mmM oY OMfyi) jk> oAicceM ari^J/omtAj < nAr^ACTFR-BUlLDlNG SERIES Uii 'i' i' i rLSDIPTTPiii'i'i'iiiT rri'i' i'i'dLliLi I'l'i' i'i ' i'i'i'i'iTI 3L.1BR,>VI«,Y StoiTrA|nciil]iiral Collep. Vol . .G. fe L'^ 'lass V (' II 'Late . . .:,%'.'. iS 'J (,. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 , 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 , 'iiiijii-'-iiL'-tiiiiii.' L'jiiJiiiiiiiiiLiiLiiii iiiiinii ^^^i 3.S I 9. BOOK 170.M33 c. 1 MARDFri # STEPS ro succ ARCHITECTS OF ESS AND POWER FATE OR 3 ^153 000t,?5^i fl I ^-x? COLUMBUS {After jxiintin'i hi Royttl Arsenal, Madrid) " Sail on, sail on, sail on, and on." ARCHITECTS OF FATE OR, STEPS TO SUCCESS AND POWER A BOOK DESIGNED TO INSPIRE YOUTH TO CHARACTER BUILDING, SELF-CULTURE AND NOBLE ACHIEVEMENT ORISON SWETT MARDEN AUTHOR OF " PUSHING TO THE FRONT OR, SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES " ILLUSTRATED WITH THIRTY-TWO FINE PORTRAITS OF EMINENT PERSONS "All are architects of fate Working in these walls of time." " Our to-days and yesterdays Are the blocks with which we build." '' Let thy great deed be thy prayer to thy God.' BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY <^z JSilier?ibe j^res?, Camliriti0C 1895 Copyright, 1895, By orison SWETT MARDEN. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 3Iass., U. S. A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co. PEEFACE. The demand for more than a dozen editions of " Pushing to the Front " during its first year and its universally favorable reception, both at home and abroad, have encouraged the author to publish this companion volume of somewhat similar scope and purpose. The two books were prepared simultaneously ; and the story of the first, given in its preface, applies equally well to this. Inspiration to character-building and worthy achieve- ment is the keynote of the present volume ; its object, to arouse to honorable exertion youth who are drifting without aim, to awaken dormant ambitions in those who have grown discouraged in the struggle for success, to encourage and stimulate to higher resolve those who are getting out to make their own way, with perhaps neither friendship nor capital other than a determina- tion to get on in the world. Nothing is so fascinating to a youth with high pur- pose, life, and energy throbbing in his young blood as stories of men and women who have brought great things to pass. Though these themes are as old as the human race, yet they are ever new, and more interest- ing to the young than any fiction, ^he cry of youth is for life ! more life ! No didactic or dogmatic teaching, however brilliant, will capture a twentieth-century boy, keyed up to the highest pitch by the pressure of an intense civilization. The romance of achievement under difficulties, of obscure beginnings and triumphant ends ; the story of how great men started, their struggles, their long waitings, amid want and woe, the obstacles over- come, the final triumphs ; examples, which explode ex- cuses, of men who have seized common situations and made them great ; of those of average capacity who have succeeded by the use of ordinary means, by dint of indomitable will and inflexible purpose : these will most iv PREFACE. inspire the ambitious youth. The author teaches that there are bread and success for every youth under the American flag who has the grit to seize his chance and work his w^ay to his own loaf ; that the barriers are not yet erected w^hich declare to aspiring talent, " Thus far and no farther " ; that the most forbidding circumstances cannot repress a longing for knowledge, a yearning for growth ; that poverty, humble birth, loss of limbs or even eyesight, have not been able to bar the progress of men with grit ; that poverty has rocked the cradle of the giants who have wrung civilization from barbar- ism, and have led the world up from savagery to the Gladstones, the Lincolns, and the Grants. The book shows that it is the man with one unwaver- ing aim who cuts his way through opposition and forges to the front ; that in this electric age, wdiere everything is pusher or pushed, he who w^ould succeed must hold his ground and push hard; that what are stumbling- blocks and defeats to the w^eak and vacillating, are but stepping-stones and victories to the strong and deter- mined. The author teaches that every germ of goodness will at last struggle into bloom and fruitage, and that true success follows every right step. He has tried to touch the higher springs of the youth's aspiration ; to lead him to high ideals ; to teach him that there is some- thing nobler in an occupation than merely living-getting or money-getting ; that a man may make millions and be a failure still ; to caution youth not t© allow the maxims of a low prudence, dinned daily into his ears in this money-getting age, to repress the longings for a higher life ; that the hand can never safely reach higher than does the heart. The author's aim has been largely through concrete illustrations which have pith, point, and purpose, to be more suggestive than dogmatic, in a style more prac- tical than elegant, more helpful than ornate, more per- tinent than novel. The author wishes to acknowledge valuable assistance from Mr. Arthur W. Brown, of W. Kingston, K. I. O. S. M. 43 BowDOiN St., Boston, Mass. December 2, 1895. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Wanted — A Man 1 God isafter amon. Wealth is nothing, fame is nothing. Man- hood is everything. II. Dare 10 Dare to live thy creed. Conquer your place in the world. All things serve a brave soul. III. The Will and the Way 38 Find a way or make one. Everything is either pusher or pushed. The world always listens to a man with a will in him. IV. Success under Difficulties 60 There is scarcely a great truth or doctrine but has had to fight its way to recognition through detraction, calumny, and persecu- tion. V. Uses of Obstacles 86 The Great Sculptor cares little for the human block as such ; it is the statue He* is after ; and He will blast, hammer, and chisel with poverty, hardships, anything to get out the man. VI. One Unwavering Aim 107 Find your purpose and fling your life out to it. Try to be somebody with all your might. VII. Sowing and Reaping 125 What is put into the first of life is put into the whole of life. Start right. VIII. Self-Help 145 Self-made or never made. The greatest men have risen from the ranks. IX. Work and Wait 167 Don't risk a life's superstructure upon a day's foundation. X. Clear Grit % 186 The goddess of fame or of fortune has been won by many a poor boy who had no friends, no backing, or anything but pure grit and invincible purpose to commend him. XI. The Grandest Thing in the World 202 Manhood is above all riches and overtops all titles ; character is greater than any career. XII. Wealth in Economy 227 " Hunger, rags, cold, hard work, contempt, suspicion, unjust reproach, are disagreeable ; but debt is infinitely worse than all." vi CONTENTS. XIII. Rich without Money 239 To have nothing is not poverty. Whoever viplifts civilization is rich though he die penniless, and future generations will erect his monument. XIV. Opportunities where You Are 256 " How speaks the present hour ? Act.'''' Don't wait for great opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. XV. The Might of Little Things 268 There is notliing small in a world where a mud-crack swells to an Amazon, and the stealing of a penny may end on the scaffold. XVI. Self-Mastery 288 Guard your weak point. Be lord over yourself. XVII. Nature's Little Bill 306 Many a man pays for his success with a slice of his constitution. Most of us carry our creeds in our bile-ducts. K they are healthy, we are optimists ; if diseased, pessimists. XVIII. Vocations, Good and Bad 327 Half the world is out of place and tortured with the conscious- ness of unfulfilled destiny. Civilization will mark its highest tide when every man finds his place and fills it. XIX. The Man with an Idea 343 The man with an idea has ever changed the face of the world. XX. Decision 358 To dally with your purpose, to half will, to hang forever in the balance, is to lose your grip on life, XXI. Power of the Mind over the Body 370 The mind has power to keep the bodv strong and healthy, to renew life, and to preserve it from decay to a far greater extent than we are apt to think. XXII. The Charities 390 When everybody else denounces and curses a man. Charity says, " Wait : there is a god in that man somewhere." XXIII. The Curse of Idleness 410 A lazy man is of no more use than a dead man, and he takes up more room. XXIV. Our Schools and Schoolmasters 421 Poverty and hardship have ever been the great schoolmasters of the race, and have forced into prominence many a man who would otherwise have remained unknown. XXV. Books 430 Perhaps no other things have such power to lift the poor out of poverty, the wretched out of misery, to make the burden-bearer forget his burden, the sick his suffering, as books. XXVI. Every Man his own Paradise 448 Paradise is not lost except to those who have blinded their eyes to its beauties, stopped their ears to its harmonies, and blunted their sensibilities to its sweet experiences. LIST OF PORTRAITS. CHAP. PAGE Columbus Frontispiece I. Phillips Brooks To face 1 II. Oliver Hazard Perry 10 III. Walter Scott 38 IV. William Hickling Prescott 60 V. John Bunyan 86 VI. Bernard Palissy 106 VI. Richard Arkwright 112 VII. Victor Hugo 124 VIII. James A. Garfield 144 VIII. Michael Faraday 152 IX. Thomas Alva Edison 166 X. Andrew Jackson 186 XL John Greenleaf Whittier 202 XI. Lafayette 216 XII. Alexander Hamilton 226 XIII. Ralph Waldo Emerson 238 XIV. Thomas Jefferson. . . • 256 XV. Louis Agassiz 268 XVI. James Russell Lowell 288 XVII. James G. Blaine 306 XVIII. Charles Sumner 326 XIX. George Stephenson 342 XIX. Robert Fulton 3.52 XX. Patrick Henry 358 XXI. Alexander H. Stephens 370 XXII. Washington Irving 390 XXII. Florence Nightingale 400 XXIV. Henry Clay 420 XXV. George Eliot 430 XXV. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 440 XXVI. John Ruskin 448 'ect others as him- self." God calls a man to be upright and x^ure and gener- ous, but he also calls him to be intelligent and skillful and strong and brave. The world wants a man who is educated all over; whose nerves are brought to their acutest sensibility ; whose brain is cultured, keen, incisive, penetrating, broad, liberal, deep ; whose hands are deft ; whose eyes are alert, sensitive, microscopic ; whose heart is tender, broad, magnanimous, true. The whole world is looking for such a man. Al- though there are millions out of employment, yet it is almost impossible to find just the. right man in almost any department of life. Every profession and every occupation has a standing advertisement all over the world : " Wanted — A Man." Eousseau, in his celebrated essay on education, says : " According to the order of nature, men being equal, their common vocation is the profession of humanity ; 4 AncHiTKcrs or fatk. aiul wlioovor is woU oiluoatod to ilisi'hari^o tlu' iliitv o{ a man oannot bo badly pivpaivd to till any of thosi^ otlu'os that havo a volatiou to him. It luattors littlo to luo whothor my |nipil bo tlosig-nod tor tho army, tho pulpit, or tho bar. Naturo has ilosliiunl us to tho otUoos ot human lito autoooilont to our dostinatiou oon- oorniui;" sooioty. To livo is tho protossion 1 would toaoh him. Wlion 1 havo ilouo with liim. it is trm^ lu^ will bo noithor a sohlior. a lawyor. nor a (liviiu\ l.c! him jirst be a man : Fortuno may romovo him from (>no rank to anothor as sho ploasos. ho will bo always I'ouml in his plaoo." A littlo, short ilootor of divinity in a lar>;o Uaptist oonvontion stood on a stop and said ho thaid;od (Jod ho was a Baptist. Tho audionoo oould not hoar and oallod '• Loudor." "(lOt up hi^ihor," somo ono said. " I oan't," ho ropliod. " To bo a Baptist is as hii;h as ono oan got." Hut thoro is sonu^thing hii;hor than biMUi;- a Ba|>- tist, and that is boing a mnn. As Kmorson says, Talloyrand's tpiostion is ovor tho main ono: not. is ho rioh ? is ho oommittod ? is ho woll-moaning- ? has ho this or that, faoulty '.' is hoof tho movomont ? is ho o\' tho ostablishmont ? but is ho anybody? doos ho stand for somothing ? llo must bo good of his kind. That is all that Talloyrand, all that Stato Stroot, all that tho oonunon sonsi^ of mankiml asks. Whon iiartiold was askod as a young boy, '•what ho luoant to bo." ho answorod: ** First of all, I must mako mysolf a man; if 1 do not suooood in that. I oan suc- ceed in nothing." ^lontaigne says our work is not to train a soul by it- self alono, nor a body by itself alone, but to train a man. C)ne groat need of the world to-day is for men and women who are good animals. To endure the strain of our oonoontratod oivilization, tho ooming man and woman must havo an oxooss of animal spirits. They WANTED— A MAN. 5 muBt have a robustness of health. Mere aVjsence of disease is not health. It is the overflowing fountain, not the one half full, that gives life and beauty to the valley below. Only he is healthy who exults in mere aninial existence; whose veiy life is a luxury^; who feels a Vjounding pulse throughout his body ; who feels life in every limb, as dogs do when scouring over the field, or as Vjoys do when gliding over fiehls of ice. J-'ope, the jjoet, was with Sir Godfrey Kneller, the artist, one day, when the lattei-^s nephew, a Guinea slave-trader, came into the room. "]S'ephew," said Sir Godfrey, " you have the honor of seeing the two great- est men in the world.'' " I don't know how great men you may be," said the Guinea man, '• but I don't like your looks. I have often bought a much better man than either of you, all muscles and bones, for ten guineas." Sydney Smith said, " I am convinced that digestion is the great secret of life, and that character, virtue and talents, and qualities are powerfully affected by beef, mutton, pie crust, and rich soups. I have often thought I could feed or starve men into . virtues or vices, and affect them more jjowerfully with my instm- ments of torture than Timotheus could do formerly with his lyre." What more glorious than a magnificent manhood, animated with the bounding spirits of overflowing health ? It is a sad sight to see thousands of students gradu- ated every year from our grand institutions, whose ob- ject is to make stalwart, independent, self-supporting men, turned out into the world saplings instead of stal- wart oaks, " memory-glands " instead of brainy men, helpless instead of self-supporting, sickly instead of ro- bust, weak instead of strong, leaning instead of erect. " So many promising youths, and never a finished man ! " 6 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. The character sympathizes with and unconsciously takes on the nature of the body. A peevish, snarling, ailing man cannot develop the vigor and strength of character which is possible to a healthy, robust, jolly man. There is an inherent love in the human mind for wholeness, a demand that man shall come up to the high- est standard ; and there is an inherent protest or con- tempt for preventable deficiency. Nature too demands that man be ever at the top of his condition. The giant's strength with the imbecile's brain will not be characteristic of the coming man. Man has been a dwarf of himself, but a higher type of manhood stands at the door of this age knocking for admission. As we stand upon the seashore while the tide is com- ing in, one wave reaches up the beach far higher than any previous one, then recedes, and for some time none that follows comes up to its mark, but after a while the whole sea is there and beyond it ; so now and then there comes a man head and shoulders above his fellow- men, showing that Nature has not lost her ideal, and after a while even the average man will overtop the highest wave of manhood yet given to the world. Apelles hunted over Greece for many years, studying the fairest points of beautiful women, getting here an eye, there a forehead and there a nose, here a grace and there a turn of beauty, for his famous portrait of a per- fect woman which enchanted the world. So the coming man will be a composite, many in one. He will absorb into himself not the weakness, not the follies, but the strength and the virtues of other types of men. He will be a man raised to the highest power. He will be self- centred, equipoised, and ever master of himself. His sensibility will not be deadened or blunted by viola- tion of nature's laws. His whole character will be im- pressible, and will respond to the most delicate touches of nature. WANTED — A MAN. 7 What a piece of work — this coming man ! " How noble in reason. How infinite in faculties. In form and motion how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god. The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals." The first requisite of all education and discipline should be man-timber. Tough timber must come from well grown, sturdy trees. Such wood can be turned into a mast, can be fashioned into a piano or an exquisite carving. But it must become timber first. Time and patience develop the sapling into the tree. So through discipline, education, experience, the sapling child is developed into hardy mental, moral, physical timber. What an aid to character building would be the de- termination of the young man in starting out in life to consider himself his own bank ; that his notes will be accepted as good or bad, and will pass current every- where or be worthless, according to his individual rep- utation for honor and veracity ; that if he lets a note go to protest, his bank of character will be suspected ; if he lets two or three go to protest, public confidence will be seriously shaken ; that if they continue to go to pro- test, his reputation will be lost and confidence in him ruined. If the youth should start out with the fixed determi- nation that every statement he makes shall be the exact truth ; that every promise he makes shall be redeemed to the letter ; that every appointment shall be kept with the strictest faithfulness and with full regard for other men's time ; if he should hold his reputation as a price- less treasure, feel that the eyes of, the world are upon him, that he must not deviate a hair's breadth from the truth and right ; if he should take such a stand at the outset, he would, like George Peabody, come to have al- most unlimited credit and the confidence of all ; and would have developed into noble man-timber. What are palaces and equipages ; what though a man 8 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. could cover a continent with his title-deeds, or an ocean with his commerce ; compared with conscious rec- titude, with a face that never turns pale at the accuser's voice, with a bosom that never throbs with the fear of ex- posure, with a heart that might be turned inside out and disclose no stain of dishonor ? To have done no man a wrong ; to have put your signature to no paper to which the purest angel in heaven might not have been an attesting witness ; to walk and live, unseduced, within arm's length of what is not your own, with nothing be- tween your desire and its gratification but the invisible law of rectitude ; — this is to he a man. " He that of siich a height hath built his mind, And reared the dwelling of his thought so strong As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame Of his resolved powers ; nor all the wind Of vanit}' or malice pierce to Avrong His settled peace, or to disturb the same; What a fair seat hath he ; from whence he may The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey." [Lines found in one of the books of Beecher^s Library.'] A man is never so happy as when he is totus in se ; as when he suffices to himself, and can walk without crutches or a guide. Said Jean Paul Eichter : "I have made as much out of myself as could be made of the stuff, and no man should require more." Man is the only great thing in the universe. All the ages have been trying to produce a perfect model. Only one complete man has yet been evolved. The best of us are but prophecies of what is to come. What constitutes a state? Not high-raised battlement or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate; Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned ; Not bays and broad-armed ports, Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; Not starred and spangled courts, Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. No: men, high-minded men, With powers as far above dull brutes endued WANTED — A MAN. In forest, brake, or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude, — Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain, Prevent the long-aimed blow, And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain. William Jones. God give us men. A time like this demands Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands: Men whom the lust of office does not kill ; Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy ; Men who possess opinions and a will; Men who have honor — men who will not lie ; Men who can stand before a demagogue And scorn his treacherous flatteries without winking; Tall men sun-crowned, who live above the fog In public duty, and in pj-ivate thinking. Anon. Open thy bosom, set thy wishes wide. And let in manhood —let in happiness; Admit the boundless theatre of thought From nothing up to God . . . which makes a man ! Young. " The wisest man could ask no more of fate Than to be simple, modest, manly, true." In speech right gentle, yet so wise; princely of mien, Yet softly mannered ; modest, deferent. And tender-hearted, though of fearless blood. Edwin Arnold. CHAPTER II. DARE. The Spartans did not inquire how many the euemj' are, but where they are. — Agis II. What 's brave, what's noble, let's do it after the high Roman fashion, and make death proud to take us. — Shakespeake. Better, like Hector, in the field to die, Than, like a perfumed Paris, turn and fly. LONGFfiLLOW. Let me die facing the enemy. — Bayard. Who conquers me, shall find a stubborn foe. Byron. Courage in danger is half the battle. Plautus. No great deed is done By falterers who ask for certainty. George Eliot. Fortune befriends the bold. — Dryden. Tender handed stroke a nettle. And it stings you for your pains ; Grasp it like a man of mettle. And it soft as silk remains. Aaron Hill. We make way for the man who boldly pushes past us. — Bovee. Man should dare all things that he knows is right. And fear to do nothing save what is wrong. Phebe Gary. Soft-heartedness, in times like these, Shows softness in the upper story. Lowell. friend, never strike sail to fear. Come into port grandly, or sail with God the seas, — Emerson. To stand with a smile upon j-^our face against a stake from which you cannot get away — that, no doubt, is heroic. But the true glory is resig- nation to the inevitable. To stand unchained, with perfect liberty to go away, held only by the higher claims of duty, and let the fire creep up to the heart, —this is heroism. — F. W. Robertson. " Steady, men ! Every man must die where he stands!" said Colin Cami)bell to the Ninety -third COMMODORE PERRY We have met the enemy and tliey are ours. " He eithei- fears his fate too much Or his deserts too small, That dares not put it to the touch, To gain or lose it all." DARE. 11 Highlanders at Balaklava, as an overwhelming force of Russian cavalry came sweeping down. "Ay, ay, Sir Colin ! we '11 do that ! " was the cordial response from men many of whom had to keep their word by thus obeying. "Bring back the colors," shouted a captain at the battle of the Alma, when an ensign maintained his ground in front, although the men were retreating. "No," cried the ensign, "bring up the men to the colors." " To dare, and again to dare, and without end to dare," was Danton's noble defiance to the enemies of France. " The Commons of Erance have resolved to deliber- ate," said Mirabeau to De Breze, who brought an order from the king for them to disperse, June 23, 1789. "We have heard the intentions that have been attrib- uted to the king; and you, sir, who cannot be recog- nized as his organ in the National Assembly, — you, who have neither place, voice, nor right to speak, — you are not the person to bring to us a message of his. Go, say to those who sent you that we are here by the power of the people, and that we will not be driven hence, save by the power of the bayonet." When the assembled senate of Rome begged Eegulus not to return to Carthage to fulfill an illegal promise, he calmly replied : " Have you resolved to dishonor me ? Torture and death are awaiting me, but what are these to the shame of an infamous act, or the wounds of a guilty mind ? Slave as I am to Carthage, I still have the spirit of a Roman. I have sworn to return. It is my duty. Let the gods take care of the rest." The courage which Cranmer had shown since the accession of Mary gave way the moment his final doom was announced. The moral cowardice which had displayed itself in his miserable compliance with the lust and despotism of Henry displayed itself again in six successive recantations by which he hoped to purchase 12 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. pardon. But pardon was impossible ; and Cranmer's strangely mingled nature found a power in its very weak- ness wlien he was brought into the church of St. Mary at Oxford on the 21st of March, to repeat his recantation on the way to the stake. " Now," ended his address to the hushed congregation before him, — " now I come to the great thing that troubleth my conscience more than any other thing that ever I said or did in my life, and that is the setting abroad of writings contrary to the truth ; which here I now renounce and refuse as things written by a hand contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and written for fear of death to save my life, if it might be. And, forasmuch as my hand of- fended in writing contrary to my heart, my hand there- fore shall be the first punished ; for if I come to the fire it shall be the first burned." " This was the hand that wrote it," he again exclaimed at the stake, '' therefore it shall suffer first punishment ; " and holding it steadily in the flame, " he never stirred nor cried till life was gone." " Oh, if I were only a man ! " exclaimed Rebecca Bates, a girl of fourteen, as she looked from the win- dow of a lighthouse at Scituate, Mass., during the War of 1812, and saw a British warship) anchor in the har- bor. " What could you do ? " asked Sarah Winsor, a young visitor. "See what a lot of them the boats contain, and look at their guns ! " and she pointed to five large boats, filled with soldiers in scarlet uniforms, who were coming to burn the vessels in the harbor and destroy the town. " I don't care, I 'd fight," said Rebecca. " I 'd use father's old shotgun — anything. Think of uncle's new boat and the sloop ! And how hard it is to sit here and see it all, and not lift a fiuger to help. Father and uncle are in the village and will do all they can. How still it is in the town ! There is not a man to be seen." " Oh, they are hiding till the soldiers get nearer," said Sarah ; '^ then we '11 hear the DARE. 13 shots and the drum." ^' The drum ! " exclaimed Ke- becca, "how can they use it? It is here. Father brought it home last night to mend. See ! the first boat has reached the sloop. Oh ! they are going to burn her. AVhere is that drum ? I 've a great mind to go down and beat it. We could hide behind the sand- hills and bushes." As flames began to rise from the sloop the ardor of the girls increased. They found the drum and an old fife, and, slipping out of doors unno- ticed by Mrs. Bates, soon stood behind a row of sand- hills. " Eub-a-dub-dub, rub-a-dub-dub," went the drum, and " squeak, squeak, squeak," went the fife. The Americans in the town thought that help had come from Boston, and rushed into boats to attack the red- coats. The British paused in their work of destruc- tion; and, when the fife began to play "Yankee Doodle," they scrambled into their boats and rowed in haste to the warship, which weighed anchor and sailed away as fast as the wind would carry her. A woman's piercing shriek suddenly startled a party of surveyors at dinner in a forest of northern Virginia on a calm, sunny day in 1750. The cries were repeated in quick succession, and the men sprang through the undergrowth to learn their cause. " Oh, sir," exclaimed the woman as she caught sight of a j^outh of eighteen, but a man in stature and bearing ; " you will surely do something for me ! Make these friends release me. My boy, — my poor boy is drowning, and they will not let me go!" "It would be madness; she will jump into the river," said one of the men who was holding her; "and the rapids would dasli^her to pieces in a moment ! " Throwing off his coat, the youth sprang to the edge of the bank, scanned for a moment the rocks and whirling currents, and then, at sight of part of the boy's dress, plunged into the roaring rapids. " Thank God, he will save my child ! " cried the mother, and all rushed to the brink of the precipice ; " there he is ! Oh, my boy, my darling boy ! How could I leave you ? " 14 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. But all eyes were bent upon tlie youth struggling with strong heart and hope amid the dizzy sweep of the whirling currents far below. Now it seemed as if he would be dashed against a projecting rock, over which the water flew in foam, and anon a whirlpool would drag him in, from whose grasp escape would seem impossible. Twice the boy went out of sight, but he had reappeared the second time, although frightfully near the most dangerous part of the river. The rush of waters here was tremendous, and no one had ever dared to approach it, even in a canoe, lest he should be dashed to pieces. The youth redoubled his exertions. Three times he was about to grasp the child, when some stronger eddy would toss it from him. One final effort he makes ; the child is held aloft by his strong right arm ; but a cry of horror bursts from the lips of every spectator as boy and man shoot over the falls and vanish in the seething waters below. " There they are ! " shouted the mother a moment later, in a delirium of joy. " See ! they are safe ! Great God, I thank Thee ! " And sure enough they emerged unharmed from the boiling vortex, and in a few minutes reached a low place in the bank and were drawn up by their friends, the boy senseless, but still alive, and the youth almost exhausted. "God will give you a reward," solemnly spoke the grateful woman. "He will do great things for you in return for this day's work, and the blessings of thousands besides mine will attend you." The youth was George Washington. "Your Grace has not the organ of animal courage largely developed," said a phrenologist, who was exam- ining Wellington's head. "You are right," replied the Iron Duke, "and but for my sense of duty I should have retreated in my first fight." That first fight, on an Indian field, was one of the most terrible on record. In the reverses which followed Napoleon, he met the DARE. 15 allies at Arcis. A live shell having fallen in front of one of his young battalions, which recoiled and wavered in. expectation of an explosion, Napoleon, to reassure them, spurred his charger toward the instrument of destruction, made him smell the burning match, waited unshaken for the explosion, and was blown up. Kolling in the dust with his mutilated steed, and rising without a wound amid the plaudits of his soldiers, he calmly called for another horse, and continued to brave the grape-shot, and to fly into the thickest of the battle. When General Jackson was a judge and was holding court in a small settlement, a border ruffian, a murderer and desperado, came into the court-room with brutal violence and interrupted the court. The judge ordered him to be arrested. The officer did not dare to approach him. '■^ Call a posse," said the judge, " and arrest him.'' But they also shrank in fear from the ruffian. " Call me, then," said Jackson ; " this court is adjourned for five minutes." He left the bench, walked straight up to the man, and with his eagle eye actually cowed the ruffian, who dropped his weapons, afterwards saying, " There was something in his eye I could not resist." One of the last official acts of the late President Carnot, of France, was the sending of a medal of the French Legion of Honor to a little American girl, who lives in Indiana. While a train on the Pan Handle Railroad, having on board several distinguished French- men, was bound to Chicago and the World's Fair, Jennie Carey, who was then ten years old, discovered that a trestle was on fire, and that if the train, which was nearly due, entered it a dreadful wreck would take place. Thereupon she ran out upon the track to a place where she could be seen from some little distance. Then she took off her red flannel skirt and, when the train came in view, waved it back and forth across the track. It was seen, and the train stopped. On board of it were seven hundred people, many of whom must 16 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. have suffered death but for Jennie's courage and pres- ence of mind. When they returned to France, the Frenchmen brought the occurrence to the notice of President Carnot, and the result was the sending of the medal of this famous French society, the purpose of which is the honoring of bravery and merit, wherever they may be found. After the battle of Fort Donelson, the wounded were hauled down the hill in rough board wagons, and most of them died before they reached St. Louis. One blue- eyed boy of nineteen, Avith both arms and both legs shattered, had lain a long time and was neglected. He said, " Why, you see they could n't stop to bother with us because they had to take the fort. When they took it we all forgot our sufferings and shouted for joy, even to the dying." Louis IX. of France was captured by the Turks at the battle of Mansoora, during the Seventh Crusade, and his wife Marguerite, with a babe at the breast, was in Damietta, many miles away. The Infidels sur- rounded the city, and pressed the garrison so hard that it was decided to capitulate. The queen summoned the knights, and told them that she at least would die in armor upon the ramparts before the enemy should become masters of Damietta. " Before her words they thrilled like leaves "When winds are in the wood ; And a deepening murmur told of men Roused to a loftier mood." Grasping lance and shield, they vowed to defend their queen and the cross to the last. Damietta was saved. Pyrrhus marched to Sparta to reinstate the deposed Cleonymus, and quietly pitched his tents before Laco- nia, not anticipating resistance. In consternation, the Spartans in council decided to send their women to Crete for safety. But the women met and asked Queen DARE. 17 Archidamia to remonstrate. She went to the council, sword in hand, and told the men that their wives did not care to live after Sparta was destroyed. " We are brave men's mothers, and brave men's wives; We are ready to do and dare ; We are ready to man your walls with our lives, And string your bows with our hair." They hurried to the walls and worked all night, aid- ing the men in digging trenches. When Pyrrhus attacked the city next day, his repulse was so emphatic that he withdrew from Laconia. Charles V. of Spain passed through Thuringia in 1547, on his return to Swabia after the battle of Muehl- burg. He wrote to Catherine, Countess Dowager of Schwartzburg, promising that her subjects should not be molested in their persons or property if they would supply the Spanish soldiers with provisions at a reason- able price. On approaching Eudolstadt, General Alva and Prince Henry of Brunswick, with his sons, invited themselves, by a messenger sent forward, to breakfast with the Countess, who had no choice but to ratify so delicate a request from the commander of an army. Just as the guests were seated at a generous repast, the Countess was called from the hall and told that the Spaniards were using violence and driving away the cattle of the peasants. Quietly arming all her retinue, she bolted and barred all the gates and doors of the castle, and returned to the banquet to complain of the breach of faith. Gen- eral Alva told her that such was the custom of war, adding that such trifling disorders were not to be heeded. "That we shall presently see," said Catha- rine ; " my poor subjects must have their own again, or, as God lives, prince's blood for oxen's blood ! " The doors were opened, and armed men took the places of the waiters behind the chairs of the guests. Henry changed color; then, as the best way out of a bad 18 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. scrape, laughed loudly, and ended by praising the splendid acting of his hostess, and promising that Alva should order the cattle restored at once. Not until a courier returned, saying that the order had been obeyed, and all damages settled satisfactorily, did the armed waiters leave. The Countess then thanked her guests for the honor they had done her castle, and they retired with protestations of their distinguished consideration. It was the heroic devotion of an Indian girl that saved the life of Captain John Smith, when the power- ful King Powhatan had decreed his death. Ill could the struggling colony spare him at that time. When the consul shouted that the bridge was totter- ing, Lartius and Herminius sought safety in flight. But Horatius strode still nearer the foe, the single champion of his country and liberty, and dared the ninety thou- sand to come on. Dead stillness fell upon the Tuscans, so astonished were they at the audacity of the Eoman. He first broke the awful silence, so deep that his clear, strong voice could be heard by thousands in both armies, between which rolled the Tiber, as he denounced the baseness and perfidy of the invaders. Not until his words were drowned by the loud crash of fiercely disrupturing timbers, and the sullen splash of the dark river, did his enemies hurl their showers of arrows and javelins. Then, dexterously warding off the missiles with his shield, he plunged into the Tiber. Although stabbed in the hip by a Tuscan spear which lamed him for life, he swam in safety to Kome. "It is a bad omen," said Eric the Eed, when his horse slipped and fell on the way to his ship, moored on the coast of Greenland, in readiness for a voyage of discovery. ''Ill-fortune would be mine should I dare venture now upon the sea." So he returned to his house ; but his young son Leif decided to go, and, with a crew of thirty-five men, sailed southward in search of the unknown shore upon which Captain Biarni had DARE. 19 been driven by a starm, while sailing in another Viking ship two or three years before. The first land that they saw was probably Labrador, a barren, rugged plain. Leif called this country Heluland, or the land of fiat stones. Sailing onward many days, he came to a low, level coast thickly covered with woods, on account of which he called the country Markland, probably the modern Nova Scotia. , Sailing onward, they came to an island which they named Vinland on account of the abundance of delicious wild grapes in the woods. This was in the year 1000. Here where the city of Newport, R. I., stands, they spent many months, and then re- turned to Greenland with their vessel loaded with grapes and strange kinds of wood. The voyage was successful, and no doubt Eric was sorry he had been frightened by the bad omen. May 10, 1796, Napoleon carried the bridge at Lodi, in the face of the Austrian batteries. Fourteen cannon — some accounts say thirty — were trained upon the French end of the structure. Behind them were six thousand troops. Napoleon massed four thousand gren- adiers at the head of the bridge, with a battalion of three hundred carbineers in front. At the tap of the drum the foremost assailants wheeled from the cover of the street wall under a terrible hail of grape and canis- ter, and attempted to pass the gateway to the bridge. The front ranks went down like stalks of grain before a reaper; the column staggered and reeled backward, and the valiant grenadiers were appalled by the task before them. Without a word or a look of reproach, Napoleon placed himself at their head, and his aids and generals rushed to his side. Forward again, this time over heaps of dead that choked the passage, and a quick run, counted by seconds only, carried the col- umn across two hundred yards of clear space, scarcely a shot from the Austrians taking effect beyond the point where the platoons wheeled for the first leap. 20 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. So sudden and so miraculous was it all that the Aus- trian artillerists abandoned their guns instantly, and their supports fled in a panic instead of rushing to the front and meeting the French onslaught. This Napo- leon had counted on in making the bold attack. The contrast between Napoleon's slight figure and the mas- sive grenadiers suggested the nickname "Little Cor- poral." The great secret of the success of Joan of Arc was the boldness of her attacks. When Stephen of Colonna fell into the hands of base assailants, and they asked him in derision, "Where is now your fortress ? " " Here," was his bold reply, placing his hand upon his heart. It was after the Mexican War when General Mc- Clellan was employed as a topographical engineer in surveying the Pacific coast. From his headquarters at Vancouver he had gone south to the Columbia River with two companions, a soldier and a servant. One evening he received word that the chiefs of the Columbia River tribes desired to confer with him. From the messenger's manner he suspected that the Indians meant mischief. He Avarned his companions that they must be ready to leave camp at a moment's notice. Mounting his horse, he rode boldly into the Indian village. About thirty chiefs were holding coun- cil. McClellan was led into the circle, and placed at the right hand of Saltese. He was familiar with the Chinook jargon, and could understand every word spoken in the council. Saltese made known the griev- ance of the tribes. Two Indians had been captured by a party of white pioneers and hanged for theft. Retal- iation for this outrage seemed indispensable. The chiefs pondered long, but had little to say. McClellan had been on friendly terms with them, and was not responsible for the forest executions. Still, he was a white man, and the chiefs had vowed vengeance against DARE. 21 the race. The council was prolonged for hours before sentence was passed, and then Saltese, in the name of the head men of the tribes, decreed that McClellan should immediately be put to death in retaliation for the hanging of the two Indian thieves. McClellan had said nothing. He had known that argument and pleas for justice or mercy would be of no avail. He had sat motionless, apparently indiffer- ent to his fate. By his listlessness he had thrown his captors off their guard. When the sentence was passed he acted like a flash. Flinging his left arm around the neck of Saltese, he whipped out his revolver and held it close to the chief's temple. " Revoke that sentence, or I shall kill you this instant ! " he cried, with his fingers clicking the trigger. " I revoke it ! " exclaimed Saltese, fairly livid from fear. "I must have your word that I can leave this council in safety." " You have the word of Saltese," was the quick response. McClellan knew how sacred was the pledge which he had received. The revolver was lowered. Saltese was released from the embrace of the strong arm. McClel- lan strode out of the tent with his revolver in his hand. Not a hand was raised against him. He mounted his horse and rode to his camp, where his two followers were ready to spring into the saddle and to escape from the villages. He owed his life to his quickness of per- ception, and to his accurate knowledge of Indian char- acter. In 1856, Rufus Choate spoke to an audience of nearly five thousand in Lowell in favor of the candi- dacy of James Buchanan for the presidency. The floor of the great hall began to sink, settling more and more as he proceeded with his address, until a sound of cracking timber below would have precipitated a stampede with fatal results but for the coolness of B. F. Butler, who presided. Telling the people to remain quiet, he said that he would see if there were any 22 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. cause for alarm. He found the supports of the floor in so bad a condition that the slightest applause would be likely to bury the audience in the ruins of the building. Eeturning rather leisurely to the platform, he whis- pered to Ohoate as he passed, " We shall all be in in five minutes;" then he told the crowd that there ^vas no immediate danger if they would slowly dis- perse, although he thought it prudent to adjourn to a place where there would be no risk whatever. The post of danger, he added, was on the platform, which was most w^eakly supported, therefore he and those with him would be the last to leave. No doubt many lives were saved by his coolness. Many distinguished foreign and American statesmen were present at a fashionable dinner party where wine was freely poured, but Schuyler Colfax, then vice- president of the United States, declined to drink from a proffered cup. " Colfax dares not drink," sneered a Senator who had already taken too much. "You are rie-ht." said the Vice-President, '' I dare not." When Grant was in Houston several years ago, he was given a rousing reception. Naturally hospitable, and naturally inclined to like a man of Grant's make-up, the Houstonites determined to go beyond any other Southern city in the way of a banquet and other manifestations of their good-will and hospitality. They made great preparations for the dinner, the com- mittee taking great pains to have the finest wines that could be procured for the table that night. When the time came to serve the wine, the head-waiter went first to Grant. Without a word the general quietly turned down all the glasses at his plate. This movement was a great surprise to the Texans, but they were equal to the occasion. Without a single word being spoken, every man along the line of the long tables turned his glasses down, and there was not a drop of wine taken that night. DARE. 23 A deep sewer at Noyon, France, had been opened for repairs, and carelessly left at night without covering or liglits to warn people of danger. Late at night four men stumbled in, and lay some time before their sit- uation was known in the town. No one dared go to the aid of the men, then unconscious from breathing noxious gases, except Catherine Vassen, a servant girl of eighteen. She insisted on being lowered at once. Fastening a rope around two of the men, she aided in raising them and restoring them to consciousness. Descending again, she had just tied a rope around a third man, when she felt her breath failing. Tying another rope to her long, curly hair, she swooned, but was drawn up with the man, to be quickly revived by fresh air and stimulants. The fourth man was dead when his body was pulled up, on account of the delay from the fainting of Catherine. Two French officers at Waterloo were advancing to charge a greatly superior force. One, observing that the other showed signs of fear, said, " Sir, I believe you are frightened." " Yes, I am," was the reply, "and if you were half as much frightened, you would run away." "That's a brave man," said Wellington, when he saw a soldier turn pale as he marched against a bat- tery ; " he knows his danger, and faces it." " There are many cardinals and bishops at Worms," said a friend to Luther, " and they will burn your body to ashes as they did that of John Huss." Luther replied : " Although they should make a fire that should reach from Worms to Wittenberg, and that should flame up to heaven, in the Lord's name I would pass through it and appear before them." He said to another : " I would enter AVorms though there were as many devils there as there are tiles upon the roofs of the houses." Another said : " Duke George will surely arrest you." He replied: "It is my duty to go, and 24 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. I will go, though it rain Duke Georges for nine days together." '' Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, God help me," exclaimed Luther at the Diet of Worms, facing his foes. A Western paper recently invited the surviving Union and Confederate officers to give an account of the bravest act observed by each during the Civil War. Colonel Thomas AV. Higginson said that at a dinner at Beaufort, S. C, where wine flowed freely and ribald jests were bandied. Dr. Miner, a slight, boyish fellow who did not drink, was told that he could not go until he had drunk a toast, told a story, or sung a song. He replied : " I cannot sing, but I will give a toast, al- though I must drink it in water. It is ' Our Mothers.' " The men Avere so affected and ashamed that some took him by the hand and thanked him for displaying cour- age greater than that required to walk up to the mouth of a cannon. It took great courage for the commercial Quaker, John Bright, to espouse a cause which called down upon his head the derision and scorn and hatred of the Parliament. For years he rested under a cloud of obloquy, but Bright was made of stern stuff. It was only his strength of character and masterly eloquence, which saved him from political annihilation. To a man who boasted that his ancestors came over with the Conquerors, he replied, " I never heard that they did anything else." A Tory lordling said, when Bright was ill, that Providence had inflicted upon Bright, for the measure of his talents, disease of the brain. When Bright went back into the Commons he replied : " This may be so, but it will be some consolation to the friends and family of the noble lord to know that that disease is one which even Providence cannot inflict upon him." ''When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the World, and takes him boldly by the beard," DARE. 25 says Holmes, " he is often surprised to find it come off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away timid adventurers." It takes courage for a young man to stand firmly erect while others are bowing and fawning for praise and power. It takes courage to wear threadbare clothes while your comrades dress in broadcloth. It takes courage to remain in honest poverty when others grow rich by fraud. It takes courage to say " No '^ squarely when those around you say " Yes." It takes courage to do your duty in silence and obscurity while others prosper and grow famous although neglecting sacred obligations. It takes courage to unmask your true self, to show your blemishes to a condemning world, and to pass for what you really are. It takes courage and pluck to be outvoted, beaten, laughed at, scoffed, ridiculed, derided, misunderstood, misjudged, to stand alone with all the world against you, but " They are slaves who dare not be 111 the right with two or three." " There is never wanting a dog to bark at you." " An honest man is not the worse because a dog barks at him." "Let any man show the world that he feels Afraid of its bark, and 'twill fly at his heels. Let him fearlessly face it, 'twill leave him alone, And 't will fawn at his feet if he fling it a bone." We live ridiculously for fear of being thought ridicu- lous. *"T is he is the coward who proves false to his vows, To his manhood, his honor, for a laugh or a sneer: 'Tis he is the hero who stands firm, though alone, For the truth and the right without flinching or fear." The youth who starts out by being afraid to speak what he thinks will usually end by being afraid to think what he wishes. 26 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. How we shrink from an act of our own. We live as others live. Custom or fashion dictates, or your doctor or minister, and they in turn dare not dej^art from their schools. Dress, living, servants, carriages, everything must conform, or be ostracized. Who dares conduct his household or business affairs in his own way, and snap his fingers at Dame Grundy ? Many a man has marched up to the cannon's mouth in battle who dared not face public opinion or oppose Mrs. Grundy. It takes courage for a public man to bend the knee to popular prejudice. It takes courage to refuse to follow custom when it is injurious to his health and morals. To espouse an unpopular cause in Congress requires more courage than to lead a charge in battle. How much easier for a politician to prevaricate and dodge an issue than to stand squarely on his feet like a man. As a rule, eccentricity is a badge of power, but how many women would not rather strangle their individ- uality than be tabooed by Mrs. Grundy ? Yet fear is really the only thing to fear. " Whoever you may be," said Sainte-Beuve, " great genius, distinguished talent, artist honorable or ami- able, the qualities for which you deserve to be praised will all be turned against you. Were you a Virgil, the pious and sensible singer par excellence, there are people who will call you an effeminate poet. Were you a Horace, there are people who will reproach you with the very purity and delicacy of your taste. If you were a Shakespeare, some one will call you a drunken savage. If you were a Goethe, more than one Pharisee will proclaim you the most selfish of egotists." As the strongest man has a weakness somewhere, so the greatest hero is a coward somewhere. Peter was courageous enough to draw his sword to defend his master, but he could not stand the ridicule and the DARE. 27 finger of scorn of the maidens in the high priest's hall, and he actually denied even the acquaintance of the master he had declared he would die for. " I will take the responsibility/' said Andrew Jack- son, on a memorable occasion, and his words have become proverbial. Not even Congress dared to oppose the edicts of John Quincy Adams. If a man would accomplish anything in this world, he must not be afraid of assuming responsibilities. Of course it takes courage to run the risk of failure, to be subjected to criticism for an unpopular cause, to expose one's self to the shafts of everybody's ridicule, but the man who is not true to himself, who cannot carry out the sealed orders placed in his hands at his birth, regardless of the world's yes or no, of its approval or disapproval, the man who has not the courage to trace the pattern of his own destiny, which no other soul knows but his own, can never rise to the true dignity of manhood. All the world loves courage ; youth craves it ; they want to hear about it, they want to read about it. The fascination of the "blood and thunder '^ novels and of the cheap story papers for youth are based upon this idea of courage. If the boys cannot get the real article, they will take a counterfeit. Don't be like Uriah Heep, begging everybody's pardon for taking the liberty of being in the world. There is nothing attractive in timidity, nothing lovable in fear. Both are deformities and are repulsive. Manly courage is dignified and graceful. The worst manners in the world are those of persons conscious " of being beneath their position, and trying to conceal it or make up for it by style." Bruno, condemned to be burned alive in Kome, said to his judge : " You are more afraid to pronounce my sentence than I am to receive it." Anne Askew, racked until her bones were dislocated, never flinched, but looked her tormentor calmly in the face and refused to abjure her faith. 28 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. " We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other." " Half a man's wisdom goes with his courage," said Emerson. Physicians used to teach that courage depends on the circulation of the blood in the arteries, and that during passion, anger, trials of strength, wrestling or fighting, a large amount of blood is collected in the arteries, and does not pass to the veins. A strong pulse is a fortune in itself. "Eage," said Shaftesbury, "can make a coward forget himself and light." " I should have thought fear would have kept you from going so far," said a relative who found the little boy Nelson wandering a long distance from home. " Fear ? " said the future admiral, " I don't know him." "Doubt indulged becomes doubt realized." To de- termine to do anything is half the battle. " To think a thing is impossible is to make it so." Courage is vic- tor ij, timiditf/ is defeat. That simple shepherd-lad, David, fresh from his flocks, marching unattended and unarmed, save with his shepherd's staff and sling, to confront the colossal Goliath with his massive armor, is the sublimest auda- city the world has ever seen. " Dent, I wish you would get down, and see what is the matter with that leg there," said Grant, when he and Colonel Dent were riding through the thickest of a fire that had become so concentrated and murderous that his troops had all been driven back. "I guess looking after your horse's legs can wait," said Dent ; " it is simply murder for us to sit here." " All right," said Grant ; " if you don't want to see to it, I will." He dismounted, untwisted a piece of telegraph wire which had begun to cut the horse's leg, examined it deliberately, and climbed into his saddle. " Dent," said he, " when you 've got a horse that you think a great deal of, you should never take any chances with him. DARE. 29 If that wire had been left there for a little time longer he would have gone dead lame, and would perhaps have been ruined for life." Wellington said that at Waterloo the hottest of the battle raged round a farmhouse, with an orchard sur- rounded by a thick hedge, which was so important a point in the British position that orders were given to hold it at any hazard or sacrifice. At last the powder and ball ran short and the hedges took fire, surrounding the orchard with a wall of flame. A messenger had been sent for ammunition, and soon two loaded wagons came galloping toward the farmhouse. " The driver of the first wagon, with the reckless daring of an English boy, spurred his struggling and terrified horses through the burning heap ; but the flames rose fiercety round, and caught the powder, which exploded in an instant, send- ing wagon, horses, and rider in fragments into the air. For an instant the driver of the second wagon paused, appalled by his comrade's fate ; the next, observing that the flames, beaten back for the moment by the explosion, afforded him one desperate chance, sent his horses at the smouldering breach and, amid the deaf- ening cheers of the garrison, landed his terrible cargo safely within. Behind him the flames closed up, and raged more fiercely than ever." At the battle of Friedland a cannon-ball came over the heads of the French soldiers, and a young soldier instinctively dodged. Napoleon looked at him and smilingly said : " My friend, if that ball were destined for you, though you were to burrow a hundred feet under ground it would be sure to .find you there." When the mine in front of Petersburg was finished, the fuse was lighted, and the Union troops were drawn up ready to charge the enemy's works as soon as the explosion should make a breach. But seconds, min- utes, and tens of minutes passed, without a sound from the mine, and the suspense became painful. Lieuten- 30 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. ant Doughty and Sergeant Rees volunteered to examine the fuse. Through the long subterranean galleries they hurried in silence, not knowing but they were advancing to a horrible death. They found the defect, fired the train anew, and soon a terrible upheaval of earth gave the signal to march to victory. At the battle of Copenhagen, as Nelson walked the deck slippery with blood and covered with the dead, he said : " This is warm work, and tliis day may be the last to any of us in a moment. But, mark me, I would not be elsewhere for thousands. '^ At the battle of Trafalgar, when Nelson was shot and was being carried below, he covered his face, that those fighting might not know their chief had fallen. In a skirmish at Salamanca, while the enemy's guns were pouring shot into his regiment. Sir William Napier's men became disobedient. He at once ordered a halt, and flogged four of the ringleaders under fire. The men yielded at ODce, and then marched three miles under a heavy cannonade as coolly as if it were a re- view. Execute your resolutions immediately. Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried. Does compe- tition trouble you ? work away ; what is your competi- tor but a man ? Conquer your place in the world, for all things serve a brave soul. Combat difficulty man- fully ; sustain misfortune bravely ; endure poverty nobly ; encounter disappointment courageously. The influence of the brave man is a magnetism which creates an epidemic of noble zeal in all about him. Every day sends to the grave obscure men, who have only remained in obscurity because their timidity has prevented them from making a first effort ; and who, if they could have been induced to begin, would, in all probability, have gone great lengths in the career of usefulness and fame. "No great deed is done," says George Eliot, "by falterers who ask for certainty." DARE. 31 The brave, cheerful man will survive his blighted hopes and disappointments, take them for just what they are, lessons and perhaps blessings in disguise, and will march boldly and cheerfully forward in the battle of life. Or, if necessary, he will bear his ills with a patience and calm endurance deeper than ever plummet sounded. He is the true hero. Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is prosperous to be just: Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside. Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucitied. Lowell. Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt. Shakespeare. After the great inward struggle was over, and he had determined to remain loyal to his principles, Thomas More walked cheerfully to the block. His wife called him a fool for staying in a dark, damp, filthy prison when he might have his liberty by merely renouncing his doctrines, as some of the bishops had done. But he preferred death to dishonor. His daughter showed the power of love to drive away fear. She remained true to her father when all others, even her mother, had forsaken him. After his head had been cut off and exhibited on a pole on London Bridge, the poor girl begged it of the authorities, and requested that it be buried in the coffin with her. Her request was granted, for her death occurred soon. When Sir Walter Kaleigh came to the scaffold he was very faint, and began his spaech to the crowd by saying that during the last two days he had been visited by two ague fits. "If, therefore, you perceive any weakness in me, I beseech you ascribe it to my sick- ness rather than to myself." He took the axe and kissed the blade, and said to the sheriff : " 'T is a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for all diseases." 32 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. Don't waste time dreaming of obstacles you may never encounter, or in crossing bridges you have not reached. Don't fool with a nettle ! Grasp with firm- ness if you would rob it of its sting. To half will and to hang forever in the balance is to lose your grip on life. Abraham Lincoln's boyhood was one long struggle with poverty, with little education, and no influential friends. When at last he had begun the practice of law, it required no little daring to cast his fortune with the weaker side in politics, and thus imperil what small reputation he had gained. Only the most sublime moral courage could have sustained him as President to hold his ground against hostile criticism and a long train of disaster ; to issue the Emancipation Proclama- tion ; to support Grant and Stanton against the clamor of the politicians and the press ; and through it all to do the right as God gave him to see the right. Lincoln never shrank from espousing an unpopular cause when he believed it to be right. At the time when it almost cost a young lawyer his bread and butter to defend the fugitive slave, and when other lawyers had refused, Lincoln would always plead the cause of the unfortunate whenever an opportunity pre- sented. "Go to Lincoln," people would say, when these hounded fugitives were seeking protection ; " he 's not afraid of any cause, if it 's right." As Salmon P. Chase left the court room after making an impassioned plea for the runaway slave girl Matilda, a man looked at him in surprise and said : '■' There goes a fine young fellow who has just ruined himself." But in thus ruining himself Chase had taken the first im- portant step in a career in which he became Governor of Ohio, United States Senator from Ohio, Secretary of the United States Treasury, and Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. At the trial of William Penn for having spoken at a DARE. 33 Quaker meeting, the recorder, not satisfied with the first verdict, said to the jury : " We will have a verdict by the help of God, or you shall starve for it." " You are Englishmen," said Penn ; " mind your privileges, give not away your right." At last the jury, after two days and two nights without food, returned a verdict of ''Not guilty." The recorder fined them forty marks apiece for their independence. What cared Christ for the jeers of the crowd ? The palsied hand moved, the blind saw, the leper was made whole, the dead spake, despite the ridicule and scoffs of the spectators. What cared Wendell Phillips for rotten eggs, deri- sive scorn, and hisses ? In him " at last the scornful world had met its match." Were Beecher and Gough to be silenced by the rude English mobs that came to extinguish them ? Xo ! they held their ground and compelled unwilling thousands to hear and to heed. Did Anna Dickinson leave the platform when the pistol bullets of the Molly Maguires flew about her head ? She silenced those pistols by her courage and her arguments. What the world wants is a Knox, who dares to preach on with a musket leveled at his head, a Garri- son, who is not afraid of a jail, or a mob, or a scaffold erected in front of his door. " Storms may howl aroundthee, Foes may hunt and hound thee: Shall they overpower thee ? Never, never, never." When General Butler was sent with nine thousand men to quell the New York riots, he arrived in advance of his troops, and found the streets thronged with an angry mob, which had already hanged more than one man to lamp-posts. Without waiting for his men, Butler went to the place where the crowd was most dense, overturned an ash barrel, stood upon it, and be- 84 AiicniTKcrs OF iwTh:, gan : •' IVloi^atos from I'ivo Toints, tuMuls from holl, you luivo murdorod your superiors," aud tho blood- stained onnvd quailed before the eourageous words of a siui^le man in a eity whieh Mayor Fernando Wood could not restrain with the aid of polieo and militia. "Our enen\ies are before ns." exelaimed the Spartans at Thermopyhr. •' Aiul we are l^etore them." was the eool reply of Leonidas. •• IVliver your arms," eame tho message from Xerxes. "Come and take them," was the answer Leonidas sent baek. A Persian soldier said: "You will not be able to see the sun tor tlying javelins and arrows." "Then we will tight in the shade," re- plied a T.aeedemonian. What wonder that a handful of such men cheeked the march of the greatest host that ever trod the earth. " It is impossible," said a statT ofticer. when Xapoleon gave directions t\^r a daring plan. "Impossible!" thundered the great commander, " hnpostsiblc is the ad- jective of fools ! " Napoleon went to the edge of his possibility. Grant never knew when lie was beaten. AVhen told that he was surrounded by the enemy at In^lmont, he quietly replied : " Well, then we must cut our way out." The conrageouj? man is an example to the intrepid. His influence is magnetic. He creates an epidemic of nobleness. Men follow him, even to the death. The spirit of courage will transform the whole tem- per of your life. "The wise and active comiuer ditli- cnlties by daring to attempt them. Sloth and folly shiver and sicken at the sight of trial and hazard, and make the impossibility they fear." "The hero," says Kmerson, "is the man who is im- movably centred." Emin Pasha, the explorer of Africa, was left behind by his exploring party under circumstances that were thought certainly fatal, and his death was reported with gi'eat assurance. Early the next winter, as his troop DARE. 35 was on its toilsomo but exciting way through Central Africa, it cainr; ii[)Oii a most wrctf;hcd siglit. A [jarty of natives had been ki(]riaj>ped by the slave-hunters, and dragged in cliains thus \:iv toward the hxnd of bondage. But sinall-pfjx \\-aA s<;t in, ;uid tli(; miserable eonii>any had been abandoned to thf^ir late. Kniin sent his men ahead, and stayed b(*hind in this camp of death to act as physician and inirse. How many lives he savfjfj is not knr)wn, thougli it is known tli;i,t lif, nearly lost his own. 'J'lie ;i,M(', oT chivali-y is not r^onr; by. 'I'his is as knightly a iUtcA as [Kjet ever chroniclerl. A mousf; that dwfilt near the abode of a great magi- cian was k(;])t in such constant distress by its fear of a cat, that tin; magician, taking pity on it, turned it into a cat itself. Immediately it began to suffer from its ffjar of a dog, so the m;i,gieian turned it into a dog. Th(;n it began to sufler from fear of a tiger. The magi- cian therefoi-f! turned it into a tiger. Then it began to fiuffcu- from f(!ar of hunters, and the magician said in dis- gust : " lie a mouse again. As you liave only the heart of a mouse, it is imi)ossible to help you by giving you the body of a nobler animal.'^ Men who have dared have moved the world, often be- fore reaching the prime of life. It is astonishing what daring to })egin and perseverance have enabled even youths to achieve. Alexander, who ascended the throne at twenty, had conquered the known world before dying at thirty-three. Julius Ca;sar captured eight hundred cities, conquered three hundred nations, and defeated three million men, l)ec.'un(; a great orator and one of the greatest statesmen known, and still was a young man. Washington was <'i[)f)ointed adjutant-general at nineteen, was sent at tw(uity-on(! as an ambassador to treat with the French, and won his first battle as a colonel at twenty- two. Lafayc^tte was made general of the whole French army at twenty, (jharlemagne was master of France and Germany at thirty. Conde was only twenty -two 36 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. when he conquered at Rocroi. Galileo was but eighteen when he saw the principle of the pendulum in the swinging lamp in the cathedral at Pisa. Peel was in Parliament at twenty-one. Gladstone was in Parlia- ment before he was twenty-two, and at twenty-four he was Lord of the Treasury. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was proficient in Greek and Latin at twelve ; De Quincey at eleven. Eobert Browning wrote at eleven poetry of no mean order. Cowley, who sleeps in Westminster Abbey, published a volume of poems at fifteen. N. P. Willis won lasting fame as a poet before leaving col- lege. Macaulay was a celebrated author before he was twenty-three. Luther was but twenty-nine when he nailed his famous thesis to the door of the bishop and defied the pope. Nelson was a lieutenant in the Brit- ish Navy before he was twenty. He was but forty- seven when he received his death wound at Trafalgar. Charles the Twelfth was only nineteen when he gained the battle of Narva ; at thirty-six, Cortez was the con- queror of Mexico ; at thirty-two, Clive had established the British power in India. Hannibal, the greatest of military commanders, was only thirty when, at Cannse, he dealt an almost annihilating blow at the republic of Rome ; and Napoleon was only twenty-seven when, on the plains of Italy, he outgeneraled and defeated, one after another, the veteran marshals of Austria. Equal courage and resolution are often shown by men who have passed the allotted limit of life. Victor Hugo and Wellington were both in their prime after they had reached the age of threescore years and ten. George Bancroft wrote some of his best historical work when he was eighty-five. Gladstone ruled England with a strong hand at eighty-four, and was a marvel of literary and scholarly ability. " Not every vessel that sails from Tarshish will bring back the gold of Ophir. But shall it therefore rot in the harbor ? No ! Give its sails to the wind ! " DARE. 37 Shakespeare says : " He is not worthy of the honey- comb that shuns the hive because the bees have stings." "The brave man is not he who feels no fear, For that were stupid and irrational ; But he whose noble soul its fear subdues And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from." The inscription on the gates of Busyrane : " Be bold." On the second gate : " Be bold, be bold, and ever more be bold ; " the third gate : "Be not too bold." Many a bright youth has accomplished nothing of worth simply because he did not dare to commence. Begin ! Begin ! ! Begin ! ! ! Whatever people may think of you, do that which you believe to be right. Be alike indifferent to censure or praise. — Pythagokas. Fear makes man a slave to others. This is the tyrant's chain. Anxiety is a form of cowardice embittering life. — Chanmimg. Courage is generosity of the highest order, for the brave are prodigal of the most precious things. Our blood is nearer and dearer to us than our money, and our life than our estate. Women are more taken with cour- age than with generosity. — Colton. Who chooses me must give and hazard all he hath. Merchant of Venice, Inscription on Leaden Casket. I dare to do all that may become a man : Who dares do more is none. Shakespeare. For man's great actions are performed in minor struggles. There are obstinate and unknown braves who defend themselves inch by inch in the shadows against the fatal invasion of want and turpitude. There are noble and mysterious triumphs which no eye sees, no renown rewards, and no flourish of trumpets salutes. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandon- ment, and poverty are battlefields which have their heroes. — Victor Hugo. Who waits until the wind shall silent keep, Who never finds the ready hour to sow. Who watcheth clouds, will have no time to reap. Hklen Hunt Jackson. Quit yourseU-es like men. — 1 Samuel iv. 9. CHAPTER III. THE WILL AND THE WAY. " The 'way' will be found by a resolute will." *' I will find a way or make one." Nothing is impossible to the man who can will. — Mirabeau. A politician weakly and amiably in the right is no match for a politi- cian tenaciously and pugnaciously in the wrong. — E. P. Whipple. The iron will of one stout heart shall make a thousand quail : A feeble dwarf, dauntlessly resolved, will turn the tide of battle, And rally to a nobler strife the giants that had fled. TUPPER. " Man alone can perform the impossible. They can who think they can. Character is a perfectly educated will." The education of the will is the object of our existence. For the resolute and determined there is time and opportunity. — Emekson. Invincible determination, and a right nature, are the levers that move the world.— President Porter. In the lexicon of youth which fate reserves for a bright manhood there is no such word as fail. — Bulwer. Perpetual pushing and assurance put a difficulty out of countenance and make a seeming difficulty give way. — Jeremy Collier. When a firm and decisive spirit is recognized, it is curious to see how the space clears around a man and leaves him room and freedom. John Foster. The star of the unconquered will, He rises in my breast, Serene, and resolute and still, And calm and self-possessed. Longfellow. "As well can the Prince of Orange pluck the stars from the sky, as bring the ocean to the wall of Leyden for your relief," was the derisive shout of the Span- WALTER SCOTT " The Wizard of the North." So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, ' Thou must,' Tlie youtli replies, '1 can.' " THE WILL AND THE WAY. 39 isli soldiers when told that the Dutch fleet would raise that terrible four months' siege of 1574. But from the parched lips of William, tossing on his bed of fever at Rotterdam, had issued the command : " Break down the dikes : give Holland hack to ocean : " and the people had replied : " Better a drowned land than a lost land." They began to demolish dike after dike of the strong lines, ranged one within another for fifteen miles to their city of the interior. It was an enormous task ; the garrison was starving; and the besiegers laughed in scorn at the slow progress of the puny insects who sought to rule the waves of the sea. But ever, as of old, heaven aids those who help themselves. On the first and second of October a violent equinoctial gale rolled the ocean inland, and swept the fleet on the ris- ing waters almost to the camp of the Spaniards. The next morning the garrison sallied out to attack their enemies, but the besiegers had fled in terror under cover of the darkness. The next day the wind changed, and a counter tempest brushed the water, with the fleet upon it, from the surface of Holland. The outer dikes were replaced at once, leaving the Korth Sea within its old bounds. When the flowers bloomed the following spring, a joyous procession marched through the streets to found the University of Leyden, in com- memoration of the wonderful deliverance of the city. At a dinner party given in 1837, at the residence of Chancellor Kent, in New York city, some of the most distinguished men in the country were invited, and among them was a young and rather melancholy and reticent Frenchman. Professor ^Morse was one of the guests, and during the evening he drew the attention of Mr. Gallatin, then a prominent statesman, to the stranger, observing that his forehead indicated great intellect. " Yes," replied Mr. Gallatin, touching his own forehead with his finger, " there is a great deal in that head of his : but he has a strange fancy. Can you 40 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. believe it ? He has the idea that he will one day be the Emperor of France. Can you conceive anything more absurd ? " It did seem absurd, for this reserved Frenchman was then a poor adventurer, an exile from his country, with- out fortune or powerful connections, and yet, fourteen years later, his idea became a fact, — his dream of be- coming iSTapoleon III. was realized. True, before he accomplished his purpose there were long dreary years of imprisonment, exile, disaster, and patient labor and hope, but he gained his ambition at last. He was not scrupulous as to the means employed to accomplish his ends, yet he is a remarkable example of what pluck and energy can do. When it was proposed to unite England and America by steam. Dr. Lardner delivered a lecture before the Eoyal Society "proving" that steamers could never cross the Atlantic, because they could not carry coal enough to produce steam during the whole voyage. The passage of the steamship Sirius, which crossed in nineteen days, was fatal to Lardner's theory. When it was proposed to build a vessel of iron, many persons said : " Iron sinks — only wood can float : " but experi- ments proved that the miracle of the prophet in mak- ing iron " swim " could be repeated, and now not only ships of war, but merchant vessels, are built of iron or steel. A will found a way to make iron float. Mr. Ingram, publisher of the "London Illustrated News," who lost his life on Lake Michigan, walked ten miles to deliver a single paper rather than disappoint a customer, when he began life as a newsdealer at Not- tingham, England. Does any one wonder that such a youth succeeded ? Once he rose at two o'clock in the morning and walked to London to get some papers be- cause there was no post to bring them. He determined that his customers should not be disappointed. This is the kind of will that finds a way. THE WILL AND THE WAY. 41 There is scarcely anytMng in all biography grander than the saying of young Henry Fawcett, Gladstone's last Postmaster-General, to his grief-stricken father, who had put out both his eyes by bird-shot during a game hunt : " Never mind, father, blindness shall not interfere with my success in life." One of the most pathetic sights in London streets, long afterward, was Henry Fawcett, M. P., led everywhere by a faithful daughter, who acted as amanuensis as well as guide to her plucky father. Think of a young man, scarcely on the threshold of active life, suddenly losing the sight of both eyes and yet, by mere pluck and almost incom- prehensible tenacity of purpose, lifting himself iiito eminence, in any direction, to say nothing of becoming one of the foremost men in a country noted for its great men. Most youth would have succumbed to such a misfortune, and would never have been heard from again. But fortunately for the world, there are yet left many Fawcetts, many Prescotts, Parkmans, Cava- naghs. The courageous daughter who was eyes to her father was herself a marvelous example of pluck and deter- mination. For the first time in the history of Oxford College, which reaches back centuries, she succeeded in winning the post which had only been gained before by great men, such as Gladstone, — the post of senior wrangler. This achievement had had no parallel in history up to that date, and attracted the attention of the whole civilized world. Not only had no woman ever held this position before, but with few exceptions it had only been held by men who in after life became highly distinguished. Who can deny that where there is a will, as a rule, there 's a way ? When Grant was a boy he could not find " can't " in the dictionary. It is the men who have no " can't " in their dictionaries that make things move. " Circumstances," says Milton, " have rarely favored 42 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. famous men. They have fought their way to triumph through all sorts of opposing obstacles." The true way to conquer circumstances is to be a greater circumstance yourself. Yet, while desiring to impress in the most forcible manner possible the fact that will-power is necessary to success, and that, other things being equal, the greater the will-power, the grander and more complete the suc- cess, we cannot indorse the preposterous theory that there is nothing in circumstances or environments, or that any man, simply because he has an indomitable will, may become a Bonaparte, a Pitt, a Webster, a Beecher, a Lincoln. We must temper determination with discretion, and support it with knowledge and common sense, or it will only lead us to run our heads against posts. We must not expect to overcome a stub- born fact by a stubborn will. We merely have the right to assume that we can do anything within the limit of our utmost faculty, strength, and endurance. Obstacles permanently insurmountable bar our progress in some directions, but in any direction we may reason- ably hope and attempt to go, we shall find that the ob- stacles, as a rule, are either not insurmountable or else not permanent. The strong-willed, intelligent, persis- tent man will find or make a way where, in the nature of things, a way can be found or made. Every schoolboy knows that circumstances do give clients to lawyers and patients to physicians ; place or- dinary clergymen in extraordinary pulpits ; place sons of the rich at the head of immense corporations and large houses, when they have very ordinary ability and scarcely any experience, while poor young men with ex- traordinary abilities, good education, good character, and large experience, often have to fight their way for years to obtain even very ordinary situations. Every one knows that there are thousands of young men, both in the city and in the country, of superior ability, who THE WILL AND THE WAY. 43 seem to be compelled by circumstances to remain in very ordinary positions for small pay, when others about them are raised by money or family influence into de- sirable places. In other words, we all know that the best men do not always get the best places : circum- stances do have a great deal to do with our position, our salaries, and our station in life. Many young men who are nature's noblemen, who are natural leaders, are working under superintendents, foremen, and managers infinitely their inferiors, but whom circumstances have placed above them and will keep there, unless some emergency makes merit indis- pensable. No, the race is not always to the swift. Every one knows that there is not always a way where there is a will ; that labor does not always con- quer all things ; that there are things impossible even to him that wills, however strongly ; that one cannot al- ways make anything of himself he chooses ; that there are limitations in our very natures which no amount of will-power or industry can overcome ; that no amount of sun-staring can ever make an eagle out of a crow. The simple truth is that a will strong enough to keep a man continually striving for things not wholly beyond his powers will carry him in time very far toward his chosen goal. The greatest thing a man can do in this world is to make the most possible out of the stuff that has been given to him. This is success, and there is no other. While it is true that our circumstances or environ- ments do affect us, in most things they do not pre- vent our growth. The corn that is now ripe, whence comes it, and what is it ? Is it not large or small, stunted wild maize or well-developed ears, according to the conditions under which it has grown ? Yet its en- vironments cannot make wheat of it. Nor can our cir- cumstances alter our nature. It is part of our nature, and wholly within our power, greatly to change and to 44 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. take advantage of our circumstances, so that, unlike the corn, we can rise much superior to our natural surround- ings simply because we can thus vary and improve the surroundings. In other words, man can usually build the very road on which he is to run his race. It is not a question of what some one else can do or become, which every youth should ask himself, but what can I do ? How can I develop myself into the grandest possible manhood ? So far, then, from the power of circumstances being a hindrance to men in trying to build for themselves an imperial highway to fortune, these circumstances constitute the very quarry out of which they are to get paving-stones for the road. While it is true that the will-power cannot perform miracles, yet that it is almost omnipotent, that it can perform wonders, all history goes to prove. As Shake- speare says : — "Men at some time are masters of their fates : The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings." "There is nobody," says a Eoman Cardinal, "whom Fortune does not visit once in his life : but when she finds he is not ready to receive her, she goes in at the door, and out through the window." Opportunity is coy. The careless, the slow, the unobservant, the lazy fail to see it, or clutch at it when it has gone. The sharp fellows detect it instantly, and catch it when on the wing. Show me a man who is, according to popular preju- dice, a victim of bad luck, and I will show you one who has some unfortunate crooked twist of temperament that invites disaster. He is ill-tempered, or conceited, or trifling ; lacks character, enthusiasm, or some other requisite for success. Disraeli says that man is not the creature of circum- stances, but that circumstances are the creatures of men. THE WILL AND THE WAY. 45 What has chance ever done in the world ? Has it built any cities ? Has it invented any telephones, any telegraphs ? Has it built any steamships, established any universities, any asylums, any hospitals ? Was there any chance in Caesar's crossing the Rubicon ? What had chance to do with Napoleon's career, with Wellington's, or Grant's, or Von Moltke's ? Every bat- tle was won before it was begun. What had luck to do with Thermopylae, Trafalgar, Gettysburg? Our suc- cesses we ascribe to ourselves ; our failures to destiny. Man is not a helpless atom in this vast creation, with a fixed position, and naught to do but obey his own polarity. Believe in the power of will, which annihilates the sickly, sentimental doctrine of fatalism, — you must but can't, you ought but it is impossible. Give me the man " Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And breasts the blows of circumstance, And grapples with his evil star." It is only the ignorant and superficial who believe in fate. " The first step into thought lifts this mountain of necessity." " Fate is unpenetrated causes." " They may well fear fate who have any infirmity of habit or aim : but he who rests on what he is has a destiny beyond destiny, and can make mouths at fortune." The indomitable will, the inflexible purpose, will find a way or make one. There is always room for a man of force. " He who has a firm will," says .Goethe, " moulds the world to himself.'^ "People do not lack strength," says Victor Hugo, "they lack will." " He who resolves upon any great end, by that very resolution has scaled the great barriers to it, and he who seizes the grand idea of self-cultivation, and sol- emnly resolves upon it, will find that idea, that resolu- 46 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. tion, burning like fire within him, and ever putting hira upon his own improvement. He will find it removing difficulties, searching out, or making means ; giving courage for despondency, and strength for weakness." Nearly all great men, those who have towered high above their fellows, have been remarkable above all things else for their energy of will. Of Julius Caesar it was said by a contemporary that it was his activity and giant determination, rather than his military skill, that won his victories. The youth who starts out in life determined to make the most of his eyes and let nothing escape him which he can possibly use for his own advancement ; who keeps his ears open for every sound that can help him on his way, who keeps his hands open that he may clutch every opportunity, who is ever on the alert for everything which can help him to get on in the world, who seizes every experience in life and grinds it up into paint for his great life's pic- ture, who keeps his heart open that he may catch every noble impulse, and everything which may inspire him, — that youth will be sure to make his life successful ; there are no " if s " or " ands " about it. If he has his health, nothing can keep him from final success. No tyranny of circumstances can permanently im- prison a determined will. The world always stands aside for the determined man. Will makes a way, even through seeming impos- sibilities. " It is the half a neck nearer that shows the blood and wins the race : the one march more that wins the campaign : the five minutes more of unyielding cour- age that wins the fight." Again and again had the irre- pressible Carter Harrison been consigned to oblivion by the educated and moral element of Chicago. Nothing could keep him down. He was invincible. A son of Chicago, he had partaken of that nineteenth century miracle, that phoenix-like nature of the city which, though she was burned, caused her to rise from her THE WILL AND THE WAY. 47 ashes and become a greater and a grander Chicago, a wonder of the world. Carter Harrison would not down. He entered the Democratic Convention and, with an audacity rarely equaled, in spite of their protest, boldly declared himself their candidate. Every newspaper in Chicago, save the " Times," his own paper, bitterly op- posed his election : but notwithstanding all opposition, he was elected by twenty thousand majority. The aris- tocrats hated him, the moral element feared him, but the poor people believed in him : he pandered to them, flattered them, till they elected him. While we would not by any means hold Carter Harrison up to youth as a model, yet there is a great lesson in his will-power and wonderful tenacity of purpose. " The general of a large army may be defeated," said Confucius, " but you cannot defeat the determined mind of a peasant." The poor, deaf pauper, Kitto, who made shoes in the almshouse, and who became the greatest of Biblical scholars, wrote in his journal, on the threshold of man- hood : " I am not myself a believer in impossibilities : I think that all the fine stories about natural ability, etc., are mere rigmarole, and that every man may, accord- ing to his opportunities and industry, render himself almost anything he wishes to become." Years ago, a young mechanic took a bath in the river Clyde. While swimming from shore to shore he dis- cerned a beautiful bank, uncultivated, and he then and there resolved to be the owner of it, and to adorn it, and to build upon it the finest mansion in all the borough, and name it in honor of the maiden to whom he was espoused. " Last summer," says a well-known American, " I had the pleasure of dining in that princely mansion, and receiving this fact from the lips of the great shipbuilder of the Clyde." That one purpose was made the ruling passion of his life, and all the energies of his soul were put in requisition for its accomplishment. 48 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. Lincoln is probably the most remarkable example on the pages of history, showing the possibilities of our country. From the poverty in which he was born, through the rowdyism of a frontier town, the rudeness of frontier society, the discouragement of early bank- ruptcy, and the fluctuations of popular politics, he rose to the championship of union and freedom. Lincoln's will made his way. When his friends nom- inated him as a candidate for the legislature, his enemies made fun of him. When making his campaign speeches he wore a mixed jean coat so short that he could not sit down on it, flax and tow-linen trousers, straw hat, and pot-metal boots. He had nothing in the world but character and friends. W^heu his friends suggested law to him, he laughed at the idea of his being a lawyer. He said he hadn't brains enough. He read law barefoot under the trees, his neighbors said, and he sometimes slept on the counter in the store where he worked. He had to borrow money to buy a suit of clothes to make a respectable appearance in the legislature, and walked to take his seat at Vandalia, — one hundred miles. While he was in the legislature, John F. Stuart, an eminent lawyer of Springfield, told him how Clay had even inferior chances to his, had got all of the education he had in a log schoolhouse without windows or doors ; and finally induced Lincoln to study law. See Thurlow Weed, defying poverty and wading through the snow two miles, with rags for shoes, to borrow a book to read before the sap-bush fire. See Locke, living on bread and water in a Dutch garret. See Heyne, sleeping many a night on a barn floor with only a book for his pillow. See Samuel Drew, tighten- ing his apron strings " in lieu of a dinner." See young Lord Eldon, before daylight copying Coke on Littleton over and over again. History is full of such examples. He who will pay the price for victory needs never THE WILL AND THE WAY. 49 fear final defeat. Why were the Roman legionaries victorious ? " For Romans, in Rome's quarrels, Spared neither land nor gold, Nor son, nor wife, nor limb nor life, In the brave days of old." Powell Buxton, writing to one of his sons, says : " I am sure that a young man may be very much what lie pleases." Dr. Mathews has well said that "there is hardly a word in the whole human vocabulary which is more cruelly abused than the word ' luck.' To all the faults and failures of men, their positive sins and their less culpable shortcomings, it is made to stand a godfather and sponsor. Go talk with the bankrupt man of busi- ness, who has swamped his fortune by wild speculation, extravagance of living, or lack of energy, and you will find that he vindicates his wonderful self-love by con- founding the steps which he took indiscreetly with those to which he was forced by ' circumstances,' and complacently regarding himself as the victim of ill-luck. Go visit the incarcerated criminal, who has imbued his hands in the blood of his fellow-man, or Avho is guilty of less heinous crimes, and you will find that, joining the temptations which were easy to avoid with those which were comparatively irresistible, he has hurriedly patched up a treaty with conscience, and stifles its compunctious visitings by persuading himself that, from first to last, he was the victim of circumstances. Go talk with the mediocre in talents and attainments, the weak-spirited man who, from-^ lack of energy and application, has made but little headway in the world, being outstripped in the race of life by those whom he had despised as his inferiors, and you will find that he, too, acknowledges the all-potent power of luck, and soothes his humbled pride by deeming himself the victim of ill-fortune. In short, from the most venial offense 50 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. to the most flagrant, there is hardly any wrong act or neglect to which this too fatally convenient word is not applied as a palliation." Paris was in the hands of a mob, the authorities were panic-stricken, for they did not dare to trust their un- derlings. In came a man who said, " I know a young officer who has the courage and ability to quell this mob." " Send for him ; send for him ; send for him," said they. Napoleon was sent for, came, subjugated the mob, subjugated the authorities, ruled France, then conquered Europe. What a lesson is Napoleon's life for the sickly, wishy- washy, dwarfed, sentimental " dudes," hanging about our cities, country, and universities, complaining of their hard lot, dreaming of success, and wondering why they are left in the rear in the great race of life. Success in life is dependent largely upon the will- power, and whatever weakens or impairs it diminishes success. The will can be educated. That which most easily becomes a habit in us is the will. Learn, then, to will decisively and strongly ; thus fix your floating life, and leave it no longer to be carried hither and thither, like a withered leaf, by every wind that blows. '' It is not talent that men lack, it is the will to labor ; it is the purpose, not the power to produce." It was this insatiable thirst for knowledge which held to his task, through poverty and discouragement, John Leyden, a Scotch shepherd's son. Barefoot and alone, he walked six or eight miles daily to learn to read, which was all the schooling he had. His desire for an education defied the extremest poverty, and no obstacle could turn him from his purpose. He was rich when he discovered a little bookstore, and his thirsty soul would drink in the precious treasures from its priceless volumes for hours, perfectly oblivious of the scanty meal of bread and water which awaited him at his lowly lodging. Nothing could discourage him from THE WILL AND THE WAY. 51 trying to improve himself by study. It seemed to him that an opportunity to get at books and lectures was all that any man could need. Before he was nineteen, this poor shepherd boy with no chance had astonished the professors of Edinburgh by his knowledge of Greek and Latin. Hearing that a surgeon's assistant in the Civil Ser- vice was wanted, although he knew nothing whatever of medicine, he determined to apply for it. There were only six months before the place was to be filled, but nothing could daunt him, and in six months' time he actually took his degree with honor. Waiter Scott, who thought this one of the most remarkable illustra- tions of perseverance, helped to fit him out, and he sailed for India. Webster was very poor even after he entered Dart- mouth College. A friend sent him a recipe for greas- ing his boots. Webster wrote and thanked him, and added : "But my boots need other doctoring, for they not only admit water, but even peas and gravel-stones." Yet he became one of the greatest men in the world. Sydney Smith said : " Webster was a living lie, because no man on earth could be as great as he looked." Carlyle said of him : " One would incline at sight to back him against the world." What seemed to be luck followed Stephen Girard all his life. No matter what he did, it always seemed to others to turn to his account. His coming to Philadel- phia seemed a lucky accident. A sloop was seen one morning off the mouth of Delaware Bay floating the flag of France and a signal of distress. Young Girard was captain of this sloop, and was on his way to a Canadian port with freight from j^ew Orleans. An American skipper, seeing his distress, went to his aid, but told him the American war had broken out, and that the British cruisers were all along the American coast, and would seize his vessel. He told him his only 52 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. chance was to make a push for Philadeli)hia. Giraid did not know the way, and had no money. The skipper loaned him five dollars to get the service of a pilot who demanded his money in advance. His sloop passed into the Delaware just in time to avoid capture by a British war vessel. He sold the sloop and cargo in Philadelphia, and began business on the capital. Being a foreigner, unable to speak English, short, stout, and with a repulsive face, blind in one eye, it was hard for him to get a start. But he was not the man to give up. He had begun as a cabin boy at thirteen, and for nine years sailed between Bordeaux and the French West Indies. He improved every leisure minute at sea, mastering the art of navigation. At the age of eight he first discovered that he was blind in one eye. His father, evidently thinking that he would never amount to anything, would not help him to an education beyond that of mere reading and writing, but sent his younger brothers to college. The discovery of his blindness, the neglect of his father, and the chagrin of his brothers' advancement, soured his whole life. When he began business for himself in Philadelphia, there seemed to be nothing he would not do for money. He bought and sold anything, from groceries to old junk. He bottled wine and cider, from which he made a good profit. Everything he touched prospered. In 1780, he resumed the New Orleans and St. Domingo trade, in which he had been engaged at the breaking out of the Kevolution. Here great success again attended him. He had two vessels lying in one of the St. Domingo ports when the great insurrection on that island broke out. A number of the rich planters fled to his vessels with their valuables, which they left for safe keeping while they went back to their estates to secure more. They probably fell victims to the cruel negroes, for they never returned, and Grirard was the THE WILL AND THE WAY. 53 lucky possessor of $50,000 which the goods brought in Philadephia. Everybody, especially his jealous brother merchants, attributed his great success to his luck. While un- doubtedly he was fortunate in happening to be at the right place at the right time, yet he was precision, method, accuracy, energy itself. He left nothing to chance. His plans and schemes were worked out with mathematical care. His letters, written to his captains in foreign ports, laying out their routes and giving de- tailed instruction from which they were never allowed to deviate under any circumstances, are models of fore- sight and systematic planning. He never left anything of importance to others. He was rigidly accurate in his instructions, and would not allow the slightest de- parture from them. He used to say that while his captains might save him money by deviating from instructions once, yet they would cause loss in ninety- nine other cases. Once, when a captain returned and had saved him several thousand dollars by buying his cargo of cheese in another port than that in which he had been instructed to buy, Girard was so enraged, al- though he was several thousand dollars richer, that he discharged the captain on the spot, notwithstanding the latter had been faithful in his service for many years, and thought he was saving his employer a great deal of money by deviating from his instructions. Girard lived in a dingy little house, poorer than that occupied by many of his employees. He married a servant girl of great beauty, but she proved totally unfitted for him, and died at last In the insane asylum. Girard never lost a ship, and many times what brought financial ruin to many others, as the War of 1812, only increased his wealth. What seemed luck with him was only good judgment and promptness in seizing opportu- nities, and the greatest care and zeal in improving them to their utmost possibilities. 54 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. Luck is not God's price for success : that is alto- gether too cheap, nor does he dicker with men. The mathematician tells you that if you throw the dice, there are thirty chances to one against your turn- ing up a particular number, and a hundred to one against your repeating the same throw three times in succession : and so on in an augmenting ratio. What is luck ? Is it, as has been suggested, a blind man's buff among the laws ? a ruse among the elements ? a trick of Dame Nature ? Has any scholar defined luck ? any philosopher explained its nature ? any chemist shown its composition ? Is luck that strange, nonde- script fairy, that does all things among men that they cannot account for ? If so, why does not luck make a fool speak words of wisdom ; an ignoramus utter lec- tures on philosophy ? Many a young man who has read the story of John Wanamaker's romantic career has gained very little in- spiration or help from it toward his own elevation and advancement, for he looks upon it as the result of good luck, chance, or fate. " What a lucky fellow," he says to himself as he reads ; " what a bonanza he fell into." But a careful analysis of Wanamaker's life only en- forces the same lesson taught by the analysis of most great lives, namely, that a good mother, a good consti- tution, the habit of hard work, indomitable energy, a de- termination which knows no defeat, a decision which never wavers, a concentration which never scatters its forces, courage which never falters, a self-mastery which can say No, and stick to it, an " ignominious love of detail," strict integrity and downright honesty, a cheerful disposition, unbounded enthusiasm in one's calling, and a high aim and noble purpose insure a very large measure of success. Youth should be taught that there is something in circumstances ; that there is such a thing as a poor pedestrian happening to find no obstruction in his way, THE WILL AND THE WAY. ^b and reaching the goal when a better walker finds the drawbridge up, the street blockaded, and so fails to win the race ; that wealth often does place unworthy sons in high positions ; that family influence does gain a law- yer clients, a physician patients, an ordinary scholar a good professorship ; but that, on the other hand, po- sition, clients, patients, professorships, manager's and superintendent's positions do not necessarily constitute success. He should be taught that in the long run, as a rule, the best man does ivin the best i^ace, and that per- sistent merit does succeed: There is about as much chance of idleness and inca- pacity winning real success, or a high position in life, as there would be in producing a Paradise Lost by shak- ing up promiscuously the separate words of Webster's Dictionary, and letting them fall at random on the floor. Fortune smiles upon those who roll up their sleeves and put their shoulders to the wheel ; upon men who are not afraid of dreary, dry, irksome drudgery, men of nerve and grit who do not turn aside for dirt and detail. The youth should be taught that "he alone is great, who, by a life heroic, conquers fate ; " that " diligence is the mother of good luck ; " that, nine times out of ten, w^hat we call luck or fate is but a mere bugbear of the indolent, the languid, the purposeless, the careless, the indifferent ; that the man who fails, as a rule, does not see or seize his opportunity. Opportunity is coy, is swift, is gone, before the slow, the unobservant, the indolent, or the careless can seize her : — "In idle wishes fools supinel\' stay: Be there a will and wisdom -finds a way." It has been well said that the very reputation of being strong willed, plucky, and indefatigable is of priceless value. It often cows enemies and dispels at the start opposition to one's undertakings which would otherwise be formidable. " If Eric 's in robust health, and has slept well, and 56 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. is at the top of his condition, and thirty years old at his departure from Greenland," says Emerson, ''he will steer west and his ships will reach Newfoundland. But take Eric out and put in a stronger and bolder man, and the shij^s will sail six hundred, one thousand, fifteen hundred miles further, and reach Labrador and New England. There is no chance in results." Obsta- cles tower before the living man like mountain chains, stopping his path and hindering his progress. He sur- mounts them by his energy. He makes a new i3ath over them. He climbs upon them to mountain heights. They cannot stop him. They do not much delay him. He transmutes difficulties into power, and makes tem- porary failures into stepping-stones to ultimate success. How many might have been giants who are only dwarfs. How many a one has died " with all his music in him." It is astonishing what men who have come to their senses late in life have accomplished by a sudden reso- lution. Arkwright was fifty years of age when he began to learn English grammar and improve his writing and spelling. Benjamin Eranklin was past fifty before he began the study of science and philosophy. Milton, in his blindness, was past the age of fifty when he sat down to complete his world-known epic, and Scott at fifty-five took up his pen to redeem an enormous liabil- ity. " Yet I am learning," said Michael Angelo, when threescore years and ten were past, and he had long attained the highest triumphs of his art. Even brains are second in importance to will. The vacillating man is always pushed aside in the race of life. It is only the weak and vacillating who halt be- fore adverse circumstances and obstacles. A man with an iron will, with a determination that nothing shall check his career, if he has perseverance and grit, is sure to succeed. We may not find time for what we THE WILL AND THE WAY. 57 would like, but what we long for and strive for with all our strength, we usually approximate if we do not fully reach. Hunger breaks through stone walls ; stern necessity will find a way or make one. Success is also a great physical as well as mental tonic, and tends to strengthen the will-power. Dr. Johnson says : " Resolutions and success reciprocally produce each other." Strong-willed men, as a rule, are successful men, and great success is almost impossible without it. A man who can resolve vigorously upon a course of action, and turns neither to the right nor the left, though a paradise tempt him, who keeps his eyes upon the goal, whatever distracts him, is sure of success. We could almost classify successes and failures by their various degrees of will-power. Men like Sir James Mackintosh, Coleridge, La Harpe, and many others who have dazzled the world with their bril- liancy, but who never accomplished a tithe of what they attempted ; who were always raising our expecta- tions that they were about to perform wonderful deeds, but who accomplished nothing worthy of their abilities, have been deficient in will-power. One talent with a will behind it will accomplish more than ten without it. The great linguist of Bologna mastered a hundred languages by taking them singly, as the lion fought the bulls. I wish it were possible to show the youth of America the great part that the will might play in their success in "life and in their happiness also. The achievements of will-power are simply beyond computation. Scarcely anything in reason seems impossible to the man who can will strong enough and long enough. How often we see this illustrated in the case of a young woman who suddenly becomes conscious that she is plain and unattractive ; who, by prodigious ex- ercise of her will and untiring industry, resolves to 58 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. redeem herself from obscurity and commonness ; and who not only makes up for her deficiencies, but elevates herself into a prominence and importance which mere personal attractions could never have given her. Char- lotte Cushman, without a charm of form or face, climbed to the very top of her profession. How many young men, stung by consciousness of physical de- formity or mental deficiencies, have, by a strong persis- tent exercise of will-power, raised themselves from mediocrity and placed themselves high above those who scorned them. History is full of examples of men and women who have redeemed themselves from disgrace, poverty, and misfortune, by the firm resolution of an iron will. The consciousness of being looked upon as inferior, as in- capable of accomplishing what others accomplish ; the sensitiveness at being considered a dunce in school, has stung many a youth into a determination which has elevated him far above those who laughed at him, as in the case of Newton, of Adam Clark, of Sheridan, Wel- lington, Goldsmith, Dr. Chalmers, Curran, Disraeli, and hundreds of others. " Whatever you wish, that jow. are ; for such is the force of the human will, joined to the Divine, that whatever we wish to be seriously, and with a true intention, that we become." While this is not strictly true, yet there is a deal of truth in it. It is men like Mirabeau, who " trample upon impossi- bilities ; " like Napoleon, who do not wait for opportuni- ties, but make them ; like Grant, who has only " uncon- ditional surrender" for the enemy, who change the very front of the world. " We have but what we make, and every good is locked by nature in a granite hand, sheer labor must unclench." What cares Henry L. Bulwer for the suffocating cough, even though he can scarcely speak above a whis- per ? In the House of Commons he makes his immor- tal speech on the Irish Church just the same. THE WILL AND THE WAY. 59 " I can'tj it is impossible," said a foiled lieutenant, to Alexander. " Be gone," shouted the conquering Mace- donian, " there is nothing impossible to him who will try." Were I called upon to express in a word the secret of so many failures among those who started out in life with high hopes, I should say unhesitatingly, they lacked will-power. They could not half will. What is a man without a will ? He is like an engine without steam, a mere sport of chance, to be tossed about hither and thither, always at the mercy of those who have wills. I should call the strength of will the test of a young man's possibilities. Can he will strong enough, and hold whatever he undertakes with an iron grip ? It is the iron grip that takes the strong hold on life. What chance is there in this crowding, pushing, selfish, greedy world, where everything is pusher or pushed, for a young man with no will, no grip on life ? " The truest wisdom," said Napoleon, "is a resolute determi- nation." An iron will without principle might produce a Napoleon ; but with character it would make a Wel- lington or a Grant, untarnished by ambition or avarice. " The undivided will 'T is that compels the elements and wrings A human music from the indifferent air." CHAPTER IV. SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. Victories that are easy are cheap. Those only are worth having which come as the result of hard fighting. — Beecher. Man owes his growth chiefly to that active striving of the will, that en- counter with difficulty, which we call effort; and it is astonishing to tind how often results that seemed impracticable are thus made possible. — Epes Sahgent. I know no such unquestionable badge and ensign of a sovereign mind as that tenacity of purpose which, through all change of companions, or parties, or fortunes, changes never, bates no jot of heart or hope, but wearies out opposition and arrives at its port. — Emehson. Yes, to this thought I hold with firm persistence ; The last result of wisdom stamps it true ; He only earns his freedom and existence Who daily conquers them anew. Goethe. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them. —Washington Irving. " I HAVE here three teams that I want to get over to Staten Island," said a boy of twelve one day in 1806 to the innkeeper at South Amboy, N. J. " If you will put us across, I '11 leave with you one of my horses in pawn, and if I don't send you back six dollars within forty- eight hours you may keep the horse." The innkeeper asked the reason for this novel propo- sition, and learned that the lad's father had contracted to get the cargo of a vessel stranded near Sandy Hook, and take it to New York in lighters. The boy had been sent with three wagons, six horses, and three men, to carry the cargo across a sand-spit to the lighters. The work accomplished, he had started with only six dollars to travel a long distance home over the Jersey WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT How can you keep a determined man from success,? Place stumbling-blocks in his way, and he uses them for stepping-stones. Imprison him, and he produces the "Pilgrim's Progress." Deprive him of eyesight, and he writes the "Con- quest of Mexico." SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 61 sands, and reached South Am boy penniless. " I '11 do it," said the innkeeper, as he looked into the bright honest eyes of the boy. The horse was soon redeemed. " My son," said this same boy's mother, on the first of May, 1810, when he asked her to lend him one hun- dred dollars to buy a boat, having imbibed a strong liking for the sea ; " on the twenty-seventh of this month you will be sixteen years old. If, by that time, you will plow, harrow, and plant with corn the eight- acre lot, I will advance you the money." The field was rough and stony, but the work was done in time, and well done. From this small beginning Cornelius Vanderbilt laid the foundation of a colossal fortune. He would often work all night ; and, as he was never absent from his post by day, he soon had the best busi- ness in New York harbor. In 1813, when it was expected that New York would be attacked by British ships, all the boatmen except Cornelius put in bids to convey provisions to the mili- tary posts around New York, naming extremely low rates, as the contractor would be exempted from mili- tary duty. " Why don't you send in a bid ? " asked his father. " Of what use ? " replied young Vanderbilt ; "they are offering to do the work at half price. It can't be done at such rates." " Well," said his father, "it can do no harm to try for it." So, to please his father, but with no hope of success, Cornelius made an offer fair to both sides, but did not go to hear the award. When his companions had all returned with long faces, he went to the commissary's office and asked if the contract had been given. " Oh, yes," was the reply ; " that business is settled. Cornelius Van- derbilt is the man. What ? " he asked, seeing that the youth was apparently thunderstruck, " is it you ? " " My name is Cornelius Vanderbilt," said the boatman. " Well," said the commissary, " dcn't you know why we have given the contract to you ? " " No." " Why, 62 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. it is because we want this business done, and we know you '11 do it." Character gives confidence. In 1818 he owned two or three of the finest coasting schooners in New York harbor, and had a capital of nine thousand dollars. Seeing that steam-vessels would soon win supremacy over those carrying sails only, he gave up his fine business to become the captain of a steamboat at one thousand dollars a year. For twelve years he ran between New York city and New Bruns- wick, N. J. In 1829 he began business as a steamboat owner, in the face of opposition so bitter that he lost his last dollar. But the tide turned, and he prospered so rapidly that he at length owned over one hundred steamboats. He early identified himself with the grow- ing railroad interests of the country, and became the richest man of his day in America. Barnum began the race of business life barefoot, for at the age of fifteen he was obliged to buy on credit the shoes he wore at his father's funeral. He was a re- markable example of success under difficulties. There was no keeping him down ; no opposition daunted him, no obstacles were too great for him to overcome. Think of a man being ruined at fifty years of age ; yes, worse than ruined, for he was heavily in debt besides. Yet on the very day of his downfall he begins to rise again, wringing victory from defeat by his indomitable persistence. " Eloquence must have been born with you," said a friend to J. P. Curran. "Indeed, my dear sir, it was not," replied the orator ; " it was born some three and twenty years and some months after me." Speaking of his first attempt at a debating club, he said : " I stood up, trembling through every fibre ; but remembering that in this I was but imitating Tully, I took courage and had actually proceeded almost as far as ' Mr. Chair- man,' when, to my astonishment and terror, I perceived that every eye was turned on me. There were only six SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 63 or seven present, and the room could not have contained as many more ; yet was it, to my panic-stricken imagi- nation, as if I were the central object in nature, and assembled millions were gazing upon me in breathless expectation. I became dismayed and dumb. My friends cried, ' Hear him ! ' but there was nothing to hear." He was nicknamed " Orator Mum," and well did he deserve the title until he ventured to stare in astonishment at a 'speaker who was "culminating chronology by the most preposterous anachronisms." " I doubt not," said the annoyed speaker, " that ' Orator Mum ' possesses won- derful talents for eloquence, but I would recommend him to show it in future by some more popular method than his silence." Stung by the taunt, Curran rose and gave the man a "piece of his mind," speaking quite fluently in his anger. Encouraged by this success, he took great pains to become a good speaker. He cor- rected his habit of stuttering by reading favorite pas- sages aloud every day slowly and distinctly, and spoke at every opportunity. Bunyan wrote his " Pilgrim's Progress " on the un- twisted papers used to cork the bottles of milk brought for his meals. Gifford wrote his first copy of a math- ematical work, when a cobbler's apprentice, on small scraps of leather; and Rittenhouse, the astronomer, first calculated eclipses on his plow handle. A poor Irish lad, so pitted by smallpox that boys made sport of him, earned his living by writing little ballads for street musicians. Eight cents a day was often all he could earn. He traveled through France and Italy, begging his way by singing and playing the flute at the cottages of the peasantry. At twenty-eight he was penniless in London, and lived in the beggars' quarters in Axe Lane. In his poverty, he set up as a doctor in the suburbs of London. He wore a second- hand coat of rusty velvet, with a patch on the left breast which he adroitly covered with his three-cor- 64 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. iiered hat during his visits ; and we have an amusing anecdote of his contest of courtesy with a patient who persisted in endeavoring to relieve him of his hat, which only made him press it more devoutly to his heart. He often had to jjawn his clothes to keep from starving. He sold his " Life of Voltaire " for twenty dollars. After great hardship he managed to publish his " Polite Learning in Europe," and this brought him to public notice. Next came "The Traveller," and the' wretched man in a Fleet Street garret found himself famous. His landlady once arrested him for rent, but Dr. Johnson came to his relief, took from his desk the manuscript of the " Vicar of Wakefield," and sold it for three hundred dollars. He spent two years revising "The Deserted Village" after it was first written. Generous to a fault, vain and improvident, imposed on by others, he was continually in debt ; although for his " History of the Earth and Animated Nature " he re- ceived four thousand dollars, and some of his works, as, for instance, " She Stoops to Conquer," had a large sale. But in spite of fortune's frown and his own weakness, he won success and fame. The world, which so often comes too late with its assistance and laurels, gave to the weak, gentle, loving author of " The Vicar of Wakefield" a monument in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. The poor, scrofulous, and almost blind boy, Samuel Johnson, was taken by his mother to receive the touch of Queen Anne, which was supposed to heal the " King's Evil." He entered Oxford as a servant, copy- ing lectures from a student's notebooks, while the boys made sport of the bare feet showing through great holes in his shoes. Some one left a pair of new shoes at his door, but he was too proud to be helped, and threw them out of the window. He was so poor that he was obliged to leave college, and at twenty-six married a widow of forty-eight. He started a private SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 65 school with his wife's money ; but, getting only three pupils, was obliged to close it. He went to London, where he lived on nine cents a day. In his distress he wrote a poem in which appeared in capital letters the line, "Slow rises worth by poverty depressed," which attracted wide attention. He suffered greatly in Lon- don for thirteen years, being arrested once for a debt of thirteen dollars. At forty he published " The Vanity of Human Wishes," in which were these lines : — " Then mark what ills the scholar's life assail; Toil, envy, want, the patron and the jail." When asked how he felt about his failures, he replied : "Like a monument," — that is, steadfast, immovable. He was an indefatigable worker. In the evenings of a single week he wrote "Easselas," a beautiful little story of the search for happiness, to get money to pay the funeral expenses of his mother. With six assist- ants he worked seven years on his Dictionary, which made his fortune. His name was then in everybody's mouth, and when he no longer needed help, assistance, as usual, came from every quarter. The great universi- ties hastened to bestow their degrees, and King George invited him to the palace. Lord Mansfield raised himself by indefatigable in- dustry from oatmeal porridge and poverty to affluence and the Lord Chief Justice's Bench. Of five thousand articles sent every year to "Lip- pincott's Magazine," only two hundred were accepted. How much do you think Homer got for his Iliad ? or Dante for his Paradise ? Only bitter bread and salt, and going up and down other people's stairs. In science, the man who discovered the telescope, and first saw heaven, was paid with a dungeon : the man who invented the microscope, and first saw earth, died from starvation, driven from his home. It is very clear in- deed that God means all good work and talk to be done for nothing. Shakespeare's "Hamlet" was sold for 66 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. about twenty-five dollars ; but his autograph, has sold for five thousand dollars. During the ten years in Avhich he made his greatest discoveries, Isaac Newton could hardly pay two shillings a week to the Eoyal Society of which he was a member. Some of his friends wanted to get him excused from this payment, but he would not allow them to act. There are no more interesting pages in biography than those which record how Emerson, as a child, was unable to read the second volume of a certain book, because his widowed mother could not afford the amount (five cents) necessary to obtain it from the circulating library. Linnaeus was so poor when getting his education, that he had to mend his shoes with folded paper, and often had to beg his meals of his friends. Who in the days of the First Empire cared to recall the fact that Napoleon, Emperor and King, was once forced to borrow a louis from Talma, when he lived in a garret on the Quai Conti ? David Livingstone at ten years of age was put into a cotton factory near Glasgow. Out of his first week's wages he bought a Latin Grammar, and studied in the night schools for years. He would sit up and study till midnight unless his mother drove him to bed, notwith- standing he had to be at the factory at six in the morn- ing. He mastered Virgil and Horace in this way, and read extensively, besides studying botany. So eager and thirsty for knowledge was he, that he would place his book before him on the spinning-jenny, and amid the deafening roar of machinery would pore over its pages. George Eliot said of the years of close work upon her " Romola," " I began it a young woman, I finished it an old woman." One of Emerson's biographers says, re- ferring to his method of rewriting, revising, correcting, and eliminating : " His apples were sorted over and over again, until only the very rarest, the most perfect, were SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 67 left. It did not matter that those thrown away were very good and helped to make clear the possibilities of the orchard, they were unmercifully cast aside." Car- lyle's books were literally wrung out of him. The pains he took to satisfy himself of a relatively insignificant fact were incredible. Before writing his essay on Dide- rot, he read twenty-five volumes at the rate of one per day. He tells Edward Fitzgerald that for the twentieth time he is going over the confused records of the battle of ISTaseby, that he may be quite sure of the topog- rapl]^. "All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise and wonder,'' says Johnson, " are in- stances of the resistless force of perseverance : it is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that dis- tant countries are united with canals. If a man was to compare the effect of a single stroke of the pickaxe, or of one impression of the spade, with the general design and last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion ; yet those petty operations, in- cessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains are leveled, and oceans bounded, by the slender force of human beings." The Eev. Eliphalet Nott, a pulpit orator, was es- pecially noted for a sermon on the death of Alexander Hamilton, the great statesman, who was shot in a duel by Aaron Burr. Although Xott had managed in some way to get his degree at Brown University, he was at one time so poor after he entered the ministry that he could not buy an overcoat. His wife sheared their only cos- set sheep in January, wrapped it in^^urlap blankets to keep it from freezing, carded and spun and wove the wool, and made it into an overcoat for him. Great men never wait for opportunities ; they make them. Nor do they wait for facilities or favoring cir- cumstances ; they seize upon whatever is at hand, work out their problem, and master the situation. A young 68 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. man determined and willing will find a way or make one. A Franklin does not require elaborate apparatus ; he can bring electricity from the clouds with a common kite. A Watt can make a model of the condensing steam-engine out of an old syringe used to inject the arteries of dead bodies previous to dissection. A Dr. Black can discover latent heat with a pan of water and two thermometers. A Newton can unfold the composi- tion of light and the origin of colors with a prism, a lens, and a piece of pasteboard. A Humphry Davy can experiment with kitchen pots and x^ans, and a Fara- day can experiment on electricity by means of old bot- tles, in his spare minutes while a book-binder. When science was in its cradle the Marquis of Worcester, an English nobleman, imprisoned in the Tower of London, was certainly not in a very good position to do anything for the world, but would not waste his time. The cover of a vessel of hot water blown off before his eyes led to a series of observations, which he published later in a book called " Century of Inventions." These obser- vations were a sort of text-book on the power of steam, which resulted in Newcomen's steam - engine, which Watt afterward perfected. A Ferguson maps out the heavenly bodies, lying on his back, by means of threads with beads stretched between himself and the stars. Not in his day of bodily strength and political power, but blind, decrepit, and defeated with his party, Milton composed " Paradise Lost." Great men have found no royal road to their tri- umph. It is always the old route, by way of industry and perseverance. The farmer boy, Elihu B. Washburn, taught school at ten dollars per month, and early learned the lesson that it takes one hundred cents to make a dollar. In after years he fought "steals" in Congress, until he was called the "Watchdog of the Treasury." From his long membership he became known as the " Father SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 69 of the House." He administered the oath to Schuyler Colfax as Speaker three times. He recommended Grant as colonel of a regiment of volunteers. The latter, when President, appointed him Secretary of State, and, later. Minister to France. During the reign of the Commune, the representatives of nearly all other for- eign nations fled in dismay, but Washburn remained at his post. Shells exploded close to his office, and fell all around it, but he did not leave even when Paris was in flames. For a time he was really the minister of all foreign countries, in Paris ; and represented Prussia for almost a year. The Emperor William conferred upon him the Order of the Red Eagle, and gave him a jeweled star of great value. How could the poor boy, Elihu Burritt, working nearly all the daylight in a blacksmith's shop, get an education ? He had but one book in his library, and carried that in his hat. But this boy with no chance became one of America's wonders. When teaching school, Garfield was very poor. He tore his only blue jean trousers, but concealed the rents by pins until night, when he retired early that his boarding mistress might mend his clothes. "When you get to be a United States Senator," said she, " no one will ask what kind of clothes you wore when teaching school." Although Michael Angelo made himself immortal in three different occupations, his fame might well rest upon his dome of St. Peter as an architect, upon his " Moses " as a sculptor, and upon his " Last Judgment " as a painter ; yet we find by his correspondence now in the British Museum, that when he was at work on his colossal bronze statue of Pope Julius II., he was so poor that he could not have his younger brother come to visit him at Bologna, because he had but one bed in which he and three of his assistants slept together. " I was always at the bottom of my purse," said 70 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. Zola, in describing the struggles of his early years of authorship. " Very often I had not a sou left, and not knowing, either, where to get one. I rose generally at four in the morning, and began to study after a break- fast consisting of one raw Qgg. But no matter, those were good times. After taking a Avalk along the quays, I entered my garret, and joyfully partaking of a din- ner of three apples, I sat down to work. I wrote, and I was happy. In winter I would allow myself no fire ; wood was too expensive — only on fete days was I able to afford it. But I had several pipes of tobacco and a candle for three sous. A three-sous candle, only think of it ! It meant a whole night of literature to me." James Brooks, once the editor and proprietor of the ^' New York Daily Express," and later an eminent con- gressman, began life as a clerk in a store in Maine, and when twenty-one received for his pay a hogshead of New England rum. He was so eager to go to college that he started for Water ville with his trunk on his back, and when he was graduated he was so poor and plucky that he carried his trunk on his back to the station when he went home. When Elias Howe, harassed by want and woe, was in London completing his first sewing-machine, he had frequently to borrow money to live on. He bought beans and cooked them himself. He also borrowed money to send his wife back to America. He sold his first machine for five pounds, although it was worth fifty, and then he pawned his letters patent to pay his expenses home. The boy Arkwright begins barbering in a cellar, but dies worth a million and a half. The world treated his novelties just as it treats everybody's novelties — made infinite objection, mustered all the impediments, but he snapped his fingers at their objections, and lived to become honored and wealthy. There is scarcely a great truth or doctrine but has SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 71 had to fight its way to public recognition in the face of detraction, calumny, and persecution. "Every- where," says Heine, "that a great soul gives utterance to its thoughts, there also is a Golgotha." Nearly every great discovery or invention that has blessed mankind has had to fight its way to recognition, even against the opposition of the most progressive men. Even Sir Charles Napier fiercely opposed the intro- duction of steam power into the Royal Navy. In the House of Commons, he exclaimed, " Mr. Speaker, when we enter Her Majesty's naval service and face the chances of war, we go prepared to be hacked in pieces, to be riddled by bullets, or to be blown to bits by shot and shell ; but Mr. Speaker, we do not go prepared to be boiled alive." He said this with tremendous emphasis. "Will any one explain how there can be a light without a wick ? " asked a member of Parliament, when William Murdock, toward the close of the eigh- teenth century, said that coal gas would give a good light, and could be conveyed into buildings in pipes. " Do you intend taking the dome of St. Paul's for a gasometer ? " was the sneering question of even the great scientist, Humphry Davy. Walter Scott ridi- culed the idea of lighting London by " smoke," but he soon used it at Abbotsford, and Davy achieved one of his greatest triumphs by experimenting with gas until he had invented his safety lamp. Titian used to crush the flowers to get their color, and painted the white walls of his father's cottage in Tyrol with all sorts of pictures, at which the moun- taineers gazed in wonder. " That boy will beat me one day," said an old painter as he watched a little fellow named Michael Angelo making drawings of pot and brushes, easel and stool, and other articles in the studio. The barefoot boy did persevere until he had overcome every difficulty and become a master of his art. 72 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. William H. Prescott was a remarkable example of what a boy with " no chance " can do. While at col- lege, he lost one eye by a hard piece of bread thrown during a " biscuit battle," then so common after meals ; and, from sympathy, the other eye became almost use- less. But the boy had pluck and determination, and would not lead a useless life. He set his heart upon being a historian, and turned all his energies in that di- rection. By the aid of others' eyes, he spent ten years studying before he even decided upon a particular theme for his first book. Then he spent ten years more, por- ing over old archives and manuscripts, before he pub- lished his '' Ferdinand and Isabella." What a lesson in his life for young men ! What a rebuke to those who have thrown away their opportunities and wasted their lives ! "Galileo with an opera-glass," said Emerson, "dis- covered a more splendid series of celestial phenomena than any one since with the great telescopes. Colum- bus found the new world in an undecked boat." Surroundings which men call unfavorable cannot pre- vent the unfolding of, your powers. From the plain fields and lowlands of Avon came the Shakespearean genius which has charmed the world. From among the rock-ribbed hills of New Hampshire sprang the greatest of American orators and statesmen, Daniel Webster. From the crowded ranks of toil, and homes to which luxury is a stranger, have often come the leaders and benefactors of our race. Indeed, when Christ came upon earth. His early abode was a place so poor and so much despised that men thought He could not be the Christ, asking, in utter astonishment, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ? " " I once knew a little colored boy," said Frederick Douglass, " whose mother and father died when he was but six years old. He was a slave, and had no one to care for him. He slept on a dirt floor in a hovel, and SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 73 in cold weather would crawl into a meal-bag head fore- most, and leave his feet in the ashes to keep them warm. Often he would roast an ear of corn and eat it to satisfy his hunger, and many times has he crawled under the barn or stable and secured eggs, which he would roast in the fire and eat. That boy did not wear pantaloons, as you do, but a tow-linen shirt. Schools were unknown to him, and he learned to spell from an old Webster's spelling-book, and to read and write from posters on cellar and barn doors, while boys and men would help him. He would then preach and speak, and soon be- came well known. He became presidential elector. United States marshal, United States recorder, United States diplomat, and accumulated some wealth. He wore broadcloth, and did n't have to divide crumbs with the dogs under the table. That boy was Frederick Douglass. What was possible for me is possible for you. Don't think because you are colored you can't accomplish anything. Strive earnestly to add to your knowledge. So long as you remain in ignorance, so long will you fail to command the respect of your fellow- men." Where shall we find an illustration more impressive than in Abraham Lincoln, whose life, career, and death might be chanted by a Greek chorus as at once the pre- lude and the epilogue of the most imperial theme of modern times ? Born as lowly as the Son of God, in a hovel ; of what real parentage we know not ; reared in penury, squalor, with no gleam of light, nor fair sur- rounding ; a young manhood vexed by weird dreains and visions ; with scarcely a natural grace ; singularly awk- ward, ungainly even among the uncouth about him : it was reserved for this remarkable character, late in life, to be snatched from obscurity, raised to supreme com- mand at a supreme moment, and intrusted with the destiny of a nation. The great leaders of his party were made to stand aside ; the most experienced and 74 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. accomplished men of the day, men like Seward, and Chase, and Sumner, statesmen famous and trained, were sent to the rear, while this strange figure was brought by- unseen hands to the front, and given the reins of power. The story is told of a man in London deprived of both legs and arms, who managed to write with his mouth and perform other things so remarkable as to enable him to earn a fair living. He would lay certain sheets of pa- per together, pinning them at the corner to make them hold. Then he would take a pen and write some verses ; after which he would proceed to embellish the lines by many skillful flourishes. Dropping the pen from his mouth, he would next take up a needle and thread, also with his mouth, thread the needle, and make several stitches. He also painted with a brush, and was in many other ways a wonderful man. Instead of being a burden to his family he was the most impor- tant contributor to their welfare. Arthur Cavanagh, M. P., was born without arms or legs, yet it is said that he was a good shot, a skillful fisherman and sailor, and one of the best cross country riders in Ireland. He was a good conversationalist, and an able member of Parliament. He ate with his fork attached to his stump of an arm, and wrote holding his pen in his teeth. In riding he held the bridle in his mouth, his body being strapped to the saddle. He once lost his means of support in India, but went to work with his accustomed energy, and obtained em- ployment as a carrier of dispatches. People thought it strange that Gladstone should ap- point blind Henry Fawcett Postmaster-G-eneral of Great Britian ; but never before did any one fill the ofiice so well. John B. Herreshoff, of Bristol, R. I., altliough blind since he was fifteen years old, is the founder and head of one of the most noted shipbuilding establishments in the world. He has superintended the construction SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 75 of some of the swiftest torpedo boats and steam and sail- ing yachts afloat. He frequently takes his turn at the wheel in sailing his vessels on trial trips. He is aided greatly by his younger brother Nathaniel, but can plan vessels and conduct business without him. After exam- ining a vessel's hull or a good model of it, he will gWe detailed instructions for building another just like it, and will make a more accurate duplicate than can most boat-builders whose sight is j^erfect. The Rev. William H. Milburn, who lost his sight when a child, studied for the ministry, and was ordained before he attained his majority. In ten years he trav- eled about 200,000 miles in missionary work. He has written half a dozen books, among them a very careful history of the Mississippi Valley. He has long been chaplain of the lower house of Congress. Blind Fanny Crosby, of New York, was a teacher of the blind for many years. She has written nearly three thousand hymns, among which are "Pass Me not, Gentle Saviour," "Rescue the Perishing," "Saviour more than Life to Me," and "Jesus keep Me near the Cross." ISTor are these by any means the only examples of blind people now doing their full share of the world's work. In the United States alone there are engaged in musical occupation one hundred and fifty blind piano tuners, one hundred and fifty blind teachers of music in schools for the blind, five hundred blind private teach- ers, one hundred blind church organists, fifteen or more blind composers and publishers of music, and several blind dealers in musical instruments. The7'e is no open door to the temple of success. Every one who enters makes his own door, which closes be- hind him to all others, not even permitting his own children to pass. Nearly forty years ago, on a rainy, dreary day in No- vember, a young widow in Philadelphia sat wondering 76 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. how she could feed and clothe three little ones left dependent by the death of her husband, a naval officer. Happening to think of a box of which her husband had spoken, she opened it, and found therein an envelope containing directions for a code of colored light signals to be used at night on the ocean. The system was not complete, but she perfected it, went to Washington, and induced the Secretary of the Navy to give it a trial. An admiral soon wrote that the signals were good for nothing, although the idea was valuable. For months and years she worked, succeeding at last in producing brilliant lights of different colors. She was ^Daid $20,000 for the right to manufacture them in our navy. ]S'early all the blockade runners captured in the Civil War were taken by the aid of the Coston signals, which are also considered invaluable in the Life Saving Ser- vice. Mrs. Coston introduced them into several Euro- pean navies, and became wealthy. A modern writer says that it is one of the mysteries of our life that genius, that noblest gift of God to man, is nourished by poverty. Its greatest works have been achieved by the sorrowing ones of the world in tears and despair. Not in the brilliant salon, not in the tap- estried library, not in ease and competence, is genius usually born and nurtured ; but often in adversity and destitution, amidst the harassing cares of a straitened household, in bare and lireless garrets, with the noise of squalid children, in the turbulence of domestic conten- tions, and in the deep gloom of uncheered despair. This is its most frequent birthplace, and amid scenes like these unpropitious, repulsive, wretched surround- ings, have men labored, studied, and trained themselves, until they have at last emanated from the gloom of that obscurity the shining lights of their times ; have become the companions of kings, the guides and teachers of their kind, and exercised an influence upon the thought of the world amounting to a species of intel- lectual legislation. SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 77 Chauncey Jerome's education was limited to three months in the district school each year until he was ten, when his father took him into his blacksmith shop at Plymouth, Conn., to make nails. Money was a scarce article with young Chauncey. He once chopped a load of wood for one cent, and often chopped by moonlight for neighbors at less than a dime a load. His father died when he was eleven, and his mother was forced to send Chauncey out, with tears in his eyes and a little bundle of clothes in his hand, to earn a living on a farm. His new employer kept him at work early and late chopping down trees all day, his shoes sometimes full of snow, for he had no boots until he was nearly twenty-one. At fourteen he was apprenticed for seven years to a carpenter, who gave him only board and clothes. Several times during his apprenticeship he carried his tools thirty miles on his back to his work at different places. After he had learned his trade he frequently walked thirty miles to a job with his kit upon his back. One day he heard people talking of Eli Terry, of Plymouth, who had undertaken to make two hundred clocks in one lot. " He '11 never live long enough to finish them," said one. " If he should," said another, "he could not possibly sell so many. The very idea is ridiculous." Chauncey pondered long over this rumor, for it had long been his dream to become a great clock-maker. He tried his hand at the first op- portunity, and soon learned to make a wooden clock. When he got an order to make twelve at twelve dollars apiece he thought his fortune was made. One night he happened to think that a cheap clack could be made of brass as well as of wood, and would not shrink, swell, or warp appreciably in any climate. He acted on the idea, and became the first great manufacturer of brass clocks. He made millions at the rate of six hundred a day, exporting them to all parts of the globe. " The History of the English People " was written 78 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. while J. E. Green was struggling against a mortal ill- ness. He had collected a vast store of materials, and had begun to write, when his disease made a sudden and startling progress, and his physicians said they could do nothing to arrest it. In the extremity of ruin and defeat he applied himself with greater fidelity to his work. The time that might still be left to him for work must henceforth be wrested, day by day, from the grasp of death. The writing occupied five months ; while from hour to hour and day to day his life was prolonged, his doctors said, by the sheer force of his own will and his inflexible determination to finish the <• Making of England." He lay, too weak to lift a book, or to hold a pen, dictating every word, sometimes through hours of intense suffering. Yet so conscien- tious was he that, driven by death as he was, the greater part of the book was rewritten five times. When it was done he began the " Conquest of England," wrote it, re- viewed it, and then, dissatisfied with it, rejected it all and began again. As death laid its cold fingers on his heart, he said : " I still have some work to do that I know is good. I will try to win but one week more to write it down." It was not until he was actually dying that he said, " I can work no more." "What does he know," said a sage, "who has not suffered ? " Schiller produced his greatest tragedies in the midst of physical suffering almost amounting to tor- ture. Handel was never greater than when, warned by palsy of the approach of death, and struggling with dis- tress and suffering, he sat down to compose the great works which have made his name immortal in music. Mozart composed his great operas, and last of all his " Requiem," when oppressed by debt and struggling with a fatal disease. Beethoven produced his greatest works amidst gloomy sorrow, when oppressed by almost total deafness. Perhaps no one ever battled harder to overcome ob- SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 79 stacles which, would have disheartened most men than Demosthenes. He had such a weak voice, and such an impediment in his speech, and was so short of breath, that he could scarcely get through a single sentence without stopping to rest. All his first attempts were nearly drowned by the hisses, jeers, and scoffs of his audiences. His first effort that met with success was against his guardian, who had defrauded him, and whom he compelled to refund a part of his fortune. He was so discouraged by his defeats that he determined to give up forever all attempts at oratory. One of his auditors, however, believed the young man had something in him, and encouraged him to persevere. He accordingly ap- peared again in public, but was hissed down as before. As he withdrew, hanging his head in great confusion, a noted actor, Satyrus, encouraged him still further to try to overcome his impediment. He stammered so much that he could not pronounce some of the letters at all, and his breath would give out before he could get through a sentence. Finally, he determined to be an orator cost what it might. He went to the seashore and practiced amid the roar of the breakers with small pebbles in his mouth, in order to overcome his stammer- ing, and at the same time accustom himself to the hisses and tumults of his audience. He overcame his short breath by practicing speaking while running up steep and difficult places on the shore. His awkward gestures were also corrected by long and determined drill before a mirror. Disheartened by the expense of removing the trouble- some seeds, Southern planters were s,eriously considering the abandonment of cotton culture. To clean a pound of cotton required the labor of a slave for a day. Eli Whitney, a young man from New England, teaching school in Georgia, saw the state of affairs, and deter- mined to invent a machine to do the work. He worked in secret for many months in a cellar, and at last made 80 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. a machine which cleaned the cotton perfectly and rap- idh\ Just as success crowned his long labor thieves broke into the cellar and stole his model. He recovered the model, but the principle was stolen, and other ma- chines were made without his consent. In vain he tried to protect his right in the courts, for Southern juries would almost invariably decide against him. He had started the South in a great industry, and added mil- lions to her wealth, yet the courts united with the men who had infringed his patents to rob him of the reward of his ingenuity and industry. At last he abandoned the whole thing in disgust, and turned his attention to making improvements in firearms, and with such suc- cess that he accumulated a fortune. Robert Collyer, who brought his bride in the steerage when he came to America at the age of twenty-seven, worked at the anvil nine years in Pennsylvania, and then became a preacher, soon winning national renown. A shrewd observer says of John Chinaman: "No sooner does he put his foot among strangers than he begins to work. No office is too menial or too laborious for him. He has come to make money, and he will make it. His frugality requires but little : he barely lives, but he saves what he gets ; commences trade in the smallest possible way, and is continually adding to his store. The native scorns such drudgery, and remains poor ; the Chinaman toils patiently on, and grows rich. A few years pass by, and he has warehouses ; becomes a contractor for produce ; buys foreign goods by the cargo ; and employs his newly imported countrymen, who have come to seek their fortune as he did. He is not particularly scrupulous in matters of opinion. He never meddles with politics, for they are dangerous and not profitable ; but he will adopt any creed, and carefully follow any observances, if, by so doing, he can confirm or improve his position. He thrives with the Spaniard, and works while the latter sleeps. He is too quick for SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES, 81 the Dutchman, and can smoke and bargain at the same time. He has harder work with the Englishman, but still he is too much for him, and succeeds. Climate has no effect on him : it cannot stop his hands, unless it kills him ; and if it does, he dies in harness, battling for money till his last breath. Whoever he may be, and in whatever position, whether in his own or a foreign country, he is diligent, temperate, and uncomplaining. He keeps the word he pledges, pays his debts, and is capable of noble and generous actions. It has been customary to speak lightly of him, and to judge a whole people by a few vagabonds in a provincial seaport, whose morals and manners have not been improved by foreign society." Columbus was dismissed as a fool from court after court, but he pushed his suit against an incredulous and ridiculing world. Kebuffed by kings, scorned by queens, he did not swerve a hair's breadth from the overmastering purpose which dominated his souL The words " New World " were graven upon his heart ; and reputation, ease, pleasure, position, life itself if need be, must be sacrificed. Threats, ridicule, ostracism, storms, leaky vessels, mutiny of sailors, could not shake his mighty purpose. You cannot keep a determined man from success. Place stumbling-blocks in his way and he takes them for stepping-stones, and on them will climb to great- ness. Take away his money, and he makes spurs of his poverty to urge him on. Cripple him, and he writes the Waverley Novels. Lock him up in a dungeon, and he composes the immortal " Pilgrim.'s Progress." Put him in a cradle in a log cabin in the wilderness of America, and in a few years you will find him in the Capitol at the head of the greatest nation on the globe. Would it were possible to convince the struggling youth of to-day that all that is great and noble and true in the history of die world is the result of infinite pains- ^Z\X 82 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. taking, perpetual plodding, of common every-day in- dustry ! When Lavoisier the chemist asked that his execution might be postponed for a few days in order to ascertain the results of the experiments he was conducting in prison, the communists refused to grant the request, say- ing: "The Eepublic has no need of philosophers." Dr. Priestley's house was burned and his chemical library destroyed by a mob shouting : " No philosophers," and he was forced to flee from his country. Bruno was burned in Eome for revealing the heavens, and Versa- lius was condemned for dissecting the human body ; but their names shall live as long as time shall last. Kossuth was two years in prison at Buda, but he kept on working, undaunted. John Hunter said : "The few things I have been enabled to do have been accom- plished under the greatest difficulties, and have encoun- tered the greatest opposition." Eoger Bacon, one of the profoundest thinkers the world has produced, was terribly persecuted for his studies in natural philosophy, yet he persevered and won success. He was accused of dealing in magic, his books were burned in public, and he was kept in prison for ten years. Even our own revered Washington was mobbed in the streets because he would not pander to the clamor of the people and reject the treaty which Mr. Jay had arranged with Great Britain. But he re- mained firm, and the people adopted his opinion. The Duke of Wellington was mobbed in the streets of Lon- don and his windows were broken while his wife lay dead in the house ; but the " Iron Duke " never faltered in his course, or swerved a hair's breadth from his purpose. William Phips, when a young man, heard some sailors on the street, in Boston, talking about a Spanish ship, wrecked off the Bahama Islands, which was supposed to have money on board. Young Phips determined to SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 83 find it. He set out at once, and, after many hardships, discovered the lost treasure. He then heard of another ship, wrecked off Port De La Plata many years before. He set sail for England and importuned Charles II. for aid. To his delight the king fitted up the ship Rose Algier for him. He searched and searched for a long time in vain. He had to return to England to repair his vessel. James II. was then on the throne, and he had to wait for four years before he could raise money to return. His crew mutinied and threatened to throw him overboard, but he turned the ship's guns on them. One day an Indian diver went down for a curious sea plant and saw several cannon lying on the bottom. They proved to belong to the wreck for which he was looking, sunk fifty years before. He had no- thing but dim traditions to guide him, but he returned to England with $1,500,000. The King made him High Sheriff of New England, and he was afterward made Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony. Ben Jonson, when following his trade of a mason, worked on Lincoln's Inn in London with trowel in hand and a book in his pocket. Joseph Hunter was a carpenter in youth, Robert Burns a plowman, Keats a druggist, Thomas Carlyle and Hugh Miller masons. Dante and Descartes were soldiers. Andrew Johnson was a tailor. Cardinal Wolsey, Defoe, and Kirke White were butchers' sons. Faraday was the son of a black- smith, and his teacher, Humphry Davy, was an appren- tice to an apothecary. Kepler was a waiter boy in a German hotel, Bunyan a tinker, Copernicus the son of a Polish baker. The boy Herschel played the oboe for his meals. Marshal Ney, the " bravest of the brave," rose from the ranks. His great industry gained for him the name of " The Indefatigable." Soult served fourteen years before he was made a sergeant. When made Foreign Minister of France he knew very little of geography, even. Richard Cobden was a boy in a Lon- 84 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. don warehouse. His first speech in Parliament was a complete failure ; but he was not afraid of defeat, and soon became one of the greatest orators of his day. Seven shoemakers sat in Congress during the first cen- tury of our government : Koger Sherman, Henry Wil- son, Gideon Lee, William Graham, John Halley, H. P. Baldwin, and Daniel Sheffey. A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring suc- cess from inhospitable surroundings, is the price of all great achievements. The man who has not fought his way up to his own loaf, and does not bear the scar of desperate conflict, does not know the highest meaning of success. The money acquired by those who have thus strug- gled upward to success is not their only, or indeed their chief reward. When, after years of toil, of opposition, of ridicule, of repeated failure, Cyrus W. Field placed his hand upon the telegraph instrument ticking a mes- sage under the sea, think you that the electric thrill passed no further than the tips of his fingers ? When Thomas A. Edison demonstrated in Menlo Park that the electric light had at last been developed into a com- mercial success, do you suppose those bright rays failed to illuminate the inmost recesses of his soul ? Edward Everett said : " There are occasions in life in which a great mind lives years of enjoyment in a single moment. I can fancy the emotion of Galileo when, first raising the newly constructed telescope to the heavens, he saw fulfilled the grand prophecy of Copernicus, and beheld the planet Venus crescent like the moon. It was such another moment as that when the immortal printers of Mentz and Strasburg received the first copy of the Bible into their hands, the work of their divine art ; like that when Columbus, through the gray dawn of the 12th of October, 1492, beheld the shores of San Salvador ; like that when the law of gravitation first revealed itself to the intellect of Xewton ; like that when Franklin saw, SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 85 by the stiffening fibres of the hemp cord of his kite, that he held the lightning in his grasp ; like that when Leverrier received back from Berlin the tidings that the predicted planet was found." " Observe yon tree in your neighbor's garden," says Zanoni to Viola in Bulwer's novel. " Look how it grows up, crooked and distorted. Some wind scattered the germ, from which it sprung, in the clefts of the rock. Choked up and walled round by crags and build- ings, by nature and man, its life has been one struggle for the light. You see how it has writhed and twisted, — how, meeting the barrier in one spot, it has labored and worked, stem and branch, towards the clear skies at last. What has preserved it through each disfavor of birth and circumstances — why are its leaves as green and fair as those of the vine behind you, which, with all its arms, can embrace the open sunshine ? My child, because of the very instinct that impelled the struggle, — because the labor for the light won to the light at length. So with a gallant heart, through every adverse accident of sorrow, and of fate, to turn to the sun, to strive for the heaven ; this it is that gives know- ledge to the strong and happiness to the weak." "Each petty hand Can steer a ship becalmed ; but he that will Govern her and carry her to her ends, must know His tides, his currents; how to shift his sails; What she will bear in foul, what in fair weathers ; What her springs are, her leaks, and how to stop them; What strands, what shelves, what rocks to threaten her; The forces and the natures of all winds, Gusts, storms, and tempests; when her keel plows hell, And deck knocks heaven ; then to manage her Becomes the name and office of a pilot." CHAPTER y. USES OF OBSTACLES. Nature, when she adds difficulties, adds brains. — Emerson. Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficul- ties. — Spurgeon. The good are better made by ill, As odors crushed are sweeter still. Aromatic plants bestow No spicy fragrance while they grow; But crush'd or trodden to the ground, Diffuse their balmv sweets around. Rogers. Goldsmith. As night to stars, woe lustre gives to man. — Young. There is no possible success without some opposition as a fulcrum: force is always aggressive and crowds something. — Holmes. The more difficulties one has to encounter, within and without, the more significant and the higher in inspiration his life will be. — Horace Bush- NELL. Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circum- stances would have lain dormant. — Horace. For gold is tried in the fire and acceptable men in the furnace of adver- sity. — SiRACH. Though losses and crosses be lessons right severe, There 's wit there ye '11 get there, ye '11 find no other where. Burns. Possession pampers the mind ; privation trains and strengthens it. — Hazlitt. "Adversity'- is the prosperity of the great." No man ever worked his way in a dead calm. — John Neal. " Kites rise against, not with, the wind." " Many and many a time since," said Harriet Marti- neau, referring to her father's failure in business, " have we said that, but for that loss of money, we might have lived on in the ordinary provincial method of ladies v;,;' 'HiVf ;\T»',\;.? JOHN BUNYAN " Sculptor of souls, I lift to Thee Encumbered heart and hands : Spare not tlie chisel, set nie free However dear the bands." USES OF OBSTACLES. 87 with small means, sewing and economizing and growing narrower every year ; whereas, by being thrown, while it was yet time, on our own resources, we have worked hard and usefully, won friends, reputation, and inde- pendence, seen the world abundantly, abroad and at home ; in short, have truly lived instead of vegetating." "I do believe God wanted a grand poem of that man," said George Macdonald of Milton, "and so blinded him that he might be able to write it." Two of the three greatest epic poets of the world were blind, — Homer and Milton; while the third, Dante, was in his later years nearly, if not altogether, blind. It almost seems as though some great charac- ters had been physically crippled in certain respects so that they would not dissipate their energy, but con- centrate it all in one direction. " I have been beaten, but not cast down," said Thiers, after making a complete failure of his first speech in the Chamber of Deputies. " I am making my first essay in arms. In the tribune, as under fire, a defeat is as useful as a victory." A distinguished investigator in science said that when he encountered an apparently insuperable ob- stacle, he usually found himself upon the brink of some discovery. " Eeturned with thanks " has made many an author. Failure often leads a man to success by arousing his latent energy, by firing a dormant purpose, by awaken- ing powers which were sleeping. Men of mettle turn disappointments into helps as the oyster turns into pearl the sand which annoys it. " Let the adverse breath of criticism be to you only what the blast of the storm wind is to the eagle, — a force against him that lifts him higher." A kite would not fly unless it had a string tying it down. It is just so in life. The man who is tied down by half a dozen blooming responsibilities and their 88 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. mother will make a higher and stronger flight than the bachelor who, having nothing to keep him steady, is always floundering in the mud. If you want to ascend in the world tie yourself to somebody. '' It was the severe preparation for the subsequent harvest," said Pemberton Leigh, the eminent English lawyer, speaking of his early poverty and hard work. " I learned to consider indefatigable labor as the indis- pensable condition of success, pecuniary independence as essential alike to virtue and happiness, and no sacri- fice too great to avoid the misery of debt." When ISTapoleon's companions made sport of him on account of his humble origin and poverty he devoted himself entirely to books, and soon rising above them in scholarship, commanded their respect. Soon he was regarded as the brightest ornament of the class. " To make his way at the bar," said an eniment ju- rist, '' a young man must live like a hermit and work like a horse. There is nothing that does a young law- yer so much good as to be half starved." Thousands of men of great native ability have been lost to the world because they have not had to wrestle with obstacles, and to struggle under difficulties suffi- cient to stimulate into activity their dormant powers. No effort is too dear which helps us along the line of our proper career. Poverty and obscurity of origin may impede our progress, but it is only like the obstruction of ice or debris in the river temporarily forcing the water into eddies, where it accumulates strength and a mighty reserve which ultimately sweeps the obstruction im- petuously to the sea. Poverty and obscurity are not insurmountable obstacles, but they often act as a stim- ulus to the naturally indolent, and develop a firmer fibre of mind, a stronger muscle and stamina of body. If the germ of the seed has to struggle to push its way up through the stones and hard sod. to fight its way USES OF OBSTACLES. 89 up to sunlight and air, and then to wrestle with storm and tempest, with snow and frost, the fibre of its tim- ber will be all the tougher and stronger. " Do you wish to live without a trial ? -' asks a mod- ern teacher. " Then you wish to die but half a man. Without trial you cannot guess at your own strength. Men do not learn to swim on a table. They must go into deep water and buffet the waves. Hardship is the native soil of manhood and self-reliance. Trials are rough teachers, but rugged schoolmasters make rugged pupils. A man who goes through life prosperous, and comes to his grave without a wrinkle, is not half a man. Difficulties are God's errands. And when we are sent upon them we should esteem it a proof of God's confi- dence. We should reach after the highest good." " If you wish to rise," said Talleyrand, " make ene- mies." There is good philosophy in the injunction to love our enemies, for they are often our best friends in disguise. They tell us the truth when friends flatter. Their biting sarcasm and scathing rebuke are often mirrors which reveal us to ourselves. These unkind stings and thrusts are spurs which urge us on to grander success and nobler endeavor. Friends cover our faults and rarely rebuke ; enemies drag out to the light all our weaknesses without mercy. We dread these thrusts and exposures as we do the surgeon's knife, but are the better for them. They reach depths before untouched, and we are led to resolve to redeem ourselves from scorn and inferiority. We are the victors of our opponents. They have developed in us the very power by which we overcome them. Without their opposition we could never have braced and anchored and fortified ourselves, as the oak is braced and anchored for its thousand battles with the tempests. Our trials, our sorrows, and our griefs develop us in a similar way. 90 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. The man who has triumphed over difficulties bears the signs of victory in his face. An air of triumph is seen in every movement. John Calvin, who made a theology for the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries, was tortured with dis- ease for many years, and so was Eobert Hall. The great men who have lifted the world to a higher level were not developed in easy circumstances, but were rocked in the cradle of difficulties and pillowed on hardships. "The gods look on no- grander sight than an honest man struggling with adversity." " Then I must learn to sing better," said Anaximan- der, when told that the very boys laughed at his singing. Strong characters, like the palm-tree, seem to thrive best when most abused. Men who have stood up bravely under great misfortune for years are often unable to bear prosperity. Their good fortune takes the spring out of their energy, as the torrid zone ener- vates races accustomed to a vigorous climate. Some people never come to themselves until baffled, rebuffed, thwarted, defeated, crushed, in the opinion of those around them. Trials unlock their virtues ; defeat is the threshold of their victory. It is defeat that turns bone to flint ; it is defeat that turns gristle to muscle ; it is defeat that makes men invincible ; it is defeat that has made those heroic na- tures that are now in the ascendency, and that has given the sweet law of liberty instead of the bitter law of oppression. Difficulties call out great qualities, and make great- ness possible. How many centuries of peace would have developed a Grant? Few knew Lincoln until the great weight of the war showed his character. A century of peace would never have produced a Bis- marck. Perhaps Phillips and Garrison would never have been known to history had it not been for slavery. USES OF OBSTACLES. 91 "Will lie not make a great painter?" was asked in regard to an artist fresh from his Italian tour. "No, never," replied Northcote. "Why not?" "Because he has an income of six thousand pounds a year." In the sunshine of wealth a man is, as a rule, warped too much to become an artist of high merit. A drenching shower of adversity would straighten his fibres out again. He should have some great thwarting difficulty to struggle against. The best tools receive their temper from fire, their edge from grinding ; the noblest characters are devel- oped in a similar way. The harder the diamond, the more brilliant the lustre, and the greater the friction necessary to bring it out. Only its own dust is hard enough to make this most precious stone reveal its full beauty. The spark in the flint would sleep forever but for friction ; the fire in man would never blaze but for an- tagonism. The friction which retards a train upon the track, robbing the engine of a fourth of its power, is the very secret of locomotion. Oil the track, remove the friction, and the train will not move an inch. The mo- ment man is relieved of opposition or friction, and the track of his life is oiled with inherited wealth or other aids, that moment he often ceases to struggle and there- fore ceases to grow. "It is this scantiness of means, this continual defi- ciency, this constant hitch, this perpetual struggle to keep the head above water and the wolf from the door, that keeps society from falling to pieces. Let every man have a few more dollars than he wants, and anarchy would follow." Suddenly, with much jarring and jolting, an electric car came to a standstill just in front of a heavy truck that was headed in an opposite direction. The huge truck wheels were sliding uselessly round on the car tracks that were wet and slippery from rain. All the 92 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. urging of the teamster and the straining of the horses were in vain, — until the motorman quietly tossed a shovelful of sand on the track under the heavy wheels, and then the truck lumbered on its way. "Friction is a very good thing," remarked a passenger. The philosopher Kant observes that a dove, inasmuch as the only obstacle it has to overcome is the resistance of the air, might suppose that if only the air were out of the way it could fly with greater rapidity and ease. Yet if the air were withdrawn, and the bird should try to fly in a vacuum, it would fall instantly to the ground unable to fly at all. The very element that offers the opposition to flying is at the same time the condition of any flight whatever. Kough seas and storms make sailors. Emergencies make giant men. But for our Civil War the names of its grand heroes would not be written among the great- est of our time. The effort or struggle to climb to a higher place in life has strength and dignity in it, and cannot fail to leave us stronger for the struggle, even though we miss the prize. From an aimless, idle, and useless brain, emergencies often call out powers and virtues before unknown and unsuspected. How often we see a young man develop astounding ability and energy after the death of a par- ent, or the loss of a fortune, or after some other calamity has knocked the props and crutches from under him. The prison has roused the slumbering fire in many a noble mind. " Robinson Crusoe " was written in prison. The " Pilgrim's Progress " appeared in Bedford Jail. The "Life and Times " of Baxter, Eliot's " Monarchia of Man," and Penn's " No Cross, No Crown," were writ- ten by prisoners. Sir Walter Raleigh wrote "The History of the World" during his imprisonment of thirteen years. Luther translated the Bible while confined in the Castle of Wartburg. For twenty years USES OF OBSTACLES. 93 Dante worked in exile, and even under sentence of death. His works were burned in public after his death ; but genius will not burn. Take two acorns from the same tree, as nearly alike as possible ; plant one on a hill by itself, and the other in the dense forest, and watch them grow. The oak standing alone is exposed to every storm. Its roots reach out in every direction, clutching the rocks and piercing deep into the earth. Every rootlet lends itself to steady the growing giant, as if in anticipation of fierce conflict with the elements. Sometimes its up- ward growth seems checked for years, but all the while it has been expending its energy in pushing a root across a large rock to gain a firmer anchorage. Then it shoots proudly aloft again, prepared to defy the hurri- cane. The gales which sport so rudely with its wide branches find more than their match, and only serve still further to toughen every minutest fibre from pith to bark. The acorn planted in the deep forest shoots up a weak, slender sapling. Shielded by its neighbors, it feels no need of spreading its roots far and. wide for support. Take two boys, as nearly alike as possible. Place one in the country away from the hothouse culture and refinements of the city, with only the district school, the Sunday-school, and a few books. Remove wealth and props of every kind ; and, if he has the right kind of material in him, he will thrive. Every obstacle overcome lends him strength for the next conflict. If he falls, he rises with more determination than before. Like a rubber ball, the harder the obstacle he meets the higher he rebounds. Obstacles and opposition are but apparatus of the gymnasium in which the fibres of his manhood are developed. He compels respect and rec- ognition from those who have ridiculed his poverty. Put the other boy in a Vanderbilt family. Give him 94 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. French and German nurses ; gratify every wish. Place him under the tutelage of great masters and send him to Harvard. Give him thousands a year for spending money, and let him travel extensively. The two meet. The city lad is ashamed of his country brother. The plain, threadbare clothes, hard hands, tawny face, and awkward manner of the country boy make sorry contrast with the genteel appearance of the other. The poor boy bemoans his hard lot, regrets that he has "no chance in life,'' and envies the city youth. He thinks that it is a cruel Providence that places such a wide gulf between them. They meet again as men, but how changed ! It is as easy to distinguish the sturdy, self-made man from the one who has been propped up all his life by wealth, position, and family influence, as it is for the shipbuilder to tell the differ- ence between the plank from the rugged mountain oak and one from the sapling of the forest. If you think there is no difference, place each plank in the bottom of a ship, and test them in a hurricane at sea. When God wants to educate a man, he does not send him to school to the Graces, but to the Necessities. Through the pit and the dungeon Joseph came to a throne. We are not conscious of the mighty cravings of our half divine humanity ; we are not aware of the god within us until some chasm yawns which must be filled, or till the rending asunder of our affections forces us to become conscious of a need. Paul in his Eoman cell ; John Huss led to the stake at Constance ; Tyndale dying in his prison at Amsterdam ; Milton, amid the incipient earthquake throes of revolution, teaching two little boys in Aldgate Street ; David Liv- ingstone, worn to a shadow, dying in a negro hut in Central Africa, alone, — what failures they might all to themselves have seemed to be, yet what mighty pur- poses was God working out by their aj^parent humilia- tions ! USES OF OBSTACLES. 95 Two highwaymen chancing once to pass a gibbet, one of them exclaimed : " What a fine profession ours would be if there were no gibbets ! " " Tut, you block- head," replied the other, "gibbets are the making of us ; for, if there were no gibbets, every one would be a highwayman." Just so with every art, trade, or pur- suit ; it is the difficulties that scare and keep out un- worthy competitors. " Success grows out of struggles to overcome difficul- ties," says Smiles. " If there were no difficulties, there would be no success. In this necessity for exertion we find the chief source of human advancement, — the ad- vancement of individuals as of nations. It has led to most of the mechanical inventions and improvements of the age," " Stick your claws into me," said Mendelssohn to his critics when entering the Birmingham orchestra. " Don't tell me what you like but what you don't like." John Hunter said that the art of surgery would never advance until professional men had the courage to pub- lish their failures as well as their successes. " Young men need to be taught not to expect a per- fectly smooth and easy way to the objects of their en- deavor or ambition," says Dr. Peabody. " Seldom does one reach a position with which he has reason to be sat- isfied without encountering difficulties and what might seem discouragements. But if they are properly met, they are not what they seem, and may prove to be helps, not hindrances. There is no more helpful and profiting exercise than surmounting obstacles." It is said that but for the disappointments of Dante, Florence would have had another prosperous Lord Mayor ; and the ten dumb centuries continued voiceless, and the ten other listening centuries (for there will be ten of them, and more) would have had no " Divina Commedia " to hear ! It was in the Madrid jail that Cervantes wrote " Don 96 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. Quixote." He was so poor that lie could not even get paper during the last of his writing, and had to write on scraps of leather. A rich Spaniard was asked to help him, but the rich man replied : " Heaven forbid that his necessities should be relieved; it is his poverty that makes the world rich." " A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring suc- cess from inhospitable surroundings, is the price of all great achievements." " She sings well," said a great musician of a promis- ing but passionless cantatrice, "but she wants some- thing, and in that something, everything. If I were single, I would court her ; I would marry her ; I would maltreat her; I would break her heart; and in six months she would be the greatest singer in Europe." " He has the stuff in him to make a good musician," said Beethoven of Rossini, " if he had only been well flogged when a boy ; but he is spoiled by the ease with which he composes." We do our best while fighting desperately to attain what the heart covets. Martin Luther did his greatest work, and built up his best character, while engaged in sharp controversy with the Pope. Later in life his wife asks, " Doctor, how is it that whilst subject to Papacy we prayed so often and with such fervor, whilst now we pray with the utmost coldness and very seldom ? " When Lord Eldon was poor, Lord Thurlow withheld a promised commissionership of bankruptcy, saying that it was a favor not to give it then. "What he meant was," said Eldon, " that he had learned I was by nature very indolent, and it was only want that could make me very industrious." Waters says that the struggle to obtain knowledge and to advance one's self in the world strengthens the mind, disciplines the faculties, matures the judgment, promotes self-reliance, and gives one independence of thought and force of character. USES OF OBSTACLES. 97 " The gods in bounty work up storms about us," says Addison, '^tliat give mankind occasion to exert their hidden strength, and throw out into practice virtues that shun the day, and lie concealed in the smooth sea- sons and the calms of life." The hothouse plant may tempt a pampered appetite or shed a languid odor, but the working world gets its food from fields of grain and orchards waving in the sun and free air, from cattle that wrestle on the plains, from fishes that struggle with currents of river or ocean ; its choicest perfumes from flowers that bloom unheeded, and in wind-tossed forests finds its timber for temples and for ships. "I do not see," says Emerson, "how any man can afford, for the sake of his nerves and his nap, to spare any action in which he can partake. It is pearls and rubies to his discourse. Drudgery, calamity, exaspera- tion, want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom. The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action passed by as a loss of power." Kossuth called himself " a tempest-tossed soul, whose eyes have been sharpened by affliction." Benjamin Franklin ran away, and George Law was turned out of doors. Thrown upon their own resources, they early acquired the energy and skill to overcome difficulties. As soon as young eagles can fly the old birds tumble them out and tear the down and feathers from their nest. The rude and rough experience of the eaglet fits him to become the bold king of birds, fierce and expert in pursuing his prey. Boys who are bound out, crowded out, kicked out, usually " turn out," while those who do not have these disadvantages frequently fail to " come out." " It was not the victories but the defeats of my life which have strengthened me," said the aged Sidenham Poyntz. 98 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. Almost from the dawn of history, oppression has been the lot of the Hebrews, yet they have given the world its noblest songs, its wisest proverbs, its sweetest music. With them persecution seems to bring pros- perity. They thrive where others would starve. They hold the purse-strings of many nations. To them hard- ship has been " like spring mornings, frosty but kindly, the cold of which will kill the vermin, but will let the plant live." In one of the battles of the Crimea a cannon-ball struck inside the fort, crashing through a beautiful gar- den. But from the ugly chasm there burst forth a spring of water which ever afterward flowed a living fountain. From the ugly gashes which misfortunes and sorrows make in our hearts, perennial fountains of rich experience and new joys often spring. Don't lament and grieve over lost wealth. The Cre- ator may see something grand and mighty which even He cannot bring out as long as your wealth stands in the way. You must throw away the crutches of riches and stand upon your own feet, and develop the long unused muscles of manhood. God may see a rough diamond in you which only the hard hits of poverty can polish. God knows where the richest melodies of our lives are, and what drill and what discipline are necessary to bring them out. The frost, the snows, the tempests, the lightnings, are the rough teachers that bring the tiny acorn to the sturdy oak. Fierce winters are as neces- sary to it as long summers. It is its half-century's struggle with the elements for existence, wrestling with the storm, fighting for its life from the moment that it leaves the acorn until it goes into the ship, that gives it value. Without this struggle it would have been character-less, stamina-less, nerve-less, and its grain would have never been susceptible of high polish. The most beautiful as well as the strongest woods are found not in tropical climates, but in the severe climates, USES OF OBSTACLES. 99 where they have to fight the frosts and the winter's cold- Many a man has never found himself until he has lost his all. Adversity stripped him only to discover him. Obstacles, hardships are the chisel and mallet which shape the strong life into beauty. The rough ledge on the hillside complains of the drill, of the blasting powder which disturbs its peace of centuries : it is not pleasant to be rent with powder, to be hammered and squared by the quarryman. But look again : behold the magnifi- cent statue, the monument, chiseled into grace and beauty, telling its grand story of valor in the public square for centuries. The statue would have slept in the marble forever but for the blasting, the chiseling, and the polishing. The angel of our higher and nobler selves would remain for- ever unknown in the rough quarries of our lives but for the blastings of afiliction, the chiseling of obstacles, and the sand-papering of a thousand annoyances. Who has not observed the patience, the calm endur- ance, the sweet loveliness chiseled out of some rough life by the reversal of fortune or by some terrible affliction. How many business men have made their greatest strides toward manhood, have developed their great- est virtues, when the reverses of fortune have swept away everything they had in the world ; when disease had robbed them of all they held dear in life. Often we cannot see the angel in the quarry of our lives, the statue of manhood, until the blasts of misfortune have rent the ledge, and difficulties and obstacles have squared and chiseled the granite blocks into grace and beauty. Many a man has been ruined into salvation. The lightning which smote his dearest hopes opened up a new rift in his dark life, and gave him glimpses of him- self which, until then, he had never seen. The grave buried his dearest hopes, but uncovered 100 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. possibilities in his nature of patience, endurance, and hope which he never dreamed he possessed before. '^ Adversity is a severe instructor," says Edmund Burke, " set over us by one who knows us better than we do ourselves, as he loves us better too. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. This conflict with difficulty makes us acquainted with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial." Men who have the right kind of material in them will assert their personality, and rise in spite of a thou- sand adverse circumstances. You cannot keep them down. Every obstacle seems only to add to their abil- ity to get on. " Under different circumstances," says Castelar, " Sa- vonarola would undoubtedly have been a good husband, a tender father, a man unknown to history, utterly powerless to print upon the sands of time and upon the human soul the deep trace Avhich he has left ; but misfortune came to visit him, to crush his heart, and to impart that marked melancholy which characterizes a soul in grief, and the grief that circled his brows with a crown of thorns was also that which wreathed them with the splendor of immortality. His hopes were cen- tred in the woman he loved, his life was set upon the possession of her, and when her family finally rejected him, partly on account of his profession, and partly on account of his person, he believed that it was death that had come upon him, when in truth it was immor- tality." The greatest men will ever be those who have risen from the ranks. It is said that there are ten thousand chances to one that genius, talent, and virtue shall issue from a farmhouse rather than from a palace. The youth Opie earned his bread by sawing wood, but he reached a professorship in the Royal Academy. USES OF OBSTACLES. 101 When but ten years old he showed the material he was made of by a beautiful drawing on a shingle. Antonio Canova was the son of a day laborer. Thorwaldsen's parents were poor, but, like hundreds of others, they did with their might what their hands found to do, and ennobled their work. They rose by being greater than their calling, as Arkwright rose above mere barbering, Bunyan above tinkering, Wilson above shoemaking, Lincoln above rail-splitting, and Grant above tanning. By being first-class barbers, tinkers, shoemakers, rail- splitters, tanners, they acquired the power Avhich en- abled them to become great inventors, authors, states- men, generals. Adversity exasperates fools, dejects cowards, draws out the faculties of the wise and industrious, puts the modest to the necessity of trying their skill, awes the opulent, and makes the idle industrious. Neither do uninterrupted success and prosperity qualify men for usefulness and happiness. The storms of adversity, like those of the ocean, rouse the faculties, and excite the invention, prudence, skill, and fortitude of the voy- ager. The martyrs of ancient times, in bracing their minds to outward calamities, acquired a loftiness of purpose and a moral heroism worth a lifetime of soft- ness and security. A man upon whom continuous sun- shine falls is like the earth in August: he becomes parched and dry and hard and close-grained. Men have drawn from adversity the elements of greatness. If you have the blues, go and see the poorest and sickest fami- lies within your knowledge. The darker the setting, the brighter the diamond. Don't .run about and tell acquaintances that you have been unfortunate ; people do not like to have unfortunate men for acquaintances. Beethoven was almost totally deaf and burdened with sorrow when he produced his greatest works. Schiller wrote his best books in great bodily suffering. He was not free from pain for fifteen years. Milton wrote his 102 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. leading productions when blind, poor, and sick. " Who best can suffer," said he, " best can do." Bunyan said that, if it were lawful, he could even pray for greater trouble, for the greater comfort's sake. " Do you know what God puts us on our backs for ? " asked Dr. Payson, smiling, as he lay sick in bed. " No," replied the visitor. " In order that we may look upward." " I am not come to condole but to rejoice with you," said the friend ; " for it seems to me that this is no time for mourning." " Well, I am glad to hear that," said Dr. Payson, " it is not often I am ad- dressed in such a way. The fact is I never had less need of condolence, and yet everybody persists in of- fering it ; whereas, when I was prosperous and well, and a successful preacher, and really needed condolence, they flattered and congratulated me." A German knight undertook to make an immense ^olian harp by stretching wires from tower to tower of his castle. When he finished the harp it was silent ; but when the breezes began to blow he heard faint strains like the murmuring of distant music. At last a tempest arose and swept with fury over his castle, and then rich and grand music came from the wires. Ordinary experiences do not seem to touch some lives — to bring out any poetry, any higher manhood. Not until the breath of the plague had blasted a hun- dred thousand lives, and the great fire had licked up cheap, shabby, wicked London, did she arise, phoenix- like, from her ashes and ruin, a grand and mighty city. True salamanders live best in the furnace of perse- cution. "Every man who makes a fortune has been more than once a bankrupt, if the truth were known," said Albion Tourgee. " Grant's failure as a subaltern made him commander-in-chief, and for myself, my failure to accomplish what I set out to do led me to what I never had aspired to." USES OF OBSTACLES. 103 The appeal for volunteers in the great battle of life, in exterminating ignorance and error, and planting high on an everlasting foundation the banner of intelli- gence and right, is directed to i/ou. Burst the trammels that impede your progress, and cling to hope. Place high thy standard, and with a firm tread and fearless eye press steadily onward. Not ease, but effort, not facility, but difficulty, makes men. Toilsome culture is the price of great success, and the slow growth of a great character is one of its special necessities. Many of our best poets "Are cradled into poetry by wrong, And learn in suffering what they teach in song." Byron was stung into a determination to go to the top by a scathing criticism of his first book, " Hours of Idleness," published when he was but nineteen years of age. Macaulay said, "There is scarce an instance in history of so sudden a rise to so dizzy an eminence as Byron reached." In a few years he stood by the side of such men as Scott, Southey, and Campbell, and died at thirty-seven, that age so fatal to genius. Many an orator like "stuttering Jack Curran," or "Orator Mum," as he was once called, has been spurred into eloquence by ridicule and abuse. This is the crutch age. " Helps " and " aids " are advertised everywhere. We have institutes, colleges, universities, teachers, books, libraries, newspapers, mag- azines. Our thinking is done for us. Our problems are all worked out in " explanations " and " keys." Our boys are too often tutored through college with very little study. "' Short roads " and. " abridged methods " are characteristic of the century. Ingenious methods are used everywhere to get the drudgery out of the col- lege course. Newspapers give us our politics, and preachers our religion. Self-help and self-reliance are getting old fashioned. Nature, as if conscious of de- layed blessings, has rushed to man's relief with her 104 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. wondrous forces, and undertakes to do the world's drud- gery and emancipate him from Eden's curse. But do not misinterpret her edict. She emancipates from the lower only to call to the higher. She does not bid the world go and play while she does the work. She emancipates the muscles only to employ the brain and heart. The most beautiful as well as the strongest characters are not developed in warm climates, where man finds his bread ready made on trees, and where exertion is a great effort, but rather in a trying climate and on a stubborn soil. It is no chance that returns to the Hin- doo ryot a penny and to the American laborer a dollar for his daily toil ; that makes Mexico with its mineral wealth poor, and New England with its granite and ice rich. It is rugged necessity, it is the struggle to obtain, it is poverty the priceless spur, that develops the stamina of manhood, and calls the race out of bar- barism. Labor found the world a wilderness and has made it a garden. As the sculptor thinks only of the angel imprisoned in the marble block, so Nature cares only for the man or woman shut up in the human being. The sculptor cares nothing for the block as such ; Nature has little regard for the mere lump of breathing clay. The sculp- tor will chip off all unnecessary material to set free the angel. Nature will chip and pound us remorselessly to bring out our possibilities. She will strip us of wealth, humble our pride, humiliate our ambition, let us down from the ladder of fame, will discipline us in a thou- sand ways, if she can develop a little character. Every- thing must give way to that. Wealth is nothing, posi- tion is nothing, fame is nothing, Tnanhood is everything. Not ease, not pleasure, not happiness, but a man, Nature is after. In every great painting of the masters there is one idea or figure which stands out boldly be- yond everything else. Every other idea or figure on USES OF OBSTACLES. 105 the canvas is subordinate to it, but pointing to the cen- tral idea, finds its true expression there. So in the vast universe of God, every object of creation is but a guideboard with an index-finger pointing to the central figure of the created universe — Man. Nature writes this thought upon every leaf, she thunders it in every creation. It is exhaled from every flower ; it twinkles in every star. Oh, what price will Nature not pay for a man ! Ages and seons were nothing for her to spend in preparing for his coming, or to make his existence possible. She has rifled the centuries for his development, and placed the universe at his disposal. The world is but his kindergarten, and every created thing but an object- lesson from the unseen universe. Nature resorts to a thousand expedients to develop a perfect type of her grandest creation. To do this she must induce him to fight his way up to his own loaf. She never allows him once to lose sight of the fact that it is the struggle to attain that develops the man. The moment we put our hand upon that which looks so attractive at a dis- tance, and which we struggled so hard to reach, Nature robs it of its charm by holding up before us another prize still more attractive. " Life," says a philosopher, " refuses to be so ad- justed as to eliminate from it all strife and conflict and pain. There are a thousand tasks that, in larger in- terests than ours, must be done, whether we want them or no. The world refuses to walk upon tiptoe, so that we may be able to sleep. It gets up very early and stays up very late, and all the while there is the con- flict of myriads of hammers and saws and axes with the stubborn material that in no other way can be made to serve its use and do its work for man. And then, too, these hammers and axes are not wielded without strain or pang, but swung by the millions of toilers who labor with their cries and groans and tears. Nay, our tern- 106 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. pie-building, whether it be for God or man, exacts its bitter toll, and fills life with cries and blows. The thousand rivalries of our daily business, the fiercer ani- mosities when we are beaten, the even fiercer exultation when we have beaten, the crashing blows of disaster, the piercing scream of defeat, — these things we have not yet gotten rid of, nor in this life ever will. Why should we wish to get rid of them ? We are here, my brother, to be hewed and hammered and planed in God's quarry and on God's anvil for a nobler life to come." Only the muscle that is used is developed. The constantly cheerful man, who survives his blighted hopes and disappointments, who takes them just for what they are, lessons, and perhaps blessings in disguise, is the true hero. There is a strength Deep bedded in our hearts of which we reck But little, till the shafts of heaven have pierced Its fragile dwelling. Must not earth be rent Before her gems are found? Mrs. Hemans. "If what shone afar so grand Turns to ashes in the hand, On again, the virtue lies In the struggle, not the prize." "The hero is not fed on sweets, Dailj' his own heart he eats ; Chambers of the great are jails, And head-winds right for royal sails." "So many great Illustrious spirits have conversed with woe, Have in her school been taught, as are enough To consecrate distress, and make ambition Even wish the frown beyond the smile of fortune." Then welcome each rebuff, That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting, that bids not sit nor stand but go. Browning. BERNARD PALISSY 1 had no other books than heaven and earth." " Who is it in the suburbs here This Potter, working with sucli cheer, This madman, as the people say, Who breaks his tables and his chairs To feed his furnace fires '. " CHAPTER VI. ONE UNWAVERING AIM. Life is an arrow — therefore j'ou must know What mark to aim at, how to use the bow — Then draw it to the head and let it go. Henry van Dyke. The important thing in life is to have a great aim, and to possess the aptitude and perseverance to attain it. — Goethk. Concentration alone conquers. — C. Buxton. " He who follows two hares is sure to catch neither." "A double-minded man is unstable in all his waj's." Let every one ascertain his special business and calling, and then stick to it if he would be successful. — Franklin. " Digression is as dangerous as stagnation in the career of a j'oung man in business." Every man who observes vigilantly and resolves steadfastly grows un- consciously into genius. — Bulwer. Genius is intensity. — Balzac. " Why do you lead sucii a solitary life ? " asked a friend of Michael Angelo. " Art is a jealous mistress," replied the artist ; " she requires the whole man." Dur- ing his labors at the Sistine Chapel, according to Dis- raeli, he refused to meet any one, even at his own house. "That day we sailed westward, which was our course," were the simple but grand words which Co- lumbus wrote in his journal day after day. Hope might rise and fall, terror and dismay might seize upon the crew at the mysterious variations of the compass, but Columbus, unappalled, pushed due west and nightly added to his record the above words. "Cut an inch deeper," said a member of the Old Guard to the surgeon probing his wound, "and you will find the Emperor," — meaning his heart. By the 108 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. marvelous power of concentrated purpose Napoleon had left his name on the very stones of the capital, had burned it indelibly into the heart of every Frenchman, and had left it written in living letters all over Europe. France to-day has not shaken off the spell of that name. In the fair city on the Seine the mystic " N " confronts you everywhere. Oh, the power of a great purpose to work miracles ! It has changed the face of the world. Napoleon knew that there were plenty of great men in France, but they did not know the might of the unwavering aim by which he was changing the destinies of Europe. He saw that what was called the " balance of power " was only an idle dream ; that, unless some master-mind could be found which was a match for events, the mil- lions would rule in anarchy. His iron will grasped the situation ; and like William Pitt, he did not loiter around balancing the probabilities of failure or success, or dally with his purpose. There was no turning to the right nor to the left ; no dreaming away time, nor building air-castles ; but one look and purpose, forward, upward and onward, straight to his goal. He always hit the bulFs-eye. His great success in war was due largely to his definiteness of aim. He was like a great burning-glass, concentrating the rays of the sun upon a single spot ; he burned a hole wherever he went. The secret of his power lay in his ability to concentrate his forces upon a single point. After finding the weak place in the enemy's ranks, he would mass his men and hurl them like an avalanche upon the critical point, crowding volley upon volley, charge upon charge, till he made a breach. What a lesson of the power of con- centration there is in this man's life ! He was able to focus all his faculties upon the smallest detail, as well as upon an empire. But, alas ! Napoleon was himself defeated by violation of his own tactics, — the con- stantly repeated crushing force of heavy battalions upon one point. ONE UNWAVERING AIM. 109 To succeed to-day a man must concentrate all the faculties of his mind upon one unwavering aim, and have a tenacity of purpose which means death or vic- tory. Every other inclination which tempts him from his aim must be suppressed. New Jersey has many ports, but they are so shallow and narrow that the shipping of the entire state amounts to but little. On the other hand, New York has but one ocean port, and yet it is so broad, deep, and grand, that it leads America in its enormous shipping trade. She sends her vessels into every port of the world, while the ships of her neighbor are restricted to local voyages. A man may starve on a dozen half-learned trades or occupations ; he may grow rich and famous upon one trade thoroughly mastered, even though it be the humblest. Even Gladstone, with his ponderous yet active brain, says he cannot do two things at once ; he throws his entire strength upon whatever he does. The intensest energy characterizes everything he undertakes, even his recreation. If such concentration of energy is necessary for the success of a Gladstone, what can we common mortals hope to accomplish by "scattera- tion ? " All great men have been noted for their power of concentration which makes them oblivious of every- thing outside their aim. Victor Hugo wrote his " No- tre Dame" during the revolution of 1830, while the bullets were whistling across his garden. He shut himself up in one room, locking iiis clothes up, lest they should tempt him to go out into the street, and spent most of that winter wrapped in a big gray com- forter, pouring his very life into his work. Genius is intensity. Abraham Lincoln possessed such power of concentration that he could repeat quite correctly a sermon to which he had listened in his boy- 110 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. hood. Dr. 0. W. Holmes, when an Andover student, riveted his eyes on the book he was studying as though he were reading a will that made him heir to a million. A New York sportsman, in answer to an advertise- ment, sent twenty-five cents for a sure receipt to pre- vent a shotgun from scattering, and received the fol- lowing : " Dear Sir : To keep a gun from scattering put in but a single shot." It is the men who do one thing in this world who come to the front. Who is the favorite actor ? It is a Jefferson, who devotes a lifetime to a "Rip Van Winkle," a Booth, an Irving, a Kean, who plays one character until he can play it better than any other man living, and not the shallow players who imperson- ate all ]3arts. It is the man who never steps outside of his specialty or dissipates his individuality. It is an Edison, a Morse, a Bell, a Howe, a Stephenson, a Watt. It is Adam Smith, spending ten years on the " Wealth of Nations." It is Gibbon, giving twenty years to his " Decline and Tall of the Roman Empire." It is a Hume, writing thirteen hours a day on his " History of England." It is a Webster, spending thirty-six years on his dictionary. It is a Bancroft, working twenty- six years on his " History of the United States." It is a Field, crossing the ocean fifty times to lay a cable, while the world ridicules. It is a Newton, writing his " Chronology of Ancient Nations " sixteen times. It is a Qrant, who proposes to " fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." These are the men who have writ- ten their names prominently in the history of the world. A one-talent man who decides upon a definite object accomplishes more than the ten-talent man who scat- ters his energies and never knows exactly what he will do. The weakest living creature, by concentrating his powers upon one thing, can accomplish something ; the strongest, by dispersing his over many, may fail to ac- ONE UNWAVERING AIM. Ill complish anything. Drop after drop, continually fall- ing, wears a passage through the hardest rock. The hasty tempest, as Carlyle points out, rushes over it with hideous uproar and leaves no trace behind. A great purpose is cumulative ; and, like a great magnet, it attracts all that is kindred along the stream of life. A Yankee can splice a rope in many different ways ; an English sailor only knows one way, but that is the best one. It is the one-sided man, the sharp-edged man, the man of single and intense purpose, the man of one idea, who turns neither to the right nor to the left, though a paradise tempt him, who cuts his way through obstacles and forges to the front. The time has gone forever when a Bacon can span universal knowledge ; or when, absorbing all the knowledge of the times, a Dante can sustain arguments against fourteen dispu- tants in the University of Paris, and conquer in them all. The day when a man can successfully drive a dozen callings abreast is a thing of the past. Concen- tration is the keynote of the century. Scientists estimate that there is energy enough in less than fifty acres of sunshine to run all the machinery in the world, if it could be concentrated. But the sun might blaze out upon the earth forever without setting anything on fire ; although these rays focused by a burning-glass would melt solid granite, or even change a diamond into vapor. There are plenty of men who have ability enough ; the rays of their faculties, taken separately, are all right, but they are powerless to col- lect them, to bring them all to bear upon a single spot. Versatile men, universal geniuses, are usually weak, be- cause they have no power to concentrate their talents upon one point, and this makes all the difference be- tween success and failure. Chiseled upon the tomb of a disappointed, heart- broken king, Joseph II. of Austria, in the Eoyal Ceme- 112 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. teiy at Vienna, a traveler tells us, is this epitaph: " Here lies a monarch who, with the best of intentions, never carried out a single plan." Sir James Mackintosh was a man of remarkable ability. He excited in every one who knew him the greatest expectations. Many watched his career with much interest, expecting that he would dazzle the world. But there was no purpose in his life. He had intermittent attacks of enthusiasm for doing great things, but his zeal all evaporated before he could de- cide what to do. This fatal defect in his character kept him balancing between conflicting motives ; and his whole life was almost thrown away. He lacked power to choose one object and persevere with a single aim, sacrificing every interfering inclination. He vacil- lated for weeks trying to determine whether to use " usefulness " or " utility " in a composition. One talent utilized in a single direction will do infi- nitely more than ten talents scattered. A thimbleful of powder behind a ball in a rifle will do more execu- tion than a carload of powder unconfined. The rifle- barrel is the purpose that gives direct aim to the pow- der, which otherwise, no matter how good it might be, would be powerless. The poorest scholar in school or college often, in practical life, far outstrips the class leader or senior wrangler, simply because what little ability he has he employs for a definite object, while the other, depending upon his general ability and bril- liant prospects, never concentrates his powers. '•A sublime self-confidence," says E. P. Whipple, "springing not from self-conceit, but from an intense identification of the man with his object, lifts him alto- gether above the fear of danger and death, and commu- nicates an almost superhuman audacity to his will." It is fashionable to ridicule the man of one idea, but the men who have changed the front of the world have been men of a single aim. No man can make his mark RICHARD ARKWRIGHT What a sublime spectacle is tliat of a man going straight to his goal, cutting his way through difficulties, and surmounting obstacles wliich dishearten others, as though they were stepping-stones. ONE UNWAVERING AIM. 113 on this age of specialties who is not a man of one idea, one supreme aim, one master passion. The man who would make himself felt on this bustling planet, who would make a breach in the compact conservatism of our civilization, must play all his guns on one point. A wavering aim, a faltering purpose, has no place in the nineteenth century. " Mental shiftlessness " is the cause of many a failure. The world is full of unsuc- cessful men who spend their lives letting empty buckets down into empty wells. " Mr. A. often laughs at me," said a young American chemist, " because I have but one idea. He talks about everything, aims to excel in many things; but I have learned that, if I ever wish to make a breach, I must play my guns continually upon one point." This great chemist, when an obscure schoolmaster, used to study by the light of a pine knot in a log cabin. Not many years later he was performing experiments in electro- magnetism before English earls, and subsequently he was at the head of one of the largest scientific insti- tutes of this country. This man was the late Professor Henry, of the Smithsonian Institute, AVashington. Douglas Jerrold once knew a man who was familiar with twenty-four languages but could not express a thought in one of them. We should guard against a talent which we cannot hope to practice in perfection, says Goethe. Improve it as we may, we shall always, in the end, when the merit of the matter has become apparent to us, pain- fully lament the loss of time and strength devoted to such botching. An old proverb says : " The master of one trade will support a wife and seven children, and the master of seven will not support himself." It is the single aim that wins. Men with monopoliz- ing ambitions rarely live in history. They do not focus their powers long enough to burn their names indelibly into the roll of honor. Edward Everett, even 114 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. with his magnificent powers, disappointed the expecta- tions of his friends. He spread himself over the whole field of knowledge and elegant culture ; but the men- tion of the name of Everett does not call up any one great achievement as does that of names like Garrison and Phillips. Voltaire called the*Frenchman La Harpe an oven which was always heating, but which never cooked anything. Hartley Coleridge was splendidly endowed with talent, like Sir James Mackintosh, but there was one fatal lack in his character — he had no definite purpose, and his life was a failure. Unstable as water, he could not excel. Southey, his uncle, says : " Coleridge has two left hands." He was so morbidly shy from living alone in his dreamland that he could not open a letter without trembling. He would often rally from his purposeless life, and resolve to redeem himself from the oblivion he saw staring him in the face; but, like Mackintosh, he remained a man of promise merely to the end of his life. The world always makes way for the man with a purpose in him, like Bismarck or Grant. Look at Rufus Choate, concentrating all his attention first on one juryman, then on another, going back over the whole line again and again, until he has burned his arguments into their souls ; until he has hypnotized them with his purpose ; until they see with his eyes, think his thoughts, feel his sensations. He never stopped until he had projected his mind into theirs, and permeated their lives with his individuality. There was no escape from his concentration of purpose, his persuasive rhetoric, his convincing logic. "Carry the jury at all hazards/' he used to say to young law- yers ; " move heaven and earth to carry the jury, and then fight it out with the judge on the law questions as best you can." The man who succeeds has a programme. He fixes his course and adheres to it. He lays his plans and ONE UNWAVERING AIM. 115 executes them. He goes straight to his goal. He is not pushed this way and that every time a difficulty is thrown in his path ; if he can't get over it he goes through it. Constant and steady use of the faculties under a central purpose gives strength and power, while the use of faculties without an aim or end only weakens them. The mind must be focused on a defi- nite end, or, like machinery without a balance-wheel, it will rack itself to pieces. This age of concentration calls, not for educated men merely, not for talented men, not for geniuses, not for jacks-of-all-trades, but for men who are trained to do one thing as well as it can be done. Napoleon could go through the drill of his soldiers better than any one of his men. Stick to your aim. The constant changing of one's occupation is fatal to all success. After a young man has spent five or six years in a dry goods store, he con- cludes that he would rather sell groceries, thereby throwing away five years of valuable experience which will be of very little use to him in the grocery business ; and so he spends a large part of his life drifting around from one kind of employment to another, learning part of each, but all of none, forgetting that experience is worth more to him than money, and that the years devoted to learning his trade or occupation are the most valuable. Half-learned trades, no matter if a man has twenty, will never give him a good living, much less a competency, while wealth is absolutely out of the question. How many young men fail to reach the point of effi- ciency in one line of work before they get discouraged and venture into something else. How easy to see the thorns in one's own profession or vocation, and only the roses in that of another. A young man in business, for instance, seeing a physician riding about town in his carriage, visiting his patients, imagines that a doc- 116 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. tor must have an easy, ideal life, and wonders tliat he himself should have embarked in an occupation so full of disagreeable drudgery and hardships. He does not know of the years of dry, tedious study which the phy- sician has consumed, the months and perhaps years of waiting for patients, the dry detail of anatomy, the end- less names of drugs and technical terms. Scientists tell us that there is nothing in nature so ugly and disagreeable but intense light will make it beautiful. The complete mastery of one profession will render even the driest details interesting. The con- sciousness of thorough knowledge, the habit of doing everything to a finish, gives a feeling of strength, of superiority, which takes the drudgery out of an occu- pation. The more completely we master a vocation the more thoroughly we enjoy it. In fact, the man who has found his place and become master in it could scarcely be induced, even though he be a farmer, or a carpenter, or grocer, to exchange places with a governor or con- gressman. To be successful is to find your sphere and fill it, to get into your place and master it. There is a sense of great power in a vocation after a man has reached the point of efficiency in it, the point of productiveness, the point where his skill begins to tell and bring in returns. Up to this point of efficiency, while he is learning his trade, the time seems to have been almost thrown away. But he has been storing up a vast reserve of knowledge of detail, laying founda- tions, forming his acquaintances, gaining his reputation for truthfulness, trustworthiness, and integrity, and in establishing his credit. When he reaches this point of efficiency, all the knowledge and skill, character, influ- ence, and credit thus gained come to his aid, and he soon finds that in what seemed almost thrown away lies the secret of his i:)rosperity. The credit he estab- lished as a clerk, the confidence, the integrity, the friendships formed, he finds equal to a large capital ONE UNWAVERING AIM. 117 when lie starts out for himself and takes the highway to fortune; while the young man who half learned several trades, and got discouraged and stopped just short of the point of efficiency, just this side of suc- cess, is a failure because he did n't go far enough ; he did not press on to the point at which his acquisition would have been profitable. In spite of the fact that nearly all very successful men have made a life work of one thing, we see on every hand hundreds of young men and women flitting about from occupation to occupation, trade to trade, in one thing to-day and another to-morrow, — just as though they could go from one thing to another by turning a switch, as if they could run as well on another track as on the one they have left, regardless of the fact that no two careers have the same gauge, that every man builds his own road upon which another's engine cannot run either with speed or safety. This fickleness, this disposition to shift about from one occu- pation to another, seems to be peculiar to American life, so much so that, when a young man meets a friend whom he has not seen for some time, the commonest question to ask is, "What are you doing now ? " show- ing the improbability or uncertainty that he is doing to-day what he was doing when they last met. Some people think that if they " keep everlastingly at it " they will succeed, but this is not so. Working without a plan is as foolish as going to sea without a compass. A ship which has broken its rudder in mid- ocean may " keep everlastingly at it," may keep on a full head of steam, driving about all the time, but it never arrives anywhere, it never reaches any port unless by accident; and if it does find a haven, its cargo may not be suited to the people, the climate, or conditions among which it has accidentally drifted. The ship must be directed to a definite port, for which its cargo is adapted, and where there is a demand for it, 118 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. and it must aim steadily for that port through sun- shine and storm, through tempest and fog. So a man who would succeed must not drift about rudderless on the ocean of life. He must not only steer straight toward his destined port when the ocean is smooth, when the currents and winds serve, but he must keep his course in the very teeth of the wind and the tempest, and even when envelo]jed in the fogs of dis- appointment and mists of opposition. The Cunarders do not stop for fogs or storms ; they plow straight through the rough seas with only one thing in view, their destined port, and no matter what the weather is, no matter what obstacles they encounter, their arri- val in port can be predicted to within a few hours. It is practically certain, too, that the ship destined for Boston will not turn up at Fort Sumter or at Sandy Hook. On the prairies of South America there grows a flower that always inclines in the same direction. If a traveler loses his way and has neither compass nor chart, by turning to this flower he will find a guide on which he can implicitly rely ; for no matter how the rains descend or the winds blow, its leaves point to the north. So there are many men whose purposes are so well known, whose aims are so constant, that no matter what difficulties they may encounter, or what opposition they may meet, you can tell almost to a certainty where they will come out. They may be delayed by head winds and counter currents, but they will ahvays head for the port and will steer straight towards the harbor. You know to a certainty that whatever else they may lose, they will not lose their compass or rudder. Whatever may happen to a man of this stamp, even though his sails may be swept away and his mast stripped to the deck, though he may be wrecked by the storms of life, the needle of his compass will still point ONE UNWAVERING AIM. 119 to the North Star of his hope. Whatever comes, his life will not be purposeless. Even a wreck that makes its port is a greater success than a full-rigged ship with all its sails flying, with every mast and rope intact, which merely drifts into an accidental harbor. To fix a wandering life and give it direction is not an easy task, but a life which has no definite aim is sure to be frittered away in empty and purposeless dreams. " Listless triflers," " busy idlers," " purposeless busy- bodies," are seen everywhere. A healthy, definite purpose is a remedy for a thousand ills which attend aimless lives. Discontent, dissatisfaction, flee before a definite purpose. An aim takes the drudgery out of life, scatters doubts to the winds, and clears up the gloomiest creeds. What we do without a purpose begrudgingly, with a purpose becomes a delight, and no work is well done nor healthily done which is not enthusiastically done. It is just that added element which makes work immortal. Mere energy is not enough ; it must be concentrated on some steady, unwavering aim. What is more common than "unsuccessful geniuses," or failures with "com- manding talents " ? Indeed, " unrewarded- genius " has become a proverb. Every town has unsuccessful edu- cated and talented men. But education is of no value, talent is worthless, unless it can do something, achieve something. Men who can do something at everything, and a very little at anything, are not wanted in this age. In Paris, a certain Monsieur Kenard announced himself as a " public scribe, who digests accounts, ex- plains the language of flowers, and sells fried pota- toes." Jacks-at-all-trades are at war with the genius of the times. What this age wants is young men and women who can do one thing without losing their identity or indi- viduality, or becoming narrow, cramped, or dwarfed. Nothing can take the place of an all-absorbing purpose ; 120 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. education will not, genius will not, talent will not, industry will not, will-j)ower will not. The purposeless life must ever be a failure. What good are powers, faculties, unless we can use them for a purpose ? What good would a chest of tools do a carpenter unless he could use them ? A college education, a head full of knowledge, are worth little to the men who cannot use them to some definite end. The man without a purpose never leaves his mark upon the world. He has no individuality ; he is ab- sorbed in the mass, lost in the crowd, weak, wavering, incompetent. His outlines of individuality and angles of character have been worn off, planed down to suit the common thought until he has, as a man, been lost in the throng of humanity. "He who would do some great thing in this short life must apply himself to the work with such a con- centration of his forces as, to idle spectators, who live only to amuse themselves, looks like insanity." What a great directness of purpose may be traced in the career of Pitt, who lived — ay, and died — for the sake of political supremacy. From a child, the idea was drilled into him that he must accomplish a public career worthy of his illustrious father. Even from boy- hood he bent all his energy to this one great purpose. He went straight from college to the House of Com- mons. In one year he was Chancellor of the Ex- chequer; two years later he was Prime Minister of England, and reigned virtually king for a quarter of a century. He was utterly oblivious of everything out- side his aim ; insensible to the claims of love, art, liter- ature, living and steadily working for the sole purpose of wielding the governing power of the nation. His whole soul was absorbed in the overmastering passion for political power. "Consider, my lord," said Rowland Hill to the Prime Minister of England, " that a letter to Ireland and the ONE UNWAVERING AIM. 121 answer back would cost thousands upon thousands of my affectionate countrymen more than a fifth of their week's wages. If you shut the post office to them, which you do now, you shut out warm hearts and gen- erous affections from home, kindred, and friends." The lad learned that it cost to carry a letter from London to Edinburgh, four hundred and four miles, one eighteenth of a cent, while the government charged for a simple folded sheet of paper twenty-eight cents, and twice as much if there was the smallest inclosure. Against the opposition and contempt of the post-office department he at length carried his point, and on January 10, 1840, penny postage was established throughout Great Britain. Mr. Hill was chosen to introduce the system, at a salary of fifteen hundred pounds a year. His success was most encouraging, but at the end of two years a Tory minister dismissed him without paying for his services, as agreed. The public was indignant, and at once contributed sixty-five thousand dollars ; and, at the request of Queen Victoria, Parliament voted him one hundred thousand dollars and ten thousand dollars a year for life. Christ knew that one affection rules in man's life when he said, " No man can serve two masters." One affection, one object, will be supreme in us. Everything else will be neglected and done with half a heart. One may have subordinate plans, but he can have but one supreme aim, and from this aim all others will take their character. It is a great purpose which gives meaning to life ; it unifies all our powers, binds them together in one cable ; makes strong and united what was weak, sepa- rated, scattered. "Painting is my wife and my works are my chil- dren," replied Michael Angelo when asked why he did not marry. " Smatterers " are weak and superficial. Of what 122 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. use is a man who knows a little of everything and not much of anything ? It is the momentum of constantly repeated acts that tells the story. "Let thine eyes look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left." One great secret of St. Paul's power lay in his strong purpose. Nothing could daunt him, nothing intimidate. The Eoman Emperor could not muzzle him, the dungeon could not aj^pall him, no prison suppress him, obstacles could not discourage him. " This one thing I do " was written all over his work. The quenchless izeal of his mighty purpose burned its way down through the centuries, and its con- tagion will never cease to fire the hearts of men. "Try and come home somebody," said the fond mother to Gambetta as she sent him off to Paris to school. Poverty pinched this lad hard in his little garret study and his clothes were shabby, but what of that ? He had made up his mind to get on in the world. For years this youth was chained to his desk and worked like a hero. At last his opportunity came. Jules Favre was to plead a great cause on a certain day ; but, being ill, he chose this young man, absolutely unknown, rough and uncouth, to take his place. For many years Gambetta had been preparing for such an opportunity, and he was equal to it, for he made one of the greatest speeches that up to that time had ever been made in France. That night all the papers in Paris were sounding the praises of this ragged, uncouth Bohemian, and soon all France recognized him as the Eepublican leader. This sudden rise was not due to luck or accident. He had been steadfastly working and fighting his way up against opposition and poverty for just such an occasion. Had he not been equal to it, it would only have made him ridiculous. What a stride ; yesterday, poor and unknown, living in a garret; to-day, deputy elect, in the city of Marseilles, ONE UNWAVERING AIM, 123 and the great Eepublican leader ! The gossipers of France had never heard his name before. He had been expelled from the priest-making seminary as totally unfit for a priest and an utterly undisciplinable charac- ter. In two weeks, this ragged son of an Italian grocer arose in the Chamber, and moved that the Napoleon dynasty be disposed of and the Republic be declared established. When Louis Napoleon had been defeated at Sedan and had delivered his sword to William of Prussia, and when the Prussian army was marching on Paris, the brave Gambetta went out of the besieged city in a balloon barely grazed by the Prussian guns, landed in Amiens, and by almost superhuman skill raised three armies of 800,000 men, provided for their maintenance, and directed their military operations. A German offi- cer said, " This colossal energy is the most remark- able event of modern history, and will carry down Gambetta's name to remote posterity." This youth who was poring over his books in an attic while other youths were promenading the Champs Elysees, although but thirty-two years old, was now virtually dictator of France, and the greatest orator in the Republic. What a striking example of the great reserve of personal power, which, even in dissolute lives, is sometimes called out by a great emergency or sudden sorrow, and ever after leads the life to victory ! AVhen Gambetta found that his first speech had electrified all France, his great reserve rushed to the front, he was suddenly weaned from dissipation, and resolved to make his mark in the world. Nor did he lose his head in his quick leap into fame. He still lived in the upper room in the mnsty Latin quarter, and remained a poor man, without stain of dishonor, though he might easily have made himself a millionaire. When Gambetta died the " Figaro " said, " The Republic has lost its greatest man." American boys should study this great man, for 124 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. he loved our country, and made our Kepublic the pat- tern for France. There is no grander sight in the world than that of a young man fired with a great purpose, dominated by one unwavering aim. He is bound to win ; the world stands one side and lets him pass ; it always makes way for the man with a will in him. He does not have one half the opposition to overcome that the undecided, purposeless man has who, like driftwood, runs against all sorts of snags to which he must yield, because he has no momentum to force them out pf his way. What a sublime spectacle it is to see a youth going straight to his goal, cutting his way through difficulties, and sur- mounting obstacles, which dishearten others, as though they were but stepping-stones ! Defeat, like a gymna- sium, only gives him new power; opposition only doubles his exertions ; dangers only increase his cour- age. No matter what comes to him, sickness, poverty, disaster, he never turns his eye from his goal. " Duos qui sequitur lepores, neutrum capit." VICTOR HUGO " " Every one is the son of his own works." " Cast forth thy act, thy word, into the ever-living, ever-working universe : it is a seed-grain that cannot die."' CHAPTER VIT. SOWING AND REAPING. Be not deceived ; God is not mocked : for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. — Galatians. Sow an act, and you reap a habit; sow a habit, and you reap a charac- ter; sow a character, and you reap a destiny. — G. D. Boardman. Just as the twig is bent the tree 's inclined. — Pope. How use doth breed a habit in a man. — Shakespeare. All habits gather, by unseen degrees, As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas. Dryden. Infinite good comes from good habits which must result from the com- mon influence of example, intercourse, knowledge, and actual experience — morality taught by good morals. — Plato. The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt till they are too strong to be broken. — Samuel Johnson. Man is first startled by sin; then it becomes pleasing, then easy, then delightful, then frequent, then habitual, then confirmed. Then man is impenitent, then obstinate, then he is damned. — Jeremy Taylor. *' Rogues differ little. Each began as a disobedient son." In the great majority of things, habit is a greater plague than ever afflicted Egypt. — John Foster. You cannot in any given case, by any sudden and single effort, will to be true if the habit of your life has been insincere. — F. W. Robertson. The tissue of the life to be, We weave with colors all our own; And in the field of destiny, We reap as we have sown. Whittier, "Gentlemen of the jury, jon will now consider your verdict," said the great lawyer. Lord Tenterden, as he roused from his lethargy a moment, and then closed his eyes forever. " Tete d'armee " (head of the army), murmured Napoleon faintly ; and then, " on the wings of a tempest that raged with unwonted fury, up to the throne of the only power that controlled him 126 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. while he lived, went the fiery soul of that wonderful warrior.'