, in order to ascertain^to the minutest farthing the personal property which the deceased had possessed. We have become accustomed to 3o8 ESSAY ON ORGANIZATION. these things ; but they are horrors. And what are they but the results of the great wars of former generations ? The eminent Americans we have seen in this country have, for the most part, been persons who would be likely to give a very favorable impression of their country. Such men as Mr. Sumner, Mr. Everett, Mr. Bancroft, Mr. Emerson, Mr. Ticknor, Mr. Motley, Mr. Hawthorne, would do honor to any country. But, somehow or other, you do not in American state papers see many traces of these men. Then, as regards the eminent authoress we have seen here, Mrs. Stowe : Was there ever a more gentle or pleasant lioness.'' At least, from what I have heard, -considering her astounding success, coming all at once and suddenly upon her, she bore her honors most meekly. The Second Lawyer, Even as regards ordinary Americans, such as you meet abroad travelling, I think you cannot fail to be struck with their good- nature, even when they commence blowing their tiresome national trumpet. It is the boastfulness of young people. One thinks of that saying about " a young bear with all its troubles to come ; " and now these troubles have come upon the nation. CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 209 First Lawyer. Who ever invented that saying about the young bear ? and why should a bear have more troubles than the rest of the animal family ? There's a question for an examination paper. The Author. I am sure I can get some marks then for an answer. The proverb, no doubt, arose in bear-baiting times. We, having become more humane, have lost our appreciation of the proverb. Second Lawyer. Well, in talking over the matter, we have become quite tolerant as regards individual Americans. The Author. I think you were somewhat hard upon the disposition of the Americans, even as gathered from their state papers. The rest of the world are quite as absurd, only more measured in talk and more decorous. I go back to the reckless expenditure upon armies among all the chief nations in Europe. Second Lawyer. You know the theory of some learned divine : that the human race goes mad at times, and of course, like other mad people, does not suspect its own madness? The Author. Yes ; and some other ingenious person has maintained that this madness has gen- erally prevailed in the middle of centuries. 14 2IO . ESSAY ON ORGANIZATION. The Statesfuan. Oh ! that's too absurd : recol- lect the French Revolution. I am quite willing to admit the previous proposition. The Author. It is in one of its warlike mad- nesses now. And when this is the case, and when great potentates possess huge armies, you feel that if this difficult question, or that complication of affairs, were by good fortune to be amicably settled, the main cause of terror would still remain. Have you ever been m the West Indies } [ They answered in the negative 7\ Well, you take a soli- tary walk there ; and, looking over the imbrowned plain, you cannot discern a living creature. No wood is near, no sheltering crags. The air is hid- eously still, perhaps before some coming hurricane, A snake glides out from under a stone ; and with instinctive fear, and the aversion which there is between man and that reptile, you strike it with your stick. It lies dying on the ground. If you are a denizen of those regions, you look round upon the whole horizon for something to come ; and it does come. Slowly, from a distant point, there rises a hideous, ungainly bird, the gallinazo, which, wheeling round in circles, swoops down upon the snake almost before you have had time to move away. CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 211 That is just to my mind what there Is at present in the politics of the world. At the stillest moment, on the smallest cause of encounter, wherever there is the slightest prospect of misfortune, this obscene bird of war is ready to sweep down upon the spot. Its perception of prey is super-human : it is sure to be present where there is any, the least, hope of evil. Second Lawyer. Yes, sir ; but how is this evil to be prevented ? What is the good of pretending peace when there is no peacefulness } The Author. I tell you what will happen some day. If scientific men really give their minds to the destruction of their fellow-creatures, they will invent something which will throw all your Arm- strong guns into shade. I believe in the virtues of Lord Dundonald's discovery. If I had made any similar discovery, I really think I should have told it openly to the world, in the hope that the easy destructibility of human beings might put a stop to this mania for destruction. Some day there will come the knowledge of the means of creating a pestilence. Second Lawyer, This is a pleasant look-out for the human race. But I am by no means sure that this gentleman is not right. I should be sorry, 212 ESSAY ON ORGANIZATION. Serjeant, to be tempted with the knowledge of some vapor which could destroy, in a moment, all my seniors at the bar. I suppose, though, I should never use it, for fear of its being used against me by my juniors ; and the knowledge that there was such a vapor in everybody's power would make every- body very civil to everybody else. T/ie AutJior. You will think me, perhaps, a very fanciful and romantic person ; but my wonder is, and always has been, that our knowledge of astronomy, only gained in comparatively modern times, has not dwarfed and crushed ambition. It is such a little bit of a thing, this earth. What is there to make one desirous, wading through fire and water and blood, to reign over any part of it? It was different vvhen men believed it to be the abode of gods and demi-gods, and that it was the only created thing of any magnitude. Sickly Youth. Sirius is said to be about a mil- lion of miles in diameter : {the lady looked at him very proudly) . The Author. Yes, it is. But I would also rely upon other facts and conjectures. You see it is now conjectured that there have been a series of deluges, and that there will be, at no very distant time, a sweeping off again of us little, cantanker- CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 213 ous, quarrelsome men into the depths of the sea. The Lady. Pardon me for repeating that, if we women ruled affairs, even If we did not know these learned conclusions (and certainly I never knew them before to-day), we should not be so quarrelsome as you gentlemen are ; for