^ "Give Dayrolles a chair," said the dying Chesterfield with his old-time courtesy, and the next moment his spirit spread its wings. "Young man, keep your record clean," thrilled from the lips of John B. Gough as he sank to rise no more. What power over the mind of man is exercised by the dominant idea of his life "that parts not quite with parting breath ! " It has shaped his purpose throughout his earthly career, and he passes into the Great Unknown, moving in the direction of his ideal; impelled still, amid the utter retrocession of the vital force, by all the momentum resulting from his weight of character and singleness of aim. "It is a beautiful arrangement in the mental and moral economy of our nature, that that which is per- formed as a duty may, by frequent repetitions, become a habit, and the habit of stern virtue, so repulsive to others, may hang around the neck like a wreath of flowers." Cholera appeared mysteriously in Toulon, and, after a careful examination, the medical inspectors learned that the first victims were two sailors on the Mon- tebello, a government transport, long out of service, anchored at the entrance to the port. For many years the vessel had been used for storing old, disused mili- tary equipments. Some of these had belonged to French soldiers who had died before Sebastopol. The doctors learned that the two poor sailors were seized, suddenly and mortally, a few days after displacing a pile of equipments stored deep in the hold of the Montebello. The cholera of Toulon came in a direct line from the hospital of Varna. It went to sleep, apparently gorged, on a heap of the cast-off garments of its victims, to awaken thirty years later to victorious and venomous life. Professor Bonelli, of Turin, punctured an animal SOWING AND REAPING. 127 with the tooth of a rattlesnake. The head of this ser- pent had lain in a dry state for sixteen years exposed to the air and dust, and, moreover, had previously been preserved more than thirty years in spirits of wine. To his great astonishment an hour afterward the ani- mal died. So habits, good or bad, that have been lost sight of for years will s^^ring into a new life to aid or injure us at some critical moment, as kernels of wheat which had been clasped in a mummy's hand four thou- sand years sprang into life when planted. They only awaited moisture, heat, sunlight, and air to develop them. In Jefferson's play. Rip Van Winkle, after he had " sworn off," at every invitation to drink said, " Well, this time don't count." True, as Professor James says, he may not have counted it, as thousands of others have not counted it, and a kind heaven may not count it, but it is being counted none the less. Down among his nerve cells and fibres the molecules are counting it, registering and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes. Nothing we ever do is in strict scientific literalness wiped out. There is a tendency in the nervous system to repeat the same mode of action at regularly recurring intervals. Dr. Combe says that all nervous diseases have a marked tendency to observe regular periods. " If we repeat any kind of mental effort at the same hour daily, we at length find ourselves entering upon it without premedi- tation when the time approaches." "The great thing in all education is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. It is to fund and capitalize our acquisition, and live at ease upon the interest of the fund. For this we must make automatic and habitual, as soon as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we would guard against the plague." 128 ARCHITECTS OF FATE, The nervous system is a living phonograph, infinitely- more marvelous than that of Edison. No sound, how- ever feeble, however slight, can escape being recorded in its wonderful mechanism. Although the molecules of this living machine may all be entirely changed many times during a lifetime, yet these impressions are never erased or lost. They become forever fixed in the character. Like Eip Van Winkle, the youth may say to himself, I will do this just once "just to see what it is like," no one will ever know it, and " I won't count this time." The country youth says it when he goes to the city. The young man says it when he drinks " just to be social." Americans, who are good church people at home, say it when in Paris and Vienna. Yes, " just to see what it is like " has ruined many a noble life. Many a man has lost his balance and fallen over the precipice into the sink of iniquity while just attempting " to see what it was like." " If you have been pilot on these waters twenty-five years," said a young man to the captain of a steamer, " you must know every rock and sandbank in the river." " jSTo, I don't, but I know where the deep water is." Just one little lie to help me out of this difficulty ; "I won't count this." Just one little embezzlement; no one will know it, and I can return the money before it will be needed. Just one little indulgence ; I won't count it, and a good night's sleep will make me all right again. Just one small part of my work slighted ; it won't make any great difference, and, besides, I am usually so careful that a little thing like this ought not to be counted. But, my young friend, it will be counted, whether you will or not ; the deed has been recorded with an iron pen, even to the smallest detail. The Eecording Angel is no myth ; it is found in ourselves. Its name is Memory, and it holds everything. We think we have forgotten thousands of things until mortal danger, SOWING AND REAPING. 129 fever, or some other great stimulus reproduces tliem to the consciousness with all the fidelity of photographs. Sometimes all one's past life will seem to pass before him in an instant ; but at all times it is really, although unconsciously, passing before him in the sentiments he feels, in the thoughts he thinks, in the impulses that move him apparently without cause. *• Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, Our fatal shadows that walk by us still." In a fable one of the Fates spun filaments so fine that they were invisible, and she became a victim of her cunning, for she was bound to the spot by these very threads. Father Schoenmaker, missionary to the Indians, tried for years to implant civilization among the wild tribes. After fifteen years' labor he induced a chief to lay aside his blanket, the token of savagery ; but he goes on to say, " It took fifteen years to get it off, and just fifteen minutes to get it on him again." Physiologists say that dark-colored stripes similar to those on the zebra reappear, after a hundred or a thou- sand generations, on the legs and shoulders of horses, asses, and mules. Large birds on sea islands where there are no beasts to molest them lose the power of flight. After a criminal's head had been cut off his breast was irritated, and he raised his hands several times as if to brush away the exciting cause. It was said that the cheek of Charlotte Corday blushed on being struck by a rude soldier after the head had been severed from the body. Humboldt found in South America a parrot which was the only living creature that could speak a word of the language of a lost tribe. The bird retained the habit of speech after his teachers had died. Caspar Hauser was confined, probably from birth, in a dungeon where no light or sound from the outer 130 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. world could reach liim. At seventeen lie was still a mental infant, crying and chattering without much ajjparent intelligence. When released, the light was disagreeable to his eyes ; and, after the babbling youth had been taught to speak a few words, he begged to be taken back to the dungeon. Only cold and dismal silence seemed to satisfy him. All that gave pleasure to others gave his perverted senses only pain. The sweetest music was a source of anguish to him, and he could eat only his black crust without violent vomiting. Deep in the very nature of animate existence is that principle of facility and inclination, acquired by repeti- tion, which we call habit. Man becomes a slave to his constantly repeated acts. In spite of the protests of his weakened will the trained nerves continue to repeat the acts even when the doer abhors them. What he at first chooses, at last compels. Man is as irrevocably chained to his deeds as the atoms are chained by gravi- tation. You can as easily snatch a pebble from gravita- tion's grasp as you can separate the minutest act of life from its inevitable effect upon character and destiny. " Children may be strangled," says George Eliot, " but deeds never, they have an indestructible life." The smirched youth becomes the tainted man. Practically all the achievements of the human race are but the accomplishments of habit. We speak of the power of Gladstone to accomplish so much in a day as something marvelous ; but when we analyze that power we find it composed very largely of the results of habit. His mighty momentum has been rendered possible only by the law of the power of habit. He is now a great bundle of habits, which all his life have been forming. His habit of industry no doubt was irk- some and tedious at first, but, practiced so conscien- tiously and persistently, it has gained such momentum as to astonish the world. His habit of thinking, close, persistent, and strong, has made him a power. He SOWING AND REAPING. 131 formed the habit of accurate, keen observation, allowing nothing to escape his attention, until he could observe more in half a day in London than a score of men who have eyes but see not. Thus he has multiplied him- self many times. By this habit of accuracy he has avoided many a repetition; and so, during his life- time, he has saved years of precious time, which many others, who marvel at his achievements, have thrown away. Gladstone early formed the habit of cheerfulness, of looking on the bright side of things, which, Sydney Smith says, "is worth a thousand pounds a year." This again has saved him enormous waste of energy, as he tells us he has never yet been kept awake a single hour by any debate or business in Parliament. This loss of energy has wasted years of many a useful life, which might have been saved by forming the economiz- ing habit of cheerfulness. The habit of happy thought would transform the commonest life into harmony and beauty. The will is almost omnipotent to determine habits which virtu- ally are omnipotent. The habit of directing a firm and steady will upon those things which tend to pro- duce harmony of thought would produce happiness and contentment even in the most lowly occupations. The will, rightly drilled, can drive out all discordant thoughts, and produce a reign of perpetual harmony. Our trouble is that we do not half will. After a man's habits are well set, about all he can do is to sit by and observe which way he is going. Kegret it as he may, how helpless is a weak man bound by the mighty cable of habit, twisted from the tiny threads of single acts which he thought were absolutely within his control ! Drop a stone down a precipice. By the law of gravita- tion it sinks with rapidly increasing momentum. If it falls sixteen feet the first second, it will fall forty-eight feet the next second, and eighty feet the third second, 132 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. and one hundred and forty-four feet the fifth second, and if it falls for ten seconds it will in the last second rush through three hundred and four feet till earth stops it. Habit is cumulative. After each act of our lives we are not the same person as before, but quite another, better or worse, but not the same. There has been something added to, or deducted from, our weight of character. " There is no fault nor folly of my life," said Euskin, "that does not rise against me and take away my joy, and shorten my power of possession, of sight, of under- standing ; and every past effort of my life, every gleam of righteousness or good in it, is with me now to help me in my grasp of this hour and its vision." " Many men of genius have written worse scrawls than I do," said a boy at Rugby when his teacher re- monstrated with him for his bad penmanship ; " it is not worth while to worry about so trivial a fault." Ten years later, when he had become an officer in the Crimea, his illegible copy of an order caused the loss of many brave men. " Eesist beginning " was an ancient motto which is needed in our day. The folly of the child becomes the vice of the youth, and then the crime of the man. In 1880 one hundred and forty-seven of the eight hun- dred and ninety-seven inmates of Auburn State Prison were there on a second visit. What brings the prisoner back the second, third, or fourth time ? It is habit which drives him on to commit the deed which his heart abhors and which his very soul loathes. It is the mo- mentum made up from a thousand deviations from the truth and right, for there is a great difference between going just right and a little wrong. It is the result of that mysterious power which the repeated act has of getting itself repeated again and again. AVhen a woman was dying from the effects of her hus- band's cruelty and debauchery from drink she asked him to come to her bedside, and pleaded with him again SOWIXG AND REAPING. 133 for the sake of their chiklren to drink no more. Grasp- ing his hand with her thin, long fingers, she made him promise her : " Mary, I will drink no more till I take it out of this hand which I hold in mine." That very night he poured out a tumbler of brandy, stole into the room where she lay cold in her coffin, put the tumbler into her withered hand, and then took it out and drained it to the bottom. John B. Gough told this as a true story. How powerless a man is in the presence of a mighty habit, which has robbed him of will-power, of self- respect, of everything manly, until he becomes its slave ! Walpole tells of a gambler who fell at the table in a fit of apoplexy, and his companions began to bet upon his chances of recovery. When the physician came they refused to let him bleed the man because they said it would affect the bet. When President Garfield was hanging between life and death men bet heavily upon the issue, and even sold pools. Xo disease causes greater horror or dread than chol- era ; yet when it is once fastened upon a victim he is perfectly indifferent, and wonders at the solicitude of his friends. His tears are dried; he cannot weep if he would. His body is cold and clammy and feels like dead flesh, yet he tells you he is warm, and calls for ice water. Have you never seen similar insensi- bility to danger in those whose habits are already drag- ging them to everlasting death ? Etherized by the fascinations of pleasure, we are often unconscious of pain while, the devil amputates the fingers, the feet and hands, or even the arms and legs of our character. But oh, the anguish that visits the sad heart when the lethe passes away, and the soul becomes conscious of virtue sacrificed, of manhood lost. The leper is often the last to suspect his danger, for the disease is painless in its early stages. A leading lawyer and public official in the Sandwich Islands once 134 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. overturned a lighted lamp on his hand, and was sur- prised to find that it caused no pain. At last it dawned upon his mind that he was a leper. He resigned his offices and went to the leper's island, where he died. So sin in its early stages is not only painless but often even pleasant. The hardening, deadening power of depraving habits and customs was strikingly illustrated by the Komans. Under Nero, the taste of the people had become so debauched and morbid that no mere representation of tragedy would satisfy them. Their cold-blooded sel- fishness, the hideous realism of " a refined, delicate, aes- thetic age," demanded that the heroes should actually be' killed on the stage. The debauched and sanguinary Romans reckoned life worthless without the most thrill- ing experiences of horror or delight. Tragedy must be genuine bloodshed, comedy, actual shame. When " The Conflagration" was represented on the stage they de- manded that a house be actually burned and the furni- ture plundered. When " Laureolus " Avas played they demanded that the actor be really crucified and man- gled by a bear, and he had to fling himself down and deluge the stage with his own blood. Prometheus must be really chained to his rock, and Dirce in very fact be tossed and gored by the wild bull, and Orpheus be torn to pieces by a real bear, and Icarus was compelled to fly, even though it was known he Avould be dashed to death. When the heroism of " Mucins Scsevola " was represented, a real criminal was compelled to thrust his hand into the flame without a murmur, and stand motionless while it was being burned. Hercules was compelled to ascend the funeral pyre, and there be burned alive. The poor slaves and criminals were com- pelled to play their parts heroically until the flames enveloped them. The pirate Gibbs, who Avas executed in New York, said that when he robbed the first vessel his conscience SOWING AND REAPING. 135 made a hell in liis bosom ; but after lie liad sailed for years under the black flag, he could rob a vessel and murder all the crew, and lie down and sleep soundly. A man may so accustom himself to error as to be- come its most devoted slave, and be led to commit the most fearful crimes in order to defend it, or to prop- agate it. When Gordon, the celebrated California stage-driver, was dying, he put his foot out of the bed and swung it to and fro. When asked why he did so, he replied, " I am on the down grade and cannot get my foot on the brake." In our great museums you see stone slabs with the marks of rain that fell hundreds of years before Adam lived, and the footprint of some wild bird that passed across the beach in those olden times. The passing shower and the light foot left their prints on the soft sediment ; then ages went on, and the sediment hard- ened into stone ; and there the prints remain, and will remain forever. So the child, so soft, so susceptible to all impressions, so joyous to receive new ideas, treas- ures them all up, gathers them all into itself, and re- tains them forever. A tribe of Indians attacked a white settlement and murdered the few inhabitants. A woman of the tribe, however, carried away a very young infant, and reared it as her own. The child grew up with the Indian children, different in complexion, but like them in everything else. To scalp the greatest possible number of enemies was, in his view, the most glorious thing in the world. While he was still a "youth he was seen by some white traders, and by them conducted back to civilized life. He showed great relish for his new life, and especially a strong desire for knowledge and a sense of reverence which took the direction of religion, so that he desired to become a clergyman. He went through his college course with credit, and was or- 136 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. dained. lie fullilled his function well, and appeared happy and satisfied. After a few years he went to serve in a settlement somewhere near the seat of war which was then going on between Britain and the United States, and before long there was fighting not far off. He went forth in his usual dress — black coat and neat white shirt and neckcloth. When he returned he was met by a gentleman of his acquaintance, who was immediately struck by an extraordinary change in the expression of his face and the flush on his cheek, and also by his unusually shy and hurried manner. After asking news of the battle the gentleman observed, " But you are wounded ? " " No." " Xot wounded ! Why, there is blood upon the bosom of your shirt ! " The young man quickly crossed his hands firmly upon his breast ; and his friend, supposing that he wished to conceal a wound which ought to be looked to, pulled open his shirt, and saw — what made the young man let fall his hands in despair. From between his shirt and his breast the friend took out — a bloody scalp ! "I could not help it," said the poor victim of early habits, in an agonized voice. He turned and ran, too swiftly to be overtaken, betook himself to the Indians, and never more appeared among the whites. An Indian once brought up a young lion, and finding him weak and harmless, did not attempt to control him. Every day the lion gained in strength and be- came more unmanageable, until at last, when excited by rage, he fell upon his master and tore him to pieces. So what seemed to be an " innocent " sin has grown until it strangled him who was once its easy master. Beware of looking at sin, for at each view it is apt to become better looking. Habit is practically, for a middle-aged person, fate ; for is it not practically certain that what I have done for twenty years I shall repeat to-day ? What are the chances for a man who has been lazy and indolent all SOWING AND REAPING, 137 his life starting in to-morrow morning to be indns- trious ; or a spendthrift, frugal ; a libertine, virtuous ; a profane, foul-mouthed man, clean and chaste ? A Grecian flute-player charged double fees for pu- pils who had been taught by inferior masters, on the ground that it was much harder to undo than to form habits. Habit tends to make us permanently what we are for the moment. We cannot possibly hear, see, feel, or experience anything which is not woven in the web of character. What we are this minute and what we do this minute, what we think this minute, will be read in the future character as plainly as words spoken into the phonograph can be reproduced in the future. " The air itself," says Babbage, " is one vast library on whose pages are written forever all that man has ever said, whispered, or done." Every sin you ever committed becomes your boon companion. It rushes to your lips every time you speak, and drags its hideous form into your imagination every time you think. It throws its shadow across your path whichever way you turn. Like Banquo's ghost, it will not down. You are fastened to it for life, and it will cling to you in the vast forever. Do you think yourself free ? You are a slave to every sin you ever committed. They follow your pen and work their own character into every word you write. Rectitude is only the confirmed habit of doing what is right. Some men cannot tell a lie : the habit of truth telling is fixed, it has become incorporated with their nature. Their characters bear the indelible stamp of veracity. You and I know men whose slightest word is unimpeachable ; nothing could shake our confi- dence in them. There are other men who cannot speak the truth : their habitual insincerity has made a twist in their characters, and this twist appears in their speech. 138 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. "I never in my life committed more than one act of folly," said Rulhiere one day in the presence of Talley- rand. " But where will it end ? " inquired the latter. It was lifelong. One mistake too many makes all the difference between safety and destruction. How many men would like to go to sleep beggars and wake up Rothschilds or Astors ? How many would fain go to bed dunces and wake up Solomons ? You reap what you have sown. Those who have sown dunce- seed, vice-seed, laziness-seed, always get a crop. They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind. Habit, like a child, repeats whatever is done before it. Oh, the power of a repeated act to get itself repeated again and again ! But, like the wind, it is a power which we can use to force our way in its very teeth as does the ship, and thus multiply our strength, or we can drift with it without exertion upon the rocks and shoals of destruction. AVhat a great thing it is to "start right" in life. Every young man can see that the first steps lead to the last, with all except his own. No, his little pre- varications and dodgings will not make him a liar, but he can see that they surely will in John Smithh case. He can see that others are idle and on the road to ruin, but cannot see it in his own case. There is a wonderful relation between bad habits. They all belong to the same family. If you take in one, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem, you will soon have the whole. A man who has formed the habit of laziness or idleness will soon be late at his engagements ; a man who does not meet his engage- ments will dodge, apologize, prevaricate, and lie. I have rarely known a perfectly truthful man who was always behind time. You have seen a ship out in the bay swinging with the tide and the waves ; the sails are all up, and you wonder why it does not move ; but it cannot, for down SOWING AND REAPING. 139 beneath the water it is anchored. So we often see a young man apparently well equipped, well educated, and we wonder that he does not advance toward man- hood and character. But, alas ! we find that he is an- chored to some secret vice, and he can never advance until he cuts loose. " The first crime past compels us into more, And guilt gxovi?, fate that was but choice before." " Small habits, well pursued betimes. May reach the dignity of crimes." Thousands can sympathize with David when he cried, " My sins have taken such hold upon me that I am notable to look up; my heart faileth me." Like the damned spot of blood on Lady Macbeth's hand, these foul spots on the imagination will not out. What a penalty nature exacts for physical sins. The gods are just, and " of our pleasant vices make instruments to plague us." Plato wrote over his door, " Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here." The greatest value of the study of the classics and mathematics comes from the habits of accurate and concise thought which it induces. The habit-forming portion of life is the dangerous period, and we need the discipline of close a]3plication to hold us outside of our studies. Washington at thirteen wrote one hundred and ten maxims of civility and good behavior, and was most careful in the formation of all habits. Franklin, too, devised a plan of self-improvement and character build- ing. No doubt the noble characters of these two men, almost superhuman in their excellence, are the natural result of their early care and earnest striving towards perfection. Fielding, describing a game of cards between Jona- than Wild, of pilfering propensities, and a professional gambler, says : " Such was the power of habit over the minds of these illustrious persons, that Mr. Wild could 140 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. not keep his hands out of the counVs pockets, though he knew they were empty ; nor could the count abstain from palming a card, though he was well aware Mr. Wild had no money to pay him." "Habit," says Montaigne, " is a violent and treacher- ous schoolmistress. She, by little and little, slyly and unperceived, slips in the foot of her authority, but hav- ing by this gentle and humble beginning, with the aid of time, fixed and established it, she then unmasks a furi- ous and tyrannic countenance against which we have no more the courage nor the power so much as to lift up our eyes." It led a New York man actually to cut off his hand with a cleaver under a test of what he would resort to, to get a glass of whiskey. It has led thou- sands of nature's noblemen to drunkards' and libertines' graves. Gough's life is a startling illustration of the power of habit, and of the ability of one apparently a hopeless slave to break his fetters and walk a free man in the sunlight of heaven. He came to America when nine years old. Possessed of great powers of song, of mim- icry, and of acting, and exceedingly social in his tastes, a thousand temptations "Widened and strewed with flowers the way Down to eternal ruin." " I would give this right hand to redeem those terri- ble seven years of dissipation and death," he would often say in after years when, with his soul still scarred and battered from his conflict with blighting passion, he tearfully urged young men to free themselves from the chains of bestial habits. In the laboratory of Faraday a workman one day knocked into a jar of acid a silver cup ; it disappeared, was eaten up by the acid, and could not be found. The qviestion came up whether it could ever be found. The great chemist came in and put certain chemicals into the jar, and every particle of the silver was precipi- SOWING AND REAPING. 141 tated to the bottom. The mass was then sent to a sil- versmith, and the cup restored. So a precious youth who has fallen into the sink of iniquity, lost, dissolved in sin, can only be restored by the Great Chemist. What is put into the first of life is put into the whole of life. ''Out of a church of twenty-seven hundred members, I have never had to exclude a single one who was received while a child," said Spurgeon. It is the earliest sin that exercises the most influence for evil. Benedict Arnold was the only general in the Eevolu- tion that disgraced his country. He had great military talent, wonderful energy, and a courage equal to any emergency. But Arnold did not start right. Even when a boy he was despised for his cruelty and his selfish- ness. He delighted in torturing insects and birds that he might watch their sufferings. He scattered pieces of glass and sharp tacks on the floor of the shop he was tending, to cut the feet of the barefooted boys. Even in the army, in spite of his bravery, the soldiers hated him, and the officers dared not trust him. Let no man trust the first false step Of guilt; it hangs upon a precipice, Whose steep descent in last perdition ends. Young. Years ago there was a district lying near Westmin- ster Abbey, London, called the " Devil's Acre," — a school for vicious habits, where depravity was univer- sal ; where professional beggars were fitted with all the appliances of imposture ; where there was an agency for the hire of children to be cari^ied about by forlorn widows and deserted wives, to move the compassion of street-giving benevolence ; where young pickpockets were trained in the art and mystery which was to con- duct them in due course to an expensive voyage for the good of their country to Botany Bay. Victor Hugo describes a strange association of men in the seventeenth century who bought children and dis- 142 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. torted and made monstrosities of them to amuse the nobility with ; and in cultured Boston there is an asso- ciation of so-called " respectable men," who have oj)ened thousands of " places of business " for deforming men, women, and children's souls. But we deform ourselves with agencies so pleasant that we think we are having a good time, until we become so changed and enslaved that we scarcely recognize ourselves. Vice, the pleasant guest which we first invited into our heart's parlor, becomes vulgarly familiar, and intrenches herself deep in our very being. We ask her to leave, but she simply laughs at us from the hideous wrinkles she has made in our faces, and refuses to go. Our secret sins defy us from the hideous furrows they have cut in our cheeks. Each im- pure thought has chiseled its autograph deep into the forehead, too deep for erasure ; and the glassy, bleary eye adds its testimony to our ruined character. The devil does not apply his match to the hard coal ; but he first lights the shavings of " innocent sins," and the shavings the wood, and the wood the coal. Sin is gradual. It does not break out on a man until it has long circulated through his system. Murder, adultery, theft, are not committed in deed until they have been committed in thought again and again. " Don't write there," said a man to a boy who was writing with a diamond pin on a pane of glass in the window of a hotel. " Why not ? " inquired the boy. " Because you can't rub it out." Yet the glass might have been broken and all trace of the writing lost, but things written upon the human soul can never be re- moved, for the tablet is immortal. "In all the wide range of accepted British maxims," said Thomas Hughes, " there is none, take it all in all, more thoroughly abominable than this one, as to the sowing of wild oats. Look at it on what side you will, and I defy you to make anything but a devil's maxim of it. What man, be he young, old, or middle-aged, SOWING AND REAPING. 143 sows, that, and nothing else, shall he reap. The only thing to do with wild oats is to put them carefully into the hottest part of the hre, and get them burnt to dust, every seed of them. If you sow them, no matter in what ground, up they will come with long, tough roots and luxuriant stalks and leaves, as sure as there is a sun in heave'n. The devil, too, whose special crop they are, will see that they thrive, and you, and nobody else, will have to reap them." We scatter seeds with careless hand, And dream we ne'er shall see them more; But for a thousand years Their fruit appears, In weeds that mar the land. John Keble. Theodora boasted that she could draw Socrates' disci- ples away from him. " That may be," said the philoso- pher, " for you lead them down an easy descent whereas I am forcing them to mount to virtue — an arduous as- cent and unknown to most men." " When I am told of a sickly student," said Daniel Wise, " that he is ' studying himself to death,' or of a feeble young mechanic, or clerk, that his hard work is destroying him, I study his countenance, and there, too often, read the real, melancholy truth in his dull, averted, sunken eye, discolored skin, and timid manner. These signs proclaim that the young man is in some way vio- lating the laws of his physical nature. He is secretl}^ destroying himself. Yet, say his unconscious and ad- miring friends, ^ He is falling a victim to his own dili- gence ! ' Most lame and impotent"" conclusion ! He is sapping the very source of life, and erelong will be a mind in ruins or a heap of dust. Young man, beware of his example ! ' Keep thyself pure ; ' observe the laws of your x^hysical nature, and the most unrelaxing indus- try will never rob you of a month's health, nor shorten the thread of your life ; for industry and health are com- panions, and long life is the heritage of diligence." 144 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. "How shall I a habit break V " As you did that habit make. As you gathered, you must lose ; As you yielded, now refuse. Thread by thread the strands we twist Till they bind us neck and wrist. Thread by thread the patient hand Must untwine ere free we stand. As we builded, stone by stone, "We must toil, unhelped, alone. Till the wall is overthrown. But remember, as we try, Lighter every test goes by; Wading in, the stream grows deep Toward the centre's downward sweep; Backward turn, each step ashore Shallower is than that before. Ah, the precious years we waste Leveling what we raised in haste ; Doing what must be undone, Ere content or love be won ! First across the gulf we cast Kite-borne threads till lines are passed, And habit builds the bridge at last. John Boyle O'Reilly. JAMES A. GARFIELD-, 'The weak, the leaning, the dependent, the vacillating Know not, nor ever can, the generous pride That glows in him, who on himself relies : His joy is not tliat he has won the crown, But that the power to win the crown is his." CHAPTER VIII. SELF-HELP. I learned that no man in God's wide earth is either willing or able to help any other man. — Pestalozzi. What I am I have made myself. — Humphry Davy. Be sure, my son, and remember that the best men always make them- selves. — Patrick Henry. Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the blow ? Byron. God gives every bird its food, but he does not throw it into the nest. — J. G. Holland. Never forget that others will depend upon you, and that you cannot depend upon them. — Dumas, Fils. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to Heaven. — Shakespeare. The best education in the world is that got by struggling to obtain a liv- ing. — W^endell Phillips. Every person has two educations, one which he receives from others, and one, more important, which he gives himself. — Gibbon. What the superior man seeks is in himself: what the small man seeks is in others. — Confucius. Who waits to have his task marked out. Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled. Lowell. In battle or business, whatever the game, In law, or in love, it 's ever the same : In the struggle for power, or scramble for pelf, Let this be your motto, "Rely on yourself." Saxe. Let every eye negotiate for itself, And trust no agent. Shakespeare. ^' Colonel Crockett makes room for himself ! " ex- claimed a backwoods congressman in answer to the exclamation of the White House usher to " Make room for Colonel Crockett ! " This remarkable man was not afraid to oppose the head of a great nation. He pre- 146 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. ferred being right to being president. Though rough, uncultured, and uncouth, Crockett was a man of great courage and determination. Garfield was the youngest member of the House of Eepresentatives when he entered, but he had not been in his seat sixty days before his ability was recognized and his place conceded. He stepped to the front with the confidence of one who belonged there. He suc- ceeded because all the world in concert could not have kept him in the background, and because when once in the front he played his part with an intrepidity and a commanding ease that were but the outward evidences of the immense reserves of energy on which it was in his power to draw. " Take the place and attitude which belong to you," says Emerson, " and all men acquiesce. The world must be just. It leaves every man with profound un- concern to set his own rate." Grant was no book soldier. Some of his victories were contrary to all instructions in military works. He did not dare to disclose his plan to invest Vicksburg, and he even cut off all communication on the Missis- sippi Eiver for seven days that no orders could reach him from General Halleck, his superior officer ; for he knew that Halleck went by books, and he was proceed- ing contrary to all military theories. He was making a greater military history than had ever been written up to that time. He was greater than all books of tactics. The consciousness of power is everything. That man is strongest who owes most to himself. " Man, it is within yourself," says Pestalozzi, " it is in the inner sense of your power that resides nature's instrument for your development." Eichard Arkwright, the thirteenth child, in a hovel, with no education, no chance, gave his spinning model to the world, and put a sceptre in England's right hand such as the queen never wielded. SELF-HELP. 147 " A person under the firm persuasion that he can com- mand resources virtually has them/' says Livy. Solario, a wandering gypsy tinker, fell deeply in love with the daughter of the painter Coll' Antonio del Fiore, but was told that no one but a painter as good as the father should wed the maiden. " Will you give me ten 3''ears to learn to paint, and so entitle myself to the hand of your daughter ? " Consent was given, Coll' Antonio thinking that he would never be troubled fur- ther by the gypsy. About the time that the ten years were to end the king's sister showed Coll' Antonio a Madonna and Child, which the painter extolled in terms of the highest praise. Judge of his surprise on learn- ing that Solario was the artist. But later, his son-in- law surprised him even more by his rare skill. Louis Philippe said he was the only sovereign in Europe fit to govern, for he could black his own boots. When asked to name his family coat-of-arms, a self- made President of the United States replied, " A pair of shirtsleeves." "Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify," said James A. G-arfield ; " but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim for himself. In all my acquaintance I have never known a man to be drowned who was worth the saving." It is not the men who have inherited most, except it be in nobility of soul and purpose, who have risen high- est ; but rather the men with no " start " who have won fortunes, and have made adverse circumstances a spur to goad them up the steep mount, where " Fame's proud temple shines afar." To such men, every possible goal is accessible, and hon- est ambition has no height that genius or talent may tread, which has not felt the impress of their feet. You may leave your millions to your son, but have you really given him anything ? You cannot transfer 148 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. the discipline, the experience, the power which the ac- quisition has given you ; you cannot transfer the de- light of achieving, the joy felt only in growth, the pride of acquisition, the character which trained habits of accuracy, method, promptness, patience, dispatch, hon- esty of dealing, politeness of manner have developed. You cannot transfer the skill, sagacity, prudence, fore- sight, which lie concealed in your wealth. It meant a great deal for you, but means nothing to your heir. In climbing to your fortune, you developed the muscle, stamina, and strength which enabled you to maintain your lofty position, to keep your millions intact. You had the power which comes only from experience, and which alone enables you to stand firm on your dizzy height. Your fortune was experience to you, joy, growth, discipline, and character ; to him it will be a temptation, an anxiety, which will probably dAvarf him. It was wings to you, it will be a dead weight to him ; it was education to you and expansion of your highest powers ; to him it may mean inaction, lethargy, indo- lence, weakness, ignorance. You have taken the price- less spur — necessity — away from him, the spur which has goaded man to nearly all the great achievements in the history of the world. You thought it a kindness to deprive yourself in order that your son might begin where you left off. You thought to spare him the drudgery, the hardships, the deprivations, the lack of opportunities, the meagre edu- cation, which you had on the old farm. But you have put a crutch into his hand instead of a staff ; you have taken away from him the incentive to self-development, to self -elevation, to self -discipline and self-help, without which no real success, no real happiness, no great char- acter is ever possible. His enthusiasm will evaporate, his energy will be dissipated, his ambition, not being stimulated by the struggle for self-elevation, will grad- ually die away. If you do everything for your son and SELF-HELP. 149 fight his battles for him, you will have a weakling on your hands at twenty -one. *^ My life is a wreck/' said the dying Cyrus W. Field, ^^ my fortune gone, my home dishonored. Oh, I was so unkind to Edward when I thought I was being kind. If I had only had firmness enough to compel my boys to earn their living, then they would have known the meaning of money." His table was covered with med- als and certificates of honor from many nations, in recognition of his great work for civilization in mooring two continents side by side in thought, of the fame he had won and could never lose. But grief shook the sands of life as he thought only of the son who had brought disgrace upon a name before unsullied ; the wounds were sharper than those of a serpent's tooth. During the great financial crisis of 1857 Maria Mitch- ell, who was visiting England, asked an English lady what became of daughters when no property was left them. " They live on their brothers," was the reply. " But what becomes of the American daughters," asked the English lady, "when there is no money left?" " They earn it," was the reply. Men who have been bolstered up all their lives are seldom good for anything in a crisis. When misfortune comes, they look around for somebody to lean upon. If the prop is not there down they go. Once down, they are as helpless as capsized turtles, or unhorsed men in armor. Many a frontier boy has succeeded beyond all his expectations simply because all props were knocked out from under him and he was obliged to stand upon his own feet. " A man's best friends are his ten fingers," said Rob- ert CoUyer, who brought his wife to America in the steerage. Young men who are always looking for some- thing to lean upon never amount to anything. There is no manhood mill which takes in boys and turns out men. What you call " no chance " may be 150 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. your " only chance." Don't wait for your place to be made for 3^ou ; make it yourself. Don't wait for some- body to give you a lift ; lift yourself. Henry Ward Beecher did not wait for a call to a big church with a large salary. He accepted the first pastorate offered him, in a little town near Cincinnati. He became liter- ally the light of the church, for he trimmed the lamps, kindled the fires, swept the rooms, and rang the bell. His salary was only about $200 a year, — but he knew that a fine church and great salary cannot make a great man. It was work and opportunity that he wanted. ,He felt that if there was anything in him work would bring it out. '' Physiologists tell us," says Waters, "that it takes twenty-eight years for the brain to attain its full devel- opment. If this is so, why should not one be able, by his own efforts, to give this long-growing organ a par- ticular bent, a peculiar character ? Why should the will not be brought to bear upon the formation of the brain as well as of the backbone ? " The will is merely our steam power, and we may put it to any work we please. It will do our bidding, whether it be building up a character, or tearing it down. It may be applied to building up a habit of truthfulness and honesty, or of falsehood and dishonor. It will help build up a man or a brute, a hero or a coward. It will brace up reso- lution until one may almost perform miracles, or it may be dissipated in irresolution and inaction until life is a wreck. It will hold you to your task until you have formed a powerful habit of industry and application, until idleness and inaction are painful, or it will lead you into indolence and listlessness until every effort will be disagreeable and success impossible. " The first thing I have to impress upon you is," says J. T. Davidson, " that a good name must be the fruit of one's own exertion. You cannot possess it by patri- mony ; you cannot purchase it with money ; you will SELF-HELP. 151 not light on it by chance ; it is independent of birth, station, talents, and wealth ; it must be the outcome of your own endeavor, and the reward of good principles and honorable conduct. Of all the elements of success in life none is more vital than self-reliance, — a deter- mination to be, under God, the creator of your own reputation and advancement. If difficulties stand in the way, if exceptional disadvantages oppose you, all the better, as long as you have pluck to fight through them; I want each young man here (you will not misunder- stand me) to have faith in himself and, scorning props and buttresses, crutches and life-preservers, to take ear- nest hold of life. Many a lad has good stuff in him that never comes to anything because he slips too easily into some groove of life ; it is commonly those who have a tough battle to begin with that make their mark upon their age." When Beethoven was examining the work of Mosche- les, he found written at the end " Finis, with God's help.'^ He wrote under it " Man, help yourself.'^ A young man stood listlessly watching some anglers on a bridge. He was poor and dejected. At length, approaching a basket filled with fish, he sighed, "If now I had these I would be happy. I could sell them and buy food and lodgings." " I will give you just as many and just as good," said the owner, who chanced to overhear his words, " if you will do me a trifling fa- vor." " And what is that ? " asked the other. " Only to tend this line till I come back ; I wish to go on a short errand." The proposal was gladly accepted. The old man was gone so long that the young man began to get impatient. Meanwhile the fish snapped greedily at the hook, and he lost all his depression in the excite- ment of pulling them in. When the owner returned he had caught a large number. Counting out from them as many as were in the basket, and presenting them to the youth, the old fisherman said, " I fulfill my prom- 152 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. ise from the fish you have caught, to teach you when- ever you see others earning what you need to waste no time in foolish wishing, but cast a line for yourself." A white squall caught a party of tourists on a lake in Scotland, and threatened to capsize the boat. When it seemed that the crisis was really come the largest and strongest man in the party, in a state of intense fear, said, "Let us pray." "No, no, my man," shouted the bluff old boatman ; " let the little mian pray. You take an oar.^^ The greatest curse that can befall a young man is to lean. The grandest fortunes ever accumulated or possessed on earth were and are the fruit of endeavor that had no capital to begin with save energy, intellect, and the will. From Croesus down to Eockefeller the story is the same, not only in the getting of wealth, but also in the acquirement of eminence ; those men have won most who relied most upon themselves. It has been said that one of the most disgusting sights in this world is that of a young man with healthy blood, broad shoulders, presentable calves, and a hun- dred and fifty pounds, more or less, of good bone and muscle, standing with his hands in his pockets longing for help. " The male inhabitants in the Township of Loafer- dom, in the County of Hate work," says a printer's squib, "found themselves laboring under great incon- venience for wa,nt of an easily traveled road between Poverty and Independence. They therefore petitioned the Powers that be to levy a tax upon the property of the entire county for the purpose of laying out a mac- adamized highway, broad and smooth, and all the way down hill to the latter place." "It is interesting to notice how some minds seem almost to create themselves," says Irving, "springing up under every disadvantage, and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles." MICHAEL FARADAY " King of two hands." " The world is no longer clay, but rather iron in the hands of its workers, and men must liammer out a place for themselves by steady and rugged blows." SELF-HELP. 153 " Every one is the artificer of his own fortune/' says Sallust. Man is not merely the architect of his own fortune, but he must lay the bricks himself. Bayard Taylor, at twent}' -three, wrote : " I will become the sculptor of my own mind's statue." His biography shows how often the chisel and hammer were in his hands to shape himself into his ideal. " I have seen none, known none, of the celebrities of my time," said Samuel Cox. " All my energy was directed upon one end, to improve my- self." " Man exists for culture," says Goethe ; " not for what he can accomplish, but for what can be accom- plished in him." When young Professor Tyndall was in the govern- ment service, he had no definite aim in life until one day a government ofiicial asked him how he employed his leisure time. " You have five hours a day at your disposal," said he, ^'and this ought to be devoted to systematic study. Had I at your age some one to ad- vise me as I now advise you, instead of being in a sub- ordinate position, I might have been at the head of my department." The very next day young Tyndall began a regular course of study, and went to the University of Marburg, where he became noted for his indomitable industry. He was so poor that he bought a cask, and cut it open for a bathtub. He often rose before daylight to study, while the world was slumbering about him. Labor is the only legal tender in the world to true success. The gods sell everything for that, nothing without it. You will never find success " marked down." The door to the temple of success is never left open. Every one who enters makes his own door which closes behind him to all others. Circumstances have rarely favored great men. They have fought their way to triumph over the road of diflB.- culty and through all sorts of opposition. A lowly be- 154 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. ginning and a humble origin are no bar to a great career. The farmers' boys fill many of the greatest places in legislatures, in syndicates, at the bar, in pulpits, in Congress, to-day. Boys of lowly origin have made many of the greatest discoveries, are presidents of our banks, of our colleges, of our universities. Our poor boys and girls have written many of our greatest books, and have filled the highest places as teachers and journalists. Ask almost any great man in our large cities where he was born, and he will tell you it was on a farm or in a small country village. ^N'early all of the great capitalists of the city came from the country. " 'T is better to be lowly born." The founder of Boston University left Cape Cod for Boston to make his way with a capital of only four dol- lars. Like Horace Greeley, he could find no opening for a boy ; but what of that ? He made an opening. He found a board, and made it into an oyster stand on the street corner. He borrowed a wheelbarrow, and went three miles to an oyster smack, bought three bush- els of oysters, and wheeled them to his stand. Soon his little savings amounted to ^130, and then he bought a horse and cart. This poor boy with no chance kept right on till he became the millionaire Isaac Eich. Chauncey Jerome, the inventor of machine-made clocks, started with two others on a tour through New Jersey, they to sell the clocks, and he to make cases for them. On his way to New York he went through New Haven in a lumber wagon, eating bread and cheese. He afterward lived in a fine mansion in New Haven. Self-help has accomplished about all the great things of the world. How many young men falter, faint, and dally with their purpose because they have no capital to start with, and wait and wait for some good luck to give them a lift. But success is the child of drudgery and perseverance. It cannot be coaxed or bribed ; pay the price and it is yours. Where is the boy to-day who SELF-HELP. 155 has less chance to rise in the workl than Elihu Burritt, apprenticed to a blacksmith, in whose shop he had to work at the forge all the daylight, and often by candle- light ? Yet, he managed, by studying with a book be- fore him at his meals, carrying it in his pocket that he might utilize every spare moment, and studying nights and holidays, to pick up an excellent education in the odds and ends of time which most boys throw away. While the rich boy and the idler were yawning and stretching and getting their eyes open, young Burritt had seized the opportunity and improved it. At thirty years of age he was master of every important language in Europe and was studying those of Asia. What chance had such a boy for distinction ? Prob- ably not a single youth will read this book who has not a better opportunity for success. Yet he had a thirst for knowledge, and a desire for self-improvement, which overcame every obstacle in his pathway. A wealthy gentleman offered to pay his expenses at Harvard ; but no, he said he could get his education himself, even though he had to work twelve or fourteen hours a day at the forge. Here was a determined boy. He snatched every spare moment at the anvil and forge as though it were gold. He believed, with Gladstone, that thrift of time would repay him in after years with usury, and that waste of it would make him dwindle. Think of a boy working nearly all the daylight in a blacksmith's shop, and yet finding time to study seven languages in a sin- gle year ! If the youth of America who are struggling against cruel circumstances, to do something and be somebody in *the world, could only understand that ninety per cent, of what is called genius is merely the result of persist- ent, determined industr}^, is in most cases downright hard work, that it is the slavery to a single idea which has given to many a mediocre talent the reputation of being a genius, they would be inspired with new hope. 156 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. It is interesting to note that the men who talk most about genius are the men who like to work the least. The lazier the man, the more he will have to say about great things being done by genius. The greatest geniuses have been the greatest workers. Sheridan was considered a genius, but it was found that the " brilliants " and " off-hand sayings " with which he used to dazzle the House of Commons were elaborated, polished and repolished, and put down in his memoran- dum book ready for any emergency. Genius has been well defined as the infinite capacity for taking pains. If men who have done great things could only reveal to the struggling youth of to-day how much of their reputations was due to downright hard digging and plodding, what an uplift of inspiration and encouragement they would give. How often I have wished that the discouraged, struggling youth could know of the heart-aches, the head-aches, the nerve-aches, the disheartening trials, the discouraged hours, the fears and despair involved in works which have gained the admiration of the world, but which have taxed the ut- most powers of their authors. You can read in a few minutes or a few hours a poem or a book with only pleasure and delight, but the days and months of weary plodding over details and dreary drudgery often re- quired to produce it would stagger belief. The greatest works in literature have been elaborated and elaborated, line by line, paragraph by paragraph, often rcAvritten a dozen times. The drudgery which literary men have put into the productions which have stood the test of time is almost incredible. Lucretius worked nearly a lifetime on one poem. It completely absorbed his life. It is said that Bryant rewrote " Thanatopsis " a hundred times, and even then was not satisfied with it. John Foster would sometimes linger a week over a single sentence. He would hack, split, prune, pull up by the roots, or practice any other SELF-HELP. 157 severity on whatever he wrote, till it gained his consent to exist. Chalmers was once asked what Foster was about in London. " Hard at it/' he replied, " at the rate of a line a week." Dickens, one of the greatest writers of modern fiction, was so worn down by hard work that he looked as "haggard as a murderer." Even Lord Bacon, one of the greatest geniuses that ever lived, left large numbers of MSS. filled with " sudden thoughts set down for use." Hume toiled thir- teen hours a day on his " History of England." Lord Eldon astonished the world with his great legal learn- ing, but when he was a student too poor to buy books, he had actually borrowed and copied many hundreds of pages of large law books, such as Coke upon Littleton, thus saturating his mind with legal principles which afterward blossomed out into what the world called remarkable genius. Matthew Hale for years studied law sixteen hours a day. Speaking of Fox, some one declared that he wrote " drop by drop." Eousseau says of the labor involved in his smooth and lively style : "My manuscripts, blotted, scratched, interlined, and scarcely legible, attest the trouble they cost me. There is not one of them which I have not been obliged to transcribe four or five times before it went to press. . . . Some of my periods I have turned or returned in my head for five or six nights before they were fit to be put to paper." It is said that Waller spent a whole summer over ten lines in one of his poems. Beethoven probably sur- passed all other musicians in his painstaking fidelity and persistent application. There is scarcely a bar in his music that was not written and rewritten at least a dozen times. His favorite maxim was, " The barriers are not yet erected which can say to aspiring talent and industry ' thus far and no further.' " Gibbon wrote his autobiography nine times, and was in his study every morning, summer and winter, at six o'clock ; 158 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. and yet youth who waste their evenings wonder at the genius which can produce " The Decline and Fall of the Koman Empire/' upon which Gibbon worked twenty years. Even Plato, one of the greatest writers that ever lived, wrote the first sentence in his " Kepub- lic" nine different ways before he was satisfied with it. Burke's famous " Letter to a Noble Lord," one of the finest things in the English language, was so com- pletely blotted over with alterations when the proof was returned to the printing-oliice that the compositors refused to correct it as it was, and entirely reset it. Burke wrote the conclusion of his speech at the trial of Hastings sixteen times, and Butler wrote his famous " Analogy " twenty times. It took Virgil seven years to write his Georgics, and twelve years to write the uEneid. He was so displeased with the latter that he attempted to rise from his deathbed to commit it to the flames. Haydn was very poor; his father was a coachman and he, friendless and lonely, married a servant girl. He was sent away from home to act as errand boy for a music teacher. He absorbed a great deal of informar tion, but he had a hard life of persecution until he be- came a barber in Vienna. Here he blacked boots for an influential man, who became a friend to him. In 1798 this poor boy's oratorio, "The Creation," came upon the musical world like the rising of a new sun which never set. He was courted by princes and dined with kings and queens ; his reputation was made ; there was no more barbering, no more poverty. But of his eight hundred compositions, "The Creation" eclipsed them all. He died while Napoleon's guns were bom- barding Vienna, some of the shot falling in his gar- den. The greatest creations of musicians were written with an effort, to fill the " aching void " in the human heart. Frederick Douglass, America's most representative SELF-HELP. 159 colored man, born a slave, was reared in bondage, liber- ated by liis own exertions, educated and advanced by sheer pluck and perseverance to distinguished posi- tions in the service of his country, and to a high place in the respect and esteem of the whole world. When a man like Lord Cavanagh, without arms or legs, manages to put himself into Parliament, when a man like Francis Joseph Campbell, a blind man, be- comes a distinguished mathematician, a musician, and a great philanthropist, we get a hint as to what it means to make the most possible out of ourselves and oppor- tunities. Perhaps ninety-nine out of a hundred under such unfortunate circumstances would be content to remain helpless objects of charity for life. If it is your call to acquire money power instead of brain power, to acquire business power instead of professional power, double your talent just the same, no matter what it may be. A glover's apprentice of Glasgow, Scotland, who was too poor to afford even a candle or a fire, and who studied by the light of the shop windows in the streets, and when the shops were closed climbed the lamp-post, holding his book in one hand, and clinging to the lamp-post with the other, — this poor boy, with less chance than almost any boy in America, became the most eminent scholar of Scotland. Francis Parkman, half blind, became one of Amer- ica's greatest historians in spite of everything, because he made himself such. Personal value is a coin of one's own minting; one is taken at the worth he has put into himself. Franklin was but a poor printer's boy, whose highest luxury at one time was only a penny roll, eaten in the streets of Philadelphia. Eichard Ark- wright, a barber all his earlier life, as he rose from poverty to wealth and fame, felt the need of correcting the defects of his early education. After his fiftieth year he devoted two hours a day, snatched from his 160 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. sleep, to improving himself in orthography, grammar, and writing. Michael Faraday was a poor boy, son of a black- smith, who apprenticed him at the age of thirteen to a bookbinder in London. Michael laid the foundations of his future greatness by making himself familiar with the contents of the books he bound. He remained at night, after others had gone, to read and study the precious volumes. Lord Tenterden was proud to point out to his son the shop where his father had shaved for a penny. A French doctor once taunted Flechier, Bishop of Nismes, who had been a tallow-chandler in his youth, with the meanness of his origin, to which he replied, " If you had been born in the same condition that I was, you would still have been but a maker of candles." The Duke of Argyle, walking in his garden, saw a Latin copy of Newton's " Principia " on the grass, and supposing that it had been taken from his library, called for some one to carry it back. Edmund Stone, however, the son of the duke's gardener, claimed it. " Yours ? " asked the surprised nobleman. " Do you understand geometry, Latin, and Newton ? " "I know a little of them," replied Edmund. " But how," asked the duke, " came you by the knowledge of all these things ? " "A servant taught me to read ten years since," answered Stone. " Does one need to know anything more than the twenty-four letters, in order to learn everything else that one wishes ? " The duke was astonished. " I first learned to read," said the lad ; " the masons were then at work upon your house. I approached them one day and observed that the architect used a rule and com- passes, and that he made calculations. I inquired what might be the meaning and use of these things, and I was informed that there was a science called arithmetic. I purchased a book of arithmetic and learned it. I was told that there was another science called geometrj^ ; I SELF-HELP. 161 bought the necessary books and learned geometry. By reading I found that there were good books on these sciences in Latin, so I bought a dictionary and learned Latin. I understood, also, that there were good books of the same kind in French ; I bought a dictionary, and learned French. This, my lord, is what I have done j it seems to me that we may learn everytliing when we know the twenty-four letters of the alphabet." Edwin Chadwick, in his rex3ort to the British Parlia- ment, stated that children, working on half time, that is, studying three hours a day and working the rest of their time out of doors, really made the greatest intel- lectual progress during the year. Business men have often accomplished wonders during the busiest lives by simply devoting one, two, three, or four hours daily to study or other literary work. James Watt received only the rudiments of an educa- tion at school, for his attendance was irregular on ac- count of delicate health. He more than made up for all deficiencies, however, by the diligence with which he pursued his studies at home. Alexander V. was a beggar ; he was "born mud, and died marble." William Herschel, placed at the age of fourteen as a musician in the band of the Hanoverian Guards, devoted all his leisure to philosophical studies. He acquired a large fund of general knowledge, and in astronomy, a science in which he was wholly self-instructed, his discoveries entitle him to rank with the greatest astronomers of all time. George Washington was the son of a widow, born under the roof of a Westmoreland farmer ; almost from infancy his lot had been the lot of an orphan. No academy had welcomed him to its shade, no college crowned him with its honors ; to read, to write, to ci- pher, these had been his degrees in knowledge. Shake- speare learned little more than reading and writing at school, but by self-culture he made himself the great 162 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. master among literary men. Burns, too, enjoyed few advantages of education, and his youth was passed in almost abject poverty. James Ferguson, the son of a half-starved peasant, learned to read by listening to the recitations of one of his elder brothers. While a mere boy he discovered several mechanical j)rinciples, made models of mills and spinning - wheels, and by means of beads on strings worked out an excellent map of the heavens. Fergu- son made remarkable things with a common penknife. How many great men have mounted the hill of know- ledge by out-of-the-way paths. Gifford worked his in- tricate problems with a shoemaker's awl on a bit of leather. Eittenhouse first calculated eclipses on his plow-handle. A willfiiids a ivay. Julius Caesar, who has been unduly honored for those great military achievements in which he appears as the scourge of his race, is far more deserving of respect for those wonderful Commentaries, in which his mili- tary exploits are recorded. He attained distinction by his writings on astronomy, grammar, history, and sev- eral other subjects. He was one of the most learned men and one of the greatest orators of his time. Yet his life was spent amid the turmoil of a camp or the fierce struggle of politics. If he found abundant time for study, who may not ? Frederick the Great, too, was busy in camp the greater part of his life, yet whenever a leisure moment came, it was sure to be de- voted to study. He wrote to a friend, " I become every day more covetous of my time ; I render an account of it to myself, and I lose none of it but with great regret." Columbus, while leading the life of a sailor, managed to become the most accomplished geographer and as- tronomer of his time. When Peter the Great, a boy of seventeen, beca^me the absolute ruler of Russia, his subjects were little bet- SELF-HELP. 163 ter than savages, and in himself, even, the passions and propensities of barbarism were so strong that they were frequently exhibited during his whole career. But he determined to transform himself and the Russians into civilized people. He instituted reforms with great en- ergy, and at the age of twenty-six started on a visit to the other countries of Europe for the purpose of learn- ing about their arts and institutions. At Saardam, Holland, he was so impressed with the sights of the great East India dockyard, that he apprenticed himself to a shipbuilder, and helped build the St. Peter, which he promptly purchased. Continuing his travels, after he had learned his trade, he worked in England in paper-mills, saw-mills, rope-yards, watchmaker's shops, and other manufactories, doing the work and receiving the treatment of a common laborer. While traveling, his constant habit was to obtain as much information as he could beforehand with regard to every place he was to visit, and he would demand, " Let me see all." When setting out on his investiga- tions, on such occasions, he carried his tablets in his hand, and whatever he deemed worthy of remembrance was carefully noted down. He would often leave his carriage, if he saw the country people at work by the wayside as he passed along, and not only enter into conversation with them, on agricultural affairs, but ac- company them to their houses, examine their furniture, and take drawings of their implements of husbandry. Thus he obtained much minute and correct knowledge, which he would scarcely have acquired by other means, and which he afterward turned to" admirable account in the improvement of his own country. The ancients said, " Know thyself ; " the nineteenth century says, " Help thyself." Self-culture gives a sec- ond birth to the soul. A liberal education is a true regeneration. When a man is once liberally educated, he will generally remain a man, not shrink to a manikin, 164 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. nor dwindle to a brute. But if he is not properly edu- cated, if he has merely been crammed and stuffed through college, if he has merely a broken-down mem- ory from trying to hold crammed facts euough to pass the examination, he will continue to shrink and shrivel and dwindle, often below his original proportions, for he will lose both his confidence and self-respect, as his crammed facts, which never became a part of himself, evaporate from his distended memory. Many a youth has made his greatest effort in his graduating essay. But, alas ! the beautiful flowers of rhetoric blossomed only to exhaust the parent stock, which blossoms no more forever. In Strasburg geese are crammed with food several times a day by opening their mouths and forcing the pabulum down the throat with the finger. The geese are shut up in boxes just large enough to hold them, and are not allowed to take any exercise. This is done in order to increase enormously the liver for pate de fois gras. So are our youth sometimes stuffed with education. AVhat are the chances for success of students who "cut" recitations or lectures, and gad, lounge about, and dissipate in the cities at night until the last two or three weeks, sometimes the last few days, before examination, when they employ tutors at exorbitant prices with the money often earned by hard-working parents, to stuff their idle brains with the pabulum of knowledge ; not to increase their grasp or power of brain, not to discipline it, not for assimilation into the mental tissue to develop personal power, but to fatten the memory, the liver of the brain ; to fatten it Avith crammed facts until it is sufficiently expanded to insure fifty per cent, in the examination. True teaching will create a thirst for knowledge, and the desire to quench this thirst will lead the eager student to the Pierian spring. " Man might be so edu- cated that all his prepossessions would be truth, and all his feelings virtues." SELF-HELP. 165 Every bit of education or culture is of great advantage in the struggle for existence. The microscope does not create anything new, but it reveals marvels. To educate the eye adds to its magnifying power until it sees beauty where before it saw only ugliness. It reveals a world we never suspected, and finds the greatest beauty even in the commonest things. The eye of an Agassiz could see worlds which the uneducated eye never dreamed of. The cultured hand can do a thousand things the uneducated hand cannot do. It becomes graceful, steady of nerve, strong, skillful, indeed it almost seems to think, so animated is it with intelli- gence. The cultured will can seize, grasp, and hold the possessor, with irresistible power and nerve, to almost superhuman effort. The educated touch can almost perform miracles. The educated taste can achieve won- ders almost past belief. What a contrast this, between the cultured, logical, profound, masterly reason of a Gladstone and that of the hod-carrier who has never developed or educated his reason beyond what is neces- sary to enable him to mix mortar and carry brick. " Culture comes from the constant choice of the best within our reach," says Bulwer. " Continue to cultivate the mind, to sharpen by exercise the genius, to attempt to delight or instruct your race ; and, even supposing you fall short of every model you set before you, sup- posing your name moulder with your dust, still you will have passed life more nobly than the unlaborious herd. Grant that you win not that glorious accident, ' a name below,' how can you tell but that you may have fitted yourself for high destiny and employ, not in the world of men, but of spirits ? The powers of the mind cannot be less immortal than the mere sense of identity ; their acquisitions accompany us through the Eternal Prog- ress, and we may obtain a lower or a higher grade hereafter, in proportion as we are more or less fitted by the exercise of our intellect to comprehend and execute the solemn agencies of God." 166 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. But be careful to avoid that over-intellectual culture which is purchased at the expense of moral vigor. An observant professor of one of our colleges has remarked that " the mind may be so rounded and polished by education, so well balanced, as not to be energetic in any one faculty. In other men not thus trained, the sense of deficiency and of the sharp, jagged corners of their knowledge leads to efforts to fill up the chasms, rendering them at last far better educated men than the polished, easy-going graduate who has just knowledge enough to x^revent consciousness of his ignorance. AVhile all the faculties of the mind should be culti- vated, it is yet desirable that it should have two or three rough-hewn features of massive strength. Young men are too apt to forget the great end of life which is to be and do, not to read and brood over what other men have been and done." In a gymnasium you tug, you expand your chest, you push, pull, strike, run, in order to develop your physi- cal self ; so you can develop your moral and intellec- tual nature only by continued effort. "I repeat that my object is not to give him know- ledge but to teach him how to acquire it at need," said Eousseau. All learning is self-teaching. It is upon the working of the pupil's own mind that his progress in knowledge depends. The great business of the master is to teach the pupil to teach himself. " Thinking, not growth, makes manhood," says Isaac Taylor. "Accustom yourself, therefore, to thinking. Set yourself to understand whatever you see or read. To join thinking with reading is one of the first maxims, and one of the easiest operations." *' How few think justly of the thinking few: How many never think who think they do." THOMAS ALVA EDISON " The Wizard of Menlo Park." " What tlie uorld wants is men who have the nerve and tlie grit to work and wait, whether tlie world applaud or hiss." CHAPTER IX. WORK AND WAIT. What we do upon some great occasion will probably depend on what we already are ; and what we are will be the result of previous years of self- discipline. —H. P. LiDDON. In all matters, before beginning, a diligent preparation should be made. — CiCKRO. I consider a human soul without education like marble in a quarry, which shows none of its inherent beauties until the skill of the polisher sketches out the colors, makes the surface shine, and discovers every ornamental cloud, spot, and vein that runs throughout the body of it. — Addison. Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thou- sand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed. — Geokge Henry Lewes. Use your gifts faithfully, and they shall be enlarged ; practice what you know, and you shall attain to higher knowledge. — Arnold. All good abides with him who waiteth wisel^v. — Thoreau. The more haste, ever the worse speed. — Churchill. Haste trips up its own heels, fetters and stops itself. — Seneca.. " Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast." How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had the seed- time of character ? — Thoreau. I call a complete and generous education that which fits a man to per- form justly, skillfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war. — Milton. The safe path to excellence and success, in every calling, is that of ap- propriate preliminary education, diligent application to learn the art and assiduity in practicing it. — Edward Everett. The more you know, the more you can save 3'ourself and that which be- longs to 3'ou, and do more work with less effort. — Charles Kingsley. " I WAS a mere cipher in that vast sea of human en- terprise," said Henry Bessemer, speaking of his arrival in London in 1831. Although but eighteen years old, and without an acquaintance in the city, he soon made work for himself by inventing a process of copying bas- reliefs on cardboard. His method was so simple that 168 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. one could learn in ten minutes liow to make a die from an embossed stamp for a penny. Having ascertained later that in this way the raised stamps on all official papers in England could easily be forged, he set to work and invented a perforated stamp which could not be forged nor removed from a document. At the pub- lic stamp office he was told by the chief that the government was losing £100,000 a year through the custom of removing stamps from old parchments and using them again. The chief also appreciated the new danger of easy counterfeiting. So he offered Bessemer a definite sum for his process of perforation, or an office for life at eight hundred pounds a year. Bessemer chose the office, and hastened to tell the good news to a young woman with whom he had agreed to share his fortune. In explaining his invention, he told how it would prevent any one from taking a valuable stamp from a document a hundred years old and using it a second time. " Yes," said his betrothed, "I understand that ; but, surely, if all stamps had a date put upon them they could not at a future time be used without detection." This was a very short speech, and of no sx^ecial im- portance if we omit a single word of four letters ; but, like the schoolboy's pins which saved the lives of thou- sands of people annually by not getting swallowed, that little word, by keeping out of the ponderous minds of the British revenue officers, had for a long period saved the government the burden of caring for an additional income of £100,000 a year. And the same little word, if published in its connection, would render Henry's perforation device of far less value than a last year's bird's nest. Henry felt proud of the young woman's ingenuity, and suggested the improvement at the stamp office. As a result his system of perforation was aban- doned and he was deprived of his promised office, the government coolly making use from that day to this, WORK AND WAIT. 169 without compensation, of the idea conveyed by that little insignificant word. So Bessemer's financial prospects were not very en- couraging ; but, realizing that the best capital a young man can have is a capital wife, he at once entered into a partnership which placed at his command the com- bined ideas of two very level heads. The result, after years of thought and experiment, was the Bessemer process of making steel cheaply, which has revolution- ized the iron industry throughout the world. His method consists simply in forcing hot air from below into several tons of melted pig-iron, so as to produce in- tense combustion ; and then adding enough spiegel-eisen (looking-glass iron), an ore rich in carbon, to change the whole mass to steel. He discovered this simple process only after trying in vain much more difficult and expen- sive methods. " All things come round to him who will but wait." The great lack of the age is want of thoroughness. How seldom you find a young man or woman who is willing to take time to prepare for his life work. A little education is all they want, a little smattering of books, and then they are ready for business. " Can't wait " is characteristic of the century, and is written on everything ; on commerce, on schools, on society, on churches. Can't wait for a high school, sem- inary, or college. The boy can't wait to become a youth, nor the youth a man. Youth rush into business with no great reserve of education or drill ; of course they do poor, feverish work, and break down in middle life, and many die of old age in the forties. Everybody is in a hurry. Buildings are rushed up so quickly that they will not stand, and everything is made " to sell." Not long ago a professor in one of our universities had a letter from a young woman in the West, asking him if he did not think she could teach elocution if she could come to the university and take twelve lessons. 170 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. Our young people of to-day want something, and want it quickly. They are not willing to lay broad, deep founda- tions. The weary years in preparatory school and col- lege dishearten them. They only want a " smattering " of an education. But as Pope says, — " A little learning is a dangerous thing ; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again." The shifts to cover up ignorance, and "the constant trembling lest some blunder should expose one's empti- ness/' are pitiable. Short cuts and abridged methods are the demand of the hour. But the way to shorten the road to success is to take plenty of time to lay in your reserve power. You can't stop to forage your provender as the army advances ; if you do the enemy will get there first. Hard work, a definite aim, and faithfulness, will shorten the way. Don't risk a life's superstructure upon a day's foundation. Unless you have prepared yourself to profit by your chance, the opportunity will only make you ridiculous. A great occasion is valuable to you just in proportion as you have educated yourself to make use of it. Beware of that fatal facility of thoughtless speech and super- ficial action which has misled many a young man into the belief that he could make a glib tongue or a deft hand take the place of deep study or hard work. Patience is nature's motto. She works ages to bring a flower to perfection. What will she not do for the greatest of her creation ? Ages and aeons are nothing to her, out of them she has been carving her great statue, a perfect man. Johnson said a man must turn over half a library to write one book. When an authoress told Wordsworth she had spent six hours on a poem, he replied that he would have spent six weeks. Think of Bishop Hall spending thirty years on one of his works. Owens WORK AND WAIT. 171 was working on the " Commentary to the Epistle to the Hebrews " for twenty years. Moore spent several weeks on one of his musical stanzas which reads as if it were a dash of genius. Carlyle wrote with the utmost diffi- culty, and never executed a page of his great histories till he had consulted every known authority, so that every sentence is the quintessence of many books, the product of many hours of drudging research in the great libraries. To-day, " Sartor Resartus " is everywhere. "You can get it for a mere trifle at almost any book- seller's, and hundreds of thousands of copies are scat- tered over the world. But when Carlyle brought it to London in 1851, it was refused almost contemptuously by three prominent publishers. At last he managed to get it into " Eraser's Magazine," the editor of which con- veyed to the author the pleasing information that his work had been received with "unqualified disappro- bation." Henry Ward Beecher sent a half dozen arti- cles to the publisher of a religious paper to pay for his subscription, but they were respectfully declined. The publishers of the " Atlantic Monthly " returned Miss Al- cott's manuscript, suggesting that she had better stick to teaching. One of the leading magazines ridiculed Ten- nyson's first poems, and consigned the young poet to oblivion. Only one of Ralph Waldo Emerson's books had a remunerative sale. Washington Irving was nearly seventy years old before the income from his books paid the expenses of his household. In some respects it is very unfortunate that the old system of binding boys out to a trade has been aban- doned. To-day very few boys learn any trade. They pick up what they know, as they go along, just as a student crams for a particular examination, just to "get through," without any effort to see how much he may learn on any subject. Think of an American youth spending twelve years with Michael Angelo, studying anatomy that he might 172 ARCHITECTS OF FATE, create the masterpiece of all art ; or with Da Yinci de- voting ten years to the model of an equestrian statue that he might master the anatomy of the horse. Most young American artists would expect, in a quarter of that time, to sculpture an Apollo Belvidere. While Michael Angelo was painting the Sistine Chapel he would not allow himself time for meals or to dress or undress ; but he kept bread within reach that he might eat when hunger impelled, and he slept in his clothes. A rich man asked Howard Burnett to do a little thing for his album. Burnett complied and charged a thou- sand francs. " But it took you only five minutes," ob- jected the rich man. " Yes, but it took me thirty years to learn how to do it in five minutes." " I prepared that sermon," said a young sprig of di- vinity, " in half an hour, and preached it at once, and thought nothing of it." " In that," said an older min- ister, " your hearers are at one with you, for they also thought nothing of it." What the age wants is men who have the nerve and the grit to work and wait, whether the world applaud or hiss. It wants a Bancroft, who can spend twenty-six years on the " History of the United States ; " a Noah Webster, Avho can devote thirty-six years to a dictionary ; a Gibbon, who can plod for twenty years on the " Decline and Fall of the Eoman Empire ; " a Mirabeau, who can struggle on for forty years before he has a chance to show his vast reserve, destined to shake an empire ; a Farragut, a Yon Moltke, who have the persistence to work and wait for half a century for their first great opportunities ; a Garfield, burning his lamp fifteen min- utes later than a rival student in his academy ; a Grant, fighting on in heroic silence, when denounced by his brother generals and politicians everywhere ; a Field's untiring perseverance, spending years and a fortune lay- ing a cable when all the world called him a fool ; a WORK AND WAIT. 173 Michael Angelo, working seven long years decorating the Sistine Chapel with his matchless ^' Creation " and the " Last Judgment," refusing all remuneration there- for, lest his pencil might catch the taint of avarice ; a Titian, spending seven years on the " Last Supper ; " a Stephenson, working fifteen years on a locomotive ; a Watt, twenty years on a condensing engine ; a Lady Franklin, working incessantly for twelve long years to rescue her husband from the j^olar seas ; a Thurlow Weed, walking two miles through the snow with rags tied around his feet for shoes, to borrow the history of the French Revolution, and eagerly devouring it before the sap-bush fire ; a Milton,' elaborating " Paradise Lost " in a world he could not see, and then selling it for fifteen pounds ; a Thackeray, struggling on cheer- fully after his " Vanity Fair " was refused by a dozen publishers ; a Balzac, toiling and waiting in a lonely gar- ret, whom neither poverty, debt, nor hunger could dis- courage or intimidate ; not daunted by privations, not hindered by discouragements. It wants men who can work and wait. When a young lawyer Daniel Webster once looked in vain through all the law libraries near him, and then ordered at an expense of fifty dollars the neces- sary books, to obtain authorities and precedents in a case in which his client was a poor blacksmith. He won his cause, but, on account of the poverty of his client, only charged fifteen dollars, thus losing heavily on the books bought, to say nothing of his time. Years after, as he was passing through New York city, he was consulted by Aaron' Burr on an important but puzzling case then pending before the Supreme Court. He saw in a moment that it was just like the blacksmith's case, an intricate question of title, which he had solved so thoroughly that it was to him now as simple as the multiplication table. Going back to the time of Charles II. he gave the law and precedents in- 174 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. volved with such readiness and accuracy of sequence that Burr asked in great surprise if he had been con- sulted before in the case. "Most certainly not," he replied, " I never heard of your case till this evening." " Very well," said Burr, " proceed ; " and, when he had finished, Webster received a fee that paid him lib- erally for all the time and trouble he had spent for his early client. Albert Bierstadt first crossed the Rocky Mountains with a band of pioneers in 1859, making sketches for the paintings of western scenes for which he had become famous. As he followed the trail to Pike's Peak, he gazed in wonder upon the enormous herds of buffaloes which dotted the j^lains as far as the eye could reach, and thought of the time when they would have disap- peared before the march of civilization. The thought haunted him and found its final embodiment in "' The Last of the Buffaloes " in 1890. To perfect this great work he had spent twenty years. Everything which endures, which will stand the test of time, must have a deep, solid foundation. In Rome the foundation is often the most expensive part of an edifice, so deep must they dig to build on the living rock. Pifty feet of Bunker Hill Monument is under ground ; unseen and unappreciated by those who tread about that historic shaft, but it is this foundation, apparently thrown away, which enables it to stand uj)right, true to the plumb-line through all the tempests that lash its granite sides. A large part of every successful life must be spent in laying foundation stones under ground. Success is the child of drudgery and perseverance and depends upon " knowing how long it takes to succeed." Havelock joined the army at twenty - eight, and for thirty-four years worked and waited for his opportu- nity ; conscious of his power, " fretting as a subaltern while he saw drunkards and fools put above his head." WORK AND WAIT. 175 But during all these years he was fitting himself to lead that marvelous march to Lucknow. It was many years of drudgery and reading a thou- sand volumes that enabled George Eliot to get fifty thousand dollars for "Daniel Deronda." How came writers to be famous ? By writing for years without any pay at all ; by writing hundreds of pages for mere practice work ; by working like galley - slaves at lit- erature for half a lifetime. It was working and wait- ing many long and weary years that put one hundred and twenty -five thousand dollars into " The Angelus." Millet's first attempts were mere daubs, the later were worth fortunes. Schiller "never could get done." Dante sees himself " growing lean over his Divine Comedy." It is working and waiting that gives per- fection. "I do not remember," said Beecher, "a book in all the depths of learning, nor a scrap in literature, nor a mark in all the schools of art, from which its author has derived a permanent renown, that is not known to have been long and patiently elaborated." Endurance is a much better test of character than any one act of heroism, however noble. The pianist Thalberg said he never ventured to per- form one of his celebrated pieces in public until he had played it at least fifteen hundred times. He laid no claim whatever to genius ; he said it was all a ques- tion of hard work. The accomplishments of such in- dustry, such perseverance, would put to shame many a man who claims genius. Before Edmund Kean would 'consent to appear in that character which he acted with such consummate skill. The Gentleman Villain, he practiced constantly before a glass, studying expression for a year and a half. When he appeared upon the stage, Byron, who went to see him with Moore, said he never looked upon so fearful and wicked a face. As the great actor went 176 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. on to delineate the terrible consequences of sin, Byron fainted. " For years I was in my place of business by sunrise," said a wealthy banker who had begun without a dollar ; "and often I did not leave it for fifteen or eighteen hours." Festina lente — hasten slowly — is a good Latin motto. - Patience, it is said, changes the mulberry leaf to satin. The giant oak on the hillside was detained months or years in its upward growth while its roots took a great turn around some rock, in order to gain a hold by which the tree was anchored to withstand the storms of centuries. Da Vinci spent four years on the head of Mona Lisa, perhaps the most beautiful ever painted, but he left therein an artistic thought for all time. Said Captain Bingham : " You can have no idea of the wonderful machine that the German army is and how well it is prepared for war. A chart is made out which shows just what must be done in the case of wars with the different nations. And every officer's place in the scheme is laid out beforehand. There is a schedule of trains which will supersede all other sched- ules the moment war is declared, and this is so arranged that the commander of the army here could telegraph to any officer to take such a train and go to such a place at a moment's notice. When the Franco-Prus- sian war was declared. Von Moltke was awakened at midnight and told of the fact. He said coolly to the official who aroused him, ' Go to pigeonhole No. in my safe and take a paper from it and telegraph as there directed to the different troops of the empire.' He then turned over and went to sleep and awoke at his usual hour in the morning. Every one else in Berlin was excited about the war, but Von Moltke took his morn- ing walk as usual, and a friend who met him said, 'General, you seem to be taking it very easy. Are n't you afraid of the situation ? I should think you would WORK AND WAIT. Ill be busy.' ' Ah/ replied Von Moltke, ' all of my work for this time has been done long beforehand and every- thing that can be done now has been done/ " That is done soon enough which is done well. Soon ripe, soon rotten. He that would enjoy the fruit must not gather the flower. He who is impatient to become his own master is more likely to become his own slave. Better believe yourself a dunce and work away than a genius and be idle. One year of trained thinking is worth more than a whole college course of mental ab- sorption of a vast series of undigested facts. The fa- cility with which the world swallows up the ordinary college graduate who thought he was going to dazzle mankind should bid you pause and reflect. But just as certainly as man was created not to crawl on all fours in the depths of primeval forests, but to develop his mental and moral faculties, just so certainly he needs education, and only by means of it will he become what he ought to become, — man, in the highest sense of the word. Ignorance is not simply the negation of knowledge, it is the misdirection of the mind. "One step in knowledge," says Bulwer, "is one step from sin ; one step from sin is one step nearer to Heaven." A learned clergyman was thus accosted by an illit- erate preacher who despised education : " Sir, you have been to college, I presume ? " " Yes, sir," was the re- ply. " I am thankful," said the former, " that the Lord opened my mouth without any learning." "A similar event," retorted the clergyman, " happened in Balaam's time." " If a cloth were drawn around the eyes of Praxiteles' statue of Love," says Bulwer, "the face looked grave and sad ; but as the bandage was removed, a beautiful smile would overspread the countenance. Even so does the removal of the veil of ignorance from the eyes of the mind bring radiant happiness to the heart of man." A young man just graduated told the President of 178 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. Trinity College that lie had completed his education, and had come to say good-by. " Indeed," said the President, " I have just begun my education." Many an extraordinary man has been made out of a very ordinary boy ; but in order to accomplish this we must begin with him while he is young. It is simply astonishing what training will do for a rough, uncouth, and even dull lad, if he has good material in him, and comes under the tutelage of a skilled educator before his habits have become confirmed. Even a few weeks' or months' drill of the rawest and roughest recruits in the late Civil War so straightened and dignified stooping and uncouth soldiers, and made them so manly, erect, and courteous in their bearing, that their own friends scarcely knew them. If this change is so marked in the youth who has grown to maturity, what a miracle is possible in the lad who is taken early and put under a course of drill and systematic training, both physical, mental, and moral. How many a man who is now in the penitentiary, in the poorhouse, or among the tramps, or living out a miserable existence in the slums of our cities, bent over, uncouth, rough, slovenly, has possibil- ities slumbering within the rags, which would have developed him into a magnificent man, an ornament to the human race instead of a foul blot and scar, had he only been fortunate enough early in life to have come under efficient and systematic training. Laziness begins in cobwebs and ends in iron chains. The more business a man has, the more he can do, for he learns to economize his time. The industry that acquired riches, according to a wise teacher, the patience that is required in obtaining them, the reserved self-control, the measuring of values, the sympathy felt for fellow-toilers, the knowledge of what a dollar costs to the average man, the memory of it — all these things are preservative. But woe to the young farmer who hates farming ; does not like sowing WORK AND WAIT. 179 and reaping ; is impatient with tke dilatory and slow path to a small though secure fortune in the neighbor- hood where he was born, and comes to the city, hoping to become suddenly rich, thinking that he can break into the palace of wealth and rob it of its golden treasures ! Edison described his repeated efforts to make the phonograph reproduce an aspirated sound, and added : " From eighteen to twenty hours a day for the last seven months I have worked on this single word ' specia.' I said into the phonograph ' specia, specia, specia,' but the instrument responded ' pecia, pecia, pecia.' It was enough to drive one mad. But I held firm, and I have succeeded." The road to distinction must be paved with years of self-denial and hard work. Horace Mann, the great author of the common school system of Massachusetts, was a remarkable example of that pluck and patience which can work and wait. His only inheritance was poverty and hard work. But he had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and a deter- mination to get on in the world. He braided straw to get money to buy books which his soul thirsted for. To Jonas Chickering there were no trifles in the manufacture of a piano. Others might work for sala- ries, but he was working for fame and fortune. Neither time nor pains were of any account to him compared with accuracy and knowledge. He could afford to work and wait, for quality, not quantity, was his aim. Fifty years ago the piano was a miserable instrument com- pared with the perfect mechanism of to-day. Chicker- ing was determined to make a piano which would yield the fullest, richest volume of melody with the least exertion to the x^layer, and one which would withstand atmospheric changes and preserve its purity and truth- fulness of tone. And he strove patiently and persist- ently till he succeeded. 180 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. " Thy life, wert thou the pitifullest of all the sons of earth, is no idle dream, but a solemn reality," said Carlyle. " It is thy own. It is all thou hast to com- fort eternity with. Work then like a star, unhasting, yet unresting.'' Gladstone was bound to win ; although he had sjoent many years of preparation for his life work, in spite of the consciousness of marvelous natural endowments which would have been deemed sufficient by many young men, and notwithstanding he had gained the coveted prize of a seat in Parliament, yet he decided to make himself master of the situation ; and amid all his public and private duties, he not only spent eleven terms more in the study of the law, but he studied Greek constantly and read every well written book or paper he could ob- tain, so determined was he that his life should be rounded out to its fullest measure, and that his mind should have broad and liberal culture. Emperor William I. was not a genius, but the secret of his power lay in tireless perseverance. A friend says of him, "When I passed the palace at Berlin night after night, however late, I always saw that grand im- perial figure standing beside the green lamp, and I used to say to myself, ' That is how the imperial crown of Germany was won.' " Ole Bull said, " If I practice one day, I can see the result. If I practice two days my friends can see it ; if I practice three days the great public can see it." The habit of seizing every bit of knowledge, no mat- ter how insignificant it may seem at the time, every opportunity, every occasion, and grinding them all up into experience, cannot be overestimated. You will find use for all of it. Webster once repeated an an- ecdote with effect which he heard fourteen years be- fore, and which he had not thought of in the mean time. It exactly fitted the occasion. " It is an ill mason that rejects any stone." WORK AND WAIT. 181 Webster was once urged to speak on a subject of great importance, but refused, saying lie was very busy and had no time to master the subject. " But," replied his friend, " a very few words from you would do much to awaken public attention to it." Webster replied, " If there be so much weight in my words, it is because I do not allow myself to speak on any subject until my mind is imbued with it." On one occasion Webster made a remarkable speech before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard, when a book was presented to him ; but after he had gone, his "impromptu" speech, carefully written out, was found in the book which he had for- gotten to take away. Demosthenes was once urged to speak on a great and sudden emergency, but replied, " I am not prepared." In fact, it was thought by many that Demosthenes did not possess any genius whatever, because he never allowed himself to speak on any subject without thor- ough preparation. In any meeting or assembly, when called upon, he would never rise, even to make remarks, it was said, without previously preparing himself. Alexander Hamilton said, "Men give me credit for genius. All the genius I have lies just in this : when I have a subject in hand I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. I explore it in all its bear- ings. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort which I make the people are pleased to call the fruit of genius ; it is the fruit of labor and thought." The law of labor is equally binding on genius and me- diocrity. Are the results so distant that you delay the prepa- ration in the hope that fortuitous good luck may make it unnecessary ? As well might the husbandman delay sowing his seed until the spring and summer are past and the ground hardened by the frosts of a rigorous winter. As well might one who is desirous of enjoy- ing firm health inoculate his system with the seeds of 182 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. disease, and expect at such time as he may see fit to recover from its effects, and banish the malady. Nela- ton, the great surgeon, said that if he had four minutes in which to perform an operation on which a life de- pended, he would take one minute to consider how best to do it. " Many men," says Longfellow, " do not allow their princii)les to take root, but pull them up every now and then, as children do flowers they have planted, to see if they are growing." We must not only work, but wait. " The spruce young spark," says Sizer, " who thinks chiefly of his mustache and boots and shiny hat, of getting along nicely and easily during the day, and talk- ing about the theatre, the opera, or a fast horse, ridicul- ing the faithful young fellow who came to learn the business and make a man of himself, because he will not join in wasting his time in dissipation, will see the day, if his useless life is not earlier blasted by vicious indulgences, when he will be glad to accept a situation from his fellow-clerk whom he now ridicules and affects to despise, when the latter shall stand in the firm, dis- pensing benefits and acquiring fortune." " I have been watching the careers of young men by the thousand in this busy city of New York for over thirty years," said Dr. Cuyler, " and I find that the chief difference between the successful and the failures lies in the single element of staying power. Permanent suc- cess is oftener won by holding on than by sudden dash, however brilliant. The easily discouraged, who are pushed back by a straw, are all the time dropping to the rear — to perish or to be carried along on the stretcher of charity. They who understand and practice Abra- ham Lincoln's homely maxim of * pegging away ' have achieved the solidest success." " When a man has done his work," says Euskin, " and nothing can any way be materially altered in his fate, let him forget his toil, and jest with his fate if he will ; WORK AND WAIT. 183 but what excuse can you find for willfulness of thought at the very cime when every crisis of fortune hangs on your decisions ? A youth thoughtless, when all the happiness of his home forever depends on the chances or the passions of the hour ! A youth thoughtless, when the career of all his days depends on the oppor- tunity of a moment ! A youth thoughtless, when his every action is a foundation-stone of future conduct, and every imagination a foundation of life or death ! Be thoughtless in any after years, rather than now — though, indeed, there is only one place where a man may be nobly thoughtless, his deathbed. Nothing should ever be left to be done there." The Duke of Wellington became so discouraged be- cause he did not advance in the army that he applied for a much inferior position in the customs department, but was refused. Napoleon had applied for every va- cant position for seven years before he was recognized, but meanwhile he studied with all his might, supple- menting what was considered a thorough military edu- cation by researches and reflections which in later years enabled him easily to teach the art of war to veterans who had never dreamed of his novel combinations. Reserves which carry us through great emergencies are the result of long working and long waiting. Coll- yer declares that reserves mean to a man also achieve- ment, — " the power to do the grandest thing possible to your nature when you feel you must, or some pre- cious thing will be lost, — to do well always, but best in the crisis on which all things turn; to stand the strain of a long fight, and still find you have something left, and so to never know you are beaten, because you never are beaten." Every defeat is a Waterloo to him who has no reserves. He only is independent in action who has been ear- nest and thorough in preparation and self-culture. " Not for school, but for life, we learn ; " and our habits — of 184 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. promptness, earnestness, and thoroughness, or of tardi- ness, fickleness, and superficiality — are the things ac- quired most readily and longest retained. " One who reads the chronicles of discoveries is struck with the prominent part that accident has played in such annals. For some of the most useful processes and machinery the world is indebted to apparently chance occurrences. Inventors in search of one object have failed in their quest, but have stumbled on some- thing more valuable than that for which they were looking. Saul is not the only man who has gone in search of asses and found a kingdom. Astrologers sought to read from the heavens the fate of men and the fortune of nations, and they led to a knowledge of astronomy. Alchemists were seeking for the philoso- pher's stone, and from their efforts sprung the science of chemistry. Men explored the heavens for something to explain irregularities in the movements of the planets, and discovered a star other than the one for which they were looking. A careless glance at such facts might encourage the delusion that aimless straying in bypaths is quite as likely to be rewarded as is the steady press- ing forward, with fixed purpose, towards some definite goal. " But it is to be remembered that the men who made the accidental discoveries were men who were looking for something. The unexpected achievement was but the return for the toil after what was attained. Others might have encountered the same facts, but only the eye made eager by the strain of long watching would be quick to note the meaning. If vain search for hid- den treasure has no other recompense, it at least gives ability to detect the first gleam of the true metal. Men may wake at times surprised to find themselves famous, but it was the work they did before going to sleep, and not the slumber, that gave the eminence. When the ledge has been drilled and loaded and the proper con- WORK AND WAIT. 185 nections have been made, a child's touch on the electric key may be enough to annihilate the obstacle, but with- out the long preparation the pressure of a giant's hand would be without effect. " In the search for truth and the shaping of character the principle remains the same as in science and litera- ture. Trivial causes are followed by wonderful results, but it is only the merchantman who is on the watch for goodly pearls who is represented as finding the pearl of great price." To vary the language of another, the three great essentials to success in mental and physical labor are Practice, Patience, and Perseverance, but the greatest of these is Perseverance. Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate ; Still achieving, still pursuing. Learn to labor and to wait. Longfellow. CHAPTER X. CLEAR GRIT. I shall show the cinders of my spirits Through the ashes of my chance. Shakespeare. What though ten thousand faint, Desert, or yield, or in weak terror flee ! Heed not the panic of the multitude ; Thine be the captain's watchword, — Victory ! HORATIUS BONAR. Better to stem with heart and hand The roaring tide of life, than lie, Unmindful, on its flower}'- strand, Of God's occasions drifting by! Better with naked nerve to bear The needles of this goading air. Than in the lap of sensual ease forego The godlike power to do, the godlike aim to know. Whittier. Let fortune empty her whole quiver on me, I have a soul that, like an ample shield, Can take in all, and verge enough for more. Dryden. There 's a brave fellow ! There 's a man of pluck ! A man who 's not afraid to say his say, Though a whole town 's against him. Longfellow. Our greatest glor^'- is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. — Confucius. Attempt the end and never stand to doubt; Nothing 's so hard but search will find it out. Herrick. The barriers are not yet erected which shall say to aspiring talent, " Thus far and no farther." — Beethoven. " Friends and comrades," said Pizarro, as he turned toward the south, after tracing with his sword upon the sand a line from east to west, " on that side are toil. ANDREW JACKSON "Old Hickory." " Stick to your aim : tlie mongrel's hold will slip, But only crowbars loose the bull-dog's grip." " The nerve that never relaxes, the eye that never blenches, the thought that never wanders, — these are the masters of victory." CLEAR GRIT. 187 hunger, nakedness, the drenching storm, desertion, and death ; on this side, ease and pleasure. There lies Peru with its riches ; here, Panama and its poverty. Choose, each man, what best becomes a brave Castilian. For my part, I go to the south." So saying, he crossed the line and was followed by thirteen Spaniards in armor. Thus, on the little island of Gallo in the Pacific, when his men were clamoring to return to Panama, did Pizarro and his few volunteers resolve to stake their lives upon the success of a desperate crusade against the powerful empire of the Incas. At the time they had not even a vessel to transport them to the country they wished to conquer. Is it necessary to add that all difficulties yielded at last to such resolute deter- mination ? " Perseverance is a Roman virtue, That wins each godlike act, and plucks success E'en from the spear-proof crest of rugged danger." At a time when abolitionists were dangerously un- popular, a crowd of brawny Cape Cod fishermen had made such riotous demonstrations that all the speakers announced, except Stephen Foster and Lucy Stone, had fled from an open-air platform. " You had better run, Stephen," said she ; " they are coming." " But who will take care of you ? " asked Foster. " This gentle- man will take care of me," she replied, calmly laying her hand within the arm of a burly rioter with a club, who had just sprung upon the platform. " Wh — what did you say ? " stammered the astonished rowdy, as he looked at the little woman ; " yes, I '11 take care of you, and no one shall touch a hair of your head." With this he forced a way for her through the crowd, and, at her earnest request, placed her upon a stump and stood guard with his club while she delivered an address so effective that the audience offered no further violence, and even took up a collection of twenty dollars to repay Mr. Foster for the damage his clothes had received when the riot was at its height. 188 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. "When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as if you could not hold on a minute longer," said Harriet Beecher Stowe, "never give up then, for that's just the place and time that the tide '11 turn." Charles Sumner said, " Three things are necessary : first, backbone ; second, backbone ; third, backbone." While digging among the ruins of Pompeii, which was buried by the dust and ashes from an eruption of Vesuvius, A. D. 79, the workmen found the skeleton of a Koman soldier in the sentry-box at one of the city's gates. He might have found safety under sheltering rocks close by ; but, in the face of certain death, he had remained at his post, a mute witness to the thorough discipline, the ceaseless vigilance and fidelity which made the Eoman legionaries masters of the known world. Bulwer, describing the flight of a party amid the dust, and ashes, and streams of boiling water, and huge hurtling fragments of scoria, and gusty winds, and lurid lightnings, continues : " The air was now still for a few minutes ; the lamp from the gate streamed out far and clear ; the fugitives hurried on. They gained the gate. They passed by the Roman sentry. The lightning flashed over his livid face and polished helmet, but his stern features were composed even in their awe ! He remained erect and motionless at his post. That hour itself had not animated the machine of the ruthless majesty of Rome into the reasoning and self-acting man. There he stood amidst the crashing elements ; he had not received the permission to desert his station and escape." The world admires the man who never flinches from unexpected difiiculties, who calmly, patiently, and cour- ageously grapples with his fate ; who dies, if need be, at his post. " Clear grit " always commands respect. It is that quality which achieves, and everybody admires achieve- CLEAR GRIT. 189 ment. In the strife of parties and principles, backbone without brains will carry against brains without back- bone. " A politician weakly and amiably in the right is no match for a politician tenaciously and pugna- ciously in the wrong." You cannot, by tying an opinion to a man's tongue, make him the representative of that opinion ; at the close of any battle for principles, his name will be found neither among the dead nor among the wounded, but among the missing. The " London Times " was an insignificant sheet pub- lished by Mr. Walter and was steadily losing money. John Walter, Jr., then only twenty-seven years old, begged his father to give him full control of the paper. After many misgivings, the father finally consented. The young journalist began to remodel the establish- ment and to introduce new ideas everywhere. The pa- per had not attempted to mould public opinion, and had no individuality or character of its own. The audacious young editor boldly attacked every wrong, even the government, when he thought it corrupt. Thereupon the public customs, printing, and the government ad- vertisements were withdrawn. The father was in utter dismay. The son he was sure would ruin the paper and himself. But no remonstrance could swerve him from his purpose, to give the world a great journal which should have weight, character, individuality, and inde- pendence. The public soon saw that a new power stood behind the " Times " ; that its articles meant business ; that new life and new blood and new ideas had been infused into the insignificant sheet; that a man with brains and push and tenacity of purpose stood at the helm, — a man who could make a way when he could not find one. Among other new features foreign dispatches were in- troduced, and they appeared in the " Times " several days before their appearance in the government organs. The "leading article " also was introduced to stay. But the 190 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. aggressive editor antagonized tlie government, and his foreign dispatches were all stopped at the ontpost, while those of the ministerial jonrnalists were allowed to proceed. But nothing could daunt this resolute young spirit. At enormous expense he employed spe- cial couriers. Every obstacle put in his way, and all opposition from the government, only added to his de- termination to succeed. Enterprise, push, grit were behind the " Times," and nothing could stay its progress. Walter was the soul of the paper, and his personality pervaded every detail. In those days only three hun- dred copies of the " Times " could be struck off in an hour by the best presses, and Walter had duplicate and even triplicate types set. Then he set his brain to work, and finally the Walter Press, throwing off 17,000 copies, both sides printed, per hour, was the result. It was the 29th of ISTovember, 1814, that the first steam printed pa- per was given to the world. Walter's tenacity of pur- pose was remarkable. He shrank from no undertaking, and neglected no detail. " Mean natures always feel a sort of terror before great natures, and many a base thought has been unut- tered, many a sneaking vote withheld, through the fea.r inspired by the rebuking presence of one noble man." As a rule, pure grit, character, has the right of way. In the presence of men permeated with grit and sound in character, meanness and baseness slink out of sight. Mean men are uncomfortable, dishonesty trembles, hy- pocrisy is uncertain. Lincoln, being asked by an anxious visitor what he would do after three or four years if the rebellion was not subdued, replied : " Oh, there is no alternative but to keep pegging away." " It is in me and it shall come out," said Sheridan, when told that he would never make an orator, as he had failed in his first speech in Parliament. He became known as one of the foremost orators of his day. CLEAR GRIT. 191 When a boy Henry Clay was very bashful and diffi- dent, and scarcely dared recite before his class at school, but he determined to become an orator. So he com- mitted speeches and recited them in the cornfields, or in the barn with the horse and cows for an audience. Look at Garrison reading this advertisement in a Southern paper : " Five thousand dollars will be paid for the head of W. L. Garrison by the Governor of Georgia." Behold him again ; a broadcloth mob is lead- ing him through the streets of Boston by a rope. He is hurried to jail. See him return calmly and unflinch- ingly to his work, beginning at the point at which he was interrupted. Note this heading in the " Liberator," the type of which he set himself in an attic on State Street, in Boston : " I am in earnest, I will not equivo- cate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard." Was Garrison heard ? Ask a race set free largely by his efforts. Even the gallows erected in front of his own door did not daunt him. He held the ear of an unwilling world with that burning word "freedom," which was destined never to cease its vibrations until it had breathed its sweet secret to the last slave. If impossibilities ever exist, popularly speaking, they ought to have been found somewhere between the birth and the death of Kitto, that deaf pauper and master of Oriental learning. But Kitto did not find them there. In the presence of his decision and imperial energy they melted away. Kitto begged his father to take him out of the poorhouse, even if he had to subsist like the Hottentots. He told him that h^e would sell his books and pawn his handkerchief, by which he thought he could raise about twelve shillings. He said he could live upon blackberries, nuts, and field turnips, and was willing to sleep on a hayrick. Here was real grit. What were impossibilities to such a resolute will ? Pat- rick Henry voiced that decision which characterized the 192 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. great men of the E-evolution when he said, " Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery ? Forbid* it, Almighty God ! I know not what course others may take ; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death ! " Grit is a permanent, solid quality, which enters into the very structure, the very tissues of the constitu- tion. A weak man, a wavering, irresolute man, may be " spunky " upon occasion, he may be " plucky " in an emergency ; but pure " grit " is a part of the very character of strong men alone. Lord Erskine was a plucky man ; he even had flashes of heroism, and when he was with weaker men, he was thought to have nerve and even grit ; but when he entered the House of Com- mons, although a hero at the bar, the imperiousness, the audacious scorn, and the intellectual supremacy of Pitt disturbed his equanimity and exposed the weak places in his armor. In Pitt's commanding presence he lost his equilibrium. His individuality seemed off its centre ; he felt fluttered, weak, and uneasy. Many of our generals in the late war exhibited hero- ism. They were " plucky," and often displayed great determination, but Grant had pure " grit " in the most concentrated form. He could not be moved from his base ; he was self-centred, immovable. " If you try to wheedle out of him his plans for a campaign, he stolidly smokes ; if you call him an imbecile and a blunderer, he blandly lights another cigar ; if you praise him as the greatest general living, he placidly returns the puff from his regalia ; and if you tell him he should run for the presidency, it does not disturb the equanimity with which he inhales and exhales the unsubstantial vapor which typifies the politician's promises. While you are wondering what kind of creature this man without a tongue is, you are suddenly electrified with the news of some splendid victory, proving that behind the cigar, and behind the face discharged of all tell-tale expression. CLEAR GRIT. 193 is the best brain to plan and the strongest heart to dare among the generals of the Kepublic." Demosthenes was a man who could rise to sublime heights of heroism, but his bravery was not his normal condition and depended upon his genius being arous^. He had "pluck'' and "spunk" on occasions, but Lincoln had pure " grit." When the illustrated papers everywhere were caricaturing him, when no epithet seemed too harsh to heap upon him, when his methods were criticised by his own party, and the generals in the war were denouncing his " foolish " confidence in Grant, and delegations were waiting upon him to ask for that general's removal, the great President sat with crossed legs, and was reminded of a story. Lincoln and Grant both had that rare nerve which cares not for ridicule, is not swerved by public clamor, can bear abuse and hatred. There is a mighty force in truth and in the sublime conviction and supreme self-con- fidence behind it, in the knowledge that truth is mighty and the conviction and confidence that it will prevail. Pure grit is that element of character which enables a man to clutch his aim with an iron grip, and keep the needle of his purpose pointing to the star of his hope. Through sunshine and storm, through hurricane and tempest, through sleet and rain, with a leaky ship, with a crew in mutiny, it perseveres ; in fact, nothing but death can subdue it, and it dies still struggling. The man of grit carries in his very presence a power which controls and commands. He is spared the neces- sity of declaring himself, for his grit speaks in his every act. It does not come by fits and starts, it is a part of his very life. It inspires a sublime audacity and a he- roic courage. Many of the failures of life are due to the want of grit or business nerve. It is unfortunate for a young man to start out in business life with a weak, yielding disposition, with no resolution or backbone to mark his own course and stick to it ; with no ability to 194 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. say " No " with an emphasis, obliging this man by in- vesting in hopeless speculation, and rather than offend a friend, indorsing a questionable note. A little boy was asked how he learned to skate. " Oh, by getting up every time I fell down," he replied. Whipple tells a story of Massena which illustrates the masterful purpose that plucks victory out of the jaws of defeat. " After the defeat at Essling, the suc- cess of Napoleon's attempt to withdraw his beaten army depended on the character of Massena, to whom the Emperor dispatched a messenger, telling him to keep his position for two hours longer at Aspern. This order, couched in the form of a request, required almost an impossibility ; but Napoleon knew the indomitable tenacity of the man to whom he gave it. The messen- ger found Massena seated on a heap of rubbish, his eyes bloodshot, his frame weakened by his unparalleled exer- tions during a contest of forty hours, and his whole ap- pearance indicating a physical state better befitting the hospital than the field. But that steadfast soul seemed altogether unaffected by bodily prostration ; half dead as he was with fatigue, he rose painfully and said, ' Tell the Emperor that I will hold out for two hours.' And he kept his word." " Often defeated in battle," said Macaulay of Alexan- der the Great, "he was always successful in war." He might have said the same of Washington, and, with ap- propriate changes, of all who win great triumphs of any kind. In the battle of Marengo, the Austrians considered the day won. The French army was inferior in num- bers, and had given way. The Austrian army extended its wings on the right and on the left, to follow up the Erench. Then, though the Erench themselves thought the battle lost, and the Austrians were confident it was won, Napoleon gave the command to charge ; and, the trumpet's blast being given, the Old Guard charged CLEAR GRIT. 195 down into the weakened centre of the enemy, cut it in two, rolled the two wings up on either side, and the battle was won for France. " ^ever despair," says Burke, '' but if you do, work on in despair." Once when Marshal ISTey was going into battle, look- ing down at his knees which were smiting together, he said, " You may well shake ; you would shake worse yet if you knew where I am going to take you." It is victory after victory with the soldier, lesson after lesson with the scholar, blow after blow with the laborer, crop after crop with the farmer, picture after picture with the painter, and mile after mile with the traveler, that secures what all so much desire — Success. A promising Harvard student was stricken with paral- ysis of both legs. Physicians said there was no hope for him. The lad determined to continue his college studies. The examiners heard him at his bedside, and in four years he took his degree. He resolved to make a critical study of Dante, to do which he had to learn Italian and German. He persevered in spite of repeated attacks of illness and partial loss of sight: He was competing for the university prize. Think of the para- lytic lad, helpless in bed, competing for a prize, fighting death inch by inch. What a lesson ! Before his book was published or the prize awarded, the brave student died, but the book was successful. He meant that his life should not be a burden or a failure, and he was not only graduated from the best college in America, but competed successfully for the university prize, and made a valuable contribution to literature. Professor L. T. Townsend, the famous author of " Credo," is another triumph of grit over environment. He had a hard struggle as a boy, but succeeded in working his way through Amherst College, living on forty -five cents a week. Orange Judd was a remarkable example of success 196 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. through grit. He earned corn by working for farmers, carried it on his back to mill, brought back the meal to his room, cooked it himself, milked cows for his pint of milk per da}^, and lived on mush and milk for months together. He worked his way through Wesleyan Uni- versity, and took a three years' post-graduate course at Yale. Congressman William W. Crapo, while working his way through college, being too poor to buy a dictionary, actually copied one, walking from his home in the vil- lage of Dartmouth, Mass., to New Bedford to replenish his store of words and definitions from the town library. Oh, the triumphs of this indomitable spirit of the conqueror ! This it was that enabled Franklin to dine on a small loaf in the printing-office with a book in his hand. It helped Locke to live on bread and water in a Dutch garret. It enabled Gideon Lee to go barefoot in the snow, half starved and thinly clad. It sustained Lincoln and Garfield on their hard journeys from the log cabin to the AVhite House. President Chadbourne put grit in place of his lost lung, and worked thirty-five years after his funeral had been planned. Lord Cavanagh put grit in the place of arms and legs, and went to Parliament in spite of his deformity. Henry Fawcett put grit in place of eyesight, and be- came the greatest Postmaster-General England ever had. Prescott also put grit in place of eyesight, and became one of America's greatest historians. Francis Parkman put grit in place of health ai^d eyesight, and became the greatest historian of America in his line. Thousands of men have put grit in place of health, eyes, ears, hands, legs, and yet have achieved marvelous success. Indeed, most of the great things of the world have been accomplished by grit and pluck. You cannot keep a man down who has these qualities. He will make step- ping-stones out of his stumbling-blocks, and lift him- self to success. CLEAR GRIT. 197 At fifty, Barnum was a ruined man, owing tliousands more than he possessed, yet he resolutely resumed busi- ness once more, fairly wringing success from adverse fortune, and paying his notes at the same time. Again and again he was ruined ; but phoenix-like, he rose re- peatedly from the ashes of his misfortune each time more determined than before. It was the last three days of the first voyage of Colum- bus that told. All his years of struggle and study would have availed nothing if he had yielded to the mutiny. It was all in those three days. But what days ! " It is all very well," said Charles J. Fox, " to tell me that a young man has distinguished himself by a bril- liant first speech. He may go on, or he may be satisfied with his first triumph ; but show me a young man who has not succeeded at first, and nevertheless has gone on, and I will back that young man to do better than most of those who have succeeded at the first trial." Cobden broke down completely the first time he ap- peared on a platform in Manchester, and the chairman apologized for him. But he did not give up speaking till every poor man in England had a larger, better, and cheaper loaf. See young Disraeli, sprung from a hated and perse- cuted race ; without opportunity, pushing his way up through the middle classes, up through the upper classes, until he stands self-poised upon the topmost round of political and social power. Scoffed, ridiculed, rebuffed, hissed from the House of Commons, he simply says, "The time will come when you. will hear me." The time did come, and the boy with no chance swayed the sceptre of England for a quarter of a century. One of the most remarkable examples in history is Disraeli, forcing his leadership upon that very party whose prejudices were deepest against his race, and which had an utter contempt for self-made men and in- terlopers. Imagine England's surprise when she awoke 198 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. to find this insignificant Hebrew actually Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was easily master of all the tortures supplied by the armory of rhetoric ; he could exhaust the resources of the bitterest invective ; he could sting Gladstone out of his self-control ; he was absolute mas- ter of himself and his situation. You can see that this young man intends to make his way in the world. A determined audacity is in his very face. He is a gay fop. Handsome, with the hated Hebrew blood in his veins, after three defeats in parliamentary elections he was not the least daunted, for he knew his day would come, as it did. Lord Melbourne, the great Prime Min- ister, when this gay young fop was introduced to him, asked him what he wished to be. "Prime Minister of England," was his audacious reply. One of the greatest preachers of modern times, Lacor- daire, failed again and again. Everybody said he would never make a preacher, but he was determined to suc- ceed, and in two years from his humiliating failures he was preaching in Notre Dame to immense congrega- tions. The boy Thorwaldsen, whose father died in the poor- house, and whose education was so scanty that he had to write his letters over many times before they could be posted, by his indomitable perseverance, tenacity, and grit, fascinated the world with the genius which neither his discouraging father, poverty, nor hardship could suppress. William H. Seward was given a thousand dollars by his father to go to college with ; this was all he was to have. The son returned at the end of the freshman year with extravagant habits and no money. His fa- ther refused to give him more, and told him he could not stay at home. When the youth found the props all taken out from under him, and that he must now sink or swim, he left home moneyless, returned to college, graduated at the head of his class, studied law, was CLEAR GRIT. 199 elected Governor of New York, and became Lincoln's great Secretary of State during the Civil War. Louisa M. Alcott wrote the conclusion to " An Old- Fashioned Girl " with her left hand in a sling, one foot up, head aching, and no voice. She proudly writes in her diary, " Twenty years ago I resolved to make the family independent if I could. At forty, that is done. Debts all paid, even the outlawed ones, and we have enough to be comfortable. It has cost me my health, perhaps." She earned two hundred thousand dollars by her pen. Mrs. Frank Leslie often refers to the time she lived in her carpetless attic while striving to pay her hus- band's obligations. She has fought her way success- fully through nine lawsuits, and has paid the entire debt. She manages her ten publications entirely her- self, signs all checks and money-orders, makes all con- tracts, looks over all proofs, and approves the make-up of everything before it goes to press. She has developed great business ability, which no one dreamed she pos- sessed. Garfield said, " If the power to do hard work is not talent, it is the best possible substitute for it." The triumph of industry and grit over low birth and iron fortune in America, this land of opportunity, ought to be sufficient to put to shame all grumblers over their hard fortune and those who attempt to excuse aimless, shiftless, successless men because they have no chance. The fear of ridicule and the dread of humiliation often hinder one from taking decisive steps when it is plainly a duty, so that courage is a very important ele- ment of decision. In a New England academy a pupil who was engaged to assist the teacher was unable to solve a problem in algebra. The class was approaching the problem, and he was mortified because, after many trials, he was obliged to take it to the teacher for solu- tion. The teacher returned it unsolved. What could 200 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. lie do ? He would not confess to the class that he could not solve it, so, after many futile attempts, he went to a distant town to seek the assistance of a friend who, he believed, could do the work. But, alas ! his friend had gone away, and would not be back for a week. On his way back he said to himself, " What a fool ! am I un- able to perform a problem in algebra, and shall I go back to my class and confess my ignorance ? I can solve it and I will." He shut himself in his room, determined not to sleep until he had mastered the problem, and finally he won success. Underneath the solution he wrote, " Obtained Monday evening, Septem- ber 2, at half past eleven o'clock, after more than a dozen trials that have consumed more than twenty hours of time." During a winter in the war of 1812, General Jackson's troops, unprovided for and starving, became mutinous and were going home. But the general set the example of living on acorns ; then rode before the rebellious line and threatened with death the first mutineer that should try to leave. The race is not always to the swift, the battle is not always to the strong. Horses are sometimes weighted or hampered in the race, and this is taken into account in the result. So in the race of life the distance alone does not determine the prize. We must take into con- sideration the hindrances, the weights we have carried, the disadvantages of education, of breeding, of training, of surroundings, of circumstances. How many young men are weighted down with debt, with poverty, with the support of invalid parents or brothers and sisters, or friends ? How many are fettered with ignorance, ham- pered by inhospitable surroundings, with the opposition of parents who do not understand them ? How many a round boy is hindered in the race by being forced into a square hole ? How many are delayed in their course because nobody believes in them, because nobody en- CLEAR GRIT. 201 courages them, because they get no sympathy and are forever tortured for not doing that against which every fibre of their being protests, and every drop of their blood rebels ? How many have to feel their way to the goal, through the blindness of ignorance and lack of experience ? How many go bungling along from the lack of early discipline and drill in the vocation they have chosen? How many have to hobble along on crutches because they were never taught to help themselves, but to lean upon a father's wealth or a mother's indulgence ? How many are weakened for the journey of life by self-indulgence, by dissipation, by " life-sappers ; " how many are crippled by disease, by a weak constitution, by impaired eyesight or hearing ? When the prizes of life shall be awarded by the Su- preme Judge, who knows our weaknesses and frailties, the distance we have run, the weights we have carried, the handicaps, will all be taken into account. Not the distance we have run, but the obstacles we have over- come, the disadvantages under which we have made the race, will decide the prizes. The poor wretch who has plodded along against unknown temptations, the poor woman who has buried her sorrows in her silent heart and sewed her weary way through life, those who have suffered abuse in silence, and who have been unrecog- nized or despised by their fellow-runners, will often receive the greater prize. " The wise and active conquer difficulties, By daring to attempt them : sloth and folly Shiver and sink at sight of toil and hazard, And make the impossibility they fear." Tumble me down, and I will sit Upon my ruins, smiling yet : Tear me to tatters, yet I '11 be Patient in my necessity : Laugh at my scraps of clothes, and shun Me as a fear'd infection : Yet scare-crow like I '11 walk, as one Neglecting thy derision. Robert Herrick. CHAPTER XI. THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. " One ruddy drop of manly blood the surging sea outweighs." "Manhood overtops all titles." The truest test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops; no, but the kind of man the country turns out. — Emersox. Hew the block off, and get out the man. — Pope. Eternity alone will reveal to the human race its debt of gratitude to the peerless and immortal name of Washington. —James A. Garfield. Tennyson. Better not be at all Than not be noble. Be noble ! and the nobleness that lies In other men, sleeping, but never dead, Will rise in majesty to meet thine own. Lowell. Virtue alone out-builds the pyramids : Her monuments shall last when Egypt's fall. Young. Were one so tall to touch the pole, Or grasp creation in his span. He must be measured by his soul, The mind 's the measure of the man. Watts. We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best. Bailey. " Good name in man or woman Is the immediate jewel of their souls." But this one thing I know, that these qualities did not now begin to exist, cannot be sick with my sickness, nor buried in my grave. — Emerson. A Moor was walking in his garden when a Spanish cavalier suddenly fell at his feet, pleading for conceal- JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER " Be noble : and the nobleness that lies In other men, sleeping, but never dead. Will rise in majesty to meet thine own. THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 203 ment from pursuers wlio sought liis life in revenge for the killing of a Moorish gentleman. The Moor prom- ised aid, and locked his visitor in a summer-house until night should afford opportunity for his escape. Not long after the dead body of his son was brought home, and from the description given he knew the Spaniard was the murderer. He concealed his horror, however, and at midnight unlocked the summer-house, saying, " Christian, the youth whom you have murdered was my only son. Your crime deserves the severest punish- ment. But I have solemnly pledged my word not to betray you, and I disdain to violate a rash engagement even with a cruel enemy." Then, saddling one of his fleetest mules, he said, " Flee while the darkness of night conceals you. Your hands are polluted with blood ; but God is just ; and I humbly thank Him that my faith is unspotted, and that I have resigned judg- ment to Him." Character never dies. As Longfellow says : — " Were a star quenched on high, For ages would its light, Still traveling downward from the sky, Shine on our mortal sight. " So when a great man dies, For years beyond our ken, The light he leaves behind him lies Upon the paths of men." The character of Socrates was mightier than the hem- lock, and banished the fear and sting of death. Who can estimate the power of a well-lived life ? Character is power. Hang this motto in every school in the land, in every home, in every youth's room. Mothers, engrave it on every child's heart. You cannot destroy one single atom of a Garrison, even though he were hanged. The mighty force of mar- tyrs to truth lives ; the candle burns more brilliantly than before it was snuffed. '^ No varnish or veneer of 204 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. scholarship, no command of the tricks of logic or rhet- oric, can ever make you a positive force in the world ; " but your character can. When the statue of George Peabody, erected in one of the thoroughfares of London, was unveiled, the sculptor Story was asked to speak. Twice he touched the statue with his hand, and said, " That is my speech. That is my speech." What could be more eloquent ? Character needs no recommendation. It pleads its own cause. " Show me," said Omar the Caliph to Amru the war- rior, " the sword with which you have fought so many battles and slain so many infidels." "Ah!" replied Amru, " the sword without the arm o-f the master is no sharper nor heavier than the sword of Farezdak the poet." So one hundred and fifty pounds of flesh and blood without character is of no great value. Napoleon was so much impressed with the courage and resources of Marshal Ney, that he said, " I have two hundred millions in my coffers, and I would give them all for Ney." In Agra, India, stands the Taj Mahal, the acme of Oriental architecture, said to be the most beautiful building in the world. It was i^lanned as a mausoleum for the favorite wife of Shah Jehan. When the latter was deposed by his son Aurungzebe, his daughter Ja- hanara chose to share his captivity and poverty rather than the guilty glory of her brother. On her tomb in Delhi were cut her dying words : " Let no rich coverlet adorn my grave ; this grass is the best covering for the tomb of the poor in spirit, the humble, the transitory Jahanara, the disciple of the holy men of Christ, the daughter of the Emperor Shah Jehan." Travelers who visit the magnificent Taj linger long by the grass-green sarcophagus in Delhi, but give only passing notice to the beautiful Jamma Mas j id, a mausoleum afterwards erected in her honor. THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 205 Some writer has well said that David of the throne we cannot always recall with pleasure, but David of the Psalms we never forget. The strong, sweet faith of the latter streams like sunlight through even the closed windows of the soul, long after the wearied eye has turned with disgust from all the gilded pomp and pride of the former. Robertson says that when you have got to the lowest depths of your heart, you will find there not the mere desire of happiness, but a craving as natural to us as the desire for food, — the craving for nobler, higher life. " Private Benjamin Owen, Eegiment, Vermont Volunteers, was found asleep at his post while on picket duty last night. The court-martial has sen- tenced him to be shot in twenty-four hours, as the offense occurred at a critical time." " I thought when I gave Bennie to his country," said farmer Owen as he read the above telegram with dimming eyes, " that no other father in all this broad land made so precious a gift. He only slept a minute, — just one little minute, — at his post ; I know that was all, for Bennie never dozed over a duty. How prompt and trustworthy he was ! He was as tall as I, and only eighteen ! and now they shoot him because he was found asleep when doing sentinel duty ! " Just then Bennie's little sister Blos- som answered a tap at the door, and returned with a letter. " It is from him," was all she said. Dear Father, — For sleeping on sentinel duty I am to be shot. At first, it seemed awful tb me ; but I have thought about it so much now that it has no terror. They say that they will not bind me, nor blind me ; but that I may meet my death like a man. I thought, father, that it might have been on the battlefield, for my country, and that, when I fell, it would be fighting gloriously ; but to be shot down like a dog for nearly betraying it, — to die for neglect of duty ! Oh, father, I won- der the very thought does not kill me ! But I shall not dis- 206 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. grace you. I am going to write you all about it ; and when I am gone, you may tell my comrades ; I cannot now. You know I promised Jemmie Carr's mother I would look after her boy ; and, when he fell sick, I did all I could for him. He was not strong when he was ordered back into the ranks, and the day before that night I carried all his baggage, be- sides my own, on our march. Toward night we went in on double-quick, and the baggage began to feel very heavy. Everybody was tired ; and as for Jemmie, if I had not lent him an arm now and then, he would have dropped by the way. I was all tired out when we came into camp ; and then it was Jemmie's turn to be sentry, and I could take his place ; but I was too tired, father. I could not have kept awake if a gun had been pointed at my head ; but I did not know it until, — well, until it was too late. They tell me to-day that I have a short reprieve, — given to me by circumstances, — " time to write to you," our good colonel says. Forgive him, father, he only does his duty ; he would gladly save me if he could ; and do not lay my death up against Jemmie. The poor boy is broken-hearted, and does nothing but beg and entreat them to let him die in my stead. I can't bear to think of mother and Blossom. Comfort them, father ! Tell them I die as a brave boy should, and that, M^hen the war is over, they will not be ashamed of me, as they must be now. God help me : it is very hard to bear ! Good-by, father. To-night, in the early twilight, I shall see the cows all coming home from pasture, and precious little Blossom standing on the back stoop, waiting for me, — but I shall never, never come ! God bless you all ! " God be thanked ! " said Mr. Owen reverently ; " I knew Bennie was not the boy to sleep carelessly." Late that night a little figure glided out of the house and down the path. Two hours later the conductor of the southward mail lifted her into a car at Mill Depot. Next morning she was in New York, and the next she was admitted to the White House at Washington. " Well, my child," said the President in pleasant, cheer- ful tones, " what do you want so bright and early this morning ? " " Bennie's life, please, sir," faltered Bios- THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 207 som. "Bennie ? Who is Bennie ?" asked Mr. Lincoln. " My brother, sir. They are going to shoot him for sleejD- ing at his post," said the little girl. " I remember," said the President ; '-it was a fatal sleep. You see, child, it was a time of special danger. Thousands of lives might have been lost through his culpable negli- gence." " So my father said ; but poor Bennie was so tired, sir, and Jemniie so weak. He did the work of two, sir, and it was Jemmie's night, not his ; but Jem- mie was too tired, and Bennie never thought about himself, — that he was tired, too." " What is that you say, child ? Come here ; I do not understand." He read Bennie's letter to his father, which Blossom held out, wrote a few lines, rang his bell, and said to the messenger who appeared, " Send this dispatch at once." Then, turning to Blossom, he continued : " Go home, my child, and tell that father of yours, who could approve his country's sentence, even when it took the life of a child like that, that Abraham Lincoln thinks the life far too precious to be lost. Go back, or — wait until to-morrow ; Bennie will need a change after he has so bravely faced death ; he shall go with you." " God bless you, sir," said Blossom. Not all the queens are crowned. Two days later, when the young soldier came with his sister to thank the President, Mr. Lincoln fastened the strap of a lieutenant upon his shoulder, saying, '^ The soldier that could carry a sick comrade's baggage, and die for the act without complaining, deserves well of his country." When telegrams poured in announcing terrible car- nage upon battlefields in our late war, and when Presi- dent Lincoln's heart-strings were nearly broken over the cruel treatment of our prisoners at JLudersonville, Belle Isle, and Libby Prison, he never once departed from his famous motto, " With malice toward none, with charity for all." When it was reported that among those re- 208 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. turned at Baltimore from Southern prisons, not one in ten could stand alone from hunger and neglect, and many were so eaten and covered by vermin as to resem- ble those pitted by smallpox, and so emaciated that they were living skeletons, not even these reports could move the great President to retaliate in kind upon the South- ern prisoners. Among the slain on the battlefield at Fredericksburg was the body of a youth upon which was found next the heart a photograph of Lincoln. Upon the back of it were these words : " God bless President Lincoln." The youth had been sentenced to death for sleeping at his post, but had been pardoned by the President. David Dudley Field said he considered Lincoln the greatest man of his day. Webster, Clay, Calhoun, and others were great, each in one way, but Lincoln was great in many ways. There seemed to be hidden springs of greatness in this man that would gush forth in the most unexpected way. The men about him were at a loss to name the order of his genius. Horace Greeley was almost as many-sided, but was a wonderful combi- nation of goodness and Aveakness, while Lincoln seemed strong in every way. After Lincoln had signed the Emancii)ation Proclamation he said, " The promise must now be kept ; I shall never recall one word." Bishop Hamilton, of Salisbury, bears the following testimony to the influence for good which Gladstone, when a school-fellow at Eton, exercised upon him. " I was a thoroughly idle boy ; but I was saved from worse things by getting to know Gladstone." At Oxford we are told the effect of his example was so strong that men who followed him there ten years later declare " that undergraduates drank less in the forties because Glad- stone had been so courageously abstemious in the thirties." The Eev. John Newton said, "I see in this world two heaps of human happiness and misery ; now if I can THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 209 take but the smallest bit from one heap and add it to the other, I carry a point ; if as I go home a child has dropped a half-penny, and by giving it another I can wipe away its tears, I feel I have done something." A holy hermit, who had lived for six years in a cave of the Thebaid, fasting, praying, and performing severe penances, spending his whole life in trying to make himself of some account with God, that he might be sure of a seat in Paradise, prayed to be shown some saint greater than himself, in order that he might pat- tern after him to reach still greater heights of holiness. The same night an angel came to him and said, " If thou wouldst excel all others in virtue and sanctity, strive to imitate a certain minstrel who goes begging and sing- ing from door to door." The hermit, much chagrined, sought the minstrel and asked him how he had managed to make himself so acceptable to God. The minstrel hung down his head and replied, "Do not mock me, holy father ; I have performed no good works, and I am not worthy to pray. I only go from door to door to amuse people with my viol and my flute." The hermit insisted that he must have done some good deeds. The minstrel replied, " Nay, I know of nothing good that I have done." " But how hast thou become a beggar ? Hast thou spent thy substance in riotous living ? " " Nay, not so," replied the minstrel. " I met a poor woman running hither and thither, distracted, because her husband and children had been sold into slavery to pay a debt. I took her home and protected her from certain sons of Belial, for she was very beautiful. I gave her all I possessed to redeem her family and re- turned her to her husband and children. Is there any man who would not have done the same ? " The hermit shed tears, and said in all his life he had not done as much as the poor minstrel. " A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor than silver or gold." 210 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. A gentleman, traveling through West Virginia, went teahouse, and procured food for himself and companion and their horses. He wanted to make payment, but the woman was ashamed to take pay for a mere act of kind- ness. He pressed the money upon her. Finally she said, ^^If you don't think I'm mean, I'll take one quarter of a dollar from you, so as to look at it now and then, for there has been no money in this house for a year." Do not take the world's estimate of success. The real height of the Washington Monument is not measured between the capstone and the earth, but includes the fifty feet of solid masonry below. Many of the most suc- cessful lives are like the rivers of India which run un- der ground, unseen and unheard by the millions who tread above them. But have these rivers therefore no influence ? Ask the rich harvest fields if they feel the flowing water beneath. The greatest worth is never measured. It is only the nearest stars whose distances we compute. That life whose influence can be meas- ured by the world's tape-line of dollars and corn is not worth the measuring. All the forces in nature that are the most powerful are the quietest. We speak of the rolling thunder as powerful ; but gravitation, which makes no noise, yet keeps orbs in their orbits, and the whole system in har- mony, binding every atom in each planet to the great centre of all attraction, is ten thousand times ten thou- sand times more powerful. We say the bright light- ning is mighty ; so it is when it rends the gnarled oak into splinters, or splits solid battlements into frag- ments ; but it is not half so powerful as the gentle light that comes so softly from the skies that we do not feel it, that travels at an inconceivable speed, strikes and yet is not felt, but exercises an influence so great that the earth is clothed with verdure through its influ- ence, and all nature beautified and blessed by its cease- THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 211 less action. The things that make no noise, make no pretension, may be really the strongest. The most con- clusive logic that a preacher uses in the pulpit will never exercise the influence that the consistent piety of character will exercise over all the earth. The old Sicilian story relates how Pythias, condemned to death through the hasty anger of Dionysius of Syra- cuse, asked that he might go to his native Greece, and arrange his affairs, promising to return before the time appointed for his execution. The tyrant laughed his request to scorn, saying that when he was once safe out of Sicily no one would answer for his reappearance. At this juncture, Damon, a friend of the doomed man, offered to become surety for him, and to die in his stead if he did not come back in time. Dionysius was sur- prised, but accepted the proposition. When the fatal day came, Pythias had not reached Syracuse, but Damon remained firm in his faith that his friend would not fail him. At the very last hour Pythias appeared and an- nounced himself ready to die. But such touching loy- alty moved even the iron heart of Dionysius ; accordingly he ordered both to be spared, and asked to be allowed to make a third partner in such a noble friendship. It is a grander thing to be nobly remembered than to be nobly born. When Attila, flushed with conquest, appeared with his barbarian horde before the gates of Eome in 452, Pope Leo alone of all the people dared go forth and try to turn his wrath aside. A single magistrate followed him. The Huns were awed by the fearless majesty of the unarmed old man, and led him before their chief, whose respect was so great that he agreed not to enter the city, provided a tribute should be X3aid to him. Blackie thinks there is no kind of a sermon so effec- tive as the example of a great man, where we see the thing done before us, — actually done, — the thing of which we were not even dreaming. 212 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. It was said that when Washington led the American forces as commanding ofiELcer, it " doubled the strength of the army." When General Lee was in conversation with one of his officers in regard to a movement of his army, a plain farmer's boy overheard the general's remark that he had decided to march upon Gettysburg instead of Har- risburg. The boy telegraphed this fact to Governor Curtin. A special engine was sent for the boy. " I would give my right hand," said the governor, "to know if this boy tells the truth." A corporal replied, " Governor, I know that boy ; it is impossible for him to lie ; there is not a drop of false blood in his veins." In fifteen minutes the Union troops were marching to Gettysburg, where they gained a victory. Character is power. The great thing is to be a man, to have a high purpose, a noble aim, to be dead in earnest, to yearn for the good and the true. "Your lordships," said Wellington in Parliament, " must all feel the high and honorable character of the late Sir Eobert Peel. I was long connected with him in public life. We were both in the councils of our sov- ereign together, and I had long the honor to enjoy his private friendship. In all the course of my acquain- tance with him, I never knew a man in whose truth and justice I had greater confidence, or in whom I saw a more invariable desire to promote the public service. In the whole course of my communication with him, I never knew an instance in which he did not show the strongest attachment to truth ; and I never saw in the whole course of my life the smallest reason for suspect- ing that he stated anything which he did not firmly be- lieve to be the fact." "The Secretary stood alone," said Grattan of the elder Pitt. " Modern degeneracy had not reached him. Original and unaccommodating, the features of his char- acter had the hardihood of antiquity. His august mind THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 213 overawed majesty ; and one of his sovereigns thought royalty so impaired in his presence, that he conspired to remove him, in order to be relieved from his superi- ority. No state chicanery, no narrow system of vicious politics, sunk him to the level of the vulgar great ; but, overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England ; his ambition, fame. A character so ex- alted, so unsullied, so various, so authoritative, astonished a corrupt age, and the Treasury trembled at the name of Pitt through all the classes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, that she had found defects in this statesman, and talked much of the inconsistency of his policy, and much of the ruin of his victories ; but the history of his country and the calamities of the enemy answered and refuted her. Upon the whole, there was in this man something that could create, subvert, or re- form ; an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence to summon mankind to united exertion, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and to rule the wilderness of free minds with unbounded authority ; something that could establish or overwhelm an empire, and strike a blow in the world that would resound through the uni- verse." Pitt was Paymaster-General for George II. When a subsidy was voted a foreign office, it was customary for the office to claim one half per cent, for honorarium. Pitt astonished the King of Sardinia by sending him the sum without any deduction, and further astonished him by refusing a present as a compliment to his integrity. He was a poor man. Washington would take no pay as commander-in- chief of the Continental armies. He would keep a strict account of his expenses; and these, he doubted not, would be discharged. Eemember, the main business of life is not to do, but to become ; an action itself has its finest and most enduring fruit in character. 214 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. In 1837, after George Peabody moved to London, there came a commercial crisis in tlie United States. Many banks suspended specie payments. Many mer- cantile houses went to the wall, and thousands more were in great distress. Edward Everett said, "The great sympathetic nerve of the commercial world, credit, as far as the United States were concerned, was for the time paralyzed." Probably not a half dozen men in Europe would have been listened to for a moment in the Bank of England upon the subject of American se- curities, but George Peabody was one of them. His name was already a tower of strength in the commercial world. In those dark days his integrity stood four- square in every business panic. Peabody retrieved the credit of the State of Maryland, and, it might almost be said, of the United States. His character was the magic wand which in many a case changed almost worth- less paper into gold. Merchants on both sides of the Atlantic procured large advances from him, even before the goods consigned to him had been sold. Thackeray says, " Nature has written a letter of credit upon some men's faces which is honored wherever pre- sented. You cannot help trusting such men; their very presence gives confidence. There is a ' promise to pay' in their very faces which gives confidence, and you prefer it to another man's indorsement." Charac- ter is credit. With most people, as with most nations, " things are worth what they will sell for," and the dollar is might- ier than the sword. As good as gold has become a proverb — as though it were the highest standard of comparison. Themistocles, having conceived the design of transfer- ring the government of Greece from the hands of the Lacedaemonians into those of the Athenians, kept his thoughts continually fixed on this great project. Being at no time very nice or scrupulous in the choice of his THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 215 measures, he thought anything which could tend to the accomplishment of the end he had in view just and law- ful. Accordingly in an assembly of the people one day, he intimated that he had a very important design to pro- pose ; but he could not communicate it to the public at large, because the greatest secrecy was necessary to its success, and he therefore desired that they would ap- point a person to whom he might explain himself on the subject. Aristides was unanimously selected by the assembly, which deferred entirely to his opinion. The- mistocles, taking him aside, told him that the design he had conceived was to burn the fleet belonging to the rest of the Grecian states, which then lay in a neigh- boring port, when Athens would assuredly become mis- tress of all Greece. Aristides returned to the assembly, and declared to them that nothing could be more advan- tageous to the commonwealth than the project of The- mistocles, but that, at the same time, nothing in the world could be more unfair. The assembly unanimously de- clared that, since such was the case, Themistocles should wholly abandon his project. A tragedy by ^schylus was once represented before the Athenians, in which it was said of one of the char- acters, " that he cared not more to be just than to appear so." At these words all eyes were instantly turned upon Aristides as the man who, of all the Greeks, most merited that distinguished reputation. Ever after he received, by universal consent, the surname of the Just, — a title, says Plutarch, truly royal, or rather truly di- vine. This remarkable distinction roused envy, and envy prevailed so far as to pfocure his banishment for years, upon the unjust suspicion that his influence with the people was dangerous to their freedom. When the sentence was passed by his countrymen, Aristides himself was present in the midst of them, and a stranger who stood near, and could not write, applied to him to write for him on his shell-ballot. " What name ? " asked 216 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. the philosopher. "Aristides," replied the stranger. " Do you know him, then ? " said Aristides, ^' or has he in any way injured you ? " " Neither/' said the other, "but it is for this very thing I would he were con- demned. I can go nowhere but I hear of Aristides the Just." Aristides inquired no further, but took the shell, and wrote his name on it as desired. The absence of Aristides soon dissipated the apprehensions which his countrymen had so idly indulged. He was in a short time recalled, and for many years after took a leading part in the affairs of the republic, without showing the least resentment against his enemies, or seeking any other gratification than that of serving his countrymen with fidelity and honor. The virtues of Aristides did not pass without reward. He had two daughters, who were educated at the expense of the state, and to whom portions were allotted from the public treasury. The strongest proof, however, of the justice and in- tegrity of Aristides is, that notwithstanding he had possessed the highest employments in the republic, and had the absolute disposal of its treasures, yet he died so poor as not to leave money enough to defray the expenses of his funeral. Men of character are the conscience of the society to which they belong ; they, and not the police, guarantee the execution of the laws. Their influence is the bul- wark of good government. It was said of the first Emperor Alexander of Eussia, that his personal character was equivalent to a constitu- tion. Of Montaigne, it was said that his high reputa- tion for integrity was a better protection for him than a regiment of horse would have been, he being the only man among the French gentry who, during the wars of the Fronde, kept his castle gates unbarred. There are men, fortunately for the world, who would rather he right than he Pi^esident. Fisher Ames, while in Congress, said of Roger Sher- LAFAYETTE "He believed that he was born, not for himself, but for the whole world." THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 217 man, of Connecticut : " If I am absent during a discus- sion of a subject, and consequently know not on which side to vote, when I return I always look at Eoger Sherman, for I am sure if I vote with him, I shall vote right." Character gravitates upward, as with a celestial gravi- tation, while mere genius, without character, gravitates downward. How often we see in school or college young men, who are apparently dull and even stupid, rise gradually and surely above others who are without character, merely because the former have an upward tendency in their lives, a reaching-up principle, which gradually but surely unfolds, and elevates them to posi- tions of honor and trust. There is something which everybody admires in an aspiring soul, one whose ten- dency is upward and onward, in spite of hindrances and in defiance of obstacles. We may try to stifle the voice of the mysterious an- gel within, but it always says " yes " to right actions and " no " to wrong ones. No matter whether we heed it or not, no power can change its decision one iota. Through health, through disease, through prosperity and adversity, this faithful servant stands behind us in the shadow of ourselves, never intruding, but weighing every act we perform, every word we utter, pronouncing the verdict " right " or "wrong." Francis Horner, of England, was a man of whom Sydney Smith said, that " the ten commandments were stamped upon his forehead." The valuable and peculiar light in which Horner's history is calculated to inspire every right-minded youth is this : he died at the age of thirty-eight, possessed of greater influence than any other private man, and admired, beloved, trusted, and deplored by all except the heartless and the base. No greater homage was ever paid in Parliament to any de- ceased member. How was this attained ? By rank ? He was the son of an Edinburgh merchant. By wealth ? 218 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. Neither lie nor any of his relatives ever had a superflu- ous sixpence. By office ? He held but one, and that for only a few years, of no influence, and with very little pay. By talents ? His were not splendid, and he had no genius. Cautious and slow, his only ambition was to be right. By eloquence ? He spoke in calm, good taste, without any of the oratory that either terrifies or seduces. By any fascination of manner ? His was only correqt and agreeable. By what was it, then ? Merely by sense, industry, good principles and a good heart, qualities which no well constituted mind need ever despair of attaining. It was the force of his char- acter that raised him ; and this character Avas not im- pressed on him by nature, but formed, out of no pecu- liarly fine elements, by himself. There were many in the House of Commons of far greater ability and elo- quence. But no one surpassed him in the combination of an adequate portion of these with moral worth. Horner was born to show what moderate powers, unaided by anything whatever except culture and goodness, may achieve, even when these powers are displayed amidst the competition and jealousies of public life. ^' When it was reported in Paris that the great Na- poleon was dead, I passed the Palais Royal," says a French writer, " where a public crier called, * Here 's your account of the death of Bonaparte.' This cry which once would have appalled all Europe fell perfectly flat. I entered," he adds, ^'several cafes, and found the same indifference, — coldness everywhere ; no one seemed interested or troubled. This man, who had conquered Europe and awed the world, had inspired neither the love nor the admiration of even his own countrymen. He had impressed the world with his marvelousness, and had inspired astonishment but not love." Emerson says that Napoleon did all that in him lay to live and thrive without moral principle. It was the THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 219 nature of things, the eternal law of man and of the world, which balked and ruined him ; and the result, in a million attempts of this kind, will be the same. His was an experiment, under the most favorable condi- tions, to test the powers of intellect without conscience. Never elsewhere was such a leader so endowed, and so weaponed ; never has another leader found such aids and followers. And what was the result of this vast talent and power, of these immense armies, burned cities, squandered treasures, immolated millions of men, of this demoralized Europe ? He left France smaller, poorer, feebler than he found her. A hundred years hence what difference will it make whether you were rich or poor, a peer or a peasant ? But what difference may it not make whether you did what was right or what was wrong ? " The ^ Vicar of Wakefield,' " said George William Curtis, " was sold, through Dr. Johnson's mediation, for sixty pounds ; and ten years after, the author died. With what love do we hang over its pages ! What springs of feeling it has opened ! Goldsmith's books are influences and friends forever, yet the five thou- sandth copy was never announced, and Oliver Gold- smith, M. D., often wanted a dinner ! Horace Walpole, the coxcomb of literature, smiled at him contemptu- ously from his gilded carriage. Goldsmith struggled cheerfully with his adverse fate, and died. But then sad mourners, whom he had aided in their affliction, gathered around his bed, and a lady of distinction, whom he had only dared to admire at a distance, came and cut a lock of his hair for remembrance. When I see Goldsmith, thus carrying his heart in his hand like a palm branch, I look on him as a successful man, whom adversity could not bring down from the level of his lofty nature." Dr. Maudsley tells us that the aims which chiefly predominate — riches, position, power, applause of 220 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. men — are such as inevitably breed and foster many bad passions in the eager competition to attain them. Hence, in fact, come disappointed ambition, jealousy, grief from loss of fortune, all the torments of wounded self-love, and a thousand other mental sufferings, — the commonly enumerated moral causes of insanity. They are griefs of a kind to which a rightly developed nature should not fall a prey. There need be no envy nor jealousy, if a man were to consider that it mattered not whether he did a great thing or some one else did it, Nature's only concern being that it should be done ; no grief from loss of fortune, if he were to estimate at its true value that which fortune can bring him, and that which fortune can never bring him ; no wounded self- love, if he had learned well the eternal lesson of life, — self-renunciation. Soon after his establishment in Philadelphia Frank- lin was offered a piece for publication in his newspaper. Being very busy, he begged the gentleman would leave it for consideration. The next day the author called and asked his opinion of it. " Well, sir," replied Frank- lin, " I am sorry to say I think it highly scurrilous and defamatory. But being at a loss on account of my pov- erty whether to reject it or not, I thought I would put it to this issue : At night, when my work was done, I bought a two-penny loaf, on which I supped heartily, and then, wrapping myself in my great coat, slept very soundly on the floor till morning, when another loaf and mug of water afforded a pleasant breakfast. Now, sir, since I can live very comfortably in this manner, why should I prostitute my press to personal hatred or party passion for a more luxurious living ? " One cannot read this anecdote of our American sage without thinking of Socrates' reply to King Arche- laus, who had pressed him to give up preaching in the dirty streets of Athens, and come and live with him in his splendid courts: "Meal, please your Majesty, is a THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 221 half-penny a peck at Athens, and water I get for no- thing ! " During Alexander's march into Africa he found a people dwelling in peace, who knew neither war nor conquest. While he was interviewing the chief two of his subjects brought a case before him for judgment. The dispute was this : the one had bought of the other a pietje of ground, which, after the purchase, was found to contain a treasure, for which he felt bound to pay. The other refused to receive anything, stating that when he sold the ground he sold it with all the advantages apparent or concealed which it might be found to afford. The king said, "One of you has a daughter and the other a son ; let them be married and the treasure given to them as a dowry." Alexander was surprised, and said, ^^If this case had been in our country it would have been dismissed, and the king would have kept the treasure." The chief said, " Does the sun shine on your country, and the rain fall, and the grass grow ? " Alex- ander replied, " Certainly." The chief then asked, " Are there any cattle ? " " Certainly," was. the reply. The chief replied, " Then it is for these innocent cattle that the Great Being permits the rain to fall and the grass to grow." A good character is a precious thing, above rubies, gold, crowns, or kingdoms, and the work of making it is the noblest labor on earth. Professor Blackie of the University of Edinburgh said to a class of young men : " Money is not needful ; power is not needful ; liberty is not needful ; even health is not the one thing needful ; but character alone is that which can truly save us, and if we are not saved in this sense, we certainly must be damned." It has been said that " when poverty is your inheritance, virtue must be your capital." During the American Eevolution, while General Eeed was President of Congress, the British Commissioners 222 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. offered him a bribe of ten thousand guineas to desert the cause of his country. His reply was, " Gentlemen, I am poor, very poor ; i)ut your king is not rich enough to buy me." " When Le Pere Bourdaloue preached at Eouen," said Pere Arrius, ^' the tradesmen forsook their shops, law- yers their clients, physicians their sick, and tavern- keepers their bars ; but when I preached the following year I set all things to rights, — every man minded his own business.'' " I fear John Knox's prayers more than an army of ten thousand men," said Mary, Queen of Scotland. When Pope Paul IV. heard of the death of Calvin he exclaimed with a sigh, "Ah, the strength of that proud heretic lay in — riches ? No. Honors ? No. But nothing could move him from his course. Holy Virgin ! With two such servants, our church would soon be mis- tress of both worlds." Garibaldi's power over his men amounted to fascina- tion. Soldiers and officers were ready to die for him. His will power seemed to enslave them. In Rome he called for forty volunteers to go where half of them would be sure to be killed and the others probably wounded. The whole battalion rushed forward; and they had to draw lots, so eager were all to obey. What power of magic lies in a great name ! There was not a throne in Europe that could stand against Washington's character, and in comparison with it the millions of the Croesuses would look ridiculous. What are the works of avarice compared with the names of Lincoln, Grant, or Garfield ? A few names have ever been the leaven which has preserved many a nation from premature decay. "But strew his ashes to the wind Whose sword or voice has served mankind — And is he dead, whose glorious mind Lifts thine on high ? — To live in hearts we leave behind Is not to die." THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 223 Mr. Gladstone gave in Parliament, when announcing the death of Princess Alice, a touching story of sick- room ministration. The Princess' little boy was ill with diphtheria ; the physician had cautioned her not to inhale the poisoned breath ; the child was tossing in the delirium of fever. The mother took the little one in her lap and stroked his fevered brow ; the boy threw his arms around her neck, and whispered, "Kiss me, mamma ; " the mother's instinct was stronger than the physician's caution ; she pressed her lips to the child's, but lost her life. At a large dinner-party given by Lord Stratford after the Crimean War, it was proposed that every one should write on a slip of paper the name which appeared most likely to descend to posterity with renown. When the papers were opened every one of them contained the name of Plorence Nightingale. Leckey says that the first hospital ever established was opened by that noble Christian woman, Fabiola, in the fourth century. The two foremost names in modern philanthropy are those of John Howard and Florence Nightingale. Not a general of the Crimean War on either side can be named by one person in ten. The one name that rises instantly, when that carnival of pestilence and blood is suggested, is that of a young woman just recovering from a serious illness, Florence Nightingale. A soldier said, " Before she came there was such cussin' and swearin' ; and after that it was as holy as a church." She robbed war of half its terrors. Since her time the hospital systems of all the nations during war have been changed. No soldier was braver and no patriot truer than Clara Barton, and wherever that noble company of Protestant women known as the Eed Cross Society, — the cross, I suppose, pointing to Calvary, and the red to the blood of the Redeemer, — wherever those consecrated workers seek to alleviate the condition of those who suffer from plagues, cholera, 224 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. fevers, flood, famine, there this tireless angel moves on her pathway of blessing. And of all heroes, what nobler ones than these, whose names shine from the pages of our missionary history ? I never read of Mrs. Judson, Mrs. Snow, Miss Brittain, Miss West, without feeling that the heroic age of our race has just begun, the age which opens to woman the privilege of following her benevolent inspirations wheresoever she will, without thinking that our Christianity needs no other evidence. " Duty is the cement without which all power, good- ness, intellect, truth, happiness, and love itself can have no permanence, but all the fabric of existence crumbles away from under us and leaves us at last sitting in the midst of a ruin, astonished at our own desolation." A constant, abiding sense of duty is the last reason of cul- ture. " I slept and dreamed that life is beauty; I woke and found that life is duty." We have no more right to refuse to perform a duty than to refuse to pay a debt. Moral insolvency is cer- tain to him who neglects and disregards his duty to his fellow-men. Nor can we hire another to perform our duty. The mere accident of having money does not release you from your duty to the world. Nay, it in- creases it, for it enables you to do a larger and nobler duty. If your money is not clean, if there is a dirty dollar in your millions, you have not succeeded. If there is the blood of the poor and unfortunate, of orphans and widows, on your bank account, you have not succeeded. If your wealth has made others poorer, your life is a failure. If you have gained it in an occupation that kills, that shortens the lives of others, that poisons their blood, or engenders disease, if you have taken a day from a human life, if you have gained your money by that which has debauched other lives, you have failed. THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 225 Eemember that a question will be asked you some time which you cannot evade, the right answer to which will fix your destiny forever : " How did you get that fortune ? " Are other men's lives in it ; are others' hope and happiness buried in it ; are others' comforts sacrificed to it ; are others' rights buried in it ; are others' opportunities smothered in it ; others' chances strangled by it ; has their growth been stunted by it ; their characters stained by it; have others a smaller loaf, a meaner home ? If so, you have failed ; all your millions cannot save you from the curse, "thou hast been weighed in the balance and found wanting." When Walter Scott's publisher and printer failed and ^600,000 of debt stared them in the face, friends came forward and offered to raise monej^ enough to allow him to arrange with his creditors. " No," said he proudly, " this right hand shall work it all off ; if we lose every- thing else, we will at least keep our honor unblemished." What a grand picture of manliness, of integrity in this noble man, working like a dray-horse to cancel that great debt, throwing off at white heat the " Life of Napoleon," "Woodstock," "The Tales of a Grandfather," articles for the " Quarterly," and so on, all written in the midst of great sorrow, pain, and ruin. " I could not have slept soundly," he writes, " as I now can under the comfort- able impression of receiving the thanks of m.j creditors, and the conscious feeling of discharging my duty as a man of honesty. I see before me a long, tedious, and dark path, but it leads to stainless reputation. If I die in the harness, as is very likely, I ^shall die with honor." One of the last things he uttered was, " I have been, perhaps, the most voluminous author of my day, and it is a comfort to me to think that I have tried to unsettle no man's faith, to corrupt no man's principles, and that I have written nothing which, on my deathbed, I would wish blotted out." Although Agassiz refused to lecture even for a large 226 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. sum of money, yet he left a greater legacy to the world, and left even more money to Harvard University ($300,000) than he would have left if he had taken the time to lecture for money. Faraday had to choose between a fortune of nearly a million and a life of almost certain poverty if he pur- sued science. He chose poverty and science, and earned a name never to be erased from the book of fame. Beecher says that we are all building a soul-house for eternity ; yet with what differing architecture and what various care ! What if a man should see his neighbor getting work- men and building materials together, and should say to him, '' What are you building ? " and he should answer, '^ I don't exactly know. I am waiting to see what will come of it." And so walls are reared, and room is added to room, while the man looks idly on, and all the bystand- ers exclaim, " What a fool he is ! " Yet this is the way many men are building their characters for eternity, adding room to room, without plan or aim, and thought- lessly waiting to see what the effect will be. Such builders will never dwell in "the house of God, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Some people build as cathedrals are built, the part nearest the ground finished ; but that part which soars towards heaven, the turrets and the spires, forever in- complete. Many men are mere warehouses full of merchandise — the head and heart are stuffed with goods. Like those houses in the lower streets of cities which were once family dwellings, but are now used for commercial pur- poses, there are apartments in their souls which were once tenanted by taste, and love, and joy, and worship ; but they are all deserted now, and the rooms are filled with material things. ALEXANDER HAMILTON *' The Moses of Coloiiiar Finance." " Poverty is a condition wliicli no man should accept, unless it is forced upon him as an inexorable necessity or astlie alternative of dishonor." " Comfort and independence abide with those who can postpone their desires." CHAPTER XII. WEALTH IN ECONOMY. Economy is half the battle of life. — Spurgeon. Economy is the parent of integrity, of liberty and ease, and the beaute- ous sister of temperance, of cheerfulness and health. — Dr. Johnson. Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants and to serve them one's self? As much wisdom can be expended on a private economy as on an em- pire. — Emerson. Riches amassed in haste will diminish; but those collected by hand and little by little will multiply. — Goethe. No gain is so certain as that which proceeds from the economical use of what you have. — Latin Proverb. Beware of little extravagances : a small leak will sink a big ship. — Franklin. Better go to bed supperless than rise with debts. — German Proverb. Debt is like any other trap, easy enough to get into, but hard enough to get out of. — H. W. Shaw. Sense can support herself handsomely in most countries on some eighteen pence a day; but for phantasy, planets and solar systems will not suffice. — Macaulay. Economy, the poor man's mint. — Tupper. I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse ; borrowing only lingers and lingers it out ; but the disease is incurable. — Shakespeare. Whatever be your talents, whatever be your prospects, never speculate away on the chance of a palace that which you may need as a provision against the workhouse. — Bulwer. Not for to hide it in a hedge. Nor for a train attendant. But for the glorious privilege Of being independent. Burns. " We shan't get much here," whispered a lady to her companion, as John Murray blew out one of the two caudles by whose light he had been writing when they 228 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. asked him to contribute to some benevolent object. He listened to their story and gave one hundred dollars. " Mr. Murray, I am very agreeably surprised," said the lady quoted ; " I did not expect to get a cent from you." The old Quaker asked the reason for her opinion ; and, when told, said, " That, ladies, is the reason I am able to let you have the hundred dollars. It is by practi- cing economy that I save up money with which to do charitable actions. One candle is enough to talk by." Emerson relates the following anecdote : " An opulent merchant in Boston was called on by a friend in behalf of a charity. At that time he was admonishing his clerk for using whole wafers instead of halves ; his friend thought the circumstance unprojoitious ; but to his surprise, on listening to the appeal, the merchant subscribed five hundred dollars. The applicant ex- pressed his astonishment that any person who was so particular about half a wafer should present five hun- dred dollars to a charity ; but the merchant said, " It is by saving half wafers, and attending to such little things, that I have now something to give." " How did you acquire your great fortune ? " asked a friend of Lampis, the shipowner. " My great fortune, easily," was the reply ; " my small one, by dint of ex- ertion." Four years from the time Marshall Field left the rocky New England farm to seek his fortune in Chicago he was admitted as a partner in the firm of Coaley, Farwell & Co. The only reason the modest young man gave, to explain his promotion when he had neither backing, wealth, nor influence, was that he saved his money. If a man will begin at the age of twenty and lay by twenty-six cents every working day, investing at seven per cent, compound interest, he will have thirty-two thousand dollars when he is seventy years old. Twenty cents a day is no unusual expenditure for beer or cigars. WEALTH IN ECONOMY. 229 yet ill lifty years it would easily amount to twenty thou- sand dollars. Even a saving of one dollar a week from the date of one's majority would give him one thousand dollars for each of the last ten of the allotted years of life. " What maintains one vice would bring up two children." Such rigid economy, such high courage, enables one to surprise the world with gifts even if he is poor. In fact, the poor and the middle classes give most in the aggregate to missions and hospitals and to the poor. Only frugality enables them to outdo the rich on their own ground. But miserliness or avariciousness is a different thing from economy. The miserly is the miserable man, who hoards money from a love of it. A miser who spends a cent upon himself Avhere another would spend a quarter does it from parsimony, which is a subordinate charac- teristic of avarice. Of this the following is an illus- tration : " True, I should like some soup, but I have no appetite for the meat," said the dying Ostervalde ; "what is to become of that ? It will be a sad waste." And so the rich Paris banker would not let his servant buy meat for broth. A writer on political economy tells of the mishaps resulting from a broken latch on a farmyard gate. Every one going through would shut the gate, but as the latch would not hold it, it would swing open with every breeze. One day a pig ran out into the woods. Every one on the farm went to help get him back. A gardener jumped over a ditch -to stop the pig, and sprained his ankle so badly as to be confined to his bed for two weeks. When the cook returned, she found that her linen, left to dry at the fire, was all badly scorched. The dairymaid in her excitement left the cows untied, and one of them broke the leg of a colt. The gardener lost several hours of valuable time. Yet a new latch would not have cost five cents. 230 ARCHITECTS OF FATE, Guy, the London bookseller, and afterward tlie founder of the great hospital, was a great miser, living in the back i^art of his shop, eating upon an old bench, and using his counter for a table, with a news- paper for a cloth. He did not marry. One day he was visited by "Vulture" Hopkins, another well-known miser. " What is your business ? " asked Guy, lighting a candle. " To discuss your methods of saving money," was the reply, alluding to the niggardly economy for which Guy was famous. On learning Hopkins's busi- ness he blew out the light, saying, " We can do that in the dark." " Sir, you are my master in the art," said the " Vulture ; " "I need ask no further. I see where your secret lies." Yet that kind of economy which verges on the nig- gardly is better than the extravagance that laughs at it. Either, when carried to excess, is not only apt to cause misery, but to ruin the character. " Lay by something for a rainy day," said a gentle- man to an Irishman in his service. Not long afterwards he asked Patrick how much he had added to his store. " Faith, nothing at all," was the reply ; " I did as you bid me, but it rained very hard yesterday, and it all went — in drink." "Wealth, a monster gorged 'Mid starving populations." But nowhere and at no period were these contrasts more startling than in Imperial Rome. There a whole population might be trembling lest they should be starved by the delay of an Alexandrian corn-ship, while the upper classes were squandering fortunes at a single banquet, drinking out of myrrhine and jeweled vases worth hundreds of pounds, and feasting on the brains of peacocks and the tongues of nightingales. As a consequence, disease was rife, men were short- lived. At this time the dress of Roman ladies dis- played an unheard-of splendor. The elder Pliny tells WEALTH IN ECONOMY. 231 us that he himself saw Lollia Paulina dressed for a be- trothal feast in a robe entirely covered with pearls and emeralds, which had cost 40,000,000 sesterces, and which was known to be less costly than some of her other dresses. Gluttony, caprice, extravagance, ostentation, impurity, rioted in the heart of a society which knew of no other means by which to break the monotony of its weariness or alleviate the anguish of its despair. The expense ridiculously bestowed on the Eoman feasts passes all belief. Suetonius mentions a supper given to Vitellius by his brother, in which, among other articles, there were two thousand of the choicest fishes, seven thousand of the most delicate birds, and one dish, from its size and capacity, named the segis or shield of Minerva. It was filled chiefly with the liver of the scari, a delicate species of fish, the brains of pheasants and peacocks, and the tongues of parrots, considered desirable chiefly because of their great cost. " I hope that there will not be another sale," ex- claimed Horace Walpole, " for I have not an inch of room nor a farthing left." A woman once bought an old door-plate with " Thompson " on it because she thought it might come in handy some time. The habit of buy- ing what you don't need because it is cheap encourages extravagance. " Many have been ruined by buying good pennyworths." "Where there is no prudence," said Dr. Johnson, " there is no virtue." The eccentric John Eandolph once sprang from his seat in the House of Eepresentatives, and exclaimed in his piercing voice, " Mr. Speaker, I have found it." And then, in the stillness which followed this strange outburst, he added, " I have found the Philosopher's Stone : it is Pay as you f/o.^' Many a young man seems to think that when he sees his name on a sign he is on the highway to fortune, and he begins to live on a scale as though there was no 232 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. possible chance of failure ; as though he were already beyond the danger point. Unfortunately Congress can pass no law that will remedy the vice of living beyond one's means. " The prosperity of fools shall destroy them." " How- ever easy it may be to make money," said Barnum, " it is the most difficult thing in the world to keep it." Money often makes the mare — run away with you. Very few men know how to use money properly. They can earn it, lavish it, hoard it, waste it ; but to deal with it wisely , as a means to an end, is an educa- tion difficult of acquirement. After a large stained -glass window had been con- structed an artist picked up the discarded fragments and made one of the most exquisite windows in Europe for another cathedral. So one boy will pick up a splen- did education out of the odds and ends of time which others carelessly throw away, or gain a fortune by sav- ing what others waste. It has become a part of the new political economy to argue that a debt on a church or a house or a firm is a desirable thing to develop character. When the young man starts out in life with the old-fashioned idea strong in his mind that debt is bondage and a disgrace, that a mortgage is to be shunned like the cholera, and that to owe a dollar that you cannot pay, unless overtaken by misfortune, is nothing more or less than stealing, then he is bound in so much at least to succeed, and save his old age from being a burden upon his friends or the state. To do your best you must own every bit of yourself. If you are in debt, part of you belongs to your credi- tors. Nothing but actual sin is so paralyzing to a young man's energies as debt. The " loose change " which many young men throw away carelessly, or worse, would often form the basis of a fortune and independence. The earnings of the peo- WEALTH IN ECONOMY. 233 pie of the United States, rich and poor, old and young, male and female, amount to an average of less than fifty cents a day. But it is by economizing such sav- ings that one must get his start in business. The man without a penny is practically helpless, from a business point of view, except so far as he can immediately util- ize his powers of body and mind. Besides, when a man or woman is driven to the wall, the chance of goodness surviving self-respect and the loss of public esteem is frightfully diminished. " Money goes as it comes.'^ " A child and a fool imagine that twenty years and twenty shillings can never be spent." Live between extravagance and meanness. Don't save money and starve your mind. " The very secret and essence of thrift consists in getting things into higher values. Spend upAvard, that is, for the higher faculties. Spend for the mind rather than for the body, for culture rather than for amusement. Some young men are too stingy to buy the daily papers, and are very ignorant and narrow. " There is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty." Don't squeeze out of your life and comfort and family what you save." Liberal, not lavish, is Nature's hand. Even God, it is said, cannot afford to be extravagant. When He in- creased the loaves and fishes, He commanded to gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost. " Nature uses a grinding economy," says Emerson, " working up all that is wasted to-day into to-morrow's creation ; not a superfluous grain- of sand for all the os- tentation she makes of expense and public works. She flung us out in her plenty, but we cannot shed a hair or a paring of a nail but instantly she snatches at the shred and appropriates it to her general stock." Last summer's flowers and foliage decayed in autumn only to enrich the earth this year for other forms of beauty. Nature will not even wait for our friends to see us, un- 234 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. less we die at home. The moment the breath has left the body she begins to take us to i)ieces, that the parts may be used again for other creations. Mark the following contrast : — 1772. 1822. Man, to the plow; Man, tally-ho; Wife, to the cow; Wife, piano; Girl, to the sow; Miss, silk and satin ; Boy, to the mow; B03', Greek and Latin; And your rents will be netted. And you '11 all be gazetted. Hone's Works. The Times. More than a lifetime has elapsed since the above was published, but instead of returning to the style of 1772, our farmers have out-Heroded Herod in the direction of the fashion of 1822, and many a farmhouse, like the home of Artemas Ward, may be known by the cupola and the mortgage with which it is decorated. It is by the mysterious power of economy, it has been said, that the loaf is multiplied, that using does not waste, that little becomes much, that scattered frag- ments grow to unity, and that out of nothing or next to nothing comes the miracle of something. It is not merely saving, still less, parsimony. It is foresight and arrangement, insight and combination, causing inert things to labor, useless things to serve our neces- sities, perishing things to renew their vigor, and all things to exert themselves for human comfort. English working men and women work very hard, seldom take a holiday, and though they get nearly double the wages of the same classes in France, yet save very little. The millions earned by them slip out of their hands almost as soon as obtained to satisfy the pleasures of the moment. In France every house- keeper is taught the art of making much out of little. "I am simply astonished," writes an American lady stopping in France, "at the number of good wholesome dishes which my friend here makes for her table from things, which at home, I always throw away. Dainty WEALTH IN ECONOMY. 235 little dishes from scraps of cold meat, from hard crusts of bread, delicately prepared and seasoned, from almost everything and nothing. And yet there is no feeling of stinginess or want." " I wish I could write all across the sky, in letters of gold," says Kev. William Marsh, "the one word, sav- ings-bank." Boston savings-banks have $130,000,000 on deposit, mostly saved in driblets. Josiah Quincy used to say that the servant girls built most of the palaces on Bea- con Street. " So apportion your wants that your means may ex- ceed them," says Bulwer. " With one hundred pounds a year I jnay need no man's help ; I may at least have < my crust of bread and liberty.' But with five thou- sand pounds a year I may dread a ring at my bell ; I may have my tyrannical master in servants whose wages I cannot pay ; my exile may be at the fiat of the first long-suffering man who enters a judgment against me ; for the flesh that lies nearest my heart some Shy- lock may be dusting his scales and whetting his knife. Every man is needy who spends more than he has ; no man is needy who spends less. I may so ill manage, that with five thousand pounds a year I purchase the worst evils of poverty, — terror and shame; I may so well manage my money, that with one hundred pounds a year I purchase the best blessings of wealth, — safety and respect." Edmund Burke, speaking on Economic Eeform, quoted from Cicero : " Magnum vectigal est parsimo- nia," accenting the second word on the first syllable. Lord North whispered a correction, when Burke turned the mistake to advantage. " The noble lord hints that I have erred in the quantity of a principal word in my quotation; I rejoice at it, sir, because it gives me an opportunity of repeating the inestimable adage, — * Magnum vectigal est parsimonia.' " The sentiment, 236 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. meaning " Thrift is a good income/' is well worthy of emphatic repetition by us all. Washington examined the minutest expenditures of his family, even when President of the United States. He understood that without economy none can be rich, and with it none need be poor. "I make a point of paying my own bills/' said Wel- lington. John Jacob Astor said that the first thousand dollars cost him more effort than all of his millions. Boys who are careless with their dimes and quarters, just be- cause they have so few, never get this first thousand, and without it no fortune is possible. To find out uses for the persons or things which are now wasted in life is to be the glorious work of the men of the next generation, and that which will con- tribute most to their enrichment. Economizing " in spots " or by freaks is no economy at all. It must be done by management. Learn early in life to say ^' I can't afford it." It is an indication of power and courage and manliness. Dr. Franklin said, " It is not our own eyes, but other peo- ple's, that ruin us." " Eashion wears out more apparel than the man," says Shakespeare. " Of what a hideous progeny of ill is debt the father," said Douglas Jerrold. "What meanness, what inva- sions of self-respect, what cares, what double-dealing ! How in due season it will carve the frank, open face into wrinkles ; how like a knife it will stab the honest heart. And then its transformations, — how it has been known to change a goodly face into a mask of brass ; how with the evil custom of debt has the true man become a callous trickster ! A freedom from debt, and what nourishing sweetness may be found in cold water ; what toothsomeness in a dry crust ; what ambrosial nourishment in a hard eg^ ! Be sure of it, he who dines out of debt, though his meal be a biscuit and an WEALTH IN ECONOMY. 237 onion, dines in ' The Apollo.' And then, for raiment, what warmth in a threadbare coat, if the tailor's receipt be in your pocket ! What Tyrian purple in the faded waistcoat, the vest not owed for ; how glossy the well- worn hat, if it covers not the aching head of a debtor ! Next, the home sweets, the outdoor recreation of the free man. The street door falls not a knell in his heart ; the foot on the staircase, though he lives on the third pair, sends no spasm through his anatomy ; at the rap of his door he can crow ' come in,' and his pulse still beats healthfully. See him abroad ! How he re- turns look for look with any passenger. Poverty is a bitter draught, yet may, and sometimes can with ad- vantage, be gulped down. Though the drinker makes wry faces, there may, after all, be a wholesome good- ness in the cup. But debt, however courteously it may be offered, is the Cup of Siren ; and the wine, spiced and delicious though it be, is poison. My son, if poor, see Hyson in the running spring ; see thy mouth water at a last week's roll ; think a threadbare coat the only wear ; and acknowledge a whitewashed garret the fittest housing-place for a gentleman ; do this, and flee debt. So shall thy heart be at rest, and the sheriff con- founded." " Whoever has sixpence is sovereign over all men to the extent of that sixpence," says Carlyle ; " commands cooks to feed him, philosophers to teach him, kings to mount guard over him, — to the extent of that sixpence." If a man owes you a dollar, he is almost sure to owe you a grudge, too. If you owe another money, you will be apt to regard him with uncharitable eyes. Why not economize before getting into debt instead of pinch- ing afterwards ? Communities which live wholly from hand to mouth never make much progress in the useful arts. Savings mean power. Comfort and independence abide with those who can postpone thei?^ desires. 238 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. "Hunger, rags, cold, hard work, contempt, suspicion, unjust reproach, are disagreeable," says Horace Gree- ley ; "but debt is infinitely worse than them all." Many a ruined man dates his downfall from the day when he began borrowing money. Debt demoralized Daniel Webster, and Theodore Hook, and Sheridan, and Fox, and Pitt. Mirabeau's life was made wretched by duns. " Annual income," says Micawber, " twenty pounds ; annual expenditure, nineteen six, result — happiness. Annual income, twenty pounds ; annual expenditure, twenty pounds ought and six, result — misery." "We are ruined," says Colton, "not by what we really want, but by what we think we do. Therefore never go abroad in search of your wants ; if they be real wants, they will come home in search of you ; for he that buys what he does not want will soon want what he cannot buy." The honorable course is to give every man his due. It is better to starve than not to do this. It is better to do a small business on a cash basis than a large one on credit. Owe no man anything, wrote St. Paul. It is a good motto to place in every purse, in every count- ing-room, in every church, in every home. Economy is of itself a great revenue. — Cicero. RALPH WALDO EMERSON "The Sage of Concord." ''■ I revere the person wlio is riches : so I cannot think of him as alone, or poor, or exiled, or unhappy." CHAPTER XIII. RICH WITHOUT MONEY. Let others plead for pensions; I can be rich without money, by endeav- oring to be superior to everything poor. I would have my services to my country unstained by any interested motive. — Lord Collingwood. Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay. Pope. Pennilessness is not poverty, and ownership is not possession; to be without is not always to lack, and to reach is not to attain ; sunlight is for all eyes that look up, and color for those who choose. — Helen Hunt. I ought not to allow an}' man, because he has broad lands, to feel that he is rich in my presence. I ought to make him feel that I can do without his riches, that I cannot be bought, — neither by comfort, neither by pride, — and although I be utterly penniless, and receiving bread from him, that he is the poor man beside me. — Emerson. To be content with what we possess is the greatest and most secure of riches. — Cicero. There is no riches above a sound body and no joy above the joy of the heart. — Ecclesiastes. "Where, thy true treasure ? Gold says, "Not in me ; " And " Not in me," the Diamond. Gold is poor ; India 's insolvent: seek it in thyself. Young. He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature. — Socrates. A great heart in a little house is of all things here below that which has ever touched me most. — Lacordaire. My crown is in my heart, not on my head. Nor decked with diamonds and Lidian stones, Nor to be seen : my crown is called content; A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy. Shakespeare. Many a man is rich without money. Thousands of men with nothing in their pockets, and thousands with- out even a pocket, are rich. 240 ARCHITECTS OF FATE, A man born with a good, sound constitution, a good stomach, a good heart and good limbs, and a pretty good headpiece, is rich. Good bones are better than gold, tough muscles than silver, and nerves that carry energy to every function are better than houses and land. "Heart-life, soul-life, hope, joy, and love, are true riches," said Beecher. Why should I scramble and struggle to get posses- sion of a little portion of this earth ? This is my world now ; why should I envy others its mere legal posses- sion ? It belongs to him who can see it, enjoy it. I need not envy the so-called owners of estates in Boston and New York. They are merely taking care of my property and keeping it in excellent condition for me. For a few pennies for railroad fare whenever I wish I can see and possess the best of it all. It has cost me no effort, it gives me no care ; yet the green grass, the shrubbery, and the statues on the lawns, the finer sculptures and the paintings within, are always ready for me whenever I feel a desire to look upon them. I do not wish to carry them home with me, for I could not give them half the care they now receive ; besides, it would take too much of my valuable time, and I should be worrying continually lest they be spoiled or stolen. I have much of the wealth of the world now. It is all prepared for me without any pains on my part. All around me are working hard to get things that will please me, and competing to see who can give them the cheapest. The little I pay for the use of libraries, rail- roads, galleries, parks, is less than it would cost to care for the least of all I use. Life and landscape are mine, the stars and flowers, the sea and air, the birds and trees. What more do I want ? All the ages have been working for me ; all mankind are my servants. I am only required to feed and clothe myself, an easy task in this land of opportunity. RICH WITHOUT MONEY. 241 A millionaire pays thousands of pounds for a gallery of paintings, and some poor boy or girl comes in, with open mind and poetic fancy, and carries away a treasure of beauty which the owner never saw. A collector bought at public auction in London, for one hundred and fifty- seven guineas, an autograph of Shakespeare ; but for nothing a schoolboy can read and absorb the riches of " Hamlet." Why should I waste my abilities pursuing this will-o'- the-wisp " Enough," which is ever a little more than one has, and which none of the panting millions ever yet overtook in his mad chase ? Is there no desirable thing left in this world but gold, luxury, and ease ? " Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover." " A man may as soon fill a chest with grace, or a vessel with virtue," says Phillips Brooks, " as a heart with wealth." Shall we seek happiness through the sense of taste or of touch ? Shall we idolize our stomachs and our backs ? Have we no higher missions, no nobler des- tinies ? Shall we " disgrace the fair day by a pusillani- mous preference of our bread to our freedom " ? In the three great " Banquets " of Plato, Xenophon, and Plutarch the food is not even mentioned. What does your money say to you : what message does it bring to you ? Does it say to you, " Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die " ? Does it bring a mes- sage of comfort, of education, of culture, of travel, of books, of an opportunity to help your fellow-man, or is the message "More land, more thousands and millions" ? What message does it bring you ? Clothes for the naked, bread for the starving, schools for the ignorant, hospitals for the sick, asylums for the orphans, or- of more for yourself and none for others ? Is it a message of generosity or of meanness, breadth or narrowness ? Does it speak to you of character ? Does it mean a broader manhood, a larger aim, a nobler ambition, or does it cry " More, more, more " '/ 242 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. Are you an animal loaded with ingots, or a man filled with a purpose ? He is rich whose mind is rich, whose thought enriches the intellect of the world. It is a sad sight to see a soul which thirsts not for truth or beauty or the good. A sailor on a sinking vessel in the Caribbean Sea eagerly filled his pockets with Spanish dollars from a barrel on board while his companions, about to leave in the only boat, begged him to seek safety with them. But he could not leave the bright metal which he had so longed for and idolized, and was prevented from reaching shore by his very riches, when the vessel went down. " Who is the richest of men," asked Socrates ? '^ He who is content with the least, for contentment is na- ture's riches." In More's ^'Utopia" gold was despised. Criminals were forced to wear heavy chains of it, and to have rings of it in their ears ; it was put to the vilest uses to keep up the scorn of it. Bad characters were com- pelled to wear gold head-bands. Diamonds and pearls were used to decorate infants, so that the youth would discard and despise them. "Ah, if the rich were as rich as the poor fancy riches ! " exclaims Emerson. Many a rich man has died in the poorhouse. In excavating Pompeii a skeleton was found with the fingers clenched round a quantity of gold. A man of business in the town of Hull, England, when dying, pulled a bag of money from under his pillow, which he held between his clenched fingers with a grasp so firm as scarcely to relax under the agonies of death. Oh ! blind and wanting wit to choose, Who house the chaff and burn the grain ; Who hug the wealth ye cannot use, And lack the riches all may gain. Wu>i.iAM Watson. RICH WITHOUT MONEY. 243 Povert}^ is the want of much, avarice the want of everything. A poor man was met by a stranger while scoffing at the wealthy for not enjoying themselves. The stranger gave him a purse, in which he was always to find a ducat. As fast as he took one out another was to drop in, but he was not to begin to spend his fortune until he had thrown away the purse. He takes ducat after ducat out, but continually procrastinates and puts off the hour of enjoyment until he has got " a little more," and dies at last counting his millions. A beggar was once met by Fortune, who promised to fill his wallet with gold, as much as he miglit please, on condition that whatever touched the ground should turn at once to dust. The beggar opens his wallet, asks for more and yet more, until the bag bursts. The gold falls to the ground, and all is lost. When the steamer Central America was about to sink, the stewardess, having collected all the gold she could from the staterooms, and tied it in her apron, jumped for the last boat leaving the steamer. She missed her aim and fell into the water, the gold carry- ing her down head first. In the year 1843 a rich miser lived in Padua, who was so mean and sordid that he would never give a cent to any person or object, and he was so afraid of the banks that he would not deposit with them, but would sit up nights with sword and pistol by him to guard his idol hoard. When his health gave way from anxiety and watching he built an underground treasure-cham- ber, so arranged that if any burglar ever entered, he would step upon a spring which would precipitate him into a subterranean river, where he could neither escape nor be heard. One night the miser went to his chest to see that all was right, when his foot touched the spring of the trap, and he was hurled into the deep, hidden stream. 244 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. " One would think/' said Boswell, " that the proprie- tor of all this (Keddlestone, the seat of Lord Scarsfield) must be happy." " Nay, sir," said Johnson, " all this excludes but one evil, poverty." John Duncan, the illegitimate child of a Scottish weaver, was ignorant, near-sighted, bent, a miserable apology for a human being, and at last a pauper. If he went upon the street he would sometimes be stoned by other boys. The farmer, for whom he watched cattle, was cruel to him, and after a rainy day would send him cold and wet to sleep on a miserable bed in a dark out- house. Here he would empty the water from his shoes, and wring out his wet clothes and sleep as best he might. But the boy had a desire to learn to read, and when, a little later, he was put to weaving, he ^ev- suaded a schoolgirl, twelve years old, to teach him. He was sixteen when he learned the alphabet, after which his progress was quite rapid. He was very fond of plants, and worked overtime for several months to earn five shillings to buy a book on botany. He became a good botanist, and such was his interest in the study that at the age of eighty he walked twelve miles to obtain a new specimen. A man whom he met became interested at finding such a well-stored mind in such a miserable body, poorly clad, and published an account of his career. Many readers sent him money, but he saved it, and left it in his will to found eight scholar- ships and offer prizes for the encouragement of the study of natural science by the poor. His small but valuable library was left for a similar use. Franklin said money never made a man happy yet ; there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a vacuum, it makes one. A great bank account can never make a man rich. It is the mind that makes the body rich. No man is rich, however much money or land he may possess, who has a poor heart. If that is poor, he is RICH WITHOUT MONEY. 245 poor indeed, though he own and rule kingdoms. He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has. Who would not choose to be" a millionaire of deeds with a Lincoln, a Grant, a Florence Nightingale, a Childs; a millionaire of ideas with Emerson, with Lowell, with Shakespeare, with Wordsworth ; a million- aire of statesmanship with a Gladstone, a Bright, a Sumner, a Washington ? Some men are rich in health, in constant cheerful- ness, in a mercurial temperament which floats them over troubles and trials enough to sink a shipload of ordi- nary men. Others are rich in disposition, family, and friends. There are some men so amiable that everybody loves them ; some so cheerful that they carry an atmos- phere of jollity about them. Some are rich in integrity and character. One of the first great lessons of life is to learn the true estimate of values. As the youth starts out in his career, all sorts of wares will be imposed upon him, and all kinds of temptations will be used to induce him to buy. His success will depend very largely upon his ability to estimate properly, not the apparent but the real value of everything presented to him. Vulgar Wealth will flaunt her banner before his eyes, and claim supremacy over everything else. A thousand different schemes will be thrust into his face with their claims for superiority. Every occupation and vocation will pre- sent its charms in turn, and offer its inducements. The youth Avho would succeed must not allow himself to be deceived by appearances, but must place the emphasis of life where it belongs. No man, it is said, can read the works of John Euskin without learning that his sources of pleasure are well- nigh infinite. There is not a flower, nor a cloud, nor a tree, nor a mountain, nor a star ; not a bird that fans the air, nor a creature that walks the earth; not a 246 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. glimpse of sea or sky or meaclow-greeiiery ; not a work of worthy art in the domains of painting, sculpture, poe- try, and architecture ; not a thought of God as the Great Spirit presiding over and informing all things, that is not to him a source of the sweetest pleasure. The whole world of matter and of spirit and the long record of human art are open to him as the never-fail- ing fountains of his delight. In these pure realms he seeks his daily food and has his daily life. There is now and then a man who sees beauty and true riches everywhere, and " worships the splendor of God which he sees bursting through each chink and cranny." Phillips Brooks, Thoreau, Garrison, Emerson, Beecher, Agassiz, were rich without money. They saw the splendor in the flower, the glory in the grass, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. They knew that the man who owns the landscape is seldom the one who pays the taxes on it. They sucked in power and wealth at first hands from the meadows, fields, and flowers, birds, brooks, moun- tains, and forest, as the bee sucks honey from the flow- ers. Every natural object seemed to bring them a spe- cial message from the great Author of the beautiful. To these rare souls every natural object was touched with power and beauty ; and their thirsty souls drank it in as a traveler on a desert drinks in the god-sent water of the oasis. To extract power and real wealth from men and things seemed to be their mission, and to pour it out again in refreshing showers upon a thirsty hu- manity. They believed that man's most important food does not enter by the mouth. They knew that man could not live by estates, dollars, and bread alone, and that if he could he would only be an animal. They be- lieved that the higher life demands a higher food. They believed in man's unlimited power of expansion, and that this growth demands a more highly organized RICH WITHOUT MONEY. 247 food product than that which merely sustains animal life. They saw a finer nutriment in the landscape, in the meadows, than could be ground into flour, and which escaped the loaf. They felt a sentiment in natural ob- jects which pointed upward, ever upward to the Author, and which was capable of feeding and expanding the higher life until it should grow into a finer sympathy and fellowship with the Author of the beautiful. They believed that the Creation thunders the ten command- ments, and that all Nature is tugging at the terms of every contract to make it just. They could feel this finer sentiment, this soul lifter, this man inspirer, in the growing grain, in the waving corn, in the golden harvest. They saw it reflected in every brook, in every star, in every flower, in every dewdrop. They believed that Nature together with human nature were man's great schoolmasters ; that if rightly used they Avould carve his rough life into beauty and touch his rude man- ner with grace. "More servants wait on man than he '11 take notice of." But if he would enjoy Nature he must come to it from a higher level than the yardstick. He must bring a spirit as grand and sublime as that by which the thing itself exists. We all live on far lower levels than we need to do. We linger in the misty and oppressive valleys, when we might be climbing the sunlit hills. God puts into our hands the Book of Life, bright on every page with open secrets, and we suffer it to drop out of our hands unread. Emerson says, " We have come .into a world which is a living poem. Everything is as I am." Nature provides for us a perpetual festival ; she is bright to the bright, comforting to those who will accept comfort. We can- not conceive how a universe could possibly be created which could devise more efficient methods or greater opportunities for the delight, the happiness, and the real wealth of human beings than the one we live in. 248 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. The human body is packed full of marvelous devices, of wonderful contrivances, of infinite possibilities for the happiness and riches of the individual. No physi- ologist nor scientist has ever yet been able to point out a single improvement, even in the minutest detail, in the structure of the human body. No inventor has ever yet been able to suggest an improvement in this human mechanism. No chemist has ever been able to suggest a superior combination in any one of the ele- ments which make up the human structure. One of the first things to do in life is to learn the natural wealth of our surroundings, instead of bemoaning our lot, for, no matter where we are placed, there is infinitely more about us than we can ever understand, than we can ever exhaust the meaning of. " Thank Heaven there are still some Matthew Arnolds who prefer the heavenly sweetness of light to the Eden of riches." Arnold left only a few thousand dollars, but yet was he not one of the richest of men ? What the world wants is young men who will amass golden thoughts, golden wisdom, golden deeds, not mere golden dollars ; young men who prefer to have thought-capital, character-capital, to cash-capital. He who estimates his money the highest values himself the least. " I revere the person," says Emerson, " who is riches ; so that I cannot think of him as alone, or poor, or exiled, or unhappy." Eaphael was rich without money. All doors opened to him, and he was more than welcome everywhere. His sweet spirit radiated sunshine wherever he went. Henry Wilson was rich without money. So scrupu- lous had he been not to make his exalted position a means of worldly gain, that when this Natick cobbler, the sworn friend of the oppressed, whose one question as to measures or acts was ever " Is it right ; will it do good ? " came to be inaugurated as Vice-President of the country, he was obliged to borrow of his fellow- RICH WITHOUT MONEY. 249 senator, Charles Sumner, one hundred dollars to meet the necessary expenses of the occasion. Mozart, the great composer of the " Kequiem," left barely enough money to bury him, but he has made the world richer. A rich mind and noble spirit will cast a radiance of beauty over the humblest home, which the upholsterer and decorator can never approach. Who would not pre- fer to be a millionaire of character, of contentment, rather than possess nothing but the vulgar coins of a Croesus ? Whoever uplifts civilization is rich though he die penniless, and future generations will erect his monument. Are we tender, loving, self-denying, and honest, trying to fashion our frail life after that of the model man of Nazareth ? Then, though our pockets are often empty, we have an inheritance which is as overwhelmingly pre- cious as it is eternally incorruptible. An Asiatic traveler tells us that one day he found the bodies of two men laid upon the desert sand beside the carcass of a camel. They had evidently died from thirst, and yet around the waist of each was a large store of jewels of different kinds, which they had doubt- less been crossing the desert to sell in the markets of Persia. The man who has no money is poor, but one who has nothing but money is poorer than he. He only is rich who can enjoy without owning ; he who is covetous is poor though he have millions. There are riches of in- tellect, and no man with an intellectual taste can be called poor. He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove. He is rich as well as brave who can face pov- erty and misfortune with cheerfulness and courage. We can so educate the will power that it will focus 250 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. the thoughts upon the bright side of things, and upon objects which elevate the soul, thus forming a habit of hapj)iness and goodness which will make us rich. The habit of making the best of everything and of always looking on the bright side of everything is a fortune in itself. He is rich who values a good name above gold. Among the ancient Greeks and Eomans honor was more sought after than wealth. Eome was imperial Rome no more when the imperial purple became an article of traffic. This is the evil of trade, as well as of partisan poli- tics. As Emerson remarks, it would put everything into market, — talent, beauty, virtue, and man himself. Diogenes was captured by pirates and sold as a slave. His purchaser released him, and gave him charge of his household and of the education of his children. He despised wealth and affectation, and lived in a tub. " Do you want anything ? " asked Alexander the Great, forcibly impressed by the abounding cheerfulness of the philosopher under such circumstances. "Yes," replied Diogenes, " I want you to stand out of my sunshine and not to take from me what you cannot give me." " Were I not Alexander," exclaimed the great conqueror, "I would be Diogenes." Brave and honest men do not work for gold. They work for love, for honor, for character. When Socrates suffered death rather than abandon his views of right morality, when Las Casas endeavored to mitigate the tortures of the poor Indians, they had no thought of money or country. They worked for the elevation of all that thought, and for the relief of all that suffered. "I don't want such things," said Epictetus to the rich Roman orator who was making light of his con- tempt for money-wealth; "and besides," said the stoic, "you are poorer than I am, after all. You have silver vessels, but earthenware reasons, principles, appetites. RICH WITHOUT MONEY. 251 My mind to me a kingdom is, and it furnishes me with abundant and happy occupation in lieu of your restless idleness. All your possessions seem small to you ; mine seem great to me. Your desire is insatiate, mine is satisfied." " Do you know, sir," said a devotee of Mammon to John Bright, " that I am worth a million sterling ? " " Yes," said the irritated but calm-spirited respondent, "I do ; and I know that it is all you are worth." A bankrupt merchant, returning home one night, said to his noble wife, " My dear, I am ruined ; everything we have is in the hands of the sheriff." After a few moments of silence the wife looked into his face and asked, " Will the sheriff sell you ? " '' Oh, no." " Will the sheriff sell me ? " " Oh, no." " Then do not say v/e have lost everything. All that is most valuable re- mains to us, — manhood, womanhood, childhood. We have lost but the results of our skill and industry. We can make another fortune if our hearts and hands are left us." What power can poverty have over a home where loving hearts are beating with a consciousness of untold riches of head and heart ? Paul was never so great as when he occupied a prison cell ; and Jesus Christ reached the height of his success when, smitten, spat upon, tormented, and crucified, He cried in agonj^, and yet with triumphant satisfaction, " It is finished." " Character before wealth," was the motto of Amos Lawrence, who had inscribed- on his pocket-book, " What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? " If you make a fortune let every dollar of it be clean. You do not want to see in it drunkards reel, orphans weep, widows moan. Your riches must not make others poorer and more wretched. Alexander the Great wandered to the gates of Parar 252 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. dise, and knocked for entrance. " Who knocks ? " de- manded the guardian angel. " Alexander.'^ " Who is Alexander ? " " Alexander, — the Alexander, — Alex- ander the Great, — the conqueror of the world." "We know him not," replied the angel ; " this is the Lord's gate ; only the righteous enter here." Don't start out in life with a false standard ; a truly great man makes official position and money and houses and estates look so tawdry, so mean and poor, that we feel like sinking out of sight with our cheap laurels and gold. Millions look triflinfj beside character. A friend of Professor Agassiz, an eminent practical man, once expressed his wonder that a man of such abilities should remain contented with such a moderate income as he received. " I have enough," was Agassiz's reply. " I have no time to waste in making money. Life is not sufficiently long to enable a man to get rich and do his duty to his fellow -men at the same time." How were the thousands of business men who lost every dollar they had in the Chicago fire enabled to go into business at once, some into wholesale business, without money ? Their record was their bank account. The commercial agencies said they were square men ; that they had always paid one hundred cents on a dol- lar ; that they had paid promptly, and that they were industrious and dealt honorably with all men. This record was as good as a bank account. They drew on their character. Character was the coin which enabled penniless men to buy thousands of dollars' worth of goods. Their integrity did not burn up with their stores. The best part of them was beyond the reach of fire and could not be burned. What are the toil-sweated productions of wealth piled up in vast profusion around a Girard, or a Eothschild, when weighed against the stores of wisdom, the trea- sures of knowledge, and the strength, beauty, and glory RICH WITHOUT MONEY. 253 with which victorious virtue has enriched and adorned a great multitude of minds during the march of a hun- dred generations ? " Lord, how many things are in the world of which Diogenes hath no need ! " exclaimed the stoic, as he wandered among the miscellaneous articles at a country fair. " There are treasures laid up in the heart — treasures of charity, piety, temperance, and soberness. These treasures a man takes with him beyond death when he leaves this world." (Buddhist Scriptures.) Is it any wonder that our children start out with wrong ideals of life, with wrong ideas of what consti- tutes success ? The child is " urged to get on," to " rise in the world," to " make money." The youth is con- stantly told that nothing succeeds like success. False standards are everywhere set up for him, and then the boy is blamed if he makes a failure. It is all very well to urge youth on to success, but the great mass of mankind can never reach or even ap- proximate the goal constantly preached to them, nor can we all be rich. One of the great lessons to teach in this century of sharp competition and the survival of the fittest is how to be rich without money, and to learn how to do without success, according to the popu- lar standard. Gold cannot make the miser rich, nor can the want of it make the beggar poor. In the poem, " The Changed Cross," a weary woman is represented as dreaming that .she was led to a place where many crosses lay, crosses of divers shapes and sizes. The most beautiful one was set in jewels of gold. It was so tiny and exquisite that she changed her own plain cross for it, thinking she was fortunate in finding one so much lighter and lovelier. But soon her back began to ache under the glittering burden, and she changed it for another cross very beautiful and en- 254 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. twined with flowers. But she soon found that under- neath the flowers were piercing thorns which tore her flesh. At last she came to a very plain cross without jewels, without carving, and with only the word, '' Love," inscribed upon it. She took this one up and it proved the easiest and best of all. She was amazed, however, to find that it was her old cross which she had discarded. It is easy to see the jewels and the flowers in other people's crosses, but the thorns and heavy weight are known only to the bearers. How easy other people's burdens seem to us compared with our own. We do not appreciate the secret burdens which almost crush the heart, nor the years of weary wait- ing for delayed success — the aching hearts longing for sympathy, the hidden poverty, the suppressed emotion in other lives. William Pitt, the great Commoner, considered money as dirt beneath his feet compared with the public in- terest and public esteem. His hands were clean. The object for which we strive tells the story of our lives. Men and women should be judged by the happi- ness they create in those around them. ISToble deeds always enrich, but millions of mere money may impov- erish. Character is perpetual wealth, and by the side of him who possesses it the millionaire who has it not seems a pauper. Compared with it, what are houses and lands, stocks and bonds ? '' It is better that great souls should live in small habitations than that abject slaves should burrow in great houses.-' Plain living, rich thought, and grand effort are real riches. Invest in yourself, and you will never be poor. Ploods cannot carry your wealth away, fire cannot burn it, rust cannot consume it. "If a man empties his purse into his head," says Franklin, " no man can take it from him. An invest- ment in knowledge always pays the best interest." "There is a cunning juggle in riches. I observe," RICH WITHOUT MONEY. 255 says Emerson, " that they take somewhat for every- thing they give. I look bigger, but I am less ; I have more clothes, but am not so warm ; more armor, but less courage ; more books, but less wit." Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood. Tennyson. CHAPTER XIV. OPPORTUNITIES WHERE YOU ARE. To each man's life there comes a time supreme; One day, one night, one morning, or one noon, One freighted hour, one moment opportune, One rift through which sublime fulfillments gleam, One space when fate goes tiding with the stream. One Once, in balance 'twixt Too Late, Too Soon, And ready for the passing instant's boon To tip in favor the uncertain beam. Ah, happy he who, knowing how to wait. Knows also how to watch and work and stand On Life's broad deck alert, and at the prow To seize the passing moment, big with fate, "^ From opportunity's extended hand, When the great clock of destiny strikes Now ! Mary A. Townsend. Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide. In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side. Lowell. What is opportunity to a man who can't use it ? An unfecundated egg, which the waves of time wash away into nonentity. — George Eliot. A thousand years a poor man watched Before the gate of Paradise : But while one little nap he snatched, It oped and shut. Ah ! was he wise ? W. R. Alger. Our grand business is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. — Carlyle. A man's best things are nearest him. Lie close about his feet. R. M. Milnes. The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready /or his opportii- nity when it comes. — Disraeli. " There are no longer any good chances for young men," complained a law student to Daniel Webster. THOMAS JEFFERSOM, ■'The workl is all gates, all opportunities to liini who can use them." " 'T is never offered twice, seize then the hour When fortune smiles and dutj- points the way." OPPORTUNITIES WHERE YOU ARE. 257 "There is always room at the top/' replied the great lawyer. No chance, no opportunities, in a land where many poor boys become rich men, where newsboys go to Con- gress, and where those born in the lowest stations at- tain the highest positions ? The world is all gates, all opportunities to him who will use them. But, like Bunyan's Pilgrim in the dungeon of Giant Despair's castle, who had the key of deliverance all the time with him but had forgotten it, we fail to rely wholly upon the ability to advance all that is good for us which has been given to the weakest as well as the strongest. We depend too much upon outside assistance. " We look too high For things close by." A Baltimore lady lost a valuable diamond bracelet at a ball, and supposed that it was stolen from the pocket of her cloak. Years afterward she washed the steps of the Peabody Institute, pondering how to get money to buy food. She cut up an old, worn-out, ragged cloak to make a hood, when lo ! in the lining of the cloak she discovered the diamond bracelet. During all her pov- erty she was worth $3500, but did not knoAV it. Many of us who think we are poor are rich in oppor- tunities, if we could only see them, in possibilities all about us, in faculties worth more than diamond brace- lets. In our large Eastern cities it has been found that at least ninety-four out of every hundred found their first fortune at home, or near at hand, and in meeting common every-day wants. It is a sorry day for a young man who cannot see any opportunities where he is, but thinks he can do better somewhere else. Some Brazilian shepherds organized a party to go to California to dig gold, and took along a handful of translucent pebbles to play checkers with on the voyage. After arriving in San Francisco, and after they had thrown most of the pebbles away, they discovered that they 258 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. were diamonds. They hastened back to Brazil, only to find that the mines from which the pebbles had been gathered had been taken up by others and sold to the government. The richest gold and silver mine in Nevada was sold for $42 by the owner to get money to pay his passage to other mines, where he thought he could get rich. Professor Agassiz told the Harvard students of a farmer who owned a farm of hundreds of acres of un- profitable woods and rocks, and concluded to sell out and get into a more profitable business. He decided to go into the coal-oil business ; he studied coal measures and coal-oil deposits, and experimented for a long time. He sold his farm for $200, and engaged in his new busi- ness two hundred miles away. Only a short time after the man who bought his farm discovered upon it a great flood of coal-oil, which the farmer had previously ignorantly tried to drain off. Hundreds of years ago there lived near the shore of the river Indus a Persian by the name of Ali Hafed. He lived in a cottage on the river bank, from which he could get a grand view of the beautiful country stretch- ing away to the sea. He had a wife and children ; an extensive farm, fields of grain, gardens of flowers, or- chards of fruit, and miles of forest. He had a plenty of money and everything that heart could wish. He was contented and happy. One evening a priest of Buddha visited him, and, sitting before the fire, ex- plained to him how the world was made, and how the first beams of sunlight condensed on the earth's surface into diamonds. The old priest told that a drop of sun- light the size of his thumb was worth more than large mines of copper, silver, or gold ; that with one of them he could buy many farms like his ; that with a handful he could buy a province, and with a mine of diamonds he could purchase a kingdom. Ali Hafed listened, and was no longer a rich man. He had been touched with OPPORTUNITIES WHERE YOU ARE. 259 discontent, and with that all wealth vanishes. Early the next morning he woke the priest who had been the cause of his unhappiness, and anxiously asked him where he could find a mine of diamonds. "What do you want of diamonds ? " asked the astonished priest. " I want to be rich and place my children on thrones.'' " All you have to do is to go and search until you find them," said the priest. " But where shall I go ? " asked the poor farmer. " Go anywhere, north, south, east, or west.'' " How shall I know when I have found the place ? " " When you find a river running over white sands between high mountain ranges, in those white sands you will find diamonds," answered the priest. The discontented man sold the farm for what he could get, left his family with a neighbor, took the money he had at interest, and went to search for the coveted treasure. Over the mountains of Arabia, through Pal- estine and Egypt, he wandered for years, but found no diamonds. When his money was all gone and starva- tion stared him in the face, ashamed of his folly and of his rags, poor Ali Hafed threw himself into the tide and was drowned. The man who bought his farm was a contented man, who made the most of his surround- ings, and did not believe in going away from home to hunt for diamonds or success. While his camel was drinking in the garden one day, he noticed a flash of light from the white sands of the brook. He picked up a pebble, and pleased with its brilliant hues took it into the house, put it on the shelf near the fireplace, and forgot all about it. The old priest "of Buddha who had filled Ali Hafed with the fatal discontent called one day upon the new owner of the farm. He had no sooner entered the room than his eye caught that flash of light from the stone. "Here 's a diamond ! here 's a diamond ! " the old priest shouted in great excitement. " Has Ali Hafed returned ? " said the priest. " No," 260 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. said the farmer, " nor is that a diamond. That is but a stone." They went into the garden and stirred up the white sand with their fingers, and behold, other diamonds more beautiful than the first gleamed out of it. So the famous diamond beds of Golconda were dis- covered. Had Ali Hafed been content to remain at home, had he dug in his own garden, instead of going abroad in search for wealth, and reaping poverty, hard- ships, starvation, and death, he would have been one of the richest men in the world, for the entire farm abounded in the richest of gems. You have your own special place and work. Find it, fill it. Scarcely a boy or girl will read these lines but has much better opportunity to win success than Gar- field, Wilson, Franklin, Lincoln, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frances Willard, and thousands of others. But to suc- ceed you must be prepared to seize and improve the op- portunity when it comes. Eemember that four things come not back : the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity. It is one of the paradoxes of civilization that the more opportunities are utilized, the more new ones are thereby created. JSTew openings are as easy to fill as ever to those who do their best ; although it is not so easy as formerly to obtain distinction in the old lines, because the standard has advanced so much and compe- tition has so greatly increased. " The world is no longer clay," said Emerson, "but rather iron in the hands of its workers, and men have got to hammer out a place for themselves by steady and rugged blows." Thousands of men have made fortunes out of trifles which others pass by. As the bee gets honey from the same flower from which the spider gets poison, so some men will get a fortune out of the commonest and mean- est things, as scraps of leather, cotton waste, slag, iron filings, from which others get only poverty and failure. There is scarcely a thing which contributes to the wel- OPPORTUNITIES WHERE YOU ARE. 261 fare and comfort of humanity, not an article of house- hold furniture, a kitchen utensil, an article of clothing or of food, that is not capable of an improvement in which there may be a fortune. Opportunities ? They are all around us. Edison found them in a baggage car. Forces of nature plead to be used in the service of man, as lightning for ages tried to attract his attention to the great force of electricity, which would do his drudgery and leave him to develop the God-given powers within him. There is power lying latent everywhere waiting for the observant eye to discover it. First find out what the world needs and then supply that want. An invention to make smoke go the wrong way in a chimney might be a very ingenious thing, but it would be of no use to humanity. The patent office at Washington is full of wonderful devices of ingenious mechanism, but not one in hundreds is of use to the inventor or to the world. And yet how many families have been impoverished, and have struggled for years amid want and woe, while the father has been. working on useless inventions. A. T. Stewart, as a boy, lost eighty- seven cents when his capital was one dollar and a half in buying buttons and thread which shoppers did not call for. After that he made it a rule never to buy any- thing which the public did not want, and so prospered. It is estimated that five out of every seven of the millionaire manufacturers began by making with their own hands the articles which made their fortunes. One of the greatest hindrances to advancement in life is the lack of observation and of the inclination to take pains. An observing man, the eyelets of whose shoes pulled out, but who could not afford to get another pair, said to himself, "I will make a metallic lacing hook, which can be riveted into the leather ; " he was so poor that he had to borrow a sickle to cut the grass in front of his hired tenement. Now he is a very rich man. 262 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. All observing barber in Newark, N. J., thought he could make an improvement in shears for cutting hair, invented clippers, and became rich. A Maine man was called in from the hayfield to wash clothes for his in- valid wife. He had never realized what it was to wash before. Finding the method slow and laborious, he in- vented the washing-machine, and made a fortune. A man who was suffering terribly with toothache said to himself, there must be some way of filling teeth which will prevent their aching. So he invented the prin- ciple of gold filling for teeth. The great things of the world have not been done by men of large means. Ericsson began the construction of the screw propellers in a bathroom. The cotton-gin was first manufactured in a log cabin. John Harrison, the great inventor of the marine chronometer, began his career in the loft of an old barn. Parts of the first steamboat ever run in America were set up in the vestry of a church in Philadelphia by Fitch. McCormick be- gan to make his famous reaper in a gristmill. The first model dry dock was made in an attic. Clark, the founder of Clark University of Worcester, Mass., began his great fortune by making toy wagons in a horse shed. Farquhar made umbrellas in his sitting-room, with his daughter's help, until he sold enough to hire a loft. Edison began his experiments in a baggage car on the Grand Trunk Railroad when a newsboy. As soon as the weather would permit, the Jamestown colonists began to stroll about the country digging for gold. In a bank of sand some glittering particles were found, and the whole settlement was in a state of excite- ment. Fourteen weeks of the precious springtime, which ought to have been given to plowing and plant- ing, were consumed in this stupid nonsense. Even the Indians ridiculed the madness of the men who, for im- aginary grains of gold, were wasting their chances for a crop of corn. OPPORTUNITIES WHERE YOU ARE. 263 Michael Angelo found a piece of discarded Carrara marble among waste rubbish, beside a street in Florence, which some unskillful workman had cut, hacked, spoiled, and thrown away. No doubt many artists had noticed the fine quality of the marble, and regretted that it should have been spoiled. But Michael Angelo still saw an angel in the ruin, and with his chisel and mallet he called out from it one of the finest pieces of statuary in Italy, the young David. The lonely island of Nantucket would not be consid- ered a very favorable place to win success and fame. But Maria Mitchell, on seventy-five dollars a year, as librarian of the Nantucket Athenaeum, found time and opportunity to become a celebrated astronomer. Lucre- tia Mott, one of America's foremost philanthropists and reformers, who made herself felt over a whole continent, gained much of her reputation as a preacher on Nan- tucket Island. ii Why does not America have fine sculptors ? " asked a romping girl, of Watertown, Mass., in 1842. Her father, a physician, answered that he supposed " an Amer- ican could be a stone-cutter, but that is a very different thing from being a sculptor." " I think," said the plucky maiden, " that if no other American tries it I will." She began her studies in Boston, and walked seven miles to and fro daily between her home and the city. The medical schools in Boston would not ad- mit her to study anatomy, so she had to go to St. Louis. Subsequently she went to Eome, and there, during a long residence, and afterward, modeled and carved very beautiful statuary which made the name of Harriet G. Hosmer famous. Begin where you are ; work where you are ; the hour which you are now wasting, dreaming of some far-off success, may be crowded with grand pos- sibilities. Patrick Henry was called a lazy boy, a good-for-no- thing farmer, and he failed as a merchant. He was 264 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. always dreaming of some far-off greatness, and never thoiiglit he could be a hero among the corn and tobacco and saddlebags of Virginia. He studied law six weeks, when he put out his shingle. Peojjle thought he would fail, but in his first case he showed that he had a won- derful power of oratory. It then first dawned upon him that he could be a hero in Virginia. From the time the Stamp Act was passed and Henry was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, and he had introduced his famous resolution against the unjust taxation of the American colonies, he rose steadily until he became one of the brilliant orators of America. In one of his first speeches upon this resolution he uttered these words, which were prophetic of his power and courage : " Cae- sar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third — may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it." The great natural philosopher, Faraday, who was the son of a blacksmith, wrote, when a young man, to Humphry Davy, asking for employment at the Koyal Institution. Davy consulted a friend on the matter. " Here is a letter from a young man named Faraday ; he has been attending my lectures, and wants me to give him employment at the Royal Institution — what can I do ? " " Do ? put him to washing bottles ; if he is good for anything he will do it directly ; if he refuses he is good for nothing." But the boy who could experi- ment in the attic of an apothecary shop with an old pan and glass vials during every moment he could snatch from his work saw an opportunity in washing bottles, which led to a professorship at the Royal Acad- emy at Woolwich. Tyndall said of this boy with no chance, "He is the greatest experimental philosopher the world has ever seen." He became the wonder of his age in science. There is a legend of an artist who long sought for a piece of sandal-wood, out of which to carve a Madonna. OPPORTUNITIES WHERE YOU ARE. 265 He was about to give up in despair, leaving the vision of his life unrealized, when in a dream he was bidden to carve his Madonna from a block of oak wood which was destined for the fire. He obeyed, and produced a masterpiece from a log of common firewood. Many of us lose great opportunities in life by waiting to find sandal-wood for our carvings, when they really lie hid- den in the common logs that we burn. One man goes through life without seeing chances for doing anything great, while another close beside him snatches from the same circumstances and privileges opportunities for achieving grand results. Anna Dickinson began life as a school-teacher. Ade- laide Neilson was a child's nurse. Charlotte Cushman's parents were poor. The renowned Jeanne d'Arc fed swine. Christine Nilsson was a poor Swedish peasant, and ran barefoot in childhood. Edmonia Lewis, the colored sculptor, overcame the prejudice against her sex and color, and pursued her profession in Italy. Maria Mitchell, the astronomer, was the daughter of a poor man who taught school at two dollars per week. These are but a few of the many who have struggled with fate and risen to distinction through their own personal efforts. Opportunities ? They are everywhere. "America is another name for opportunities. Our whole history appears like a last effort of divine Providence in behalf of the human race." Never before were there such grand openings, such chances, such opportunities. Especially is this true for girls and young women. A new era is dawning for them. Hundreds of occupations and pro- fessions, which were closed to them only a few years ago, are now inviting them to enter. AVhen I hear of a young woman entering the medical profession, or beginning the study of law, or entering school with a view to teaching, I feel like congratulat- ing her for thus asserting her individuality. 266 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. We cannot all of us perhaps make great discoveries like Newton, Faraday, Edison, and Thompson. We cannot all of us paint immortal pictures like an Angelo or a Raphael. But we can all of us make our lives sublime, by seizing common occasions and making them great. What chance had the young girl, Grace Darling, to distinguish herself, living on those barren light- house rocks alone with her aged parents ? But while her brothers and sisters, who moved to the cities to win wealth and fame, are not known to the world, she be- came more famous than a princess. This poor girl did not need to go to London to see the nobility ; they came to the lighthouse to see her. Right at home this young girl had won fame which the regal heirs might envy, and a name which will never perish from the earth. She did not wander away into dreamy distance for fame and fortune, but did her best where duty had placed her. If you want to get rich, study yourself and your own wants. You will find that millions have the same wants. The safest business is always connected with man's prime necessities. He must have clothing and a dwelling ; he must eat. He wants comforts, facilities of all kinds for pleasure, luxuries, education, and culture. Any man who can supply a great want of humanity, improve any methods which men use, supply any de- mand of comfort, or contribute in any way to their well- being, can make a fortune. "We cannot doubt," said Edward Everett, "that truths now unknown are in reserve to reward the pa- tience and the labors of future lovers of truth, which will go as far beyond the brilliant discoveries of the last generation as these do beyond all that was known to the ancient world." The golden opportunity Is never offered twice; seize then the hour When fortune smiles and duty points the way ; OPPORTUNITIES WHERE YOU ARE. 267 Nor shrink aside to 'scape the spectre fear, Nor pause, though pleasure beckon from her bower ; But bravel}^ bear thee onward to the goal. Anon. For the distant still thou yearnest, And behold the good so near; If to use the good thou learnest, Thou wilt surely find it here. Goethe. Do not, then, stand idly waiting For some greater work to do ; Fortune is a lazy goddess — She will never come to you. Go and toil in an}' vineyard. Do not fear to do or dare ; If you want a field of labor, You can find it anywhere. Ellen H. Gates. Wh}' thus longing, thus forever sighing. For the far-off, unattained and dim. While the beautiful, all around thee lying Offers up its low, perpetual hymn ? Harriet Winslow. Work for the good that is nighest ; • Dream not of greatness afar : That glory is ever the highest Which shines upon men as they are. W. MORLEY PUNSHON. CHAPTER Xy. THE MIGHT OF LITTLE THINGS. Little strokes fell great oaks. — Franklin. Think naught a trifle, though it small appear; Small sands the mountain, moments make the year, And trifles, life. Young. " Scorn not the slightest word or deed, Nor deem it void of power; There 's fruit in each wind-wafted seed, That waits its natal hour." It is but the littleness of man that seeth no greatness in trifles. — Wen- dell Phillips. He that despiseth small things shall fall by little and little. — Eccle- SIASTICUS. Often from our weakness our strongest principles of conduct are born; and from the acorn, which a breeze has wafted, springs the oak which defies the storm. — Bulwer. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. — Emerson. Men are led by trifles. — Napoleon I. *' A pebble on the streamlet scant Has turned the course of many a river; A dew^drop on the baby plant Has warped the giant oak forever." The mother of mischief is no bigger than a midge's wing. — Scotch Proverb. "The bad thing about a little sin is that it won't stay little." "A little bit of patience often makes the sunshine come, And a little bit of love makes a very happ}' home ; A little bit of hope makes a rainy day look gay, And a little bit of charity makes glad a weary way." "Arletta's pretty feet, glistening in the brook, made her the mother of William the Conqueror," says Palgrave's " History of Normandy and England." " Had she not thus fascinated Duke Robert the Liberal, of Normandy, Harold would not have fallen at Hastings, AGASSIZ Small things become great when a great soul f-ees them. Trifles liglit as air sometimes suggest to the thinking mind ideas which revolutionize the world. THE MIGHT OF LITTLE THINGS. 269 no Anglo-Korman dynasty could have arisen, no Britisli Empire." We may tell which way the wind blew before the Deluge by marking the ripple and cupping of the rain in the petrified sand now preserved forever. We tell the very path by which gigantic creatures, whom man never saw, walked to the river's edge to find their food. The tears of Veturia and Volumnia saved Rome from the Yolscians when nothing else could move the venge- ful heart of Coriolanus. It was little Greece that rolled back the overflowing tide of Asiatic luxury and despotism, giving instead to Europe and America models of the highest political free- dom yet attained, and germs of limitless mental growth. A different result at Platsea had delayed the progress of the human race more than ten centuries. Among the lofty Alps, it is said, the guides some- times demand absolute silence, lest the vibration of the voice bring down an avalanche. The power of observation in the American Indian would put many an educated man to shame. Returning home, an Indian discovered that his venison, which had been hanging up to dry, had been stolen. After careful observation he started to track the thief through the woods. Meeting a man on the route, he asked him if he had seen a little, old, white man, with a short gun, and with a small bob-tailed dog. The man told him he had met such a man, but was surprised to find that the In- dian had not even seen the one he described. He asked the Indian how he could give such a minute description of the man whom he had never seen. " I knew the thief was a little man," said the Indian, " because he rolled up a stone to stand on in order to reach the venison ; I knew he was an old man by his short steps ; I knew he was a white man by his turning out his toes in walking, which an Indian never does ; I knew he had a short gun by the mark it left on the tree where he had stood it 270 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. up ; I knew the dog was small by liis tracks and short steps, and that he had a bob-tail by the mark it left in the dust where he sat." Two drops of rain, falling side by side, were separated a few inches by a gentle breeze. Striking on opposite sides of the roof of a court-house in Wisconsin, one rolled southward through the Eock Eiver and the Miss- issippi to the Gulf of Mexico ; while the other entered successively the Fox Eiver, Green Bay, Lake Michigan, the Straits of Mackinaw, Lake Huron, St. Clair Eiver, Lake St. Clair, Detroit Eiver, Lake Erie, Niagara Eiver, Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence Eiver, and finally reached the Gulf of St. Lawrence. How slight the in- fluence of the breeze, yet such was the formation of the continent that a trifling cause was multiplied almost beyond the power of figures to express its momentous effect upon the destinies of these companion raindrops. Who can calculate the future of the smallest trifle when a mud crack swells to an Amazon, and the stealing of a penny may end on the scaffold ? Who does not know that the act of a moment may cause a life's regret ? A trigger may be pulled in an instant, but the soul returns never. A spark falling upon some combustibles led to the in- vention of gunpowder. Irritable tempers have marred the reputation of many a great man, as in the case of Edmund Burke and of Thomas Carlyle. A few bits of seaweed and driftwood, floating on the waves, enabled Columbus to stay a mutiny of his sailors which threat- ened to prevent the discovery of a new world. There are moments in history which balance years of ordinary life. Dana could interest a class for hours on a grain of sand ; and from a single bone, such as no one had ever seen before, Agassiz could deduce the entire structure and habits of an animal so accurately that subsequent discoveries of complete skeletons have not changed one of his conclusions. THE MIGHT OF LITTLE THINGS. 271 A cricket once saved a military expedition from de- struction. The commanding officer and hundreds of his men were going to South America on a great ship, and, through the carelessness of the watch, they would have been dashed upon a ledge of rock had it not been for a cricket which a soldier had brought on board. When the little insect scented the land, it broke its long silence by a shrill note, and this warned them of their danger. " Strange that a little thing like that should cause a man so much pain ! " exclaimed a giant, as he rolled in his hand and examined with eager curiosity the acorn which his friend the dwarf had obligingly taken from the huge eye into which it had fallen just as the colos- sus was on the point of shooting a bird perched in the branches of an oak. Sometimes a conversation, or a sentence in a letter, or a paragraph in an article, will help us to reproduce the whole character of the author ; as a single bone, a fish scale, a fin, or a tooth, will enable the scientist and anatomist to reproduce the fish or the animal, although extinct for ages. By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation. A little boy in Holland saw water trickling from a small hole near the bottom of a dike. He realized that the leak would rapidly become larger if the water was not checked, so he held his hand over the hole for hours on a dark and dismal night until he could attract the attention of passers-by. His name is still held in grateful remembrance in Holland. The beetling chalk cliffs of England were built by rhizopods, too small to be clearly seen without the aid of a magnifying-glass. What was so unlikely as that throwing an empty wine-flask in the fire should furnish the first notion of a locomotive, or that the sickness of an Italian chemist's wife and her absurd craving for reptiles for food should begin the electric telegraph ? 272 ARciirri'Jcrs of fate. ]\l;ulanu^ (Inlvani iioiictMl llu> coiU, ruction oT tin* miis- cU'soT ;i skiiinod frog wlii(;li was accidoiitally toucluMl at tlio inoiuiMit lu-r husband took a spark Uoxw an oloctri- cal macliino. Sho gave the hint whicli h^d to tlie dis- covory o^ galvanic cdcctricity, now so us(d'ul in the arts and in transmitting vocal or written language. ]\1. Louis Tasteur was usIum- m llu» liyciMini. Thurs- days he took the boys to wallv. A student took his lui- eroscopeto examine insects, and allowed I'asteur to look through it. This was the starting oi' the boy on the niicroscoi)ic career whit'h has made men wonder. He was almost wild with enthusiasm at the niMv world which the microsco]ie revealed. A stamp act to raise .^.MIO.OOO produetMl tlu^ AnHu-icaii Kevolution, a war that eost .-t* lOO.OOO.OOO. What mighty contests rise from trivial things ! Congress met near a livery stabh^ to discuss the Declaration of Independence. The members, in knee breeches and silk stockings, were so annoyed by flies, which they could not k(H^p away with their handker- chiefs, that it has been said thev eut short the debate, and hastened to affix their signatures to the greatest document in history. " The fate of a nation,'' says (iladston(\ " has ofti^n de- ]HMi(ltMl upon the got^il or bad digestit)n o{ a. tine dinner.'^ A yt>ung man once went to India to seek his fortune, but, finding no opening, he went to his room, loaded his pistol, ])ut the muzzle to his head, and pulUnl the trig- ger. Hut it did not go olY. \\c wiuit to the window to point it in ani)ther direction and try it again, resolviul that if the weapon went olT he would regard it as a l*rovid(MU'e that he was spared, lie ]ndled the trigger and it went olT the first tinH\ Trendiling with excite- ment he resolved to hold his lit'(^ sacred, to mak(^ the most of it, and never again to cheapen it. This yt>ung man beeanu^ (General Kobert Clive, who, with but a handful of European soldiers, secured to the East India THE MKillT or LITTLE THINGS. 273 (^iiupany and artorwards to CJroat r>ri(,ain a i^ri^a.t and rich country with two hundred millions of people. The cackling of a goose aroused the sentinels and saved Rome from the Gauls, and the pain from a this- tle warned a S(U)ttish army of the a,pi)r()a,('h of the Danes. " Had Acre fallen,'' said Napoleon, " 1 should have changed the face of the world." Henry Ward Beecher came within one vote of being elected superint(Mulent of a railway. If he had had that vote America would prohahly have lost its greatest preacher. What a little thing lixes destiny ! In the earliest days of cotton spinning, <,he small iibres would stick to the bobbins, and make it necessary to stop and clear the macliinery. AK.hough this loss of time reduced the earnings of the operatives, the father of llobert Peel noticed that one of his spinners always drew full pay, as his machine never stopped. " How is this, Dick ? " asked Mr. Peel one day ; " the on-looker tells me your bobbins are always clean." " Ay, that they be," replied Dick Ferguson. *' I Tow do you man- age it, Dick ? " " Why, you see, Meester ]*eel," said the workman, " it is sort o' secret ! If I tow'd ye, yo'd be as wise as I am." "That's so," said Mr. Peel, smil- ing ; " but I 'd give you something to know, ('ould you make all the looms work as smoothly as yours ? " " Ivery one of 'em, meester," replied Dick. " Well, what shall I give you for your secret ? " asked Mr. Peel, and Dick rei)lie(l, "(Ji' me a (piart of ale every day as I 'm in the mills, and I '11 tell thee all about it." "Agreed," said Mr. Peel, and Dick whispered very cautiously in his ear, " Chalk^ your bobbins ! " That was the whole secret, and Mr. l*eel soon shot ahead of all his competitors, for he made machines that would chalk their own bobbins. Dick was handsomely re- warded with money instead of beer. His little idea has saved the world millions of (h)llars. Trilles liglit as air oftiMi suggest to tlu^ thinking mind ideas which liavi^ rtnolutioiii/ed i,he world. 274 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. A poor English boy was compelled by his employer to deposit something on board a ship about to start for Algiers, in accordance with the merchant's custom of interesting employees by making them put something at risk in his business and so share in the gain or loss of each common venture. The boy had only a cat, which he had bought for a penny to catch mice in the garret where he slept. In tears, he carried her on board the vessel. On arriving at Algiers, the captain learned that the Dey was greatly annoyed by rats, and loaned him the cat. The rats disappeared so rapidly that the Dey wished to buy the cat, but the captain would not sell until a very high price was offered. With the purchase-money was sent a present of valuable pearls for the owner of Tabby. When the ship returned the sailors were greatly astonished to find that the boy owned most of the cargo, for it was part of the bargain that he was to bring back the value of his cat in goods. The London merchant took the boy into partnership ; the latter became very wealthy, and in the course of business loaned money to the Dey who had bought the cat. As Lord Mayor of London, our cat merchant was knighted, and became the second man in the city, — Sir Eichard Whittington. When John Williams, the martyr missionary of Erromanga, went to the South Sea Islands, he took with him a single banana-tree from an English nobleman's conservatory; and now, from that single banana-tree, bananas are to be found throughout whole groups of islands. Before the negro slaves in the West Indies were emancipated a regiment of British soldiers was stationed near one of the plantations. A soldier, offered to teach a slave to read on condition that he would teach a second, and that second a third, and so on. This the slave faithfully carried out, though severely flogged by the master of the plantation. Being sent to another plantation, he repeated the same thing there, THE MIGHT OF LITTLE THINGS. 275 and when at length liberty was proclaimed throughout the island, and the Bible Society offered a New Testa- ment to every negro who could read, the number taught through this slave's instrumentality was found to be no less than six hundred. A famous ruby was offered to the English government. The report of the crown jeweler was that it was the fin- est he had ever seen or heard of, but that one of the " facets " was slightly fractured. That invisible frac- ture reduced its value thousands of dollars, and it was rejected from the regalia of England. It was a little thing for the janitor to leave a lamp swinging in the cathedral at Pisa, but in that steady swaying motion the boy Galileo saw the pendulum, and conceived the idea of thus measuring time. " I was singing to the mouthpiece of a telephone,'^ said Edison, " when the vibrations of my voice caused a fine steel xwint to pierce one of my fingers held just be- hind it. That set me to thinking. If I could record the motions of the point and send it over the same sur- face afterward, I saw no reason why the thing would not talk. I determined to make a machine that would work accurately, and gave my assistants the necessary instructions, telling them what I had discovered. That 's the whole story. The phonograph is the result of the pricking of a finger." It was a little thing for a cow to kick over a lantern left in a shanty, but it laid Chicago in ashes, and ren- dered homeless a hundred thousand people. You turned a cold shoulder hvit once, you made but one stinging remark, yet it lost you a friend forever. Some little weakness, some self-indulgence, a quick temper, want of decision, are little things, you say, when placed beside great abilities, but they have wrecked many a career. The Parliament of Great Britain, the Con- gress of the United States, and representative govern- ments all over the world have come from King John signing the Magna Charta. 27G ARCHITECTS OF FATE. Bentham says, " The turn of a sentence has decided many a friendship, and, for aught we know, the fate of many a kingdom." The sight of a stranded cuttlefish led Cuvier to an investigation which made him one of the greatest natu- ral historians in the world. The web of a spider sug- gested to Captain Brown the idea of a suspension bridge. A man, looking for a lost horse, picked up a stone in the Idaho mountains which led to the discovery of a rich gold mine. An 'officer apologized to General 0. M. Mitchel, the astronomer, for a brief delay, saying he was only a few moments late. " I have been in the habit of calculating the value of the thousandth part of a second," was Mitchel' s reply. A missing marriage certificate kept the hod-carrier of Hugh Miller from establishing his claim to the Earldom of Crawford. The masons would call out, " John, Yearl of Crawford, bring us anither hod o' lime." Not long ago the great steamship Umbria was stopped in mid-Atlantic by a flaw in her engine shaft. The absence of a comma in a bill which passed through Congress several years ago cost our government a mil- lion dollars. A single misspelled word prevented a deserving young man from obtaining a situation as in- structor in a New England college. A cinder on the eyeball will conquer a Napoleon. Some little weak- ness, as lack of courtesy, want of decision, a bad temper, may nullify the labor of years. " I cannot see that you have made any progress since my last visit," said a gentleman to Michael Angelo. ''But," said the sculptor, "I have retouched this part, polished that, softened that feature, brought out that muscle, given some expression to this lip, more energy to that limb, etc." " But they are trifles ! " exclaimed the visitor. "It may be so," replied the great artist, " but trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle." THE MIGHT OF LITTLE THINGS. 211 That infinite patience which made Michael Angelo spend a week in bringing out a muscle in a statue with more vital fidelity to truth, or Gerhard Dow a day in giving the right effect to a dewdrop on a cabbage leaf, makes all the difference between success and failure. By scattering it upon a sloping field of grain so as to form, in letters of great size, "Effects of Gypsum,'' Franklin brought this fertilizer into general use in America. By means of a kite he established principles in the science of electricity of such broad significance that they underlie nearly all the modern applications of that science, with probably boundless possibilities of development in the future. More than four hundred and fifty years have passed since Laurens Coster amused his children by cutting their names in the bark of trees, in the land of wind- mills, and the monks have laid aside forever their old trade of copying books. From that day monarchies have crumbled, and Liberty, lifting up her head for the first time among the nations of the earth, has ever since kept pace with the march of her sister, Knowledge, up through the centuries. Yet how simple was the thought which has borne such a rich harvest of benefit to mankind. As he carved the names of his prattling children it occurred to him that if the letters were made in sepa- rate blocks, and wet with ink, they would make clear printed impressions better and more rapidly than would the pen. So he made blocks, tied them together with strings, and printed a pamphlet with the aid of a hired man, John Gutenberg. People bought the pamphlets at a slight reduction from the price charged by the monks, supposing that the work was done in the old way. Coster died soon afterward, but young Guten- berg kept the secret, and experimented with metals until he had invented the metal type. In an obscure chamber in Strasburg he printed his first book. At about this time a traveler called upon Charles VII. 278 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. of France, who was so afraid somebody would poison him that he dared eat but little, and made his servants taste of every dish of food before he ate any. He looked with susxjicion upon the stranger ; but when the latter offered a beautiful copy of the Bible for only seven hundred and fifty crowns, the monarch bought it at once. Charles showed his Bible to the archbishop, telling him that it was the finest copy in the world, without a blot or mistake, and that it must have taken the copyist a lifetime to write it. " Why ! " exclaimed the archbishop in surprise, " I bought one exactly like it a few days ago." It was soon learned that other rich people in Paris had bought similar copies. The king traced the book to John Faust, of Strasburg, who had furnished Gutenberg money to experiment with. The people said that Faust must have sold himself to the devil, and he only escaped burning at the stake by divulging the secret. William Caxton, a London merchant who went to Holland to purchase cloth, bought a few books and some type, and established a printing-office in West- minster Chapel, where he issued, in 1474, " The Game of Chess," the first book printed in England. The cry of the infant Moses attracted the attention of Pharaoh's daughter, and gave the Jews a lawgiver. A bird alighting on the bough of a tree at the mouth of the cave where Mahomet lay hid turned aside his pur- suers, and gave a prophet to many nations. A flight of birds probably prevented Columbus from discovering this continent, for when he was growing anxious, Mar- tin Alonzo Pinzon persuaded him to follow a flight of parrots toward the southwest ; for to the Spanish sea- men of that day it was good luck to follow in the wake of a flock of birds when on a voyage of discovery. But for his change of course Columbus would have reached the coast of Florida. " Never," wrote Humboldt, " had the flight of birds more important consequences." THE MIGHT OF LITTLE THINGS. 279 The children of a spectacle-maker placed two or more pairs of the spectacles before each other in play, and told their father that distant objects looked larger. From this hint came the telescope. " Of what use is it ? " people asked with a sneer, when Franklin told of his discovery that lightning and electricity are identical. " What is the use of a child ? '^ replied Franklin ; " it may become a man." " He who waits to do a great deal of good at once," said Dr. Johnson, " will never do any." Do good with what thou hast, or it will do thee no good. Every day is a little life ; and our whole life but a day repeated. Those that dare lose a day are danger- ously prodigal ; those that dare misspend it, desperate. What is the happiness of your life made up of ? Little courtesies, little kindnesses, pleasant words, genial smiles, a friendly letter, good wishes, and good deeds. One in a million — once in a lifetime — may do a he- roic action. The atomic theory is the true one. Many think common fractions vulgar, but they are the compo- nents of millions. He is a great man who sees great things where others see little things, who sees the extraordinary in the ordi- nary. Kuskin sees a poem in the rose or the lily, while the hod-carrier would perhaps not go a rod out of his way to see a sunset which E-uskin would feed upon for a year. Napoleon was a master of trifles. To details which his inferior officers thought too microscopic for their notice he gave the most exhaustive attention. Nothing was too small for his attention. He must know all about the provisions, the horse fodder, the biscuits, the camp ket- tles, the shoes. When the bugle sounded for the march to battle, every officer had his orders as to the exact route which he should follow, the exact day he was to arrive at a certain station, and the exact hour he was to leave, and they were all to reach the point of destina- 280 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. tiou at a precise moment. It is said that nothing could be more perfectly planned than his memorable march which led to the victory of Austerlitz, and which sealed the fate of Europe for many years. He would often charge his absent officers to send him perfectly accurate returns, even to the smallest detail. " When the}^ are sent to me, I give up every occupation in order to read them in detail, and to observe the difference between one monthly return and another. No young girl enjoys her novel as much as I do these returns." The captain who conveyed Napoleon to Elba was astonished with his familiarity with all the minute details connected with the ship. Napoleon left nothing to chance, no- thing to contingency, so far as he could possibly avoid it. Everything was planned to a nicety before he at- tempted to execute it. Wellington too w^as " great in little things." He knew no such things as trifles. While other generals trusted to subordinates, he gave his personal attention to the minutest detail. The history of many a failure could be written in three words, "Lack of detail." How many a lawyer has failed from the lack of details in deeds and important papers, the lack of little words which seemed like surplusage, and which involved his clients in litigation, and often great losses ! How many wills are contested from the carelessness of lawyers in the omission or shading of words, or ambiguous use of language ! Physicians often fail to make a reputation through their habitual blundering, carelessness in writing pre- scriptions, failure to give minute instruction. The world is full of blunderers ; business men fail from a disre- gard of trifles ; they go to the bank to pay a note the day after it has gone to protest ; they do not pay their bills promptly ; do not answer their letters promptly or file them away accurately ; their books do not quite bal- ance ; they do not know exactly how they stand ; they have a contempt for details. THE MIGHT OF LITTLE THINGS. 281 " My rule of conduct has been that whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well," said Nicolas Poussin, the great Trench painter. When asked the reason why- he had become so eminent in a land of famous artists he replied, " Because I have neglected nothing." Not even Helen of Troy, it is said, was beautiful enough to spare the tip of her nose ; and if Cleopatra's had been an inch shorter Mark Antony would never have become infatuated with her wonderful charms, and the blemish would have changed the history of the world. Anne Boleyn's fascinating smile split the great Church of Rome in twain, and gave a nation an altered destiny. Napoleon, who feared not to attack the proud- est monarchs in their capitols, shrank from the politi- cal influence of one independent woman in private life, Madame de Stael. Had not Scott sprained his foot his life would probably have taken a different direction. Cromwell was about to sail for America when a law was passed prohibiting emigration. At that time he was a profligate, having squandered all his property. But when he found that he could not leave England he re- formed his life. Had he not been detained who can tell what the history of Great Britain would have been ? When one of his friends asked Scopas the Thessalian for something that could be of little use to him, he an- swered, " It is in these useless and superfluous things that I am rich and happy." It was the little foxes that spoiled the vines in Solo- mon's day. Mites play mischief now with our meal and cheese, moths with our woolen^ and furs, and mice in our pantries. More than half our diseases are produced by infinitesimal creatures called microbes. Most people call fretting a minor fault, a foible, and not a vice. There is no vice except drunkenness which can so utterly destroy the peace, the happiness, of a home. "We call the large majority of human lives obscure," 282 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. says Bulwer, " presumptuous that we are ! How know we what lives a single thought retained from the dust of nameless graves may have lighted to renown ? " The theft of a diamond necklace from a French queen convulsed Europe. From the careful and persistent ac- cumulation of innumerable facts, each trivial in itself, but in the aggregate forming a mass of evidence, a Dar- win extracts his law of evolution, and Linnaeus con- structs the science of botany. A pan of water and two thermometers were the tools by which Dr. Black dis- covered latent heat ; and a prism, a lens, and a sheet of pasteboard enabled Newton to unfold the composition of light and the origin of colors. An eminent foreign savant called on Dr. Wollaston, and asked to be shown over those laboratories of his in which science had been enriched by so many great discoveries, when the doctor took him into a little study, and, pointing to an old tea tray on the table, on which stood a few watch glasses, test papers, a small balance, and a blow-pipe, said, " There is my laboratorj^" A burnt stick and a barn door served Wilkie in lieu of pencil and paper. A single potato, carried to England by Sir Walter Raleigh in the sixteenth century, has multiplied into food for millions, driving famine from Ireland again and again. It seemed a small thing to drive William Brewster, John Eobinson, and the poor people of Austerfield and Scrooby into perpetual exile, but as Pilgrims they be- came the founders of a mighty people. A cloud may hide the sun which it cannot extinguish. " Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth." " A look of vexation or a word coldly spoken, or a little help thoughtlessly withheld, may produce long issues of re- gret." It was but a little dispute, a little flash of temper, the trigger was pulled in an instant, but the soul re- turned never. A few immortal sentences from Garrison and Phillips, THE MIGHT OF LITTLE THINGS. 283 a few poems from Lowell and Whittier, and the leaven is at work whicli will not cease its action until the whip- ping-post and bodily servitude are abolished forever. "For want of a nail the shoe was lost, For want of a shoe the horse was lost; For want of a horse the rider was lost, and all," saj^s Poor Eichard, " for want of a horse-shoe nail." A single remark dropped by an unknown person in the street led to the successful story of " The Bread- winners." A hymn chanted by the barefooted friars in the temple of Jupiter at Eome led to the famous "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." " Do little things now," says a Persian proverb ; " so shall big things come to thee by and by asking to be done." God will take care of the great things if we do not neglect the little ones. " Words are things," says Byron, " and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions think." " I give these books for the founding of a college in this colony ; " such were the words of ten ministers who in the year 1700 assembled at the village of Bran- ford a few miles east of New Haven. Each of the worthy fathers deposited a few books upon the table around whicli they were sitting ; such was the founding of Yale College. " He that has a spirit of detail," says Webster, " will do better in life than many who figured beyond him in the university." The pyramid of knowledge is"^ made up of little grains of information, little observations picked up from every- where. Eor a thousand years Asia monopolized the secret of silk culture, and at Rome the product was sold for its weight in gold. During the sixth century, at the request of Justinian, two Persian monks brought a few eggs from China to Europe in a hollow cane. The eggs were 284 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. hatched by means of heat, and Asia no longer held the monopoly of the silk business. In comparison with Ferdinand, preparing to lead forth his magnificent army in Europe's supreme con- test with the Moors, how insignificant seemed the visionary expedition of Columbus, about to start in three small shallops across the unknown ocean. But grand as was the triumph of Ferdinand, it now seems hardly worthy of mention in comparison Avith the wonderful achievement of the poor Genoese navigator. Only one hundred and ninety -two Athenians perished in the battle of Marathon, but Europe was saved from a host which is said to have drunk rivers dry, and to have shaken the solid earth as they marched. Great men are noted for their attention to trifles. Goethe once asked a monarch to excuse him, during an interview, while he went to an adjoining room to jot down a stray thought. Hogarth would make sketches of rare faces and characteristics upon his fin- ger-nails upon the streets. Indeed, to a truly great mind there are no little things. " The eye of the understand- ing is like the eye of the sense ; for as you may see objects through small crannies or holes, so you may see great axioms of nature through small and contemptible instances," said Bacon. Trifles light as air suggest to the keen observer the solution of mighty problems. Bits of glass arranged to amuse children led to the discovery of the kaleidoscope. Goodyear discovered how to vul- canize rubber by forgetting, until it became red hot, a skillet containing a compound which he had before con- sidered worthless. Confined in the house by typhoid fever, Helmholtz, with a little money which he had saved by great economy, bought a microscope which led him into the field of science where he became so fa- mous. A ship-worm boring a piece of wood suggested to Sir Isambard Brunei the idea of a tunnel under the Thames at London. Tracks of extinct animals in the THE MIGHT OF LITTLE THINGS. 285 old red sandstone led Hugh Miller on and on until lie became the greatest geologist of his time. Sir Walter Scott once saw a shepherd boy plodding sturdily along, and asked him to ride. This boy was George Kemp, who became so enthusiastic in his study of sculpture that he walked fifty miles and back to see a beautiful statue. He did not forget the kindness of Sir Walter, and, when the latter died, threw his soul into the design of the magnificent monument erected in Edinburgh to the memory of the author of " Waverley.'' A poor boy applied for a situation at a bank in Paris, but was refused. As he left the door, he picked up a pin. The bank president saw this, called the boy back, and gave him a situation from which he rose until he became the greatest banker of Paris, — Laffltte. It was the turning point in Theodore Parker's life when he picked up a stone to throw at a turtle. Some- thing within him said, ^' Don't do it," and he didn't. He went home and asked his mother what it was in him that said " Don't ; " and she taught him the pur- pose of that inward monitor which he ever after chose as his guide. It is said that David Hume became a deist by being appointed in a debating society to take the side of infidelity. Voltaire could not erase from his mind the impression of a poem on infidelity committed at the age of five. The " Arabian Nights " aroused the genius of Coleridge. A Massachusetts soldier in the Civil War observed a bird hulling rice, and shot it; taking its bill for a model, he invented a hulling ma- chine which has revolutionized^ the rice business. A war between France and England, costing more than a hundred thousand lives, grew out of a quarrel as to which of two vessels should first be served with water. The quarrel of two Indian boys over a grasshopper led to the " Grasshopper War." George IV. of England fell in a fit, and a village apothecary bled him, restoring him to consciousness. The king made him his physi- cian, a position of great honor and profit. 286 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. Many a noble ship has stranded because of one de- fective timber, when all other parts were strong. Guard the weak point. No object the eye ever beheld, no sound however slight caught by the ear, or anything once passing the turnstile of any of the senses, is ever let go. The eye is a perpetual camera imprinting upon the sensitive mental plates, and packing away in the brain for future use every face, every tree, every plant, flower, hill, stream, mountain, every scene upon the street, in fact, everything which comes within its range. There is a phonograph in our natures which catches, hoAvever thoughtless and transient, every syllable we utter, and registers forever the slightest enunciation, and renders it immortal. These notes may appear a thousand years hence, reproduced in our descendants, in all their beau- tiful or terrible detail. All the ages that have been are rounded up into the small space we call " To-day." Every life spans all that precedes it. To-day is a book which contains everything that has transpired in the world up to the present moment. The millions of the past whose ashes have mingled with the dust for centuries still live in their destinies through the laws of heredity. Nothing has ever been lost. All the infinitesimals of the past are amassed into the present. The first acorn had wrapped up in it all the oak for- ests on the globe. " Least of all seeds, greatest of all harvests," seems to be one of the great laws of nature. All life comes from microscopic beginnings. In nature there is no- thing small. The microscope reveals as great a world below as the telescope above. All of nature's laws govern the smallest atoms, and a single drop of water is a miniature ocean. The strength of a chain lies in its weakest link, however large and strong all the others may be. We THE MIGHT OF LITTLE THINGS. 287 are all inclined to be proud of our strong points, while we are sensitive and neglectful of our weaknesses. Yet it is our greatest weakness which measures our real strength. A soldier who escapes the bullets of a thou- sand battles may die from the scratch of a pin, and many a ship has survived the shocks of icebergs and the storms of ocean only to founder in a smooth sea from holes made by tiny insects. Drop by drop is in- stilled into the mind the poison which blasts many a precious life. How often do we hear people say, " Oh, it 's only ten minutes, or twenty minutes, till dinner time ; there 's no use doing anything," or use other expressions of a like effect ? Why, it is just in these little spare bits of time, these odd moments, which most people throw away, that men who have risen have gained their educa- tion, written their books, and made themselves im- mortal. Small things hecome great iclien a great soul sees them. The noble or heroic act of one man has sometimes ele- vated a nation. Many an honorable career has resulted from a kind word spoken in season or the warm grasp of a friendly hand. It is the little rift within the lute, That by and by will make the music mute, And, ever widening, slowly silence all. Tennyson. " It was only a glad ' good-morning,' As she passed along the way, But it spread the morning's glory Over the livelong day." " Only a thought in passing — a smile, or encouraging word, Has lifted many a burden no other gift could have stirred. Only ! — But then the onlys Make up the mighty all." CHAPTER XVI. SELF-MASTERY. Give me that man That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him In my heart's core, ay, in my heart .of heart. Shakespeare. Strength of character consists of two things, — power of will and power of self-restraint. It requires two things, therefore, for its existence, — strong feelings and strong command over them. — F. W. Robertson. "Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, These three alone lead life to sovereign power." The bravest trophy ever man obtained Is that which o'er himself himself hath gained. Earl of Stirling. Real glory springs from the conquest of ourselves ; and without that the conqueror is naught but the veriest slave. — Thomson. Whatever day makes man a slave takes half his worth away. Odyssey. Chain up the unruly legion of thy breast. Lead thine own captivity captive, and be Caesar within thyself. — Thomas BrowNE. He who reigns within himself, and rules passions, desires, and fears, is more than a king.— Milton. He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty: and be that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. — Bible. Self-trust is of the essence of heroism. — Emerson. Man who man would be Must rule the empire of himself. P. B. Shelley. " Ah ! Diamond, you little know tlie mischief you have wrought," said Sir Isaac Xewton, returning from supper to find that his dog had upset a lighted taper upon the laborious calculations of years, which lay in ashes before him. Then he went calmly to work to reproduce them. The man who thus excelled in self- JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL We rise by the things that are under our feet : By what we liave mastered of good or gain : By the pride deposed and tlie passion slain, And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet." SELF-MASTERY. 289 mastery surpassed all his predecessors and contempo- raries in mastering the laws of nature. The sun was high in the heavens when a man called at the house of Pericles to abuse him. The man's an- ger knew no bounds. He vented his spite in violent language until he paused from sheer exhaustion, and saw that it was quite dark without. He turned to go home, when Pericles calmly called a servant, and said, " Bring a lamp and attend this man home." Is any argument needed to show the superiority of Pericles ? The gladiators who were trained to fight in the Coli- seum were compelled to practice the most graceful postures of falling and the finest attitudes to assume in dying, in case they were vanquished. They were obliged to eat food which would make the blood thick in order that they should not die quickly when wounded, thus giving the spectators prolonged gratification by the spectacle of their agonies. Each had to take this oath : " We swear that we will suffer ourselves to be bound, scourged, burned, or killed by the sword, or whatever Eumolpus ordains, and thus, like freeborn gladiators, we religiously devote both our souls and our bodies to our master." They were trained to exercise sublime self-control even when dying a cruel death. The American Minister at St. Petersburg was sum- moned one morning to save a young, dissolute, reckless American youth, Poe, from the penalties incurred in a drunken debauch. By the Minister's aid young Poe re- turned to the United States. Not long after this the author of the best story and poem competed for in the " Baltimore Visitor " was sent for, and behold, the youth who had taken both prizes was that same dissolute, reckless, penniless, orphan youth, who had been arrested in St. Petersburg, — pale, ragged, with no stockings, and with his threadbare but well brushed coat buttoned to the chin to conceal the lack of a shirt. Young Poe took fresh courage and resolution, and for a while 290 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. showed that he was superior to the appetite which was striving to drag him down. But, alas, that fatal bot- tle ! his mind was stored with riches, yet he died in moral poverty. This was a soldier's epitaph : — "Here lies a soldier whom all must applaud, Who fought many battles at liome and abroad: But the hottest engagement he ever was in, Was the conquest of self, in the battle of sin." In 1860, when a committee visited Abraham Lincoln at his home in Springfield, 111., to notify him of his nomination as President, he ordered a pitcher of water and glasses, " that they might drink each other's health in the best beverage God ever gave to man." " Let us," he continued, "make it as unfashionable to withhold our names from the teuiperance pledge as for husbands to wear their wives' bonnets in church, and instances will be as rare in one case as the other." Burns exercised no control over his appetites, but gave them the rein : — " Thus thoughtless follies laid him low And stained his name." " The first and best of victories," says Plato, " is for a man to conquer himself ; to be conquered by himself is, of all things, the most shameful and vile." Self-control is at the root of all the virtues. Let a man yield to his impulses and passions, and from that moment he gives up his moral freedom. " Teach self-denial and make its practice pleasurable," says Walter Scott, " and you create for the Avorld a destiny more sublime than ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer." Stonewall Jackson, early in life, determined to con- quer every weakness he had, physical, mental, and moral. He held all of his powers with a firm hand. To his great self-discipline and self-mastery he owed his success. So determined was he to harden himself to the weather that he could not be induced to wear an SELF-MASTERY. 291 overcoat in winter. '' I will not give in to tlie cold," lie said. For a year, on account of dyspepsia, lie lived on buttermilk and stale bread, and wore a wet shirt next his body because his doctor advised it, although every- body else ridiculed the idea. This was while he was professor at the Virginia Military Institute. His doc- tor advised him to retire at nine o'clock ; and, no mat- ter where he was, or who was present, he always sought his bed on the minute. He adhered rigidly through life to this stern system of discipline. Such self -training, such self-conquest, gives one great power over others. It is equal to genius itself. It is a good plan to form the habit of ranking our various qualities, marking our strongest point one hun- dred and all the others in proportion, in order to make the lowest mark more apparent, and enabling us to try to raise or strengthen it. A man's industry, for ex- ample, may be his strongest point, one hundred ; his physical courage may be fifty ; his moral courage, sev- enty-five ; his temper, twenty-five ; with but ten for self-control, — which, if he has strong appetites and pas- sions, will be likely to be the rock on which he will split. He should strive in every way to raise it from one of the weakest qualities to one of the strongest. It would take but two or three minutes a day to rank ourselves in such a table by noting the exercise of each faculty for the day. If you have worked hard and faithfully, mark industry one hundred. If you have lost your temper, and, in consequence, lost your self- control, and made a fool of yourself, indicate it by a low mark. This will be an incentive to try to raise it the next day. If you have been irritable, indicate it by a corresponding mark, and redeem yourself on the mor- row. If you have been cowardly where you should have been brave, hesitating where you should have shown decision, false where you should have been true, foolish where you should have been wise, tardy where 292 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. you should have been prompt ; if you have prevaricated where you should have told the exact truth; if you have taken the advantage where you should have been fair, have been unjust where you should have been just, im- patient where you should have been patient, cross where you should have been cheerful, so indicate by your marks. You will find this a great aid to character building. It is a subtle and profound remark of Hegel's that the riddle which the Sphinx, the Egyptian symbol of the mysteriousness of Nature, propounds to CEdipus is only another way of expressing the command of the Delphic oracle, "Know thyself.^' And when the an- swer is given the Sphinx casts herself down from her rock. When man knows himself, the mysteriousness of Nature and her terrors vanish. The command by the ancient oracle at Delphos is of eternal significance. Add to it its natural complement ' — Help thyself — and the path to success is open to those who obey. Guard your tveak point. Moral contagion borrows fully half its strength from the weakness of its victims. Have you a hot, passionate temper ? If so, a moment's outbreak, like a rat-hole in a dam, may flood all the work of years. One angry word sometimes raises a storm that time itself cannot allay. A single angry word has lost many a friend. A Quaker was asked by a merchant whom he had conquered by his patience how he had been able to bear the other's abuse, and replied : " Friend, I will tell thee. I was naturally as hot and violent as thou art. I ob- served that men in a passion always speak loud, and I thought if I could control my voice I should repress my passion. I have therefore made it a rule never to let my voice rise above a certain key, and by a careful ob- servance of this rule, I have, by the blessing of God, entirely mastered my natural tongue." Mr. Christmas SELF-MASTERY. 293 of the Bank of England Explains that the secret of his self-control under very trying circumstances was due to a rule learned from the great Pitt, never to lose his tem- per during banking hours from nine to three. When Socrates found in himself any disposition to anger, he would check it by speaking low, in opposition to the motions of his displeasure. If you are conscious of being in a passion, keep your mouth shut, lest you increase it. Many a person has dropped dead in a rage. Fits of anger bring fits of disease. '' Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad." "Keep cool," says Webster, "anger is not argument." "Be calm in arguing," says George Herbert, " for fierceness makes error a fault, and truth discourtesy." To be angry with a weak man is to prove that you are not strong yourself. " Anger," says Pythagoras, "begins with folly and ends with repentance." You must measure the strength of a man by the power of the feelings he subdues, not by the power of those which subdue him. De Leon, a distinguished Spanish poet, after lying years in dungeons of the Inquisition, dreary, and alone, without light, for translating part of the Scriptures into his native tongue, was released and restored to his professorship. A great crowd thronged to hear his first lecture, out of curiosity to learn what he might say about his imprisonment. But the great man merely re- sumed the lecture which had been so cruelly broken off five years before, just where he left it, with the words "Heri discebamus " (Yesterday we were teaching). What a lesson in this remarkable example of self-con- trol for those who allow their tongues to jabber what- ever happens to be uppermost in their minds ! Did you ever see a man receive a flagrant insult, and only grow a little pale, bite his quivering lip, and then reply quietly ? Did you ever see a man in anguish stand as if carved out of solid rock, mastering himself ? 294 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. Have you not seen one bearing a hopeless daily trial re- main silent and never tell the world what cankered his home peace ? That is strength. " He who, with strong passions, remains chaste; he who, keenly sensitive, with manly power of indignation in him, can be pro- voked, and yet restrain himself and forgive, — these are strong men, the spiritual heroes." " You will be remembered only as the man who broke my nose," said young Michael Angelo to the man Torri- giano, who struck him in anger. What sublime self- control for a quick-tempered man ! " You ask whether it would not be manly to resent a great injury," said Eardley Wilmot : " I answer that it would be manly to resent it, but it would be Godlike to forgive it." That man has conquered his tongue who can allow the ribald jest or scurrilous word to die unspoken on his lips, and maintain an indignant silence amid re- proaches and accusations and sneers and scoffs. " He is a fool who cannot be angry," says English, " but he is a wise man w^ho will not." Peter the Great made a law in 1722 that a nobleman who should beat his slave should be regarded as insane, and a guardian appointed to look after his property and person. This great monarch once struck his gardener, who took to his bed and died. Peter, hearing of this, exclaimed with tears in his eyes, " Alas ! I have civil- ized my own subjects ; I have conquered other nations ; yet have I not been able to civilize or conquer myself." The same monarch, when drunk, rushed upon Admiral Le Fort with a sword. Le Fort, with great self-posses- sion, bared his breast to receive the stroke. This so- bered Peter, and afterwards he asked the pardon of Le Fort. Peter said, " I am trying to reform my country, and I am not yet able to reform myself." Self-con- quest is man's last and greatest victory. A medical authority of highest repute affirms that SELF-MASTERY. 295 excessive labor, exposure to wet and cold, deprivation of sufficient quantities of necessary and wholesome food, habitual bad lodging, sloth and intemperance, are all deadly enemies to human life, but they are none of them so bad as violent and ungoverned passion, — that men and women have frequently lived to an advanced age in spite of these, but that instances are very rare where people of irascible tempers live to extreme old age. It was the self-discipline of a man who had never looked upon war until he was forty that enabled Oliver Cromwell to create an army which never fought without annihilating, yet which retired into the ranks of indus- try as soon as the government was established, each soldier being distinguished from his neighbors only by his superior diligence, sobriety, and regularity in the pursuits of peace. How sweet the serenity of habitual self-command ! When does a man feel more a master of himself than when he has passed through a sudden and severe provo- cation in silence or in undisturbed good humor ? Whether teaching the rules of an exact morality, an- swering his corrupt judges, receiving sentence of death, or swallowing the poison, Socrates was still calm, quiet, undisturbed, intrepid. It is a great thing to have brains, but it is vastly greater to be able to command them. The Duke of Wellington had great power over himself, although his natural temper was extremely irritable. He remained at the Duchess of Eichmond's ball till about three o'clock on the morning of the 16th of June, 1815, " showing himself very cheerful," although he knew that a desperate battle was awaiting him. On the field of Waterloo he gave his orders at the most critical mo- ments without the slightest excitement. jSTapoleon, having made his arrangements for the ter- rible conflict of the next day (Jena and Auerstadt), re- tired to his tent about midnight, and calmly sat down to 296 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. draw up a plan of study and discipline for Madame Campan's female school. " Keep cool, and you com- mand everybody/^ says St. Just. " He that would govern others first should be The master of hunself," says Massinger. He who has mastered himself, who is his own Caesar, will be stronger than his passion, superior to circum- stances, higher than his calling, greater than his speech. Self-control is the generalship which turns a mob of raw recruits into a disciplined army. The rough man has become the polished and dignified soldier; in other words, the man has got control of himself, and knows how to use himself. The human race is under constant drill. Our occupations, difficulties, obstacles, disap- pointments, if used aright, are the great schoolmasters which help us to possess ourselves. The man who is master of himself will not be a slave to drudgery, but will keep in advance of his work. He will not rob his family of that which is worth more than money or posi- tion ; he will not be the slave of his occupation, not at the mercy of circumstances. His methods and system will enable him to accomplish wonders, and yet give him leisure for self-culture. The man who controls himself works to live rather than lives for work. The man of great self-control, the man who thinks a great deal and says little, who is self-centred, well bal- anced, carries a thousand times more weight than the man of weak will, always wavering and undecided. If a man lacks self-control he seems to lack every- thing. Without it he can have no patience, no power to govern himself ; he can have no self-reliance, for he will always be at the mercy of his strongest passion. If he lacks self-control, the very backbone, pith, and nerve of character are lacking also. The discipline which is the main end in education is simply control acquired over one's mental faculties ; SELF-MASTERY. 297 witliont this discipline no man is a strong and accurate thinker. " Prove to me/' says Mrs. Oliphant, " that you can control yourself, and I '11 say you 're an educated man ; and, without this, all other education is good for next to nothing." The wife of Socrates, Xanthippe, was a woman of a most fantastical and furious spirit. At one time, hav- ing vented all the reproaches upon Socrates her fury could suggest, he went out and sat before the door. His calm and unconcerned behavior but irritated her so much the more ; and, in the excess of her rage, she ran upstairs and emptied a vessel upon his head, at which he only laughed and said that " so much thunder must needs produce a shower." Alcibiades his friend, talking with him about his wife, told him he wondered how he could bear such an everlasting scold in the same house with him. He replied, " I have so accustomed myself to expect it, that it now offends me no more than the noise of carriages in the street." How many men have in their chain of character one weak link. They may be weak in the link of truthful- ness, politeness, trustworthiness, temper, chastity, tem- perance, courage, industry, or may have some other weakness which wrecks their success and thwarts a life's endeavor. He who would succeed must hold all his faculties under perfect control ; they must be dis- ciplined, drilled, until they obey the will. Think of a young man just starting out in life to con- quer the world being at the mercy of his own appetites and passions ! He cannot stand up and look the world in the face when he is the slave of what should be his own servants. He cannot lead who is led. There is nothing which gives certainty and direction to the life of a man who is not his own master. If he has mas- tered all but one appetite, passion, or weakness, he is still a slave ; it is the weakest point that measures the strength of character. 298 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. Seneca, one of the greatest of the ancient philoso- phers, said that " we should every night call ourselves to account. What infirmity have I mastered to-day ? what passion opposed? what temptation resisted ? what virtue acquired ? " and then he follows with the pro- found truth that " our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift." If you can- not at first control your anger, learn to control your tongue, which, like fire, is a good servant, but a hard master. Five words cost Zacharias forty weeks' silence. There is many a man whose tongue might govern multi- tudes if he could only govern his tongue. Anger, like too much wine, hides us from ourselves, but exposes us to others. General von Moltke, perhaps the greatest strategist of this century, had, as a foundation for his other tal- ents, the power to " hold his tongue in seven languages." A young man went to Socrates to learn oratory. On being introduced, he talked so incessantly that Socrates asked for double fees. '^ Why charge me double ? " asked the young fellow. "Because," said the orator, " I must teach you two sciences : the one how to hold your tongue, the other how to speak." The first is the more difficult. Half the actual trouble of life would be saved if peo- ple would remember that silence is golden, when they are irritated, vexed, or annoyed. To feel provoked or exasperated at a trifle, when the nerves are exhausted, is, perhaps, natural to us in our imperfect state. But why put into the shape of speech the annoyance which, once uttered, is remembered ; which may burn like a blistering wound, or rankle like a poisoned arrow ? If a child be crying or a friend capricious, or a servant unreasonable, be careful what you say. Do not speak while you feel the impulse of anger, for you vrill be almost certain to say too much, to SELF-MASTERY. 299 say more than your cooler judgment will approve, and to speak in a way that you will regret. Be silent until the " sweet by and by," when you will be calm, rested, and self-controlled. " Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words ? There is more hope of a fool than of him." " Silence," says Zimmerman, " is the safest response for all the contradiction that arises from impertinence, vulgarity, or envy." In rhetoric, as Emerson truly says, this art of omis- sion is the chief secret of power. " Everything tells in favor of the man who talks but little. The presumption is that he is a superior man ; and if, in point of fact, he is not a sheer blockhead, the presumption then is that he is very superior indeed." Grant was master of the science of silence. The self-controlled are self-possessed. " Sir, the house is on fire ! " shrieked a frightened servant, running into Dr. Lawson's study. " Go and tell your mistress," said the preoccupied professor, without looking up from the book he was reading ; " you know I have no charge of household matters." A woman whose house was on fire threw a looking-glass out of the window, and carried a pair of andirons several rods to a safe place beside a stone wall. '^ Presence of mind and courage in distress are more than armies to procure success." Xenophon tells us that at one time the Persian princes had for their teachers the four best men in the kingdom. (1) The wisest man to teach wisdom. (2) The bravest to teach courage. ^ (3) The most just to train the moral nature. (4) The most temperate to teach self-control. We have them all in the Bible, and in Christ our teacher, an example. "If it is a small sacrifice to discontinue the use of wine," said Samuel J. May, " do it for the sake of others ; if it is a great sac- rifice, do it for your own sake." How many of nature's noblemen, who might be kings if they could control 300 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. themselves, drink away their honor, reputation, and money in glasses of "wet damnation," more costly than the vinegar in which Cleopatra dissolved her pearls. Experience shows that, quicker than almost any other physical agency, alcohol breaks down a man's power of self-control. But the physical evils of intemperance, great as they are, are slight, compared with the moral injury it produces. It is not simply that vices and crimes almost inevitably follow the loss of rational self- direction, which is the invariable accompaniment of in- toxication ; manhood is lowered and finally lost by the sensual tyranny of appetite. The drunken man has given up the reins of his nature to a fool or a fiend, and he is driven fast to base or unutterably foolish ends. With almost palsied hand, at a temperance meeting, John B. Gough signed the pledge. For six days and nights in a wretched garret, without a mouthful of food, with scarcely a moment's sleep, he fought the fearful battle with appetite. Weak, famished, almost dying, he crawled into the sunlight ; but he had conquered the demon which had almost killed him. Gough used to describe the struggles of a man who tried to leave off using tobacco. He threw away what he had, and said that was the end of it ; but no, it was only the begin- ning of it. He would chew camomile, gentian, tooth- picks, but it was of no use. He bought another plug of tobacco and put it in his pocket. He wanted a chew awfully, but he looked at it and said, " You are a weed, and I am a man. I '11 master you if I die for it ; " and he did, while carrying it in his pocket daily. Natural appetites, if given rein, will not only grow monstrous and despotic, but artificial apx:>etites will be created which, like a ghastly Frankenstein, develop a kind of independent life and force, and then turn on their creator to torment him without pity, and will mock his efforts to free himself from this slavery. The victim of strong drink is one of the most pitiable crea- SELF-MASTERY. 301 tures on earth ; he becomes half beast, or half demon. Oh, the silent, suffering tongues that whisper " Don't," but the will lies prostrate, and the debauch goes on. What a mute confession of degradation there is in the very appearance of a confirmed sot. Behold a man no longer in possession of himself ; the flesh is master ; the spiritual nature is sunk in the mire of sensuality ; and the mental faculties are a mere mob of enfeebled powers under bondage to a bestial or mad tyrant. As Challis says : — '' Once the demon enters, Stands within the door; Peace and hope and gladness Dwell there nevermore." Many persons are intemperate in their feelings ; they are emotionally prodigal. Passion is intemperance ; so is caprice. There is an intemperance even in melan- choly and mirth. The temperate man is not mastered by his moods ; he will not be driven or enticed into ex- cess ; his steadfast will conquers despondency, and is not unbalanced by transient exhilarations, for ecstasy is as fatal as despair. Temper is subjected to reason and conscience. How many people excuse themselves for doing wrong or foolish acts by the plea that they have a quick temper. But he who is king of himself rules his temper, turning its very heat and passion into en- ergy that works good instead of evil. Stephen Girard, when he heard of a clerk with a strong temper, was glad to employ him. He believed that such persons, taught self-control, were the best workers. Controlled temper is an element of strength ; wisely regulated, it expends itself as energy in work, just as heat in an engine is transmuted into force that drives the wheels of in- dustry. Cromwell, William the Silent, Wordsworth, Faraday, Washington, and Wellington were men of prodigious tempers, but they were also men whose self-control was nearly perfect. 302 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. George AVasliington's faculties were so well balanced and combined that his constitution was tempered evenly with all the elements of activity, and his mind resem- bled a well organized commonwealth. His passions, which had the intensest vigor, owed allegiance to rea- son ; and with all the fiery quickness of his spirit, his impetuous and massive will was held in check by con- summate judgment. He had in his composition a calm which was a balance-wheel, and which gave him in mo- ments of highest excitement the power of self-control, and enabled him to excel in patience, even when he had most cause for disgust. It was said by an enemy of AYilliam the Silent that an arrogant or indiscreet word never fell from his lips. How brilliantly could Carlyle write of heroism, cour- age, self-control, and yet fly into a rage at a rooster crowing in a neighbor's yard. A self-controlled mind is a free mind, and freedom is power. '' I call that mind free," says Channing, " which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content it- self with a passive or hereditary faith, which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come, which receives new truth as an angel from heaven, which, whilst con- sulting otliers, inquires still more of the oracle within itself, and uses instructions from abroad, not to super- sede, but to quicken and exalt its own energies. I call that mind free which is not passively framed by out- ward circumstances, which is not swept away by the torrent of events, which is not the creature of acciden- tal impulse, but which bends events to its own im- provement, and acts from an inward spring, from immutable principles which it has deliberately es- poused. I call that mind free which protects itself against the usurpations of society, which does not cower to human opinion, which feels itself accountable to a SELF-MASTERY. 303 higher tribunal than man's, which resj^ects a higher law than fashion, which respects itself too much to be the slave or tool of the many or the few. I call that mind free which through confidence in God and in the power of virtue has cast off all fear but that of wrong-doing, which no menace or jjeril can enthrall, which is calm in the midst of tumults, and possesses itself though all else be lost. 1 call that mind free which resists the bondage of habit, which does not mechanically repeat itself and copy the past, which does not live on its old virtues, which does not enslave itself to precise rules, but which forgets what is behind, listens for new and higher monitions of conscience, and rejoices to pour it- self forth in fresh and higher exertions. I call that mind free which is jealous of its own freedom, which guards itself from being merged in others, which guards its empire over itself as nobler than the empire of the world." Be free — not chiefly from the,iron chain But from the one which pas--ion forges — be The master of thyself. If lost, regain The rule o'er chance, sense, circumstance. Be free. Ephuaim Peabodv. " It is not enough to have great qualities," saj-s La Kochefoucauld ; '• we should also have the management of them." Xo man can call himself educated until every voluntary muscle obeys his will. Every human being is conscious of two natures. One is ever reaching up after the good, the true, and the noble, — is aspiring after all that uplifts, elevates, and jjurifies. It is the God-side of man, the image of the Creator, the immortal side, the spiritual side. It is the gravitation of the soul faculties toward their Maker. The other is the bestial side which gravitates down- ward. It does not asjjire, it grovels ; it wallows in the mire of sensualism. Like the beast, it knows but one law, and is led by only one motive, self-indulgence, 304 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. self-gratification. When neither hungry nor thirsty, or when gorged and sated by over-indulgence, it lies quiet and peaceful as a lamb, and we sometimes think it subdued. But when its imperious passion accumu- lates, it clamors for satisfaction. You cannot reason with it, for it has no reason, only an imperious instinct for gratification. You cannot appeal to its self-respect, for it has none. It cares nothing for character, for manliness, for the spiritual. These two natures are ever at war, one pulling heavenward, the other, earthward. Nor do they ever become reconciled. Either may conquer, but the van- quished never submits. The higher nature may be compelled to grovel, to wallow in the mire of sensual indulgence, but it always rebels and enters its protest. It can never forget that it bears the image of its Maker, even when dragged through the slough of sensualism. The still small voice which bids man look up is never quite hushed. If the victim of the lower nature could only forget that he was born to look upward, if he could only erase the image of his Maker, if he could only hush the voice which haunts him and condemns him when he is bound in slavery, if he could only en- joy his indulgences without the mockery of remorse, he thinks he would be content to remain a brute. But the ghost of his better self rises as he is about to par- take of his delight, and robs him of the expected plea- sure. He has sold his better self for pleasure which is poison, and he cannot lose the consciousness of the fearful sacrifice he has made. The banquet may be ready, but the hand on the wall is writing his doom. Give me that soul, superior power, That conquest over fate, Which sways the weakness of the hour, Rules little things as great : That lulls the human waves of strife With words and feelings kind. And makes the trials of our life The triumphs of our mind. Charles Swain. SELF-MASTERY. 305 Reader, attend — whether thy soul Soars fancy's flights above the pole, Or darkly grubs this earthly hole, In low pursuits : Know prudent, cautious self-control Is wisdom's root. Burns. The king is the man who can. — Carlyle. I have only one counsel for you — Be master. — Napoleon. Ah, silh' man, who dream'st thy honor stands In ruling others, not thyself. Thy slaves Serve thee, and thou thy slave : in iron bands Thy servile spirit, pressed with wild passions, raves. Wouldst thou live honored? — clip ambition's wing; To reason's yoke thy furious passions bring: Thrice noble is the man who of himself is king. Phineas Fletcher. " Not in the clamor of the crowded street. Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, But in ourselves are triumph and defeat." CHAPTER XVII. Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small ; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all. Frederick von Logau. Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. — Ecclesiastes. Cease to think that the decrees of the gods can be changed by prayers. — Virgil. Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the da3's of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart and in the sight of thine eyes ; but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. — Ecclesiastes. Man is a watch, wound up at first, but never "Wound up again: once down he's down forever. Herrick. To live long it is necessary to live slowly. — Cicero. Old age seizes upon an ill-spent youth like fire upon a rotten house. — South. Last Sunday a young man died here of extreme old age at twenty-five. — John Newton. If 3^ou will not hear Reason, she '11 surely rap your knuckles. —Poor Richard's Sayings. 