are we not more prudent and homely ? JP'irst Lawyer {turning to me). Bless my neart, sir ; some two or three thousand people know what you and I know about these scientific matters, and you suppose that such an inconsiderable num- ber can Influence the whole world. Second Lawyer. I do not know why they should not. TTie AufJior. If there were organization — The Statesman. The week's business is enough for the week ; and, as to looking much further, that Is what neither statesmen nor stockbrokers ever do. The Author. That is just what I complain of, and what I believe this writer Is aiming at. Second Lawyer. You seem always to be ready to defend the writer. You must be a great friend of his. Do you know him .? The Author. A little. But I am any thing but 214 i:SSAT ON ORGANIZATION. a friend of his, — one of his worst enemies, per- haps his chief one. 77ie Statesma7i. Well, I see we should never agree on these great subjects which he has sug- gested to us ; but I do thoroughly agree with what he says about the organization of pleasure. The head of my office once said, " Life would be very tolerable if it were not for its pleasures." Is not that a witty saying.? and so true. By the way, I don't think you would get such a brilliant 7not out of any of those American regiments that are to furnish Councils and Cabinets and Congresses. Second Lawyer. And perhaps Courts. Do not forget that. First Lawyer. I, too, think the part about pleas- ure not bad. But this lady, like the rest of her sex, is, I doubt not, one of the guilty persons in the great offence of making pleasure so uncomfortable. Pray, madam, why do you all crowd your parties in the way you do } Why do you have a dancing- tea at which one cannot dance } Second Lawyer. Yes, madam, I must follow on the same side. Why do you have a dancing-tea at which my learned friend cannot dance, I ask } The Lady. I can answer that question. It is because you gentlemen make business enter into all CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 215 pleasures. " If you ask the So-and-soes, my dear, you must ask the Thises and the Thats." The obedient wife does ask the Thises and the Thats ; and there is an unpleasant crowd. First Lawyer. Upon my word, madam, there is no use in arguing with you. You always con- quer us, else perhaps I could say something about dress. The Lady. Pray say It, sir ; or rather pray do not say it, for I think I know pretty well all that you will say. The truth is, we are foolish ; you are foolish ; everybody, I believe, is foolish in dress ; and the silliest people in the world guide us all in this matter, and set the fashions. First Lawyer. Well, madam, you have at least made a candid confession. But I see that, while we have been talking, you have been looking at the essay. What do you think of it ? The Lady. There is a great deal I don't under- stand ; but there is one thing I like, and that is, that the author always takes his examples from common life. I can't help fancying that I was at that great festivity he speaks of, where it was so difficult to get away. I had two gentlemen to assist me, and they were four hours hunting after the carriage ; 2l6 i:SSAT ON ORGANIZATION. and at last they did not find it, but I found it myself. I^irsf Lawyer. Dark carriage, of course, ma*am ? Now if you had had cream-color picked out with red, you would have found it in a quarter of an hour. The Lady. Yes ; but one would be so stared at in such a carriage. First Lawyer, It may be unfortunate for you, ma'am ; but you will always be stared at. (^Here he gave a self-satisfied smile., as if he felt that he had now said a really pretty thing: we laughed., a?zd the lady blushed and smiled.) The Author {addressing the lady). I am sure the essayist would be much obliged to you for your approval of common instances. I, too, am quite with him and with you in this matter. What is the good of bringing in Hannibal and the Alps, or the battle of Marathon, the choice of Hercules, or the retreat of the Ten Thousand, to illustrate some- thing which can be well shown by Hodge in the hay-field ? What grand examples have been brought forward to illustrate the intense intolerance of human nature ! the fate of the Waldenses ; the Albigenses ; the Lollards ; the Wickliffites ! None of them afford so CONVERSATION IN A BAIL WAT CARRIAGE. 21 7 good an instance as a simple story I know about mustard, which I have heard told at dinner-tables amidst roars of laughter. Statesman. Pray tell it us, sir. First Lawyer. A good story is one of the bless- ings of life. The Author. A good story once, I think, saved my life. Seco7td Lawyer. This is wandering from the subject. First Lawyer. Oh, hang the subject! You clever young men are so pedantic. The Author. Well, I will not tell the story my- self, but will describe another person telling it, — the witty and scientific L . He would ask us, generally at dinner-time, h prof OS of mustard, whether we had heard his story about that much-approved condiment. Those who had not heard it said " No," and begged to hear it ; and those who had heard it clamored to hear it again. Upon this he would send the servant for a Times newspaper, and, when he had got it, would thus begin : — We are at a coffee-house. You, Jones \choosing some one who had heard the story before']^ are 2l8 JiSSAT ON ORGANIZATION. having your dinner brought upon the table, — a juicy, beefsteak. I have just finished mine at the same table. I look off from my paper, and pass the mus- tard to you. You must always decline. I, . Mustard, sir ? Jones. Thank you {but does not take it). L {Looking baffled^ and cross, reads on a little^ . You will take mustard, sir ? Jones. No, thank you, I don't. Z- {After 7nore impatieizt reading, and glancing round his faper to feep at Jones). Most persons take mustard, sir, with beefsteak. Jones. I seldom or never do, sir. L {Attempts to get interested in a rail- ivay accident, and mutters, *' Three lives lost, — the stoker escaped by a miracle. No blame can be attached to a7iy of the officers of the Company?* L continues to look round his paper over and over again at Jones. At last he exclai?ns an- grily :) It Is a most extraordinary thing, sir, not to eat mustard with beefsteak. / never did such a thing In my life. Jones {calmly). Perhaps n.ot. L ( Turns to his paper, and attempts again to read, but manifests a state of strong excite- ment. Once or twice he stretches out his hand^ CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 219 and withdraws it again. At last he can hear it no longer. He throivs down the Times; and^ taking uf the mustard-pot., exclaims:^ Damn it, sir, you must and shall have mustard ! {a7id he dazibs yones's ;plate over with it). The company, servants, and all, are convulsed with laughter ; and L resumes his dinner v^ith all the air of a triumphant anecdote-teller after a great success. Now, I ask you, is not that the best story to illus- trate the intense intolerance of human nature you ever heard ? Have you not all found that everybody is anxious to force his mustard upon your beef, whether you like it or not? That story contains eighty-three sermons. First Lawyer. And a hundred and thirty-five essays. The Author. And two hundred charges to the Grand Jury. But now I will be as serious as you like, and go back into the subject, and please this gentleman. The Lady. I believe it is I who desei-ve to be scolded as the cause of this digression, in praising the author for having taken his instances from com- mon life. 220 ESSAY ON ORGANIZATION. The Statesma7i. There are some instances which he has failed to take, and which, to my mind, would have been better than any he has taken. The Ordnance Survey ought to have been given as an admirable instance of organization. Jf'irst Lawyer. Stop. Let us each give an instance. ( We all agreed^ Well, I say nowhere is organization more wanted than at a public meet- ing. All goes wrong if two or three clever fellows have not met before, and drawn up all the resolu- tions, with a paper of agenda for the chairman. At the meeting every thing must go like clock-work. Who is to propose, and who is to second, a resolu- tion, must be absolutely settled. There must be no detestable modesty of people conspicuously bowing to one another, and saying, " No, sir, not I : I am not of importance enough in the county," &c., &c. The meeting must go off swiftly and cheerfully ; and that can only be done by previous organization. The Author. Very true. I will give you another instance, — a wedding breakfast. Even that miserable transaction may be made to go off well, if the proceedings have been well arranged beforehand, and there are no dreary intei-vals allowed for tears. CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 221 The Lady. Then, a musical party. How that mostly fails for want of some despotic person to arrange beforehand everything that shall be done ; so that there may be no weak consultations round the piano, or wishes expressed that there had been some " part music " there which is not there. Second Lawyer. And a consultation at a lead- ing counsel's chambers. First Laxvyer. No, no: we won't have any reference to the shop : but it is not a bad instance though. Sickly Touth. And a paper-chase at school over difficult country. First Lawyer. Well done, my man : yours is a very good instance ; and I tell you this, — that the boy who had run well across country, and had shown great judgment in baffling his pursuers at a paper-chase, should have a lot of marks for it at any examination at Woolwich, if I were an exami- ner. But I am afraid, my good fellow, you would have been rather out of place at such a run. Sickly Touth. I was always consulted, though, by the " foxes " beforehand ; and so I got the nick- name of " the lame old fox." First Lawyer. Well, we have all given our in- stances ; and the}^ are not to be despised, I think. 222 ESSAY ON ORGANIZATION. But now, if you will allow me, I will take up another part of the essay, and tell you something that Sir Wm. Follett once said to me. Give me the book. This is the passage : it is where the •author is speaking of the qualities of a good organ- izer. " It must take some time to ascertain of any man that he is clear and constant in his main pur- pose, and is not to be led away from it by the dexterous fulfilment of smaller ends and aims." I doubt whether the man himself sees all that there is in that passage. T/ze AutJior. Why should he not have seen it, as this passage suggested the idea to you } But per- haps he did not. However, what did Sir Wm. Follett say? First Lawyer. "Remember that every piece of business is involved in difficulties, and that a great difference between a good and a bad legal practitioner consists in the ability or disability to estimate the practical value of the difficulties, and to dismiss from his thoughts those that he does not feel to be of practical importance." The Statesma7t. It is wonderfully good ; and all the more so, that it seems but commonplace. The sense of proportion is wanting in most of our minds when we come to deal with difficulties. CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 223 The Author. I am entirely with you. Three difficulties are started. Two of them, perhaps, are practically unimportant ; but we are apt to think that they are respectively equal in value to the third, because each of them takes up as much room in our mind at the moment as the third does. The two difficulties, which may be unimportant in life, are important, logically speaking; and so sometimes they have a most unjustifiable hold upon us. The Statesman. Yes, a great business is delayed sometimes because some difficult point, which is in every sense but a point, cannot be settled. First Lawyer. I have known an expense of several pounds incurred in replying to a requisition that the title to a rent should be proved strictly, the rent being one penny a year for less than ninety- nine years, and forming, by accident, part of a large property which was to be mortgaged. These things are the opprobrium of law. The Author. No, ijo ; you are too hard upon- law. I would rather say these things are the opprobrium of life ; for we are all greatly deficient in that just sense of proportion which this gentle- man insisted upon. The Statesman. I have something to say on the 224 USSAY ON ORGANIZATION. general subject, which has struck me : it is not deep, but I think it is important. The writer leads ns naturally to consider various kinds of organiz- ation. Now it appears to me, after going over several notorious instances of mal-organization, that the error consists in not having considered from the first what a serious thing organization is. " Oh ! that will do for the beginning," men say ; " we can alter afterwards." But they do?z^t alter afterwards ; and the organization grinds on, assumes a powerful name, becomes a great system almost before you are aware : and it is very difficult to make the thing ungrind. The Author. Ah ! the beginning of every thing is solemn. Now I am delighted to find, — I am afraid I shall be scolded by this gentleman for wandering again from the point, — but I say I am delighted to find that poets and painters are discover- ing that the break of day is not joyous, but, rather, awful. "Jocund" is not a good adjective for morn. ** Advancing, strewed the earth with orient pearls." What are the lines, young gentleman } \tur7is to the sickly youth. '\ You know them I dare say: that's the advantage of being young ; one has learnt every thing lately. CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 225 Sickly Touth. "Now Morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime Advancing, sow'd the earth with orient pearls.'