'T is the sublime of man, Our noontide majesty, — to know ourselves, Part and proportion of a wondrous whole. Coleridge. " Eh ! oh ! ah ! " exclaimed 'Franklin ; " what have I done to merit these cruel sufferings ? " " Many things," replied the Gout ; " you have eaten and drunk too freely, and too much indulged those legs of yours in your indo- lence." Nature seldom presents her bill on the day you JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE Nature demands that man be ever at the top of liis condition. He who violates her laws must pay the penalty though he sit on a throne. NATURE'S LITTLE BILL. 307 violate her laws. But if 3^011 overdraw your account at her bank, and give her a mortgage on your body, be sure she will foreclose. She may loan you all you want ; but, like Shylock, she will demand the last ounce of flesh. She rarely brings in her cancer bill before the victim is forty years old. She does not often annoy a man with her drink bill until he is past his prime, and then presents it in the form of Bright's disease, fatty degeneration of the heart, drunkard's liver, or some sim- ilar disease. What you pay the saloon keeper is but a small part of your score. You have also to settle with Kature, and she takes your health, your life. ISTature does not excuse man for weakness, incompetence, or ignorance; she demands that he be ever at the top of his condition. We often hear it said that the age of miracles is past. We marvel that a thief dying on the cross should ap- pear that very day in Paradise ; but behold how that bit of meat or vegetable on a Hawarden breakfast table is snatched from Death, transformed into thought, and on the following night shakes Parliament in the mag- netism and oratory of a Gladstone. The age of miracles past, when three times a day right before our eyes Na- ture performs miracles greater even than raising the dead ? Watch that crust of bread thrown into a cell in Bedford Jail and devoured by a poor, hungry tinker ; cut, crushed, ground, driven by muscles, dissolved by acids and alkalies ; absorbed and hurled into the mys- terious red river of life. Scores of little factories along this strange stream, waiting for this crust, transmute it as it passes, as if by magic, here into a bone cell, there into gastric juice, here into bile, there into a nerve cell, yonder into a brain cell. We cannot trace the process by which this crust arrives at the muscle and acts, ar- rives at the brain and thinks. We cannot see the ma- nipulating hand which throws back and forth the shuttle which weaves Bunyan's destinies, nor can we trace the 308 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. subtle alchemy which transforms this prison crust into the finest allegory in the world, the Pilgrim's Progress. But we do know that, unless we supply food when the stomach begs and clamors, brain and muscle cannot con- tinue to act ; and we also know that unless the food is properly chosen, unless we eat it properly, unless we maintain good digestion by exercise of mind and body, it will not produce the speeches of a Gladstone or the allegories of a Bunyan. Truly we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Ima- gine a cistern which would transform the foul sewage of a city into pure drinking water in a second's time, as the black venous blood, foul with the ashes of burned-up brain cells and debris of worn-out tissues, is transformed in the lungs, at every breath, into pure, bright, red blood. Each drop of blood from that magic stream of liquid life was compounded by a divine Chemist. In it float all our success and destiny. In it are the exten- sions and limits of our possibilities. In it are health and long life, or disease and premature death. In it are our hopes and our fears, our courage, our cowardice, our energy or lassitude, our strength or weakness, our suc- cess or failure. In it are susceptibilities of high or broad culture, or pinched or narrow faculties handed down from an uncultured ancestry. From it our bones and nerves, our muscles and brain, our comeliness or ugliness, all come. In it are locked up the elements of a gentle or a vicious life, the tendencies of a criminal or a saint. How important is it, then, that we should obey the laws of health, and thus maintain the purity and power of this our earthly River of Life ! " We hear a great deal about the ^ vile body,' " said Spencer, " and many are encouraged by the phrase to transgress the laws of health. But Nature quietly sup- presses those who treat thus disrespectfully one of her highest products, and leaves the world to be peopled by the descendants of those who are not so foolish." NATURE'S LITTLE BILL. 309 Nature gives to him that hath. She shows him the contents of her vast storehouse, and bids him take all he wants and be welcome. But she will not let him keep for years what he does not use. Use or lose is her motto. Every atom we do not utilize this great economist snatches from us. "Whosoever hath, to him shall be given ; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have." If you put your arm in a sling and do not use it, Nature will remove the muscle almost to the bone, and the arm will become useless, but in exact proportion to your efforts to use it again she will gradually restore what she took away. Put your mind in the sling of idleness, or inactivity, and in like manner she will re- move your brain, even to imbecility. The blacksmith wants one powerful arm, and she gives it to him, but reduces the other. You can, if you will, send all the energy of your life into some one faculty, but all your other faculties will starve. A young lady may wear tight corsets if she chooses, but Nature will remove the rose from her cheek and put pallor there. She will replace a clear complexion with muddy hues and sallow spots. She will take away the elastic step, the lustre from the eye. Devote your energies to amassing wealth ; steel your heart against the cry of the poor and unfortunate about you ; refuse to exercise your benevolent impulses, and see how Nature will continue to lessen your inclination to give until your stingy soul shrivels to that of a miser. Don't expect to have health for nothing. Nothing in this world worth anything can be had for nothing. Health is the prize of a constant struggle. Nature passes no act without affixing a penalty for its violation. Whenever Nature is outraged she will have her penalty, although it take a life. A great surgeon stood before his class to perform a certain operation which the elaborate mechanism and 310 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. minute knowledge of modern science had only recently made possible. With strong and gentle hand he did his work successfully so far as his j^art of the terrible busi- ness went ; and then he turned to his pupils and said, " Two years ago a safe and simple operation might have cured this disease. Six years ago a wise way of life might have prevented it. We have done our best as the case now stands, but Nature will have her word to say. She does not always consent to the repeal of her capital sentences." Next day the patient died. " Poor fellow ! " said Emerson, as he looked at his delicately reared little son, ^' how much he loses by not having to go through the hard experiences I had in my youth ! " Health, strength, and longevity depend upon immu- table laws. There is no chance about them. Primarily our parents, and secondarily ourselves, are responsible for them. Because the virulence of disease rises above the power of all therapeutics, or because one quarter of the human race dies before completing one seventeenth of the term of existence allotted to us by the Psalmist, the Providence of God is no more responsible than it is for picking pockets or stealing horses. Apart from accidents, we hold our life largely at will. What business have sixty thousand physicians in the United States ? It is our own fault that even one tenth of them get a respectable living. What a commentary upon our modern American civilization, that three hun- dred thousand people should die annually from abso- lutely preventable diseases ! Seneca said, '• The gods have given us a long life, but we have made it short." Pew people know enough to become old. It is a rare thing for a person to die of old age. Only three or four out of a hundred die of anything like old age. But Na- ture evidently intended, by the wonderful mechanism of the human body, that we should live well up to a century. NATURE'S LITTLE BILL. 311 Thomas Parr, of England, lived to the age of one hun- dred and fifty-two years. He was married when he was a hundred and twenty, and did not leave off work until he was a hundred and thirty. Henry Jenkins, of Yorkshire, England, lived to be a hundred and sixty- nine, and would probably have lived longer had not the king brought him to London, where the luxuries has- tened his death. The court records of England show that he was a witness in a trial a hundred and forty years before his death. He swam across a rapid river when he was a hundred. The great Dr. Harvey exam- ined Parr's body, but found no cause of death except a change of living. There is nothing we are more ignorant of than the physiology and chemistry of the human body. Not one person in a thousand can correctly locate important internal organs or describe their use in the animal economy. What an insult to the Creator who fashioned them so wonderfully and fearfully in His own image, that the graduates from our high schools and even universities, and young women who " finish their education," become proficient in the languages, in music, in art, and have the culture of travel, cannot describe or explain the va- rious organs or functions upon which their lives depend. " The time will come," says Frances Willard, " when it will be told as a relic of our primitive barbarism that children were taught the list of prepositions and the names of the rivers of Thibet, but were not taught the wonderful laws on which their own bodily happiness is based, and the humanities by which they could live in peace and good-will with those about them." Nothing else is so important to man as the study and knowledge of himself, and yet he knows less of himself than he does of the beasts about him. The human body is the great poem of the Great Au- thor. Not to learn how to read it, to spell out its 312 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. meaning, to determine its beauties, or to attempt to fathom its mysteries, is a disgrace to our civilization. What a price mortals pay for their ignorance, let a dwarfed, half-developed, one-sided, short-lived nation answer. If the poet sickens, his verse sickens ; if half-oxygen- ated blood flows to an author's brain, it beclouds his pages, and the devotions of a consumptive man scent of disease, as Lord Byron's obscenities smell of gin. Not only '' lying lips,'' but a dyspeptic stomach is an abomination to the Lord. Somebody has blundered, somebody sinned. '' A brilliant intellect in a sickly body is like gold in a spent swimmer's pocket." Often, from lack of exercise, one side of the brain gradually becomes paralyzed and deteriorates into imbe- cility. How intimately the functions of the nervous organs are united. The whole man mourns for a felon. The least swelling presses a nerve against a bone and causes one intense agony, and even a Napoleon becomes a child. A corn on the toe, an affection of the kidneys or of the liver, a boil anywhere on the body, or a carbun- cle, may seriously affect the eyes and even the brain. The whole system is a network of nerves, of organs, of functions, which are so intimately joined, and related in such close sympathy, that an injury to one part is immediately felt in every other. Nature takes note of all our transactions, physical, mental, or moral, and places every item promptly to our debit or credit. Let us take a look at a page in Nature's ledger : — To damage to the heart in youth The "irritableheart," by immoderate athletics, tobacco the "tobacco heart," chewing, cigarette smoking, drinking a life of promise im- strong tea or coffee, rowing, running paired or blighted, to trains, overstudy, excitement, etc. NATURE'S LITTLE BILL. 313 To one digestive apparatus ruined, by eating hurriedly, by eating unsuit- able or poorly cooked food, by drink- ing ice water when heated, by swal- lowing scalding drinks, especially tea, which forms tannic acid on the deli- cate lining of the stomach ; or by eat- ing when tired, or worried, or after receiving bad news, when the gastric juice cannot be secreted, etc. Dyspepsia, melan- cholia, years of misery to self, worriment to one's family, pity and disgust of friends. To one nervous system shattered by dissipation, abuses, over-excite- ment, a fast life, feverish haste to get riches or fame, hastening puberty by stimulating food, exciting life, etc. Years of weakness, disappointed ambi- tion, hopeless ineffi- ciency, a hurnt-out life. To damage by undue mental ex- ertion by burning the "midnight oil," exhausting the brain cells faster than they can be renewed. To overstraining the brain trying to lead the class in college, trying to take a prize, or to get ahead of some- body else. Impaired powers of mind, softening of the brain, blighted hopes. A disappointed am- bition, a life of inva- lidism. To hardening the delicate and sensitive gray matter of the brain and nerves, and ruining the lining membranes of the stomach and ner- vous system by alcohol, opium, etc. A hardened brain, a hardened conscience, a ruined home, Bright's disease, fatty degener- ation, nervous degen- eration, a short, use- less, wasted life. By forced balances, here and there. Accounts closed. Physiological and moral bankruptcy. Sometimes two or three such items are charged to a single account. To offset them, there is placed on 314 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. the credit side a little feverish excitenient, too fleeting for calm enjoyment, followed by regret, remorse, and shame. Be sure your sins will find you out. They are all recorded. *' The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to scourge us." It is a wonder that we live at all. We violate every law of our being, yet we expect to live to a ripe old age. What would you think of a man who, having an elegant watch delicately adjusted to heat and cold, should leave it on the sidewalk with cases open on a dusty or a rainy day, and yet expect it to keep good time ? What would you think of a householder who should leave the doors and windows of his mansion open to thieves and tramps, to winds and dust and rain? What are our bodies but timepieces made by an In- finite Hand, wound up to run a century, and so delicately adjusted to heat and cold that the temperature will not vary half a degree between the heat of summer and the cold of winter whether we live in the regions of eternal frost or under the burning sun of the tropics ? A parti- cle of dust or the slightest friction will throw this won- derful timepiece out of order, yet we often leave it ex- posed to all the corroding elements. We do not always keep open the twenty-five miles of ventilating pores in the skin by frequent bathing. We seldom lubricate the delicate wheels of the body with the oil of gladness. We expose it to dust and cinders, cold and draughts, and poisonous gases. How careful we are to filter our water, air our beds, ventilate our sleeping-rooms, and analyze our milk. AVe shrink from contact with filth and disease. But we put paper colored with arsenic on our walls, and daily breathe its poisonous exhalations. We frequent theatres crowded with human beings, many of whom are uncleanly and diseased. We sit for hours and NATURE'S LITTLE BILL. 315 breathe in upon fourteen hundred square feet of lung tissue the heated, foul, and heavy air ; carbonic acid gas from hundreds of gas burners, each consuming as much oxygen as six people ; air filled with shreds of tissue expelled from diseased lungs ; poisonous effluvia exhaled from the bodies of people who rarely bathe, from clothing seldom washed, fetid breaths, and skin diseases in different stages of development. For hours we sit in this bath of poison, and wonder at our head- ache and lassitude next morning. We pour a glass of ice water into a stomach busy in the delicate operation of digestion, ignorant or careless of the fact that it takes half an hour to recover from the shock and get the temperature back to ninety-eight degrees, so that the stomach can go on secreting gastric juice. Then down goes another glass of water with similar results. We pour down alcohol which thickens the velvety lining of the stomach, and hardens the soft tissues, the thin sheaths of nerves, and the gray matter of the brain. We crowd meats, vegetables, pastry, confectionery, nuts, raisins, wines, fruits, etc., into one of the most delicately constructed organs of the body, and expect it to take care of its miscellaneous and incongruous load without a murmur. After all these abuses we do not give the blood a chance to go to the stomach and help it out of its misery, but summon it to the brain and muscles, notwithstand- ing the fact that it is so important to have an extra supply to aid digestion that Nature has made the blood vessels of the alimentary canal large enough to contain several times the amount in the entire body. Who ever saw a horse leave his oats and hay, when hungry, to wash them down with water ? The dumb beasts can teach us some valuable lessons in eating and drinking. Nature mixes our gastric juice or pepsin and acids in just the right proportion to digest our food, and 316 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. keep it at exactly the right temperature. If we dilute it, or lower its temperature by ice water, we diminish its solvent or digestive power, and dyspepsia is the nat- ural result. English factory children have received the commiser- ation of the world because they were scourged to work eighteen hours out of the twenty-four. But there is many a theoretical republican who is a harsher task- master to his stomach than this ; who allows it no more resting time than he does his watch ; who gives it no Sunday, no holiday, no vacation in any sense, and who seeks to make his heart beat faster for the sake of the exhilaration he can thus produce. Although the heart weighs a little over half a pound, yet it pumps eighteen pounds of blood from itself, forcing it into every nook and corner of the entire body, back to itself in less than two minutes. This little organ does a daily work equal to lifting one hundred and twenty-four tons one foot high. This most perfect engine in the world exerts one third as much muscle power as does a stout man in hard labor. If the heart should expend its entire force lifting its own weight, it would raise itself nearly twenty thousand feet an hour, ten times as high as a pedestrian can lift himself in as- cending a mountain. What folly, then, to goad this willing, hard-working slave to greater exertions by stim- ulants ! When one of the most renowned physicians of France was on his deathbed, and the foremost medical men of Paris were deploring at his bedside the great loss the profession would sustain by his death, it is said that the dying man assured them that he left behind three physicians much greater than himself : Water, Exercise, and Diet. " Call in the services of the first freely," he said, " of the second regularly, and of the third moder- ately. Follow this advice, and you may well dispense with my aid. Living, I could do nothing without them, NATURE'S LITTLE BILL. 317 and, dying, I shall not be missed if you make friends of these my faithful coadjutors." We must pay the penalty of our vocations. Beware of work that kills the workman. All occupations in which impure air or deleterious gases must be inhaled should be avoided. Stone-cutters, miners, and steel grinders are short lived, the sharp particles of dust irritating and inflaming the tender lining of the lung cells. The knife and fork grinders in Manchester, England, rarely live beyond thirty-two years. Those who prize long life should avoid all occupations which compel them to breathe impure air, and especially those in which they are obliged to inhale dust and filings from steel and brass and iron, the dust in coal mines, and dust from thresh- ing-machines. Those who work in grain elevators and those who are compelled to breathe chemical poisons are short lived. Deep breathing in dusty places sends the particles of dust into the upper and less used lobes of the lungs, and these become a constant irritant, until they finally excite an inflammation, which may end in consumption. All occupations in which arsenic is used shorten life. A box-maker not far from Boston noticed that some of his girls did not live more than four or five years after they entered his service. Dr. William Ogle, who is authority upon this subject, says, " Of all the various influences that tend to produce differences of mortality in any community, none is more potent than the character of the prevailing occupations." Finding that clergymen and priests have the lowest death-rate, he represented it as one hundred, and by comparison found that the rate for inn and hotel ser- vants was three hundred and ninety -seven ; miners, three hundred and thirty-one; earthenware makers, three hundred and seventeen ; file makers, three hun- dred ; innkeepers, two hundred and seventy-four ; gar- deners, farmers, and agricultural laborers closely approx- 318 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. imating the clerical standard. He gave as tlie causes of high mortality, first, working in a cramped or con- strained attitude ; second, exposure to the action of poi- sonous or irritating substances ; third, excessive work, mental or physical ; fourth, working in confined or foul air; fifth, the use of strong drink; sixth, differences in liability to fatal accidents ; seventh, exposure to the in- halation of dust. The deaths of those engaged in alco- holic industries were as one thousand five hundred and twenty-one to one thousand of the average of all trades. It is very important that occupations should be con- genial. Whenever our work galls us, whenever we feel it to be a drudgery and uncongenial, the friction grinds life away at a terrible rate. Health can be accumulated, invested, and made to yield its compound interest, and thus be doubled and redoubled. The capital of health may be, indeed, for- feited by one misdemeanor, as a rich man may sink all his property in one bad speculation ; but it is as capable of being increased as any other kind of capital. Industry conduces to longevity. It is the ship at wharf, not the ship at sea, that rots fastest. Eunning water purifies itself. So honest, earnest, human endeavor tends to health of body, mind, and soul. Exercise regu- lates the flow of bile, and many of us carry our creeds in our bile-ducts. If they are healthy we are optimists ; if diseased, pessimists. On the other hand, if we carry our work or play to extremes. Nature will present a bill for the excess. Moderate rowing is beneficial to the lungs, yet more than one professional oarsman has died of consumption. Physicians are familiar with the irritable heart of young athletes and soldiers ; the pulse is rapid and irregular, with palpitation, showing that the circulatory appa- ratus has been strained. Kaces ruin nine tenths of our thoroughbred horses before they reach maturity. The attempt to break a record has ruined many a young man. NATURE'S LITTLE BILL. 319 Adolescents, even with the muscular strength of adults, have far less staying power. Growing lads have no as- sets to 2iYQvt physiological hanhruptcy when there is an extraordinary call upon their physical resources, while fully developed men in good health have always a con- siderable balance in their favor. Hence young men cannot safely compete with men in the prime of life in arduous physical labor, in intense mental work, or in the use of tobacco, alcoholic drinks, or even strong tea or coffee. One is inclined to think with a recent writer that it looks as if the rich men kept out of the kingdom of heaven were also excluded from the kingdom of brains. In New York, Boston, and Philadelphia are hundreds of millionaires, some of them running through three or four generations of fortune ; and yet, in all their ranks, there is seldom, and hardly ever has been, a man pos- sessed of the higher intellectual qualities that flower in literature, eloquence, or statesmanship. Scarcely one of them has produced a book worth printing, a poem worth reading, or a speech worth listening to. They are struck with intellectual sterility. They sit dumb under the upas-tree of their millions. They go to college; they travel abroad ; they hire the dearest masters ; they keep libraries among their furniture ; and some of them buy works of art. But, for all that, their brains wither under luxury, often by their own vices or tomfooleries, and mental barrenness is the result. Who violates Nature's law must suffer the penalty, though he have millions. The fruits of intellect do not grow among the indolent rich. They are out of the kingdom of heaven, out of the republic of brains. Work or starve is Nature's motto ; starve mentally, starve morally, even if you are rich enough to prevent physical starvation. How heavy a bill Nature collects of him in whom the sexual instinct has been permitted to taint the whole life with illicit thoughts and deeds, stultifying the in- tellect, deadening the sensibilities, dwarfing the soul. 320 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. " I waive the quantum of the sin, The hazard of concealing ; Butoch, it hardens all within, And petrifies the feeling." The sense of fatigue is one of Nature's many signals of danger. All we accomplisli by stimulating or crowd- ing the body or mind when tired is worse than lost. Insomnia, and sometimes even insanity, is Nature's penalty for prolonged loss of sleep. One of the worst tortures of the Inquisition was that of keeping victims from sleeping, often driving them to insanity or death. Melancholy follows insomnia ; in- sanity, both. To keep us in a healthy condition. Nature takes us back to herself, puts us under the ether of sleep, and keeps us there nearly one third of our lives, while she overhauls and repairs in secret our wonderful mechanism. She takes us back each night wasted and dusty from the day's work, broken, scarred, and injured in the great struggle of life. Each cell of the brain is reburnished and freshened; all the ashes or waste from the combustion of the tissues is washed out into the blood stream, pumped to the lungs, and thrown out in the breath ; and the body is returned in the morning as fresh and good as new. Great minds sometimes lose the ability to sleep when overworked and anxious, when life becomes torture. Goldsmith became unable to sleep at forty-five, except from absolute exhaustion, and suffered terribly. John Leech, famous for his pictures in " Punch," became a victim to insomnia, and literally worked himself to death. His last caricature appeared in "Punch" the day he died. Newton and other mathematicians worked sometimes until their brains would not stop working, and solved difficult problems in dreams. After long continued mental strain, great workers sometimes lose control of their brains, which go on working day and night, independent of their wills. NATURE'S LITTLE BILL. 321 Sleep or rest seems impossible. Think, think, think is all the poor creature can do, until too often he falls a victim to paralysis, or is driven to insanity. Byron was tortured by insomnia. Sir Walter Scott so overworked his brain that Dr. Abernethy remonstrated with him, but Scott replied, " Molly might as well tell the kettle not to boil when she puts it on the fire." His cry was ever, '' To work, to work." Galileo once lost control of his mind through insomnia. It worked night and day until stupor intervened. Boys tell us that people who rise early are stupid all the forenoon and conceited all the afternoon. Josiah Quincy rose so early in the morning that he did not get sleep enough, and if he sat down ten min- utes in the day he was likely to fall asleep. John Quincy Adams was also addicted to excessive early ris- ing. One day they both went into Judge Story's lecture room at Harvard to hear him lecture to the class. In a few minutes they were both asleep, one on each side of him on the platform. The judge said, '' Gentlemen, you see before you a melancholy example of the evil effects of early rising." The shouts that followed awoke the sleepers. The American honey does not always pay for the sting. Labor is the eternal condition on which the rich man gains an appetite for his dinner, and the poor man a dinner for his appetite ; but the habit of constant, per- petual industry often becomes a disease. Thousands of ambitious Americans throw away years of possible life by this constant, perpetual, everlasting grind. In the Norse legend, Allfader was not allowed to drink from Mirmir's Spring, the fount of wisdom, until he had left his eye as a pledge. Scholars often leave their health, their happiness, their usefulness behind, in their great eagerness to drink deep draughts at wis- dom's fountain. Professional men often sacrifice every- thing that is valuable in life for the sake of reputation, 322 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. influence, and money. Business men sacrifice home, family, health, happiness, in the great struggle after money and power. " If riches increase, they are increased that use them. If the gatherer gathers too much, Nature takes out of the man what she puts into his chest ; swells the estate, but kills the owner." Nature is no sentimentalist. She pardons no blunders, forgives no violation of her law. He who breaks her commandments, though he sit upon a throne, must pay the penalty, even though it take his life. A bullet will not swerve a hair's breadth from its course though fired by a lunatic and a Presi- dent stand in its way. The American prize, like the pearl in the oyster, is very attractive, but is too often the result of disease. Nervousness is a life shortener — although it could largely be controlled by the will. Intensely nervous people usually die young. Chatterton died at eighteen, Keats at twenty-five. Thirty-seven has been the fatal age at which too many a genius has died. Shelley was a great sufferer all his life, and was never free from pain. " I have written," said Southey, " a short and interesting account of Lucretia M. Davidson, an American poetess, killed, like White, by over-excite- ment, in her seventeenth year. It is a most affecting story." The great physician, Haller, would remain in his study for months together. He ate and slept there in order to save time, but he cut short his beautiful life, and did not accomplish nearly as much as he would had he listened to Nature's voice and taken proper sleep, recreation, and rest. Goethe was always attacked by serious illness after each of his works was finished. Charles Linnaeus, the great naturalist, so exhausted his brain by overwork that he could not recognize his own work, and even forgot his own name. Kirk White won the prize at Cambridge, but it cost him his life. He studied nights, and forced his brain by stimu- NATURE'S LITTLE BILL. 323 lants and narcotics in his endeavor to pull through, but he died at twenty-four. Paley died at thirty-nine, of over\York. He was called " one of the sublimest spirits in the world.'^ President Timothy Dwight of Yale College nearly killed himself by overwork when a young man. When at Yale he studied nine hours, and taught six hours a day, and took no exercise whatever. He could not be induced to stop until he became so nervous and irrita- ble that he was unable to look at a book ten minutes a day. His mind gave way completely, and it was a long time before he fully recovered. " The Life of Frederick the G-reat " nearly prostrated Carlyle. Imagine the surprise of the angels at the death of men and women in the early prime and vigor of life. Could we but read the notes of their autopsies we might say less of mysterious Providence at funerals. These would run somewhat as follows : — NOTES FROM THE ANGELS' AUTOPSIES. What, is it retm-ned so soon? — a body framed for a cen- tury's use returned at thirty? — a temple which was twenty- eight years in building destroyed almost before it was com- pleted ? What have gray hairs, wrinkles, a bent form, and death to do with youth ? Has all this beauty perished like a bud just bursting into bloom, jDlucked by the grim destroyer ? Has she fallen a vic- tim to tight-lacing, over-excitement, and the gayety of fashion- able life ? Poor thing ! Here is an educated, refined lady who died of lung starva- tion. What a tax human beings pay for breathing impure ah ! Nature provides them with a tonic atmosphere, com- pounded by the divine Chemist, but they refuse to breathe it in its purity, and so must pay the penalty in shortened lives. They can live a long time without water, a longer time with- out food, clothing, or the so-called comforts of life ; they can live without education or culture, but their lungs must have good, healthful air-food twenty-four thousand times a day if they would maintain health. Oh, that they could see, as we 324 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. do, the intimate connection between bad air, bad morals, and a tendency to crime. It hardly seems credible that there are thousands of wealthy people, living on the best streets of large cities, who actually deny themselves the free air of heaven, and starve, literally starve, for sunlight, the source of all physical life and power. How many children, sent to induce man to return to Paradise, live and sleep where plants would die. Here are the ruins of an idolized son and loving husband. Educated and refined, what infinite possibilities beckoned him onward at the beginning of his career. But the Devil's agent offered him imagination, sprightliness, wit, eloquence, bodily strength, and happiness in eau de vie, or " water of life," as he called it, at only fifteen cents a glass. The best of our company tried to dissuade him, but to no avail. The poor mortal closed his " bargain " with the draniseller, and what did he get ? A hardened conscience, a ruined home, a diseased body, a muddled brain, a heartbroken wife, wretched children, disappointed friends, triumphant enemies, days of remorse, nights of anguish, an unwept deathbed, an unhonored grave. And only to think that he is only one of many thousands ! " What fools these mortals be ! " Did he not see the destruction toward which he was rush- ing with all the feverish haste of slavish appetite ? Ah, yes, but only when it was too late. In his clenched hand, as he lay dead, was found a crumpled paper containing the follow- ing, in lines barely legible so tremulous were the nerves of the writer : " Wife, children, and over forty thousand dol- lars all gone ! I alone am responsible. All has gone down my throat. When I w^as twenty-one I had a fortune. I am not yet thirty-five years old. I have killed my beautiful wife, who died of a broken heart ; have murdered our children with neglect. When this coin is gone I do not know how I can get my next meal. I shall die a drunken pauper. This is my last money, and my history. If this bill comes into the hands of any man who drinks, let him take warning from my life's ruin." What a magnificent specimen of manhood this would have been if his life had been under the rule of reason, not pas- sion. He dies of old age at forty, his hair is gray, his eyes are sunken, his complexion sodden, his body marked with the NATURE'S LITTLE BILL. 325 labels of his disease. A physique fit for a god, fashioned in the Creator's image, with infinite possibilities, a physiological hulk wrecked on passion's seas, and fit only for a danger sig- nal to warn the race. What would parents think of a captain who would leave his son in charge of a ship without giving him any instructions or chart showing the rocks, reefs, and shoals ? Do they not know that those who sleep in the ocean are but a handful compared with those who have foundered on passion's seas? Oh, the sins of silence which parents commit against those dearer to them than life itself. Youth cannot understand the great solicitude of pai'ents regarding their education, their associations, their welfare generally, with the mysterious silence in regard to their physical na- tures. An intelligent explanation, by all mothers to the daughters and by all fathers to the sons, of the mysteries of their physical lives, when at the right age, would revolutionize civilization. This young clergyman killed himself trying to be popular. This student committed suicide by exhausting his brain in trying to lead his class. This young lawyer overdrew his ac- count at Nature's bank, and she foreclosed by a stroke of paralysis. This merchant died at thirty-five by his own hand. His life was slipping away without enjoyment. He had murdered his capacity for happiness, and dug his own spiritual grave while making preparations for enjoying life. This young so- ciety man died of nothing to do and dissipation, at thirty : very little brains found. Here is a good old man of sixty, his gray hair, if we could believe his eulogists, a mark of wisdom. But such wisdom ought to have saved him from dying of " old age " at sixty. Did he not know that his hair was growing gray, his face be- coming pinched and wrinkled, his' brain losing its former activity, his step becoming feeble because his blood no longer carried its full load of nutriment to all parts of the body ? Did he not realize the simple truth that man begins life in a gelatinous condition and ends in an osseous state, being soft in infancy and hard in old age ? Did he ever think that age is but ossification, and is produced by too much of the car- bonates and phosphates of lime in food and drink, which not only harden the bones, but also thicken arteries and veins, 326 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. and check the fullness and freedom of the flow of the human River of Life ? What a miserable farce the life of men and women seems to us ! Time, which is so precious that even the Creator will not give a second moment until the first is gone, they throw away as though it were water. Opportunities which angels covet they fling away as of no consequence, and die failures, because they have " no chance in life." Life, which seems so precious to us, they spurn as if but a bauble. Scarcely a mortal returns to us who has not robbed himself of years of precious life. Scarcely a man returns to us dropping oft' in genuine old age, as autumn leaves dro]3 in the forest. Jl they could but see the wonders of the human body, whose exquisite beauties excite admiration even in heaven, they would not torture it with hideous dress, abuse its sacred functions with foolish excesses, or even neglect its thorough care. Has life become so cheap that mortals thus throw it away ? The lesson is plain ; the list is endless ; the variety is infinite; but examples of well-spent lives are very rare. CHARLES SUMNER Have an ambition to be remembered, not as a great lawyer, doctor, merchant, scientist, manufacturer, or scholar, but as a great inaii, every inch a king. CHAPTER XY*III. VOCATIONS, GOOD AND BAD. There are few questions in this world so frequently agitated, of which the solution is more important to each puzzled mortal, than that upon which starts every sage's discovery, ever}'^ novelist's plot, — that which applies to man's life, from its first sleep in the cradle, — " What will he do with it ? " — BuLWEK. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed ; be anything else, and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing. — Sydney Smith. " Many a man pays for his success with a slice of his constitution." No man struggles perpetually and victoriously against his own charac- ter; and one of the first principles of success in life is so to regulate our career as rather to turn our physical constitution and natural inclinations to good account than to endeavor to counteract the one or oppose the other. — BuLWER. He that hath a trade hath an estate. — Franklin. Nature fits all her children with something to do. — Lowell. As occupations and professions have a powerful influ- ence upon tlie length of human life, the youth should first ascertain whether the vocation he thinks of choos- ing is a healthy one. Statesmen, judges, and clergy- men are noted for their longevity. They are not swept into the great business vortex, where the friction and raspings of sharp competition whittle life away at a fearful rate. Astronomers, who contemplate vast sys- tems, moving through enormous distances, are excep- tionally long lived, — as Herschel and Humboldt. Phi- losophers, scientists, and mathematicians, as Galileo, Bacon, ISTewton, Euler, Dalton, in fact those who have dwelt upon the exact sciences, seem to have escaped many of the ills from which humanity suffers. Great students of natural history have also, as a rule, lived 328 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. long and happy lives. Of fourteen members of a noted historical society in England, who died in 1870, two were over ninety, five over eighty, and two over seventy. The occupation of the mind has a great influence upon the health of the body. The pursuit of science tends to long life by its atmosphere of harmony. There is no employment so dangerous and destruc- tive to life but plenty of human beings can be found to engage in it. Of all the instances that can be given of recklessness of life, there is none which exceeds that of the workmen employed in what is called dry-pointing, — the grinding of needles and of table forks. The fine steel dust which they breathe brings on a painful dis- ease, of which they are almost sure to die before they are forty. Yet not only are men tempted by high wages to engage in this employment, but they resist to the utmost all contrivances devised for diminishing the danger, through fear that such things would cause more workmen to offer themselves and thus lower wages. Many physicians have investigated the effects of work in the numerous match factories in France upon the health of the employees, and all agree that rapid de- struction of the teeth, decay or necrosis of the jaw- bone, bronchitis, and other diseases result. During a period of thirty - four years and eight months there died in Massachusetts one hundred sixty- seven thousand, eight hundred and one men over twenty years of age, whose occupations were specified in the registry of their diseases. The average age was fifty- one. Those engaged in agricultural pursuits attained the highest average age, sixty-five and one half years, and comprised more than one fifth of the whole number. We will probably find more old men on farms than elsewhere. There are many reasons why farmers should live longer than persons residing in cities or than those engaged in other occupations. Aside from the purer VOCATIONS, GOOD AND BAD. 829 air, the outdoor exercise, botli conducive to a good appe- tite and sound sleep, Avliicli comparatively few in cities enjoy, they are free from the attrition, the friction, harassing cares, anxieties, and the keen competition incident to city life. On the other hand, there are some great drawbacks and some enemies to longevity, even on the farm. Man does not live by bread alone. The mind is by far the greatest factor in maintaining the body in a healthy condition. The social life of the city, the great opportunities afforded the mind for feeding upon libraries and lectures, great sermons, and constant asso- ciation with other minds, compensate largely for the loss of many of the advantages of farm life. In spite of their great temperance and immunity from things which corrode, whittle, and rasp away life in the cities, farmers in many places do not live so long as scientists and some other professional men. There is no doubt that aspiration and success tend to prolong life. Prosperity tends to longevity, if we do not wear life away or burn it out in the feverish pursuit of wealth. Thomas W. Higginson made a list of thirty of the most noted preachers of the last century, and found that their average length of life was sixty-nine years. Among miners in some sections over six hundred out of one thousand die from consumption. In the prisons of Europe, where the fatal effects of bad air and filth are shown, over sixty-one per cent, of the deaths are from tuberculosis. In Bavarian monasteries, fifty per cent, of those who enter in good fiealth die of consump- tion; in the Prussian prisons, it is almost the same. The effect of bad air, filth, and bad food is shown by the fact that the death-rate among these classes, between the ages of twenty and forty, is five times that of the general population of the same age. In New York city, in 1892, over one fifth of all the deaths of persons over twenty were from this cause. In large cities in Europe 330 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. the percentage is often still greater. Of one tliousand deaths from all causes, on the average, one hundred and three farmers die of pulmonary tuberculosis, one hun- dred and eight fishermen, one hundred and twenty-one gardeners, one hundred and twenty-two farm laborers, one hundred and sixty-seven grocers, two hundred and nine tailors, three hundred and one dry-goods dealers, four hundred and sixty-one compositors, — nearly one half. According to a long series of investigations by Drs. Benoysten and Lombard into occupations or trades where workers must inhale dust, it appears that min- eral dust is the most detrimental to health, animal dust ranking next, and vegetable dust third. In choosing an occupation, cleanliness, pure air, sun- light, and freedom from corroding dust and poisonous gases are of the greatest importance. A man who would sell a year of his life for any amount of money w^ould be considered insane, and yet we deliberately choose occupations and vocations which statistics and physicians tell us will be practically sure to cut off from five to twenty-five, thirty, or even forty years of our lives. There is danger in a calling which requires great ex- penditure of vitality at long, irregular intervals. He who is not regularly, systematically employed incurs perpetual risk. " Of the thirty-two all-round athletes in a New York club of six years ago," said a physician in 1895, " three are dead of consumption, five have to wear trusses, four or five are lop-shouldered, and three have catarrh and partial deafness." Dr. Patten, chief surgeon at the National Soldiers' Home at Dayton, Ohio, says that " of the five thousand soldiers in that institution fully eighty per cent, are suffering from heart disease in one form or another, due to the forced physical exertions of the campaigns." Man's faculties and functions are so interrelated that VOCATIONS, GOOD AND BAD. 331 whatever affects one affects all. Athletes who over- develop the muscular system do so at the expense of the physical, mental, and moral well-being. It is a law of nature that the over-development of any function or faculty, forcing or straining it, tends not only to ruin it, but the injury reacts injuriously on every other faculty and function. Vigorous thought must come from a fresh brain. We cannot expect nerve, snap, robustness and vigor, spright- liness and elasticity, in the speech, in the book, or in the essay, from an exhausted, jaded brain. The brain is one of the last organs of the body to reach maturity (at about the age of twenty-eight), and should never be overworked, especially in youth. The whole future of a man is often ruined by over-straining the brain in school. Brain-workers cannot do good, effective work in one line many hours a day. When the brain is weary, when it begins to lose its elasticity and freshness, there will be the same lack of tonicity and strength in the brain product. Some men often do a vast amount of literary work in entirely different lines during their spare hours. The set of faculties exercised in their regular occupa- tion may be absolutely weary from the day's pressure and excitement ; and yet they may be able to do most effective literary work during the evening or any spare hour they may have, because they bring into play an entirely different set of faculties which have been rest- ing while the others have been in action. Cessation of brain activity does not necessarily con- stitute brain rest, as most great thinkers know. The men who accomplish the most brain-work, sooner or later — usually later, unfortunately — learn to give rest to one set of faculties and use another, as the in- terest begins to flag and a sense of weariness comes. In this way they have been enabled to astonish the world by their mental achievements, which is very largely a 332 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. matter of skill in exercising alternate sets of faculties, allowing rest to some while giving healthy exercise to others. The continual use of one set of faculties by an ambitious worker will soon bring him to grief. No set of brain cells can possibly set free more brain force in the combustion of thought than is stored up in them. The tired brain must have rest, or nervous exhaustion, brain fever, or even softening of the brain is liable to follow. The brain gets credit for a great deal that is really due to a strong physique. When Wesley entered on his eighty-second birthday he said, " I find myself just as strong to labor and as fit for exercise in body and mind as I was forty years ago." At eighty- three he said, " I am a wonder to myself. It is now twelve years since I have felt any such sensation as weariness." Mathews says that to the strong hand and strong head, the capacious lungs and vigorous frame, fall, and will ahvays fall, the heavy burdens ; and where the heavy burdens fall the great prizes fall too. As a rule, physical vigor is the condition of a great career. What would Gladstone have accomplished with a weak, puny physique ? He addresses an audience at Corfu in Greek, and another at Florence in Italian. A little later he converses at ease with Bismarck in German, or talks fluent French in Paris, or piles up argument on argument in English for hours in Parlia- ment. There are families that have '^ clutched success and kept it through generations from the simple fact of a splendid physical organization handed down from one generation to another." John Quincy Adams could bathe in the Potomac in midwinter. A strong mind in a weak body has been compared to a splendid knife-blade in a weak handle. The temper of the blade may be ever so true, its edges ever so keen, yet if there is lacking means to wield it, VOCATIONS, GOOD AND BAD. 333 its efficiency is lost. As a rule, a strong will, clear grit, pluck, stamina, and power of decision, accompany strong muscles, firm nerves, and a vigorous body. All occupations that enervate, paralyze, or destroy body or soul should be avoided. Our manufacturing interests too often give little thought to the employed ; the article to be made is generally the only object con- sidered. They do not care if a man spends the whole of his life upon the head of a pin, or in making a screw in a watch factory. They take no notice of the occupa- tions that ruin, of the phosphorus, the dust, the arsenic that destroys the health, that shortens the lives of many workers ; of the cramped condition of the body which creates deformity. Geikie says : " You may win in one way and lose in another. You may buy gold too dear ; if you give health for it, you make a poor bargain. If you sell your freedom for it, you give pearls for a bauble. If you give your soul for it, your self-respect, your peace, your manhood, your character, you pay too much for it." Thousands in our large cities are actually driven by necessity into surroundings and occupations which per- vert their natures and undermine their characters. The moment we compel those we employ to do work that demoralizes them or does not tend to elevate or lift them, we are forcing them into service worse than useless. '^ If we induce painters to work in fading colors, or architects with rotten stone, or contractors to con- struct buildings with imperfect materials, we are forcing our Michael Angelos to carve in snow." Euskin says that the tendency of the age is to expend its genius in perishable art, as if it were a triumph to burn its thoughts away in bonfires. Is the work you compel others to do useful to yourself and to society ? If you employ a seamstress to make four or five or six beautiful flounces for your ball dress, flounces which 334 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. will only clothe yourself, and wliich you will wear at only one ball, you are employing your money selfishly. Do not confuse covetousness with benevolence, nor cheat yourself into thinking that all the finery you can Avear is so much put into the hungry mouths of those beneath you. It is what those who stand shivering on the street, forming a line to see you ste^) out of your carriage, know it to be. These fine dresses do not mean that so much has been put into their mouths, but that so much has been taken out of their mouths. Select a clean, useful, honorable occupation. If there is any doubt on this point, abandon it at once, for famil- iarity with bad business will make it seem good. Choose a business that has expansiveness in it. Some kinds of business a Gould could not make successful, nor a Peabody respectable. Choose an occupation which will develop you ; which will elevate you ; which will give you a chance for self-improvement and promotion. You may not make quite so much money, but you will be more of a man, and vianhood is above all riches, over- tojys all titles, and character is greater than any career. If possible avoid occupations which compel you to work in a cramped position, or where you must work nights and Sundays. Don't try to justify yourself on the ground that somebody must do this kind of work. Let " somebody," not yourself, take the responsibility. Aside from the right and wrong of the thing, it is in- jurious to the health to work seven days in the week, to work nights when Nature intended you to sleep, or to sleep days when she intended you to work. Many a man has dwarfed his manhood, cramped his intellect, crushed his aspiration, blunted his finer sensi- bilities, in some mean, narrow occupation just because there was money in it. Have an ambition to be remembered, not as a great lawyer, doctor, merchant, scientist, manufacturer, scholar, but as a great man, every inch a king. VOCATIONS, GOOD AND BAD. 335 " Study yourself/' says Longfellow, " and, most of all, note well wherein kind nature meant you to excel.'^ Dr. Mathews says that "to no other cause, perhaps, is failure in life so frequently to be traced as to a mis- taken calling." We can often find out what we cannot do by hard knocks and repeated failures, before we find out what we can do. This negative process of eliminating the doubtful chances is often the only way of attaining to the positive conclusion. How many men have been made ridiculous for life by choosing law or medicine or theology, simply because they are " honorable professions ! '' These men might have been respectable farmers or merchants, but are " nobodies " in such vocations. The very glory of the profession which they thought would make them shin- ing lights simply renders more conspicuous their inca- pacity. Thousands of youth receive an education that fits them for a profession which they have not the means or inclination to follow, and that unfits them for the conditions of life to which they were born. Unsuccess- ful students with a smattering of everything are raised as much above their original condition as if they Avere successful. It is a significant fact that a large portion of Paris cabmen are unsuccessful students in theology and other professions and disfrocked priests. They are very bad cabmen. " Tompkins forsakes his last and awl For literary squabbles ; Styles himself poet ; but his trade Remains the same, — he cobbles." Don't choose a profession or occupation because your father, or uncle, or brother is in it. Don't choose a business because you inherit it, or because parents or friends want you to follow it. Don't choose it because others have made fortunes in it. Don't choose it because it is considered the " proper thing " and a 336 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. " genteel " business. The mania for a " genteel " occu- pation, for a " soft job " which eliminates drudgery, thorns, hardships, and all disagreeable things, and one which can be learned with very little effort, ruins many a youth. When we try to do that for which we are unfitted we are not working along the line of our strength, but of our weakness ; our will power and enthusiasm be- come demoralized ; we do half work, botched work, lose confidence in ourselves, and conclude that we are dunces because we cannot accomplish what others do ; the whole tone of life is demoralized and lowered be- cause we are out of place. How it shortens the road to success to make early a wise choice of one's occupation, to be started on the road of a proper career while young, full of hope, while the animal spirits are high, and enthusiasm is vigor- ous ; to feel that every step we take, that every day's work we do, that every blow we strike helps to broaden, deepen, and enrich life ! Those who fail are, as a rule, those who are out of their places. A man out of his place is but half a man; his very nature is perverted. He is working against his nature, rowing against the current, and it is only a question of time when he will fail. When his strength is exhausted he will float down the stream. A man cannot succeed when his whole nature is enter- ing its perpetual protest against his occupation. To succeed, his vocation must have the consent of all his faculties ; they must be in harmony with his purpose. Has a young man a right to choose an occupation which will only call into play his lower and inferior qualities, as cunning, lying, overreaching, letting all his nobler qualities shrivel and die ? Has he a right to select a vocation that will develop only the beast within him instead of the man ? which will call out the bull- dog qualities only, the qualities which overreach and VOCATIONS, GOOD AND BAD. 337 grasp, the qualities which get and never give ? which develop long-headedness only, while all his higher self atrophies ? The best way to choose an occupation is to ask your- self the question, " What would humanity do with me if they were to consider my qualifications and adapta- tions, and place me to the best possible advantage to themselves ? " The Norwegian precept is a good one : " Give thyself wholly to thy fellow-men ; they will give thee back soon enough." We can do the most possible for ourselves when we are in a position where we can do the most possible for others. We are doing the most for ourselves and for others when we are in a position which calls into play in the highest possible way the greatest number of our best faculties ; in other words, we are succeeding best for ourselves when we are suc- ceeding best for others. We have no right to choose our occupation from a selfish standpoint. When we cheat others we are cheating ourselves. The time will come when there will be institutions for determining the natural bent of the boy and girl ; where men of large experience and close observation will study the natural inclination of the youth, help him to find where his greatest strength lies, and how to use it to the best advantage. Even if we take for granted, what is not true, that every youth will sooner or later discover the line of his greatest strength so that he may get his living by his strong points rather than by his weak ones, the discovery is often made so late in life that great success is practically impossible. Such institutions would help boys and girls to start in their proper careers early in life ; and an early choice shortens the way. Can anything be more important to human beings than a start in life in the right direc- tion, where even small effort will count for more in the race than the greatest effort — and a life of drudgery — in the wrong direction ? A man is seldom unsuccessful or unhappy when he is in his place. 338 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. After once choosing your occupation, however, never look backward ; stick to it with all the tenacity you can muster. Let nothing tempt you or swerve you a hair's breadth from your aim, and you will win. Do not let the thorns which appear in every vocation, or temporary despondency or disappointment, shake your purpose. You will never succeed while smarting under the drudgery of your occupation, if you are constantly haunted with the idea that you could succeed better in something else. Great tenacity of purpose is the only thing that will carry you over the hard places, which appear in every career, to ultimate triumph. This de- termination, or fixity of purpose, has a great moral bear- ing upon our success, for it leads others to feel confi- dence in us, and this is everything. It gives credit and moral support in a thousand ways. People always be- lieve in a man with a fixed purpose, and will help him twice as quickly as one who is loosely or indifferently attached to his vocation, and liable at any time to make a change, or to fail. Everybody knows that determined men are not likely to fail. They carry in their very pluck, grit, and determination the conviction and assur- ance of success. The world does not dictate what you shall do, but it does demand that you do something, and that you shall be king in your line. There is no grander sight than that of a young man or woman in the right place strug- gling with might and main to make the most of the stuff at command, determined that not a faculty or power shall run to waste. Not money, not position, but power is what we want ; and character is greater than any occupation or profession. " Do not, I beseech you," said Garfield, '^ be content to enter on any business that does not require and com- pel constant intellectual groAvth." Choose an occupa- tion that is refining and elevating; an occupation that you will be proud of ; an occupation that will give you VOCATIONS, GOOD AND BAD. 339 time for self-culture and self-elevation ; an occupation that will enlarge and expand your manhood and make you a better citizen, a better man. Power and constant growth toward a higher life are the great end of human existence. Your calling should be the great school of life, the great man-developerj character-builder, that which should broaden, deepen, and round out into symmetry, harmony, and beauty, all the God-given faculties within you. But whatever you do be greater than your calling ; let your manhood overtop your position, your wealth, your occupation, your title. A man must work hard and study hard to counteract the narrowing, hardening ten- dency of his occu]3ation. Said Goldsmith, — " Burke, born for the universe, narrowed his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind." " Constant engagement in traftic and barter has no elevating influence," says Lyndall. " The endeavor to obtain the upper hand of those with whom we have to deal, to make good bargains, the higglhig and schem- ing, and the thousand petty artifices, which in these days of stern competition are unscrupulously resorted to, tend to narrow the sphere and to lessen the strength of the intellect, and, at the same time, the delicacy of the moral sense. The consequence is that mental and moral obligations have been overlooked and slighted. We would see the spirit of religion introduced into busi- ness, and the method and perseverance of business car- ried into religion." But choose upward, study the men in the vocation you think of adopting. Does it elevate those Avho fol- low it ? Are they broad, liberal, intelligent men ? Or have they become mere appendages of their profession, living in a rut with no standing in the community, and of no use to it ? Don't think you will be the great ex- ception, and can enter a questionable vocation without becoming a creature of it. In spite of all your determi- 340 ARCHITECTS OF FATE, nation and will power to the contrary, your occupation, from the very law of association and habit, will seize you as in a vise, will mould you, shape you, fashion you, and stamp its inevitable impress upon you. How often we have seen bright, open-hearted, gener- ous, young men come out of college with high hopes and lofty aims, enter a doubtful vocation, and in a few years come back to college commencement so changed that they are scarcely recognized. The once broad, generous features have become contracted and narrowed. The man has become grasping, avaricious, stingy, mean, hard. Is it possible, we ask, that a few years could so change a magnanimous and generous youth ? He is all " on the make " now. His public spirit and generosity are all lost in his little money-making schemes and he cares for nothing else. " I say to you plainly there is no end to which your practical faculty can aim so sacred or so large that, if pursued for itself, will not at last become carrion and an offense to the nostrils. The imaginative faculty of the soul must be fed with objects immense and eternal. Your end should be one inapprehensible to the senses ; then will it be a god always approached, — never touched ; always giving health. A man adorns himself with prayer and love, as an aim adorns an action." Go to the bottom if you would get to the top. Be master of your calling in all its details. Nothing is small which concerns your business. This was the secret of Alexander T. Stewart's great success. When the foreman in his New York establishment died, the porter applied for the place. " Why, you are nothing but a i)orter," said Stewart. " I know it, but I have watched this business and I know its details, and I can fill the position." Stewart refused him. The porter obtained a position in another house and finally bought out the whole business. Thousands of men who have been failures in life have VOCATIONS, GOOD AND BAD. 341 done drudgery enough in half a dozen different occu- pations to have enabled them to reach great success, if their efforts had all been expended in one direction. That mechanic is a failure who starts out to build an engine, but does not quite accomplish it, and shifts into some other occupation where, x^erhaps, he will almost succeed again, but stops just short of the point of pro- ficiency in his acquisition and so fails again. The world is full of people who are " almost a success." They stop just this side of success. Their courage oozes out just before they become expert. How many of us have acquisitions which remain permanently unavailable be- cause not carried quite to the point of skill ? How many people " almost know a language or two," which they can neither write nor speak ; a science or two whose elements they have not quite acquired ; an art or two partially mastered, but which they cannot practice with satisfaction or profit ! The habit of desultoriness, which has been acquired by allowing yourself to abandon a half-finished work, more than balances any little skill gained in one vocation which might possibly be of use later. Beware of that fatal gift, versatility. Many a per- son misses being a great man by splitting into two middling ones. Universality is the ignis fatuus which has deluded to ruin many a promising mind. In at- tempting to gain a knowledge of half a hundred sub- jects it has mastered none. "The jack-at-all-trades," one of the foremost manufacturers of this country says, " had a chance in my generation. In this he has none." " The measure of a man's learning will be the amount of his voluntary ignorance," said Thoreau. If we go into a factory where the mariner's compass is made we can see the needles before they are magnetized, and they will point in any direction. But when they have been applied to the magnet and received its peculiar power, from that moment they point to the north, and are true 342 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. to the pole ever after. So man never points steadily in any direction until he has been polarized by a choice of his ideal career. The man with a vocation he likes, the practical man, the energetic and industrious man, builds a house upon the ground, while the dreamer builds a castle in the air, and he lays up a few thousands in the bank while the other revels in imaginary millions. The dreamer's pock- ets are full while he is asleep, but he awakens only to find an empty purse. It takes a good many dreams of fortune to make an actual dollar. Give your life, your energy, your enthusiasm, all to the highest work of which you are capable. Canon Farrar said, " There is only one real failure in life pos- sible, and that is, not to be true to the best one knows.'' " Let men of all ranks," said Plato, " whether they are successful or unsuccessful, whether they triumph or not, let them do their duty and rest satisfied." *' What must I do to be forever known ? Thy duty ever." " It is a hapjoy thing for us that this is all we have to concern ourselves about — what to do next," says George Macdonald. " No man can do the second thing. He can do the first." Who does the best his circumstance allows, Does well, acts nobly, angels could do no more. Young. " Whoever can make two ears of corn, two blades of grass to grow uj^on a spot of ground where only one grew before," says Swift, " would deserve better of man- kind and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together." Emerson says, " There is at this moment for you an utterance brave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias, or trowel of the Egyptians, or the pen of Moses or Dante, but different from all these." GtORGE STEPHEISISON "We should as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's rockets as to trust themselves to the mercy of such a machiue going at such a rate. We trust that Parliament will limit the speed (of railroad engines) to eiglit or nine miles an hour, which we entirely agree with Mr. Sylvester is as great as can be ventured upon." — Quarterly Enieic. CHAPTER XIX. THE MAN WITH AN IDEA. He who wishes to fulfill his mission must be a man of one idea, that is, of one great overmastering purpose, overshadowing all his aims, and guid- ing and controlling his entire life. — Bate. A healthful hunger for a great idea is the beauty and blessedness of life. — Jean Ingelow. A profound conviction raises a man above the feeling of ridicule. — J. Stuart Mill. Ideas go booming through the world louder than cannon. Thoughts are mightier than armies. Principles have achieved more victories than horsemen or chariots. — W. M. Paxton. Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof, and blench not at thy chosen lot; The timid good may stand aloof, the sage may frown, — yet faint thou not: Nor heed the shaft too surely cast, the foul and hissing bolt of scorn ; For with thy side shall dwell, at last, the victory of endurance born. Bryant. " What are you bothering yourselves with a knitting- machine for ? " asked Ari Davis, of Boston, a manufac- turer of instruments ; " why don't you make a sewing- machine ? '' His advice had been sought by a rich man and an inventor who had reached their wits' ends in the vain attempt to produce a device for knitting woolen goods. " I wish I could, but it can't be done." " Oh, yes it can," said Davis ; " I- can make one myself." " Well," the capitalist replied, " you do it, and I '11 in- sure you an independent fortune." The words of Davis were uttered in a spirit of jest, but the novel idea found lodgment in the mind of one of the workmen who stood by, a mere youth of twenty, who was thought not ca- pable of a serious idea. But Elias Howe was not so rattle-headed as he 344 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. seemed, and the more the youth reflected, the more de- sirable such a machine appeared to him. Four years passed, and with a wife and three children to support in a great city on a salary of nine dollars a week, the light- hearted boy had become a thoughtful, plodding man. The thought of the sewing-machine haunted him night and day, and he finally resolved to produce one. After months wasted in the effort to work a needle pointed at both ends, with the eye in the middle, that should pass up and down through the cloth, suddenly the thought flashed through his mind that another stitcli must be possible, and with almost insane devotion he worked night and day, until he had made a rough model of wood and wire that convinced him of ultimate suc- cess. In his mind's eye he saw his idea, but his own funds and those of his father, who had aided him more or less, were insufficient to embody it in a working ma- chine. But help came from an old schoolmate, George Fisher, a coal and wood merchant of Cambridge. He agreed to board Elias and his family and furnish five hundred dollars, for which he was to have one half of the patent, if the machine proved to be worth patenting. In May, 1845, the machine was completed, and in July Elias Howe sewed all the seams of two suits of woolen clothes, one for Mr. Fisher and the other for himself. The sewing outlasted the cloth. This ma- chine, which is still preserved, will sew three hundred stitches a minute, and is considered more nearly perfect than any other prominent invention at its first trial. There is not one of the millions of sewing-machiues now in use that does not contain some of the essential principles of this first attempt. When it was decided to try and elevate Chicago out of the mud by raising its immense blocks up to grade, the young son of a poor mechanic, named George M. Pullman, appeared on the scene, and put in a bid for the great undertaking, and the contract was awarded to him. THE MAN WITH AN IDEA. 345 He not only raised the blocks, but did it in such a way that business within them was scarcely interrupted. All this time he was revolving in his mind his pet project of building a "sleeping car" which would be adopted on all railroads. He fitted up two old cars on the Chicago and Alton road with berths, and soon found they would be in demand. He then went to work on the princi]3le that the more luxurious his cars were, the more would be the demand for them. After spending three years in Colorado gold mines, he returned and built two cars which cost ^18,000 each. Everybody laughed at " Pullman's folly." But Pullman believed that whatever relieved the tediousness of long trips would meet with speedy approval, and he had faith enough in his idea to risk his all in it. Pullman is a great believer in the commercial value of beauty. The wonderful town which he built and which bears his name, as well as his magnificent cars, is an example of his belief in this principle. He counts it a good investment to surround his employees with com- forts and beauty and good sanitary conditions, and so the town of Pullman is a model city of cleanliness, order, and comfort. It has ever been the man with an idea, which he puts into practical effect, who has changed the face of Chris- tendom. The germ idea of the steam engine can be seen in the writings of the Greek philosophers, but it was not dev«eloped until more than two thousand years later. It was an English blacksmith, Newcomen, with no op- portunities, who in the seventeenth century conceived the idea of moving a piston by the elastic force of steam ; but his engine consumed thirty pounds of coal in pro- ducing one horse power. The perfection of the modern engine is largely due to James Watt, a poor, uneducated Scotch boy, who at fifteen walked the streets of London in a vain search for work. A professor in the Glasgow University gave him the use of a room to work in, and 346 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. while waiting for jobs he experimented with old vials for steam reservoirs and hollow canes for pipes, for he could not bear to waste a moment. He improved Newcomen's engine by cutting off the steam after the piston had completed a quarter or a third of its stroke, and letting the steam already in the chamber expand and drive the piston the remaining distance. This saved nearly three fourths of the steam. Watt suffered from pinching poverty and hardships which would have dis- heartened ordinary men ; but he was terribly in earnest, and his brave wife Margaret begged him not to mind her inconvenience, nor be discouraged. " If the engine will not work,'' she wrote him while struggling in Lon- don, " something else will. Never despair." '' I had gone to take a walk," said AVatt, " on a fine Sabbath afternoon, and had passed the old washing- house, thinking upon the engine at the time, when the idea came into my head that, as steam is an elastic body, it would rush into a vacuum, and if a communication were made between the cylinder and an exhausted ves- sel, it would rush into it, and might be there condensed without cooling the cylinder." The idea was simple, but in it lay the germ of the first steam engine of much practical value. Sir James Mackintosh places this poor Scotch boy who began with only an idea " at the head of all inventors in all ages and all nations." See George Stephenson, working in the coal pits for sixpence a day, patching the clothes and mending the boots of his fellow-workmen nights, to earn a little money to attend a night school, giving the first money he ever earned, $150, to his blind father to pay his debts with. People say he is crazy ; his " roaring steam engine will set the house on fire with its sparks ; " " smoke will pollute the air ; " " carriage makers and coachmen will starve for want of work." For three days the committee of the House of Commons plies questions to him. This was one of them : " If a cow THE MAN WITH AN IDEA. 347 get on the track of the engine traveling ten miles an hour, will it not be an awkward situation ? " " Yes, very awkward, indeed, for the coo," replied Stephenson. A government inspector said that if a locomotive ever went ten miles an hour, he would undertake to eat a stewed engine for breakfast. " What can be more pal- pably absurd and ridiculous than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as horses ? " asked a writer in the English " Quarterly Review " for March, 1825. " We should as soon expect the people of Wool- wich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's rockets as to trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine, going at such a rate. We trust that Parliament will, in all the railways it may grant, limit the speed to eight or nine miles an hour, which we en- tirely agree with Mr. Sylvester is as great as can be ventured upon.'' This article referred to Stephensou's proposition to use his newly invented locomotive instead of horses on the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad, then in process of construction. The company referred the matter to two leading English engineers, who re- ported that steam would be desirable only when used in stationary engines one and a half miles apart, draw- ing the cars by means of ropes and pulleys. But Ste- phenson persuaded them to test his idea by offering a prize of about twenty-five hundred dollars for the best locomotive produced at a trial to take place October 6, 1829. On the eventful day, long waited for, thousands of spectators assembled to watch the competition of four engines, the " Xovelty," th^ " Rocket," the " Per- severance," and the '^ Sanspareil." The " Perseverance " could make but six miles an hour, and so was ruled out, as the conditions called for at least ten. The " Sanspa- reil " made an average of fourteen miles an hour, but as it burst a water-pipe it lost its chance. The " Novelty " did splendidly, but also burst a pipe, and was crowded out, leaving the " Rocket " to carry off the honors with 348 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. an average speed of fifteen miles an liour, the highest rate attained being twenty-nine. This was Stephenson's locomotive, and so fnlly vindicated his theory that the idea of stationary engines on a railroad was completely exploded. He had picked up the fixed engines which the genius of Watt had devised, and set them on wheels to draw men and merchandise, against the most direful predictions of the foremost engineers of his day. In all the records of invention there is no more sad or affecting story than that of John Fitch. Poor he was in many senses, poor in appearance, poor in spirit. He was born poor, lived poor, and died poor. If there ever was a true inventor, this man was one. He was one of those eager souls that would coin their own flesh to carry their point. He only uttered the obvious truth when he said one day, in a crisis of his inven- tion, that if he could get one hundred pounds by cutting off one of his legs he would gladly give it to the knife. He tried in vain both in this country and in France to get money to build his steamboat. He would say : " You and I will not live to see the day, but the time will come when the steamboat will be preferred to all other modes of conveyance, when steam- boats will ascend the Western rivers from New Orleans to Wheeling, and when steamboats will cross the ocean. Johnny Fitch will be forgotten, but other men will carry out his ideas and grow rich and great upon them." Poor, ragged, and forlorn, jeered at, pitied as a madman, discouraged by the great, refused by the rich, he kept on till, in 1790, he had the first vessel on the Delaware that ever answered the purpose of a steam- boat. It ran against the tide six miles an hour, and eight miles with the tide. At noon, on Friday, August 4, 1807, a crowd of curious people might have been seen along the wharves of the Hudson Eiver. They had gathered to witness what they considered a ridiculous failure of a " crank " who pro- THE MAN WITH AN IDEA. 349 posed to take a party of people up the Hudson River to Albany in what he called a steam vessel named the Cler- m.ont. Did anybody ever hear of such a ridiculous idea as navigating against the current up the Hudson in a vessel without sails? "The thing will ^bust,'" says one ; " it will burn up," says another, and " they will all be drowned," exclaims a third, as he sees vast columns of black smoke shoot up with showers of bril- liant sparks. Nobody present, in all probability, ever heard of a boat going by steam. It was the opinion of everybody that the man who had fooled away his money and his time on the Clermont was little better than an idiot, and ought to be in an insane asylum. But the passengers get on board, the plank is pulled in, and the steam is turned on. The walking beam moves slowly up and down, and the Clermont floats out into the river. " It can never go up stream," the spectators said. But it did go up stream, and the boy, who in his youth said there is nothing impossible, had scored a great triumph, and had given to the world the first steamboat that had any practical value. Notwithstanding that Fulton had rendered such great service to humanity, a service which has revolutionized the commerce of the world, he was looked upon by many as a public enemy. Critics and cynics turned up their noses when Fulton was mentioned. The severity of the world's censure, ridicule, and detraction has usu- ally been in proportion to the benefit the victim has conferred upon mankind. As the Clermont burned pine^ wood, dense columns of fire and smoke belched forth from her smoke-stack while she glided triumphantly up the river, and the inhabitants along the banks were utterly unable to account for the spectacle. They rushed to the shore amazed to see a boat " on fire " go against the stream so rapidly with neither oars nor sails. The noise of her great paddle-wheels increased the wonder. Sailors 350 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. forsook their vessels, and fishermen rowed home as fast as possible to get out of the way of the fire mon- ster. The Indians were as much frightened as their predecessors were when the first ship approached their hunting-ground on Manhattan Island. The owners of sailing-vessels were jealous of the Clermont, and tried to run her down. Others whose interests were affected denied Fulton's claim to the invention, and brought suits against him. But the success of the Clermont soon led to the construction of other steamships all over the country. The government also employed Fulton to aid in building a powerful steam frigate, which was called Fulton the First. He also built a diving boat for the government for the discharge of torpedoes. By this time his fame had spread all over the civilized world, and when he died, in 1815, newspapers were marked with black lines ; the legislature of New York wore badges of mourning ; and minute guns were fired as the long funeral procession passed to Trinity Church- yard. Very few private persons were ever honored with such a burial. True, Dr. Lardner had " proved " to scientific men that a steamship could not cross the Atlantic, but in 1819 the Savannah from New York appeared off the coast of Ireland under sail and steam, having made this " impossible " passage. Those on shore thought that a fire had broken out below the decks, and a king's cutter was sent to her relief. Although the voyage was made without accident, it was nearly twenty years be- fore it was admitted that steam navigation could be made a commercial success in ocean traffic. As Junius Smith impatiently paced the deck of a ves- sel sailing from an English port to New York, on a rough and tedious voyage in 1832, he said to himself, " Why not cross the ocean regularly in steamships ? " In New York and in London a deaf ear was turned to any such nonsense. Smith's first encourasrement came from THE MAN WITH AN IDEA. 351 George Grote, the historian and banker, who said the idea was practicable ; but it was the same old story, — he would risk no money in it. At length Isaac Selby, a prominent business man of London, agreed to build a steamship of two thousand tons, the British Queen. An unexpected delay in fitting the engines led the pro- jectors to charter the Sirius, a river steamer of seven hundred tons, and send her to New York. Learning of this, other parties started from Bristol four days later in the Great Western, and both vessels arrived at New York the same day. Soon after Smith made the round trip between London and New York in thirty-two days. What a sublime picture of determination and patience was that of Charles Goodyear, of New Haven, buried in poverty and struggling with hardships for eleven long years, to make India rubber of practical use ! See him in prison for debt ; pawning his clothes and his wife's jew- elry to get a little money to keep his children (who were obliged to gather sticks in the field for fire) from starving. Watch his sublime courage and devotion to his idea, when he had no jnoney to bury a dead child and when his other five were near starvation ; when his neighbors were harshly criticising him for his neg- lect of his family and calling him insane. But, behold his vulcanized rubber ; the result of that heroic struggle, applied to five hundred uses by over 60,000 employees. What a pathetic picture was that of Palissy, plod- ding on through want and woe to rediscover the lost art of enameling pottery; building his furnaces with bricks carried on his back, seeing his six children die of neglect, probably of starvation, his wife in rags and despair over her husband's " folly ; " despised by his neighbors for neglecting his family, worn to a skeleton himself, giving his clothes to his hired man because he could not pay him in money, hoping always, failing steadily, until at last his great work was accomplished, and he reaped his reward. 352 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. German unity was the idea engraven upon Bismarck's heart. What cared this Herculean despot for the Diet chosen year after year simply to vote* down every meas- ure he proposed ? He was indifferent to all opposition. He simply defied and sent home every Diet which op- posed him. He could play the game alone. To make Germany the greatest power in Europe, to make Wil- liam of Prussia a greater potentate than Napoleon or Alexander, was his all-absorbing purpose. It mattered not what stood in his way, whether people, Diet, or na- tion ; all must bend to his mighty will. Germany must hold the deciding voice in the Areopagus of the world. He bluntly rode roughshod over everybody and every- thing that stood in his way, defiant of opposition, impe- rious, irrepressible ! See the great Dante in exile, condemned to be burnt alive on false charges of embezzlement. Look at his starved features, gaunt form, melancholy, a poor wan- derer; but he never gave up his idea; he poured oat his very soul into his immortal poem, ever believing that right would at last triumph. Columbus was exposed to continual scoffs and indig- nities, being ridiculed as a mere dreamer and stigma- tized as an adventurer. The very children, it is said, pointed to their foreheads as he passed, being taught to regard him as a kind of madman. Think of an old man and a boy starting out to redeem a world ! Sublime pluck and determination, that of Mohammed, working three long years to gain thirteen converts, and then calling a meeting of forty of his kin- dred and telling them he was going to redeem mankind from the worship of wooden idols. Only one lad of six- teen could be induced to join him, Ali, and the meeting broke up with laughter and ridicule. But Mohammed went right on, publishing his doctrine to the pilgrims who came to Mecca, or whoever would listen to him. He was threatened with death, but nothing could stay ROBERT FULTON "The divine insanity of noble minds, That never falters nor abates, But labors and endures, and waits, Till all that it foresees it finds, Or what it cannot find, creates." THE MAN WITH AN IDEA. 353 his determination. He had to hide in caves, and was continually fleeing for his life, which was in constant danger. After thirteen years of great hardship, he found forty men, one for each of the great tribes, bound together by an oath to kill him. Over rocks and deserts for two hundred miles he fled from his enemies. The history of the East dates from this flight, — the Hegira. All are familiar with his next ten years, forcing his doc- trine by the sword. Men no longer laughed at the man and boy reforming a world. Think of the power of an idea or sentiment in the mind of this persistent man, to establish an empire larger than that of Kome ! Every man with an idea, with an overmastering pur- pose, always has a minority of one, — one man who believes it. But Nature herself is the great umpire in these games where only the fittest can survive. Mo- hammed had an idea which neither ridicule, hardships, poverty, nor humiliating defeat could conquer. Borne up by this purpose, he pressed steadily on towards his goal. What a rebuke to the young man in this land of opportunities, this land of culture and freedom, that such an uncultured, semi-barbarous son of Nature should, single-handed, force a new faith upon a ridiculing and opposing world ! An American was once invited to dine with Oken, the famous German naturalist. To his surprise, they had neither meats nor dessert, but only baked potatoes. Oken was too great a man to apologize for their simple fare. His wife explained, however, that her husband's income was very small, and that they preferred to live simply in order that he might obtain books and instru- ments for his scientific researches. Before the discovery of ether it often took a week, in some cases a month, to recover from the enormous dose, sometimes five hundred drops or more, of laudanum, given to a patient to deaden the pain during a surgical operation. Young Dr. Morton believed that there must 354 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. be some means provided by Nature to relieve human suffering during these terrible operations ; but what could he do ? He was not a chemist ; he did not know the properties of chemical substances ; he was not liber- ally educated. He did not resort to books, however, nor did he go to scientific men for advice, but immedi- ately began to experiment with well-known substances. He tried intoxicants even to the point of intoxication, but as soon as the instruments were applied the patient would revive. He kept on experimenting with narcot- ics in this manner until at last he found what he sought in ether. With neither capital nor influence, it is not an easy task to achieve great success in an undertaking which everybody around you considers foolish and visionary. But, fortunately for the cause of human progress, there are always brave spirits with determination and mettle enough to stand their ground and push hard, even when the world opposes. There is no predestination about success. Here is Frances Willard, dominated by an idea, who has created a Woman's International Temperance Union. To hundreds of thousands of women, and their husbands and mothers, the white ribbon is a symbol of a clean, liquorless, thrifty home. That in itself is a tremendous idea, and one which is bound by its very common sense to dominate civilization. What a grand idea Bishop Vincent is working out for the young world in the gi- gantic Chautauqua Circle, Dr. Clark in his world-wide Christian Endeavor Movement ! What a grand idea the Methodist Church is working out in the Epworth League, Edward Everett Hale in his little bands of King's Daugh- ters and Ten Times One is Ten ! Here is Clara Barton who has created the Red Cross Society, which is loved by all nations. She noticed 'in our Civil War that the Confederates were shelling the hospitals. She thought it the last touch of cruelty to fight what could n't fight THE MAN WITH AN IDEA. 355 back^ and she determined to have the barbarous custom stopped. Of course the world laughed at this poor un- aided woman. But her idea has been adopted by all nations ; and the enemy that aims a shot at the tent or building over which flies the white flag with the red cross has lost his last claim to human consideration. Lord Kelvin, who stands at the head of English men of science, recently declared that the greatest scientific event of the year 1894 was the discovery of a new con- stituent of the atmosphere. Later experiments have shown that the new gas, which we had all been breath- ing so many centuries without knowing it, possesses very remarkable peculiarities. The discoverers were trying by every means in their power to measure more accurately than had hitherto been done the density of nitrogen. It was a tedious undertaking, and Lord Kaleigh had been working at it for twelve long years. It was the pursuit of knowledge solely for its own sake, and knowledge, too, of a kind that the great public, whose approval and admiration bestow reputation and for- tune, would be likely to pay very little attention to after it had been acquired. But as the end was approached, something unsought for appeared. The accuracy of the work had been so great that Nature, fairly followed through all the windings of her labyrinth, yielded up a secret — the existence of an unknown gas, closely asso- ciated with the nitrogen of the air, and yet independent in its properties. It is work of this kind, no matter in what branch of human endeavor,, that alone wins last- ing fame. In all ages those who have advanced the cause of humanity have been men and women "possessed," in the opinion of their neighbors. Noah in building the ark, Moses in espousing the cause of the Israelites, or Christ in living and dying to save a fallen race, incurred the pity and scorn of the rich and highly educated, in common with all great benefactors. Yet in every age 356 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. and in every clime men and women have been willing to incur poverty, hardship, toil, ridicule, persecution, or even death, if thereby they might shed light or comfort upon the path which all must walk from the cradle to the grave. In fact, it is doubtful whether a man can perform very great service to mankind who is not per- meated with a great purpose — with an overmastering idea. See Paul, a man of marvelous ability, who might have been a leader of the Sanhedrim, yet, for the sake of his idea, was obliged to make tents for his daily bread. Behold him in prison two years at Csesarea, a year at Eome, beaten by many stripes, hated by the Jews, forty of them taking a solemn oath not to eat or drink until they had killed him, opposed by pagans : yet the great idea which dominated his soul enabled him to suffer all these things, and to be hopeful and cheerful, brave and manly, through it all. Jenner was the only man who detected a great prin- ciple in the remark of the peasant girl who came to be doctored : " It cannot be small-pox, because I have had cow-pox." But it meant something to him, and he studied out a grand theory for preventing the ravages of a dreaded scourge. His fellow-students threatened to expel him from the medical school on account of his theory. He tried it on his own arm three times. He experimented over three years, and became convinced that he was right. Not one physician in London would agree with him. He was denounced from every pulpit. It was said that vaccinated children became ox-faced, that abscesses grew out to indicate sprouting horns, that their voices changed to represent the bellowing of a bull. The first persons vaccinated were actually pelted and driven from the streets. But Jenner lived to see his theory recognized all over the world, and died a benefactor to his race. Beecher had to fight every step of the way to his tri- THE MAN WITH AN IDEA. 357 umph through obstacles which would have appalled all but the greatest characters. Oftentimes in these great battles for principles and struggles for truth, he stood almost alone lighting popular prejudice, narrowness, and bigotry, uncharitableness and envy even in his own church. But he never hesitated nor wavered when he once saw his duty. There was no shilly-shallying, no hunting for a middle ground between right and wrong, no compromise on principles. He hewed close to the chalk line and held his line p)lumb to truth. He never pandered for public favor nor sought applause. Duty and truth were his goal, and he went straight to his mark. Other churches did not agree with him nor his, but he was too broad for hatred, too charitable for re- venge, and too magnanimous for envy. What tale of the " Arabian Nights " equals in fas- cination the story of such lives as those of Franklin, of Morse, Goodyear, Howe, Blanchard, Edison, Bell, Beecher, Gough, Mrs. Stowe, Amos Lawrence, George Peabody, McCormick, Hoe, and scores of others, each representing some great idea embodied in earnest action, and resulting in an improvement of the physical, men- tal, and moral condition of those around them ? There are plenty of ideas left in the world yet. Everything has n't been invented. All good things have not been done. There are thousands of abuses to rec- tify, and each one challenges the independent soul, armed with a new idea. " But how shall I get ideas ? " Keep your wits open ! Observe ! Observe ! Study ! Study ! But above all. Think ! Think ! and when a noble image is indelibly impressed upon the mind — Act ! CHAPTER XX. DECISION. Resolve, and thou art free. — Longfellow. The heaviest charged words in our language are those briefest ones, "yes" and "no." One stands for the surrender of the will, the other for denial; one stands for gratification, the other for character. A stout " no " means a stout character, the ready "yes " a weak one, gild it as we may. — T. T. Hunger. The world is a market where everything is marked at a set price, and whatever we buy with our time, labor, or ingenuity, whether riches, ease, fame, integrity, or knowledge, we must stand by our decision, and not like children, when we have purchased one thing, repine that we do not pos- sess another we did not buy. — Mathews. A man must master his undertaking and not let it master him. He must have the power to decide instantly on which side he is going to make his mistakes. — P. D. Armour. Once make up your mind never to stand waiting and hesitating when j'our conscience tells 3'ou what you ought to do, and you have got the key to ever}' blessing that a sinner can reasonably hope for. — Keble. The one thing that makes the true artist is a clear perception and a firm, bold hand, in distinction from that imperfect mental vision and uncertain touch which gives us the feeble pictures and lumpy statues of the mere artisans on canvas or in stone. — Holmes. Youth is the only time to think and decide on a great course. Manhood with action follows; but 'tis dreary to have to alter one's whole life in age — the time past, the strength gone. — Browning. Deliberate with caution, but act with decision; and yield with gracious- ness, or oppose with firmness. — Colton. When Eome was besieged by the Gauls in the time of the Eepublic, the Romans were so hard pressed that they consented to purchase immunity with gold. Thej were in the act of weighing it, a legend tells us, when Camillus appeared on the scene, threw his sword into the scales in place of the ransom, and declared that the j i''*i'IM ?S »':„; PATRICK HENRY " Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery ? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, bvit as for me, give me liberty or give me death." DECISION. 359 Romans slioiild not purchase peace, but would win it with the sword. This act of daring and prompt deci- sion so roused the Eomans that they triumphantly swept from the sacred soil the enemy of their peace. In an emergency, the arrival of a prompt, decided, positive man, who will do something, although it may be wrong, changes the face of everything. Such a man comes upon the scene like a refreshing breeze blown down from the mountain top. He is a tonic to the hes- itating, bewildered crowd. Success seems to be in his atmosphere. When Antiochus Epiphanes invaded Egypt, which was then under the protection of Rome, the Romans sent an ambassador who met Antiochus near Alexandria and commanded him to withdraw. The invader gave an evasive reply. The brave Roman swept a circle around the king with his sword, and forbade his crossing the line until he had given his answer. By the prompt decision of the intrepid ambassador the invader was led to withdraw, and war was prevented. The prompt deci- sion of the Romans won them many a battle, and made them masters of the world. All the great achievements in the history of the world are the results of quick and steadfast decision. Men who have left their mark upon their century have been men of great and prompt decision. They have been men who " do something, — and do it at once." An undecided man, a man who is ever balan- cing between two opinions, forever debating which of two courses he will pursue, proclaims by his indecision that he cannot control himself, that he was meant to be possessed by others ; he is not a man, only a satellite. The decided man, the prompt man, does not wait for favorable circumstances ; he does not submit to events ; events must submit to him. The vacillating man is ever at the mercy of the opin- ion of the man who talked with him last. He may see 360 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. the right, but he drifts toward the wrong. If he decides upon a course he only follows it until somebody opposes it. When Julius Caesar came to the Eubicon, which formed the boundary of Italia, — " the sacred and invio- lable," — even his greatest decision wavered at the thought of invading a territory which no general was allowed to enter without the permission of the Senate. But his alternative was " destroy myself, or destroy my country,'' and his intrepid mind did nob waver long. " The die is cast," he said, as he dashed into the stream at the head of his legions. The whole history of the world was changed by that moment's decision. The man who said, " I came, I saw, I conquered," could not hesitate long. He, like Napoleon, had the power to choose one course, and sacrifice" every conflicting plan on the instant. When he landed with his troops in Bri- tain, the inhabitants resolved never to surrender. Caesar's quick mind saw that he must commit his sol- diers to victory or death. In order to cut off all hope of retreat, he burned all the ships which had borne them to the shores of Britain. There was no hope of return, it was victory or death. This action was the key to the character and triumphs of this great warrior. Satan's sublime decision in "Paradise Lost," after his hopeless banishment from heaven, excites a feeling akin to admiration. After a few moments of terrible suspense he resumes his invincible spirit and expresses that sublime line : " What matter where, if I be still the same ? " That power to decide instantly the best course to pursue, and to sacrifice every opposing motive; and, when once sacrificed, to silence them forever and not allow them continually to plead their claims and dis- tract us from our single decided course, is one of the most potent forces in winning success. To hesitate is sometimes to be lost. In fact, the man who is forever DECISION. 361 twisting and turning, backing and filling, hesitating and dawdling, shuffling and parleying, weighing and balancing, splitting hairs over non-essentials, listening to every new motive which presents itself, will never accomplish anything. There is not positiveness enough in him; negativeness never accomplishes anything. The negative man creates no confidence, he only in- vites distrust. But the positive man, the decided man, is a power in the world, and stands for something. You can measure him, gauge him. You can estimate the work that his energy will accomplish. It was Phil Sheridan's quick decision that made a victorious army out of a defeated one. He was many miles away when the booming of cannon told him that the army was in the midst of a hot battle. Spurring his horse, he made his famous ride down the Winchester road, only to meet his men fleeing from the enemy in in- glorious defeat. Rising to his full height in his saddle, he cried, " Halt ! halt ! right-about face, and follow me." On, on, he dashed at the head of his forces, his quick de- cision remagnetizing his men and bringing hope to their despairing hearts. In a short time the soldiers who had been fleeing from the enemy with all their might were rushing upon the foe like an avalanche. They had been inspired by the invincible decision of their great leader, and from a miserable defeat they had gained a proud victory over the surprised and chagrined foe. It is related of Alexander the Great that, being asked how it was that he had conquered the world, he replied, " By not wavering." When the packet ship Stephen Whitney struck, at midnight, on an Irish cliff, and clung, for a few mo- ments, to the cliff, all the passengers who leaped in- stantly upon the rock were saved. The positive step landed them on the rock. Those who lingered were swept off by the returning wave, and engulfed forever. The vacillating man is never a prompt man, and 362 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. without promptness no success is possible. It is the man who decides immediately upon the course he will take and what he will sacrifice that reaches the goal. Great opportunities not only come seldom into the most fortunate life, but they are often quickly gone. "A man without decision," says John Foster, "can never be said to belong to himself ; since, if he dared to assert that he did, the puny force of some cause, about as powerful as a spider, may make a seizure of the unhappy boaster the very next minute, and con- temptuously exhibit the futility of the determination by which he was to have proved the independence of his understanding and will. He belongs to whatever can make capture of him ; and one thing after another vindicates its right to him by arresting him while he is trying to go on ; as twigs and chips floating near the edge of a river are intercepted by every weed and whirled into every little eddy." "As to moral courage," said ISTapoleon, "I have rarely met with the two-o'clock-in-the-morning kind j I mean unprepared courage, that which is necessary on an unexpected occasion ; and which, in sj^ite of the most unforeseen events, leaves full freedom of judgment and decision.'- The punctual man not only has the advantage of the time saved from dillydallying and procrastination, but he saves the energy and vital force which is wasted by the perplexed man who takes up every argument on one side and then on the other, and weighs them until the two sides hang in equipoise, with no preponderating motive to enable him to decide. He is in stable equilib- rium, and so does not move at all of his own volition, but moves very easily at the slightest volition of an- other. Yet there is not a man living who might not be a prompt and decided man if he would only learn al- ways to act quickly. The punctual man, the decided DECISION. 363 man, can do twice as much as the undecided and dawd- ling man who never quite knows what he wants. Prompt decision saved Napoleon and Grant and their armies many a time when delay would have been fatal. Na- poleon used to say that although a battle might last an entire day, yet it generally turned upon a few critical minutes, in which the fate of the engagement was de- cided. His will, which subdued nearly the whole of Europe, was as prompt and decisive in the minutest detail of command as in the greatest battle. Decision of purpose and promptness of action en- abled him to astonish the world with his marvelous successes. He seemed to be everywhere at once. What he could accomplish in a day surprised all wlio knew him. He seemed to electrify everybody about him. His invincible energy thrilled the whole army. He could rouse to immediate and enthusiastic action the dullest troops, and inspire with courage the most stupid men. The "ifs and buts," he said, "are at present out of season; and above all it must be done with speed." He would sit up all night if necessary, after riding thirty or forty leagues, to attend to correspond- ence, dispatches, and details. What a lesson to dawd- ling, shiftless, half-hearted men ! Probably the sub-officers and privates who envied him his success, and doubtless thought it depended upon luck, considered it extreme folly to ride on his return from Spain to Paris eighty-five miles in five hours on horseback. There have been many times when a prompt decision, a rapid- movement, and ener- getic action have changed the very face of history, and, on the other hand, there have been many instances where the indecision of generals, the procrastination of subordinates, have cost thousands of precious lives and the loss of millions of dollars' worth of property. " The doubt of Charles V.," says Motley, " changed the destinies of the civilized world." 364 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. So powerful were President Wasliington's views in determining the actions of the people, that when Con- gress adjourned, Jefferson wrote to Monroe at Paris : " You will see by their proceedings the truth of what I always told you, — namely, that one man outweighs them all in influence, who supports his judgment against their own and that of theif representatives. Eepubli- canism resigns the vessel to the pilot." There is no vocation or occupation which does not present many difficulties, at times almost overwhelming, and the young man who allows himself to waver every time he comes to a hard place in life will not succeed. AVithout decision there can be no concentration ; and, to succeed, a man must concentrate. The undecided man cannot bring himself to a focus. He dissipates his energy, scatters his forces, and executes nothing. He cannot hold to one thing long enough to bring suc- cess out of it. One vocation or occupation presents its rosy side to him, he feels sure it is the thing he wants to do, and, full of enthusiasm, adopts it as his life's work. But in a few days the thorns begin to ap- pear, his enthusiasm evaporates, and he wonders why he is so foolish as to think himself fitted for that voca- tion. The one which his friend adopted is much better suited to him ; he drops his own and adopts the other. So he vacillates through life, captured by any new oc- cupation which happens to appeal to him as the most desirable at the time, never using his judgment or com- mon sense, but governed by his impressions and his feelings at the moment. Such people are never led by principle. You never know where to find them ; they are here to-day and there to-morrow, doing this thing and that thing, throwing away all the skill they had acquired in mastering the drudgery of the last occupa- tion. In fact, they never go far enough in anything to get beyond the drudgery stage to the remunerative and agreeable stage, the skillful stage. They spend DECISION. 365 their lives at the beginnings of occupations, which are always most disagreeable. These people rarely reach the stage of competency, comfort, and contentment. There is a legend of a powerful genius who promised a lovely maiden a gift of rare value if she would go through a field of corn, and, without pausing, going backward, or wandering hither and thither, select the largest and ripest ear. The value of the gift was to be in proportion to the size and perfection of the ear. She passed by many magnificent ones, but was so eager to get the largest and most perfect that she kept on without plucking any until the ears she passed were successively smaller and smaller and more stunted. Finally they became so small that she was ashamed to select one of them; and, not being allowed to go backward, she came out on the other side without any. Alexander, his heart throbbing with a great purpose, conquers the world ; Hannibal, impelled by his hatred to the Eomans, even crosses the Alps to compass his design. While other men are bemoaning difiiculties and shrinking from dangers and obstacles, and' preparing expedients, the great soul, without fuss or noise, takes the step, and lo, the mountain has been leveled and the way lies open. Learn, then, to will strongly and decisively ; thus fix your floating life and leave it no longer to be carried hither and thither, like a withered leaf, by every wind that blows. An undecided man is like the turnstile at a fair, which is in everybody's way but stops no one. " The secret of the whole matter was," replied Amos Lawrence, " we had formed the habit of prompt acting, thus taking the top of the tide ; while the habit of some others was to delay till about half tide, thus getting on the flats." Most of the young men and women who are lost in our cities are ruined because of their inability to say "No" to the thousand allurements and temptations 366 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. which, appeal to their weak passions. If they would only show a little decision at first, one emphatic " No " might silence their solicitors forever. But they are weak, they are afraid of offending, they don't like to say " No," and thus they throw down the gauntlet and are soon on the broad road to ruin. A little resolution early in life will soon conquer the right to mind one's own business. An old legend says that a fool and a wise man were journeying together, and came to a point where two ways opened before them, — one broad and beautiful, the other narrow and rough. The fool desired to take the pleasant way ; the wise man knew that the difficult one was the shortest and safest, and so declared. But at last the urgency of the fool prevailed ; they took the more inviting path, and were soon met by robbers, who seized their goods and made them captives. A little later both they and their captors were arrested by officers of the law and taken before the judge. Then the wise man pleaded that the fool was to blame be- cause he desired to take the wrong way. The fool pleaded that he was only a fool, and no sensible man should have heeded his counsel. The judge punished them both equally. "If sinners entice thee, consent thou not." There is no habit that so grows on the soul as ir- resolution. Before a man knows what he has done, he has gambled his life away, and all because he has never made up his mind what he would do with it. On many of the tombstones of those who have failed in life could be read between the lines : " He Dawdled," "Behind Time," "Procrastination," " Listlessness," " Shiftlessness," " Nervelessness," " Always Behind." Oh, the wrecks strewn along the shores of life " just behind success," "just this side of happiness," above which these words of warning are flying I Webster said of such an undecided man that " he is DECISION. 367 like the irresolution of the sea at turn of tide. This man neither advances nor recedes ; he simply hovers." Such a man is at the mercy of any chance occurrence that may overtake him. His " days are lost lamenting o'er lost days." He has no power to seize the facts which confront him and compel them to serve him. To indolent, shiftless, listless people life becomes a mere shufile of expedients. They do not realize that the habit of putting everything off puts off their man- hood, their capacity, their success ; their contagion in- fects their whole neighborhood. Scott used to caution youth against the habit of dawdling, which creeps in at every crevice of unoccupied time and often ruins a bright life. " Your motto must be," he says, " Hoc age," — do instantly. This is the only way to check the propensity to dawdling. How many hours have been wasted dawd- ling in bed, turning over and dreading to get up. Many a career has been crippled by it. Burton could not overcome this habit, and, convinced that it would ruin his success, made his servant promise before he went to bed to get him up at just such a time ; the servant called, and called, and coaxed ; but Burton would beg him to be left a little longer. The servant, knowing that he would lose his shilling if he did not get him up, then dashed cold water into the bed between the sheets, and Burton came out with a bound. When one asked a lazy young fellow what made him lie in bed so long, " I am employed," said he, " in hearing counsel every morning. Industry advises me to get up ; Sloth to lie still ; and they give me twenty reasons for and against. It is my part, as an impartial judge, to hear all that can be said on both sides, and by the time the cause is over dinner is ready." There is no doubt that, as a rule, great decision of character is usually accompanied by great constitutional firmness. Men who have been noted for great firmness of character have usually been strong and robust. There 368 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. is no quality of the mind which does not sympathize with bodily weakness, and especially is this true with the power of decision, which is usually impaired or weakened from physical suffering or any great physical debility. As a rule, it is the strong physical man who carries weight and conviction. Any bodily weakness, or lassitude, or lack of tone and vigor, is, perhaps, first felt in the weakened or debilitated power of decision. Nothing will give greater confidence in a young man, and bring assistance more quickly from the bank or from a friend, than the reputation of promptness. The world knows that the prompt man's bills and notes will be paid on the day, and will trust him. " Let it be your first study to teach the world that you are not wood and straw ; that there is some iron in you." " Let men know that what you say you will do ; that your decision, once made, is final, — no wavering ; that, once resolved, you are not to be allured or intimidated." Some minds are so constructed that they are bewil- dered and dazed whenever a responsibility is thrust upon them ; they have a mortal dread of deciding any- thing. The very effort to come to immediate and un- flinching decision starts up all sorts of doubts, difficul- ties, and fears, and they cannot seem to get light enough to decide nor courage enough to attempt to remove the obstacle. They know that hesitation is fatal to enter- prise, fatal to progress, fatal to success. Yet somehow they seem fated with a morbid introspection which ever holds them in suspense. They have just energy enough to weigh motives, but nothing left for the momentum of action. They analyze and analyze, deliberate, weigh, consider, ponder, but never act. How many a man can trace his downfall in life to the failure to seize his op- portunity at the favorable moment, when it was within easy grasp, the nick of time, which often does not pre- sent itself but once. It was said that Napoleon had an officer under him DECISION. 369 who understood the tactics of war better than his com- mander, but he lacked that power of rapid decision and powerful concentration which characterized the great- est military leaders perhaps of the world. There were several generals under Grant who were as well skilled in war tactics, knew the country as well, were better educated, but they lacked that power of decision which made unconditional surrender absolutely imperative wherever he met the foe. Grant's decision was like inexorable fate. There was no going behind it, no opening it up for reconsideration. It was his decision which voiced itself in those memorable words in the Wilderness, " I propose to fight it out on these lines if it takes all summer," and which sent back the words " unconditional surrender " to General Buckner, who asked him for conditions of capitulation, that gave the first confidence to the North that the rebellion was doomed. At last Lincoln had a general who had the power of decision, and the North breathed easy for the first time. The man who would forge to the front in this com- petitive age must be a man of prompt and determined decision; like Csesar, he must burn his ships behind him, and make retreat forever impossible. When he draws his sword he must throw the scabbard away, lest in a moment of discouragement and irresolution he be tempted to sheathe it. He must nail his colors to the mast as Nelson did in battle, determined to sink with his ship if he cannot conquer. Prompt decision and sublime audacity have carried many a successful man over perilous crises where deliberation would have been ruin. " Hoc ageP CHAPTEE XXI. POWER OF THE MIND OVER THE BODY. " God never made his work for man to mend." Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor ? For God is but a great will pervading all things b}^ nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will. — Joseph Glanvill. Health is the holiness of the body. Girls should be as much ashamed of illness, brought on by their own folly, as of being whipped by the teacher for disobedience. —Mrs. Cheney. It is part of the cure to wish to be cured. — Seneca. 