* Not "strewed" but "sow'd." The Author. Instead of all that, the morn seems to me to come in so mournfully. There are the slight, streaky clouds, that are to become ominous in an hour or two, and are to fall in the course of the next twelve hours ; throughout nature there is an unpleasant, nervous stillness ; there is a depressing blankness of color ; and, altogether, the day seems to be saying, " Here am I, about to bring much trouble and tribulation to most persons, and a little content — only to those who are already contented." The Statesman. You don't take a cheerful view of life, sir. First Lawyer. I would rather go back to the essay, I think. What do you say, madam? The Lady. We ladies are generally said to like what is sentimental and melancholy; but I am quite contented to go back to the essay. Second Lawyer. One of the great difficulties under which it will labor, as regards popular accep- tation, is that most people are so apt to connect organization in their minds with centralization. IS 226 ESSAY ON ORGANIZATION. Now, of course, a man may organize with a view to decentralization. The Author. I think, sir, the author should feel very grateful to you for pointing out a miscon- ception which is very likely to arise. J^irst Lawyer. I think, however, the author would not be so much obliged to my learned friend for pointing out, as he did at the beginning of the conversation, that when the author speaks of organ- ization, the simple word " plan " might as well have been used. For my own part, I feel that some part of the essay (and the part I like best) might simply be resolved into this, — that men do not ask themselves what they mean by doing a thing. It is so often that they imitate, when they should act independently. Now I will take you into a subject which has apparently little to do with what we have been discussing ; but yet I can see that the author, in one particular Instance, has had it in his mind. I take Color as my subject. It has always appeared to me that, especially in this country, colors are laid on without any view to the purposes for which they are used. You see every- where the darkest colors emplo3^ed, where light colors should be chosen if there were any reason- ing at all upon the subject. Now a light color CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 227 wears best, and is the most distinguishable ; yet you will find that dark colors are greatly used for boundaries, which of course are better the more distinguishable they are. This is the case with the palisading of all our great towns. I believe, if you were to examine into the cause, it would be nothing more or less than fashion. Oddly enough, the idea of gentility has been associated with darkness of color ; and this idea has pervaded the whole country. Much, there- fore, of what the essayist has been protesting against, is merely the result of people continuing to do something without a sufficient reason. The Statesman. The passport system, which he alluded to, is a good instance of that. By the way, the essay must have been written some time ago, at least before the French Emperor took such a wise step as he did towards abol- ishing passports. Second Lawyer. And before the American President introduced them. The Author. I *gree with much of what these learned gentlemen have said : indeed, I have always maintained that half the work of the world is useless ; that it cannot give a good account of itself, if subjected to severe scrutiny. 228 JESS AY ON ORGANIZATION. My idea of organization would be to diminish much of this useless work. I always think of the boy * who was employed at certain intervals to open a valve, or shut a valve, or something of that kind, in some complicated machinery ; and who found that by attaching a string to two pieces of the machinery the purpose was effected, and he was left to play at marbles. There is a result of skilful organ- ization in the saving of trouble. The Statesntan. Of course a thing may be elaborate, but yet mal-organized. That is the case with pleasures. You see I like to return to that branch of the subject. The pains taken about pleasure are excessive : the results are dolorous. Now, there is a great fuss being made about the question of education just at present. It is one of the subjects omitted, or, rather, slightly treated, by the essayist ; and yet perhaps it opens the widest field for wise organization. The Author. It is a bold thing in me to say ; but I do think there are the most enormous errors afloat about education. • Second Lawyer, There must be enormous errors in a subject which is the greatest in the * The Author had forgotten that he had used this illustration in the essay; but it was not noticed. CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 229 world except war ; and it Is not likely that man- kind have hit off the right thing at once. But pray tell us, sir, any one of these large errors. The Author. Well, I think, then, that we mis- construe the results that we get from inspection and examination. I will explain what I mean. You must all have read or heard of the answer which was given by a child of eleven years of age to the question " What is thy duty towards thy neighbor ? " I^irst Lawyer. Oh, yes, I remember laughing heartily over it. I have forgotten the words though. The Author. I think I can recollect the first part of it. " My dooty tords my nabers, is to love him as thyself, and to do to all men as I wed thou shall do und to me, to love, onner, and suke my farther and mother, to onner and to bay the Qiieen, and all that are pet in a forty under her, to smit myself to all my goones, teachers, sportial pastures and marsters." Now I have studied that answer very carefully, and I maintain that there is no reason for thinking that the child did not understand its duty towards its neighbor very well, — as well perhaps as the witty