'Tis the mind that makes the body rich. — Shakespeare. Brave spirits are a balsam to themselves: There is a nobleness of mind that heals Wounds beyond salves. Cartwright. " It is nothing but imagination/^ said one to Napoleon. " Nothing but imagination," he rejoined, " imagination rules the world." " I am sorry to learn that you are so sick that you cannot possibly be in your accustomed place to-morrow- morning, Miss Hysee," said the minister's wife condol- ingly, according to the Chicago " Tribune ; " " and I have hurried over to say that you need not feel the slightest uneasiness about the solo you were to sing in the open- ing anthem. Mr. Goodman and the chorister have arranged that Miss Gonby shall take the part, and " — " What ? " The popular soprano of the Kev. Dr. Good- man's church choir at once sat bolt upright in bed. *' What ! " she screamed. " The old maid with the cracked voice try to sing my solo ? Never ! " With one hand she tore the bandage off her head, with the other she swept the medicines from the side table to the ALEXANDER STEPHENS " As a man thiuketh iu his heart, so is he." The body is luoulded and fashioned by the thought. POWER OF THE MIND OVER THE BODY. 371 floor. " Tell Dr. Goodman and the chorister," she said, in a voice that rang through the house like the silvery tones of a bell, "to notify Miss Gonby she needn't mangle that solo. I '11 be there." A medical authority states that a dog that had just died of an acute disease was brought to life by the quick transfusion of fresh blood from another dog. He stood erect, wagged his tail for a moment, and then died a second time. The blood of four lambs was transfused into a feeble horse, twenty-six years old, and he immedi- ately manifested new life and vigor. So a new thought or sentiment injected into a mind deadened by ignorance, indifference, inaction, disease, error, or des23air, often awakens it to new life, and transforms the whole being. The man seems completely " possessed/^ as we say, and feels that he is the creature of the idea, or sentiment. Dominated by a great idea, the weak become strong, the timid brave, the vacillating resolute. Latimer, Eidley, and hundreds of others went to the stake rejoicing, the spectators wondering at the smile of ineffable peace which illumined their faces above the fierce glare of the flames, at the hymns of praise and thanksgiving heard amid the roar of crackling fagots. As they lay upon the burning coals where the Spaniards had thrown them to make them tell where the treasure of the Mexicans was hidden, Guatemozin looked at his emperor for permission to reveal the secret and end their torture. Montezuma met the appealing look of his subordinate with a smile, and murmured, " Am I on a bed of roses ? " The Indian warrior under torment would sing an ex- ulting death song, boast of his deeds of prowess, and die Avithout showing signs of pain. A butcher in New York, suffering terrible agony, was brought into a drug store. Investigation showed that he had slipped and fallen from a stepladder upon a sharp meat-hook upon which he was trying to hang a 372 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. side of beef. He groaned in distress while his clothing was removed. He was pale and almost pulseless, and could not be moved without suffering great pain. But it was found that the hook had only pierced his clothing, the man being totally uninjured. When he learned this his sufferings ceased at once. His pain had been real to him although caused wholly by his imagination. Physicians reported a case a few years ago of a poor woman in Paris who was bitten by a dog near Notre Dame, and taken to the Hotel Dieu, where the wound was cauterized. Months afterward a student met her in the street and expressed surprise to see her alive. He told her that the dog which bit her was mad. The poor woman was seized immediately with spasms of the most violent kind. Dr. Bucquoy was summoned at once, but he could do nothing, and she soon died. Dr. Chalmers, riding on a stage-coach by the side of the driver, said, " John, why do you hit that off leader such a crack with your lash ? " " Away yonder there 's a white stone ; that off leader is afraid of that stone ; so by the crack of my w^hip and the pain in his legs I want to get his idea off from it." Dr. Chalmers w^ent home, elaborated the idea, and w^rote " The Expulsive Power of a New Affection." You must drive off temp- tation by putting a new idea into the mind. Lord Byron, when a boy, was Avarned by a fortune- teller that he should die in the thirty -seventh year of his age. That idea haunted him ; and in his last ill- ness he mentioned it as precluding all hope of his recovery. His physician said that it repressed the en- ergy of spirit so necessary for nature in struggling with disease. Every physician of experience and every reader of medical history must have been impressed many times with the power of a mind thus dominated and swayed by an idea or sentiment, a conviction or a resolution, to ward off disease or arrest its progress. On the other POWER OF THE MIND OVER THE BODY. 373 hand, they must have been equally impressed by the power of fear, or adverse convictions, to render the body more susceptible to contract disease or to hasten its development, even to fatal termination. Every physician knows that courageous people, with indomita- ble will, are not half as likely to contract contagious diseases as the timid, the vacillating, the irresolute. Napoleon used to visit the plague hospitals even when the physicians dreaded to go, and actually put his hands upon the plague-stricken patients. He said the man who was not afraid could vanquish the plague. Douglas Jerrold was told by his physician that he must die. "What," said he, "and leave a family of helpless children ? I won't die ! " And he did not die for years. Seneca had an almost fatal disease, but he said, " The thought of my father, who could not have sustained such a blow as my death, restrained me, and I commanded myself to live ; " and he did live. Sir Walter Scott, at fifty-five, was deeply in debt ; but, though far from being well, he was determined to pay every dollar. This resolution gave new courage to every faculty of the mind and every function of the body, and they rushed to the rescue under the stimulus. Every nerve and fibre said the debt must be paid, and it was paid. It is difficult for a disease to get a foot- hold in a body where such an imperious will reigns supreme. It arrests the development of disease and almost defies death. " No, we don't get sick," said an actor, " because we can't get sick. Patti and a few other stars can afford that luxury, but to the majority of us it is denied. It is a case of ' must ' with us ; and although there have been times when, had I been at home, or a private man, I could have taken to my bed with as good a right to be sick as any one ever had, I have not done so, and have worn off the attack through sheer necessity. It 's no fiction that will power is the best of tonics, and 374 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. theatrical people understand that they must keep a good stock of it always on hand." A tight-rope walker was so ill with lumbago that he could scarcely move. But when he was advertised to appear, he summoned all his will power, and traversed the rope several times with a wheelbarrow, according to the programme. When through he doubled up and had to be carried to his bed, " as stiff as a frozen frog." " The time will come," says Humboldt, " when a sick man will be looked upon with the same abhorrence with which we now regard a thief or a liar, for the reason that the one condition is as much under the subjugation of mind as the other, and as susceptible of correction as the other." While this is an extreme view, there is no doubt the mind does have a powerful influence over the body. Sir John Lubbock says in " The Pleasures of Life " : " It is said that the celebrated physiognomist, Campa- nella, could so abstract his attention from any suffer- ings of his body, that he was even able to endure the rack without much pain. Whoever has the power of concentrating his attention and controlling his will can emancipate himself from most of the minor miseries of life. He may have much cause for anxiety, his body may be the seat of severe suffering, and yet his mind will remain serene and unaffected ; he may triumph over care and pain." The "Youth's Companion" says in substance, that the mysterious power of mind over the body has given rise to a new department in science ; and, but recently, scientific experiments have been made in order to in- vestigate Avhat is called the psychophysical, or, in simpler language, the soul-physical phenomena. It has been discovered that there is a great chemical difference between that sudden, cold perspiration of a person un- der a deep sense of guilt and the ordinary perspiration ; and the state of the mind can sometimes be actually de- POWER OF THE MIND OVER THE BODY. 375 termined by chemical analysis of this perspiration, for when brought in contact with selenic acid it produces a pink color which cannot be obtained from ordinary per- spiration. Anger changes the chemical properties of the saliva to a poison dangerous to life. It is well known that sudden and violent emotions have not only whitened the hair in a few hours, but have caused death and in- sanity. One of Stanley's men was so overjoyed when Stanley announced that they were nearly through their hardships in the jungles of Africa, and were ap- proaching the opposite ocean, that he went crazy and plunged into the wilderness, never to be seen again. Every emotion tends to sculpture the body into beauty or into ugliness. Worrying, fretting, unbridled passions, petulance, discontent, every dishonest act, every false- hood, every feeling of envy, jealousy, fear, — each has its effect on the system, and acts deleteriously like a poison or a deformer of the body. Professor James of Harvard, an expert in the mental sciences, says, " Every small stroke of virtue or vice leaves its ever so little scar. Nothing we ever do is, in strict literalness, wiped out." We look with pity and distrust upon the man who vitiates his vitality, pollutes and ruins his body by alcohol, while we ourselves may be changing our own bodies into hideous forms by what seem to us " in- nocent sins." A fit of anger may work a greater dam- age to the body and character than a drunken bout. Hatred may leave worse scars upon a clean life than the bottle. Jealousy, envy, ganger, uncontrolled grief may do more to wreck the physical life than years of smoking. Anxiety, fretting, and scolding, may instill a more subtle poison into the system than the cigarette. There are many ways of ruining the body besides smoking or getting drunk. Running for the train may injure the heart more than the tqbacco habit. The lack of self-control, yielding to vulgar indulgences, and il- 376 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. licit imaginings, often injure lives infinitely more than the things which are popularly denounced. A sulky dog and a bad-tempered horse wear themselves out with half the labor that kindly creatures do. An ugly cow will not give down her milk, and a sour sheep will not fatten. Truly the great Hebrew seer enunciated a wonderful chemistry when he said, " As righteousness tendeth to life, so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death." No one thing contributes more to health or success than a strong, vigorous will. It is a perpetual health tonic, physically and mentally. It braces the system, enabling it to endure hardships, disappointments, and disease. It is a balance wheel ; it unifies and steadies all the movements and functions of the body and mind, and wards off the destructive shocks which often wrench unbalanced minds from their orbits, and produce dis- cord instead of harmony. The will power is the great executive in the republic of the brain ; and if this ruler be weak and vacillating, there will be no order or har- mony in mind or body. This executive rules with an iron hand, with a grasp upon all the faculties which secure regularity and order and harmony both in the physical, the mental, and moral realm. A weak ruler cannot execute even good laws, and uncertaiDty and anarchy must ever reign in his dominion. " Give me a great thought that I may quicken myself with it," said Herder to his son as he lay near death. Newton at Cambridge would sit up all night on some difficult mathematical problem, and would seem refreshed in the morning by his great triumph. Next to the power of the will to ward off disease or maintain health is the might of conviction or belief. The London " Lancet," the leading medical journal in the world, says an English lady was disappointed in love when quite young, and became insane. She lost all consciousness of the passage of time. Nothing could POWER OF THE MIND OVER THE BODY. 377 persuade her that she was uot living in the very hour when her lover left her. She stood by the window day after day and month after month, waiting for his return. The conviction that she was still young kept her from growing old in appearance. Americans who saw her a few years ago declared that she was not over twenty years of age, and yet she is seventy-five. What a power there is in mind to carry youth into age, if we only knew how to use it ! Fear often kills even the robust, while courage is a great invigorator. An English criminal, blindfolded and laid upon a table by physicians, Avas made to be- lieve that he was bleeding to death, when only warm water was trickling from his arm, which was slightly scratched, but not enough to draw blood. The man died in a short time from fear. Could the bandage have been removed one instant, so that he might see that the vessel contained water instead of blood, he would have recovered immediately. In Philadelphia several medical students agreed to experiment upon a companion. On meeting him, each would ask him what was the matter, adding that he looked very sick, or some similar remark. The young man went to bed sick and in a few days died. Another man in a hospital was made to believe that a patient had just died of cholera in the same bed he was occupy- ing. The alleged symptoms of the man who had died were described minutely, and soon similar symptoms were manifested by the listening patient, and he died, although the whole story was a fabrication. A man in Providence, R. I., while engaged in putting down a car- pet in July, 1891, drank from a goblet in which tacks had been placed, and, on being told of this fact, was at once afflicted with great pain from a tack lodging in his throat. He tried in vain to remove it, but the swelling increased, inflammation set in, and he consulted a doctor. The latter sent him for treatment to a hospital, where a 378 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. careful examination showed that no tack had lodged there. The pain at once disappeared, and the man felt no further annoyance from the mythical tack. In Marshall College, Aberdeen, I think it was, the stu- dents made the janitor believe they were going to exe- cute him. They bound him, blindfolded him, laid his head upon a block, and quickly drew a wet cloth across his neck when, to their amazement, they found that he was dead. Not long ago a prisoner was to be executed in France, and although he did not show the slightest signs of fear until he came in front of the ghastly in- strument of death, yet, when he glanced upward at it, he turned deathly pale and at the same time his body be- came apparently lifeless. He was lifted upon the bas- cule, where he lay for twenty awful seconds, when the knife fell. The blood did not spurt eight or ten feet as is usual in such cases. The physicians found the heart filled with coagulated blood, which proved that he was dead before the knife fell. The chief personage in one of Moliere's best plays, " Le Malade Imaginaire," is a hypochondriac who pre- tends to be dead. On the fourth night of the perform- ance of this piece Moliere represented that characoer, and consequently in one of the scenes was obliged to act the part of a dead man. " It has been said," con- tinues Bayle, " that he expired during that paru of his play where he is told to make an end of his feint ; but he could neither speak nor rise, for he was dead." Great apparent suffering is often entirely relieved upon the arrival of a physician, especially in the coun- try towns where it is difficult to obtain a doctor at once. The captured Texans in the Santa Fe expedition had marched until they seemed nearly dead from exhaus- tion ; yet, being told that any one who should prove un- able to walk would be shot, they set off at a good pace, which they kept up all day. POWER OF THE MIND OVER THE BODY. 379 Ambroise Pare, describing the comet of 1520, says, " This comet was so horrible and dreadful that it en- gendered great terror to the people, so that many died, some with fear, others with illness." A poor fellow once went to hang himself, but finding by chance a pot of money, he flung away the rope and went hurriedly home. He that hid the gold, when he missed it, hanged himself with the rope which the other man had left. Success is a great tonic, and failure a great depressant. The successful attainment of what the heart longs for, as a rule, improves health and happiness. Gen- erally we not only find our treasure where our heart is, but our health also. Who has not noticed men of indifferent health, perhaps even invalids, and men who lacked energy and determination, suddenly become roused to a realization of unthought-of powers and un- expected health upon attaining some signal success ? The same is sometimes true of persons in poor health who have suddenly been thrown into responsible posi- tions by death of parents or relatives, or who, upon sud- den loss of property, have been forced to do what they had thought impossible before. An education is a health tonic. Delicate boys and girls often improve in health in school and college, whom- parents and friends thought entirely too slender to bear the strain. Other things equal, intelligent, cul- tured, educated people enjoy the best health. There is for the same reason a very intimate relation between health and morals. A house divided against itself cannot stand. Intemperance, violation of chastity, and vice of all kinds are discordant notes which tend to destroy the great harmony of life. The body is but a servant of the mind. A well-balanced, cultured, and well-disciplined intellect reacts very powerfully upon the physique, and tends to bring it into harmony with itself. On the other hand, a weak, vacillating, one-sided, 380 ARCHITECTS OF FATE, unsteady, and ignorant mind will ultimately bring the body into sympathy with it. Every pure and uplifting thought, every noble aspiration for the good and the true, every longing of the heart for a higher and better life, every lofty purpose and unselfish endeavor, reacts upon the body, makes it stronger, more harmonious, and more beautiful. Emperor Dom Pedro, while lying sick in Europe, re- ceived a telegram from his daughter acting as regent, saying that she had " signed a decree, totally, univer- sally, and forever abolishing slavery in Brazil." The reaction from the news that the dream of his life was realized restored him completely. The power of great thoughts and grand sentiments to refine the face and manner, to lift man above his sur- roundings and preserve him from the debility common to age, is marvelous. We see this longevity power illus- trated in great scientists, great reformers, and great statesmen. No one can live a gormandizing, sordid, or licentious life, and still Avear a countenance hallowed and sancti- fied with a halo of peace and joy. Tlte whole face puts on mourning for the death of self respect. Vicious com- panions will very quickly transfer their wicked expres- sions to the faces of their victims. Anger in the mother may poison her nursing child, causing illness and even convulsions. What must be the influence of a mother's passions upon foetal life if even the secretions are so affected ? Rarey, the great horse tamer, said that an angry word would sometimes raise the pulse of a horse ten beats in a minute. If this is true of a beast, what can we say of its power upon a human being, and especially upon a child ? Strong mental emotion often causes vomiting. Vio- lent anger or fright may produce jaundice in a short time, under certain conditions. The " Scientific American " reports the case of a lady in POWER OF THE MIND OVER THE BODY. 381 Bridgeport, Conn,, who called a physician to extricate her false teeth which she had swallowed. When the physician arrived the muscles of her throat were in vio- lent spasm, and she was apparently choking to death. Eminent physicians consulted and agreed to resort to tracheotomy. But one of the physicians felt something under the edge of the bed, which, upon examination, proved to be the missing molars. When the patient saw them the convulsions ceased immediately. Madame Bernhardt, the famous actress, says : " I have never played 'Phsedre' without fainting or spit- ting blood ; and after the fourth tableau of ' Theodora,' in Avhich I kill Marcellus, I am in such a nervous state that I return to my dressing-room sobbing. If I do not weep I have a hysterical fit which is much more disa- greeable to those around me, and more dangerous to the vases and other things near at hand." Sir Humphry Davy cured a man of paralysis by in- serting a thermometer in his mouth to take the tem- perature, the patient supposing it to be an appliance to cure that disease. Persons who have been bedridden for years, and lifelong invalids who were considered almost helpless, have risen from their beds when the house was on fire, and have not only helped to rescue others, but have helped to clear the house of furniture and valua- bles. Physicians who have been convinced that bedrid- den patients have been laboring under a delusion have cured them by resorting to heroic treatment, such as giving an alarm of fire, or applying to their flesh a red- hot poker, thus forcing them out of bed and sometimes out of the house. The medical report in Philadelphia in 1794, after the epidemic of yellow fever, said, "Di. Rush's presence was a powerful stimulant ; men recovered to whom he gave no medicine, as if his word was enough to turn the fever." Physicians like Dr. Push carry about with them a mesmeric or spiritual influence, a healing balm in their 382 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. very atmospliere. Dr. Rush, a monarcli in medicine, after curing hundreds of cases of mental depression, himself fell sick, lost his religious hope as a conse- quence of a nervous disorder, and would not believe his pastor as to the cause of his depression. Cross, crabbed, uncomfortable, fretful patients, even when suffering agony almost, are sometimes completely changed by a call from some genial friend, or jolly plty- sician, or by the news of some good fortune. The excruciating pain is banished, the face lightens, and a pleasant smile takes the place of a scowl. The patient is completely transformed, yet the change has been only a mental one, and has come from no medi- cine or treatment. A throbbing toothache usually ceases just before we get into the dentist's chair. Bulwer advises us to refuse to be ill, never to tell people we are ill, never to own it ourselves. Illness is one of those things which a man should resist on prin- ciple. Never say you are weak if you wish to be strong, or fatigued if you would be perpetually fresh. All these discordant pictures of the mind have an influence on the body. " Of all base passions, fear is most accursed." It was worshiped as a god by the ancients, but to-day we know it to be a great enemy of the human race, and that it renders the body susceptible to discord or disease in proportion to its intensity. Fear and anxiety destroy the red blood globules ; and if they are reduced below a certain proportion, disease and death ensue. Who can estimate the woe, the anxiety, the suffering, caused by fear, in all its variety of forms ? Many a poor girl has lost her precious life by consumption because she was brought up with the conviction perpetually thrust upon her mind that she must die of that disease because her parents did. Many delicate organizations have, by some shock, been thrown into a state of hopeless disease. The news POWER OF THE MIND OVER THE BODY. 383 of the sudden death of a loved husband has often thrown the delicate and sensitive wife into convulsions and un- consciousness. Violent paroxysms of anger have caused apoplexy and death. One night of mental agony has often caused the well to become hopeless invalids. Con- stant grief, long-standing and bitter jealousy, constant care and corroding anxiety, sometimes tend to the devel- opment of cancer. Sick thoughts and discordant moods are the natural atmosphere of disease, and crime is engendered and thrives in the miasma of the mind. Instead of bracing ourselves against disease by expell- ing every discordant thought, and barring every avenue of possible approach, as we would guard our homes against thieves or contagion, we render ourselves an easy prey to the enemy by watching for the symptoms of the very disease we fear, and dwelling upon, and pic- turing in the mind, the physical features of the malady. Thus the power to resist the disease is lessened. In- stead of fighting the thousand enemies Avhich dog our heels from the cradle to the grave, we put ourselves into sympathy with them, and invite their approach by ren- dering ourselves more susceptible. Every one knows the depressing influence of fear upon patients with cer- tain diseases, especially heart disease. The action of the heart is weakened, and the vitality is lowered by concentrating one's mind upon that organ. Physicians often imagine they have heart disease, and medical stu- dents imagine they have the diseases they study. A Philadelphian consulted a physician for what he feared was a hopeless case of heart disease, but found instant relief when he discovered that the rasping sound which he heard at every deep breath was due to a little pulley in his patent suspenders. Physicians tell us that perfect health is impossible to the self -dissector who is constantly thinking of himself, and studying himself, and forever on the alert for the least symptom which indicates disease. 384 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. A man without will power, a vacillating, uncertain man, does not possess himself, even physically, for he is much more susceptible to disease and physical infirmi- ties than a man with a strong will. He has no hold, no grip upon himself ; he is blown hither and thither by everybody's advice, taking every patent medicine recom- mended or advertised, impairing his blood by useless drugging, and is irregular in his habits. There is no faculty more susceptible to training, none which responds more readily to drill, than the will power, although it is seldom trained in school or college. No faculty can do more for us in forming habits which bless or curse, but it is seldom cultivated. It holds our success or failure in its grasp, our happiness or misery, but we often allow it to run wild. By a strong exercise of the will we can form habits of accuracy or inaccuracy, truthfulness or falsehood, tidiness or sloven- liness, honesty or dishonesty, industry or indolence, of method or carelessness, of courtesy or rudeness, of con- centration or dissipation ; and these make all the differ- ence between a man and a beast. Sudden shocks to the nervous system are destructive of health and harmony. The hair of an English banker became white in three days after he met with great financial reverses. A German physician was crossing a bridge when he saw a boy struggling in the water below. He rushed into the stream and seized the drowning boy, only to dis- cover that it was his own son. His hair turned white in one day. Marie Antoinette's black hair turned white a few days before her execution. Captain P of Vermont, captured by the British in 1813 on the Cana- dian frontier, was put under guard and told that he would be shot in the morning. His jet-black hair turned white during the night. " Where are you going ? " asked an Eastern pilgrim on meeting the Plague one day. " I am going to Bag- POWER OF THE MIND OVER THE BODY. 385 dad to kill five thousand people," was the reply. A few days later the same pilgrim met the Plague returning. ^'You told me you were going to Bagdad to kill five thousand people," said he, " but instead you killed fifty thousand." " No," said the Plague, " I killed only five thousand, as I told you I would ; the others died of fright." Physicians have reported cases where hun- dreds of peo]3le died of fright in the poor quarters of large cities, in times of the plague, before there was a physical possibility that the disease could have reached them. Jealousy will sometimes change a lovely character to that of a fiend. Hatred sometimes changes a happy household into a pandemonium. A false telegram an- nouncing the death of some dear friend will prostrate you just as quickly as though the report were true, yet the fear had no foundation except in your mind. Good news will elate you correspondingly, but by a similar process. A painter was so fascinated by the face of a lovely child whose portrait he had painted that he hung the picture in his study and would gaze at it for hours. It became a kind of guardian angel to him. In sorrow and in passion he tranquilized his soul by looking at that heavenly countenance. He resolved to paint its oppo- site, but he could find no face ugly enough until, years afterward, he looked upon a hardened wretch lying in despair upon the floor of a prison cell. He painted the terrible face, and then learned to his astonishment that it was that of the same person he had painted before. The innocent child had become the profligate, the ruined youth. Passion had transformed the seraph into a demon ; the body had changed to match the mind. Watch the sick in the hospital ward, and notice the faces beam with gladness, or cloud with sorrow, as the physician passes from bed to bed, and reveals in a smile, a perplexed look, or a shake of his head, hope or 386 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. despair for the patient. How eagerly each watches the doctor's face for a ray of hope ! If the fever patient gets encouragement his parched tongue immediately moistens, his eye brightens, and his hot, dry skin be- comes moist and cool. No drug could have wrought such magic as that one ray of hope. Nothing has touched the patient, — an idea, a sentiment only, — and yet he is completely transformed. Yet if the doctor but shake his head in doubt, the secretions stop, and the cold, clammy sweat appears. Despair settles over the patient's face ; all the centres of life's energy are depressed. Eaphael could not paint the face of Christ with Judas for a model. Phidias could not call an angel from the marble while he had a fiend in his mind. A flaw in the thought will appear in the statue. We can never accomplish anything great without a high ideal, and can we expect to gain that exquisite poise, that rh3^thmic pose which we call health, and which a thousand condi- tions must be met to produce, while we have a defective ideal in the mind ? How can I keep the mind's atmos- phere clear and pure when I fill it with the miasma of suicide and crime from sensational publications. Every thought tends to reproduce itself, and ghastly mental pictures of disease, sensuality, and murder produce scrofula and leprosy in the soul, which reproduces them in the body. The mind devours everything that is brought to it, — the true, the false, the good, the bad, and it will produce soundness or rottenness, beauty or deformity, harmony or discord, truth or error, according to the quality of the food we give it. " As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." The body is moulded and fashioned by the thought. If a young woman were to try to make herself beautiful, she would not begin by contemplating ugliness, or dwelling upon the monstrosities of vice, for their hideous images would be reproduced in her own face and manners. POWER OF THE MIND OVER THE BODY. 387 Nor would she try to make herself graceful by practi- cing awkwardness. We can never gain health by con- templating disease any more than we can reach perfec- tion by dwelling upon imperfection, or harmony through discord. We should keep a high ideal of health and harmony constantly before the mind ; and we should fight every discordant thought and every enemy of harmony as we would fight a temptation to crime. Never affirm or re- peat about your health what you do not wish to be true. Do not dwell upon your ailments nor study your symp- toms. Never allow yourself to be convinced that you are not complete master of yourself. Stoutly affirm your own superiority over bodily ills, and do not ac- knowledge yourself the slave of an inferior power. I would teach children early to build a strong barrier between themselves and disease by healthy habits of thought, high thinking, and purity of life. I would teach them to expel all thoughts of death, all images of disease, all discordant emotions, like hatred, malice, revenge, envy, and sensuality, as they would banish a temptation to do evil. I would teach them that bad food, bad drink, or bad air makes bad blood, that bad blood makes bad tissue, and bad flesh bad morals. I would teach them that healthy thoughts are as essential to healthy bodies as pure thoughts to a clean life. I would teach them to cultivate a strong will power, and to brace themselves against life's enemies in every pos- sible way. I would teach the sick to have hope, confi- dence, cheer. Our thoughts and^ imaginations are the only real limits to our possibilities. No man's success or health will ever reach beyond his own confidence, — as a rule, we erect our own barriers. Like produces like the universe through. Hatred, envy, malice, jeal- ousy, and revenge all have children. Every bad thought breeds others, and each of these goes on and on, ever reproducing itself, until a world is peopled with their offspring. 388 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. The true physician and parent of the future will not medicate the body with drugs so much as the mind with principles. The coming mother will teach her child to assuage the fever of anger, hatred, malice, with the great panacea of the world, — Love. The coming phy- sician will teach the people to cultivate cheerfulness, good-will, and noble deeds for a health-tonic as well as a heart-tonic ; and that a merry heart doeth good like a medicine. Something of the miraculous power of Christ, no doubt, was due to his superior moral, mental, and physi- cal harmony. He seems to have been sent into the world to show the j^ossibilitles of a perfect manhood, eliminated of inherited or acquired weaknesses, which so limit and cripple other lives. There was a superb harmony in his moral and mental as well as spiritual touch which banished the physical discord of disease. He demonstrated the superiority of a perfect physical system over the petty ills and discords which haunt the inferior physique ; the superiority of mind over matter, the supremacy of a rounded manhood over the discords and limitations of inferior development. He showed that a healthy body tends to make a healthy soul, and that a healthy soul tends to produce a harmonious body. He illustrated the uplifting, purifying, and sustaining power of the mind over the body. The mind has undoubted power to preserve and sus- tain physical youth and beauty, to keep the body strong and healthy, to renew life, and to preserve it from de- cay, many years longer than it does now. The longest lived men and women have, as a rule, been those who have attained great mental and moral development. They have lived in the upper region of a higher life, beyond the reach of much of the jar, the friction, and the discords which weaken and shatter most lives. He who would live to a good old age, who would carry youth and freshness, symmetry and beauty, of POWER OF THE MIND OVER THE BODY. 389 mind and body into ripe years, must have a cultured heart, an educated mind, and a well kept body. He must be temperate and virtuous ; he must not defile the temple of his soul with vice or imbrute it with sensual- ity. The mind is the natural protector of the body. We cannot believe that the Creator has left the whole human race entirely at the mercy of only about half a dozen specific drugs which always act with certainty. There is a divine remedy placed within us for many of the ills we suffer. If we only knew how to use this power of will and mind to protect ourselves, many of the physicians would be out of employment, and many of us would be able to carry youth and cheerfulness with us into the teens of our second century. CHAPTER XXII. THE CHARITIES. It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet. Thou art enlarged by th}-- own shining. — Emerson. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. — St. Paul. Shall I ask the brave soldier who fights by my side, In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree ? Shall I give up the friend I have valued and tried, If he kneel not before the same altar with me ? Moore. If God is thy father, man is thy brother. — Lamartine. When you 're good to others you are best to yourself, — Franklin. Don't look for the flaws as you go through life, And even when you find them It's wise and kind to be somewhat blind, And look for the virtue behind them. Ella Wheeler Wilcox. But still believe that story wrong Which ought not to be true. Sheridan. If we could read the secret histor}' of our enemies we would find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm hostility. — Longfellow. You will find people ready enough to act the Samaritan without the oil and twopence. — Sydney Smith. " Charity giveth itself rich ; covetousness hoardeth itself poor." " If you call down a curse on any one, look out for two graves." Democracj' means not "I am as good as j^ou are," but "You are as good as I am." — Theodore Parker. Not what we give, but what we share, For the gift without the giver is bare. Lowell. In the seed-room of the Agricultural Department at Washington a slender woman, with a scattering of gray in her hair, works faithfully for nine dollars a WASHINGTON IRVING He is the noblest man who puts the highest estimate upon others. *' If I treat all meu as gods, how to me can there be au}- such thing as a slave THE CHARITIES. 391 week. Traces of refinement and culture distinguisli her bearing, and her delicate face is marked by lines of care, but all her energies seem focused upon the duties of a position bestowed by Secretary Eusk in response to the following letter : — Cedar Hill, Anacostia, D. C, November 20, 1891. Hon. J. M. Rusk, Secretary of Agriculture. Sir, — I have the honor to remind you, as requested, of the case of Miss , a member of the family in which I was formerly a slave. Circumstances have reduced the fortune of that branch of the family to which Miss belongs, and hence she seeks, through my intercession, some employment by which she may assist herself and family in this their hour of need. It is a strange reversal of human relations that brings myself, the slave, and this lady, brought up in the lap of luxury and ease, now to seek the humble employment I ask for her. Miss will, I am sure, if given the place she seeks, prove herself a useful member of the Agricultural service, and grateful for the appointment. Hoping that no obstacle will be found to her getting the place she seeks, I am, sir, very truly, your obedient servant, Frederick Douglass. " Whoever stole a lot of hides on the 5th of the pres- ent month is hereby informed that the owner has a sincere wish to be his friend. If poverty tempted him to this false step, the owner will keep the whole matter secret, and will gladly put him in the way of obtaining a living by means more likely to bring him peace of mind." This strange advertisement in the newspapers of Philadelphia, during the Eevolutionary War, attracted much attention ; but the thief was the only reader who knew that the kind offer came from a Quaker tanner named William Savery. At about nine o'clock, a few evenings later, the tanner opened his door in response to a timid knock, and found a man standing with the hides on his shoulder. " I have brought these back, Mr. Savery," he said with downcast eyes ; " where 392 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. shall I put them ? " " Wait till I can light a lantern, and I will go to the barn with thee/' replied the Quaker. ^' Then, perhaps, thou wilt come in and tell me how this thing happened, and we will see what can be done for thee." When they returned, Mrs. Savery, who had placed hot coffee and food on the table, said, " Neigh- bor Smith, I thought some hot supper would do thee good." Smith turned away in silence, but said in a choked voice, a moment afterward, " It is the first time I ever stole anything, and I feel very bad about it. I don't know how it is. But I took to drinking, and then to quarreling. And since I began to go down hill, every- body gives me a kick. You are the first man, Mr. Savery, that has ever offered me a helping hand. God bless you ! I stole the hides from you, meaning to sell them. But I tell you the truth when I say it is the first time I was ever a thief." " Let it be the last time, my friend ; the secret shall be between me and thee," replied Savery. "Thou art still young. Promise me that thou wilt not drink any more liquor for a year, and I will employ thee to-morrow at good wages. Perhaps we may find some work for thy family also. But eat a bit now, and drink some hot coffee, to keep thee from craving anything stronger. Keep up a brave heart for the sake of thy wife and children. Try to do well, John," said Mr. Savery, as he bade his visitor good- night, "and thou wilt always find a friend in me." Mr. Johonnot, who tells this story at much greater length, says that Smith began work at the tannery the next day and remained with the Quaker many years, a sober, honest, and faithful man. " If I treat all men as gods," asks Emerson, " how to me can there be any such thing as a slave ? " Early in the century, when Elizabeth Fry was giving all her energies to work among the convicts in English prisons, a lady companion, noting that she was greeted affectionately as a familiar friend by the wretched THE CHARITIES. 393 inmates of the women's cells in Newgate, asked of what crimes these women had been convicted. "I do not know," replied Mrs. Fry ; " I never have asked them that. We all have come short." " I have never heard of any crime," said Goethe, " which I might not have committed." Ah ! why will kings forget that they are men? And men that they are brethren ? Beilby Porteus. " There are some people who believe the whole hu- man race will be saved," said an old lady ; " but, for my part, I hope for better things." At another time she said that the doctrine of total depravity is good enough, if people would only live up to it. This quaint old lady does not lack for less outspoken companions who are constantly looking for evidences of original sin in their friends, and seem overjoyed when they iind such in- dications. " A say, Jim, who bees that ? " asked one young Yorkshire miner of another. " A 's a stranger ; a ^s noon o ' oor folks." " 'Eave 'alf a brick hat 'im, then." How many educated people manifest a similar spirit of intolerance, only in a different way ! "It is a shame," said Clovis, looking on the rich fields across the Garonne, " that such territories should belong to villains who have a different creed from ours. Onward ! let us take possession of their land." "And it came to pass after these things," wrote Franklin, "that Abraham sat in the door of his tent, about the going down of the sun. And behold, a man bowed with age came from the way of the wilderness, leaning on a staff. And Abraham arose and met him, and said unto him, ' Turn in, I pray thee, and wash thy feet, d:nd tarry all night, and thou shalt arise early on the morrow, and go on thy way.' But the man said, ' Kay, for I will abide under this tree.' And Abraham pressed him greatly ; so he turned, and they went into 394 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. the tent, and Abraham baked unleavened bread, and they did eat. And when Abraham saw that the man blessed not God, he said unto him, ' Wherefore dost thou not worship the most high God, Creator of heaven and earth ? ' " And the man answered and said, ^ I do not worship the God thou speakest of, neither do I call upon his name ; for I have made to myself a god, which abideth always in my house, and provideth me with all things.' And Abraham's zeal was kindled against the man, and he arose and fell upon him, and drove him forth with blows into the wilderness. And at midnight God called unto Abraham, saying, ^Abraham, where is the stranger ? ' And Abraham answered and'said, ' Lord, he would not worship Thee, neither would he call upon Thy name ; therefore have I driven him from before my face into the wilderness.' " And God said, ' Have I borne with him these hundred ninety and eight years ; and nourished him and clothed him, notwithstanding his rebellion against Me ; and couldst not thou, that art thyself a sinner, bear with him one night ? ' " " A bishop," Talmage tells us, " said to Louis XL of France : ^ Make an iron cage for those who do not think as we do — an iron cage in which the captive can neither lie down nor stand upright.' After a while the bishop offended the king, and for fourteen years he was confined in that same cage." Dr. Samuel Johnson said, " I am willing to love all mankind except an American." In the same year that Queen Isabella pledged her jewels to enable Columbus to seek the Western world she signed the decree expelling from Spain all who would not renounce the Mohammedan religion. The latter was one of the most cruel acts of religious intol- erance on record ; the former act aided to discover a world which has become the home of religious tolerance and freedom. THE CHARITIES. 395 For his great discoveries in science, Eoger Bacon was sentenced to imprisonment for ten years. After Emerson's lecture at Middlebury College, Ver- mont, a minister said in the closing prayer, " We be- seech Thee, Lord, to deliver us from hearing any more such transcendental nonsense as we have just listened to from this sacred desk." Emerson's only re- mark upon the suppliant was, that he seemed a very conscientious, plain-spoken man. The Emperor Constantine commanded a whole com- pany of bishops to think alike without a day's delay. The Duke of Wellington advised the doubting inquir- ers at Oxford " to sign the thirty -nine articles and be- lieve them." M. Boudon, an eminent surgeon, was one day sent for by the Cardinal Du Bois, Prime Minister of France, to perform a very serious operation upon him. The Car- dinal said to him, " You must not expect to treat me in the same rough manner as you treat your poor mis- erable wretches at your hospital of the Hotel Dieu." "My lord," replied M. Boudon with great dignity, " every one of those miserable wretches, as your emi- nence is pleased to call them, is a Prime Minister in my eyes." A poor woman, knowing that Dr. Goldsmith had studied physic, and hearing of his great humanity, so- licited him in a letter to send her something for her husband, who had lost his appetite and was reduced to a most melancholy state. The good-natured poet waited on her instantly, and after some discourse with his pa- tient, found him sinking in sickness and poverty. The doctor told him they should hear from him in an hour, when he would send them some pills which he believed would prove efficacious. He immediately went home and put ten guineas into a chip box, with the following label : " These must be used as necessities require. Be patient, and of good heart." 396 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. Goldsmith would sometimes give away part of his only suit of clothes. On one occasion he gave away all the covering from his bed and got ' under the tick to keep from freezing. A Frenchwoman was bled to death by a surgeon who clumsily cut an artery instead of a vein. Dying she bequeathed him a handsome life annuity on condition that he would never bleed any one again as long as he lived. A Polish princess who lost her life in the same way put the following clause in the will made on her deathbed: " Convinced of the injury that my unfortu- nate accident will occasion to the unhappy surgeon who is the cause of my death, I bequeath him a life annuity of two hundred ducats, assured by my estate, and for- give him his mistake from my heart. I wish this may indemnify him from the discredit which my sorrowful catastrophe will bring him." After the battle of Waterloo Wellington Avas re- quested to put Napoleon to death. " Such an act," replied the Iron Duke, " would disgrace us in the eyes of posterity. It would be said of us that we were not worthy to be conquerors of Napoleon." Grant was the embodiment of magnanimity when Lee surrendered at Appomattox, declining to be present, and refusing to make a triumphant entry into the Con- federate capital. " I will instruct my paroling officers that all the enlisted men in your cavalry and artillery who own horses are to retain them just as the officers do theirs," said he ; " they will need them for their spring plowing and other farm work. I will furnish your soldiers with a parole to protect them from Confederate conscription officers." And he issued twenty thousand rations for the conquered enemy, hungry and exhausted. A Southern brigadier said to him, " You astonish us by your generosity ; " and General Badeau wrote, " The men whom he conquered never forgot his magnanimity." General Grant had been for several months in front THE CHARITIES. 397 of Petersburg, apparently accomplishing nothing, while General Sherman had captured Atlanta, and completed his grand " march to the sea." Then arose a strong cry to promote Sherman to Grant's position as lieuten- ant-general. Hearing of it, Sherman wrote to Grant, " I have written to John Sherman (Ms brother) to stop it. I would rather have you in command than any one else. I should emphatically decline any commission calculated to bring us into rivalry." Grant replied, " No one would be more pleased with your advancement than I; and if you should be placed in my position, and I put subordinate, it would not change our relations in the least. I would make the same exertion to sup- port you that you have done to support me, and I would do all in my power to make your cause win." Charity suffer eth long and is kind. At the battle of Fredericksburg hundreds of Union soldiers lay wounded on the field a whole day and a night ; the agonizing cries for water among the wounded were only answered by the roar of the guns. At last a Southern soldier who could not endure these piteous cries any longer begged his general to let him carry water to the suffering. The general told him it would be in- stant death to appear upon the field, but the cries of the unfortunates drowned the roar of the guns to him at least, and he rushed out among the wounded and dying with a supply of water on his errand of mercy. Wondering eyes from both armies watched the brave fellow as, heedless of guns, he passed from soldier to soldier, gently raising his head and placing the cooling cup to his parched lips. The Union soldiers were so struck by the action of this boy in gray, risking his life for his enemies' sake, that they ceased firing from admiration for an hour and a half, as did the Confeder- ates. During this whole time the boy in gra}^ went over the entire battlefield, giving drink to the thirsty, straightening cramped and mangled limbs, putting 398 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. knapsacks under the heads of sufferers, spreading coats and blankets over them as tenderly as though they had been his own comrades. Rosa Bonheur bought a ferocious lion named ISTero. He was regarded as untamable, but the kindness and courtesy of the great artist won his confidence and af- fection. When she was about to travel she sold him to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Returning two years later, she found him entirely blind, from the abuse of the attendant. He was lying in his cage, heedless of the crowd that passed. The mistress called out " iSTero." The invalid monarch rushed against the sides of the cage with such violence as to throw him over backward half stunned, uttering the peculiar note of welcome, reserved only for the mistress he had mourned so long. Miss Bonheur was so touched that she bought him back again. He died in the chateau itself, clinging to his fond mistress with his great paws even when dying, as if beseeching her not to leave him. "You see," said she, "to be really beloved by wild beasts you must really love them." When Dr. Mott was visiting Paris, a celebrated sur- geon was anxious to perform one of his great operations before him. Not finding a subject in the hospitals who had the malady which he wanted to operate for, he said, " Xo matter, my dear friend, there is a poor devil in ward number — who is no use to himself or anybody else ; if you will come to-morrow, I '11 operate upon him." Dr. Mott declined to witness such an atrocious crime. There is a god in the meanest man, there is a phi- lanthropist in the stingiest miser, there is a hero in the biggest coward, which an emergency great enough will call out. The blighting greed of gain, the marbling usages and cold laws of trade encase many a noble heart in crusts of selfishness, but great emergencies break open the prison doors, and the whole heart pours out its charity. THE CHARITIES. 399 Charity helieveth all things. When everybody else denounces and curses a man, Charity says, " Wait ; there is a god in that man somewhere." Do not pass a hasty judgment upon men's motives. They may be cherishing noble aspirations even while the world con- demns. When friends and relatives were fleeing from those sick and dying of yellow fever in Philadelphia, when money could not buy the services of nurses, and when the dead lay unburied and the sick uncared for, it was one of the hardest, coldest, and most unattractive of men, whose heart seemed stone, who came boldly for- ward, and shunned no labor, no danger, no expense in his efforts to save his fellow-citizens from the terrible scourge. He was reputed mean in his dealings ; he turned a deaf ear to brother merchants in pecuniary trouble ; he responded to no appeals for aid ; he cared not for friendship ; he showed marble indifference to the distress and sufferings of others. Yet this appar- ently heartless man voluntarily took charge of the Phil- adelphia hospital, nursed the sick, buried the dead, worked almost without sleep, and gave liberally of the immense wealth for which he had toiled with devotion almost unequaled. When ISTew England threatened to withdraw from the Union and the United States government was crippled for funds ; w^hen, after the offer of great inducements for a loan of $5,000,000, but $20,000 were subscribed, it was this cold, friendless man who loaned the whole sum, and did not hamper his loan by any demand for prompt payment. He gave $5,000^000 for the orplians' college in Philadelphia, and the remainder of his $20,000,000 for the noblest purposes. " Wait till I am dead," he used to say ; " my deeds will show what I was." Hard and illiberal in his bar- gains, he was public spirited to a remarkable degree. An unbeliever, who named his vessels for French athe- ists, he risked health and life, and poured out money 400 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. like water, to relieve those afflicted with yellow fever, as above stated. He sacrificed friends, social relations, education, and everything else which would make him all-powerful among men while living and remembered when dead. Solitary, cold, sour, repulsive, and sordid in life ; dying, he devoted all the results of his wonder- ful genius for acquisition to enterprises of the most be- nignant character. Here was a man of lofty purposes marred by the trials and passions of life, but with gen- erous and warm impulses beneath the hard crust. Judge not and ye shall not be judged. Believe but half the ill and credit twice the good said of your neighbor. "Before the birth of love (charity)," said Socrates, " many fearful things took place through the empire of necessity ; but when this god was born all things arose to men." " Having in my youth notions of severe piety," said a Persian writer, " I used to rise in the night to watch, pray, and read the Koran. One night, as I was engaged in these exercises, my father, a man of practical virtue, awoke while I was reading. ' Behold,' said I to him, ^ thy other children are lost in irreligious slumber while I alone wake to praise God.' ' Son of my soul,' he an- swered, ' it is better to sleep than to awake to remark the faults of thy brothers ! ' " It is far easier to see the foibles of others than to overlook them or to avoid them. The burdens of others are very light for us, and we are masters of all griefs but our own. Marathon had been fought ; Greece was still free ; and each of the victorious generals voted himself to be first in honor ; but all agreed that Miltiades was second. Some one says that men make fourteen great mistakes. It is a great mistake to set our own standard of right and wrong ; to judge people accordingly ; to measure the enjoyment of others by our own ; to expect uniform- w ^i^^^iim^^ M^^^iiiiJliiiiJiiiii^^^^ FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE '•The Angel of the Crimea." " The high desire that others may be blest savors of heaven." The memories of such heroines of gentle charity who have spent their days hang- ing sweet pictures of faith and trust in the silent galleries of sunless lives shall never perish from the earth. THE CHARITIES. 401 ity of opinion in tliis world ; to look for judgment and experience in youth ; to endeavor to mould all disposi- tions alike ; to yield to immaterial trifles ; to look for perfection in our own actions ; to worry ourselves and others with what cannot be remedied ; not to alleviate all that needs alleviation, so far as lies in our power ; not to make allowance for the infirmities of others ; to consider everything impossible that we cannot perform ; to believe only what our finite minds can grasp ; to ex- pect to be able to understand everything. Garfield's death did what his life could not. South- ern papers spoke of him, while lying in that terrible suspense after he w^as shot, as " o««r President." Even in those States which had fought him most bitterly the papers gave columns of praise to the wounded man. Charity is the brightest star in the Christian's diadem. When any one w^as speaking ill of another in the presence of Peter the Great, he at first listened to him attentively, and then interrupted him. " Is there not," asked he, " a fair side also to the character of the per- son of whom you are speaking ? Come, tell me what good qualities you have remarked about him." One would think this monarch had learned the precept, " Speak not evil one of another." Lord Chesterfield, in his will, referred to his servants as his " unfortunate friends, equal by birth, and only inferior by fortune." " In my youth," said Horace Walpole, " I thought of writing a satire on mankind, but now in my age I think I should write an apology for tliein." ^' I will chide no heathen in the world but myself," said Shakespeare, "against whom I know the most faults." Every man has little infirmities of temper and dispo- sition which require forgiveness ; peculiarities which require to be managed ; prejudices which should be avoided ; innocent habits which should be indulged ; 402 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. fixed opinions which should be treated with respect ; particular feelings and delicacies which should be con- sulted. " Let us resolve," says Harriet Beecher Stowe, " first to attain the grace of silence ; second, to deem all fault- finding that does no good a sin, and to resolve, when we are happy ourselves, not to poison the atmosphere for our neighbors by calling on them to mark every painful and disagreeable feature of their daily life ; third, to practice the grace and virtue of praise." " Alas ! " exclaimed Cowper, " if my best friend, who laid down his life for me, were to remember all the in- stances in which I have neglected him, and to plead them against me in judgment, where should I hide my guilty head in the day of recompense ? I will pray, therefore, for blessings on my friends, even though they cease to be so, and upon my enemies, though they con- tinue such." "Forbear to judge," says Shakespeare, "for we are sinners all." " He has a measuring-tape," said a friend of Carlyle, " which is made up of the preferences and prejudices of Thomas Carlyle. By it he tries everybody, dead or alive. If they exactly fill it, as did Napoleon, Cromwell, and other men of force, he deifies them. If they fall sliort, he tramples them under foot, and shrieks out his hatred and contempt, for all the world to hear." The wounds I might have healed ! The human sorrow and smart ! And yet it never was in my soul To play so ill a part: But evil is wrought by want of Thought, As well as want of Heart ! Hood. There is a pathetic story in the " Youth's Companion " of a young girl, beautiful, gay, full of spirit and vigor, who married and had four children. In course of time the husband died penniless, and the mother made the THE CHARITIES. 403 most heroic efforts to educate the chiklren. She taught school, pamted, sewed, and succeeded in sending the boys to college and the girls to a boarding-school. The story concludes : " When they came home, pretty, re- fined girls and strong young men, abreast with all the new ideas and tastes of their times, she was a worn-out, commonplace old woman. They had their own pursuits and companions. She lingered among them for two or three years, and then died, of some sudden failure in the brain. The shock woke them to a consciousness of the truth. They hung over her, as she lay unconscious, in an agony of grief. The oldest son, as he held her in his arms, cried, ' You have been a good mother to us ! ' Her face colored again, her eyes kindled into a smile, and she whispered, ' You never said so before, John.' Then the light died out, and she was gone." " Oh, the malignity of a wrong world ! " said Bulwer ; " oh, that strange lust of mangling reputations, which seizes on hearts the least wantonly cruel ! Let two idle tongues utter a tale against some third person, who never offended the babblers, and how the tale spreads, like fire, lighted none knows how, in the herbage of an American prairie ! Who shall put it out ? " Beecher says : " When the absent are spoken of, some will speak gold of them, some silver, some iron, some lead, and some always speak dirt ; for they have a natu- ral attraction toward what is evil and think it shows penetration in them. I will not say that it is not Chris- tian to make beads of others' faults, and tell them over every day ; I say it is infernal. "^ If you want to know how the devil feels, you do know if you are such a one." "'Twas but one whisper — one — That muttered low, for very shame, That thing the slanderer dare not name, And 3'et its work was done." It is reported of Titus Vespasian, that when any one spoke ill of him, he was wont to say that he was above 404 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. false reports ; and if they were true, lie had more rea- son to be angry with himself than with the relater. And the good Emperor Theodosius commanded that no man should be punished that spake against him ; " for what is spoken slightly," said he, " is to be laughed at ; what sx^itefully, to be pardoned ; what angrily, to be pitied ; and if truly, I would thank him for it." In our criticism of others we should be mirrors reflect- ing beauties and excellences as faithfully as blemishes and deformities. Let us remember that, other things equal, it is the noblest man or woman who puts the highest and noblest estimate upon others. " I am not in the habit of deciding upon such matters hastily or in anger," wrote Wellington late in life to a friend ; " and the proof of this is, that I never had a quarrel with any man in my life." Charity seeketh not its own. No man can be truly rich who is selfish. Money, like a spring of water in the mountains, holds the fertility of the valley in its bosom, if it will only expend itself. Dashing down the height, it makes the meadows glad with its wealth, while beautiful flowers spring up along its banks, and bathe their fair faces in its sparkling surface. Obstruct it and the valleys become parched, the flowers and grass wither and die. The water loses its sparkle. The beautiful fountain becomes a stagnant swamp. The deer no longer comes to quench his thirst at the pool ; the blessing becomes a curse. So it is with money ; while it flows out freely it blesses humanity ; but when its good work is interrupted by hoarding, squandering, or abusing it, its whole influence is injurious. The heart hardens, the sympathies dry up, the soul becomes a desert under its blighting influence. The following epitaph was placed upon the tomb of Edward (the Good) : — " What we gave, we have ; What we spent, we had ; What we left, we lost." THE CHARITIES. 405 " There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth ; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tend- eth to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made fat ; and he that watereth shall be watered also himself." " Give, and it shall be given unto you ; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For the same measure you mete withal it shall be measured to you again." " He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly." " He who would sacrifice at manhood's altar must come with no mean offering. He must be generous and broad as Nature herself." "He who has little, to him who has less can spare." " The great depend on their hearts, not on their purses." " It is not the wealthy who are the generous givers." In our eagerness to make the most of life we must never forget the great paradox that we can get only by giving. Only he who loses his life shall find it. No sowing, no reaping, however warm the sun, gentle the rain, or congenial the soil. Gladstone in the midst of pressing duties found time to visit a poor sick boy whom he had seen sweeping the street crossings. He endeared himself to the heart of the English people by this more than by many of the great things he did ; as did Phillips Brooks by caring for a baby in the slums of Boston, that its mother might go out and get fresh air, endear himself to the American people more than by many great acts of his noble life. " The door between us and heaven cannot be open while that between us and our fellow-men is shut." The best thing about giving of ourselves is that what we get is always better than what we give. The reac- tion is greater than the action. We give time and money to the poor and unfortunate, but we develop charity and benevolence — the most divine virtues. " It is now pouring rain," wrote William Howard Russell from the English camp at the Crimea ; '' the 406 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. skies are black as ink ; the wind is howling over the stag- gering tents ; the trenches are turned into dikes ; in the tents the water is sometimes a foot deep ; our men have neither warm nor waterproof clothing ; they are out for twelve hours at a time in the trenches ; they are plunged into the inevitable miseries of a winter campaign, — and not a soul seems to care for their comfort, or even for their lives. These are hard truths, but the people of England must hear them. They must know that the wretched beggar who wanders about the streets of Lon- don in the rain leads the life of a prince, compared with the British soldiers who are fighting out here for their country. The commonest accessories of a hospi- tal are wanting ; there is not the least attention paid to decency or cleanliness. The fetid air can barely strug- gle out to taint the atmosphere, save through the chinks in the walls and roofs ; and, for all I can observe, these men die without the least effort being made to save them. The sick appear to be tended by the sick, and the dying by the dying." The winter of 1854 brought snow three feet deep on a level, and many were frozen in their tents. Of an army of forty-five thousand, over eighteen thousand were in the hospitals, with a death rate of sixty per cent, in the " Great Barrack." As if from the heaven that bent so blue above, it seemed to the suffering soldiers, the "Angel of the Crimea" appeared. But no, she was flesh and blood, from one of the most beautiful homes of England ; a wealthy, handsome, accomplished maiden, whose heart had been touched by the smothered wail of distress that quivered in the southern breezes. Florence Nightingale came with an idea and thirty-four trained nurses. She found cholera raging in a camp where Avater was a foot deep, and the air was reeking with the jooisonous effluvia from the unburied dead. The country was almost impassable for the horses which should have brought supplies, men were but half clothed or fed, and THE CHARITIES. 407 filth and pestilence were reaping a ghastly harvest. She established a laundry, an invalid's kitchen, a course of entertaining lectures for convalescents ; arranged for draining the camp ; and then began to give personal at- tention to the sufferers. She was nobly aided by her sister nurses. Now gently smoothing the pillow of a dying man, now writing letters home for those whose nerveless hands were unequal to the task, here speaking an encouraging word, and there bestowing a smile of sympathy, these angels in human form flitted around the beds of the suffering soldiers to such good effect that in a year and a half the death rate was reduced to a little over one per cent. " Blessed are the merciful," took on a new meaning to many a sick man as he watched those radiant faces and lissome forms that seemed to float in Godlike ministry through the crowded wards of the Crimean hospitals. "Wherever there is disease in its most dangerous form, and the hand of the spoiler most distressingly nigh," wrote the correspondent of the London " Times," "there is that incomparable woman sure to be seen ; her benignant presence is an influence for good comfort even amid the struggles of expiring nature. She is a ^ ministering angel,' without any exaggeration, in these hospitals, and as her slender form glides quietly along each corridor every poor fellow's face softens with gratitude at the sight of her. When all the medical officers have retired for the night, and silence and dark- ness have settled down upon these miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed, alone, with a little lamp in her hand, making her solitary rounds." "She would speak to one and another," a soldier wrote home, " and nod and smile to many more ; but she could not do it to all, you know, for we lay there by hundreds ; but we could kiss her shadow as it fell, and lay our heads on our pillows again content." I often wonder what the selfishness and hard-hearted- 408 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. ness of the human race would lead to had not a kind Providence placed amongst us the poor and wretched, that the sight of their misfortunes might stimulate us to keep alive the spark of charity and benevolence which He implanted in the human breast. The poor and unfortunate are our opportunity, our character-builders, the great schoolmasters of our moral and Christian growth. Every kind and noble deed performed for others is transmuted into food which nourishes the motive promoting its performance, and strengthens the muscles of habit. Grander discoveries than any that have yet been made, revelations that lay beyond the ken of Bacon's far-seeing vision, and beauties that shone outside the imagination of Shakespeare, await the evoking power of philanthropic genius. Benevolence is a world of itself, a world which mankind, as yet, has hardly begun to ex- plore. Justice, love, honor, truth, are the corner-stones of the holy government which is yet to be organized upon earth. For all true-hearted adventurers into these new realms of enterprise there are moral Edens to be planted, such as Milton with his celestial verse could never describe ; and there are heights of moral sublim- ity to be attained, such as Eosse, with his telescope, could never descry. " I was only twenty-four years of age when in Paris, whither I had gone with means given me by a friend," said Louis Agassiz, the great zoologist ; " but I was at last about to resign my studies, from want of ability to meet my expenses. Professor Mitscherlich was then on a visit in Paris, and he had asked me what was the cause of my depressed feelings ; I told him I had to go for I had nothing left. The next morning, as I was seated at breakfast, in front of the yard of the hotel where I lived, I saw the servant of Humboldt approach. He handed me a note, saying there was no answer, and disappeared. I opened the note, and I see it now be- THE CHARITIES. 409 fore me as distinctly as if I held the paper in my hand. It said : " My friend, I hear that you intend leaving Paris in consequence of some embarrassment. That shall not be. I wish you to remain here as long as the object for which you came is not accomplished. I in- close you a check for fifty pounds. It is a loan which you may repay when you can." Charity never faileth. From a lighted candle a thousand others may be lit without diminishing its flame. What an abounding charity was shown in the life of Christ ! Eeviled, He reviled not again, but steadily, ear- nestly, unfalteringly pursued His object, the leadership and love of mankind. The same yesterday, to-day, and forever, He wins his onward way by the influence of His perfect humanity in scarcely less degree than by His divine attributes. " Every man shall bear his own burden." " True," says Bulwer, " but now turn to an easier verse in the same chapter, — ^ Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.' " " If any little word of mine can make a life the brighter, If any little song of mine can make a heart the lighter, God help me speak the little word, and take my bit of singing And drop it in some lonel}' vale, to set the echoes ringing." Judge not: What looks to thy dim eyes a stain In God's pure light may only be A scar brought from some well-won field, Where thou wouldst only faint and yield. Adelaide A. Procter. Then gently scan your brother man, Still gentler sister wom'an : Though they may gang a kennin' wrang, To step aside is human. Who made the heart, 't is He alone Decidedly can try us : He knows each chord, — its various tone, Each spring, — its various bias : Then at the balance let 's be mute, We never can adjust it: What 's done we partly may compute, But know not what 's resisted. Burns. CHAPTER XXIIL THE CURSE OF IDLENESS. "Idleness is the sepulchre of the living man." Absence of occupation is not rest; A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed. COWPER. Lost wealth ma}^ be restored by industry, the wreck of health regained by temperance, forgotten knowledge restored by stud}'; but whoever looked on a vanished hour, or recalled his neglected opportunities — Heaven's record of wasted time ?— Mrs. Sigourney. An idler is a watch that wants both hands ; As useless if it goes as when it stands. COVVPER. Doing nothing is an apprenticeship to doing wrong. — W. F. Crafts. Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears. — Franklin. If you are idle you are on the way to ruin, and there are few stopping- places upon it. It is rather a precipice than a road. — H. W. Beecher. A millstone and the human heart are driven ever round ; If they have nothing else to grind, the}^ must themselves be ground. Von Logau. Every man's task is his life-preserver. — George B. Emerson. Labor is life ! 'T is still water that faileth; Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth ; Keep the watch wound, or the dark rust assaileth. Mrs. Osgood. There is a firefly in the southern clime "Which shineth only when upon the wing ; So is it with the mind: When once we rest, we darken. Bailey. "Arise, Methuselah, and build thee a house," said the angel in an old legend, "for thou shalt live j'et five hundred years longer." But Me- thuselah, then five centuries old, replied: ** If I am to live but five hun- dred years longer, it is not worth while to build me a house." "He is a dreadfully lazy man," began Spurgeon, when asked to enumerate the bad habits of a ne'er-do- THE CURSE OF IDLENESS. 411 well. " Stop ! " exclaimed the old clergyman to whom he was speaking, " all sorts of sins are included in this one." There never was a truer saying than that " an idle brain is the devil's workshop." Indeed, while " The devil tempts all other men, the idle man tempts the devil." The following printer's squib is suggestive : — " AUCTION. " Will be sold by Public Vendue, Friday, the 18th of August, at the house of Lemuel Poorsoul, in Nopenny Township, in the County of Lackthrift, a litter of Pups, two Gamecocks, three Jugs, one Checker-Board, and a Euchre Pack." "Nature knows no pause," writes Goethe, "and at- taches a curse upon all inaction." While a criminal was exchanging his own for a prison suit in the penitentiary of Connecticut he remarked, " I never did a day's work in my life." JSTo wonder that he reached the state prison. " Out of work " has caused more crime and wretched- ness than almost anything else. These words were found tattooed on the right arm of a convict in a French prison : " The past has deceived me, the present torments me, and the future terrifies me." His life had been spent in idleness, which led to crime. " No trade " is the open sesame to our jails. It is said that ninety per cent, of the convicts in the Massa- chusetts State Prison at Charlestown entered by the password, " No trade." Sir Walter Scott, writing to his son at school, says : " I cannot too much impress upon your mind that labor is- the condition which God has imposed on us in every station of life ; there is nothing worth having that can 412 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. be had without it. As for knowledge, it can no more be planted in the human mind without labor than a field of wheat can be produced without the previous use of the plow. If we neglect our spring, our summer will be useless and contemptible, our harvest will be chaff, and the winter of our old age unrespected and desolate." When asked the cause of his brother's death. Sir Horace Vere replied, " He died, sir, of having nothing to do." " Ah ! " said the Marquis of Si^inola, '' that is enough to kill any general of us all." Epes Sargent says that the man who did not think it respectable to bring up his children to work has just heard from his three sons. One is a driver on a canal ; another has been arrested as a vagrant ; and a third has gone to a certain institution, to learn to hammer stone under a keeper. A lazy fellow once complained that he could not find bread for his family. " Neither can I," said an honest laborer ; " I have to work for all the bread I get." A lazy youth will be a lazy man just as surely as a crooked sapling makes a crooked tree. Laziness grows on people ; it begins a cobweb and ends in iron chains. If you will be nothing, just wait to be somebody. Idle- ness travels very leisurely and poverty soon overtakes her. To be idle is to be poor. Leisure is sweet to those who have earned it, but burdensome to those who get it for nothing. Who are you, young man, in the prime and vigor of manhood, that you should be exempt from life's bur- dens and duties and eat bread earned by the sweat of another's brow, when you have never added a farthing to the coffers of the Avorld ? What if the sheep refuse the wool to cover your lazy back, and its body to gratify your gluttonous stomach ? What if the earth refuse bread to prolong your useless, idle life ? ^' The first external revelation of the dry-rot in men," THE CURSE OF IDLENESS. 413 says Dickens, " is a tendency to lurk and lounge ; to be at street corners without intelligible reasons ; to be going anywhere when met; to be about many places rather than any ; to do nothing tangible but to have an intention of performing a number of tangible duties to-morrow or the day after." No man is wretched in his energy. Idleness, especially that of beggars, was once pun- ishable in England even by death. The first offence was punished by whipping ; after the second offence, the upper part of the ear was cut off ; the third offence incurred imprisonment in jail. If indicted for wander- ing, idleness, loitering, and found guilty, " he shall have judgment to suffer pains and execution of death as a felon, and as an enemy of the commonwealth." In Athens idleness was a punishable crime, and not only were the citizens compelled to industry, but to the utmost exertion of their talents. It was not enough that each should choose a profession ; the court of Areopagus inquired into and ascertained the extent of his funds, the amount of his expenditures, and the measure of his industry and economy. A young German nobleman supplemented a college course by extensive travel, and then returned to live in idleness upon his large estate. Life soon became so insupportable that he told a friend that he should com- mit suicide the following night. The friend, a manu- facturer, made no attempt to dissuade him ; but asked him, as a final favor, to inspect some interesting work on Avhich his operatives were engaged. The nobleman came ; and, at a sign from the manufacturer, several workmen seized the visitor, put a blouse on him, and made him work hard. When the laborers stopped for refreshment the visitor was so tired and hungry that he was glad to sit down with the others to a lunch of black bread, sausages, and beer. How good it tasted, and how welcome seemed the few minutes of rest ! 414 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. " Friend," said a workman who learned of his suicidal intent, "you see before you the father of five children. I lost three of them at one fell swoop. I was almost crazy ; I wished to follow them. But I had to work for the rest, who are dearer to me than life itself ; and now working for them has made life sweet to me." The nobleman thanked his friend for playing so shrewd a trick, and at once began a long and happy career of usefulness. The emptiness and misery sometimes found in idle high life is illustrated by the following letter written by a French countess to the absent count : — Dear Husband, — Not knowing what else to do I will write to you. Not knowing what to say, I will now close. Wearily yours. Countess De E. De Quincey pictures a woman sailing over the water in a boat awakening out of a sleep to find her necklace untied. One end hangs over the side of the boat, and pearl after pearl drops into the stream. While she clutches at one, just falling, another drops beyond her grasp. Like these pearls from the string, our hours and days drop one after another, and are forever be- yond our reach. " I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide," wrote Lord Chesterfield to his son, " for by it the man is efficiently destroyed, although the appetite of the brute may survive." There is no one thing which will sooner wreck a young man and utterly ruin all his future prospects than the reputation of being lazy, shiftless. If possi- ble, dawdlers, who are forever dillydallying, are worse than lazy people. A dawdler is absolutely good for no- thing. If a young man is going to amount to anything his success will depend very largely upon his reputa- THE CURSE OF IDLENESS. 415 tion — what other people think of him. No one is will- ing to praise or help a dawdler. A young man must have the reputation of being prompt, energetic, decisive, earnest, and true, if he would have the assistance of others ; and, without this, success is impossible. An old sea captain so dreaded this habit of dawdling among his crew, because it demoralized all discipline, that when he could find nothing else for them to do he would make them scour the anchor. Who does not know some member of the "Idle Family " ? Idleness is a sly thief ; she snatches a minute here and a few minutes there ; she clips a quar- ter of an hour from your music lesson, or your other duties. We determine every morning that she shall have none of this day, but every night we have to con- fess her petty thefts with chagrin. She holds you "just a minute" till your train has gone, "just a min- ute " till the bank has closed ; she induces you to get your house insured to-morrow, but it burns to-night ; to apply for the situation to-morrow, but it is taken to- day. She makes you tardy at school, just a little late for your engagements, until you have lost your reputa- tion for promptness and ruined your credit. It is well for every youth to post up in his study or room a list of "thieves" or "time wasters,^' such as dawdling, half working, listless working, working with- out energy, aimless working, oversleeping, late rising, loafing, useless visiting, fooling, working merely for the sake of working, overworking, studying with jaded, weary mind and flagging energies, useless letter writing, idle calling, amusements which are not necessary for health or recreation, callers and visitors who steal away precious hours and minutes, dreaming, talking nonsense, building air castles, killing time traveling without a purpose, reading foolish stories, procrastination, sloth, half doing things which never amount to anything be- cause not finished. v: 416 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. A printer's handbook contains the following items : — SOCIETY TO PROMOTE HABITS OF INDUSTRY. Initiation of Members. Knowing that the Human Hand, intelligently educated and skillfully employed, has delivered man from Barbarism, and made his position far superior to that of animals not possessing this most useful appendage, I therefore truly and Faithfully Covenant That my hands, and those of others placed under my charge, shall be carefully trained in some Handicraft bene- ficial to the race, and that I will on all occasions endeavor to keep them diligently employed. Philanthropic Busybody. report of committee on extension of usefulness. Recommendations for Future Activity. In the prosecution of our labors we find many persons living under trees expect- ing fruit to drop into their mouths, others waiting for some- thing to turn up, numbers lingering around hoping to step into other people's shoes, some who appear anxious to shovel snow in summer or harvest grain in mid-winter, many sighing for Luck to come their way. or looking for a Big Prize from the lottery or race track, and a multitude who in other waj^s are waiting for the improbable ; we therefore advise that a number of the most energetic of our co-laborers be sent to stir them up to a sense of practical duty. "I remember," says Hillard, "a satirical poem, in which the devil is represented as fishing for men, and adapting his bait to the tastes and temperaments of his prey ; but the idlers were the easiest victims, for they swallowed even the naked hook." The mind of the idler preys upon itself. It is the holidays, the evenings, the spare moments that try character ; the great strain does not come in the busy day. If you want to know a young man's character, find out what he does Avith his spare minutes. What do they mean to him ? What does he see in them ? Does he see education, self-culture, a coveted book, in the odd THE CURSE OF IDLENESS. 417 moments and half-holidays which others throw away ; or does he see a sparring-match, a saloon, a gambling- place, horse-racing, or a pool table ? Many a man, after acqniring a fortune by habits of industry and economy, has retired to enjoy the leisure to which he has so long looked forward as the goal of competence, onl}^ to find a life of idleness so intolerable that he must choose between a renewal of business ac- tivity or death from the lack of anything to keep the vital forces in motion. For the first time he learns that the command to live for a purpose is intended for our good, as without some purpose we cannot long exist. As digestion is measured by appetite, our hold on life is measured by our interest in various objects of thought. The mind must be active, and if we do not furnish worthy employment, it will feed upon itself and consume its own substance. The man without definite work soon becomes the victim of a diseased mind. Melan- choly and disappointment prey upon him and rob him of aspiration and happiness. Nature demands that you labor until you. are tired be- fore she will reward you with sweet, refreshing sleep and a ravenous appetite, — luxuries which the idle and the lazy never enjoy. She reserves these boons for her hard-handed toilers. As their pay is small she gives them this additional compensation for doing the world's drudgery. The bicycle falls the moment it stops ; industry keeps many a life from falling. The man who stands with his hands in his pockets month after month while others are working will soon have them in other folks' pockets. The let-alone principle is dangerous. Let your brain alone and you will become an imbecile. Let your land alone and you will become a pauper. Let your neigh- bor alone and you will become selfish. Let your soul alone and you will become devilish. 418 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. A lazy man is of no more use in the world than a dead man, and he takes up more room. Who waits for something to turn up, often turns up himself in jail. " There is a perennial nobleness and even sacredness in work," said Carlyle. " Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man who honestly and earnestly works ; in idleness alone is there perpetual desx^air." " Consider how, even in the meanest sorts of labor, the whole soul of man is composed into a kind of real harmony the instant he sets himself to work. Doubt, Desire, Sorrow, Eemorse, Indignation, Despair itself, all these like hell-dogs lie beleaguering the soul of the poor day-worker, as of every man ; but he bends him- self with free valor against his task, and all these are stilled, all these shrink, murmuring far off into their caves. The man is now a man. The blessed glow of labor in him, is it not as purifying fire ? " There is great competition in shirking, and pretty hard work is made of it sometimes. Perhaps the most humiliating exhibition which shirks make of themselves, as Holland says, is on the occasion of a change in the national administration. One hundred dollars in bor- rowed money, three clean shirts, a long petition, an anxious face, and a carpet bag form the outfit of some- thing less than 100,000 able-bodied men who make pil- grimages to Washington once in four years. They consider this a government of the politician, for the pol- itician, and by the politician. " If ever this free people — this government — is utterly demoralized," said Lincoln, " it will come from this human struggle for office, — a way to live with- out Avork." " There is one plain rule of life," says John Stuart Mill, " eternally binding, and independent of all varia- tions in creeds, embracing equally the greatest moral- THE CURSE OF IDLENESS. 419 ists and the smallest. It is this : try thyself unwea- riedly till thou fiiidest the highest thing thou art capable of doing, faculties and outward circumstances being both duly considered, and then do it." Euskin, on be- ing told of a man who was a genius, immediately inquired, " Does he work ? " Thousands of honest people who would cut their hands off sooner than steal a penny from me do not hesitate to drop in on me and steal an hour of my time which no money can replace. He who steals the time of a public servant trespasses on a nation's time. " Nothing is worse for those who have business than the visits of those who have none," was the motto of a Scotch editor. Not until the wounds of the world are healed, not until the last thirsty soul has been led to the Eiver of Life, has an able-bodied man a right to lay down his armor and call a halt. Time is exactly what we make it : in the hands of the wise, a blessing; in the hands of the foolish, a curse ; in the hands of the wise, a preparation for life eternal ; in the hands of the foolish, a preparation for the condemnation that is everlasting. To you it is much ; to your neighbor, it is naught. John Euskin keeps before him constantly, inscribed upon a large piece of chalcedony, "■ To-day." Could I give the youth of this country but one word of advice it would be this : Let no moment pass until you have extracted from it every possibility. WatcJi every grain in the hourglass. Make each day stand for something. Neither heaven nor earth has any place for the drone ; he is a libel on his species. No glamour of wealth or social prestige can hide his essential ugliness. It is better to carry a hod or wield a shovel in honest endeavor to be of some use to humanity than to be nursed in luxury and be a parasite. 420 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. " Work, work, m}' boy, be not afraid; Look labor boldly in the face; Take up the hammer or the spade, And blush not for your humble place." Lost! lost! lost! A gem of countless price, Cut from the living rock, And graved in Paradise : Set round with three times eight Large diamonds, clear and bright, And each with sixty smaller ones. All changeful as the light. Mrs. L. H. Sigourney. Labor is rest from the sorrows that greet us, Rest from all petty vexations that meet us, Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us, Rest from world-sirens that lure us to ill. Work — and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow; Work — thou shalt ride over Care's combing billow ; Lie not down wearied 'neath woe's weeping willow; Work with a stout heart and resolute will. F. S. Osgood. HENRY CLAY " The Mill-Boy of the Slashes." The world is self-taught in a thousand cases where it is college bred in one. To live in America, Emerson's '■ land of opportunity," is an inspiration, an education in itself. CHAPTER XXIV. OUR SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS. Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that. — Fkanklin. One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters. — Geokge Her- bert. Biography, especially of the great and good, who have risen by their own exertions to eminence and usefulness, is an inspiring and ennobling study. Its direct tendency is to reproduce the excellence it records. — Horace Mann. Ages on ages after the poor clay in which the creative intellect was en- shrined has mouldered back to its kindred dust, the truths which it has unfolded, moral or intellectual, are holding on their pathway of light and glory, awakening other minds to the same heavenly career. — Edward Everett. Lives Phidias in his work alone ? His Jove returns to air : But wake one Godlike shape from stone, And Phidian thought is there ! . Blot out the Iliad from the earth. Still Homer's thought would fire Each deed that boasts sublimer worth, And each diviner lyre. Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time. I am a part- of all that I have met. Lttton. Longfellow. Tennyson. More than two hundred years before Christ a power- ful ruler of Egypt expended nearly $1,000,000 in the erection of a marble tower four hundred feet high, on the island of Pharos, opposite Alexandria. He ordered 422 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. that a marble tablet should be built into the wall near the summit, bearing his name in conspicuous letters. When the vast structure was completed, it was consid- ered one of the seven wonders of the world. From its top a light shone by night as a beacon to sailors far out on the Mediterranean. By day it was visited by thou- sands of curious travelers, who read on the tablet the inscription "Ptolemy II., Philadelphus." For many years the name of the royal founder stood out in bold relief, but it was written on mortar made to imitate marble, spread over the face of the tablet. Time grad- ually removed the inscription ; the mortar, crumbling, fell ; and then, carved in enduring stone, appeared the name of the Greek architect, Sostratus, who had secretly taken this course to perpetuate his own name as the true author of the beauty, strength, and grandeur ex- pressed by the lofty pile. So many an eminent man in the zenith of his fame is regarded as the product of some party or system, but when the label grows dim and disappears, there stands out in the life the deeply graven name, " Mother," per- haps all unknown to the crowd which applauds her son. The first act of President Garfield after taking the oath of office was to kiss his aged mother. " I owe everything I am and have," he said, " to my mother." " A kiss from my mother made me a painter," said Benjamin West. " If the whole world were put into one scale and my mother in the other," said Lord Lang- dale, " the world would kick the beam." " As soon as we are born," said Goethe, " the world begins to work upon us, and this goes on to the end." " Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee," said Job. And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everj-thing. SlIAKESPEAKE. OUR SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS. 423 The country boy often bemoans his lack of a chance as did Clay, Webster, and thousands of others, and thinks his youth among the rocks, the mountains, the forests, has been almost thrown away ; and he longs for the time when he can shake off his farm fetters, and flee to the city where there is opportunity. But years after, in some great legislative emergency perhaps, in some c<:>ii- test with the city-bred youth, the rocks, the mountains, the streams, the granite hills which had unconsciously entered into the fibre and stamina of his life, rush to his assistance, and force his city opponent to the wall. No, these grand schoolmasters of his youth have not taught their lessons in vain, but they have become a part of his very life. " At the call of a noble sentiment, again the woods wave, the pines murmur, the river rolls and shines, and the cattle low upon the mountain, putting the spells of persuasion, the keys of power, into man's hand. Bend to the persuasion which is flowing to you from every object in nature, to be tongue to the heart of man, and to show the besotted world how pass- ing fair is wisdom." The best part of our education comes from Nature, and she makes us pay a heavy price for shutting ourselves up in the city where we cannot breathe her sweet breath, nor learn lessons from her birds and streams and flowers, her mountains, her val- leys and forests, her meadows and hills. She keeps the great school of the world ; she is the developer of man- kind, the unfolder of life, the invigorator of the race. She holds the balm for all our ills, and he who shuts himself out from her influences- must pay the penalty. He must forever be dwarfed in some part of his man- hood, his horizon limited, his education incomplete. The muscle and sinew, the nerve, the stamina, the stay- ing powers, the courage, the fortitude, the grit, the grip and pluck of the world, have ever come mostly from tlie country. The tendency of city life is to deteriorate the physical and the moral man. There is more refinement, 424 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. but less vigor ; more culture, but less stamina ; more grace, but less liardihood; more sentiment, but less sense; more books, but less knowledge ; more learning, but less wisdom; more information, but less practical ability; more of the ethereal, but less of the substantial ; more gristle, but less backbone ; more newspaper reading, but poorer memories ; more society, but less sincerity. ^' What a grand sight ! how soul - inspiring and thought-producing ! " exclaimed John Marshall, as he gazed on the mountains of Virginia. ''No wonder Patrick Henry was an orator, no wonder he was elo- quent ; how could he have been otherwise, reared amid such sublime scenes as these ! " "I could not help thinking," said Stephen Allen in his reminiscences of Daniel Webster, " as I stood with some of his neighbors and kinsmen upon the spot where Webster first saw the light of day, that those wild bleak hills amongst which he was cradled, and those rough pastures in which he grew, had left their impress upon his soul." The geography and history of the United States are mapped and stamped upon the Congress at Washington. If we had power to analyze a senator, we could repro- duce the mountains, valleys, lakes, meadows, and ocean scenery of his native town from the effect they have had in modifying and shaping his life. The story of his State, its legends and poetry are all interwoven in the tissue of his mind. Their influence is seen in every fibre of his being. You can distinguish the man of the old Granite State from the blithe representatives of the sunny south. You can trace the rugged climate and granite in a Webster, the sunshine in a Calhoun or a Clay. The universe is one great kindergarten for man. Everything that exists has brought with it its own peculiar lesson. The mountain teaches stability and grandeur ; the ocean immensity and change. Forests, OUR SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS. 425 lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes, — every form of animate or inanimate existence, leaves its impress upon the soul of man. Even the bee and the ant have brought their little lessons of industry and economy. " You curse and swear at such an ungodly rate that I tremble to hear you ! " exclaimed an old crone noted for vulgarity and cursing. *' You are the ungodliest person for swearing I ever heard in my whole life ! " The sinner stands thunderstruck at such a reproof from such a source, but his voice is soon heard preaching Christ. Bigots hunt him from pulpit to prison, where he is kept twelve years for daring to preach the gospel. But from that dungeon, cold and dim, John Bunyan, the converted tinker, sends forth the " Pilgrim's Prog- ress,'' the allegory of the ages. " I am indebted to my father for living," said Alex- ander the Great, " but to my teacher for living well." A man who heard Lincoln speak in Norwich, Conn., some time before he was nominated for the presidency was greatly impressed by the closely knit .logic of the speech. Meeting him next day on a train, he asked him how he acquired his wonderful logical powers and such acuteness in analysis. Lincoln replied : " It was my terrible discouragement which did that for me. When I was a young man I went into an office to study law. I saw that a lawyer's business is largely to prove things. I said to myself, ' Lincoln, when is a thing proved ? ' That was a poser. What constitutes proof ? Not evidence ; that was -not the point. There may be evidence enough, but wherein consists the proof ? You remember the old story of the German who was tried for some crime, and they brought half a dozen respectable men who swore they saw the prisoner commit the deed. ' Veil,' he replied, ' vat of dat ? Six men schwears dot dey saw me do it. I prings more nor two tozen goot men who schwears dey did not see me 426 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. do it.' So, wherein is the proof? I groaned over the question, and finally said to myself, ' Ah ! Lincoln, you can't tell.' Then I thought, ' What use is it for me to be in a law office if I can't tell when a thing is proved? ' So I gave it up, and went back home, over in Ken- tucky. " Soon after I returned to the old log cabin I fell in with a copy of Euclid. I had not the slightest notion what Euclid was, and I thought I would find out. I found out ; but it was no easy job. I looked into the book and found it was all about lines, angles, surfaces, and solids ; but I could not understand it at all. I therefore began, at the beginning, and before spring I had gone through that old Euclid's geometry, and could demonstrate every proposition like a book. Then in the spring, when I had got through with it, I said to myself one day, ^ Ah, do you know now when a thing is proved ? ' And I answered, ' Yes, sir, I do.' ' Then you may go back to the law shop,' and I went." No individual can develop into the largest manhood or womanhood alone. Society is to the individual what the sun and showers are to the seed. It develops him, expands him, unfolds him, calls him out of himself. Other men are his opportunity. Each one is a match which ignites some new tinder in him unignitible by any previous match. Without these the sparks of indi- viduality would sleep in him forever. The moment man cuts himself off from living connec- tion with the human race and its needs, he begins to die from poor circulation. He may barely live, but he is ever after a cold-blooded animal, with low vitality. Such lives become marbleized and unsympathetic. We long ago had to give up solitary confinement continued any length of time in our prisons, as it led to insanity, imbecility, and death. Eeal power is not found alone in the study, the libi^ary, or the lecture hall, but in the field, in the forest, in the OUR SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS. 427 market, in the store, on the busy street, in actual con- tact with men and things. The world is self-taught in a thousand cases where it is college bred in one. An ambition to get on in the world, the steady strug- gle to get up, to reach higher, is a constant source of education in foresight, in prudence, in economy, indus- try, courage ; in fact, is the great developer of many of the strongest and noblest qualities of character. Were it not for this struggle to get on, living would be in- tolerable in any community. No one can imagine the direful effect of its absence. It would be like the loss of gravitation in the physical world. Everything would go to destruction. Indolence, shiftlessness, would run riot everywhere. There would be no enterprise, no progress. The world would rush back to barbarism. This struggle educates the whole community in a thousand ways. " Were the question asked," says Stearns, " what is at this moment the strongest power in operation for controlling, regulating, and inciting the actions of men, what has most at its disposal the condition and desti- nies of the world, we must answer at once, it is business, in its various ranks and departments ; of which com- merce, foreign and domestic, is the most appropriate representation. In all prosperous and advancing com- munities — advancing in arts, knowledge, literature, and social refinement — business is king. Other influences in society may be equally indispensable, and some may think far more dignified, but Business is King. The statesman and the scholar, the nobleman and the prince, equally with the manufacturer, the mechanic, and the laborer, pursue their several objects only by leave granted, and means furnished, by this potentate." What an education there is in the honest pursuit of wealth ! The discipline of labor, frugality, self-denial, and self-control which money-making gives are worth a thousand times more than money. One is constantly 428 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. compelled to bring out the highest and best in him in his very effort to obtain that which he would possess. It is the never-ending demand for adjustment to sur- rounding circumstances ; it is the constant drill in the round of petty details ; it is the perpetual call upon our readiness of intellect ; it is the unceasing necessity for quick decision and prompt action, which develops the man. Defeats and failures are great developers of charac- ter. They have made the giants of our race by giving Titanic muscles, brawny sinews, and far-reaching intel- lects. " I was not rocked and dandled into a legislator,'^ said Burke ; " ' nitoi' in adversum ' is the motto for a man like me." Poverty often hides her charms under an ugly mask ; yet thousands have been forced into greatness by their very struggle to keep the wolf from the door. She is often the only agent Nature can employ to call man out of himself. Nature cares little for his ease and pleas- ure ; it is the man she is after, and she will pay any price or resort to any expedient to allure him. She masks her own disciplinary ends in man's wants. She coaxes and leads him ever onward, by discovering new wants ; and the struggle to gratify these wants develops the very character she desires. Much maligned want is one of the greatest school- masters of our race. It has educated men from ob- scurity, and led them up through the wilderness of difficulty into the land of promise. What brave souls has it revealed, what unselfish devotion begotten ! It found Poussin painting signboards on the road to Paris, and made him one of the greatest of artists. It found Chantry, the sculptor, driving a donkey with milk cans on its back to supply his mother's custom- ers, and made him one of the greatest sculptors of the century. It sent Kichard Foley fiddling and split- ting nails on his way to Sweden to learn the Swedish OUR SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS. 429 way of nail-splitting. It found a Homer wandering on the shores of Greece, and made him sing the Iliad of all time. It saw a boy Shakespeare holding horses at the theatre door, and wrung from him the immortal "Hamlet." Over what a university greater than all others has it grandly presided. What statesmen, what philosophers, what scholars, what authors, what philan- thropists, what merchants, have been graduated from its halls, proud to call it Alma Mater ! Men are naturally lazy, and require some great stim- ulus to goad their flagging ambitions and enable them to overcome the inertia which comes from ease and the consciousness of inherited wealth. Whatever lessens in a young man the feeling that he must make his way in the world cripples his chance of success. Poverty has ever been the priceless spur that has goaded man up to his own loaf. Misfortune has forced into prominence many a man otherwise unknown. "When God would educate a man, He compels him to learn bitter lessons. He sends him to school to the necessities rather than to the graces, that, by knowing all suffering, he may know also the eternal consolation." No education is adequate to the needs of life which does not produce decision of character, courage, self- control, and perseverance. " The fruit of liberal education," says C. W. Eliot, " is not learning, but the capacity and desire to learn ; not knowledge, but power." To live in America, Emerson's " land of opportunity," is an inspiration, — an education in itself. How can any man be idle in a land whose very climate is a tonic stimulating to effort, whose countless noble examples beckon us onward, and whose untold resources invite to the display of energy in every direction ? CHAPTEE XXV. BOOKS. Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go; keep her, for she is thy life. — Solomon. Books are a guide in youth and an entertainment for age. They sup- port us under solitude, and keep us from being a burden to ourselves. — Jeremy Colliek. The only true equalizers in the world are books; the onh' treasure-house open to all comers is a libi*ary. — Dr. Langford. If the crowns of all the kingdoms of the empire were laid down at my feet in exchange for my books and m}^ love of reading, I would spurn them all. — Fenelon. My earh-^ and invincible love of reading, I would not exchange for the treasures of India. — Gibbon. At this day, as much company as I have kept, and as much as I love it, I love reading better. — Pope. When I consider what some books have done for the world, and what they are doing, how they keep up our hope, awaken new courage and faith, soothe pain, give an ideal life to those whose homes are hard and cold, bind together distant ages and foreign lands, create new worlds of beauty, bring down truths from heaven, — I give eternal blessings for this gift. — James Freeman Clarke. Books are the friends of the friendless. — George S. Hillard. Who of us can tell What he had been, had Cadmus never taught The art that fixes into form the thought, — Had Plato never spoken from his cell, Or his high harp blind Homer never strung ? BULWER. " When a boy," said Horace Greeley, " I would go reading to the woodpile ; reading to the garden ; read- ing to the neighbors. My father was poor and needed my services through the day, but it was a mighty strug- gle for him to get me to bed at night. I would take a pine knot, put it on the backlog, pile my books around GEORGE ELIOT Happy is the man tliat findeth wisdom, And the man tliat getteth understanding : For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, And tlie gain thereof, tlian fine gold. She is more precious than rubies : And all the things thou canst desire Are not to be compared unto her." BOOKS. 431 me, and lie down and read all through the long winter evenings ; silent, motionless, and dead to all the world around me, alive only to the world to which I was transported by my book." How many a boy could tell a similar story ! How many a man in prosperity has found one of his greatest pleasures in books ; and to how many more have they proved a solace in poverty and pain, a refuge from care, a pleasant substitute for gloomy thoughts ! Perhaps no other thing has such power to lift the poor out of his j^overty, the wretched out of his misery, to make the burden-bearer forget his burden, the sick his suffering, the sorrower his grief, the downtrodden his degradation, as books. They are friends to the lonely, companions to the deserted, joy to the joyless, hope to the hopeless, good cheer to the disheartened, a helper to the helpless. They bring light into darkness, and sunshine into shadow. We may be poor, socially ostracized, shut out from all personal association with the great and the good, and yet be in the best society in the world, in books. We may live in palaces, converse with princes, be fa- miliar with royalty, and associate with the greatest and noblest of all time. A Hebrew Bible in the Vatican weighs three hundred and twenty-five pounds, and is worth its weight in gold. Were it the only correct copy of the Bible in Hebrew, its value would be much greater. If it were the only cor- rect copy in any language, its value would be fabulous. To-day the art of the printer enables you to buy a correct copy of the Bible for fifty cents ; but if you avail yourself freely of its inexhaustible treasures, and measure its worth by its influence upon your life and the lives of those around you, is it not beyond all price ? It has served as a lamp to the feet and a light to the path of millions of wayfarers in the journey of life, and no other book can ever take its place. 432 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. The modern press places at our command thousands of other good books at merely nominal prices. A copy of a book which has cost the author and publisher $5000 we can buy for a dollar or two, and through the modern newspaper we can get the services of an army of thinkers and workers for the price of a postage stamp. Where else can we get so great returns for the money invested ? The only limit to the dividends we draw is found in the thoroughness and thoughtfulness with which we read. A book that starts a young person in a life career is a great power. The inspiration of a single book has made preachers, poets, philosophers, authors, and states- men. On the other hand, the demoralization of a single book has sometimes made infidels, profligates, and crim- inals. Ossian's poems had a marked effect on Napo- leon's life, and he was never weary of sounding the praises of Homer ; but his reading was very extensive, including histories of all times and all countries, mathe- matics, Virgil, Tasso, books on theology and legislation. Cotton Mather's " Essay to do Good " read by the boy Franklin influenced his whole life. He advised every- body to read with a pen in hand and to make notes of all they read. Emerson's book on nature affected Tjaidall's whole career. Beecher said that Kuskin's works taught him the secret of seeing, and that no man could ever again be quite the same man or look at the world in the same way after reading him. Samuel Drew said, " Locke's '■ Essay on the Understanding ' awakened me from stupor, and induced me to form a resolution to abandon the grovel- ing views I had been accustomed to maintain." An English tanner, whose leather gained a great reputation, said he should not have made it so good if he had not read Carlyle. The lives of Washington and Henry Clay, which Lincoln borrowed from neighbors in the BOOKS. 433 wilderness, and devoured by the light of the cabin fire, inspired his life. In his early manhood he read Paine's " Age of Keason," and Yolney's " Euins," which so in- fluenced his mind that he wrote an essay to prove the unreliability of the Bible. These two books nearly un- balanced his moral character. But, fortunately, the books which fell into his hands in after years corrected this evil influence. The trend of many a life for good or ill, for success or failure, has been determined by a single book. The books which we read early in life are those which influence us most. When Garfleld was working for a neighbor he read " Sindbad the Sailor " and the " Pirate's Own Book.'' These books revealed a new world to him, and his mother with difficulty kept him from going to sea. He was fascinated with the sea life which these books pictured to his young imagina- tion. The " Voyages of Captain Cook " led William Carey to go on a mission to the heathen. " The Imita- tion of Christ " and Taylor's " Holy Living and Dying " determined the character of John Wesley. "Shake- speare and the Bible," said John Sharp, "made me Archbishop of York." The "Vicar of Wakefield" awakened the poetical genius in Goethe. In the parlor window of the old mossy vicarage where Coleridge spent his dreamy childhood lay a well-thumbed copy of that volume of Oriental fancy, the "Arabian Nights," and he has told us with what mingled desire and apprehension he was wont to look at the precious book, until the morning sunshine had touched and illuminated it, when, seizing it hastily, he would carry it off in triumph to some leafy nook in the vicarage garden, and plunge delightedly into its maze of marvels and enchantments. How many poor boys and girls who thought they had " no chance " in life have been started upon noble careers by the grand books of Smiles, Todd, Mathews, Hunger, Whipple, Geikie, Thayer, and others. 434 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. The greatest advantage of books does not always come from what we remember of them, but from their suggestiveness. A good book often serves as a match to light the dormant powder within us. There is explo- sive material enough in most of us if we can only reach it. A good book or a good friend often serves to wake up our latent possibilities. Books often excite thought in great writers, even upon entirely different subjects. We often find in books what we thought and felt, could we have expressed ourselves. Indeed, we get acquainted with ourselves in books. We discover one feature in Emerson, another lineament in Shakespeare, an expres- sion in Homer, a glimpse of ourselves in Dante, and so on until we spell out our whole individuality. True, we get many pleasing reflections of ourselves from friends, many mirrored deformities from our enemies, and a characteristic here and there from the world ; but in a calm and unbiased Avay we find the most of ourselves, our strength, our weakness, our breadth, our limitations, our opinions, our tastes, our harmonies and discords, our jjoetic and prosaic qualities, in books. Madame Koland' would take a copy of Plutarch to church, and read a sentence at every pause in the devo- tional exercises. The book was also a favorite with Napoleon. Plutarch pictures with a master^ hand lit- tle peculiarities in his heroes unnoticed by other writers. He said he would leave descriptions of great battles to others, and confine himself to scenes indicating the souls of men. Shakespeare copied many things from Plutarch, sometimes repeating his language word for word. Cur- ran used to read Homer through once a year. The sight of an engraving representing Troy in flames, its battlements clearly defined, stimulated Dr. Schlie- mann to attempt those explorations and excavations which have resulted in such wonderful discoveries. Luther was encouraged by the life and writings of John Huss. Thousands of similar examples might be given. BOOKS. 435 We form many of our opinions from our favorite books. The author whom we prefer is our most potent teacher ; we look at the world through his eyes. If we habitually read books that are elevating in tone, pure in style, sound in reasoning, and keen in insight, our minds develop the same characteristics. If, on the contrary, we read weak or vicious books, our minds contract the faults and vices of the books. We cannot escape the influence of what we read any more than we can escape the influence of the air that we breathe. Many a boy has gone to sea and become "a rover for life under the influence of Marry at 's novels. Abbott's " Life of Napoleon," read at the age of seven years, sent one boy whom I knew to the army before he was fourteen. Many a man has committed crime from the leavening, multiplying influence of a bad book read when a boy. The chaplain of Newgate prison in Lon- don, in one of his annual reports to the Lord Mayor, referring to many fine-looking lads of respectable par- entage in the city prison, said that he discovered that "all these boys, without exception, had been in the habit of reading those cheap periodicals " which were published for the alleged amusement of youth of both sexes. There is not a police court or a prison in this country where similar cases could not be found. One can hardly measure the moral ruin that has been caused in this generation by the influence of bad books. It is said that Voltaire, at the age of five years, read a skeptical poem, the impression of which made him the arch-scoffer of his century. A lad once showed to an- other a book full of words and pictures of impurity. He only had it in his hands a few moments. Later in life he held high office in the church, and years after- ward told a friend that he would have given half he possessed had he never seen it, for its impure images at the most holy times would sometimes rise unbidden in his mind. 436 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. James T. Fields visited Jesse Pomeroy, the boy mur- derer, in jail. Pomeroy told him he had been a great reader of " blood and thunder " stories ; that he had read sixty dime novels about scalping and other bloody performances ; and he thought there was no doubt that these books had put the horrible thoughts into his mind which led to his murderous acts. If I find a young man devoted to the " Police Gazette," and similar reading, I am not surprised by and by to learn that his name has appeared in the records of the criminal court. " It is nearly an axiom," said BishojD Potter, " that people will not be better than the books they read." An ofi&cer of the British government declares that nearly all of the boys brought before the criminal courts owe their downfall to impure reading. The best books are those which stir us up most and make us the most determined to do something and be something ourselves. The best books are those which lift us to a higher plane where we breathe a purer at- mosphere. As we should associate with people who can inspire us to nobler deeds, so we should only read those books which have an uplifting power, and which stir us to make the most of ourselves and our opportu- nities. "When I went into the street, after reading that book," said a man who had been perusing Homer, " men seemed to be ten feet high." ** Read Homer once, and you can read no more, For all books else appear so mean, so poor ; Verse may seem prose ; but still persist to read, And Homer will be all the books you need." " If we consider merely the subtilty of disquisition," says Macaulay, " the force of imagination, the perfect energy and elegance of expression which characterize the great works of Athenian genius, we must pronounce them intrinsically most valuable ; but what shall we say BOOKS. 437 when we reflect that from hence have sprung, directly or indirectly, all the noblest creations of the human intellect ; that from hence were the vast accomplish- ments and the brilliant fancy of Cicero, the withering fire of Juvenal, the plastic imagination of Dante, the humor of Cervantes, the comprehension of Bacon, the wit of Butler, the supreme and universal excellence of Shakespeare ? All the triumphs of truth and genius over prejudice and power, in every country and in every age, have been the triumphs of Athens. Wherever a few great minds have made a stand against violence and fraud, in the cause of liberty and reason, there has been her spirit in the midst of them, inspiring, encour- aging, consoling ; by the lonely lamp of Erasmus, by the restless bed of Pascal, in the tribune of Mirabeau, in the cell of Galileo, on the scaffold of Sidney. But who shall estimate her influence on private happiness ? Who shall say how many thousands have been made wiser, happier, and better by those pursuits in which she has taught mankind to engage ; to how many the studies which took their rise from her have been wealth in poverty, liberty in bondage, health in sickness, society in solitude ? Her power is, indeed, manifested at the bar, in the senate, in the field of battle, in the schools of philosophy. But these are not her glory. Wherever literature consoles sorrow or assuages pain, wherever it brings gladness to eyes which fail with wakefulness and tears, and ache for the dark house and the long sleep, there is exhibited, in the noblest form, the immortal influence of Athens. " The dervise in the Arabian tale did not hesitate to abandon to his comrade the camels with their loads of jewels and gold, while he retained the casket of that mysterious juice which enabled him to behold at one glance all the hidden riches of the universe. Surely it is no exaggeration to say that no external advantage is to be compared with that purification of the intellectual 438 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. eye Avhich gives iis to contemplate the infinite wealth of the mental world, all the hoarded treasures of the pri- meval dynasties, all the shapeless ore of its yet unex- plored mines. This is the gift of Athens to man. Her freedom and her power have, for more than twenty cen- turies, been annihilated, her people have degenerated into timid slaves, her language into a barbarous jargon, her temples have been given up to the successive depre- dations of Eomans, Turks, and Scotchmen ; but her in- tellectual empire is imperishable. And when those who have rivaled her greatness shall have shared her fate, when civilization and knowledge shall have fixed their abode in distant continents ; when the sceptre shall have passed away from England ; when, perhaps, travelers from distant regions shall in vain labor to decipher on some mouldering pedestal the name of our proudest, chief, shall hear savage hymns chanted to some mis- shapen idol over the ruined dome of our proudest tem- ple, and shall see a single naked fisherman wash his nets in the river of the ten thousand masts, her influ- ence and her glory will still survive, fresh in eternal youth, exempt from mutability and decay, immortal as the intellectual principle from which they derive their origin, and over which they exercise their control." "At this hour, five hundred years since their crea- tion," says De Quincey, "the tales of Chaucer, never equaled on this earth for their tenderness and for life of picturesqueness, are read familiarly by many in the charming language of their natal day, and by others in the modernization of Dry den, of Pope, and Wordsworth. At this hour, one thousand eight hundred years since their creation, the pagan tales of Ovid, never equaled on this earth for the gayety of their movement and the capricious graces of their narrative, are read by all Christendom." "You get into society, in the widest sense," says Geikie, " in a great library, with the huge advantage of BOOKS. 439 needing no introductions, and not dreading repulses. From that great crowd you can choose what companions you please, for in the silent levees of the immortals there is no pride, but the highest is at the service of the lowest, with a grand humility. You may speak freely with any, without a thought of your inferiority; for books are perfectly well bred, and hurt no one's feelings by any discriminations." Sir William Waller observed, "In my study, I am sure to converse with none but wise men, but abroad it is impossible for me to avoid the society of fools." " It is the glorious prerogative of the empire of knowledge," says Webster, " that what it gains it never loses. On the contrary, it increases by the multiple of its own power, all its ends become means ; all its attainments help to new conquests." Did Homer and Plato and Socrates and Virgil ever dream that their words would echo through the ages, and aid in shaping men's lives in the nineteenth cen- tury ? They were mere infants when on earth in com- parison with the influence and power they now wield. Every life on the American continent has in some de- gree been influenced by them. Christ, when on earth, never exerted one millionth part of the influence he wields to-day. While he reigns supreme in many hu- man hearts, he touches all lives more or less, the atheist as well as the saint. On the other hand, who shall say how many crimes were committed the past year by wicked men buried long ago ? Their books, their pic- tures, their bad examples, live in all they reach, and in- cite to evil deeds. Emerson had three rules for reading: never read a book that is not a year old ; never read any but famous books ; never read a book you do not like. He ranked Plutarch's " Lives " next to the Bible for its beneficial influence upon the minds of men. " Heed not the idle assertion that literary pursuits will disqualify you for the active business of life," says 440 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. Alexander H. Everett. " Reject it as a mere iinagina- tiorij inconsistent with principle, unsupported by expe- rience. Point out to those who make it the illustrious characters who have reaped in every age the highest honors of studious and active exertion. Show them Demosthenes forging, by the light of the midnight lamp, those thunderbolts of eloquence which 'Shook the arsenal, fulmined over Greece, To Macedon aud Artaxerxes' throne.' "Ask them if Cicero would have been hailed with rapture as the father of his country if he had not been its pride and pattern in philosophy and letters. Inquire whether Caesar, or Frederick, or Bonaparte, or Welling- ton, or Washington, fought the worse because they knew how to write their own commentaries. Eemind them of Franklin, tearing at the same time the light- ning from heaven and the sceptre from the hand of the oppressor. Do they say to you that study will lead you to skepticism ? Recall to their memories the venerable names of Bacon, Milton, Newton, and Locke. Would they persuade you that devotion to learning will withdraw your steps from the paths of pleas- ure ? Tell them that the only true pleasures are those which result from the diligent exercise of all the facul- ties of body and mind and heart, the pursuit of noble ends by noble means. Repeat to them the ancient ap- ologue of the youthful Hercules, in the pride of strength and beauty, giving up his generous soul to the worship of virtue. Tell them your choice is also made. Tell them, with the illustrious Roman orator, you would rather be in the wrong with Plato than in the right with Epicurus." You should bring your mind to the reading of a book, or to the study of any subject, as you take an axe to the grindstone ; not for what you get from the stone, but for the sharpening of the axe. While it is true that the facts learned from books are worth more than HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW " Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime." Read great books that come from great thinkers ; formative books, inspiring, soul-lifting books ; and remember that it is the books read before middle life that most mould character and influence destiny. BOOKS. 441 the dust from the stone, even in much greater ratio is the mind more valuable than the axe. Bacon says : " Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested ; that is, some books are to be read only in parts ; others to be read, but not curiously ; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Eeading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man ; and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory ; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit ; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise ; poets witty ; the mathematics subtle ; natural philosophy deep ; morals grave ; logic and rhetoric, able to contend." "No wonder Cicero said that he would part with all he was worth so he might live and die among his books," says Geikie. " No wonder Petrarch was among them to the last, and was found dead in their company. It seems natural that Bede should have died dictating, and that Leibnitz should have died with a book in his hand, and Lord Clarendon at his desk. Buckle's last words, ^ My poor book ! ' tell a passion that forgot death ; and it seemed only a fitting fare- well when the tear stole down the manly cheeks of Scott as they wheeled him into his library, when he had come back to Abbotsford to die. Southey, white- haired, a living shadow, sitting stroking and kissing the books he could no longer open or read, is altogether pathetic." What wealth lies in books, and how easily may the poorest boy and girl become rich in information, learn- ing, and wisdom, through a few pennies' worth of books. Through books, the poorest boy can revel in the wealth of the intellect with Plato and Socrates ; the ragged bootblack can act in the tragedy of "Hamlet" with Shakespeare. The common day laborer may discourse 442 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. with Plato of reason amid the groves of the Grecian acad- emy. The digger in the ditch may follow Caesar in his campaigns, or Alexander in his conquest of the world. The poorest mechanic may explore the wilds of Africa with Livingstone and Stanley ; he may follow Napoleon over the battlefields of Europe. The humblest boy may penetrate the expanse of the heavens with Galileo, Herschel, and Proctor, or with Hugh Miller may read the stories of the ages imprinted in the rocks, or with Thompson and Edison may investigate the mysteries of science. Milton will cross the humblest threshold and sing to rags the story of Paradise. Shakespeare will enter the meanest hovel and reproduce his immortal " Hamlet.'^ It seems like a miracle that the poorest boy can converse freely with the greatest philosophers and scientists, statesmen, warriors, authors of all time with little ex- pense, that the inmates of the humblest cabin may fol- low the stories of the nations, the epochs of history, the story of libert}'", the romance of the world, the course of human progress, from the Hottentots to the Websters, the Lincolns, and Grants. Libraries are no longer a luxury, but a necessity. A home without books and periodicals and newspapers is like a house without windows. Children learn to read by being in the midst of books ; they unconsciously ab- sorb knowledge by handling them. No family can now afford to be without good reading. Furnish your house with books rather than unneces- sary furniture, bric-a-brac, or even pictures if you can- not afford all. One of the most incongruous sights in the world is an elegant house with costly furniture, paintings of the masters, imported tapestries, statu- ary, costly carpets, extravagant frescoes, and yet with scarcely a standard work in the library. Indeed, in many of the most elegant houses it would not be safe to ask for the commonest English classic. BOOKS. 443 Wear threadbare clothes and patched shoes if neces- sary, but do not pinch or economize on books. If you cannot give your children an academic education you can place within their reach a few good books which will lift them above their surroundings, into respectability and honor. A college education, or its equivalent, and more is possible to the poorest boy or girl who has access to the necessary books. A library of standard books in every private house in America would revolutionize our entire civilization. " There is no Past so long as Books shall live," says Lytton. All that man has ever thought, felt, experienced, or done lives in books. Nations rise and fall, great cities are buried in ruins, vast empires obliterated, but the whole past lives in books. All that is left of the once mighty Greece lives in books alone. Her armies are gone, her architecture crumbled, and only a few pieces of her sculpture remain ; but her books will live forever, and influence men of all time. "No entertainment is so cheap as reading," says Mary Wortley Montagu ; " nor any pleasure so lasting." Good books elevate the character, purify the taste, take the attractiveness out of loiv j^leasures, and lift us upon a higher plane of thinking and living. It is not easy to be mean directly after reading a noble and inspiring book. The conversation of a man who reads for improve- ment or pleasure will be flavored by his reading ; but it will not be about his reading. To rummage around among ^books, reading a few pages here and a few pages there, without thought or aim, is worse than wasting time, worse than the igno- rance which comes from reading nothing, for we are forming desultory habits, which are fatal to continuity of thought. We should lay out a definite line of read- ing, and try to master some one department of learning. Every youth, however limited his opportunities, should 444 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. have an ambition to be known for some one thing ; to be master in some particular line. Learning is not ne- cessarily knowledge any more than knowledge is wis- dom. Wisdom is knowledge which has become a part of one's being ; it is the result of close, systematic thinking, taken into the very tissue of the mind itself, as the iron particles in the blood are taken up and become incorporated in its very life. As a rule, the books which will do you most good are those which make you work hardest while reading, which stimulate the brain, and inspire you to nobler purpose. Passive reading is even worse, if possible, than desultory reading ; the mind remains inactive, in a sort of indolent reverie ; so it is weakened and in time rendered incapable of that reach and grasp which en- ables it to master principles, and that power which en- ables it to analyze and synthetize. Passive reading takes the spring and the snap out of the mind, until the brain becomes languid, lazy, and disinclined to grapple with great principles and hard problems. Reading and thinking are the gymnasia of the mind. The gymnast does not carry away the apparatus from the gymnasium, but the strength and the suppleness which the exercise gives him. It is not so much what we carry away from the book and store in memory that is valuable, as the strength and skill we develop in the book we read. Passive reading no more develops the mind than sitting down in a gymnasium will develop the body. The mind must have exercise, vigorous, strong, systematic, continuous. One great difference between the American graduate and the graduates from the English universities is that the latter have not read many books superficially, but a few books well. The American graduate too often has a smattering of many books, but has not become master of any. The same thing is largely true of readers in general ; they want to know a little of everything. BOOKS. 445 They want to read all the latest publications, good, bad, and indifferent, if they are only new. As a rule, our people want light reading, " something to read " that will take up the attention and kill time on the railroad or at home. Generally English people read more sub- stantial books, older books, books which have established their right to exist. They are not so eager for " recent publications." Whatever you read, read with enthusiasm, with en- ergy, read with the whole mind, if you would increase your mental stature. Learn to absorb the mental and the moral life of a book, and assimilate it into your life. He is the best reader who consumes the most knowledge and converts it into character. Mechanical readers re- member words, the husks of things, but digest nothing. They cram their brains but starve their minds. If you are getting the most out of a book, you will feel a ca- pacity for doing things which you never felt before. As few actors conceive the characters they play, so few readers comprehend and ensoul their authors. Hasty reading, superficial reading, overtaxes the mem- ory until it loses its power to grasp and hold. The mind loses its focusing power, the power to bring to- gether and to compare, its power of close attention and continuity of thought, without which no great intellec- tual work can ever be accomplished. Elizabeth Bar- rett Browning says, " We err by reading too much, and out of proportion to what we think. I should be wiser, I am persuaded, if I had not read half as much ; should have had stronger and better exercised faculties, and should stand higher in my own appreciation. The ne "plus ultra of intellectual indolence is this reading of books." It is said that Miss Martineau read only a page in an hour. Edmund Burke always so read a book as to make it his own, — a possession for life. Joseph Cook advises youth to always make notes of their reading. Mr. Cook uses the margins of his books 446 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. for his notes, and marks all of liis own books very freely, so that every volume in his library becomes a notebook. He advises all young men and young women to keep commonplace books. They are a great aid to memory, and help wonderfully to locate or find for fu- ture use what we have read. The habit of taking notes of lectures and sermons is excellent. One of the great- est aids to education is the habit of writing out an analysis or skeleton of a book or article after we have read it ; also of a sermon or a lecture. This habit has made many a strong, vigorous thinker and writer. In this connection we cannot too strongly recommend the habit of saving clippings from our readings wherever possible, of everything which would be likely to assist us in the future. These scrapbooks, indexed, often be- come of untold advantage, especially if in the line of our work. Much of what we call genius in great men comes from such notebooks and scrapbooks. It is a great deal of work after you read a book, listen to a ser- mon or lecture, to write out an analysis or skeleton of it, but this is the way the Pitts, the Disraelis, the Web- sters, the Lincolns, and the Clays are made. Good books are ^' gardens of undimmed beauty, where the flowers of gracious poetry never fade, and the leaves of noble biographies never wither." The Egyptians called books the soul's medicine. Happ_v is he who, when the day's work is done, finds his rest and solace and. recreation in communion with the master minds of the present and of the past, — in stud}^ and in literature. There is no rest, no recreation, no refreshment to the wearied and jaded body and mind, worn bj' work and toil, equal to the intellectual pleasures to which I have just been referring. — Alexander Cockburn. A book is good company. It comes to your longing with full instruction, but pursues 3'ou never. It is not offended at your absent-mindedness, nor jealous if you turn to other pleasures, of leaf, or dress, or mineral, or even of books. It silently serves the soul without recompense, not even for the hire of love. And yet more noble, it seems to pass from itself, and to en- ter the memory, and to hover in a silvery transformation there, until the outward book is but a bodv and its soul and spirit are flown to you, and possess your memory like a spirit. — Beecher. BOOKS. 447 " Books are strange things. Although untongued and dumb, Yet with their eloquence they sway the world ; And, powerless and impassive as they seem, Move o'er the impressive minds and hearts of men Like fire across a prairie. Mind sparks, They star the else dark firmament." When friends grow cold and the converse of intimates languishes into vapid civility and commonplace, these only continue the unaltered coun- tenance of happier days, and cheer us with that true friendship which never deceived hope, nor deserted sorrow. — Washington Irving. CHAPTEE XXVI. EVERY MAN HIS OWN PARADISE. Oh, it is great, and there is no other greatness, — to make some nook of God's creation more fruitful, better, more worthy of God, to make some human heart a little wiser, manlier, happier, — more blessed, less accursed. — Caklyle. From labor health, from health contentment springs. — Beattie. When a man does not find repose in himself, it is vain for him to seek it elsewhere. — French Proverb. No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth. — Bacon. I have never gotten over my surprise that I should have been born in the most estimable place in the world, and in the very nick of time. — Thoreau. Write it in your heart that ever}' day is the best day in the year. A day is a more magnificent cloth than any muslin; the mechanism that makes it is infinitely cunninger, and you shall not conceal the sleazy, fraudulent, rotten hours you have slipped into it. — Emekson. Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counter- feit. — HosEA Ballou. All who would win joy must share it, happiness was born a twin. — Byron. Know then this truth, enough for man to know. Virtue alone is happiness below. Pope. Joy is the grace we say to God. — Jean Ingelow. Health is the vital principle of bliss. — Thomson. My mind to me an empire is. — Robert Southwell. JoLLiBOY. " Good-morning, sir ! " Bilious. "Why, sir, I don't know you." JoLLiBOY. " I did n't say you did, sir. Good-morn- ing, sir ! " " What action gave you the greatest pleasure in life ? " a gentleman was once asked. " When I stopped the I .^ \ K\\>0 t >^'* \/^ ?$^; ^,M )^^y^,\^ * Am ' JOHN RUSKIN - Life is a magician's vase, filled to the brim : so made that j'ou can neither draw from it, nor dip out of it, nor thrust your hands into it : its precious contents over- flow only to the hand that drops treasures into it. If you drop in charity, it over- flows love : if you drop in envy and jealousy, it will overflow bitter hatred and discord. EVERY MAN HIS OWN PARADISE. 449 sale of a poor widow's furniture, by paying a small sum due by her for rent, and received her blessing," he re- plied. " There is no beautifier of complexion or form or be- havior," says Emerson, " like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us." *' If you have caused one tear the less Down Sorrow's cheek to flow ; If you have caused one smile the more On any face to glow ; Then, friend, you have not lived in vain." There is a picture of ineffaceable grandeur in Plato's Phaedo, where Socrates, who has been unchained that he may prepare for death, sits upon his bed, and, rubbing his leg gently where the iron has galled it, begins, not a complaint against fate, or his judges, or the misery of the present death, but a grateful little reflection. " What an unaccountable thing, my friends, that seems to be which men call pleasure ; and how wonderfully it is re- lated to that which appears to be its contrary — pain, in that they will not both be present to a man at the same time ; yet if any one pursues and attains the one, he is almost always compelled to receive the other, as if they were both united together from one head." " I once talked with a Eosicrucian about the Great Secret," said Addison. " He talked of it as a spirit that lived in an emerald, and converted everything that was near it to the highest perfection. ' It gives lustre to the sun,' said he, ' and water to the diamond. It irradiates every metal, and enriches lead with the property of gold. It brightens smoke into flame, flame into light, and light into glory. A single ray dissipates pain and care from the person on whom it falls.' Then I found his great secret was Content." So universally does man seek happiness, and so widely does society in its organized forms seek it, that many philosophers have declared happiness to be the 450 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. final motive of all conduct, — tliat all other motives are but shapes of this one all-prevailing influence. But, alas ! towards what different points of the moral com- pass do we look for happiness. Some look for it above, and some below, some in the grandeur of the soul, and some in the grossness of the senses, some in the heaven of purity, and some in the hell of licentious- ness. Wherever it is sought, the imagination adorns it with glowing colors. Multitudes of those who seek for happiness will not attain the object of their search, because they seek it amiss. Deceived by false ideas of its nature, other multitudes who obtain the object of their search will find it to be sorrow and not joy, — Dead Sea apples, and not celestial fruits. " Happiness is the congruity between a creature's nature and its circumstances," said Bishop Butler. " When I was a boy," said Thackeray, " I wanted some taffy. It was a shilling ; I had n't one. When I was a man I had a shilling, but I didn't want any taffy." We destroy our capacity for happiness before we get ready to enjoy it. Happiness often seems to be in what we do not possess. Madame de Stael, who pos- sessed almost everything that women covet and men admire, said she would surrender all her gifts for the one that nature denied her, beauty. George Macdonald tells of a castle in which lived an old man and his son. Although they owned the castle they were so poor they could scarcely get bread to keep from starving. Yet there were concealed within the castle by remote ancestors, for future necessity, very costly jewels. Although close to abundance, they were in a starving condition because they did not know of their wealth. So man, in the very midst of the wealth of the universe, is starving from the lack of a cultivated observation, or the power to see and enjoy the riches unnamable which surround him. In the midst of EVERY MAN HIS OWN PARADISE. 451 *' Ten thousand harps attuned To angelic harmonies," man sits deaf and mute. Burke said he would not give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called fame in this world. Byron con- fessed that his life had been wretched, and he longed to rush into the thickest of the battle and end his ex- istence by sudden death. Goethe had wealth and genius, yet he says he never experienced five weeks of genuine pleasure. There is a Persian story that the great king, being out of spirits, consulted his astrologers, and was told that happiness could be found by wearing the shirt of a perfectly happy man. The court and the homes of all the prosperous classes were searched in vain ; no such man could be found. At last a common laborer was found to fulfill the conditions ; he was absolutely happy, but, alas ! the remedy was as far off as ever : the man had no shirt. Thousands of men have made shipwreck in their at- tempts to get the honey out of the hive of life without getting stung. " Antony sought for happiness in love ; Brutus in glory ; Caesar in dominion ; the first found disgrace, the second disgust, the last ingratitude, and each destruction." It is impossible to get happiness from any one thing in life if followed to the exclusion of everything else. In that fascinating little fairy tale, " Through the Look- ing-Glass," the White Knight provides himself before starting out on a journey with a mouse-trap, lest he might be troubled with mice, and ^a beehive in case he should come across a swarm of bees. Many people fortify themselves against lots of troubles that never come. Who is so happy that he does not have a thorn in the flesh ? Think you that the richest are the happiest ? Was the great banker Eothschild happy ? He held the purse of the world, but this was powerless to make 452 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. him happy. A gentleman visiting him and looking upon his luxurious surroundings remarked, " You must be a happy man." " Me happy ! " exclaimed the old money-lender, peering out from under his eyebrows, " when just now comes a letter from some villain in a back street declaring that if I don't send him fifty pounds before to-morrow night he will make an attempt upon my life. Me happy ! " Nothing in the world seems easier than to get happi- ness out of money, but the richest people in the world testify to the contrary. It is a very rare thing to find a wealthy man who is happy ; wealth has no power to produce happiness. It takes away the spur of necessity which is man's great developer. It tends to remove the incentives to self-restraint, hinders self-conquest, and opens doors to other temptations. It takes away the spur of industry which coordinates the faculties of the mind, keeps them in healthy action, and drives away ennui, the curse of the rich. Discontent is pre- eminently a sin of the well-to-do. A Yorkshire man defined happiness as " a bit more than we 've got," But, unfortunately, this '' bit more " causes a large part of the misery of the world. It is a " bit more " power, a " bit more " fame, a " bit more " land, a "bit more" money, which is the will-o'-the-wisp that we are forever chasing through life, that makes us discontented, unhappy, unsteady, robs us of usefulness, of culture, of character, of manhood, of everything that is really desirable through life. Great wealth and luxury are not characteristic of the nineteenth century alone. Men in all ages have sought in vain to find happiness in riches. Apicius spent two millions and a half in dissipation, and then poisoned himself for fear that his remaining four hundred thousand dollars would not keep him from want. Cleopatra dissolved in vinegar a pearl worth four hundred thousand dollars, and gave it to EVERY MAN HIS OWN PARADISE. 453 the enchanted Antony to drink at an entertainment given in his honor. Esopus spent four thousand dollars on a single dish at a banquet. Caligula spent four hun- dred thousand dollars for one supper. The ordinary cost of a banquet of Lucullus was one hundred thou- sand dollars. CrcBSus was only worth about seventeen millions, which is about the yearly income of one man in America. He was no more happy than Xerxes, who, not content with enormous armies and fleets and wealth that was fabulous, offered a reward for the inventor of a new pleasure. As sunshine brings out the flowers and ripens the fruit of nature, the sunshine of the soul brings out the flowers and ripens the fruitage of life. A depressed, sour, melancholy soul, a life which has ceased to believe in its own sacredness, its own power, its own mission, a life which sinks into querulous egotism or vegetating aimlessness, has become crippled and useless. " An ir- ritable man lies like a hedgehog, rolled up the wrong way, torturing himself with his own quills." " He who per- sists in pricking and scratching himself with a thorn, and refuses to enjoy the fragrance of the roses, is an ingrate to Grod and a torment to himself." If one loves beauty and looks for it, he will see it everywhere. If there is music in his soul, he will hear it everywhere ; every object in nature will sing to him. Two men who live in the same house and do the same work may not live in the same world. Although they are under the same roof, one may see only deformity and ugliness ; to him the world is out of joint, every- thing is cross-grained and out of sorts ; the other is sur- rounded with beauty and harmony ; everybody is kind to him ; nobody wishes him harm. These men see the same objects, but they do not look through the same glasses ; one looks through a smoked glass which drapes the whole world in mourning, the other looks through rose-colored lenses which tint everything with loveliness 454 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. and touch it with beauty; he does not need to go to Switzerland to see the Alps ; he sees them in imagina- tion in the thunder cloud. The other is like a farmer who raised many kinds of crops. The author said to him : " Mr. N , this rain will be fine for your grass crop." " Yes, perhaps/' he replied, " but it is very bad for corn 5 I don't think we '11 have half a crop." A few days later he met him again and said : '' This is a fine sun for corn, Mr. N ." '^ Yes," said he, " but it 's aw- ful for rye ; rye wants cold weather." One cool morning he met him again, soon after, and said : " This is a cap- ital day for rye." " Yes," said he, " but it is the worst kind of weather for corn and grass ; they want heat to bring them forward." Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but he took an acorn out of his pocket and dropped it in. An acorn costs nothing, but it may produce an oak : so kind words, dropped into every chink and cranny and waste place in life, cost nothing, but may sprout into happiness and cheer many an otherwise weary life. How refreshing are the sunny natures which always make the most of everything. " I am thankful it was not my neck," said a man who fell from a ladder and broke his leg. He was one who saw a silver lining to every cloud. If you consulted him in misfortune, he would reply : " You will soon get over it. I '11 tell you what to do." From his neighbor Croaker, you would get for consolation or encouragement : " I told you it would come to this," and in his company you see all the joy in nature slowly evaporate. Some people are always grumbling ; if they had been born in the Garden of Eden they would have found plenty to complain of : others are happy everywhere ; they see beauties and find blessings all around them. Some people are so troubled by the spots on the sun that they can never bask in its light or participate in the joy which it gives to even the animals. EVERY MAN HIS OWN PARADISE. 455 Can you call to mind any individual Avho studied his own happiness who was ever happy ? Can you call to mind any individual who labored for duty and the hap- piness of others who was unhappy ? Do7i^t expect too much from life. Enjoyments that hold out such glitter- ing prizes and hopes, nature knows, can never be real- ized. She knows that it is a spur that we want. A great lord said that during a reign of fifty years he never enjoyed but fourteen days of absolute happiness. Haman next to the throne was not half so happy as Mordecai, the gatekeeper. Nero the emperor was a miserable prisoner in a luxurious palace, compared with Paul, the happy free man who could write in a Koman dungeon upon the receipt of a donation from his friends : " I have all and abound ; I am full." Some one has said that there are two things that we should never worry about ; the things that can be helped, and the things that can't be helped. Charles Kingsley said: "1 know of nothing that cripples a man more than anxiety." In the mountains of Colorado there are massive red sandstone rocks which have been sculptured into all sorts of grotesque shapes by the grains of sand and gravel which the fierce winds have hurled against them for ages. So the fairest faces have been distorted into repulsiveness, and sculptured into ugliness by the sands of worriment and anxiety, and the sunniest tem- pers, together with everything that is lovely and attrac- tive, have been ruined. It seems almost impossible for some people to find enjoyment without dragging in more or less of the bitter things of life : they cannot enjoy unmixed sweets ; there must be some aloes and myrrh in their cup of hap- piness ; but he alone is the happy man who has learned to extract happiness, not from ideal conditions, but from the actual ones about him, — who has learned, like the bee, to find sweetness in the commonest flower, in spite of flies and disgusting bugs which buzz around. The 456 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. man who has mastered the secret of happiness will not wait for ideal surroundings ; he will not wait until he gets rich, until he can travel abroad, until he can afford to surround himself Avith works of the great masters ; but he will make the most possible of what he does have. Some of the happiest homes I have ever been in, ideal homes, where intelligence, peace, and harmony dwell, have been homes of poor people. No rich carpets covered the floors ; there were no costly paintings on the walls, no piano, no library, no works of art. But there were contented minds, devoted and unselfish lives, each contributing as much as possible to the happiness of all, and endeavoring to compensate by intelligence and kindness for the poverty of their surroundings. No man is happy who does not think himself so. Nothing is wanted to make yourself wretched but to fancy your- self miserable. No one ever found the world quite as he would like it. You will be sure to have burdens laid upon you that belong to other people, unless you are a shirk your- self ; but don't grumble. If the work needs doing and you can do it, never mind about the other one who ought to have done it, and didn't; do it yourself. These workers who fill up the gaps, and smooth away the rough spots, and finish up the jobs that others leave undone, — they are the true peace-makers, and worth a regiment of grumblers. " I question if care and doubt ever wrote their names so legibly on the faces of any population," says Emer- son. " Old age begins in the nursery, and before the young American is put into jacket and trousers he says, * I want something which I never saw before : I wish I was not I.' " Some people are always rehearsing their woes and begging for sympathy. They are born sick and tired. Nothing satisfies or pleases them. Listless or dissatisfied, they cast a gloom wherever they go. EVERY MAN HIS OWN PARADISE. 457 As Gough said : " They would throw a damper on a funeral.'' They would find fault in heaven because their halo didn't fit them. They hate enthusiastic people. They see no beauty nor design in the works of nature. With them, times are always hard, money always scarce. Their vane always points east. They protest forever against the wrong, but never advocate the right. Yet we must have charity for such people, for, as a rule, they are not well balanced or systemati- cally well organized. They are the creatures of their moods, or sometimes the victims of poor cooking. Dr. Johnson says, " Every man is a rascal as soon as he is sick." Let no man imagine that a life all ease is a happy life. " You ask me why I don't stop work," said Eussell Sage at seventy-five, with a fortune of seventy- five million dollars. " I '11 do it if you will answer me one question : ' What else can I do that will do as much good and keep me as well ? ' Well, you can't answer it ; nobody can." " Happiness and selfishness cannot both . flourish on the same stem." The Emperor Nero was a remarkable example of the selfish and exclusive pursuit of happi- ness. The attainment of his own gratification, regard- less of the happiness and interests of others, was his only aim. Eew persons ever had greater means and fa- cilities for self -gratification. From the senator to the slave, everybody in the empire crouched in servile sub- jection before his throne. Enormous revenues from the provinces were poured into his coffers, and no one dared criticise his manner of spending it. He was absolute monarch, holding the destinies of millions at his will. He came to the throne at seventeen ; and during the fifteen years of his reign he exhausted every known means of passionate indulgence. " The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life " gave up to him everything in their power to give. He left nothing 458 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. untried or untouched that could, stimulate the palate or arouse his passions or administer in any way to his sen- sual gratification. After the great fire in Kome he built his golden palace, and said, "Now, at last, T am lodged like a man ; " but alas ! how futile was his search for happiness. His jaded appetite and over- strained passion became sated, and revolted at the very effort to stimulate them more. They were already cloyed, and mocked his efforts to extract more pleasure from them. At last he was forced to flee before an outraged people, and took refuge in a miserable slave- hut, trembling like a base coward. In that squalid hovel, at his own request, a slave did him the favor to end his miserable life. Give me the man who, like Emerson, sees longevity in his cause, and who believes there is a remedy for every wrong, a satisfaction for every longing soul ; the man who believes the best of everybody, and who sees beauty and loveliness where others see ugliness and disgust. Give me the man who believes in the ultimate triumph of truth over error, of harmony over discord, of love over hate, of purity over vice, of light over darkness, of life over death. Such men are the true nation-builders. It is men like Phillip Armour, who shed care as a duck's back sheds water, who turn the key on business when they leave the store, that are happy and the most successful. Everlastingly hugging the burden of our business, wherever we go, disappoints and disgusts all our friends and relatives. Constant contemplation of trouble stamps itself upon the face until it is no longer lovely. You are smaller, meaner, stingier, and more dis- agreeable for all the misery you have peddled out at home. All this never advanced your business one inch ; on the contrary it has retarded it by undermining your health, taking away your elasticity of mind, without which no good work is done, and it has lost you friends and customers. EVERY MAN HIS OWN PARADISE. 459 Go about your work with a smile on your face. No- body likes gloom. Friends will call and leave their sympathy when one of your famil}^ dies, but they do not like to remain in the house of death. Learn early in life to drop your business at the door and lock it up in the office or store. It is after business hours, not in them, that men break down. It is not so much the great sorrows, the great burdens, the great hardships, the great calamities, that cloud over the sunshine of life, as the little petty vexations, insignificant anxieties and fears, the little daily dyings, which render our lives unhappy. It is the little dis- putes, little fault-findings, little insinuations, little re- flections, sharp criticisms, fretting, stewing, impatience, little unkindnesses, slurs, little discourtesies, bad tem- per, that create most of the discord and unhappiness in the family. On the other hand, it is the little acts of kindness, the little courtesies, the disposition to be accommodating, to be helpful, to be sympathetic, to be unselfish, to be careful not to wound the feelings, not to expose the sore spots, to be charitable of the weak- nesses of others, to be considerate, — these are the little things which, added up at night, are found to be the secret of a happy day. " The most completely lost of all days," said Cham- fort, "is the one in which we have not laughed." " Mirth is God's medicine : everybody ought to bathe in it," said Oliver Wendell Holmes. Hume found in an old manuscript of King Edward II. of England an item : "A crown, for making the king laugh." Lycurgus dedi- cated a little statue to the god of Laughter in each hi the Spartan eating-halls. There is no table sauce like laughter at meals. It is the great enemy of dyspepsia. Humor was Lincoln's life-preserver, as it has been of thousands of others. "If it were not for this occa- sional vent," he used to say, " I should die." Addison says, "Cheerfulness lightens sickness, poverty, affliction ; 460 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. converts ignorance into an amiable simplicity, and ren- ders deformity itself agreeable.'^ Look outwardly and behold the variety and redun- dancy of means which the Creator has prepared to meet and to satisfy all the real wants of his children. So ample and multitudinous are the gifts of God, that He needed an immensity of space for their storehouse ; and so various are they, and ascending one above an- other in their adaptation to our capacities of enjoyment, that we need an eternity to sit out the banquet. We may be miserable amidst victories or happy in de- feat. Fortunate is he whose fountain of happiness lies within himself, whose happiness is not dependent upon the caprice of companions or favor of those in office. There was once a king who had a little boy whom he loved very much, and whom he took a deal of pains to make happy. He gave him a pony to ride, beautiful rooms to live in, pictures, books, toys without number, teachers, companions, and everything that money could buy or ingenuity devise ; but for all this, the young prince was unhappy. He wore a frown wherever he went, and was always wishing for something he did not have. At length a magician came to the court. He saw the scowl on the boy's face and said to the king : " I can make your son happy, and turn his frowns into smiles, but you must pay me a great price for telling him this secret." " All right," said the king ; " what- ever you ask, I will give." The magician took the boy into a private room. He wrote something with a white substance on a piece of paper. He gave the boy a can- dlie, and told him to light it and hold it under the paper, and then see what he could read. Then the magician went away. The boy did as he had been told, and the white letters turned into a beautiful blue. They formed these words : " Do a kindness to some one every day." The prince followed the advice, and became the happiest boy in the realm. EVERY MAN HIS OWN PARADISE. 461 Probably not one of those who will take up this book is perfectly happy, and there is scarcely one who does not fancy that he or she might be very much better off. Man creates the world he lives in. Good or bad, it is like himself. One man's heart makes him a king in a hovel, — another's, a wretch in a palace. A sunny, cheerful heart changes a world of gloom into a paradise of beauty. " The darkest shadows of life are those which a man makes when he stands in his own light." "There are people," said an old divine, "who lead us heavenward, but they stick pins in us all the way." As there are some deaf to certain sounds and blind to certain colors, so there are those who seem deaf and blind to certain pleasures. What makes me laugh until I almost go into convulsions moves them not at all. They look on with as much indifference as does the Egyptian Sphinx upon the superstitious, who look up to it to solve their mysteries. Some people doubt whether it is right or even possible that we should be happy. But do not let the music and poetry die out of you while struggling for that which can never enrich the character nor add one penny to the soul's wealth. " The good things of life were made to he enjoyed^ And no matter where we live, there is no poverty- stricken region on the face of the earth, where nature is not performing perpetual miracles right before our eyes. No spot is so barren but ideas will grow, but love will beautify, no object so ugly but is full of beauty, no spot so forsaken but has myriads of perfect beings, no spot so foul but is full of myst^ery and interest, if seen with a telescopic eye. " Even the direst tasks, like the ugly toad with the jewel in its head, have some redeem- ing circumstances that cheat them of their repulsive- ness." Scatter your flowers as you go, you will never go over the same road again, and if you did, these flowers, which blossom daily, if unused, will fade. 462 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. Stephen Girard said, " As for myself, I live like a galley-slave, constantly occupied and often passing a night without sleep. I am wrapped up in a labyrinth of affairs, and worn out with cares. I do not value a fortune ; the love of labor is my highest motive.*' " I am ready to jump out of my skin with joy, as for an uncommon favor," said the aged Montaigne, " when nothing ails me." " Every time the sheep bleats, it loses a mouthful, and every time we complain we lose a blessing." " Oh, discontented man, what is it you want ? " asks Emerson. " Pay the price and take it." " I will give this field to any man contented," was the sign set up by an eccentric man of wealth. A man soon came to claim the land. " Well, sir, are you a contented man ? " " Yes, sir, very." " Then what do you want of my field ? " asked the rich man, but the applicant left with- out replying. Contentment consists not in adding more fuel, but in taking away some fire ; not in adding to our wealth, but in subtracting our desires. Enough is as good as a feast ; you may butter your bread till you cannot eat it. How few people look as though any joy had come down from heaven and sung in their souls. We can see lines of thought, of fear, of care, in many a face, — money lines, shrewd, grasping lines, — but how few happy lines. There are a hundred *^ successful " men for one that is contented. Happiness does not lie in power and dominion, for " Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." Bacon called riches "the baggage of virtue." Cromwell had nine years of troubled greatness : he was in constant fear of his life, and always wore armor under his clothing, and was afraid to sleep twice in the same room ; he was ever in mortal terror of assassination, and always carried pistols in his pockets. EVERY MAN HIS OWN PARADISE. 463 People who are forever hunting for happiness never find it. They forget that " the kingdom of heaven is within you." It does not exist anywhere else : not in. wealth, not in houses, not in lands, not in fame. It will not yield up its treasure to the selfish seeker, nor can it be touched by unwashed hands. Happiness, it has been said, is a mosaic composed of very small stones. Each taken singly may be of little value ; but when all are grouped together, combined and set, they form a pleasing and graceful whole — a costly jewel. Paradise is here, or nowhere. Do not go from home to find it. If you are miserable and gloomy, go where you will, your jaundice and spleen will get there first. " In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine, In your thoughts the brooklets flow." We carry with us the beauty we visit, and the song which enchants us. " When the sun shines, it shines everywhere," was Eubens' motto. " Happiness is a thing to be practiced, like a violin.^' The fact is, happiness is never where it seems to be. If we chase it and attempt its capture, it vanishes as does the pursued rainbow. Hapinness dwells in performed duty and nowhere else. Every time we perform a duty unselfishly, it yields us a little bit of happiness ; but it will never give itself up, except to the hand that performs the duty. It can never come through a substitute, never by proxy. There are a few noble natures whose very presence carries sunshine with them wherever they go ; a sun- shine which means pity for the ppor, sympathy for the suffering, help for the unfortunate, and benignity to- wards all. It is the sunshine, and not the cloud, that makes the flower. There is more virtue in one sun- beam than in a whole hemisphere of cloud and gloom. Horace Mann says that all analogy teaches us that we have undeveloped faculties within us, suscepti- bilities of happiness yet dormant, for whose fervor and 464 ARCHITECTS OF FATE. intensity this world is too cold and ungenial ; and which, therefore, await our translation to the land of the blest, where a purer ether and subtler elemental fires shall kindle them into life. While we were yet in embryo, our body existed in form as perfect as at present ; our muscles, our brains, our lungs, and all our organs of sense, were complete ; but we needed to be ushered into this world of air and light and motion and beauty, to call them into play. So in regard to the next stage of existence, we have the assurance of splen- dors, and symphonies, and loves, such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive ; and if so, then we must now have within us, lying undeveloped and inert, the rudi- mentary organs of eye, and ear, and heart, with which we shall see and hear the vision, the hallelujah, and the ecstasy of the better world. As to this unseen and un- imagined magnificence and beatitude of the future life, we are, while sojourning upon earth, only in the ante- natal state of darkness and inactivity. Such is the na- ture which God has bestowed upon us, to be magnified, enlightened, and adorned ; and it is not given to mortal eloquence or poesy, with all their many colored words, to paint the number and the variegation of its glories. ' " Happy the man, and happy he alone, He who can call to-day his own : He who, secure within himself can say. To-morrow do thy worst, for I have lived to-day." Give me insight into to-day, and you may have the antique and future worlds. — Emerson. "Just to fill the hour, that is happiness." " Happy then is the man who has that in his soul which acts upon oth- ers as April airs on violet roots. Gifts from the hand are silver and gold, but the heart gives that which neither silver nor gold can buv. To be full of goodness, full of cheerfulness, full of sympathv, full of helpful hope, causes a man to move on human life as stars move on dark seas to bewildered mariners." INDEX. Acorn, and oak, 93; Emerson , 268 ; in giant's eve, 271. Adams, J. Q., bold in Congress, 27; 332; slept before Judge Story, 321. Addison, storms, from God, 97 ; marble in quarry, 167 ; the Great Secret, 449; cheerfulness, 459. JSolian Harp, German Baron's, 102. Agassiz, left a fortune, 225, 226 ; rich without money, 246 ; no time to make money, 252; 258; 270:408. Aim, unwavering, 107-124 ; Michael An- gelo, Columbus, Old Guard to sur- geon, Napoleon, 107 ; Pitt, 108 ; New Jersey's ports and New York, Glad- stone, Victor Hugo, "Notre Dame," 109; " to keep gun from scattering,-' men at the front, 110 ; Carlyle, Yan- kee and English sailoi's, epitaph of Joseph II. of Austria, 111 ; Sir James Mackintosh's lack of aim, E. P. Whip- ple, 112 ; Professor Henry of Smith- sonian Institution, Edward Everett, lack of, 113 ; Voltaire on La Harpe, Coleridge, lack of aim, Southey, Bis- marck, Grant, Rufus Choate, 114 ; what the age calls for, 115; intense light makes beautiful, power in a vo- cation mastered, 116 ; changing occu- pation fatal to success, successful men make a life work of one thing, work- ing without aim, 117 ; flower inclining in same direction, advantages of a definite aim, 118 ; energy not enough, Monsieur Keuard's announcement, 119; Pitt's one aim, Rowland Hill, 120; Christ, why Michael Angelo did not marry, 121 ; St. Paul's one idea, 122; Gambetta's career, 122. Alcott, Louisa M., manuscript returned, 171 ; grit, 199. Alexander the Great, a conqueror, 35 ; will-power, 59 ; his grit, 194 ; finds a pacific people, 221 ; and Diogenes, 250 ; at gates of Paradise, 251 ; his tribute to his teacher, 425 ; 442. Alexander V., " born mud, died mar- ble," 16L Alice, Princess, sad death of, 223. Ali Ilafed and Priest, 258. American sculptors, 263 ; Patrick Heni'y, 264 ; physicians, 310 ; honey and sting, 321 ; prize, 322 ; land of oppor- tunities, 429 ; and English, 444. Ames, Fisher, on Roger Sherman, 217. Anaximander, "must sing better," 90. Angelo, Michael, learning, 56; three oc- cupations, 69 ; 71 ; " Art is jealous," 107 ; reason for not marrying, 121 ; great preparation, 171 ; seven years on Sistine Chapel, 173 ; the piece of mar- ble, 263 ; on trifles, 276 ; self-control, 294; 333. Angels' Autopsies, 323-326. Auger, Shaftesbury on, 28 ; effect in secretions, 375 ; causes death, 375 ; effect in nursing mother, 376; 380. Antoinette, Marie, hair turns white, 384. Antony and Cleopatra, happiness, 461 ; drank pearls, 452. Apelles, portrait of perfect woman, 6. "Arabian Nights" aroused Coleridge's genius, 285, 433. Aristides, character of, 215 ; how re- garded. 215 ; honesty, 216. Arkwright, early life, 56, 70 ; his rise, 101 ; in hovel, 146, 159. Arietta, pretty feet, 268. Armour, P. D., on decision, 358 ; 458. Arnold, Benedict, his habits, 141. Arnold, Edwin, princely, 9. Arnold, Matthew, 248. Arnold, Thomas, on foundations, 167. Artisans' sous, 83, 84 ; 100, 101 ; seven shoemakers in Congress, 84 ; 265. Askew, Anna, her courage, 27. Astor, J. J., his "first thousand," 236. Auction, lazy man's, 411. Bacon, Lord, his knowledge. 111 : a great worker, 157 ; 327 ; on books, 442 ; on truth", 448 ; riches, 462. Bacon, Roger, persecuted for his studies, 82 ; imprisoned. 395. Bailey, 202 ; on idleness, 410. Ballon, Hosea, happiness, 448. Balzac, on one unwavering aim, 107 ; his perseverance, 173. Bancroft, George, best work at eighty- five, 36 ; " History of U. S." 110, 172. Banquets, three great, Plato, Xenophon, and Plutarch, 241. Barnum began business barefoot, 62; his grit, 62, 197 ; keeping money, 232. 466 INDEX. Barton, Clara, and the Red Cross So- ciety, 223, 354. Bates, Rebecca, in war of 1812, 12. Baxter, Richard, " Life and Times of," written in jail, 92. Beattie on happiness, 448. Beecher, H. \V., 8; courage, 33; cheap victories, 60 ; self-help, 150 ; prepara- tion, 171 ; on building for eternity, 226; true riches, 240; charity, 403; idleness, 410 ; on Ruskin'p works, 432 ; on books, 446. Beethoven, his hardships, 78 ; on Ros- sini, 96; on self-help, 151; painstak- ing, 157 ; on grit, 186. Bernhardt, Sarah, her "Phaedre,'" 381. Bessemer, Henry, his inventions, 167. Bible, on self-control, 288; Vatican, 431. Bierstadt, "Last of Buffaloes," 174. Bingham, Capt., on German army, 178. Birds, lose power of flight, 129 ; guide Columbus, 278. Bismarck, single aim, 114 ; unites Ger- many, 352. Black, Dr., discovers latent heat, 68. Blackie, Prof., on character, 211, 221. Boardman, sowing and reaping, 125. Boleyn, Anne, her smile, 281. Bonar, Horatio, on grit, 176. Bonelli's experiment, 126. Bonheur, Rosa, and her lion, .398. Books, 430-447; Solomon, Collier, Lang- ford, F^nelon, Gibbon, J. F. Clarke, Hillard, Bulwer, Greeley's love of readinir, 430 ; Hebrew Bible in Vati- can, 431 ; modern press cheapens books, 431 ; effect of a single book, Ossian's poems and Homer on Na- poleon, Franklin, Cotton Mather's "Essay to do Good," Tyndall and Emerson, Beecher on Ruskin, 432; Locke's " Essay on the Understand- ing," Carlyle"s books, Lincoln's boy- hood books, 432 ; effect of, on Garfield, 433 ; on Carey, 433 ; on Wesley, 433 ; on Goethe, 433; Coleridge, 433 ; Madame Roland loved Plutarch, Shakespeare copied Plutarch, Curran loved Homer, 434 : Schliemann, 434 ; Luther, 434 ; cheap periodicals, 435 ; effect on Voltaire, 4-35; Pomeroy, 436; Bishop Potter, 436 ; the best. Homer, Ma- caulay on Grecian books, 4.36 ; De Quincey, Chaucer and Ovid, 438 ; Em- erson's three rules, 439 ; Bacon, 441 ; Cicero, 441 ; Southey caressing, 441 ; wealth in, 441 ; necessity of having, 442; Lytton, 443; Mary Wortley Montagu, 443 ; how to read, 444 ; Miss Martineau, Edmund Burke, Joseph Cook, 445 ; " Souls Medi- cine,'.' 446; Cockburn, Beecher, 446; Washington Irving, 447. Boston Savings Banks, and servants, 235. Bright, John, his courage, 24 ; reply to devotee of Mammon, 245 ; 251. Brooks, James, " Daily Express," 70. Brooks, Phillips, on true riches, 241 ; 246; his charity, 405. Browning, E. B., her proficiency in youth, 36; on decision, 358 ; reading, 445. Browning, Robert, writes at eleven, 36 ; obstacles, 106 ; decision, 358. Brutus, 451. Bryant, William Cullen, painstaking, 156 ; one aim, 343. Buckle, on books, 441. Bull, Ole, on need of practice, 180. Bulwer, no word fail, 38 ; his deter- mination, 58 ; importance of single mind, 107 ; self-help, 165 ; on Praxite- les' statue, 177 ; on Roman sentry at Pompeii, 188 ; on economy , 227, 235 ; on trifles, 268, 282 ; on vocations, 327 ; power of mind over the body, 382; charities, 403, 409 ; knowledge, 430. Bunyan, John, how he wrote " Pilgrim's Progress,*' 63; a tinker, 83; self-help, rose above his calling, 101 ; on obsta- cles, 102 ; what changed him, 425. Burke, Edmund, on adversity, 100, 428 ; painstaking, 158, 235 ; Goldsmith on, 339 ; how he read, 445 ; on fame, 451. Burnett, Howard, charge for a " little thing," 172. Burns, Robert, a plowman, 83; on obstacles, 86; on economy, 227; on charities, 409. Burritt, Elihu, " no chance," 69 ; indus- try, 155. Bushnell, Horace, on obstacles, 86. Busyrane, inscription on gates, 37. Butler, B. P., coolness at a mass-meet- ing, 21 ; New York riots, 33. Butler, Bishop, on happiness, 450. Buxton, C, on one aim, 107. [ Buxton, Powell, 49. Byron, on courage, 10; stung by criti- 1 cism, 103 ; on words, 283 ; gin, 312, 321 ; and the fortune-teller, 372 ; 448. Caesar, Julius, conquests in youth, 35; I at the Rubicon, 45, 360 ; determina- tion, 46 ; "Commentaries," 162, 440; 442, 451. Calvin, .John, great sufferer, 90 ; Pope Paul IV. on, 222. Camillus, decision of, 358. Campbell, Sir Colin, 10. Campbell, F. J., self-help, 159. Canova, conquered obstacles, 101. Cardinal, Roman, on fortune, 44. Carey, Wm., " Cooks Voyages,"' 433. Carlvle, Thomas, on Webster, 51 : great worker, 66, 171, 324 ; a mason, 83 ; \ " Sartor Resartus," 171 ; life no ^ dream, 180; on economy, 237; oppor- I tunities, 256 ; lack of self-control, 270 ; want of charity, 402 ; on idle- I ness, 418 ; 432 ; on greatness, 448. I Cartwright, "Brave Spirits,'" 370. Cary, Phnebe, on courage, 10. Casas, Las, and Indians, 250. INDEX. 467 Catherine, Countess, her courage, 17. Cavanagh, Lord, grit, 7-4 ; 159. Caxtou and the priutiug-ofRce, 277. Cervantes and " Don Quixote,'" 95 ; 437. Chadbourue, President, his grit, 196. " Chalk your bobbins," 273. Chalmers, determination, 58, 157, 372. Chamfort on happiness, 459. " Changed Cross,'' 253. Channing, Wm. B., on courage, 37; 302. Character, strong, thrives under adver- sity, 90; Tennyson, Lowell, Young, Pope, Watts, Bailey, Shakespeare, Em- erson, Garfield, 202; sympathizes with health, 319 ; the Moor and Spaniard, 262 ; Longfellow, Socrates, Garrison, 203 ; Story and his statue, 204; Omar the Caliph, 204 ; Napoleon on Ney, 204 ; David, Robertson, Owen, 205 : Lincoln and boy deserter, 207, 208 ; Field on Lincoln, 208 ; Hamilton on Gladstone, John Newton, 208 ; hermit and min- strel, 209; Damon and Pythias, Pope Leo, Blackie, 211 ; Washington, Wel- lington on Peel, 212 ; Grattan on Pitt, 212,213; Washington, 213; Geo. Pea- body, Thackeray, Aristides, 214, 215 ; Alexander, 216 ; Montaigne, 216 ; Roger Sherman, 216 ; Sydney Smith on Homer, 217 ; Napoleon's death in France, Emerson on Napoleon, 218 ; Goldsmith, 219; Dr. Maudsley on aims, 219 ; Franklin, 220 ; Socrates to Archelaus, 220 ; a pacific people, 221 ; Prof. Blackie, Gen. Reed to King's Commissioners, 221 ; Bourdaloue's preaching, 222 ; Mary of Scotland on Knox, 222 ; Paul IV. on Calvin, 222 ; Garibaldi, Washington, Grant, Lin- coln, 222 ; Gladstone on Princess Alice, Florence Nightingale, Fabiola estab- lishes first hospital, John Howard, Clara Barton, 223; Mrs. Judson, Snow, Miss Brittain, Miss West, 224 ; Walter Scott, integrity and grit, Agassiz, Fax-aday, 226 ; Beecher, 226 ; strength of, 288. Charities, The, 390-409, Emerson, Paul, Moore, Lamartine, Franklin, Wilcox, Sheridan, Longfellow, Sydney Smith, Theodore Parker, Lowell, 390 ; Frede- rick Douglass to Secretary Rusk, 391 ; Savery the Quaker, stolen hides, 391 ; Emerson, 392 ; grand work of Elizabeth Fry, 392 ; Goethe, old lady on total depravity, Yorkshire miners, Franklin on Abraham, 393 ; Bishop's cage for captives. Dr. Johnson on Americans, Isabella exiles Moham- medans, assists Columbus, 394 ; Ba- con, ministers prayer on Emerson's lecture, Constantineand bishops, Wei' lington to Oxford students, 395 ; M. Boudon to Cardinal, 395 ; Goldsmith, 395, 396 ; bled to death by surgeon, Polish princess killed by surgeon, Wellington refuses to kill Napoleon, Grant at Appomattox, General Badeau on Grant, Sherman and Grant, 396; Southern soldier at Fredericksburg, 397 ; Rosa Bonheur's lion. Dr. Mott and a cruel operation, God in every man, 398 ; Girard's charity, 399 ; Socrates, Persian writer, 400 ; four- teen mistakes, 400 ; Garfield's death, Peter the Great, Lord Chesterfield, Walpole, Shakespeare, 401, 402 ; Gree- ley and subscriber, 401 ; Mrs. H. B. Stowe, Cowper, Shakespeare, " For- bear to juiige," Carlyle, Hood, Youths' Companion's story, 402 ; Bulwer, " Jlalignity," Beecher on the absent, Titus, his charity, 403 ; Theodosius, Wellington, "never had a quarrel," epitaph of Edward (the Good), 404; Bible, Gladstone and sick boy, Phillips Brooks and baby, W. II. Russell, from Crimea, 405 ; Florence Nightingale's grand work, 406 ; Humboldt's loan to Agassiz, 408 ; Christ's, 409. Charlemagne, courage, 35. Charles V., 17 ; doubt, 263. Charles XII., courage at nineteen, 36. Chaucer, De Quincey on, 438. Chase, Salmon P., defends a slave, 32. Chesterfield, Lord, last words, 126 ; his charity, 401 ; on idleness, 414. Chickering, Jonas, painstaking, 179. Chinaman, a worker, 80. Choate, Rufas, concentration, 114. Christ, courage, 33 ; healing power, 33 ; sole aim, 121; 151 ; what he taught, 299 ; charity, 409 ; influence, 439, Churchill, on foundations, 167. Cicero, on preparation, 167 ; parsimonv, 235 ; economy is revenue, 238, 239 ; greatest riches, 239 ; how to live long, 306, 437 ; books, 440, 441. Civilization, true test of, Emerson, 202. Clarendon, Lord, 441. Clark, Adam, determination, 58. Clarke, James Freeman, on books, 4.30. Clay, Henry, cornfield speeches, 191, 216 ; 423 ; his life an inspiration, 432, 446. Clive conquers India, 36 ; 272. Cholera in London, 127. Cleopatra, her nose, 281 ; pearls, 300, 452. Cobden, Richard, 83 ; grit, 84. Cockburn on books, 446. Coleridge, Hartley, lack of will-power, 57 ; " two left hands,"' 114. Coleridge, S. T., and "Arabian Nights" 57 ; 285 ; 433 ; on knowing ourselves, 306. Colfax, Vice-President, refuses wine, 22 ; thrice speaker, 69. Collier, Jeremy, as ; books, 430. CoUingwood, dropped acorns, 454. CoUyer, Robert, early life, 80 ; a man's best friends, 149. Colton, courage, 37 ; economy, 2.38. Columbus, his trials, 81 ; one aim, 107, 120; grit, 197; quells mutiny, 270; influenced by birds, 278 ; and Ferdi- 468 INDEX. nand, 284 ; ridiculed, 352 ; Isabella's jewels, 394. Combe, Dr., ou nervous dis;eases, 127. Constantine and bishops, 395. Conde, at Rocroi, 35. Confucius, on will-power, 47 ; self-help, 145; grit, 186. Cook, Eliza, on man, 1. Cook, Joseph, ou reading, 445. Copernicus, son of a baker, 83. Corday, Charlotte, story of, 129. Cortez, conquers Mexico, 36. Coster, invents printing, 277. Coston, Mrs., and Coston Signals, 75. Courage, 10-37, Agis on Sparta u brav- ery, Shakespeare, Longfellow, Hector, Bayard, Byron, Plautus, Oeorge Eliot, Hill, Dryden, Bovee, Phoebe Cary, Lowell, Emerson, F. W. Robertson on, 10 ; Colin Campbell to High- landers, at Balaklava, ensign at Alma, Danton's defiance, Mirabeau to De Breze, Regulus, sublime, Cranmer, 11 ; Rebecca Bates and Sarah Winsor in -war of 1812, 12 ; Washington saves drowning boy, 13 ; Wellington and phrenologist, Napoleon at Arcis, 14 ; General Jackson, 15; Jennie Carey, French medal, 15 ; brave bi)y at Fort Donelson, 16 ; Queen Marguerite saves Damietta, Spartan women, Pocahon- tas, Horatius at the bridge, Ei-ic the Red, 18 ; Napoleon at Lodi, 19 ; Joan of Arc, Stephen of Colonna, McClel- lan and the Indians, 20 ; Butler at a mass-meeting, 21 ; Schuyler Colfax refuses wine, Grant at Houston, 22 ; Catherine Vassen, Wellington, on " a brave man," Luther goes to Worms, 23; Dr. Miner's toast, John Bright, Holmes, 24 ; Tacitus, 25; Sainte-Beuve, Peter's courage and cowardice, Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Uriah Heep, Bruno, 27 ; Anna Askew, 27 ; Emerson, Nelson as a boy, David, Grant, 28 ; at Water- loo, two wagon-drivers. Lieutenant Doughty and Sergeant Rees at Peters- burg, 29 ; Napoleon at Friedland, 29 ; Nelson at Copenhagen, 30 ; at Trafal- gar, 30 ; Napoleon to staff-officer, 34 ; when twenty-seven, 36 ; first victory in Paris, 50 ; Sir William Napier at Salamanca, George Eliot, Lowell, Shakespeare, Thomas More and daughter. Sir Walter Raleigh at scaf- fold, 31 ; Lincoln upholds Grant and Stanton, Emancipation Proclamation, Salmon P. Chase, defends the slaves, 32 ; Christ's sublime courage, Wendell Phillips, H. W. Beecher, Gough, Knox, Garrison, General Butler at New York riots, 33 ; Leonidas at Thermopylae, Grant at Belmont, Emerson on the hero, Emin Pasha in Africa, 34 ; fable of mouse and magician, 35. Cowper, William, on charity, 402; on idleness, 410. Cox, Samuel, on self-help, 153. Cranmer, cowardice and courage, 11. Crapo, \V. \V., his grit, 196. Crockett, Colonel, his push, 145. Cromwell, Oliver, couldn't come to America, 281 ; self-discipline, 295, 301; 402; 462. Crosby, Fanny, blind; her hymns, 75. " Crutch Age '' helps, aids, 103. Culture, Bulwer on, 165. Currah, his grit, 58 ; " Orator Mum," 62, 103 ; read Homer yearly, 434. Cushman, Charlotte, obstacles, 58 ; 265. Cuyler, Dr., ou staying power, 182. Damon and Pythias, 211. Dante, a soldier, 83 ; his blindness, 87 ; twenty years in exile, 93 ; life changed by disappointments, 95 ; his knowledge, 111, 437. Dantou, to the enemies of France, 11. Dare. See Courage, 10-37. Darling, Gi-ace, 266. David, his courage, 28; realizes sins, 139 ; the Psalms, 205. Davidson, J. T., on self-help, 150. Davy, Humphry, experiments, 68 ; sneer at gas, 71 ; apprentice to apoth- ecary, 83 ; on self-help, 145; Faraday, 264 ; cured paralysis, 381. Deci.sion, 358-369; Longfellow, Munger Mathews, P. D. Armour, Keble, Holmes, Browning, Colton, Camillus, 358 ; Antiochus and Roman ambassa- dor, 359 ; Caesar at Rubicon, 360 ; 369 ; Satan in " Paradise Lost,"' value of decision, 360 ; Sheridan at Winchester, 361 ; Alexander the Great, John Fos- ter, Napoleon, 362 : Napoleon and Grant, Motley on Charles V., 3fi3 ; Jefferson on Washington's business decision, 364 ; maiden and ear of corn, Alexander and Hannibal, Amos Lawrence, 365 ; fool and wise man, irresolution, 366; epitaphs for those who fail, 366: Web.ster, 366; Scott on dawdling, how Burton over- came indecision, mind sympathizes with body, 367; Nelson, "nails his colors," 369 ; prompt decision in crisis, 369. De Leon, " heri di.scebamus," 293. Demosthenes, struggle with obstacles, 78, 79 ; heroism, 193 ; great prepara- tion, 181, 440. De Quincey, his proficiency at eleven, 36 ; pearls lost, 414. Dickens, intense application, 157; 413. Dickinson, Anna, courage, 33, 265. Diogenes, search for a man, 2 ; and Alexander, 250 ; contentment, 253. Disraeli, on circumstances, 44 ; grit, 58, 190 ; topmost round, 197 ; opportuni- ties, 256 ; 446. Dom Pedro's daughter frees slaves, 380. Douglass, Frederick, struggles against circumstances, 72, 159; charity, 391. INDEX. 469 Drew, Samuel, substitute for a dinner, i 48 ; on Locke's Essay, 432. I Drydcn, on courage, 10 ; on habits, 125 ; ' grit, 176; fortune's quiver, 186 ; 438. Dumas, Alexandre, on man, 1. Dumas, Alexandre, Fils, on self-help, 145. Duncan, pauper, scholar, 244. Dwight, Timothy, overwork, 823. Ecclesiasticus, on trifles, 268 ; riches, 239 ; health, 306. Economy, Wealth in, 227-238 ; Spur- geon, Dr. Johnson, Emerson, Goethe, Latin proverb, Franklin, German proverb, H. W. Shaw, Macaulay, Tupper, Shakespeare, Bulwer, Burns, John Murray, Quaker, 227 ; Emei'son on Boston merchant, Lampis, ship owner, 228 ; Marshall Field's business start, 228 ; Ostervalde, Paris banker ; the broken latch, 229 ; Guy, London miser and " Vulture " Hopkins, Pat- rick, the rainy day, contrasts between wealth and poverty in Imperial Rome, 230 ; Walpole, woman and doorplate, Dr. Johnson, John Randolph, 231 ; Barnum, cathedral window, average earnings in U. S., 232; between extravagance and meanness, 233 ; Emerson, nature's economy, 233 ; con- trast between 1772 and 1822 ; English working people, French housekeeper, 234; Rev. Wm. Marsh, Bulwer, Ed- mund Burke quotes Cicero, 235 ; Washington, Wellington, John Jacob Astor, Dr. Franklin, Shakespeare, Douglas Jerrold, 236 ; Carlyle, 287 ; Greeley, men demoralized by debt, Micawher, St. Paul, Cicero, 288. Edison, electric light, 84: 179; 266; phonograph, 275 ; 357 ; 443. Education, Rousseau on, 3, 166; Addi- son on, 167 ; Milton on, 167 ; Pope on, 170; Bulwer on, 177; president Trin- ity College on, 177 ; Thoreau on, 341 ; a health tonic, 379; Eliot, C. W., on, 429. Egyptians, books, "soul's medicine," 447. Eldon, Lord, his industrv, 48 ; and Thurlow, 96. Eliot, George, on courage, 10, 30 ; " Romola," 66; deeds not strangled, 130; "Daniel Deronda,'" 175 ; oppor- tunities, 256. Emerson, R. W., on a man, 1; Talley- rand's question, 4; 10; courage, 28, 38; Eric, 55 ; tenacity, 60; poverty, 66 ; Galileo, 72 ; action teaches, 97 ; gelf-help, 146 ; one remunerative book, 171 ; cannot die, 202 ; Napoleon, 218, 228 ; riches, 239, 242, 246 ; na- ture's economy, 2.33 ; 260 ; 268 : trifles, 268 ; self-trust, 288 ; omission, 299 ; son, 310 ; vocations, 342 ; sun shines on, 390 ; transcendental nonsense, 395 ; Burns, 422 ; Tyndall, 432 ; rules for reading, 439 ; happiness, 448, 449, 456 ; hope, 458, 462 ; 464. Enemies often our best friends, 89. Ensign, at Alma, 11. Epictetus, to the Roman orator, 250. Eric, the Red, refuses to sail, 18, 19. Ericsson, in bathroom, 262. Erskine, Lord, his pluck, 192. Everett, A.H.. pursuit of literature, 439. Everett, Edward, grand discoveries, 84 ; career a disappointment, 113 ; on foundations, 167 ; 266, 421. Fabiola, founds first hospital, 223. Faraday, experiments, 68 ; blacksmith's son, 83; restores cup, 140; .self-help, 160 ; science, or a million, 226 : oppor- tunity, 264, 266. Farragut, 50 years for opportunitj', 172. Fate, what it is, 45. Fawceti, blind, courage, 41 ; daughter, ability, 74; grit, 196. F(5nelon, on reading, 430. Ferguson, maps out heavens, 68 ; 162. Feslina lente, " hasten slowly,'' 176. Field, Cyrus W., perseverance, 84; value of money, 149 ; self-help, 172. Field, Marshall, rapid rise, 228. Fielding, force of habit, 189. Flechier, on self-help, 160. Fortune's smiles, one visit, 44. Foster, John, will-power, 38 ; sowing and reaping, 125 ; painstaking, 156. Fox, Chas. J., painstaking, 157 ; grit, 197 ; debt, 238 Franklin, Benjamin, studies at fifty, 56 ; ran away, 97 ; one aim, 107 ; 159 ; grit, 196 ; refuses to print an article, 220; economy, 227, 286 ; true riches, 244 254; 260; kite, gypsum, 277; trifles, 268, 279 ; use of child, 279 ; and gout, 306 ; on vocations, 827 ; on charity, 390 ; Abraham and the stranger, 393 ; sloth, 410; on experience, 421 ; Ma- ther's "Essay to do Good,'- 432; electricity, 441. Frederick the Great, self-help, 162, 440: Carlyle, 323. French Proverb on happiness, 448. Fry, Elizabeth, work in prisons, 393. Fulton, Rob't, first steamboat, 348, 349. Galileo, and pendulum, 36; opera-glass, 72 ; Venus, 84 ; loses control of his brain, §21 ; 437. Gambetta's career, 122. Garfield, J. A., first a man, 4; poverty, 69 ; opportunity, 91, 114 : death, 133 ; self-reliance, 146 ; " sink or swim," 147 ; hard work, 172, 199 ; on Washing- ton, 202 ; " our President," 401 ; debt to his mother, 422 ; influence of books on, 438. Garibaldi, fascination over men, 222. Garrison, Wm. Lloyd, 33, 191, 246. Geikie, vocations, 333 ; on a library, 438 ; Cicero, 441. German nobleman, 413. 470 INDEX. Gibbon, on education, 145 ; love of , reading, 430, time spent on '• Decline | and Fall,'" 157, 172. Gibbs, pirate, murdered and slept, 135. i Gilford, on mathematics, 63. I Girard, " luck," 51 ; early life, 52; start j in Pliiladelptiia, 52 ; lionest^ , 53 ; ac- curacy and energy, 53, 462 ; marriage, 53 ; 252 ; bt-nevolent gilts, 3y9. Gladstone, W. E., in Parliament at twenty-two, 36 ; vigorous at eighty- four, 36; senior wrangler, 41; con- centration, 109 ; power of work, 130 ; cheerfulness, 131 ; 165 ; Fawcett, 174 ; preparation, 180 ; Disraeli, 195 ; Bishop Hamiliton on, 2U8 : Princess \ Alice, 223 ; 245 ; 272 ; physique, 332 ; visits street sweeper, 405. Gladiators, training, 289. Goethe, on will-power, 45, 60 ; success under difficulties, 60 ; on single aim, 107, 113; on self-control, 153; on economy, 227; the distant, 267 ; worlt of nature, in man, 422 ; " Vicar of AVakefield,'" 433 ; charity, 395 ; 411. Goldsmith, on determination. 58 ; char- ity, 64 ; early life, 63, 64 ; later works, 64 ; on obstacles, 86 ; Curtis, 219 ; Burke, 339. Good name, Davidson, 150. Goodj'ear, vulcanizes rubber, 284 ; eleven years" struggles, 351 ; 357. Gough, J. B., courage, 33; last words, 126 ; story of a drunkard, 132 ; life | of, 140 ; tobacco, 300 ; advice to youth, I struggle with appetite, 300 ; damper on funeral, 457. Grandest Thing in the World. -See 1 Character, 202-206. | Grant, U. S., and Lincoln, 32; courage, 22, 28, 34 ; no "can't,"' 41; no " chance," 45 ; 90 ; decision, 58 ; greater than calling, 101 ; failure and success, 102; 114; persistence, 110, 172; one aim, 114; relf-reliance, 146; grit, 192, 193; character, 222; mil- lionaire of deeds, 245; Appomattox, 396. Greeley, Horace, 154 ; on debt, 237 ; and subscriber to " Tribune,'" 402 ; love of reading, 430. Green, J. R., "Making of England,"' 77. Grit, clear, 186-701 ; Shakespeare on, 186 ; Bonar on, 186 ; Whittier on, 186 ; Dryden on, 186 ; Longfellow on, 186 ; Confucius on, 186; Herrick on, 186; Beethoven on, 186 ; Pizarro and his comrades, 186 ; Lucy Stone, her, 187 ; H. B. Stoweon, 188 ; Sumner on, 188 ; Roman sentry, 188 ; John Walter, Jr., and the London "Times,"' 189; Lincolu"8, 190; Sheridan, 190; Clay, 191 ; Garrison, 191 ; Kitto, 191 ; P. Henry, 191 ; Lord Erskine's lack of, 192 ; Grant, 192, 193 ; Demosthenes, 193 ; Lincoln, 193 ; Whipple on Mhs- B6na, 194 ; Macaulay, of Alexander the Great, 194 ; Napoleon at Marengo, 194; Burke on, 195; Marshal Ney, 195: Harvard student, 195; Prof. Tosvnsend, 195; Orange Judd, 195; W. W. Crapo, 196 ; Franklin, 196 ; Locke, Lee, Lincoln, Garfield, 196; Chadbourne, 196 ; Cavanagh, 196 ; Henry Fawcett, 196; Prescott, 196; Parkman, 196; Barnum, 197; Colum- bus, 197; C. J. Fox on, 197 ; Cobden, 197; Disraeli, 197; Lacordaire, 198; Thorwaldsen, 198 ; W. H. Seward. 198 ; Miss Alcott, 199 ; Mrs. Frank Leslie, 199 ; Garfield on, 199 ; Gen. Jackson, 200; Herrick on, 201. •' Guard weak point," 286, 292. Gutenberg and Faust, 84, 277. Guy, miser, bookseller, 230. Habit, Sowing and Reaping, 125-144; danger of yielding to, 127 ; Galatians, Boardman, Pope, Shakespeare, Dry- den, Plato, Johnson, Jeremy Taylor, Foster, llobert.«on, Whittier, Lord Tenterden, last words, Napoleou"s, last words, 125 ; Chesterfield, when dying, Goiigh, Paxton H"od, cholera .in Toulon, Bonelli's experiment, 126; Rip Van Winkle, " This time don't count," Professor James, Dr. Combe, 127; "just to see what it is like," 128; fable of the Fates, Father Schoenmaker on the Indians, stripes on iiorses, birds lose power of flight, headless criminal raises hands, Char- lotte Corday"3 blush, Humboldt and parrot, Caspar Ilauser, result of con- finement, 129 ; George Eliot on habit, 130 ; achievement r^-sult of habit, 130 ; Sydney Smith on cheerfulness, Gladstone, 131 ; habit cumulative, Ruskin on, result of bad writing, habit makes prisoners, Gough's story of a drunkard, 132 ; Walpole"8 story of gamblers, betting on Garfield"3 death, story of a leper, 133 ; de- bauched taste of Romans, pirate Gibbs, 134; Gordon the stage-driver, white- boy, habit of scalping, 135; Indian and lion, 136; Grecian flute- player, 137; Babbage on habit, 137; Kulhiereand Talleyrand, 138; David realizes his sins, Washington"s max- ims, Franklin's plans for character building, 139 ; Montaigne on habit, cuts off hand for gla^s of whiskey, Gough's determination, Spurgeon on young church members, Benedict Ar- nold's habits. Young, " Devil's Acre," London, Victor Hugo, strange asso- ciation, diamond writing on glass, Thomas Hughes on " wild oats," 142; Keble, Theodora's boast, Daniel Wise, sickly student, 143; John Boyle O'Reillv, 144. Hale, E. E., " King's Daughters," 3o4^ Hale, Sir Matthew, his application, 15(. Hall, Robert, great sufferer, 90. INDEX. 471 Hamilton, Alexander, 181. Handel, in adversity, 78. Hannibal, victorious at thirty, 37; cross Alps, 365. Happiness, make our own Paradise, 448- 464; Carlyle, Beattie, French proverb, Bacon, Thoreau, Ballou, Byron, Pope, Jean Ingelow, Thomson, Southwell, Emerson, 448, 449; JoUiboy and Bilious, 448; Socrates, Addison on content, 449 ; Thackeray, Madame de Stael, Macdonald, 450 ; riches around, 450; Burke on fame, Byron, Goethe, Persian king's search, Antony, Brutus, we make unhappiness, none perfectly happy, Rothschild, 451 ; Yorkshire man's definition, 452; Apicius' ex- travagance, Cleopatra, 452 ; E-^opus, Caligula, LucuUus, Croesus, Xerxes, two men compared, 453 ; dissatisfied farmer, CoUingwood, 454 ; Haman and Mordecai, Kingsley on anxiety, 455 ; wretched if you fancy so, Emer- son on worry, 456; Gough, 457; Russell Sage, happiness in work, Nero, 457 ; P. D. Armour, keep trouble to yourself, 45S ; little acts make our lives, Chamfort on laughing, 0. W. Holmes on mirth, Hume, " crown for a laugh," Lycurgus, Lincoln, Addison, cheerfulness, 459 ; magician's secret, 460 ; man creates his world, old de- vice, 461; Stephen Girard, Montaigne, Emerson, contentment, Bacon on riches, Cromwell, 462 ; Longfellow, Rubens' motto, like a violin, Horace Mann, 463. Harrison, Carter, grit, 46. Harrison, John, chronometer, 262. Harvard student with paralysis, 195. Harvey, on Jenkins, 311. Hauser, Caspar, confinement, 129, Havelock, works and waits, 174. Haydn, poor boy, his " Creation," 153. Hazlitt, obstacles, 86. Health, Nature's Little Bill, 806-326; Logau, Bible, Virgil, Herrick, Cicero, South, John Newton, Poor Richard, Coleridge, Franklin and Gout, Nature a Shylock creditor, 306 ; food becomes thought and action, 307 ; river of life, Spencer, not "vile body," 308; Na- ture compels to utilize powers, Bible, the surgeon, 309 ; Emerson, immuta- ble laws, Seueca, 310 ; age of Thomas Parr, age of Henry Jenkins, ignorance of health laws, Frances Willard, 311 ; body network of nerves, 312 ; Byron ■ and gin, Nature's ledger, the body a timepiece, precautions, 314 ; work of the heart, three greatest physicians, 816 ; penalty of vocations, Dr. Ogle on occupations and health, 317 ; industry and longevity, penalty of over exer- cise, 318 ; mental barrenness of some rich men, Nature's motto, 319 ; in- somnia, Newton, 320 ; also Byron, Scott, Galileo, Josiah Quincy, 321 ; perpetual grind, AUfader, 321 ; Nature no sentimentalist, nervousness a life- shortener, Chatterton and Keats die young, Soutbey on Lucretia David- eon, Haller, Goethe, Linnaeus, Kirke White, overworked, 322 ; Paley, Pres- ident Dwight, overwork, Carlyle, An- gels' Autopsies, 323 ; bad air, filth, bad food, 329. Hebrews, oppression and vigor, 98. Heep, Uriah, begging pardon, 27. Hegel, the Sphinx" riddle, 292. Heine, difficulties, 71. Helmholtz, and science, 284. Help, Self, 145-166. Hemans, obstacles, 106. Henry, Patrick, self-help, 145 ; speech, 191, 264 ; " lazy boy,*' 263 ; 424. Henry, Prof., concentration, 113. Herbert, George, self - control, 293 ; worth of mother, 421. Herder, " great thought," 376. Herreshoff, blind boat-builder, 74. Herrick, grit, 186 ; " tumble me down,"' 201. Herschel, played oboe for meals, 83 ; self-help, 161 ; astronomer, 443. Hevne, early trials, 48. Higginson, on Colfax, 24; 329. Highwayman, and the gibbet, 95. Hill, Aaron, courage, 10. Hill, Rowland, penny postage, 120, 121. Hillard, idleness, 416 ; books, 430. Holland, J. G., self-help, 145 ; 418. Holland, dikes, 271. Holmes, 0. W., courage, 24; obstacles, 86 ; concentration, 110 ; decision, 358 ; mirth, 460. Homer, blind, 87 ; Odyssey, 288 ; effects of adversitv, 429; Napoleon, 433; effects of reading, 440. Hood, Paxton, charity, 402. Horace, on obstacles, 86. Horatius at the bridge, 18. liorner, Francis, " Commandments on forehead,"" 217. Hosmer, Harriet, and " American sculp- tors,"' 263. Howe, Elias, poverty and trials, 70 ; invents sewing machine, 343 ; 357 Hughes, Thomas, " wild oats," 142. Hugo, Victor, courage at seventy, 36, 37 ; men"s lack, 45 ; "Notre Dame," 109; strange association, 141. HuaboTdt, the parrot, 129; flight of birds, 278 ; on sickness, 374 ; aids Agassiz, 408. Hume, great worker, 157 ; deist, 285. Hunter, John, experiences, 82; surg- ery, 95. Huss, John, 94. Idea, Man with an Idea, 343-357 ; Bate, Ingelow, J. Stuart Mill, W. M. Pax- ton, Bryant, Howe and sewing ma- chine, 343; Pullman elevates Chi- cago blocks, 344; first sleeping cars, Greek germ of steam engine, New- 472 INDEX. coiuen conceives, Watt improves, o45 ; .Mackintosh ou Watt, 346; George Steplieuson's locomotive, 346; loco- motive ridiculed, 347; John Fitch and the first steamboat, 348; Ful- ton's steamboat up the Hudson, 848; Dr. Lardner ridicules ocean steamer, 85(1 ; Junius Smith and ocean steaui- ships, 350 ; C. Goodyear vulcanizes rublier, 351 ; Palissy's persistency to enamel pottery, 351; Bismarck's de- termination to unite Germany, Dante in exile, Columbus, Mohammed, 352; Oken, German naturalist. Dr. Morton discovers ether, 353 ; Frances Willard and Woman's International Temper- ance Union, Bishop Vincent and Chautauqua Circle, Dr. Clark and Christian Endeavor Society, Epworth League, Edw. E. Ha In and King's Daughters, Ten Times One, Clara Bar- ton and Red Cross Society, 354 ; Lord Raleigh discovers a new gas, pioneers of humanity always ridiculed, 355 ; Paul persecuted, Jenner discovers vac- cination, 356; stories of inventors more fascinating than " Arabian Nights," 357. Idleness, Curse of, 410-420 ; Cowper, Mrs. Sigourney, 410-420; W.F. Crafts, Franklin, Beecher, Von Logau, G. B. Emerson, Mrs. Osgood, Bailey, Spur- geon, 410; the "Auction,"' 411; Goethe, Connecticut prisoner, French prisoner tattooed, Walter Scott to his sou, 411; Sir Horace de Vere and Marquis of Spinola, Epes Sargent, Dickens, 412; punished by death, the German nobleman, the countess' let- ter, De Quincey, losing the pearls, Lord Chesterfieid, indolence a sui- cide, wrecks a young man, 414; sea captain's remedy, idleness a sly thief, " time wasters,'' 415 ; item from print- er's hand book, Hillard, 416; bicycle keeps going, 417 ; Carlyle, shirking politicians, Holland, Lincoln, 31111, 418 ; Scotch editor, 419 ; Ruskin's motto, 419 : F. S. Osgood, 420. Indians, Schoenmaker, 129 ; scalping, 135; young lion, 136; observation, 269 ; warrior tormented, 371 ; Ingelovv, Jean, ideals, 343. Ingi'am, of " Lond. Illust. News,"' in- dustry, 40. Irving, Washington, on misfortune, 60 ; self-help, 152: at seventy, 171. Isabella, Queen, assists Columbus, 394. Jackson, Gen. Andrew, arrests ruffian, 15 ; courage, 27 ; ate acorns, 200. Jackson, Helen Hunt, on courage, 37 ; riches, 239. Jackson, Stonewall, discipline, 290. Jacks-at-all-trades, not wanted, 114. James, Professor, on sowing and reap- ing, 127 ; virtue and vice, 375. Jamestown, colonists, hardships, 262. Jefferson, on Washington, 364. Jenkins, Henry, lives 169 years, 311. Jenner, discovers vaccination, 356. Jeremiah, search for a man, 1. Jerome, Chauncey, his career, 77 ; self- help. 154. Jerrold, Douglas, on linguist, 113 ; debt, 286 ; defies death, 373. Joan of Arc, her success, 20 ; 265. .lnhnson, Andrew, President, a tailor, 83. Johnson, Samuel, success a physical tonic, 57 ; early life and in college, 64 ; on perseverance, 67 ; a mason, 88 ; ou habit, 125 ; on Avriting a book, 170; "Vicar of Wakefield,'' 219; economy, 227, 231 ; tx-ue riches, 244 ; on trifles, 279; hate of Americans, 394. Jonson, Ben, mason and poet, 83. Joseph, from dungeon to throne, 94. Joseph II. of Austria, epitaph, 111. Judd, Orange, grit and success, 196. Kant, on obstacles, 92. Kean, Edmund, actor, 175. Keats, druggist and poet, 83. Keble, John, on sowing and reaping, 143 ; on decision, 858. Kelvin, Lord, on science, 355. Kenard, Monsieur, advertisement, 119. Kepler, a waiter in a hotel, 83. Kingsley, Charles, on education, 167. Kitto, deaf, on will, 47 ; grit, 191. Kneller, Sir Godfrey, 5. Knox, preached, musket at head, 33 ; his prayers feared, 222. Kossuth, in prison, 82; " tempe.st tossed,'' 97. "Know thyself,'' "help thyself," 163. Lacordaire, grit, 198 ; character, 239. Lafayette, commander at twenty, 35. Lafitte, Paris banker, 285. La Harpe, 57, 114. ; Lamartine, charity, 390. ; Langdale, Lord, his mother, 422. Lardner, Dr., ocean navigation, 40, 350. La Rochefoucauld, self-control, 303. Latimer and Ridley, die rejoicing, 371. Lavoisier, defer execution, 82. Law, turned out of doors, 97. Lawrence, Amos, character, 251, 356; pi'ompt action, 365. Leach, John, insomnia, 320. Lee's plans, and the boy, 212; Appo- mattox, 396. Leif, Erics son, sails to America, 18. Leigli, Pemberton, on drudgery, 88. Leo, Pope, confronts Atfila, 211. Leonidas, courage and wit, 34. Leslie, Mrs. Frank, courage, 199. Lewes, G. II., foundations, 167. I Leyden, John, thirst for knowledge, 50. I Lincoln, espoused ritjht, 32; 42; up- j holds Grant and Stanton, emancipa- I tion, 32 ; an example of America, 48 ; will made a way, 48 ; awkwardness, INDEX. 473 73; " pegging away,'- 182, 190; grit, 193, 196 ; boy-de?erter, 205-207 ; char- ity to Confederates, 208 ; character, 222 ; logical powers, 425. Linnaeus, poverty, 66 ; overwork, 322. Little Things, Might of, Trifles, 268- 287 ; Franklin, Young, Philips, Bible, Emerson, 268 ; battle of Platasa, Indian observation, 269 ; invention of gun- powder, Columbus, Dana's study of sand grain, Agassiz's studies in anat- omy, 270 ; cricket saves a vessel, leak in the dike, locomotive and telegraph, 271 ; Pasteur, American Revolution, Declaration of Indepen- dence, Gladstone, 272; Clive, 272; goose saves Rome, 273 ; Scottish army warned of Danes, Napoleon, Dick Ferguson, " chalk your bobbins,' ' 273 ; boy's cat sent to Algiers, 274 ; Galileo and pendulum, Edison and phonograph, Chicago fire, a famous ruby, 275; Cuvier, Suspension Bridge, value of a comma, Angelo, " tri- fles," 276 ; Coster invents printing, Charles VII. and printed Bible, 277 ; Caxton, first book in England, Mo- ses found, Mahomet saved by bird, Columbus follows birds, 278 ; telescope invented, Franklin discovers electri- city, Napoleon and trifles, 279 ; Well- ington great in, 280; Cleopatra, Anne BoJeyn's smile. Napoleon and Madame de Stael, Cromwell, Bulwer, 281 ; Dar- win, evolution, Linnaeus, botany. Dr. Black, Raleigh and potato, the Pil- grims, 282 ; founding of Yale College, 283 ; Marathon, Goethe, Hogarth, Bacon, Goodyear vulcanizes rubber, Helmholtz, Thames tunnel, 284 ; rice- hulling machine, grasshopper war, George IV. and apothecary, 285; no trifles in nature, 286 ; Tennyson, 287. Livingstone, Dr., industry, 66; dying in Africa, 94. Livy, on self-reliance, 147. Locke, hardships, 48; "Essay on Un- derstanding,'" 432. Longfellow, on courage of Hector, 15 ; plantinsc principles, 182 : steady appli- cation, 185 ; on pluck, 186 ; on charac- ter, 203 ; vocations, 335 ; decision, 358 : on charity, 390 ; influence of great men, 421. Longevity. See Nature's Little Bill, 306. Lowell, on courage, 10, 31 ; self-help, 145.; on character, "be noble," 202; on opportunities, 256 ; on vocations, 827 ; charity, 390. Lubbock, Sir John, 374. Luck, victim of bad, 44 ; Dr. Mathews on, 49 ; apparent, of Stephen Girard, 51 ; what it is, 54; Emer.*on on, 55. Lucretius, his painstaking, 156. Luther, at Worms, 23 ; " Here I stand," 24 ; in youth, 36 ; translates Bible in prison, 92 ; and the Pope, 96. Lvtton, on books, 443. Macaulay, proficiency in youth, 36 ; on Byron, 103 ; economy, 227 ; Athe- nian genius, 436. Macdonald, Geo., on Milton, 87; voca- tions, 342 ; castle and jewels, 450. Mackintosh, Sir J., vacillating, 57, 112 ; on Byron, 103 ; ability, 112 ; on Watt, 346. Mahomet, saved by bird, 278 ; ridiculed, but determined, 352. Man, Wanted, — A, 1-9; Jeremiah's search, 1 ; Emerson on, 1 ; Eliza Cook on Natures man, 1 ; Alexandre Dumas, 1 ; Diogenes' searcli, 2 ; World's advertisment, 2 ; kind wanted, 2 ; Rousseau on education and man, 3 ; Baptist doctor of divinity, 4 ; Emer- son, Talleyrand's question, 4 ; what Garfield meant to be, 4 ; Montaigne on our work, 4 ; Sir Godfrey Kneller, 5 ; Sydney Smith on secret of life, 5; Apelles' portrait of perfect woman, 6; coming man, 6; youth's character a bank, 7 ; what is man, 8 ; Emerson on scarcity of men, 1 ; Jean Paul Richter on himself, 8 ; Jones, "what constitutes a state," 8 ; Young, Edwin Arnold, 9. Manhood, Isaac Taylor, 166. Mann, Horace, early struggles, 179 ; on study of biography, 421. ■Mansfield, Lord, success, 65. Marathon, battle, results, 284. Marengo, 194. Marguerite, Queen, at Damietta, 16. Marshall, John, Virginia scenery, 424. Marryat, novels, prompt to sea-life, 435. Martineau, Harriet, father's failure, 86 ; how she read, 445. Mary, Queen of Scots, and Knox, 222. Mass(5na, " I will hold out,"' 194. Mastery, self, 288, 305. Mather, Cotton, " Essay to do Good," 432. Mathews, Dr., luck, 49; vocations, 332; mistaken, 335 ; decision, 358, 433. Maudsley, bad aims, bad passions, 219. McClellan, overawes Indians, 20. Mendelssohn to his critics, 95. Methuselah and the angel, 410. Micawber, maxim of economy, 238. Milbum, chaplain of Congress, 75. Mill, J. S^., on conviction, 343; 418. Miller, Hugh, mason, 83; "Earl of Crawford,"' 276; old red sandstone, 285, 442. Millet, first pictures, " Angelus," 175. Miltiades, and Grecian generals, 400. Milton, will, 41 ; " Paradise Lost,'' when blind, 56; blind, 87 ; Macdonald on, 87 ; teacher, 94 ; on suffering, 102 ; ou education, l67 ; 408. xMindOver the Body, Power of, 370-389 ; Glanvill, Shakespeare, Cartwright, Napoleon, popular soprano, 370 ; ex- periment on dog and horse, Latimer 474 INDEX, and Ridley at stake, Guatemozin and Montezuma, butcher falls on hook, 371; woman bitten by dog, Byron, 372 ; courageous people avert disease, Napoleon, Jerrold defies death, Sen- eca refuses to die, Scott's will, why actors don't get sick, 373 ; tight-rope walker, Humboldt, Youth's Compan- ion, 374 ; anger, sudden emotions. Professor James, 375 ; vigorous will, lady did not grow old, 376 ; fear kills, criminals die of fear, case of student, janitor scared to death, convict dies of fright, Texans, 378 ; comet of 1520, intended suicide and pot of gold, suc- cess a tonic, education a tonic, 379 ; Dom Pedro recovers, grand senti- ments and longevity, mother's anger poisons infant, Rarey, angry words to a horse, emotions cause vomiting, anger and jaundice, 380 ; bed-ridden patients, 381 ; fear, shock from sad news, 382 ; supposed heart disease, 383 ; hair turned white, pilgrim and the Plague, 3S4 ; the two portraits, 385; ideals and health, 386; teach children, 387 ; coming physician and parent, 388. Miner, Rev. Dr., toast at dinner, 24. Mirabeau, to De Breze, 11 ; will-power, 38, 5^^ ; forty years' labor, 172 ; wretched from duns, 238. Mirmir's Spring, 321. Mirth, God's medicine, 459. Mitchell, Maria, 149, 263. Mitchell, Gen. 0. M., moments, 276. Moliere, died acting "death," 378. Money, what it does for son, 147 ; what says yours, 241 ; and character, 245, 250, 254. Montague, Lady Mary, on reading, 444. Montaigne, work, 4 ; habit, 140 ; his re- putation, 216. Montezuma, Guatemozin, 371. Moor and Christian, 202. Moore, painstaking, 171 ; 390. More, Sir T., brave daughter, 31 ; " Utopia," 242. Morse, S. F. B., 10. Morton, Dr., discovers ether, 354. Moscheles, " Finis, with God's help," 151. Moses, Angelo's, 69 ; jeered at, 355. Mothers, Garfield, West, 422, 441, Mott, Lucretia, 263. Mozart, hardships, " Requiem," 78 ; poor, but rich, 249. Murdock, \Vm., illuminating gas, 71. Murray, John, his contribution, 227. Napier, Sir C, against steam, 71. Napier, Sir Wm, , courage, 30. Napoleon, at Arcis, 14; at Lodi, 19 ; at Friedland, 29 ; " impossible," 34 ; at twenty-seven, 36; will, 58, 59; pov- erty, 66 ; unwavering aim, 75, 78, 107, 108 ; spurred by obstacles, 88 ; at drill, 115 ; last words, 125 ; at Marengo, 194 ; Marshal Ney, 204; effect of death, 218 ; on trifles, 268 ; fall of Acre, 273 ; master of trifles, 279 ; Mme. de Stael, 281 ; self-control, 295 ; be master, 305 ; decisive minutes, 363 ; Welling- ton, 396. Napoleon III. at Chancellor Kent's, 39 ; at Sedan, 123. Nature's Little Bill, 306. Nature, schoolmaster of the race, 423. Neal, John, on obstacles, 86. Nelson, Admiral, courage, 28 ; at Tra- falgar, Copenhagen, 30 ; at twenty, 36 ; colors nailed to mast, 369. Newcomen, 458; steam engine, 345. Newton, Isaac, decision at school, 58', poverty while experimenting, 66 ; composition of light, 68 ; " Chronol- ogy of Ancient Nations," 110; dog Diamond, 288 ; 441. Newton, John, 208. Ney, Marshall, from ranks, 83; grit, 195 ; Napoleon on, 204. Nightingale, Florence, hospital work, 223; "angel of Crimea," 406. Noah, laughed at, 355. Northcote, on money, 91. Nott, President, got overcoat, 67. Obstacles, Uses of, 86-106; Spurgeon, Goldsmith, Young, Holmes, Bushnell, Horace, Sirach, Burns, Hazlitt, Neal, Harriet Martineau, 86 ; Milton's suffer- ing, 87 ; two of three greatest poets blind, Thiers, 87 ; Napoleon spurred by taunts, ability lost for want of, 88 ; Talleyrand, enemies our best friends, 89; Calvin, Robert Hall, 90; charac- ter developed by fire, 91 ; Kant on, 92 ; Robinson Crusoe and Pilgrim's Progress written in jail, 92 ; Penn's " No cross, no crown," 92 ; Raleigh's "History of the World "' written in prison, 92 ; Luther's Bible at Wart- burg, 92 ; Dante in exile, 93 ; two boys, 93 ; Joseph, from pit to throne, Paul in Roman cell, Tyndale dying in prison, Huss at the stake, Livingstone, Milton teaching, 94 ; Mendelssohn to critics, Hunter, advance in surgery. Dr. Peabody on obstacles, Dante and Florence. Cervantes writes Don Quix- ote, 95 ; a promising cantatrice, Beethoven of Rossini, Luther's best work. Lord Thurlow and Lord Eldon, Waters on struggling, 96; Addison, Emerson, Kossuth, Franklin and Law forced to self-help, the eagle taught to fly, 97; oppression of Jews, 9*S ; spring in Crimea, God knows best, 98 ; adversity discovers the man, 99 ; Burke on adversity, Opie sawed wnod, 100; Canova, laborer's son, Thor- waldsen, a pauper, 101 ; Arkwright, Bunyan, Wilson, Lincoln, Grant, rise above their callings, 101; Beethoven, Schiller, Milton, Bunyan work under difficulties, 101 ; Payson, German INDEX. 475 knights, ^olian harp, Tourg^e, 102; Byron's success, Macaulay on Byron, a " Crutch Age," 103 ; America and New England, lu4; Nature's purpose, 104 ; Browning, 106. Occupations. See Vocations. Ogle, occupations and longevity, 317. Oken, naturalist, frugality, 353. Oliphant, Mrs., on self-conti-ol, 297. Opie, conquered obstacles, 100. Opportunities, Where You Are, 256- 267 ; Townsend, Lowell, George Eliot, Alger, Carlyle, Disraeli, Webster, 256; Bunyans Pilgrim, lost bracelet, all around us, 257 ; Brazilian shepherds, 257 ; richest Nevada mine, farmer and coal-oil, All llafed loses his, 258 ; Emerson, fortunes from trifles, 260 ; Edison, shoe hooks, 261 ; barbers" clippers, washing machine, gold fill- ing, Ericsson's propeller, cotton-gin, Harrison's chronometer. Fitch and the steamboat, McCormick reaper. Founder of Clark University, Farqu- har, umbrellas, 262 ; Edison in bag- gage car, Jamestown colonists, 262 ; Angelo and the marble, Maria Mit- chell, 263, 265 ; Lucretia Mott, Harriet G. Hosmer, sculptor, Patrick Henry, 263 ; Faraday, artist and log of wood, 264 ; Anna Dickinson, 265 ; Charlotte Cushman, Jeanne d" Arc, America's, 265 ; fortune how made, Everett, fu- ture discoveries, 266 ; Goethe, Ellen H. Gates, Harriet Winslow, Punshon,267. Orange, William of, the Silent, raised Ley den siege, 39. O'Reilly, J. B., on habit, 144. Osgood, Mrs., idleness, 410 ; F. S., vrork, 420. O^tervalde, miser, banker, 229. Owen, John, twenty years on Commen- tary, 170. Paley, died of overwork, 323. Paradise, Every Man His Own, 448-464. Paris cabmen, students and priests, 335 ; hydrophobia case, 372. Parker, Theodore, and the turtle, 285 ; on charity, 390. Parkman, Francis, grit, 159. Parr, Thos., lived 152 years, 311. Pasteur, Louis, career, 272. Patten, Dr., on physical exertions, 330. Paul, St., determination, 122 ; in prison, 251 ; great idea, .356. Paul IV., Pope, tribute to Calvin, 222. Paxton, W. M., power of one idea, 343. Peabody, Rev. Ephraim, obstacles, 95 ; self control, 303. Peabody, George, honesty, 214. Peel, Robt., in Parliament at twenty- one, 36; Wellington's tribute, 212. Penn, William, trial, 32 : " No Cross, No Crown,'' 92. Pericles, self-control, 289. Perseverance, Dr. Johnson, 67 ; Thiers' first speech, 87 ; William I., 180. Persian writer, 400 ; story, 451. Pestalozzi, on self-help, 145. Peter, St., cowardice and courage, 26. Peter the Great, self-help, 162 ; lack of self-control, 294. Phillips, Wendell, courage, 33; opportu- nity, 80; on trifles, 268; effects, 282. Phipps, Sir Wm., search for wealth, 82. Physiological bankruptcy, 306. Pitt, Wm., singleness of aim, 108, 120 ; Grattan, "stood alone'' 212; high honor, 213 ; high aim, 254. Pizarro, drew the line, 186. Plague and fear, 385. Plato, on habit, 125 ; geometry, 139 ; over door, 139 ; painstaking, 158 ; ban- quet, 241 ; self conquest, 2b0, voca- tions, 342 ; 441. Plautus, courage, 10. Plutarch, Aristides, 215 : banquet, 241 ; Mme. Roland and Napoleon, 4d5 ; Emerson, 439. Poe, sad life, 290. Pomeroy, boy murderer, 436. Poor Richard, on reason, 306. Pope, Alexander, on man, 5 ; habit, 125 ; on character, 202 ; reading, 430. Porter, President, on will-power, 38. Potter, Bp., effect of bad books, 436. Preparation (see Work and Wait), 167- 185 ; Cicero, Lewes, Arnold, Thoreau, Churchill, Seneca, Everett, Kingsley, 167 ; Bessemer 's work, 167 ; elocution in twelve lessons, 169 ; Pope, on na- ture's motto, persistence of Bishop Hall, 170 ; Owen, Moore, Carlyle, Beecher, Miss Alcott, Emerson, Irving, 171 ; persistence, Angelo, Da Vinci ; 171; Burnett and the album, 172; men world wants, Bancroft, Noah Webster, Gibbon, Mirabeau, Farra- gut, Von Moltke, Garfield, Grant, Field, 172 ; Angelo, Titian, Stephen- son, Watt, Franklin, Thurlow^ Weed, Milton, Thackeray, Balzac, Webster, 173; Bierstadfs picture, Bunker Hill monument, 174; Ilavelock's perse- verance, 174 ; George Eliot's Derouda, 175; Millet, "Angelas,'' Schiller and Dante great workei's, Beecher, Thal- berg, Kean's Practice, 175 ; Da Vinci's " Mona Lisa," 176; Bingham on the Germ.an army, 176 ; illiterate preach- er, 177; Praxiteles' statue, 177; col- lege ^graduate and president, drill, 178; Edison, phonograph, Horace Mann, braided straw, Jonas Chicker- ing, 179 ; Carlyle, " thy life no dream,"' Gladstone, incessant work, Emperor William, perseverance, Ole Bull on practice, 18*3 ; Webster's anec- dote, 180; Webster's preparation, Demosthenes, 181; Hamilton, 181; Sizer on, Ruskin, every action foun- dation-stone, 182 ; Wellington dis- couraged, Napoleon, delayed. Collyer, 183 ; chronicles of discoveries, 184. Prescott, W. H., grit, 72. 476 INDEX. Priestley, Joseph, house burnt, 82. Procter, Adelaide, charity, 409. Ptolemy IJ. and Sostratus, 421. Pullmau, how he started, 344. Pythagoras, on courage, 37 ; anger, 293. Quakers, 292, 391. Quincy, Josiah, Beacon Street palaces, 235 ; asleep before Story, 321. Quixote, Don, Cervantes, 95. Raleigh, Sir Walter, courage, 31 ; His- tory of world, 92 ; the potato, 282. Raleigh, Lord, researches, 355. Randolph, J., "Philosopher's Stone," 231. Raphael, rich without monev, 248 ; face of Christ, 386. Regulus, sublime character, 11. Rich, Isaac, founds Boston Univ., 154. Richard, Poor, horse-shoe nail, 283. Riches, — Rich Witliout Money, 239- 255 ; Collingwood, Pope, Hf^len Hunt, 239 ; Emerson, 239, 242, 247, 248, 250, 254; Cicero, Kcclesiastes, Young, Soc- rates, 239, 250 ; Shakespeare, Beecher, 239; who are rich? 240; Phillips Brooks, three great banquets, mes- sage money brings you, 241 ; ship- wrecked sailor and Spanish dollars, Socrates, More's "Utopia,'" dying Eng- lish miser, skeleton of Pompeii, Watson, 242; poor man, a miser, miser of Padua, 243 ; John Duncan, 244 ; Franklin, 244, 254 ; millionaiivs of deeds, ideas, 245 ; lesson of life, Ruskin, 245 ; men rich without money, 246 ; Raphael, Ilenrj' Wilson, Matthew Arnold, 243 ; who are rich, Mozart, 249 ; Diogenes and Alexan- der, 250, 253 ; Epictetus, 250 ; John Bright on, Paul, Christ, motto of Amos Lawrence, Alexander at Para- dise, 251 ; Agassiz, 252 ; Buddhist say- ings, '' Changed Cross," 253 ; Pitt, 254; Tennyson, 255. Richter, self-made, 8. Rip Van Winkle, Jefferson, 127. Rirtenhouse, eclipses, 63, 162. Robertson, F. W., heroism, 10; sowing and reaping, 125 ; of character, 288. Robinson Criisop, written in prison, 92. Rogers, on obstacles, 86. Roland, Madame, and Plutarch, 434. Romans, why Tictorious, 49; persever- ance, 188 ; debauched taste, 134. Ruskin, on habit, 132 ; thoughtlessness, 182 ; what he sees, 279 ; tendency of the age, 333 ; 419 ; motto, 419 ; 432. Russell, W. H., in Crimea, 405. Sage, Russell, on work, 458. Sailust, self-help, 153. 1 Samuel iv. 9, on courage, 37. Sargent, Epes, on effort, 60, 412. Safan in " Paradise Lost,'" 360, Savery, Quaker, and thief, 391. Savonarola, his integrity, 100. Saxe, on self-help, 145. Schiller, great sufferer, 78. Schliemann, explorations, 434. Schoen maker, Father and Indians, 129. Schools and Schoolmasters, Our, 421- 429; Franklin, Horace Mann, Everett, Lytton, Longfellow, Tennyson, Sostra- tus and Pharos, 421 ; mother. Presi- dent Giiifield, Benjamin West. Goethe, 422; Emerson, 422, 430: Job, 422; Shakespeare, 422, 428; Nature, great teacher, city and country, 423 ; Vir- ginia and Patrick Henry, Stephen Allen on Webster, 424 ; Universe, a kindergarten, 424; Bunyau, Alexan- der, Lincoln, 425 ; association with others, 426 ; real power, where found, 426 ; Stearns on business, 427 ; defeats and failures, Burke, poverty, poverty of Poussin, charity, Richard Foley, Homer, 429 ; misfortune, C. W. Eliot, 429. Scott, Walter, on Leyden, 51 ; will pay debts, 55, 56, 103; decision, 225; and shepherd-boy, 285; self-deni:il, 290 ; overworked, 321. Self-IIelp, 145-166 : Pestalozzi, 145, 146 ; Davy, Patrick Henry, Byron, Holland, Dumas, Fils, Shakespeare, Phillips, 145 ; Gibbon, 145, 157 ; Confucius, Lowell, Saxe, 145 : Crockett, Garfield, Emerson, Grant, 146 : Arkwright, 146, 159 ; Livy, Solario wins bride, Louis Philippe, coat-of-arms, self-made pres- ident, Garfield, poverty, your fortune and your son, 147 ; Cyrus W. Field, Maria Mitchell, American daughters, Robert CoUyer, 149 ; Beecher's early ministry. Waters, Davidson, 150, 151 ; I "Loaferdom," Irving, 152; Sailust, Bayard Taylor, Samuel Cox, Goethe, Tyndall, 153; Isaac Rich"s start, Chauncey Jerome, Elihu Burritt, 154 ; Sheridan, painstaking of Lucretius, Bryant, Forster, 156 ; Chalmers on Forster, Dickens, hard worker, Bacon, drudgery of Hume, Lord Eldon, Mat- thew liale, Fox, Rousseau, pains- taking of Waller, Beethoven, 157 ; Plato, Burke, Butler, Virgil, Haydn's youth, Fred. Douglass" success, 158; Cavanash and Campbell, Parkman, Franklin, 159; Lord Tenterden, 160; Faraday, 160 ; Flechier, Duke of Ar- gyle and Edmund Stone, 160 ; James Watt, Alexander V., Herschel, Wash- ington, 161 ; Burns, Ferguson, Gifford, Rittenhouse, Julius Caesar, Frederick the Great, Columbus, Peter the Gi'eat, 162 ; cramming geese in Strasburg, 164 ; Agassiz, Gladstone, 165 ; over- culture, Rousseau, Isaac Taylor, 166. Self-Mastery, 208, 305; Shakespeare, Robertson, Fletcher, Earl of Stirling, Thomson, Odyssey, Thomas Browne, Milton, Bible, 288; Emerson, 288, 299; Shelley, Newton, 288; Pericles abused, gladiators" train- INDEX. 477 ing, 289 ; Poe, 289 ; Burns' lack, , Plato, Walter Scott, Stouewall Jack- I son, 290 ; plan tor raukuig qualities, ! 291 ; H^gel on Sphinx, Quaker's self- \ control, 292 ; Socrates, 2y3. 295 ; and | wife, 297; to youth, 298; auger causes disease, 'Webster, Pythagoras, I 293 ; sti'ong men ; Angelo, Peter the Great, anger, enemy to life, 294 ; Crom- well, 295, 301 ; Wellington, 295, 3ul ; Napoleon, 295, 305 ; mastered himself, 296 ; Mrs. Oliphant, 297 ; Seneca, Zacharias, Von Moltke, 298; Grant, Xenophon, Persian teachers, 299 ; Cleopatra, 300 ; alcohol, effect of, Gough's struggle, 3u0 ; intemperate feelings, 301 ; William the Silent, 3:tl, 302; Wordsworth, Faraday, Wash- ington, 301, 302 ; Carlyle, Channiug, 302 ; Dr. Peabody, La ilochefoucauld, our two natures, 3U3 , Burns, Carlyle, 305. Seneca, on haste, 167 ; self-control, 298 ; on long life, 310 ; will-power, 370 ; defied death, 373. Seward, W. H., grit, 193. Shakespeare, courage, 10, 31, 37; Ro- man bravery, 23; power, 44; "Ham- let," sold for $25, 65, 241, 442 ; habit, 125; self-help, 145; grit, 186; econ- omy, 227, 236 ; true riches, 239 ; ideas, 245 ; self-control, 288 ; mind and body, 870 ; his charity, 401 ; charity, 402 ; schoolmasters, 422 ; effect of want, ,429 ; copied from Plutarch, 434. Sheridan, Phil, decision, 36 ; at Win- chester, 58. Sheridan, R. B., extempore brilliants, 153 ; debt, 23-^ ; on charity, 390. Sherman, Gen., and Grant, 390. Shoemakers, in Congress, 84. Smiles, Dr., foundations, 95. Smith, A., " Wealth of Nations,'" 110. Smith, Junius, ocean steamers, 350. Smith, Sydney, digestion, 5; Webster, 61 ; cheerful habit, 131 ; Francis Horner, 217 ; vocations, 327 ; 390. Socrates, character, 203 ; to Archelaus, 220 ; riches, 239 ; richest of men, 242; died for honor, 250; controlled temper, 293 ; 295 ; Xanthippe, 297 ; charity, 400 ; pleasure, 441, 449. Solomon, books, 430. Sostratus and Pharos, 421. Soult, rose from ranks, 83. Southey, 103 ; on Coleridge, 114. Sowing and Reaping. See Habit, 125- 144. Spartans, bravery, Agis, 10 ; women, 16. Spencer, laws of health, 308. Spinola, Marquis, on idleness, 412. Spurgeon, obstacles, 86 ; idleness, 410. Stael, Mme. de, desired beauty, 451. Stearns, power of business, 427. Ste. Beuve, courage, 26. Stephen of Colonna, 20. Stephenson, 110 ; fifteen years on loco- motive, 173 ; early struggles, 346. Stephen Whitney, shipwreck, 361. StevvHrr, A. T., start in life, 261 ; 340. Stone, Lucy, her grit, 187. Story, sculptur, and statue, 204. Stowe, Mrs. H. B., 260 : family of stu- dents, 357; on charity, 402, St. Ju.-t, " Keep cool, "296. Success Under Difliciilties, 60-85 ; Beecher, Sargent, Goethe,'Vanderbilt'8 start, Vauderbilt's successes, 60, 62 ; Barnum s start, Curran's first effort, 62; "Pilgrim's Progress," how writ- ten, Gifford's first work, Rittenhouse calculates eclipses. Goldsmith's early life, 63; Johnson, Mansfield, Shake- speare, 65 ; Newton, Emerson, Lin- nasus. Napoleon, Livingstone, Eliot, and "Romola," 66; Livingston, G. Eliot, 66 ; Carlyle's painstaking, 67 ; Dr. Nott's coat, 67; Franklin, Dr. Black, 68 ; Watt's first model of an engine, 68 ; Newton on composition of light, Davy's experiments, Faraday's experiments. Marquis of Worcester, Ferguson maps the heavens, 68 ; Mil- ton, blind, writes "Paradise Lost,"' E. B. Washburne, 68; Elihu Burritt, 69 ; Garfield teaching, Angelo's pov- erty and success, 69; Zola's hard- ships, 69; James Brooks' e.irly life, Elias Howe's trials, how Arkwright began, 70 ; Heine, 71 ; Napier opposes steam for the navy, 71 ; Murdock's efforts to introduce gas, 71; Titian crushes flowers for colors, 71 ; Ange- lo's early efforts, 71 ; Prescott, Emer- son on Galileo, Shakespeare, Daniel Webster, Christ's hui.nble birth, 72; Frederick Douglass, 72; Lincoln, 73; Cavanagh, Henry Fawcett, Herre- shoff, blind ship-buildei', 74 ; Milburn, the blind chaplain of Congress, 75 ; blind Fanny Crosby, Mrs. Coston's naval signals, 75; genius nursed by poverty, 76 ; Chauucey Jerome, 77 ; Green and " History of English Peo- ple, "'77; Schiller, Handel, Mozart's "Requiem," Beethoven in sorrow, 78; Demosthenes, Eli Whitney, cot- ton-gin, 79 ; Robert Collyer, 80 ; the Chinaman, 80 ; Columbus' courage, 81 ; Lavoisier's execution. Dr. Priest- ley's house burned, Bruno burned in Rome, Versalius condemned, Kossuth in prison, Bacon persecuted, Washing- ton mobbed, Wellington's house mobbed, William Phips" search for treasure, 82; Hen Jonson, Joseph Hunter a carpenter, Burns a plow- man, Keats a druggist, Carlyle, Hugh Miller, masons, 83 ; Faraday, black- smith's son, Kepler, hotel waiter, Co- pernicus, Herschel, Marshal Ney, Soult rose from ranks, Cobden, 83; shoemakers in Congress, 84 ; Cyrus W. Field and cable, Edison, Everett, reward of perseverance, 84 ; Bulwer, struggles against difiicultieg, 85. 478 INDEX. Sumner, Charles, backbone, 188 ; 245. Swift, on vocations, 34'2. Tacitus on courage, 25. Talleyrand, his question, 4; enemies, 89 ; habit, 138. Taylor, Bayard, self-help, 153. Taylor, Isaac, self-help, 166. Taylor, Jeremy, sowing, reaping, 125. Tennyson, first efforts, 171 ; on charac- ter, 202 ; true riches, 255 ; trifles, 287 ; companions, 421. Thackeray, " Vanity Fair " rejected, 173 ; honesty, 214 ; 451. Thalberg, persistent practice, 175. Theniistocles and Aristides, 214. Thiers, failures and success, 87. Thoreau, foundations, 167. Things, Little, Might of, 268-287. Thorwaldsen, conquered difficulties, 101 ; pauper boy, 198. Thurlow, Lord, helps Eldon, 96. Titian, early efforts, how he got colors, 71 ; "Last Supper,'" 173. Tourgt^e, Albion, obstacles, 102. Townsend, Prof., grit in college, 195. Tupper, will-power, 38 ; economy, 226. Tyndale, Wm., dies in prison, 94. Tyndall, Prof., start in life, 153 ; 264. Uses of obstacles, 86-106. Vanderbilt, Cornelius, fortune, 60 ; mil- itary contract, 61 ; steamers, 62. Victor Hugo, " Notre Dame,"' 109. Virgil, painstaking, .^Eneid, 158 ; Na- poleon, 433, 440. Vocations, Good and Bad, 327-342 ; Franklin, the long lived, 327 ; dan- gei-ous occupations and longevity, 328 ; clergymen, miners, 329 ; monasteries and prisons, 329 ; forced exertions, 330 ; the brain, 331 ; Wesley, xMathews on physical superiority, Gladstone's physique, J. Q. Adams, 332; voca- tions to avoid, Geikie on success, Ruskin, tendency of the age, 333 ; what to choose, 334; Longfellow, mistaken calling, Paris cabmen, 335 ; who fail, 336 ; Garfield, 338 ; greater than calling, business, 339 ; Stewarfs success, versatility, 340 ; choice makes one a compass, Swift, Emerson, 342. Von Moltke, no chance, 45 ; 50 years for opportunity, 172 ; 176 ; silence, 298. Walpole, Horace, habit, 133 ; economy, 231 ; charity, 401. Wanamaker, lessons from career, 54. Washburne, E. B., his career, 68. "Washington, saves drowning boy, 13; at 19, 35 ; hooted in streets, 82 ; his maxims, 139 ; Garfield on, 202 ; 210. "Watt, James, first engine model, 68 ; his career, 161 ; twenty years on en- gine, 173; in poverty, 346. "Watts, Isaac, on character, 202. W^ebster, Daniel, Sydney Smith, Carlyle, 51; his boots, 51; country boy, 72; blacksmith's suit, 172; debt,' 238; spirit of detail, 283; anger not argu- ment, 293; country scenes, 424 ; 442. Webster, Noah, dictionary, 110. VV'eed, Thurlow, borrows books, 48. Wellington, and phrenologist, 14 ; of a brave soldier, 23 ; at Waterloo, 29 ; at seventy, 36; determiuation, 58; mobbed, 82; discouraged, 183; on Peel, 212; on economy, 236; self- control, 295; not to kill Napoleon, 396. West, Beuj., opportunities, 256 ; 422. Whipple, E. P., will, 38 ; difficulties, 58 ; one aim, 112 ; Masst^na grit, 194. White, Henry K., 83; overworked, 322 Whitney, Eli, cotton-gin, 79. Whittier, sowing and reaping, 125 ; 186. "Whittington, iSir Richard, and cat, 274. Will ; Will and the Way, 38-59 ; Mira- beau, Whipple, Tupper, Emerson, President Porter, Bulwer, Jeremy Collier, Foster, Longfellow, Prince of Orange, siege of Ley den, 38 ; Ley den University, 39 ; Dr. Lardner on ocean steamers, Mr. Ingram's painstaking, 40 ; blind Henry Fawcett, his daugh- ter, Grant found no " can't,"' Milton, 41 ; not always a way, greatest we can do, 43; Shakespeare, Roman Cardinal, 44 ; Disraeli, 44 ; chance and fate, Goethe, Victor Hugo, 45 ; Caesar"s vic- tories. Carter Harrison "s grit, 46 ; Con- fucius, Kitto, 47 ; Lincoln shows our country "s possibilities, his campaign speeches, read law barefoot, walks to legislature, induced to study law, Thurlow Weed"s love for books, 48 ; poverty of Heyne and Samuel Drew, Lord Eldon"s industry, 48 ; Mathews on luck, 49; Napoleon, 50; success depends on will-power, John Leyden's thirst for knowledge, 50 ; Scott on Leyden, Webster"s boots, Girard"s apparent luck, 51 ; early life, start in Philadelphia, 52; precision, integrity, marriage, 53 ; what is luck, Wana- maker's career, 54 ; Emerson on chance, 55 ; sudden resolution late in life, 56 ; success a tonic. Mackintosh, Coleridge, La Harpe, deficient in will, Charlotte Cushman, 58. Willard, Frances E., opportunity, 260 ; education, health, 311. William of Orange, the Silent, 38; " Break the dikes," 39 ; self-control, 301 ; tribute ot enemy, 302. Work and Wait, 167. See Preparation. Young, manhood, 1 ; obstacles, 86 ; sowing and reaping, 141 ; virtue, 202 ; true riches, 239 ; trifles, 268 ; 341. Youths Companion, mind-power, 374 ; pathetic story, 402. Zola, his poverty, 69. ARCHITECTS OF FATE Or, STEPS TO SUCCESS AND POWER. By Orison Swett Harden, author of " Pushing to the Front, or Success under Difficulties." With thirty-two fine Portraits of famous persons. Crown 8vo, 485 pages, $1.50. PERSONAL (TESTIMONIALS) NOTICES. " Architects of Fate " has the same iron in the blood, the same vigorous constitu- tion, the same sanguine temperament, the same strong fibre, the same nervous tension, the same passion, the same immortal possibilities as " Pushing to the Front," which has achieved so high a rank among the world's workers in a twelvemonth. As agents in Character-Building each but reinforces the other, and they must stand together, pares sed impares, powerful to regenerate men. — Thomas W. Bicknell, Ex-U. S. Commissioner of Education. It is much to have written " Pushing to the Front," it is more to have written "Ar- chitects of Fate." In illustration, epigram, and spirit, the second book is an advance upon the first, and these two put Dr. Marden at the head of helpful writers for the yoimg. — C. L. Goodell, Pastor Temple St. M. E. CJmrch, Boston. " Architects of Fate " is one of the inspiring books of the age. Dr. Marden has touched the springs of life and has set forth with marvelous and convincing power the results obtained by those inspired by high resolves, lofty aspirations, and pure motives. No one can rise from reading this book without cleaner desires, firmer resolutions, and sublime ambitions. — Myron T. Pritchard, Master of Everett School, Boston. " Architects of Fate " has all the excellencies of style and matter that gave to " Push- ing to the Front " its signal success. Dr. Marden's power of pithy statement and pertinent illustration seems inexhaustible. — W. F. Warren, President of Boston University. Dr. Marden is one of the few men of the generation who, like Samuel Smiles and William Matthews, can write a book which young people will surely read when, once they get it into their hands, and which cannot but help them to a noble manhood and womanhood. " Architects of Fate " is a worthy successor of " Pushing to the Front," and strikes me as being even a more worthy contribution to the literature of youth, and that is giving it the highest praise. — Rev. Dr. F. E. Clark, President Y. P. S. C. E. I heartily commend this new work, " Architects of Fate" to every young man. It is certainly a book filled with bright, cheerful, wise, and encouraging advice to young men, plainly showing how important it is for them to start right, to go right, to keep right, bidding them to make the most of the talents which God has given them, — Wm, H. Baldwin, President Y. M. C. U. " Architects of Fate," like " Pushing to the Front," is inspiring, uplifting, sustain- ing. 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Sent, postpaid, by HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Boston. II East 17TH Street, New York. THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON. PUSHING TO THE FRONT Or, SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. By Orison Swett Marden, author of " Architects of Fate, or Steps to Success and Power." With twenty-four fine Portraits. Crown 8vo, $1.50. A book of inspiration and help to the youth of America who long to be somebody and to do something in the world. No other book in the English language contains such a variety and multitude of fresh, living truths, so full of interest to all classes of readers. No book of ancient times could contain, or of modern days has embodied, half the value of biography, history, romance, tragedy even, contained in " Pushing to the Front. ' One might write a vol- ume in praise of the work. I certainly never read a book of this kind which approaches it in the intrinsic merit of its contents, or the possible good that will flow from its wide-spread reading. — Thos. W. 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