and accomplished inspector who examined the 230 ESSAY ON ORGANIZATION. child. Consider the words. When the child said that it was its duty " to onner and to bay the Queen, and all that are pet in a forty under her," don't you think that the child had sufficient knowledge in that matter for all practical purposes.? Omit the words " in a forty," which perhaps conveyed but a dim idea of " in authority " to the child, is there not enough left to show that the child understood that it was to obey the Queen, and the clergyman of the parish, and the neighboring justice of the peace, and the parish constable.? Again, when it used the words " sportial pastures and marsters," do you doubt that it included the master of the school ; and so on, throughout? The main sense of the passage may have been thoroughly in the child's mind. T^e Statesma7t. The vice of the age is an unwholesome belief in examinations. TJie Author. I am rather disposed to agree with you. Second Lawyer. I don't: I believe examina- tions have already done a great deal of good. The Author. Now I am going to ask you all a question, and I hope you will give me a true answer. The Lady. That would be a large promise to make, sir. CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 23 1 Second Lazuyer. Well, I dare say we shall answer it truly, if it is not a very unpleasant ques- tion. The AutJior. When you were very juvenile, and were asked, " Who was the father of Zebedee's children ? " did you answer the question directly, or indeed could you answer it at all ? Now I do not believe that I am inferior to the average of mankind. They think a good deal of me in my parish, and I was very near being made a justice of the peace. I am a Tithing-man, if you know what that is, which is more than I do, though I hold the office. \_They all laughed.'\ Well, I confess that when a burly man dressed in black, virith a huge bunch of seals dangling from his fob (for that was the fashion in my young days) , called me to him, unfortunately just after my fond father had been praising my remarkable abilities, and in a pompous voice said, " Well, young gentle- man, and who was the father of Zebedee's chil- dren?" I was nonplussed. I turned over in my juvenile mind every thing I had read a.nd heard about Zebedee ; but this important fact respecting the paternity of Zebedee's children had hitherto escaped my attention. I thought it was a very deep question. I imagined that I must be shamefully \ 232 ESSAY ON ORGANIZATION. ignorant of Scripture history. I was mortified ; my father looked mortified ; and I slunk away as a little ignoramus who had been much overpraised by a fond parent. Now did any of you fare any better ? First Lazvyer. I am not sure that I could answer the question now ; but I have no doubt that I disgraced myself when it was asked me some fifty years ago. Second Lawyer, And I too. The Statesman. And I. The Author, And you, madam.? The Lady, I believe I answered it. The Author, Well, but you women are so prematurely clever : as Henry Taylor says, you grow on the sunny side of the wall. If you were asked the question at eleven years of age, you were equal to us at fourteen. Well, young gentleman, and you.? Sickly Youth, Oh ! I didn't. The Author, It appears that a large majority of us ought to be very tender and tolerant in con- sidering any answers made by children of eleven years of age. But, to consider the matter more seriously, I repeat that I quite agree with this gentleman (the CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 233 Statesman) about the over-weight given to exami- nations in modern times. Take your own craft: do you think that you would have found out the exact merits of Lord Pahnerston, Lord Russell, Lord Granville, Lord Derby, Mr. Disraeli, and Mr. Gladstone, by examination? Do you think they would haye held their proper places in an examination ? The Statsman. They would not have been low down. Second Lawyer. I am not sure of that. The Author. Nor I ; there is a certain indo- cility in the minds of men who have much in them. But what I mean is much more than that. Mr. Carlyle has said that Genius consists in an immense capacity for taking trouble. First Lawyer. That is against you : those who succeed in examinations have taken a great deal of trouble. Second Lawyer. Decidedly. The Author. Ah ! but I don't mean to abide by his definition: I mean to carry the definition a step or two higher. I say that it consists in an immense capacity for taking interest ; and, when applied to statesmanship, in taking interest in many things. Also, in courage. 234 ESSAY ON ORGANIZATION. Now, where was the source of Pitt's greatness? Surely there were many men of his day a great deal cleverer than he was, but few there were who felt so deeply for England, or cared so much for any matter that they had in hand. Circumstances which I need not mention made me early acquainted with Pitt's mode of working. It was intense. It is quite true, as stated in the essay, that he would shut himself up for hours with a bill, and the men who knew any thing about it ; and so he would master the bill. I maintain that you cannot find out this spirit in a man by examina- tion. And how, I would ask, can you find out about a man's courage by examination.? And courage, moral courage, is one of the highest and rarest qualities in the transaction even of ordinary business. First Lawyer, I don't agree with you at all. This capacity for taking interest, and this courage,' I contend, are to some extent shown hi the acquisi- tion of knowledge. Well, then, I say the knowledge in itself is valuable. Consider what little time any of us have, after our first youth, for learning any thing. Of course, you don't find out the whole nature of a man by examining him in French, Latin, History, ■CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 235 or Mathematics ; but you find out something which in my judgment requires to be found out. In no service will the advantage of this system of examination be more discernible than in the army. I believe that already I can see great improve- ment there among the young men. The Author. Well, all I can say is, that the system requires to be very carefully watched. We must not suppose that the whole man is found out by an examination. Success in an examination must not be allowed to have too much influence after- wards. First Lawyer. It will not. In life, men favor others according as they find them serviceable. Attorneys do not ask whether I took honors or not, but whether there is a chance of my getting a verdict. To myself, it is a great advantage that I learnt a little mathematics when I was young, in order to get a good place at an examination. I am sure I should never have known any thing about them otherwise. Second Lawyer. But now, to come back to organization, — for I am always bringing you back to that subject, — what are its functions in social matters, such as education and sanitary work? The Author. Well, the main functions are 236 ESSAY ON ORGANIZATION, clear. There are things which government can do, and ought to do, and which individuals, or small communities, cannot. You must so organize as to contrive that local authorities shall not hang upon the government, and that government shall do its own especial work, which may justly be very small, and yet may be most important. The States?naii. This is a little vague, sir. The Author, Try me in any particular instance. The States?nan. There is a sudden outbreak of fever in a town. The Author. Well, if there is any thing re- markable about it, the government may send down to inspect, and then aid the town with that special knowledge which must be greatest at the centre of affairs. But upon the local authority must be thrown the responsibility of removing the causes of the fever, if those causes can be discovered. One of the greatest triumphs of organization must be justly to divide governmental from local action. The States?nan, But in education what do you say? The Author, I merely say this, that the want of education is a want which can never be so easily perceived by the mass of men as the want of good CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 237 air, good water, and good drainage. And there- fore there requires just that degree of additional governmental aid which would counterbalance the additional difficulty created by the want of percep- tion of the good to be aimed at, or the evil to be avoided. T/ie Statesman. I believe this is all true ; but how difficult it is to work up to these nice boun- daries in practice. The moment you have any system organized, it is eager to extend beyond its just boundaries. The Author. Then that is spurious organiza- tion ; or rather it is organization which is incom- plete because it does not provide the necessary checks upon its own action. You come at last to this : that if you would rightly organize any thing which has life in it, such as a community of men, you must have a living organization which can vary, withhold, or rescind all that is merely formu- lary, and that depends solely upon rules. When a monarchy, or a republic, or a church, or a system of education, falls into decay, it is because the organization has not been renewed from the foun- tain of its being, and is partially a dead thing. It is imitative and formal, not creative. If it grows, it is but in one direction : it is dead somewhere. 238 ESSAY OX ORGANIZATION. Why do these railways fail, which this learned gentleman is so bitter against? Because there is not enouo^h of new mind thrown into the workino^ of them. Second Lawyer. There is one idea which this essayist seems never to have entertained ; namely, that organization may be used for very bad pur- poses, and that the growth and success of one form of organization may be fatal to many others that would have been preferable to it. The Statesman. He must have thought of that : it is as obvious as daylight. All the great tyrannies that have arisen in the world, whether priestly, imperial, or democratic, have all arisen from some one department of human affairs being well organized, and being surrounded by feeble organisms. First Lawyer. The press furnishes another instance. The Author. Yes : if you were to have a pre- dominant newspaper in a colony, supremely well- organized, of course its tendency would be most dangerous. There would be so little established that could check it. The Statesman. The danger from the press, not CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 239 SO much to freedom of thought as to independence of thought, is most formidable everywhere. First Lawyer. The hardship to individuals is frightful to contemplate. I was engaged in a case some time ago in which a good, simple, trusting individual, my client, had been done out of 600/. or 700/. In some way the case came before the courts, though I believe my client would have been delighted to pay the money for the experience, and never to have heard a word more about the matter. In two or three days' time out came a flaming article in a leading journal, taking for its text the innocent folly of my trustful client. I could, not help feeling what an over- severe punishment it was. Second Lawyer. Yes. I hold with the nigger who said, " If preachy, preachy ; if floggy, floggy : but not preachy and floggy too, Massa." The Author, That is exactly it. A poor devil now gets both "preachy" and "floggy" too, even for an innocent blunder I was very much struck the other day, in taking up a newspaper, to see that three out of four of the leading articles were comments upon private per- sons, and private affairs. This will gradually become a thorough invasion of the liberty of the 24° ESSAY ON organization: subject. I am quite of the opinion of a man who is said by those who know him to be one of the wisest of our generation. " I should hate," he said, " in short, to Hve in a land where men should act in multitudes, and think in multitudes, and be free in multitudes." T/ie Statesman. And then, too, accusations are made which are not merely inaccurate, but abso- lutely aimed at the wrong person. Of course in official life I have seen that. I have seen article after article come out in a leading newspaper against a man, for something which he had no more to do with than I had. I remember, when I was a juvenile in office, saying to a certain statesman who was undergoing this blackening, " Why, my lord, do you not write a letter to the paper, and tell them that you are not the man ? " He smiled and replied, " Don't you see I should be always writing letters } Cannot you imagine that the next accusa- tion which might be brought against me, I might not be able to explain without implicating other people, or betraying the intentions of the Govern- ment .^^ You, too, my young friend," continued the old statesman, " may have plenty of this sort of thing to endure in the course of your life ; and you must learn to endure it, and work on patiently." CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 24 1 I have been too obscure to have had much occasion to prove the soundness of his advice ; but I hope if I had been much abused, I should have learnt to hold my tongue under it. The Author. What I am always afraid of is, that, at some critical juncture of our affairs, the officers in command will not be thinking so much of answering for their deeds to the Government at home, as to the writers of leading articles. We may not always have Dukes of Wellington to command our armies, and we may lose a cam- paign by the susceptibility to newspaper comments of officers high in command. Second Lawyer. Well, but what can organiza- tion do in this matter.? The Statesma7z. Nothing more, I suppose, than organize opposition to the great powers of the press, whatever they may be. First Lawyer, Yes. Encourage in every way any publication which shows signs of indepen- dent thought. Now there is a review which I delight in (though I know it meant me the other day when it was wa-iting about a certain Serjeant Bluster), because it always barks on the other side to the great barker, and so we get some chance of freedom. 16 242 ESSAY ON ORGANIZATION. The Author. I quite sympathize with you. I was rejoiced to find, from a friend who takes great interest in such matters, that the sale of some of the newspapers which have no great name, one of which was absolutely un- known to me, is enormous. There, I thought to myself, is a chance of some counterpoise. I think the admirable way in which, for the most part, the leading portion of the press in England is conducted, tends greatly to disguise the danger there is in it to independence of thought and action. In America the present evil is greater ; but the danger of future evil may be less. However, this is too large a subject for us to attempt to discuss fully unless we were all going to the Hebrides together. The Lady. I must say, that I think we women care much less about newspaper articles than you gentlemen. I often have to console my husband \ph^ she is 7narried then\ when something is written against him in the news- papers ; and I generally persuade him that some little domestic matter is far more impor- tant to us. They might write leading articles against me from morning till night, if I could always manage my cook well. CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 243 First Lawyer, Yes. It is all very well, ma'am ; but you do not govern, — at least osten- sibly, — or plead, or preach, or command armies, or conduct diplomacy ; otherwise you would not make so light of the power of the press. I believe that those ladies who do come before the public, such as actresses and singers and female artists and authors, are quite as sensi- tive to newspaper comment as we are. The Lady. I doubt it, but I cannot really answer for them. Second Lawyer, How did we get into this discussion about the press.'* The Statesman, As an instance of dangerous organization ; and some one said that the author never seemed to contemplate the possibility of dangerous organization. The Author. I have always divided mankind into two great classes. The one consists of men who seem to be isolated from the human race, and who make the most of every thing that goes ill, public or private. The other con- sists of men who seem to feel strongly the affinity of the rest of the human race to them- selves ; who make the best of every thing they come in contact with ; and who rather wish 244 ESSAY ON organization: well than otherwise to all forms of human endeavor. These main divisions predominate over all diversities of temperament, and even of disposition. For instance, a man shall be selfish or egotistical, and yet belong to the second great division. I always fancy that this depends upon an innate perception of some central truth concerning the fortunes of the human race, and of how, in some mysterious way, all of us as individuals partake these fortunes. As I flatter myself that I belong to the second division before referred to, I can easily comprehend how the essayist has omitted to dwell upon the evil uses of organization. He probably thought that organization, if improved, would be sure to further the welfare of mankind, thinking, for his own part, chiefly of the good uses. I should have made the same mistake myself. Second Lawyer. It is an oversight, however skilfully or romantically you may endeavor to account for it. First Lawyer. Well, we must admit that there is nothing like discussion for making time pass. We have been talking over this dull subject without feeling dulness ; and here we are at Bore- CONVERSATION IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 245 don, where they will give us what they fondly and delusively call a dinner. We got out at Boredon, which was the station for my departure by another train ; so I took leave of my companions, feeling somewhat pleased that I had made a battle for my offspring. But that Second Lawyer is a pestilent fellow for dividing and defining. He will find out a great many faults in the essay when it is published, and will show them up in some review or other. And there will be a great deal of justice in what he will say. It is almost impossible to keep one's language quite correct in discussing a subject that enters in such a mixed manner into so many and such various human affairs. However, they may criticize as they like, they will not persuade me that we could not organize a great deal more skilfully than we are in the habit of doing, and that organization is not one of the most remuner- ative products of the human mind. Cambridge : Stereotyped and Printed by John Wilson & Son. ARTHUR HELPS'S WRITINGS. 1. REALMAH. A Story. Price $2.00. 2. CASIMIR MAREMMA. A Novel. Price $2.00. 3. COMPANIONS OF MY SOLITUDE. Price $1.50. 4. ESSAYS WRITTEN IN THE INTERVALS OF BUS INESS. Price $1.50. «f. BREVIA Short Essays and Aphorisms. Price $1.50. From the London Review. •• The tale (Realmah) is a comparatively brief one, intersected by the conversations of a variety of able personages, with most of whose names and characters we are already familiar through ' Friends in Council.* Looking at it in connection with the social and political lessons that are wrapt up in it, we may fairly attribute to it a higher value tlian could pes* sibly attach to a common piece of nction." From a Notice by Miss E. M, Converse, "There are many reasons why we like this irregular book (Realmah), in which we should find the dialogue tedious without the story; the story dull without the dialogue ; and the whole unmeaning, unless we discerned the purpose of the author underlying the lines, and interweaving, now here, now there, a criticism, a suggestion, an aphorism^ a quaint illustration, an exhortation, a metaphysical deduction, or a moral inference. " We like a book in which we are not bound to read consecutively, whose leaves we can turn at pleasure and find on every page something to amuse, interest, and instruct. It is like a charming walk in the woods in early summer, where we are attracted now to a lowly flower half hidden under soft moss ; now to a shrub brilliant with showy blossoms ; now to the gran- deur of a spreading tree ; now to a bit o*" 6eecy cloud ; and now to the blue of the overarching sky. We gladly place * Realmah ' on the * book-lined wall,' by the side of From a Notice by Miss H, W. Preston. *' It must be because the reading world is unregenerate that Arthur Helps Is not a general favorite. Somebody once said (was it Ruskin, at whose imperious order so many of us read ' Friends in Council,' a dozen years ago?) that appreciation of Helps is a sure test of culture. Not so much that, one may suggest, as of a certain native fineness and excellence of mind. The impression prevails among some of those who do not read hin:, that Helps is a hard writer. Nothing could be more erroneous. His man- ner is simplicity itself; his speech always winning, and of a silvery dis- tinctness. There are hosts of ravenous readers, lively and capable, who, if their vague prejudice were removed, would exceedingly enjoy the gentle wit, the unassuming wisdom, and the refreshing originality of the author in question. There are men and women, mostly young, with souls that sometimes weary of the serials, who need nothing so much as a persuasive guide to the study of worthier and more enduring literature. For most of those who read novels with avidity are capable of reading something else with avidity, if they only knew it. And such a guide, and pleasantest of all auch gxiides, is Artliur Helps. * * Yet 'Casinrir Marenima' is a charming book, and, better still, invigorating. Try it. You are going into tlie country for the summer months that remain. Have ' Casimir ' with you, and have ' Realmah,' too. The former is the pleasanter book, the latter the more pow- erful. But if you like one you will like the other. At the least you will rise from their perusal witla a grateful sense of having been received for a time into a select and happy circle, where intellectual breeding is perfect, and the struggle for brilliancy unknown. Sold everywhere. Mailed, post-paid, on receipr of adver* tised price, by the Publishers, ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. MARGARET. By Sylvester Judd. One volume. Price $1.50. SELECTIONS FROM SOME NOTABLE REVIEWS. From the Southern Qtuirterly Review. '* This book, more than any other that we have read, leads us to believe in the S>ssibility of a distinctive American Literature. ... It bears the impress of New ngland upon all its features. It will be called the Yankee novel, and rightly ; for nowhere else have we seen the thought, dialect, and customs of a New England Village, so well and faithfully represented. . . . More significant to our mind than any book that has yet appeared in our country. To us it seems to be a prophecy of the future. It contemplates the tendencies of American life and character, Nowhere else have we seen, so well written out, the very feelings which our rivers and woods and mountains are calculated to awaken. . . . We predict the time when Margaret will be one of the AntiquarN^'s text-books. It contains a whole magazine of curious relics and habits. ... as a record of great ideas and pure sentiments, we place it among the few great books of the age." From the North A merican Review. •• We know not where any could go to find more exact and pleasing descriptions of the scenery of New England, or of the vegetable and animal forms which give it life. ... As a representation of manners as they were, and in many respects are Still, in New England, this book is of great value." From the London Athencenm, " This book, though published some time since in America, has only recently become known here by a few stray copies that have found their way over. Its leading idea is so well worked out, that, with all its faults of detail, it strikes us as deservmg a wider circulation. . . . The book bears the impress of a new country, and is full of rough, uncivilized, but vigorous life. The leading idea which it seems intended to expound is, that the surest way to degrade men is to make themselves degraded ; that so long as that belief does not poison the sources of experience, * all thinf^s^ — even the sins, follies, mistakes, so rife among men — can be made 'to work together for good.' Tiiis doctrine, startling as it may sound at first, is wrought out with a fine knowledge of human nature." From, the A nti-Slavery Standard. " A remarkable book, with much good common sense in it, full of deep thought, ?ervaded throughout with strong religious feeling, a full conception of the essence of Ihristianity, a tender compassion for the present condition of man, and an abiding hope through love of what his destiny may be. . . . But all who, like Margaret, • dream dreams,' and 'see visions,' and look for that time to come when man shall have 'worked out his own salvation,' and peace shall reign on earth, and good-will to men, will, if they can pardon the faults of the book for its merit, read it with aridity and pleasure. " From the Boston Daily Advertiser. " This is quite a remarkable book, reminding you of Southey's ' Doctor,' per- haps, more than of any other book. . . . Margaret is a most angelic being, who loves everybody and whom everybody loves, and whose sweet influence is felt whei ever she appears. She has visions of ideal beauty, and her waking eyes see beauty and joy in every thing." From the Christian Register. "This is a remarkable book. Its scene is laid in New England, and its period •ome half century ago. Its materials are drawn from the most familiar element? of every-day life. Its merits are so peculiar, and there is so much that is originaJ and rich in its contents, that, sooner or later, it will be appreciated. It is impossi- ble to predict with assurance the fate of a book, but we shall be much mistaken if Margaret does not in due season work its way to a degree of admiration seldom attained by a work of its class." Sold everywhere. Mailed^ prepaid, on receipt of price^ by the Publishers^ ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston.