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 r
 
 SUCCESSWARD
 
 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 A YOUNG MAN'S BOOK FOR YOUNG MEN 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD W. BOK 
 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO 
 
 1895
 
 Copyright, 1895, 
 
 by 
 FLEMING H. REVKLL COMPANY.
 
 TO 
 
 CLARENCE CARY, 
 
 MY ADVISER AND MY FRIEND, WHEN ADVISERS 
 I HAD NONE AND FRIENDS 
 
 WERE FEW, 
 I INSCRIBE THIS, MY FIRST BOOK.
 
 A FEW PREFATORY WORDS 
 
 |HE average young man is apt to 
 think that success is not for him. 
 To his mind it is a gift to the few, 
 not to the many. " The rich, the fortunate 
 they are the only people who can be suc- 
 cessful," is the way one young fellow recently 
 expressed it to me, and he thought as many 
 do. It is this wrong conception of success 
 which this book aims to remove. It has no 
 other purpose save to show that success and 
 the truest and best success is possible to any 
 young man of honorable motives. The sub- 
 ject is not new, I know. All that is hoped 
 for from this book is that it may have for 
 young men a certain sense of nearness to 
 their own lives and thoughts, from the fact 
 7
 
 8 A FEW PREFATORY WORDS 
 
 that it is not written by a patriarch whose 
 young manhood is far behind him. It is 
 written to young men by a young man to 
 whom the noise of the battle is not a recol- 
 lection, but an every-day living reality. He 
 thinks he knows what a fight for success 
 means to a young fellow, and he writes with 
 the smoke of the battle around him and from 
 the very thick of the fight. 
 
 E. W. B. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, 1895.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A CORRECT KNOWLEDGE OF HIMSELF.. n 
 
 II 
 
 WHAT, REALLY, is SUCCESS ? 23 
 
 III 
 
 THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS 33 
 
 IV 
 His SOCIAL LIFE AND AMUSEMENTS 69 
 
 V 
 
 ' ' SOWING HIS WILD OATS " 97 
 
 VI 
 
 IN MATTERS OF DRESS 109 
 
 9
 
 10 CONTENTS 
 
 VII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 His RELIGIOUS LIFE 119 
 
 VIII 
 His ATTITUDE TOWARD WOMEN 137 
 
 IX 
 
 THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE 151
 
 A CORRECT KNOWLEDGE OF HIMSELF
 
 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 A CORRECT KNOWLEDGE OF HIMSELF 
 
 |HE first, the most essential, and the 
 greatest element of success with a 
 young man starting out to make a 
 career is a correct knowledge of himself. 
 He should, before he attempts anything, 
 understand himself. He should study him- 
 self. He should be sure that, no matter whom 
 else he may misunderstand, he has a correct 
 knowledge of his own nature, his own char- 
 acter, and his own capabilities. And it is 
 because so few young men have this know- 
 ledge of self that so many make disastrous 
 13
 
 14 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 failures, or fail in achieving what they set 
 out for themselves at the beginning. 
 
 Every man in this world is created dif- 
 ferently ; no two are alike. Therefore, the 
 nature, the thoughts, the character, the capa- 
 city of one man is utterly unlike that of 
 another. What one man can understand 
 another cannot. The success of one man 
 indicates nothing to a second man. What 
 one is capable of doing is beyond the power 
 of another. Hence it is important that, first 
 of all, a young man should look into himself, 
 find out what has been given him, and come 
 to a clear understanding of what he can do 
 and what he cannot do. 
 
 It is one of the most pitiable sights ima- 
 ginable to see, as one does so constantly, 
 young men floundering and fluttering from 
 one phase of life to another, unable to fasten 
 upon any one, simply because a knowledge 
 of themselves is absent. The result is that 
 we see so many round men trying to fit 
 themselves into square holes.
 
 A CORRECT KNOWLEDGE OF HIMSELF 15 
 
 " But," some one will say, as asked a 
 young fellow recently, " how in the world 
 do you get at an understanding of yourself? 
 How do you go about it?" No definite 
 answer can be given to the question, any 
 more than can a certain rule be laid down. 
 An understanding of one's self is reached by 
 different methods by different people, gener- 
 ally each method being personal to one's self. 
 But this much can be said : every thought, 
 every taste, every action, reveals ourselves to 
 ourselves, and it is in the expression of these 
 that we best learn our natures and our char- 
 acters. We see ourselves with unmistakable 
 accuracy, for example, in what we most en- 
 joy in reading, in the people whose company 
 pleases us most, in the things that interest 
 us; and where our tastes and interest lead 
 us we are generally truest to ourselves. 
 
 Some writer has said that most people find 
 themselves out best while they are at play, 
 upon the basis that a man shows his real side 
 in the pleasures which he seeks and enjoys.
 
 Iti SUCCESSWARD 
 
 This is true in a large measure. And the 
 character of his pleasures will have both an 
 indirect and a direct bearing upon the more 
 practical side of his nature. If a young man 
 visits an art gallery, for example, and finds 
 that the pleasure he derives from the pictures 
 takes the form of recreation to the mind, that 
 he is delighted and interested in the canvases 
 he sees so long as he is before them, but 
 feels simply refreshed after he leaves the 
 gallery, it is plain that his nature is not one 
 suited to art as a vocation. He employs the 
 picture as a means of recreation from some 
 other study which has engrossed him most. 
 If, on the other hand, his instincts lead him 
 to an art gallery, and he studies rather than 
 enjoys the pictures that he sees, is curious 
 as to the methods of the artist, and goes 
 away with his mind charged with the inten- 
 tion of getting further knowledge of what he 
 has seen from books or other authorities, it 
 is natural to assume that the art instinct is 
 within him, and he should give it the fullest
 
 A CORRECT KNOWLEDGE OF HIMSELF 17 
 
 chance of development. But he should in 
 every way feel, realize, and know that a love 
 of art possesses him before he adopts it as a 
 profession. And thus, in a way, a young man 
 has an opportunity to study himself through 
 his pleasures. 
 
 If, as a further example, a young man 
 finds himself seeking the company of men 
 older than himself, men of affairs of the 
 world, is happiest when he can be in their 
 company and hear them talk of business, 
 chooses the reading of the lives of successful 
 men as his literature, and leans toward the 
 practical side of life, finding more real enjoy- 
 ment amid the bustle of the mart than in the 
 quiet of lane or park, the indications are that 
 his nature points him to a business career 
 rather than to a professional calling. If he 
 feels this way, it is well for him to give his 
 developing tastes full play, and follow where 
 his instincts lead him. After a while what 
 was at first a mere instinct or an unformed 
 taste will develop and point him to some-
 
 18 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 thing definite in the business world, and if 
 he be true to himself he will sooner or later 
 find himself in that particular position which 
 he is best fitted to occupy and fill. His 
 capacities will reveal themselves to him, and 
 they will teach him his limitations. This 
 knowledge need not thwart his ambitions, 
 but I believe that ambition should always be 
 just a trifle behind judgment, if possible, or, 
 at all events, not in advance of it. Ambition 
 is a splendid quality if properly guided and 
 kept within check; it is a fatal possession 
 when it is allowed too full development or 
 sway. Like fire or water, it is a capital ser- 
 vant, but it makes a poor master. 
 
 I do not counsel, nor do I believe in, a 
 blind following of one's self, particularly dur- 
 ing the formative years of life. But I do 
 believe most earnestly that every man is 
 given a certain thing to do in the world, and 
 that, by a proper study of himself, he, and 
 he alone, can arrive at the clearest and surest 
 knowledge of that particular object. I am a
 
 A CORRECT KNOWLEDGE OF HIMSELF 19 
 
 firm believer in the molding of character 
 through the influence of another; but my 
 conviction is equally strong that every man 
 is the architect of his own fortune, and that 
 his truest course in life is to follow not the 
 guidance of another, but his own instincts. 
 In other words, I think young men should, 
 as early in life as possible, get into touch 
 with the idea of their own responsibility, and 
 be taught the great lesson that, however well 
 others may advise, they, and they alone, 
 must carve out their own careers. The most 
 successful careers, the most honorable lives 
 in the history of the world are those which 
 have been shaped by their own hands. There 
 is an element of danger in this, of course, 
 but the element is small in comparison with 
 the greater danger which lies in the foun- 
 dation of a character against one's own in- 
 stincts. 
 
 The aspirations of the young are not to be 
 checked by the experience of the old. No 
 matter how rich or full a man's experience
 
 20 SUCCESSW4RD 
 
 may have been, it counts only in a sense of 
 general application to another career which 
 stands upon its threshold. Years should 
 teach wisdom ; but if we all waited for years 
 to bring us wisdom, this world would be a 
 sorry place to live in. Youthful imaginings 
 may lead to mistakes, youthful enthusiasm 
 may encounter disappointment, but only ex- 
 perience, real and actual, can demonstrate 
 these things to a young man. And the 
 experience is good for him if it teaches him 
 a better and truer knowledge of himself and 
 his capacities. The greatest figures in the 
 world's history show that they were made 
 through experience, and what experience 
 taught them. This is not saying that the 
 young have no use for the old. They have. 
 But the rule should be, " Young men for 
 action, old men for counsel." Experience 
 looks backward ; enthusiasm looks forward. 
 And, as between the two, enthusiasm is 
 worth more than experience, since it is the
 
 A CORRECT KNOWLEDGE OF HIMSELF 21 
 
 former which is brave and strong and at- 
 tempts the impossible. If we attempted 
 only the possible in this world we should 
 soon stop where we are ; it is for the young 
 man, with his enthusiasm, to battle with the 
 impossible and carry the world a step farther 
 on in discovery, if not in actual accomplish- 
 ment. 
 
 I say all this because I want every young 
 fellow to feel that, to a large extent, he 
 stands alone for himself in the world. Coun- 
 sel he may seek and he should seek, but the 
 action is his, and his alone. And to make 
 that action sure and wise it is necessary that 
 the workman should understand his tools. 
 He must know with what he has to work; 
 and once sure of his tools, he must learn the 
 thing he has set for himself to do, having a 
 distinct purpose in view, and, being fully 
 conscious that he is right and capable, not 
 allowing himself to be swerved from his aim. 
 After acquiring true knowledge of himself, I
 
 22 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 know of nothing so valuable to a young man 
 as an absolute distinctness of purpose, and 
 then pursuing that purpose to success. In 
 natural sequence comes, therefore, the ques- 
 tion of " What, really, is success? "
 
 II 
 
 WHAT, REALLY, IS SUCCESS?
 
 II 
 
 WHAT, REALLY, IS SUCCESS? 
 
 EFORE a young man goes into 
 business it is necessary, I think, 
 that he should set himself straight 
 on one very important point, and that is 
 what success in business really is and means. 
 Unfortunately, not enough has been written 
 on this phase of the topic. It is idle for a 
 young man to seek out the methods of 
 success before he is really clear in his mind 
 just what constitutes success until, in other 
 words, he finds out the true definition of the 
 word. And very few of us have a proper 
 and correct conception of it. On the other 
 hand, thousands of us have the wrong notion. 
 In this age of big things, particularly, we 
 25
 
 26 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 are inclined to regard success as synonymous 
 only with the higher walks of life, with great 
 achievements. Success, in the minds of 
 some, is something which is only given for 
 the fortunate to achieve. Or we think that 
 if we cannot do something which sets people 
 talking or wondering about us, if our heads 
 do not tower above those of our fellow- 
 beings, our lives, if not altogether negative, 
 are still not successful. In other words, we 
 feel that a successful life is the doing of 
 something momentous ; the becoming known 
 of all men and women ; the being exceptional 
 to the rest of the human race. Ask ten 
 people their idea of success, and I warrant 
 that eight will give a definition of it along 
 these lines. And yet, when we look at the 
 matter closely and study it carefully, scarcely 
 a more incorrect interpretation of a success- 
 ful life can be imagined. Along this line of 
 thought, not one person in ten thousand lives 
 a successful life, since statistics have informed 
 us that it is only this percentage of the
 
 WHAT, REALLY, IS SUCCESS? 27 
 
 human race that is ever heard of outside of 
 its immediate circle of relatives and friends. 
 
 It is given to very few of us to say some- 
 thing or perform some action which will be 
 heard of by the world. The greater part of 
 the human race dies as it is born, unknown 
 and unheard of by the world at large. 
 Where you find one leader among men or 
 women you will find a thousand who pre- 
 fer to follow. The instinct of leadership is 
 rare rare even in these developing days. 
 Hence, if success depended upon aggressive 
 instinct, its votaries would be few. Success 
 is as ofttimes quietly won. I think that young 
 men are oftener misled by wrong notions 
 of what constitutes success than by how to 
 achieve success as they understand it. 
 
 The average young man's idea of success 
 is like unto that of people of older growth, 
 as I hinted in a preceding paragraph 
 it means the accomplishment of something 
 great. He cannot understand that a suc- 
 cessful life is just as possible in an obscure
 
 28 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 position as it is in a conspicuous one. It 
 does not seem plain to him that a clerk earn- 
 ing five hundred dollars per year can make 
 just as pronounced a success of his life as 
 can his employer, whose income is ten thou- 
 sand dollars, or even one hundred thousand 
 dollars, per year. He is apt to measure 
 success by dollars, and here is the rock upon 
 which so many young men split. To be a 
 successful subject is as great an achievement 
 for the subject as being a successful ruler 
 is creditable to the ruler. Every man born 
 into the world has his limitations, and be- 
 yond that line it is simply impossible for him 
 to go. All of us know men capable of 
 splendid work so long as they are under 
 direction, but who have either made or 
 would make absolute failures as directors. 
 Other men chafe under direction ; they must 
 be leaders. But success is as possible with 
 the one as with the other. 
 
 The correct definition of success is the 
 favorable termination of anything attempted
 
 IVhMT, REALLY, IS SUCCESS? 29 
 
 a termination, in other words, which an- 
 swers the purpose intended. The writing of 
 a business letter can be made just as great a 
 success as can be the drafting of a presiden- 
 tial proclamation. Success never depends 
 upon conspicuity, and it never will. If we 
 accepted as the successful men of the time 
 only those who are in conspicuous places and 
 of whom we know, we should narrow success 
 down to a very few. Great successes have 
 been made as often in quiet ways as with 
 the blare of trumpets. A commercial success 
 won on conservative lines, and maintained 
 by cautious and prudent methods, is the 
 success most highly regarded in the business 
 world to-day. The meteoric commercial 
 flash, so admired by the average young man, 
 seldom has a firm foundation, and rarely 
 commands the confidence of experienced 
 business men. The truest success is that 
 which is earned slowly, but which surely 
 strengthens itself. Ostentation is never typ- 
 ical of a true success. It is always a good
 
 30 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 thing to remember that the vast majority 
 of successful men are never heard of. It 
 is very important, therefore, that the first 
 thing for a young man going into busi- 
 ness to learn is to disassociate success from 
 the more prominent walks in life, and get rid 
 of that false theory. When he does that, 
 successful living will have a deeper, fuller, 
 and truer meaning for him. It will have 
 for him then its correct meaning : that suc- 
 cess is possible in every position, and can be 
 made the possession of the humblest as well 
 as the most powerful. 
 
 A successful life is nothing more nor less 
 than living as well as we know how and do- 
 ing the very best that we can. And upon 
 that basis, which is the only true basis, nat- 
 urally no success can be measured by fame, 
 wealth, or station. Some of us must live for 
 the few, as others again must live for the 
 many, just as some are born to occupy im- 
 portant positions while others are intended for 
 humbler places. But both lives are successful.
 
 WHAT, REALLY, IS SUCCESS? 31 
 
 Let a young man be thoroughly fitted for 
 the business position he occupies, alert to 
 every opportunity, and embracing it to its 
 fullest possibility, with his methods fixed on 
 honorable principles, and he is a successful 
 man. It does not matter whether he makes 
 a thousand dollars or a hundred thousand 
 dollars. He makes a success of his position. 
 He carries to a successful termination that 
 which it has been given him to do, be that 
 great or small. If the work he does, and 
 does well, is up to his limitations, he is a 
 success. If he does not work up to his 
 capacity, then he fails, just as he fails, too, 
 if he attempts to go beyond his mental or 
 physical limit There is just as much danger 
 on one side of man's limit-line as there is 
 on the other. The very realization of one's 
 capacity is a sign of success. It is an old 
 saying that it is a wise man who knows 
 when he has enough, and it is a successful 
 man who never goes beyond his depth in 
 business. This is a truth which requires
 
 32 SUCCESSW/1RD 
 
 experience to see, perhaps, but it is a lesson 
 which Success demands that her votaries 
 shall learn, and learn well. Success is simply 
 doing anything to the utmost of one's ability 
 making as much of one's position as it is 
 possible to make.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS 
 
 33
 
 Ill 
 
 THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS 
 
 VERY one conversant with the busi- 
 ness life of any of our cities, large 
 or small, will, I am sure, agree with 
 me that more business opportunities exist 
 to-day than there are young men capable of 
 embracing them, and that the demand is far 
 in excess of the supply. Positions of trust 
 are constantly going begging for the right 
 kind of young men to fill them. But the 
 material does not exist, or, if it does, it cer- 
 tainly has a most unfortunate way of hiding 
 its light under a bushel; so much so that 
 business men cannot see even a glimmer of 
 its rays. Let a position of any real impor- 
 tance become open, and it is the most difficult 
 35
 
 36 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 kind of a problem to find any one to fill it 
 satisfactorily. Business men are constantly 
 passing through this experience. Young 
 men are desired in the great majority of 
 positions because of their progressive ideas 
 and capacity to endure work; in fact, 
 " young blood," as it is called, is preferred 
 nowadays in nine positions out of every ten. 
 The young men capable of filling these posi- 
 tions are few. For the most part, the aver- 
 age young man is incapable, or, if he be not 
 exactly incapable (I am willing to give him 
 the benefit of the doubt), he is unwilling, 
 which is even worse. That exceptions can 
 be brought up to controvert this statement I 
 know; but in these remarks I am dealing 
 with the many, and not with the few. It is 
 the exception that we find in business to-day 
 a young man who is something more than a 
 plodder a mere automatic machine. As a 
 general rule, the average young man comes 
 to his office at nine o'clock in the morning ; 
 is faithful in the duties he performs ; goes to
 
 THE YOUNG MJN IN BUSINESS 37 
 
 lunch at twelve ; comes back at one ; takes 
 up whatever he is told to do until five, and 
 then goes home. His work for the day is 
 done. One day is the same to him as an- 
 other; he has a certain routine of duties to 
 do, and he does them day in and day out, 
 month in and month out. His duties are 
 regulated by the clock. As that points, so 
 he points. Verily it is true of him that he 
 is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. 
 No special fault can be found with his work. 
 Given a particular piece of work to do, he 
 does it just as a machine would. Such a 
 young man, too, generally considers himself 
 hard-worked often overworked and under- 
 paid wondering all the time why his em- 
 ployer does not recognize his value and 
 advance his salary. " I do everything I am 
 told to do," he argues, " and I do it well. 
 What more can I do? " 
 
 This is simply a type of a young man 
 who exists in thousands of offices and 
 stores. He comes to his work each day
 
 38 SUCCESSW4RD 
 
 with no definite point or plan in view ; he 
 leaves it with nothing accomplished. He is 
 a mere automaton. Let him die, and his 
 position can be filled in twenty-four hours. 
 If he detracts nothing from his employer's 
 business he certainly adds nothing to it. 
 He never advances an idea ; is absolutely 
 devoid of creative powers ; his position re- 
 mains the same after he has been in it for 
 five years as when he came to it. 
 
 Now I would not for a moment be under- 
 stood as belittling the value of faithfulness in 
 an employee. But, after all, faithfulness is 
 nothing more nor less than a negative qual- 
 ity. By faithfulness a man can hold a posi- 
 tion a lifetime. He will keep it just where 
 he found it. But by the exercise of this 
 single quality he does not add to the impor- 
 tance of the position any more than he adds 
 to his own value. It is not enough that it 
 should be said of a young man that he is 
 faithful ; he must be something more. The 
 willingness and capacity to be faithful to the
 
 THE YOUNG M^N IN BUSINESS 39 
 
 smallest detail must be there, serving only, 
 however, as a foundation upon which other 
 qualities are built. 
 
 Altogether too many young men are con- 
 tent to remain in the positions in which they 
 find themselves. The thought of studying 
 the needs of the next position just above 
 them never seems to enter into their minds. 
 I believe it is possible for every young man 
 to rise above his position, and I care not 
 how humble that position may be, nor under 
 what disadvantages he may be placed. But 
 he must be alert. He must not be afraid of 
 work, and of the hardest kind of work. He 
 must study not only to please, but he must 
 go a step beyond. It is essential, of course, 
 that he should first of all fill the position for 
 which he is engaged. No man can solve the 
 problem of business before he understands 
 the rudiments of the problem itself. Once 
 the requirements of a position are understood 
 and mastered, then its possibilities should be 
 undertaken. It is foolish to argue, as some
 
 40 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 young men do, that to go beyond one's special 
 position is made impossible by an employer. 
 The employer never existed who will prevent 
 the cream of his establishment from rising to 
 the surface. The advance of an employee 
 always means the advance of the employer's 
 interest. Every employer would rather pay 
 a young man five thousand dollars a year 
 than five hundred. What is to the young 
 man's interests is in a far greater degree 
 to the interests of his employer. A five- 
 hundred-dollar clerkship is worth just that 
 amount to an employer, and nothing more. 
 But a five-thousand-dollar man is fully worth 
 five times that sum to a business. A young 
 man makes of a position exactly what he 
 chooses, either a millstone around his neck 
 or a stepping-stone to larger success. The 
 possibilities lie in every position ; seeing and 
 embracing them rest with its occupant. The 
 lowest position can be so filled as to lead up 
 to the next and become a part of it. One 
 position should only be the chrysalis for the
 
 THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS 41 
 
 development of new strength to master the 
 other just above it. 
 
 A substantial success means several things. 
 It calls, in the first place, for concentration. 
 There is no truth so potent as that which 
 tells us that we cannot serve God and Mam- 
 mon. Nor can any young man successfully 
 serve two business interests, no matter how 
 closely allied ; in fact, the more closely the 
 interests the more dangerous are they. The 
 human mind is capable of just so much clear 
 thought, and generally it does not extend 
 beyond the requirements of one position in 
 these days of keen competition. If there 
 exists a secret of success, it lies, perhaps, in 
 concentration more than in any other single 
 element. During business hours a man 
 should be in business. His thoughts should 
 be on nothing else. Diversions of thought 
 are killing to the best endeavors. The suc- 
 cessful mastery of business questions calls for 
 a personal interest, a forgetfulness of self, 
 that can only come from the closest applica-
 
 42 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 tion and the most absolute concentration. I 
 go so far in my belief of concentration to 
 business interests in business hours as to 
 argue that a young man's personal letters 
 have no right to come to his office address, 
 nor should he receive his social friends at his 
 desk. Business hours are none too long in 
 the great majority of our offices, and with a 
 rest of one hour for luncheon, no one has a 
 right to chop off fifteen minutes here to read 
 an irrelevant personal letter, or fifteen min- 
 utes there to talk with a friend whose 
 conversation distracts the mind from the 
 problems before it. Digression is just as 
 dangerous as stagnation in the career of a 
 young man in business. There is absolutely 
 no position worth the having in business life 
 to-day to which a care of other interests can 
 be added. Let a man attempt to serve the 
 interests of one master, and if he serves him 
 well he has his hands and his head full. 
 
 There is a class of ambitious young men 
 who have what they choose to call " an anchor
 
 THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS 43 
 
 to the windward" in their business; that is, 
 they maintain something in addition to their 
 regular position. They do this from neces- 
 sity, they claim. One position does not 
 offer sufficient scope for their powers or 
 talents, does not bring them sufficient in- 
 come ; they are " forced," they explain, 
 to take on something in addition. I have 
 known such young men. But so far as I 
 have been able to discern, the trouble does 
 not lie so much with the position they occupy 
 as with themselves. When a man turns 
 away from the position he holds to outside 
 affairs, he turns just so far away from the 
 surest path of success. To do one thing 
 perfectly is better than to do two things only 
 fairly well. It was told me once, of one of 
 our best-known actors, that outside of his 
 stage-knowledge he knew absolutely nothing. 
 But he acted well so well that he stands 
 to-day at the head of his profession, and has 
 an income of five figures several times over. 
 All-around geniuses are rare so rare that
 
 44 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 we can hardly find them. It is a pleasant 
 thing to be able to talk well on many topics ; 
 but, after all, that is but a social accomplish- 
 ment. To know one thing absolutely means 
 material success and commercial and mental 
 superiority. I dare say that if some of our 
 young men understood the needs of the posi- 
 tions they occupy more fully than they do, the 
 necessity for outside work would not exist. 
 
 Right in line with this phase of a young 
 man's work comes the necessity of his learn- 
 ing that he cannot do evening work and be 
 employed the entire day as well. It is the 
 most difficult thing for ambitious young men 
 to understand that night-work is physically 
 and mentally detrimental to the best business 
 success. Let a machine run night and day, 
 and before long it will break down; and 
 what a mechanism of iron and steel cannot 
 bear, the human organism certainly cannot 
 stand. If a young man employs his even- 
 ings for work, he unfits himself for his work 
 during the day. The mind needs diversion,
 
 THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS 45 
 
 recreation, rest ; and any mentality kept at a 
 certain tension for more than seven or eight 
 hours per day will sooner or later lose its 
 keen perceptive powers. No young man 
 true to his best and wisest interests will em- 
 ploy his evenings in the same line of thought 
 as that which engrosses him during the day. 
 Mental work is unlike manual labor in that 
 it tires without physical exhaustion ; and be- 
 cause the worker does not feel it as much 
 when he uses his head for ten or twelve 
 hours per day as he would if he used the 
 muscles for that period of time, he goes, 
 nevertheless, unconsciously beyond his pow- 
 ers of strength. Unknown to him, the strain 
 leaves its mark upon the mind. Youthful 
 vigor throws its effects off for a while, but 
 not permanently; and a man's early break- 
 down when he should be at the zenith of his 
 powers in middle life is very often directly 
 traceable to an overtaxing of his powers in 
 early life. But not only is the effect of a fu- 
 ture character ; it is noticeable at the time of
 
 46 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 the indiscretion. It is seen in the inability of 
 the mind to respond quickly to some sugges- 
 tion at the office ; and how can it be other- 
 wise when the mind has been worked beyond 
 its normal capacity? There is no question 
 in my mind whatever that a young man is 
 untrue to the interests of his employer when 
 he allows himself to work during the evening 
 hours. Although he may not be conscious 
 of it himself, he does not come to his work 
 the following morning as fresh as he might if 
 the mind had been given a season of diver- 
 sion and rest. 
 
 I know whereof I speak when I touch 
 upon this subject. In common with other 
 young men who are wiser than their best ad- 
 visers, I made the mistake of evening work. 
 For several years I gave up four or five 
 evenings of each week to literary work. 
 My family, my best friends, my physician, 
 warned me to desist. But I knew better. 
 Others, I conceded, undoubtedly had suf- 
 fered from what I was doing, but I should
 
 THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS 47 
 
 not. I was strong, young, and of excellent 
 physique. I could stand it; others could 
 not; in fact, I was an exception to the rest 
 of the human race. Two or three years 
 went by, and I was proud of proving to my 
 advisers that I was right and they were 
 wrong. But suddenly, with scarce a warn- 
 ing, the blow came. Irritability and ner- 
 vousness came first ; everything annoyed me. 
 The closing of a door, or the sudden entrance 
 of a person into the room, caused me to start. 
 The harder I worked the less I seemed to 
 accomplish. I could not understand it. Then 
 I began to lie awake for a half-hour after I 
 retired ; after a while the half-hour lengthened 
 into an hour, then into two hours. Finally 
 I had insomnia. After a bit my digestion 
 did not seem to be as regular ; a heavy feeling 
 possessed me after eating. I was ordered 
 away ; stayed a week when I was told I 
 should remain for a month. But, of course, 
 I knew better. And what is the result? 
 For the past three years I have suffered from
 
 48 SUCCESSU/ARD 
 
 an indigestion as constant as it is keen ; and 
 to-day I have to regulate my food, my 
 hours, and my habits, with the pleasing 
 prospect that at least two years of such liv- 
 ing are ahead of me before I can hope for 
 relief. And why ? Simply because of work- 
 ing, years ago, when I should have been 
 resting. But then I did not understand it. 
 I do now, and I wish that every young man 
 who reads these words might profit by my 
 error. I am fortunate to get off with nothing 
 more serious than indigestion, but even that 
 affliction has pains which only those who 
 have suffered them can begin to fully realize. 
 Night- work, when employed in the day, does 
 not pay ; on the contrary, it kills. I wish 
 fervently and sincerely that five, eight, or 
 ten years ago I might have reached this 
 point of wisdom. I did not, but I write it 
 now and here as a warning to young fellows 
 who value their health, their happiness, their 
 peace of mind, and a comfortable feeling in 
 the pits of their stomachs.
 
 THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS 4!) 
 
 A fatal error in the case of many young 
 men is that they reach a point where they 
 make no progress. Now stagnation in a 
 young man's career is but a synonym for 
 starvation, since there is no such thing as 
 standing still in the business world of to-day. 
 Either we go backward or we go forward. 
 When a young man fails to keep abreast of 
 the possibilities of his position he recedes 
 constantly, if unconsciously, perhaps. The 
 young man who progresses is he who enters 
 into the spirit of the business of his employer, 
 and who points out new methods to him, 
 advances new ideas, suggests new channels 
 and outputs. There is not a more direct 
 road to the confidence of an employer than 
 for that employer to see that any one of his 
 clerks understands the details of his business 
 better than himself. That young man com- 
 mands the attention of his chief at once, and 
 when a vacancy occurs he is apt to step into 
 it, if he does not forge over the shoulders of 
 others. Young men who think clearly, who
 
 50 SUCCESSW4RD 
 
 can conceive, create, and carry out, are not 
 so plentiful that even a single one will be lost 
 sight of. It is no special art, and it reflects 
 but little credit upon any man, to simply fill 
 a position. That is expected of him ; he is 
 engaged to do that, and it is only a fair 
 return for a certain payment made. The art 
 lies in doing more than was bargained for; 
 in proving greater than was expected ; in 
 making more of a position than has ever 
 been made before. A quick conception is 
 needed here, the ability to view a broad ho- 
 rizon ; for it is the liberal-minded man, not 
 the man of narrow limitations, who makes 
 the success of to-day. A young man show- 
 ing such qualities to an employer does not 
 remain in one position long. 
 
 Two traps in which young men in business 
 often fall are a disregard for small things, 
 and an absolute fear of making mistakes. 
 One of the surest keys to success lies in 
 thoroughness. No matter how great may 
 be the enterprise undertaken, a regard for
 
 THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS 51 
 
 the small things is necessary. Just as the 
 little courtesies of every-day life make life 
 worth the living, so the little details form the 
 bone and sinew of a great success. A thing 
 half or three-quarters done is worse than not 
 done at all. Let a man be careful of the 
 small things in business, and he can generally 
 be relied upon for the greater ones, provided, 
 of course, that he possesses broadness of 
 mind. The man who can overcome small 
 worries is greater than the man who can 
 override great obstacles. When a young 
 man becomes so ambitious for large success 
 that he overlooks the small things, he is 
 pretty apt to encounter failure. There is 
 nothing in business so infinitesimal that we 
 can afford to do it in a slipshod fashion. It 
 is no art to answer twenty letters in a morn- 
 ing when they are, in reality, only half 
 answered. When we commend brevity in 
 business letters we do not mean brusqueness. 
 Nothing stamps the character of a house so 
 clearly as the letters it sends out.
 
 52 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 The fear of making mistakes keeps many 
 a young man down. Of course errors in 
 business are costly, and it is better not to 
 make them. But, at the same time, I 
 would not give a snap of the finger for a 
 young man who has never made mistakes. 
 But there are mistakes and mistakes; some 
 easy to be overlooked, and others it is better 
 not to blink at in an employee. A mistake 
 of judgment is possible with us all ; the best 
 of us are not above a wrong decision. And a 
 young man who holds back for fear of making 
 mistakes loses the first point of success. 
 
 I know there are thousands of young men 
 who feel themselves incompetent for a busi- 
 ness career because of a lack of early educa- 
 tion. And here might come in if I chose 
 to discuss the subject, which I do not the 
 oft-mooted question of the exact value of a 
 college education to the young man in busi- 
 ness. Far abler pens than mine have treated 
 of this ; it is certainly not for me to enter 
 into it here. But I will say this : a young
 
 THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS 53 
 
 man need not feel that the lack of a college 
 education will stand in any respect whatever 
 in the way of his success in the business 
 world. No college on earth ever made a 
 business man. The knowledge acquired in 
 college has fitted thousands of men for pro- 
 fessional success, but it has also unfitted 
 other thousands for a practical business 
 career. A college training is never wasted, 
 although I have seen again and again five- 
 thousand-dollar educations spent on five- 
 hundred-dollar men. Where a young man 
 can bring a college education to the require- 
 ments of a practical business knowledge it 
 is an advantage. But before our American 
 colleges become an absolute factor in the 
 business capacities of men, their methods of 
 study and learning will have to be radically 
 changed. I have had associated with me 
 both kinds of young men, collegiate and 
 non-collegiate, and I must confess that the 
 ones who had a better knowledge of the 
 practical part of life have been those who
 
 54 SUCCESSU/4RD 
 
 never saw the inside of a college and whose 
 feet never stood upon a campus. College- 
 bred men and men who never had college 
 advantages have succeeded in about equal 
 ratios. The men occupying the most im- 
 portant commercial positions in New York 
 to-day are self-made, whose only education 
 has come to them from contact with that 
 greatest college of all, the business world. 
 Far be it from me to depreciate the value of 
 a college education. I believe in its advan- 
 tages too firmly. But no young man need 
 feel hampered because of the lack of it. If 
 business qualities are in him they will come 
 to the surface. It is not the college educa- 
 tion ; it is the young man. Without its pos- 
 session as great and honorable successes have 
 been made as with it. Men are not accepted 
 in the business world upon their collegiate 
 diplomas, nor on the knowledge these imply. 
 They are taken for what they are, for what 
 they know. 
 
 The young man engaged in business to-
 
 55 
 
 day in this country has advantages exceed- 
 ing those of any generation before him. 
 And I do not say this simply as an echo of 
 what others before me have said, or to use 
 a platitudinous phrase. There never was a 
 time in the world's history when a young 
 man had the opportunity to make something 
 of himself that he has at the present day. 
 He lives in a country where every success is 
 possible ; where a man can make of himself 
 what he may choose ; where energy and 
 enterprise are appreciated, and a market is 
 always ready for good wares. Young men 
 have forged to the front wonderfully during 
 the past ten years. Employers are more than 
 ever willing to lay great responsibilities on 
 their shoulders. Salaries are higher than 
 ever; young men never before earned the 
 incomes which are received by some to-day. 
 All success is possible. 
 
 But a young man must be alert to every 
 opportunity. He cannot forget himself for 
 a moment in business. A man's best work-
 
 56 SUCCESSIVE RD 
 
 ing years are not many, and when they are 
 upon him he must make hay, and all the hay 
 he can. No young man can afford to reach 
 the age of thirty without feeling that he is 
 settled in a business way. Before that time 
 he flounders; but at thirty the floundering 
 time should be over. He should have found 
 that special trade or profession for which he 
 thinks he is most capable. This age is gen- 
 erally accepted, I believe, for the reason that 
 a man is most likely to do his best work be- 
 tween thirty and forty ; after forty a man's 
 work is not apt to have that energy and snap 
 that is born of youth, and the tendency is 
 first shown in his willingness to deputize 
 details to others. I do not mean to say that 
 a man begins to decline at forty ; on the 
 contrary, he is at his prime, and he remains 
 so for ten or fifteen years. But he is better 
 for judgment than he is for working out 
 details. A man's real work, his energetic 
 work, his laborious work, is generally done 
 before he reaches thirty-five.
 
 THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS 57 
 
 And not only must he practically make him- 
 self between thirty and forty, but he must not 
 spend all that he earns. He must lay aside a 
 goodly portion of his earnings. It is a cruel 
 but a hard fact that the business world has very 
 little use for what are termed old men now- 
 adays ; and in these times of keen competitive 
 strife a man is judged to be old very early 
 from the cold commercial point of view. 
 He may not consider himself as being old, 
 but he is no longer considered to be " in the 
 race " with the younger men, who naturally 
 have quicker perceptions and whose sense 
 of alertness is necessarily keener. The most 
 successful man at forty is very often the 
 man who is quietly pushed aside at sixty. 
 If young men earning good incomes between 
 thirty and forty would look a little ahead, 
 and consider the inevitable fact that as they 
 grow older their value is very apt to lessen 
 in a commercial sense, they would save 
 themselves much after-humiliation and sor- 
 rowful retrospection. It is hard for a young
 
 58 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 man at, say, thirty-five, in the full flush and 
 vigor of manhood, to realize that a time will 
 come when others as clever as himself and a 
 bit cleverer will pass him by. But the cold 
 fact exists, nevertheless, and he is wise who, 
 at his prime, thinks of a time which is almost 
 sure to come to every man who lives. 
 
 And yet, while a young man may be ambi- 
 tious for success in business, he cannot afford 
 to get impatient or restless. Not long ago I 
 received a letter from a young fellow which 
 particularly reflected the feeling that I mean. 
 He wrote me that he was twenty, and was im- 
 patient because he did not make the progress 
 in his business which he felt that he should. 
 He confessed that he was not so very much 
 dissatisfied with his salary, which was twenty- 
 two dollars per week, although he thought it 
 ought to be forty dollars. Unfortunately for 
 him, however, his employers did not seem 
 to think so, and he was quite sure he was 
 " being kept back." He conceded that he
 
 THE YOUNG M4N IN BUSINESS 59 
 
 was " becoming impatient," but insisted that 
 he had reason to feel so. 
 
 Well, I felt precisely the same way when 
 I was twenty; only my salary was eighteen 
 dollars and thirty-three cents per week, and 
 I felt quite sure that the figures ought to be 
 reversed. And there were several positions 
 just beyond me, too, which I felt I should 
 justly be asked to occupy. But I was not, 
 and, of course, I felt aggrieved. I considered 
 myself imposed upon. Now when I look 
 back upon that time I can see that the reason 
 my salary was not thirty-three dollars and 
 eighteen cents was simply because I was in- 
 capable of earning that amount. I was not 
 worth it to my employer. And the reason I 
 did not get those several positions just ahead 
 of me was because I could not have filled 
 them if I had gotten them not one of them. 
 But I am a little more than twenty now, and 
 my correspondent, when he is about ten 
 years older, will understand a great many
 
 60 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 things that are not very clear to him just 
 now. Of course he probably will not choose 
 to believe this ; youths of twenty are not apt 
 to believe much that is told them, since they 
 have so little to learn ! 
 
 But, if I were back to twenty again, and, 
 with my later knowledge, were earning 
 twenty-two dollars per week, I should not 
 only be satisfied, but I should be intensely 
 thankful. I think, too, that the knowledge 
 that there were thousands of men of forty 
 and fifty years who were not earning as 
 much would help me to endure the ordeal. 
 I think that instead of rebelling at the fact 
 that I was earning twenty-two dollars, I 
 should rather devote my time to trying to 
 find the best way of doubling it. I might 
 not be able to make twenty-five dollars for a 
 year or two, but I should endeavor to do so. 
 In fact, if we look over the field, there are 
 more young men of twenty-one who are 
 worth less than twenty-five dollars per week 
 than there are who are worth that or more.
 
 THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS 61 
 
 And one proof of this is found in the fact that 
 in New York City alone there are tens of 
 thousands of young men at that age who are 
 not earning eighteen dollars per week. In 
 addition to all this I might be tempted to 
 believe that too rapid advance might not be 
 the best thing in the world for me. Too 
 large an income, even when deserved, is far 
 often more of a hindrance to a young man 
 of twenty-one or thereabouts than a help. 
 What I should feel willing to do would be 
 this : if I felt that my employer was a man 
 of honor and judgment I should leave myself 
 in his hands for a while. I should do him 
 the courtesy of believing that he knew more 
 than I did. A man at fifty is sometimes apt 
 to know more if only a very little more 
 than a boy of twenty ; and if I had his confi- 
 dence and felt that I was pleasing him with 
 my services, I should let him go at that for 
 a time, at any rate. 
 
 There are hundreds of young men in 
 business to-day who feel just as restless and
 
 62 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 impatient as did this correspondent. But 
 these young men should bear a few things in 
 mind. They should remember, first of all, 
 that between the years of twenty and twenty- 
 five a young man acquires rather than 
 achieves. It is the learning period of life, 
 the experience-gaining time. Knowledge 
 that is worth anything does not come to us 
 until we are past twenty -five. The mind 
 before that age is incapable of forming wise 
 judgments. The great art of accurate deci- 
 sion in business matters is not acquired in 
 a few weeks of commercial life. It is the 
 result of years. It is not only the power 
 within himself, but the experience behind 
 him, that makes a successful business man. 
 The commercial world is only a greater 
 school than the one of slates and slate-pen- 
 cils. No boy, after attending school for five 
 years, would consider himself competent to 
 teach. And surely five years of commercial 
 apprenticeship will not fit a young man to 
 assume a position of trust, nor give him the
 
 THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS 63 
 
 capacity to decide upon important business 
 matters. In the first five years yes, in the 
 first ten years of a young man's business 
 life he is only in the primary department of 
 the great commercial world. It is for him, 
 then, to study methods, to observe other 
 men in short, to learn and not hope to 
 achieve. That will come later. Business, 
 simple as it may look to the young man, is, 
 nevertheless, a very intricate affair, and it is 
 only by years of closest study that we master 
 an understanding of it. 
 
 The electric atmosphere of the American 
 business world is all too apt to make our 
 young men impatient. They want to fly 
 before they can even walk well. Ambition 
 is a splendid thing in any young man. But 
 getting along too fast is just as injurious 
 as getting along too slow. A young man 
 between twenty and twenty-five must be 
 patient. I know patience is a difficult thing 
 to cultivate, but it is among the first lessons 
 we must learn in business. A good stock of
 
 64 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 patience, acquired in early life, will stand a 
 man in good stead in later years. It is a 
 handy thing to have and draw upon, and 
 makes a splendid safety-valve. Because a 
 young man, as he approaches twenty-five, 
 begins to see things more plainly than he did 
 five years before, he must not get the idea 
 that he is a business man yet, and entitled to 
 a man's salary. If business questions which 
 he did not understand five years before now 
 begin to look clearer to him, it is because he 
 is passing through the transitory state that 
 divides the immature judgment of the young 
 man from the ripening penetration of the 
 man. He is simply beginning. From that 
 point he will grow, and his salary will grow 
 as he grows. But Rome was not built in a 
 day, and a business man is not made in a 
 night. As experience comes, the judgment 
 will become mature; and by the time the 
 young man reaches thirty he will begin to 
 realize that he did not know as much at 
 twenty-five as he thought he did. And
 
 THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS 65 
 
 when he is ready to learn from others he will 
 begin to grow wise. And when he reaches 
 that state where he is willing to concede that 
 he has not a " corner" in knowledge, he will 
 be stepping out of the chrysalis of youth. 
 
 And so to a young man in business or just 
 starting in business I would say, remember 
 these very essential truths. 
 
 Above all things, before a young man 
 attempts to make a success he should con- 
 vince himself that he is in a congenial busi- 
 ness. Whether it be a trade or a profession 
 both are honorable and productive let 
 him satisfy himself, above everything else, 
 that it enlists his personal interest. If a man 
 shows that he has his work at heart his suc- 
 cess can be relied on. Personal interest in 
 any work will bring other things ; but all the 
 other essentials combined cannot create per- 
 sonal interest. That must exist first; then 
 two thirds of the battle is won. Fully satis- 
 fied that he is in that particular line of 
 business for which he feels a stronger,
 
 66 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 warmer interest than for any other, then he 
 should remember: 
 
 First, that, whatever else he may strive to 
 be, he must, above all, be absolutely honest. 
 From honorable principles he can never 
 swerve. A temporary success is often pos- 
 sible on what are not exactly dishonest, but 
 " shady " lines. Such success, however, is 
 only temporary, with a certainty of perma- 
 nent loss. The surest business successes 
 yes, the only successes worth the making 
 are built upon honest foundations. There can 
 be no " blinking" at the truth or at honesty, no 
 half-way compromise. There is but one way 
 to be successful, and that is to be absolutely 
 honest ; and there is but one way of being 
 honest. Honesty is not only the foundation, 
 but the capstone as well, of business success. 
 
 Second, he must be alert, alive to every 
 opportunity. He cannot afford to lose a 
 single point, for that single point might prove 
 the very link that would make complete the 
 whole chain of a business success.
 
 THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS 67 
 
 Third, he must ever be willing to learn, 
 never overlooking the fact that others have 
 long ago forgotten what he has still to learn. 
 Firmness of decision is an admirable trait 
 in business. The young man whose opinion 
 can be tossed from one side to another is 
 poor material. But youth is full of errors, 
 and caution is a strong trait. 
 
 Fourth, if he be wise he will entirely avoid 
 the use of liquors. If the question of harm 
 done by intoxicating liquor is an open one, 
 the question of the actual good derived from 
 it is not. 
 
 Fifth, let him remember that a young 
 man's strongest recommendation is his re- 
 spectability. Some young men, apparently 
 successful, may be flashy in dress, loud in 
 manner, and disrespectful of women and 
 sacred things. But the young man who is 
 respectable always wears best. The way a 
 young man carries himself in his private life 
 ofttimes means much to him in his business 
 career. No matter where he is, or in whose
 
 68 SUCCESSIV/1RD 
 
 company, respectability, and all that it im- 
 plies, will always command respect. 
 
 And if any young man wishes a set of rules 
 even more concise, here it is : 
 
 Get into a business you like. 
 
 Devote yourself to it. 
 
 Be honest in everything. 
 
 Employ caution; think out a thing well 
 before you enter upon it. 
 
 Sleep eight hours every night. 
 
 Do everything that means keeping in good 
 health. 
 
 School yourself not to worry ; worry kills, 
 work does not. 
 
 Avoid liquors of all kinds. 
 
 If you must smoke, smoke moderately. 
 
 Shun discussion on two points religion 
 and politics. 
 
 And last, but not least, marry a true 
 woman, and have your own home.
 
 IV 
 HIS SOCIAL LIFE AND AMUSEMENTS 
 
 6 9
 
 IV 
 
 HIS SOCIAL LIFE AND AMUSEMENTS 
 
 |HE social life of a young man has a 
 direct and important bearing upon 
 his success, and he cannot be too 
 careful of what forms of amusement he 
 allows to come into his hours of leisure. 
 
 From a business standpoint it is all-impor- 
 tant that he keep a careful watch on his social 
 habits. For it is not enough for any young 
 man that he should only take care of himself 
 during his working-hours. To social dissi- 
 pations at night can be traced the downfall 
 of hundreds upon hundreds of young men. 
 The idea that an employer has no control 
 over a young man's time away from the 
 office is a dangerous fallacy. An employer 
 has every right to ask that those into whose
 
 72 SUCCESSW/1RD 
 
 hands he intrusts responsibilities shall follow 
 social habits which will not endanger his in- 
 terests upon the morrow. So far as social 
 life is concerned, young men generally run 
 to extremes. Either they do not go out 
 at all, which is stagnating, or they go out 
 too much, which is deadly. Only here and 
 there is found one who knows the happy 
 medium ; a certain amount of social diver- 
 sion is essential to everybody boy, man, girl, 
 or woman ; and particularly so to a young 
 man with a career to make. To come into 
 contact with the social side of people is 
 broadening; it is educative. "To know 
 people," says a writer, " you must see them 
 at play." Social life can be made a study at 
 the same time that it is made a pleasure. 
 To know the wants of people, to learn their 
 softer side, you must come into contact with 
 their social natures. No young man can 
 afford to deny himself certain pleasures, or a 
 reasonable amount of contact with people in 
 the outer world. It is to his advantage that
 
 HIS SOCIAL LIFE AND AMUSEMENTS 73 
 
 people should know he exists ; it is important 
 to the wise shaping of his aims and aspira- 
 tions. It is well for him to keep himself 
 honorably in the eyes of people. His even- 
 ing diversions should be as widely different 
 from his occupations during the day as possi- 
 ble. The mind needs a change of thought 
 as well as does the body a change of raiment. 
 " All work and no play makes Jack a dull 
 boy " contains a vast amount of truth. 
 
 At the same time, nothing is more injuri- 
 ous to the chances of a young man in busi- 
 ness than an over-indulgence in the pleasures 
 of what, for the want of a better word, we 
 call "society." It is a rough but a true 
 saying that " a man cannot drink whisky and 
 be in business." Perhaps a softer and more 
 refined translation of this is that a man can- 
 not be in society and be in business. This is 
 impossible, and nothing that a young man 
 can bear in mind will stand him to such good 
 account as this fact. No mind can be fresh 
 in the morning that has been kept at a ten-
 
 74 SUCCESSW/1RD 
 
 sion the night before by late hours, or been 
 befogged by indulgence in late suppers. We 
 need more sleep at twenty or twenty- five 
 than we do at fifty ; and the young man who 
 grants himself less than eight hours' sleep 
 every night just robs himself of so much 
 vitality. So far as the required amount of 
 sleeping is concerned, I hold to this inexo- 
 rable rule : sleep eight hours every night and 
 an extra hour whenever possible. The most 
 successful men have repeatedly acknowledged 
 that to a regularity in hours of retiring they 
 can trace a large part of their ability to com- 
 pass the questions which enter into a success- 
 ful career. 
 
 One rule should be positive with every 
 young man : the midnight hours should be 
 passed in sleep ; and by these hours I mean 
 eleven and twelve o'clock. If a young man 
 makes it a rule to be asleep by eleven 
 and up by seven, he chooses the course 
 which hundreds of the most successful men 
 of the day have chosen. The loss of vitality
 
 HIS SOCIAL LIFE AND AMUSEMENTS 75 
 
 brought by less than eight hours' sleep may 
 not be felt or noticed at present, but the 
 process of sleeping is only nature's banking 
 system of principal and interest. A mind 
 capable of the fulfilment of its highest duties 
 should be receptive to ideas, quick to com- 
 prehend, instantaneous in its conception of a 
 point. With a fresh mind and a clear brain 
 a young man has two of the greatest levers 
 of success. These cannot be retained under 
 social indulgences. The dissipation of a 
 night has its invariable influence upon the 
 work of the morrow. I do not preach total 
 abstinence of any habits to which human 
 nature is prone. Every man ought to know 
 what is good for him and what is injurious to 
 his best interests. But an excess of anything 
 is injurious, and a young man on the thresh- 
 old of a business career cannot afford to be ex- 
 cessive in a single direction. He should hus- 
 band his resources. He will need them all. 
 For no success is easily made in these 
 days. Appearances are tremendously de-
 
 76 SUCCESSIVARD 
 
 ceptive in this respect. We see men making 
 what we choose to regard and what are known 
 as quick successes, because at a comparatively 
 early age they acquire position or means. 
 But one needs only to study the conditions 
 of the business life of to-day to see how im- 
 possible it is to achieve any success except 
 by the severest patience and by the very 
 hardest work. No young man need ap- 
 proach a business career with the idea that 
 its achievement "is easy. The histories of 
 successful men tell us all too clearly the les- 
 sons of the patience and efforts of years. 
 Some men compass a successful career in less 
 time than others. And if the methods em- 
 ployed are necessarily different, the require- 
 ments are precisely the same. It is a story 
 of hard work in every case, of close applica- 
 tion, and of a patient mastery of the problem 
 in hand. Advantages of education will come 
 in at times and push one man ahead of an- 
 other. But a practical business knowledge 
 is apt to be a greater possession.
 
 HIS SOCIAL LIFE AND AMUSEMENTS 77 
 
 " But," says some young fellow, " what are 
 the social pleasures and indulgences which 
 injuriously affect a young man's success?" 
 Only one general answer can be given, and 
 it is this : any social pleasure or indulgence 
 which affects a young man's health affects his 
 success. Good health is the foundation of 
 all possible success in life ; affect the one and 
 you affect the other. 
 
 I presume it is safe to say that -no single 
 element in social life has injured so many 
 young men as an indulgence in intoxicating 
 liquors, and I shall treat of this first. And 
 in doing so I shall take the matter entirely 
 away from the moral standpoint, and place it 
 simply on its best and wisest basis, that of 
 principle. Many a writer too many, alas! 
 has held forth on this subject of wine- 
 drinking and young men, and pointed out its 
 moral aspects. This is all very well as far 
 as it goes ; but I think that if more writers 
 placed their young-men readers on their 
 honor in this matter it would be infinitely
 
 78 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 better. It is not a question of whether it is 
 right or wrong for a young man to indulge 
 in spirituous drinks, so far as his success is 
 concerned. It simply amounts to one thing: 
 he absolutely cannot do it. And I can say 
 this to every young fellow from my own ex- 
 perience and observation as a young man 
 who, when he started out, did not know 
 exactly what position to take. 
 
 I was about sixteen years old, if I remem- 
 ber rightly, when I began attending public 
 dinners and assemblages in the capacity of a 
 newspaper reporter. Wines were then more 
 freely used at dinners than now, and I soon 
 saw that I must make up my mind whether 
 at these gatherings I should partake of wines 
 or decline them. I had been trained to the 
 belief that it was always best to err on the 
 safe side, and as I sat down to my first public 
 dinner a New England dinner in Brooklyn 
 I shielded the wine-glasses set before me 
 as the waiters came to my plate, and this 
 practice I have followed ever since.
 
 HIS SOCIAL LIFE AND AMUSEMENTS 79 
 
 At first my principle never to touch liquor 
 or spirits of any kind directed to me the 
 chaffings of my friends. I was told it looked 
 "babyish"; that I could not expect to go 
 out much and keep to my principle ; that I 
 would often find it considered discourteous 
 to refuse a simple glass of wine tendered 
 by my hostess. But I made up my mind 
 that there was no use of having a principle 
 unless one stuck to it. And I soon saw that 
 people respected me the more for it. And 
 just let me say right here to all young men: 
 I never lost one friend by my refusals, but 
 I made scores of friendships of men, from 
 one who has occupied the presidential chair 
 down ; of women, among whom are the best 
 and most famous in our land to-day. 
 
 I honestly believe thaf a young man who 
 starts out in life with a fixed principle 
 whether it be that he will not drink, or smoke, 
 or indulge in anything which in his heart he 
 feels is not good for him, or in which he does 
 not conscientiously believe and adheres to
 
 80 SUCCESS WARD 
 
 that principle, no matter under what circum- 
 stances he may be placed, holds in his hand 
 one of the most powerful elements of success 
 in the world to-day. There is a great deal 
 of common sense abroad in this world of 
 ours, and a young man with a good principle 
 is always safe to depend upon it. The men 
 and women whose friendships are worth hav- 
 ing are the men and women who have prin- 
 ciples themselves, and respect them in others, 
 especially when they find them in a young 
 man. 
 
 Another thing which led me to make up 
 my mind never to touch liquor was the 
 damage which I saw wrought by it upon 
 some of the finest minds with which it was 
 ever my privilege to come in contact ; and I 
 concluded that what had resulted injuriously 
 to others might prove so to me. I have 
 seen, even in my few years of professional 
 life, some of the smartest yea, brilliant 
 literary men dethroned from splendid posi- 
 tions owing to nothing else but their indul-
 
 HIS SOCIAL LIFE AND AMUSEMENTS 81 
 
 gence in wine. I have known men with 
 salaries of thousands of dollars per year, 
 occupying positions which hundreds would 
 strive a lifetime to attain, come to beggary 
 from drink. Only recently there applied to 
 me, for any position I could offer him, one of 
 the most brilliant editorial writers in the 
 newspaper profession a man who, two years 
 ago, easily commanded one hundred dollars 
 for a single article in his special field. That 
 man became so unreliable from drink that 
 editors are now afraid of his articles; and 
 although he can to-day write as forcible edi- 
 torials as at any time during his life, he 
 sits in a cellar in one of our cities writing 
 newspaper wrappers for one dollar per thou- 
 sand. And that is only one instance of 
 several I could recite here. I do not hold 
 my friend up as a " terrible example " ; he is 
 but a type who convinced me, and may con- 
 vince others, that a clear mind and liquor do 
 not go together. 
 
 I know it is said, when one brings up such
 
 82 SUCCESSIV4RD 
 
 an instance as this, " Oh well, that man 
 drank to excess. One glass will hurt no 
 one." How do these people know that it 
 will not? One drop of kerosene has been 
 known to throw into flame an almost hopeless 
 fire, and one glass of liquor may fan into a 
 flame a smoldering spark hid away where we 
 never thought it existed. The spark may be 
 there and it may not. Why take the risk? 
 Liquor to a healthy young man will never 
 do him the least particle of good ; it may do 
 him harm. The man for whom I have ab- 
 solutely no use is the man who is continually 
 asking a young man to "just have a little; 
 one glass, you know." A man who will wit- 
 tingly urge a young man whom he knows has 
 a principle against liquor is a man for whom 
 a halter is too good. 
 
 Then, as I looked around and came to 
 know more of 'people and things, I found the 
 always unanswerable argument in favor of a 
 young man's abstinence, i.e., that the most 
 successful men in America to-day are those
 
 HIS SOCIAL LIFE AND AMUSEMENTS 83 
 
 who seldom, if ever, lift a wine-glass to their 
 lips. Becoming interested in this fact, I had 
 the curiosity to personally inquire into it, 
 and of twenty-eight of the leading business 
 men in the country whose names I selected 
 at random, twenty-two were abstainers. I 
 made up my mind that there was some 
 reason for this. If liquor brought safe plea- 
 sures, why did these men abstain from it? 
 If, as some say, it is a stimulant to a busy 
 man, why did not these men, directing the 
 largest business interests in this country, 
 resort to it? And when I saw that these 
 were the men whose opinions in great busi- 
 ness matters were accepted by the leading 
 concerns of the world, I concluded that their 
 judgment in the use of liquor would satisfy 
 me. If their judgment in business matters 
 could command the respect and attention of 
 the leaders of trade on both sides of the sea, 
 their decision as to the use of liquor was not 
 apt to be wrong. At least, it was good 
 enough for me.
 
 84 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 As opportunities have come to me to go 
 into homes and public places, I find that 
 I do not occupy a solitary position. The 
 tendency to abstain from liquor is growing 
 more and more among young men of to-day. 
 The brightest young men I know, who are 
 filling positions of power and promise, never 
 touch a drop of beer, wines, or intoxicants of 
 any sort. And the young man who to-day 
 makes up his mind that he will be on the safe 
 side and adhere to strict abstinence will find 
 that he is not alone. He has now the very 
 best element in business and social life in the 
 largest cities of our land with him. 
 
 He will not be chided for his principle, but 
 through it will command respect. 
 
 It will not retard him in commercial suc- 
 cess, but prove his surest help. 
 
 It will win him no enemies, but bring 
 him the friendship of upright men and good 
 women. 
 
 It will win him surer favor than aught else 
 in eyes which he will sometime in his life
 
 HIS SOCIAL LIFE AND AMUSEMENTS 85 
 
 think are the sweetest he has ever looked 
 into. 
 
 It will insure him the highest commercial 
 esteem and the brightest social position. 
 
 And as it molds his character in youth, so 
 will it develop him into a successful man and 
 a good citizen. 
 
 I know young men are sometimes inclined 
 to believe that abstinence from wines is apt 
 to prove a barrier to their social success. " It 
 looks unsociable," it is claimed. But my 
 own experience has demonstrated to me 
 otherwise. I have found that a young man's 
 best and highest social success is assured just 
 in proportion as he abstains from wines. An 
 indulgence in intoxicants of any sort has 
 never helped a man to any social position 
 worth the having ; on the contrary, it has 
 kept many from attaining a position to which 
 by birth and good breeding and all other 
 qualifications they were entitled. No young 
 man will ever find that the principle of ab- 
 stinence from liquor is a barrier to any sue-
 
 86 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 cess, social, commercial, or otherwise. On 
 the other hand, it is the one principle in his 
 life which will, in the long run, help him 
 more than any other. And touching the 
 point of etiquette on this question, whether 
 it is in better form in drinking wines at din- 
 ner to turn down one's glasses or have them 
 removed, I would say, neither. Simply shield 
 the glasses with the hand as the waiter reaches 
 your place at the table with each course 
 of wine. Turning down one's wine-glasses 
 or causing them to be removed from the 
 table always seems to me to be an unneces- 
 sary and rather a disagreeable way of pro- 
 nouncing one's principles. 
 
 So far as the habit of smoking is concerned 
 whether it takes the form of a cigarette, 
 cigar, or pipe I do not believe in the idea 
 which tells a young man that he must not 
 smoke. I say, rather, he will be wisest if he 
 does not smoke. His health will be the bet- 
 ter for it and his pocket-book the fatter. If 
 the physical or mental injury to be derived
 
 from smoking is an open question, the good 
 it does is not. Smoking does absolutely no 
 good to any one ; it is simply a question of 
 the extent of harm that it does. But if a 
 young fellow is inclined to smoke, if he has 
 a taste for it that he feels he must indulge, 
 then I say, smoke moderately. The greatest 
 danger in smoking is in the imperceptible 
 growth of the habit ; and this is particularly 
 true of cigarette-smoking, now so prevalent 
 among young men. Unless a young man 
 has himself well in hand, and can govern his 
 passions, he will find that cigarette-smoking 
 has a nasty way of growing upon one. He 
 may at first smoke only two or three cigar- 
 ettes per day. After a while he adds a 
 fourth. In a year it will be five per day; 
 and so it goes on multiplying, but never 
 diminishing, until the habit gets a hold which 
 many find it impossible to shake off. Then 
 follow irritability, nervousness, loss of mem- 
 ory and of appetite, and all kindred com- 
 plaints, which are killing to a young fellow's
 
 88 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 health, and necessarily to his success and 
 happiness. This, to my mind, is the danger 
 which lurks in tobacco; the actual harm is 
 not in its use, but in its abuse. And use 
 easily leads to abuse in the vast majority of 
 cases. An excuse is always at hand to make 
 an extra cigarette or cigar permissible on a 
 special occasion. But after a bit special 
 occasions multiply. I believe that if young 
 men would not smoke until they attained 
 their thirtieth year, it would be the wisest 
 solution of this whole question. One thing 
 is certain : the young man who does not 
 smoke is far better off than he who does; 
 and I think any one addicted to tobacco will 
 agree with this statement. 
 
 It is only natural that no young man de- 
 sires to remain at home every evening of the 
 week; and the question naturally arises, 
 What are the best amusements for a young 
 fellow? And on this point opinions must 
 necessarily differ. 
 
 For example, there is the question of at-
 
 HIS SOCIAL LIFE 4ND AMUSEMENTS 89 
 
 tendance at the theater. There are people 
 and delightful, good, and conscientious peo- 
 ple they are, too who sincerely disapprove 
 of the theater. To their minds the playhouse 
 is simply a trick of the devil to lure young 
 men to destruction. And, as plays go now- 
 adays, I must confess that they are not far 
 from the right. Our theaters are unques- 
 tionably suffering from a deluge of plays 
 most of which are morally bad and some 
 of which are artistically worthless. But the 
 dramatic history of every country has waves 
 of this sort. 
 
 To condemn the theater as an institution, 
 however, and say to young men indiscrimi- 
 nately that they must keep away from it, is, 
 to my mind, wrong. Because there are bad 
 plays it does not necessarily follow that there 
 are no good plays. There are not in plenty, 
 I confess, but nevertheless they exist. I 
 believe in the theater in moderation, so long 
 as good actors and good plays are selected. 
 Then I hold that the theater is a source of
 
 90 SUCCESSIV4RD 
 
 education to a young man. It will bring 
 before him the lessons of life in a more 
 effective way than is possible by any method 
 of reading or studying. But no general 
 rule can be followed in this form, or, for 
 that matter, in any other form of amuse- 
 ment. To some young men the theater is 
 an absolute harm, and has an injurious effect. 
 If he is of susceptible mind and of weak 
 character, he will be influenced by the life 
 he sees on the stage, believe it to be real, 
 and, ofttimes as not, he will fashion his own 
 life and desires by it. This is where the 
 theater does positive injury, and such a 
 young man should never attend it. If, how- 
 ever, he is strong of character, and goes to 
 the theater in the right spirit, I believe it is 
 good for him. A good play is a wonderful 
 stimulant, a powerful rejuvenant of spirits. 
 It pleases the senses as nothing else can do ; 
 it takes the mind away from every-day affairs 
 in a way that no factor in life, save, perhaps, 
 a good book, does. And a good play is as
 
 HIS SOCIAL LIFE AND AMUSEMENTS 91 
 
 beneficial as a good book. As I have said 
 before, it is unfortunate that we have so 
 few really good plays on the boards of our 
 theaters ; but they are there, and we can 
 find them if we will only look out for them. 
 And with care in our selection, it does us all 
 good to go to the theater and enjoy a hearty 
 laugh, or to see the mirror held up to nature. 
 Young men are often puzzled, too, as to 
 the right position to assume as regards danc- 
 ing. So far as this form of amusement is 
 concerned, I have always liked to believe 
 that dancing, like going to the theater, is 
 good when enjoyed in moderation. Its un- 
 healthy possibilities in a moral sense no 
 young fellow of the right sort ever thinks of 
 or considers. It is only when they are dis- 
 cussed as, unfortunately, they are all too 
 often in print that they suggest them- 
 selves. Dancing, to my mind, when it is 
 not indulged in promiscuously, but with 
 friends and acquaintances of the opposite 
 sex, is one of the highest forms of enjoy-
 
 92 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 ment, and one that gives to a young fellow 
 what we all should possess, grace and the 
 ability to carry ourselves well. But, like all 
 good things, dancing can be abused, and 
 then the injurious effects come in. If a 
 young fellow goes to a dance, and dances all 
 evening without any regard to his physical 
 abilities, he exhausts himself and is unfit 
 for his regular duties on the morrow. When 
 the practice is followed in this wise, and a 
 late supper which generally means cold or 
 iced foods on a heated stomach is indulged 
 in, then one of the most graceful and enjoy- 
 able of pleasures is taken out of its proper 
 place and becomes an injury. 
 
 There is one thing, however, which a 
 young man carving his own career in the 
 world soon finds out for himself, and it is 
 that dances, as a rule, are very exhausting 
 pleasures and generally mean late hours. 
 And after a while he feels that they inter- 
 fere with his business duties on the follow- 
 ing day. Then it is that he must make a
 
 HIS SOCIAL LIFE AND AMUSEMENTS 93 
 
 choice, and, of course, dancing must suffer 
 and "go by the board," so to speak. As I 
 have said a few paragraphs back, any social 
 pleasure which interferes with a young fel- 
 low's best business interests is bad. What 
 one young man can stand another cannot, 
 and hence every one must decide for himself. 
 He need only keep his health in mind. If 
 he finds that any pleasure whether it be 
 attendance at the theater, dancing, or what 
 not makes him wish next day that he had 
 not indulged in it, it should be perfectly clear 
 to him that that particular social pleasure is 
 not for him, and he should give it up. 
 
 Card-playing has never had any special 
 attraction for me, and so I can say very little 
 for it. A good game of whist, euchre, crib- 
 bage, or hearts is enjoyable; but I have 
 always felt that playing at whist, particularly 
 with experts, is more or less of a mental 
 strain, and should not be indulged in by 
 those who are required to use their mental 
 faculties during the day. To some, however,
 
 94 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 it is a relaxation, a recreation, and to these it 
 is good. I am inclined to believe, however, 
 that the game of "poker" is one which a 
 young man will be wisest if he does not 
 learn, since it is almost invariably associated 
 with gambling. And gambling at cards, or 
 gambling or betting of any sort whatever, is 
 a practice in which no self-respecting young 
 fellow can indulge. It is generally the first 
 step downward ; and whether it tends in that 
 way or not, it always, without exception, has 
 its evil effects. Therefore it is wisest to shun 
 it, and shun it absolutely. 
 
 The growth of outdoor sports in this 
 country has made thousands of young men 
 interested in wheeling, tennis, base-ball, foot- 
 ball, and kindred sports ; and no national sign 
 is more encouraging. The deeper the inter- 
 est which every young man evinces in manly 
 sports the better it is not only for him in 
 every possible way, but for the generation 
 succeeding him. It betokens a clean, healthy 
 mind when a young fellow takes an honest,
 
 HIS SOCIAL LIFE AND AMUSEMENTS 95 
 
 sincere interest in outdoor sports. But the 
 great danger is in overdoing this. Sports 
 are splendid in their place and at their time, 
 but too many of our young men allow them 
 to interfere with their business interests. A 
 young man in business cannot allow his inter- 
 est in base-ball, or any other sport, to be- 
 come so absorbing as to take first place in his 
 mind. There is no earthly reason why an 
 interest in foot-ball, base-ball, or any other 
 sport, confined within proper bounds and at 
 the proper time, should not be good. But 
 when a young fellow finds that he knows the 
 standing of the base-ball clubs in the various 
 leagues, or the names of the players, or their 
 batting average, better than he knows the 
 names of the customers of his employer, or 
 the prices of the goods he is paid to sell, or 
 the discounts of his house, then I say his 
 interest is directed against his own good. 
 Base-ball, or any other kind of ball, is a 
 splendid thing in its place. Nor is an in- 
 terest in any legitimate sport or game harm-
 
 96 SUCCESSW4RD 
 
 ful so long as it is kept within bounds and 
 not allowed to occupy the mind to the 
 detriment of business interests. What are 
 called " base-ball cranks " or " bicycle fiends " 
 or "foot-ball enthusiasts" are never good 
 business men, and their standing in the com- 
 munity is on a par with their overwrought 
 interest. 
 
 A young man's social life and his indul- 
 gences must, in other words, be tempered 
 with reason and common sense. He should 
 have a social side to his nature, but that side 
 must not dominate him. If it does, it affects 
 his business interests; 'and a young man* 
 whose thoughts during business hours are 
 fixed upon a pleasure of the evening before, 
 or upon a sport of the morrow, soon finds 
 himself outdistanced in the race for success 
 by others who keep such things in their 
 proper places. A little common sense here 
 counts for much. It counts for everything, 
 in fact.
 
 "SOWING HIS WILD OATS" 
 
 97
 
 V 
 
 SOWING HIS WILD OATS " 
 
 j|T is a common saying, and a belief 
 equally as general, that it is not 
 only essential, but it is assumed 
 as right, that a young man should, at some 
 time in his life, "sow his wild oats." This 
 sowing of one's wild oats means, in plainer 
 words, that a young man should have his 
 " fling," as it is called; that is, he must "see 
 the world." 
 
 Now, it has always seemed to me a great 
 misfortune that the man who framed that 
 sentence of " sowing wild oats " did not die 
 before he constructed it. From the way 
 some people talk one would imagine that 
 every man had instilled into him at his birth 
 99
 
 100 
 
 a certain amount of deviltry, which he must 
 get rid of before he can become a man of 
 honor. For what is called " sowing wild 
 oats " is nothing more nor less than self- 
 degradation to any young man. It does not 
 make a man one particle more of a man be- 
 cause he has passed through a siege of riot- 
 ous living and indiscretion when he was 
 nineteen, twenty, or twenty-five ; it makes 
 him just so much less of a man. It dwarfs 
 his views of life far more than it broadens 
 them. And he realizes this afterward. He 
 does not know one iota more of "life," 
 except a certain phase of it, which, if it has 
 glitter for him in youth, becomes a repellent 
 remembrance to him when he is matured. 
 The reputation and power that comes of 
 right living and good character are what the 
 man from forty to seventy covets, and noth- 
 ing but the welj-spent years of early life can 
 secure these. There is no such thing as an 
 investigation period in a man's life ; at one 
 period it is as important for him to be hon-
 
 "SOWING HIS WILD OATS" 101 
 
 orable and true to the teachings of his mother 
 as at another. 
 
 To my mind no young man need seek this 
 " darker side of life " which the sowing of 
 wild oats means. The good Lord knows 
 that it forces itself upon our attention soon 
 enough. It does not wait to be sought. A 
 young man need not be afraid that he will 
 fail to see it. He will see plenty of it, and 
 without any seeking on his part, either. 
 And even if he does fail to become conver- 
 sant with it, he is the gainer in the end. 
 There are a great many things which we can 
 accept by inference as existing in this world. 
 It is not a liberal education to see them. 
 Too many young men have a burning itch 
 to see wickedness not to indulge in it, as 
 they are quick to explain, but simply to see 
 it. But the thousands of men who have 
 never seen it have never felt themselves the 
 losers. If anything, they are glad of it. It 
 does not raise a man's ideal to come into 
 contact with certain types of manhood or
 
 102 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 womanhood which are only removed from 
 the lowest types of the animal kingdom by 
 virtue of the fact that the Creator chose to 
 have them get through the world on two 
 legs instead of four. The loftiest ideal of 
 womanhood that a young man can form in 
 his impressionable days will prove none too 
 high for him in his years of maturity. To 
 be true to the best that is within a man 
 means, above all, to be an earnest believer in 
 the very best qualities of womanhood. Let 
 him accept by inference that there are two 
 types of woman, the good and the bad. But 
 he will be wiser and happier if he associate 
 only with the former. There are hundreds 
 of good women in this world to every one of 
 the contrasting element. No young man has, 
 therefore, a valid excuse for seeking the latter. 
 Sometimes this "sowing of wild oats" is 
 deemed necessary to insure to a young man 
 what is called " a broader view of life " ; 
 whereas, in reality, no means that could be 
 devised gives him such a contracted, narrow,
 
 "SOWING HIS WILD OATS" 103 
 
 and unsatisfactory standard. A broad view 
 of life means the cultivation of a mind that 
 can take in every part of the horizon of the 
 truest living; that can see good in every- 
 thing ; that accepts the good, and rejects, not 
 investigates, the bad. We can always leave 
 that for some one else to do. The outlook 
 from the wheel-house of an ocean steamer is 
 far better than it is from the stoke-hole. 
 Curiosity may lead some people to go down 
 and look into the stoke-holes of life ; but take 
 my word for it, you will find the atmosphere 
 purer and the vision clearer if you stay in 
 the wheel-house. To see " the wheels go 
 round " is a very instructive thing to do in 
 directions where the motive is a good one, 
 prompted by lofty ideas. But some " wheels " 
 are far better unseen. Satisfy a healthy 
 curiosity always, but shun the other kind. 
 There is no satisfaction to be had, and a man 
 whose curiosity overcomes him is always dis- 
 gusted with the poor return he receives for 
 his trouble.
 
 104 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 The young man who reaches manhood 
 without a knowledge of the dark and vicious 
 side of human nature is far better off than 
 the one who has seen it. He will lose 
 nothing by not having seen it ; not an ounce 
 less of respect will be meted out to him. 
 But he will feel prouder of himself, and men 
 will respect him infinitely more for the 
 strength of his will-power. 
 
 Not long since a young fellow wrote to 
 me in this connection, and said in his letter: 
 "What's the use of leading a straight life? 
 Nobody gives you credit for it. Society 
 expects a more or less diverting life from a 
 young fellow ; it accepts him as such. Prac- 
 tically, it calls him a ' ninny ' if he doesn't 
 diverge from the straight path once in a 
 while. It only asks of him that he shall not 
 be caught." 
 
 I can scarcely imagine a view of life so 
 entirely wrong in its personal application. 
 The real " use " of leading a " straight life " 
 is apparently absolutely overlooked by this
 
 "SOWING HIS WILD OATS" 105 
 
 young man, who seems to think that his life 
 is lived for others rather than for himself. 
 The " use " of leading an honorable life con- 
 cerns itself with the young man himself. He 
 is accountable to himself to his own con- 
 science, to his own heart. Of what possible 
 satisfaction is it to get credit from others for 
 doing what is best for one's self? Men do 
 not lead honorable lives for the sake of get- 
 ting credit for it to win the hand of 
 applause. They do it for themselves; for 
 their own inner satisfaction, that they may be 
 true to themselves and to the best that is 
 within them. 
 
 Aside from this paramount fact, how- 
 ever, people do give a young man credit 
 for the life that he leads, and they are far 
 more often aware of it than the young 
 man supposes. But it depends upon the 
 people whose favor the young man values. 
 If he seeks the recognition of what is so 
 wrongly called and known as " society," a 
 righteous life, an upright life, an honorable
 
 106 SUCCESSIVE RD 
 
 life in other words, a manly life may not 
 count for so much. But the aimless men 
 and silly women who constitute that body 
 called "society" figure for nothing in the 
 life of an earnest young man. If, however, 
 he associates with men who in his develop- 
 ing days can mean much to him, and whose 
 acquaintance in later years will be a pride 
 and a joy to him, if he finds company in 
 women who arouse his best thoughts and 
 truest motives, he will find that his life, free 
 from blemish, is appreciated, is understood, 
 is recognized, and is known. There is an 
 indefinable chord which always draws the 
 right men to the young man of pure life. 
 They are the men who give credit to a young 
 fellow who tries to live aright, and they are 
 the only men worth his knowing. These 
 men may not openly applaud him, but they 
 will give him their confidence, their good 
 will, their friendship; and in later years he 
 will more fully understand what these ele- 
 ments mean to him. These men do not call
 
 "SOWING HIS WILD OATS" 107 
 
 a young man a " ninny " when he leads an 
 upright life; they call him a manly fellow, 
 and they take him into their hearts and into 
 their homes. By the best part of mankind a 
 young man is always known by his true color. 
 Of that he need never fear. An adherence 
 to high principles shows itself in every 
 thought and every action of a young man, 
 and it always counts for something and 
 much. And as he progresses in life, and a 
 clearer understanding of the right kind of 
 living comes to him, he will see with his own 
 eyes that the men who hold the true respect 
 of the world are the men who were pure-lived 
 and who can fearlessly and honestly look 
 every man and woman in the eye.
 
 VI 
 
 IN MATTERS OF DRESS 
 
 109
 
 VI 
 
 IN MATTERS OF DRESS 
 
 E may like it or not, but we are 
 judged in this world first for what 
 we are, but also as we look; and 
 a young man's common sense should teach 
 him that it is always wise to create a good 
 impression. It does much for him, and he 
 cannot afford to ignore it. Good clothes 
 cannot make a young man, but they are a 
 help; and when carving out a career it is 
 only pure justice to himself that he should 
 take advantage of every point offered him. 
 In other words, I believe it is a duty which 
 every young man owes to himself to be 
 well dressed. But to be well dressed does not 
 necessarily imply the highest-priced clothes, 
 in
 
 112 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 cut according to the latest patterns. It is 
 just as possible to be well attired in clothes 
 of moderate cost, so long as they are not 
 "loud" or "showy," but quiet and neat. 
 
 The average young fellow undoubtedly 
 errs in this matter of dress. With his tastes 
 unfixed, in the majority of cases he goes to 
 either one of two extremes : he either dresses 
 shabbily because he claims he cannot afford 
 to do otherwise, or he goes to the other ex- 
 treme and tries to imitate the styles affected 
 by the extremists in dress, and necessarily 
 makes himself an object of ridicule. 
 
 Clothes are moderate enough in price 
 nowadays to make it possible for every 
 young man, no matter how humble his in- 
 come, to be neatly attired. The secret of a 
 neat appearance in dress does not depend 
 upon the number of suits he may have, but 
 upon the manner in which even a single suit 
 is taken care of and how it is worn. Many 
 a young man with a wardrobe of but two 
 suits of clothes looks neater than another
 
 IN MATTERS OF DRESS 113 
 
 who has five or six suits with which to alter- 
 nate. The art of looking well depends, first, 
 upon the choice of a suit, and, second, how 
 it is taken care of. If a young man has a 
 moderate income he should make it a point 
 to select only the quiet patterns of dark col- 
 ors. t Not only is this more economical, but 
 it is in better taste than are the lighter and 
 more conspicuous clothes. If a young man 
 will look around him a bit, he will find that 
 the successful men of the day are always the 
 most quiet dressers. Their clothes are never 
 conspicuous ; they detract rather than attract 
 attention. It is only the fop of shallow mind 
 who invites attention by his dress. There is 
 a certain class of pictures that require elabo- 
 rate gilt frames in order to set off the little 
 merit they possess; and likewise are there 
 scores of men who must dress conspicuously 
 in order to gain even the most meager at- 
 tention. Men who are least certain of their 
 position always dress the showiest. Hence if 
 a young man dresses quietly and neatly he
 
 114 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 pursues not only the best, but the only wise 
 course. His dress is a pretty accurate re- 
 flection of his character, and very often he 
 is judged, to a certain extent, by the taste 
 which he shows in his clothes. 
 
 But while a young man injures himself by 
 showy dressing, he has no business to dress 
 shabbily. Shabby clothes are no longer an 
 eccentricity of genius. There are men of 
 genius who have achieved deserved fame and 
 substantial success who are absolutely indif- 
 ferent to their appearance. And the world 
 overlooks and forgives it. But this is only 
 possible with men of commanding genius 
 who are established ; and the young man who 
 takes these men as models so far as attire 
 goes makes a sorry mistake. It is given to 
 men of high position and of established suc- 
 cess to follow a great many little eccentricities 
 which are not overlooked in a young man 
 struggling for a career. 
 
 Aside from the aspect of mere appearance, 
 neatness in dress is undoubtedly a great inner
 
 IN MATTERS OF DRESS 115 
 
 and outer factor in a young man's success. 
 A neat suit of clothes communicates a sense 
 of neatness to the body, and, in turn, this 
 sense of neatness of the person is extended to 
 the work in hand. As we feel, so unques- 
 tionably do we work. Our clothes unmis- 
 takably affect our feelings, as any man knows 
 who has experienced the different sensation 
 that comes to him when attired in a new suit 
 from the feeling when wearing old clothes. 
 No employer expects his clerks of moderate 
 incomes to dress in the immediate fashions, 
 but he likes to see them neat in appearance. 
 It commends them to his attention. We all 
 have an inner consciousness that a young 
 man who keeps himself looking neat and 
 clean is more worthy of our confidence than 
 he who is regardless of his appearance and 
 looks soiled and shabby. Neatness always 
 attracts, just as shabbiness invariably re- 
 pulses. 
 
 Particularly would I emphasize the value 
 of clean linen to a young man. There is no
 
 116 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 earthly excuse why any young fellow should 
 wear soiled collars or cuffs. Soap and water 
 are within the reach of the smallest purse, 
 and the home or the outer laundry is acces- 
 sible to all. No single element in his dress 
 cuts more of a figure in a young man's 
 success than his linen. However worn may 
 be his clothes, his appearance always invites 
 closer proximity when his linen is clean. 
 
 I do not wish to be understood as making 
 too much of dress as a factor in a young 
 man's life. But I believe in it sufficiently, 
 and I have seen evidences again and again 
 to strengthen that belief, that no young fel- 
 low anxious for his self-betterment can afford 
 to slight his appearance. No fair computa- 
 tion can be offered as to what percentage of 
 his income he should expend on his dress. 
 That depends altogether too much on cir- 
 cumstances. But I thoroughly believe and 
 strongly counsel that he should dress as well 
 as his means allow ; no better, but no worse. 
 Money spent on a neat appearance is never
 
 IN MATTERS OF DRESS 117 
 
 wasted with a man, be he young or old. 
 The chief danger which the young man has 
 to battle with is dressing beyond his means. 
 A tendency toward extravagance is never 
 justifiable, no matter what may be his in- 
 come. Extravagance is always wasteful. 
 But neither must he economize too closely. 
 In a word, he should strive always to look 
 neat ; to present the best appearance he can. 
 The extreme styles presented in men's 
 clothes are like the extreme styles fashioned 
 for women : they should be left for those who 
 have large wardrobes. The young man of 
 limited wardrobe cannot afford to have any- 
 thing in it which is in the immediate style 
 one year and out of fashion the next year. 
 Quiet patterns in clothes, in cravats, in shoes, 
 and in linen are always in style. The mar- 
 velous combinations we see in young men's 
 clothes, of extreme long coats, of light cloths 
 and large patterns in suitings, of razor-pointed 
 shoes, of pink shirts, white collars, and blue 
 cravats, are generally worn by extremists in
 
 118 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 dress, or by those of mediocre tastes whose 
 exhibition of those tastes always keeps them 
 in the lower stations of life. These styles 
 should never be affected by the young man 
 who wishes to gain the confidence of his 
 superiors in business, or the respect of the 
 people in social life whose friendships will be 
 of value and benefit to him. A young man, 
 so far as this matter of dress is concerned, 
 cannot do better than always to remember 
 this one inflexible rule : that the best dressers 
 among men follow the same method as do 
 the best dressers among women they dress 
 well, but quietly. And quiet dressing is 
 always in good taste.
 
 VII 
 HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 119
 
 VII 
 
 HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE 
 
 HEN a writer seeks to present the 
 religious life of a being, be he 
 young man or patriarch, it natu- 
 rally follows that he can only be general in 
 what he says. Religion is too much a mat- 
 ter of one's innermost feelings, of one's own 
 convictions, to be governed by rule or ex- 
 ample. But in these days of men more or 
 less wise, when many of the truths which our 
 forefathers held sacred are being discussed in 
 so-called " new lights," and when the convic- 
 tions of many are disturbed by reason of 
 these " new doctrines," it is well, I think, 
 that young men should bear in mind one or 
 two fundamental truths so far as the religious 
 side of their lives is concerned.
 
 122 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 It is not within the province of this book 
 to treat either of dogmas or creeds, or of the 
 necessity of church-going; but it does come 
 within its lines to say these words to every 
 young man who reads this chapter : 
 
 No matter what present revelations or 
 subsequent discoveries may prove or seek to 
 disprove as to religious teachings, one great 
 essential can never be altered, and that is the 
 necessity of a firm faith, an absolute belief, 
 that a wise God rules over this universe and 
 over the destiny of each and every living 
 man, woman, or child. Whatever constitutes 
 that God is not for us to solve. The wisest 
 of us can only dimly comprehend it. Our 
 minds are finite ; the Spirit who rules us is 
 infinite ; and nothing finite can comprehend 
 or understand the infinite. Enough is it for 
 us to know that there is a God, that there is 
 a Supreme Being, a Creator, a Ruler. That 
 is all it is given us to know. It is all that the 
 new-born infant can know ; it is all that the 
 finest and keenest mentality ever given to
 
 HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE 123 
 
 man can know. But that there is a great 
 Creator no one can doubt ; everything in 
 nature points to that one fact ; and the young 
 man who refuses to believe in the existence 
 of a God makes the greatest and most 
 momentous mistake of his life. Without 
 that faith, without that absolute conviction, 
 he is not only hindered or crippled in what- 
 ever he undertakes, but he is simply helpless. 
 On that point he cannot afford to err; to 
 doubt it, even in the light of the most ad- 
 vanced knowledge that can ever be pre- 
 sented, he cannot for one single moment 
 allow himself. This much is absolute. 
 
 Another point is like unto it, and it is that 
 every person can go to that Creator and 
 Dispenser of all good, and receive, through 
 supplication, guidance in all affairs. This is 
 but another way of expressing an earnest, a 
 heartfelt, an honest belief in prayer. What- 
 ever arguments may be brought to bear upon 
 this question, one thing remains undisputed : 
 that an honest and earnest prayer sent forth
 
 124 SUCCESSW4RD 
 
 from the human heart to its Heavenly Father, 
 for guidance or for help, is sure, and abso- 
 lutely sure, to bring strength and enlighten- 
 ment to the mind. No scientific analysis can 
 refute this. Too many millions of people 
 have experienced the truth of this in their 
 lives. Argument on this point is pointless ; 
 it is fruitless. A young man might as well 
 argue that he loved his mother. Conscious 
 experience does more than theoretical argu- 
 ment, and that conscious experience has 
 taught the happiest men and the best women 
 who ever lived that there is a direct com- 
 munication between God and the humblest 
 person who ever lived, and that a prayer for 
 guidance sent from the heart of man to that 
 God is never lost. There is in every man 
 and woman not alone substance of material 
 matter, but a spiritual nature which, if kept 
 in daily contact with its God, finds a re- 
 sponse such as can come from no finite 
 source. This truth no young man can 
 hesitate to believe the efficacy of prayer.
 
 HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE 125 
 
 It requires no creed to believe it, no dogma, 
 no form of religion. It is a simple belief that 
 to ask a heavenly guidance in all things good 
 and right means a fruition of the highest and 
 best hopes of a man. 
 
 With this absolute faith in the existence of 
 a God, and in prayer, only one thing more is 
 needed to complete the fundamental basis of 
 all religions an honest effort to live accord- 
 ing to our conscience and to the best and 
 truest that is within ourselves. 
 
 Here, then, is a simple religion for any 
 young man. If his heart craves it and his 
 mind can compass it, he can go deeper into 
 the question and believe more. But less he 
 cannot accept. Nor, if he is wise, will he wish 
 to accept less. All objections fall before 
 so simple a code of belief. It asks for no 
 great mental capacity ; it is beyond the men- 
 tal power of none. The rising and setting of 
 the sun, the coming of the seasons, the down- 
 fall of night upon day, the birth of a child, 
 the death of a man everything proves to
 
 126 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 the humblest mind that this is a religion 
 which it can accept without hesitancy, with- 
 out a single misgiving. When we go beyond 
 these fundamental principles we go into 
 questions which are complex and open to 
 individual construction. However a young 
 man may decide for himself those questions, 
 he cannot shirk the three points I have dwelt 
 upon. They will teach him a respect for all 
 sacred things, without which no man can earn 
 respect for himself. They will teach him 
 charity for the faults of others, without which 
 none can hope for leniency for his own short- 
 comings. They will teach him to hold out 
 the helping hand to others, without which he 
 can himself never succeed. They will keep 
 him close to the teachings and the beliefs of 
 his mother, without which a young man is 
 untrue to the source from which he sprang. 
 
 I think, so far as church attendance is 
 concerned, that a young man serves his best 
 interests if he is a regular attendant at some 
 form of worship. I do not say he should or
 
 HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE 127 
 
 must ; I simply believe he is wisest if he does 
 identify himself with some religious body 
 which comes closest to his tastes and beliefs. 
 Whatever be the faults of the church as an 
 institution, a young man must never forget 
 the fact that it is an order born of God, that 
 he sanctioned it, and that if it has its short- 
 comings it is simply because man is not per- 
 fect. Young men with their critical faculties 
 on the alert are prone to discover some single 
 defect, or what looks to them as a defect, in 
 some church with which they are acquainted, 
 and foolishly condemn the church as an in- 
 stitution. Or they will see hypocrisy stand 
 out bold and clear in some man or woman 
 known as a devout attendant at church, and 
 they condemn church-membership as a whole 
 and belittle the influence of religious teach- 
 ings. This is wrong, and hence it is unfair. 
 None of us would think of condemning all 
 the sweet flowers that grow simply because 
 of a few that are poisonous to the touch. 
 Or, because we know some women who do
 
 128 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 not follow righteous lives, we certainly would 
 not condemn the entire sex of women, which 
 would necessarily include our own mother. 
 We cannot condemn the many because of 
 the few. A young man should keep his 
 mind fixed on the purposes of the church as 
 an institution, and those purposes affect him 
 for the reason that the church is to-day the 
 balancing power between this earth being a 
 chaos and what it is. It is the greatest 
 safeguard to home and society ; and be- 
 cause of the fact that it is such a powerful 
 safeguard, many things are made possible for 
 him which, without the church, it would be 
 impossible for him to enjoy. The church is 
 an indispensable factor in our modern life, 
 and it holds out more possibilities for good 
 to a young man than any other single insti- 
 tution. Its influence is always sure, and he 
 can depend upon it. The best people of our 
 land are its upholders. The most successful 
 men are among its believers and worship at its 
 altar. Worship true worship of the heart
 
 HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE 129 
 
 does not imply a sickly sentimentality, as 
 some young men believe; to go to church 
 is not " babyish," nor to stay away from it 
 "smart." A true belief in the church and 
 its fundamental teachings is one of the man- 
 liest qualities which one can possess. In its 
 atmosphere of worship the spiritual that is, 
 the softer and gentler side of man dominates 
 the material side, and to a young man in the 
 race for success this is all-essential. No 
 young fellow can .afford either to disbelieve 
 in the church or to scoff at its workings or 
 influence. The methods pursued may not 
 always be to our liking or to our way of 
 thinking, but that is, as I have said before, 
 simply because earthly hands minister over 
 it. But its aim is divine, and that every 
 young man must believe and accept as a 
 belief. 
 
 And here let me say a word touching the 
 application of religious principles to a young 
 man's business life. The question is asked, 
 and as often discussed : " Is a life built upon
 
 130 SUCCESSW4RD 
 
 religious principles really compatible with a 
 young man's business success?" Or some- 
 times it is put : " Does it really pay to be 
 honest in business?" Or again: "Can a 
 young fellow be religious and yet success- 
 ful?" Of course all are but variations of 
 the same question. 
 
 Now the simple fact of the matter boiled 
 down is that a business success is absolutely 
 impossible upon any other basis than an 
 honorable one, followed upon lines of the 
 very strictest honesty. 
 
 The great trouble with young men is that 
 their ideas are altogether too much influenced 
 by a few unfortunate examples of apparent 
 success which are prominent too prominent, 
 alas! in American life to-day. These ex- 
 amples, for the most part representing poli- 
 ticians, are regarded in the eyes of the world as 
 successful ; that is, they are talked about inces- 
 santly ; interviewed by reporters ; they lavishly 
 buy diamonds for their wives and build costly 
 houses ; and all these are duly reported in
 
 HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE 131 
 
 the newspapers. Young men read these 
 things and ask themselves, " If he can, why 
 not I?" Then they begin to look around 
 for some " short cut to success," as one young 
 fellow expressed it to me not long since. And 
 it is precisely through this method of " cut- 
 ting across lots " in business that scores of 
 young men find themselves, after a while, 
 completely baffled. And the man who has 
 once had about him an unsavory taint in his 
 business methods rarely very rarely rids 
 himself of that atmosphere in the eyes of his 
 confreres. How often we see some young 
 man in business representative of the very 
 best qualities that should win success ! Every 
 one agrees that he is brilliant. " He is 
 clever," is the general verdict. He impresses 
 one well in his manner, he is thoroughly 
 businesslike, is energetic, and yet, somehow 
 or other, he never seems to get into a place 
 and stick there. People wonder at it, and 
 excuse it on the ground that he has not quite 
 found his right place. But some day the
 
 132 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 secret is explained. "Yes, he is clever," 
 says some old business man, " but, don't you 
 know, he isn't well, he isn't just safe ! " Just 
 safe ! How much that expresses ; how clearly 
 that defines hundreds and hundreds of the 
 smartest young men in business to-day! He 
 is everything else, but he isn't "just safe "! 
 He is not dishonest in any way, but he is, 
 what is equally as bad, not quite reliable. 
 To attain success he has, in other words, tried 
 to "cut across lots." And rainbow-chasing 
 is really a very commendable business in 
 comparison with a young man's search for the 
 "royal road to success." No success worth 
 attaining is easy ; the greater the obstacles 
 to overcome the surer is the success when 
 attained. " Royal roads " are poor highways 
 to travel in any pursuit, and especially in a 
 business calling. 
 
 It is strange how reluctant young men are 
 to accept as the most vital truth in life that 
 the most absolute honesty is the only kind of 
 honesty that succeeds in business. It is not
 
 HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE 133 
 
 a question of religion or religious beliefs. 
 Honesty does not depend upon any religious 
 creed or dogma that was ever conceived. It 
 is a question of a young man's own con- 
 science. He knows what is right and what 
 is wrong. And yet, simple as the matter is, 
 it is astonishing how difficult it is of under- 
 standing. An honest course in business 
 seems too slow to the average young man. 
 " I can't afford to plod along. I must strike, 
 and strike quickly," is the sentiment. Ah 
 yes, my friend, but not dishonestly. No 
 young man can afford to even think of dis- 
 honesty. Success on honorable lines may 
 sometimes seem slower in coming, but when 
 it does come it outrivals in permanency all 
 the so-called successes gained by other 
 methods. To look at the methods of others 
 is always a mistake. The successes of to-day 
 are not given to the imitator, but to the 
 originator. It makes no difference how other 
 men may succeed their success is theirs and 
 not yours. You cannot partake of it. Every
 
 134 SUCCESSWJRH 
 
 man is a law unto himself. The most abso- 
 lute integrity is the one and the only sure 
 foundation of success. Such a success is 
 lasting and the only one which wins respect. 
 Other kinds of successes may seem so, but it 
 is all in the seeming and not in the reality. 
 Let a young man swerve from the path of 
 honesty and it will surprise him how quickly 
 every avenue of a lasting success is closed 
 against him. Making money dishonestly is 
 the most difficult thing to accomplish in the 
 world, just as lying is the practice most 
 wearing to the mind. It is the young man 
 of unquestioned integrity who is selected for 
 the important position. No business man 
 ever places his business in the hands of a 
 young man whom he feels he cannot abso- 
 lutely trust. And to be trusted means to be 
 honest. Honesty, and that alone, commands 
 confidence. An honest life well directed is 
 the only life for a young man to lead. It 
 is the one life that is compatible with the 
 largest and surest business success.
 
 HIS RELIGIOUS LIFE 135 
 
 A religious life, whether in business or 
 out of business, is one which every young 
 man not only should, but can follow. It 
 partakes of no gloom, as many suppose; it 
 means no depression of spirits. It means 
 simply the living of an upright life, a life of 
 respectability. Religion is nothing more nor 
 less than an adherence to the simple code I 
 have presented : a recognition of a God, and 
 an allegiance in manner of life to that God. 
 And that manner of living is simply a healthy 
 development of the spiritual nature keep- 
 ing close to one's best instincts. The com- 
 munion of a man with his Creator comes with 
 such a manner of living. But this is all 
 that a religious life means. That comprises 
 true religion, at once the easiest and the 
 safest element for any young man to take 
 into his life. It will stand the severest test, 
 and will prove a veritable Rock of Gibraltar 
 to him in time of anxiety and trouble.
 
 VIII 
 HIS ATTITUDE TOWARD WOMEN 
 
 137
 
 VIII 
 
 HIS ATTITUDE TOWARD WOMEN 
 
 |HE attitude which a young man 
 assumes toward women is one of 
 the surest index-fingers to his char- 
 acter, and nothing stamps him with such 
 unerring accuracy before men. And if this 
 be true in a general sense of his attitude 
 toward the whole sex, it applies with partic- 
 ular force to his position as son. " As is the 
 son so will be the husband," is a well-known 
 saying, and it is likewise true that as is the 
 son so is the man. When a young man 
 reverences his mother it is easy for him to 
 believe in the nobility of the sex to which 
 she belongs. And it is a correct belief. 
 
 That women are morally better and spirit- 
 ually nobler than men should be believed by
 
 140 SUCCESSIVARD 
 
 every young man. No ideal of the best and 
 truest qualities of womanhood is too high for 
 him to set for himself. Such a belief of his 
 young manhood will become a conviction of 
 his later manhood. I know that it is the 
 fashion of some men to speak lightly of 
 women and womanhood ; and young men in 
 their susceptible years are sometimes apt to 
 listen to these low standards, and inclined to 
 accept them or be influenced by them. But 
 of one thing every young fellow may be 
 assured : that the man who speaks of woman 
 in any but the most respectful terms is either 
 a knave or a fool very often he is both. 
 And this is one of the few rules in life to 
 which there is no exception. I wish that 
 young men would more closely associate 
 their mothers with women in general, and 
 realize that every slur cast upon women as a 
 sex is a slur upon their mothers. This is the 
 feeling which prompted General Grant to 
 give a lesson in politeness which will always 
 be told of him. The story is doubtless
 
 HIS ATTITUDE TOWARD WOMEN 141 
 
 familiar to all how one evening an officer 
 came into camp, and in a rollicking mood 
 said to those assembled : 
 
 " I have such a rich story that I want to 
 tell you. There are no women present, are 
 there?" 
 
 Whereupon General Grant, lifting his eyes 
 from the paper which he was reading, and 
 looking his officer square in the eye, said 
 slowly, but deliberately : 
 
 " No, but there are gentlemen present." 
 
 The rebuke was masterly, and it is one 
 which young men cannot too vividly re- 
 member. 
 
 Nothing in this world stamps a man more 
 decisively in the eyes of his fellow-men than 
 the practice of telling "off-color" stories in 
 which women are concerned. I have often 
 seen this practice followed, but never yet 
 have I seen a single instance when the story- 
 teller did not lower himself in the estimation 
 of his listeners. Men are prone to laugh at 
 these stories when they are told them ; but
 
 142 SUCCESSW/fRD 
 
 privately I have noticed that they form their 
 own opinion of the man who tells them, and 
 the opinion is always of one kind. It is 
 the man who upholds womanhood who com- 
 mands the respect of other men ; the man 
 who attempts to lower it invariably invites 
 their distrust. The men who hold that 
 "every woman has her price" are the men 
 who, in the estimation of other men, have no 
 price at all, commercially, socially, or mor- 
 ally. The man who uses such an expression 
 regarding woman simply apes the " smart " 
 utterance of the first fool that God ever 
 made, and after whose pattern all the other 
 fools in this world were created. A man 
 who truly loves his mother, wife, sister, or 
 sweetheart never tells a story which lowers 
 her sex in the eyes of others. He who tells 
 such a story is always lacking in some one 
 respect, and generally it is common decency. 
 I have dwelt upon this point because I should 
 like young fellows to believe more firmly 
 than they do that it is not " caddishness " or
 
 HIS ATTITUDE TOWARD WOMEN 143 
 
 "babyishness " or " goody-goodyness " to re- 
 fuse to listen to a story which makes light 
 of women ; it is one of the manliest qualities 
 which a young fellow can show, and deep 
 down in his heart every man will respect 
 a young man for such a position. The 
 higher order of men never forget that, being 
 born of woman, they owe an obligation to 
 their mother's sex which, as loyal sons 
 and true gentlemen, forbids them to listen 
 without protest to offensive stories in which 
 woman is concerned. And no young man 
 can listen to this class of stories without 
 offending his mother, his sister, or the girl 
 who a little later will teach him, through her 
 own sweet life, that whatever is said to the 
 moral detriment of her sex is a lie, and a 
 reflection upon the two women who, one 
 at the beginning of his life and the other at 
 its ending, will prove his best friends his 
 mother and his wife. 
 
 It has often been said before, but it is 
 one of those truths which can as often be said
 
 144 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 again, that a woman is a man's truest and 
 most loving friend, first, last, and all the 
 time. And particularly is this so of a mother. 
 I know perfectly well that young men are 
 apt sometimes to think that their mothers are 
 unreasonable. And they are, sometimes, un- 
 doubtedly, and a little selfish, too. But one 
 point must not be forgotten : it is an un- 
 reasonableness and a selfishness born of a 
 mother's surest instinct for the best interests 
 of her boy. I can look back to my earliest 
 years of young manhood and see where, 
 again and again, I thought my mother was 
 either wrong or unreasonable or prone to be 
 a trifle too cautious. But I can also look 
 back now, and I cannot see one instance in 
 which after-events did not prove her to be 
 right. And to-day it is easy to say that if it 
 has been given me to achieve even the small- 
 est measure of success in my life thus far, it 
 is all and entirely due to the influence of my 
 mother, and to my absolute confidence in
 
 HIS ATTITUDE TOWARD WOMEN 145 
 
 that influence. No woman has been so much 
 to me, no woman is more to me at this 
 moment that I write, than she who is my 
 mother, my confidante, my truest and best 
 friend always watchful, always loving, al- 
 ways true, always the same. And gladly do 
 I write this loving tribute to her, grateful 
 that I can place it in her hands rather than 
 on her grave. 
 
 There is no deeper or greater satisfaction 
 to a man than to be able to have his mother 
 live to see him fairly launched on a success- 
 ful career of usefulness. If his father dies 
 before he has made his mark in the world 
 he does not seem to feel it so keenly. But 
 somehow he always wants his mother to live 
 long enough to see for herself that she did 
 not give him life for naught, and that the 
 world is a little better off for the being which 
 she gave unto it. There wells up within his 
 nature a peculiar sense of pride when some 
 day his mother comes quietly to him, and
 
 146 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 putting her arms around his neck, says, with 
 all the tenderness of a mother's love, " You 
 have done well, my boy. Now I am content 
 to go." No matter how hard a man may 
 have worked, such approval comes to him as 
 his sweetest and richest reward. The ap- 
 plause of the world is little compared with 
 such a motherly benediction, and more pre- 
 cious to him is the remembrance of that short 
 sentence in after years than all the honors 
 that can be showered upon him or the riches 
 that may come to him. It has been my 
 privilege to hear this sacred thought from 
 the lips of more than one of the most famous 
 of American men men who are to-day 
 leaders in their professions, others who have 
 gone to their graves crowned with the ripest 
 honors and fullest laurels of the world. 
 
 For men, even in their most mature 
 years, are, after all, nothing but grown boys. 
 The fond stroke of a mother's hand is as 
 welcome at forty as at fourteen. The world 
 never looks so bright to a man as when he sits
 
 HIS ATTITUDE TOWARD WOMEN 147 
 
 at his mother's side with her arms around him. 
 A woman never seems so gentle as when she 
 fondly strokes the recreant lock from his 
 brow, after a trying day, and says, in that 
 voice so familiar, but ever sweet, " You are 
 tired, are you not, dear? " Ah, those women 
 who come into a room when a man is almost 
 worn out, and bring new life and new hope 
 and new spirit with them! Those God- 
 inspired mothers who say so much in a smile, 
 who speak so lovingly to us in a look, who 
 send a thrill of confidence through a man in 
 a tender pressure of the hand ! They know 
 us so well. They knew us when we were 
 children, but how much better they know us 
 when we are men! We try to convince 
 them that we are no longer boys, but only 
 a quiet little smile and a fond little petting 
 shows us the fallacy of our own words. 
 They stroke our cheeks, and somehow the 
 mind seems more restful and the brain ceases 
 to throb. The things we try to hide from 
 them are the very things we tell them about.
 
 148 SUCCESSIVARD 
 
 They know with a single look just what is 
 troubling us, and although they never ask 
 us, we pour out to them our worries just as 
 we did when we were children. The quar- 
 rels of the playground have only become 
 the worries of business, and the baby of the 
 cradle has simply become the baby of the 
 mother's heart. 
 
 It is easy for a man to think well of woman 
 when he can look at her through the eyes of 
 a good mother. And it is this which I want 
 every young fellow to do. His mother 
 should be the central figure of womanhood 
 to him his ideal, his standard; and while 
 necessarily other women will suffer in com- 
 parison, it will only be in the respect that to 
 the one he is a son, while to the others he 
 is a man. The tenderest solicitude which a 
 young man can show to his mother, the most 
 unremitting care he can give her, are none 
 too good for the life he owes to her. And 
 the more tender his feelings for her the 
 stronger he will find his faith grow in her
 
 HIS ATTITUDE TOWARD WOMEN 149 
 
 sex. There is no influence to be compared 
 with that of a good woman over the life of 
 a young man. It means everything to him, 
 his success in every phase of life. Men are 
 by nature coarse and brutal; it is the in- 
 fluence of woman which softens them. And 
 we ought to be softened as much as we can. 
 The good Lord knows we need it badly 
 enough. But no influence is productive of 
 the best and surest results unless we make 
 ourselves susceptible to it. If we lack faith 
 in woman, if we fail in the right ideal of 
 womanhood, all her influence will be as 
 naught upon us. From the beginning of the 
 world woman has been man's leader. She 
 has made him what he is to-day. All the 
 qualities which we admire in men come from 
 woman's influence. And a young man start- 
 ing out in life cannot trust to an influence so 
 sure and so safe as that which comes to him 
 from the being of whose life he is a part, or 
 in whose heart he finds a supreme place. 
 Man's best friend is the woman who loves
 
 150 SUCCESSIVARD 
 
 him. That should be the faith of every 
 young man toward woman; that should be 
 his absolute conviction, and he should show 
 it by an attitude of respect and deference 
 toward her.
 
 IX 
 
 THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE
 
 IX 
 
 THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE 
 
 [ECESSARILY the question of 
 marriage to a young man is an 
 important one perhaps the most 
 important that is given him to solve when he 
 reaches a marriageable age. To some young 
 men it is easy of solution. They fall in love 
 with some girl who occupies their every 
 thought, they are married, and, as the story- 
 books generally have it, " they live happily 
 ever afterward." But to others it takes the 
 form of a problem. They are troubled with 
 sentimental perplexities ; and if these do not 
 enter into the matter, then it is either a ques- 
 tion of the right girl, the means with which 
 to marry, or the proper age. That the mat-
 
 154 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 ter takes on one of these phases with the 
 majority of young men there can be no 
 doubt, since few men marry the girl who 
 first strikes their fancy. 
 
 The first point to present in this question 
 of marriage is the principle of it : that it is 
 unquestionably for the good of almost every 
 young man that he shall marry. There are 
 no two sides to this for the great majority 
 of young men. Of course there are reasons 
 why a man, in some special instance, should 
 choose to lead a single life ; in fact, there are 
 excellent reasons why it is best that some 
 men should. I have known men to have 
 inner conflicts with themselves for years, and 
 then resolutely decide upon celibacy. Such 
 decisions make heroes of some men. There 
 are circumstances which sometimes enter into 
 a man's life that make celibacy judicious 
 and wise circumstances not of his own 
 choosing. There are men whose lofty esti- 
 mate of women will not permit of their ask- 
 ing a woman to share what God in his wis-
 
 THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE 155 
 
 dom has chosen to have them bear. That 
 type of men exists. But to the majority of 
 men it is decreed to marry and that they 
 shall live in marriage. 
 
 When a young man deliberately lays out 
 for himself a single life based upon any other 
 than the strongest physical or mental reasons, 
 he makes the mistake of his lifetime. If a 
 young man refuses to marry because of a 
 lack of faith in womanhood, or a distrust of 
 the existence of those qualities generally at- 
 tributed to woman, he errs, and he errs 
 fatally. And the best evidence of this is 
 found in the incontrovertible fact that the 
 happiest men in the world to-day are the 
 men who have believed in good womanhood, 
 and have shown that belief by taking a good 
 woman into their hearts and homes. There 
 can be no disputing the fact that a man's life 
 is never complete in its fullest happiness until 
 that life is made whole and complete by the 
 love of a true woman. The simplest refer- 
 ence to the history of men since the creation
 
 15G SUCCESSlV/tRD 
 
 of the world will demonstrate the truth of 
 this assertion. Man has done nothing with- 
 out woman ; without her counsel he has be- 
 come as a cipher in the world. Left alone, 
 aside from the question of influence, he is 
 helpless. No man ever lived who knows, for 
 example, how to take care of himself. The 
 absence of a wife from home has demon- 
 strated to many a man how large and im- 
 portant a part she is of it and of him. The 
 right kind of a wife knows better what is 
 essential to her husband's comfort than he 
 does himself far better. He waits for ill- 
 ness to come, and then combats it, frequently 
 when too late. But the wife sees the symp- 
 toms and uses preventives. Her keen in- 
 sight tells her that her husband is unwell 
 when sometimes he is not conscious of it 
 himself. Women, we are told, know little of 
 business ; yet when business troubles come to 
 a man a good wife is the source of all com- 
 fort to him. When he despairs she is hope- 
 ful. By her influence, perhaps, more than
 
 THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE 157 
 
 by what she actually accomplishes, she brings 
 new hope, new courage, and points the way 
 to a new beginning. How often women 
 have been the means of averting business 
 disasters or the multiplying of failures with 
 further implications the world will never 
 know ; but there are men who know it, and 
 they are the men of whom to ask, " Is mar- 
 riage a failure? " 
 
 It is an unfortunate fact that some men never 
 get to a point where they understand woman. 
 And yet to know woman, to properly under- 
 stand her, to correctly interpret her best 
 motives, is the deepest lesson that life can 
 teach a man. Every man with a fair mind 
 who clasps a good woman to his breast and 
 calls her mother, wife, or sister will under- 
 stand the import of these words. How a 
 man can be a hater of woman I cannot con- 
 ceive when through her so much can be 
 added to his life. Nothing is such an in- 
 centive to a man to make the best of 
 himself as the knowledge that there is
 
 158 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 some one in the world who believes he is 
 just the cleverest fellow alive; that there 
 are eyes, far lovelier than all the stars in 
 heaven to him, which sparkle at his com- 
 ing; that there is a loving, womanly heart 
 which beats quicker at the sound of his 
 footsteps; that there is a nature ever ready 
 to sympathize with him in his troubles and 
 gladden at his victories a dear, sweet, loving 
 woman, who laughs with him, and puts her 
 soft, loving arms around him when he is in 
 trouble, rouses him to his better self, making 
 him feel that, after all, this world is not such 
 a bad place to live in. This, as many a man 
 knows, is not a picture drawn from fancy; 
 it finds its living reflection in thousands of 
 homes all through this land and across the 
 sea, in homes where men are happiest and 
 where women are most content. 
 
 The bachelor is ofttimes happy in his 
 single state that is, for a bachelor. He 
 may console himself with the reflection that 
 he accounts only to himself, that he is his
 
 THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE 159 
 
 own master, can go where he will and do as 
 he chooses so long as he obeys the laws of 
 society and of the land ; but in his heart he 
 knows he is but half of a complete thing. He 
 knows that there is something lacking in his 
 life which, if supplied, would make the com- 
 plete whole. Business success may come to 
 him, wealth may be his; but one way or 
 another he feels the absence of some one to 
 enjoy his successes with him. He wonders 
 why it is that he does not always put forth 
 his best efforts. He marvels whether, after 
 all, a man does not need something outside 
 of himself to draw him on and incite him to 
 his utmost exertions. He may be courted 
 for his money, he may have friendships in- 
 numerable, every comfort may be in his 
 rooms ; yet moments come to him when per- 
 sistent thought points to something lacking 
 in his life to round it out. Travel as he will, 
 live on the best the world can provide, he 
 feels, as I have heard it said of the millionaire 
 owner of one of the greatest newspapers in
 
 160 SUCCESSIVARD 
 
 the land, roaming from one land to another, 
 that few men are ofttimes more miserable in 
 their daily lives than is he. He has every- 
 thing the heart can wish for; more wealth 
 than he can spend ; costly residences on this 
 side of the ocean and on the other; swift 
 yachts are his, and swifter horses. Yet, 
 while driving one day, and seeing in a pass- 
 ing carriage a man of his acquaintance sit- 
 ting beside a devoted wife and two children, 
 he said to a friend, " That man's whole for- 
 tune is not one half of my yearly income, 
 and yet his life is a far happier one." And 
 when his friend asked him in what the 
 other's happiness exceeded his, James Gor- 
 don Bennett replied, " In having a good 
 wife, and a lovely child for each knee." 
 
 Of the wisdom of marriage itself there can 
 be no question. The knotty little problems 
 which enter into it are another matter. Some 
 of them find expression in the choice of the 
 right girl. And here, naturally, is a question 
 which no one can decide for another. It is a
 
 THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE 161 
 
 man's heart which directs him to the woman 
 whom he wants for his wife, never the finger 
 of the adviser. "Love pointeth surely" is 
 an old proverb, and it is as true to-day as 
 upon the day it was written. Many a young 
 man, however, stands undecided on this 
 question of marriage. He believes that the 
 only holy marriage, the only marriage from 
 which can spring happiness, is that born of 
 love. The girl with whom such a marriage 
 is possible is perhaps within his eye. He 
 loves her, he feels, and yet he hesitates. 
 Why he hesitates he cannot sometimes ex- 
 plain. Sometimes there is another girl in the 
 case, whom he acknowledges to himself he 
 does not love quite so well, and yet he feels 
 that she would bring to him something that 
 the other girl does not: a certain social ad- 
 vancement, perhaps, a furtherance of his busi- 
 ness interests, or an advantage of one kind or 
 another. Again, there are young men who 
 feel drawn toward accepting the girl of their 
 own heart and choice, but are withheld by
 
 162 SUCCESSWJRD 
 
 parental opposition, or, if not exactly oppo- 
 sition, that parental indifference or coldness 
 which is even more chilling and killing than 
 open antagonism. They want the girl, and 
 yet they do not want to offend their parents ; 
 or perhaps, as in some cases, it is friends 
 that are considered. And so hesitancy and 
 perplexity come in. The heart leads one 
 way, some other interest or consideration 
 draws another. 
 
 It is to the mind of such a young man that 
 a girl awakens divers feelings, many of which 
 are mistaken for love. It is love which 
 draws him one way ; it is an inherent sense 
 of mere possession that draws him the other. 
 And I am very free in saying that some 
 young men are actuated in marrying simply 
 because of this sense of mere possession. 
 Nor do I mean the word " possession " here as 
 applying to property. To marry a girl for 
 her money is the most contemptuous act of 
 which a man can be capable. It dwarfs him 
 and it dwarfs the woman upon whom he in-
 
 THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE 163 
 
 flicts the wrong. But it is the notion which 
 gets into the heads of so many young men 
 to marry a girl because of the possession 
 of some trait, some art, some grace, which 
 they have not themselves, and the girl's pos- 
 session of it attracts them. Sometimes it is 
 the girl's talent ; at other times her education, 
 or her traveled knowledge; again it is her 
 beauty, her social graces, her ability to appear 
 well, to dress well, to entertain well. The 
 young man associates such a girl in his mind 
 as a part of an establishment which is the 
 dream of his young manhood. She would 
 look well ; she would always be able to enter- 
 tain his friends, to help him in achieving a 
 certain position; and he feels that he would 
 be proud of her. And he would. But the 
 satisfaction of a mere pride is not the satis- 
 faction of the heart. Pride is very easily 
 satisfied ; and when it is satisfied it generally 
 departs. In a few years he will want some- 
 thing more than an ornament to his home, 
 and then he will find it wanting. For only
 
 164 SUCCESSU/ARD 
 
 in rare cases do we find the useful and the 
 ornamental combined in a single woman. 
 To marry a girl because of some possession ; 
 because he simply likes her better, perhaps, 
 than he does other girls ; because, maybe, he 
 respects, fancies, or admires her; because she 
 seems to sympathize with him, is to establish 
 a wrong basis for a happy marriage. Not 
 one of these emotions can form the founda- 
 tion for any truly happy marriage. They 
 are things which appeal to us in any dear 
 friend, man or woman. The girl who is to 
 be a young man's companion for life, to be 
 with him and of him as long as she or he 
 may live, and to be the sharer of his joys or 
 sorrows, to be a daughter to his mother 
 and a mother to his children, must awaken 
 other emotions in a young man's heart. She 
 must awaken that true, affectionate love out 
 of which all of the things of which I have 
 spoken spring, but none of which alone or 
 combined constitutes love itself. 
 
 The girl that a young man should marry,
 
 THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE 165 
 
 and the only girl he is safe to marry, is she 
 who fills all his life, his every thought, who 
 guides him in his every act, whose face 
 comes before him in everything that he does 
 the girl, in short, without whom he feels 
 life would be a blank, without whom he 
 could not live. That is the girl whom he 
 loves, and it makes little difference whether 
 such a girl be rich or poor, talented or not, 
 traveled or untraveled. Enough is it for 
 him if she is affectionate in her nature, sym- 
 pathetic with his work, responsive to his 
 thoughts, appreciative of his best qualities. 
 These are the traits in a woman which last 
 the longest, and remain with a man through- 
 out his life. They are the traits in women 
 which make good wives and better mothers. 
 Knowledge is a good thing in a woman, but 
 affection is infinitely better. Far wiser is 
 the young man who marries the stupidest 
 girl in the world, if she be affectionate, than 
 he who marries the brightest girl in the 
 universe, if she be cold, clammy, and unre-
 
 166 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 sponsive in her disposition. We laugh at 
 sentiment, we men, when we are young; 
 when we have lived a lifetime we reverence 
 it, and the jest becomes the tribute. 
 
 Another point, as I hinted above, which 
 sometimes enters into a young man's thoughts 
 of marriage is what is called by the world 
 the " social station " of the girl he loves. 
 Now what is termed " social station " is a 
 very difficult thing to define. The habit of 
 social distinction which so many families en- 
 deavor to engender and develop in contem- 
 plated marriage is, I think, one of the most 
 unfortunate tendencies of the times. A social 
 aristocracy has always been impossible in 
 America, and it is never more impossible 
 than at the present time. We need not be 
 extremists in our beliefs, and refuse to admit 
 that there exist grades and classes in Ameri- 
 can society. Our social lines are sufficiently 
 drawn for individual protection, as they 
 rightly should be, and must be in any great 
 nation. But for any grade of society to
 
 THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE 167 
 
 refuse a humane and proper recognition to a 
 girl foreign, perhaps, to our special modes of 
 living, is a piece of snobbery unworthy of 
 any American family which thrives and 
 prospers under American privileges and re- 
 sources. We have in this country a class of 
 people whose social standards are beneath 
 contempt, and who consider it almost infec- 
 tious to brush their mantles against the 
 plainer cloaks of what they choose to call 
 "the lower classes." We can, if we so 
 choose, amuse ourselves in this country by 
 believing that there is such a thing as Amer- 
 ican lineage. But when we permit this 
 harmless amusement to become a settled 
 belief and seriously discuss it, as I have heard 
 it in some drawing-rooms, the matter passes 
 out of the amusing and assumes the ridicu- 
 lous. The great social strength of this coun- 
 try, the real substantial strength, hope, and 
 life of this nation, lies with what is desig- 
 nated as the great average middle class ; and 
 from this class springs not only the mental,
 
 168 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 physical, and moral bone and sinew of this 
 republic, but the best type of womanhood 
 which ornaments the American home to-day. 
 The man or woman who to-day sneers at or 
 casts a discreditable innuendo upon that class 
 stamps himself or herself unworthy of being 
 classed among intelligent people. 
 
 The truest, best, and sweetest type of the 
 American girl of to-day does not come from 
 the home of wealth; she steps out from a 
 home where exists comfort rather than lux- 
 uries. She belongs to the great middle class 
 that class which has given us the best 
 American wifehood; which has given help- 
 mates to the foremost American men of our 
 time ; which teaches its daughters the true 
 meaning of love ; which teaches the manners 
 of the drawing-room, but the practical life of 
 the kitchen as well ; which teaches its girls 
 the responsibilities of wifehood and the great- 
 ness of motherhood. These girls may not 
 ride in their carriages, they may not wear the 
 .nost expensive gowns, they may even help a
 
 THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE 169 
 
 little to enlarge the family income ; but these 
 girls are to-day the great bulwark of Ameri- 
 can society, not only present, but of the 
 future. They represent the American home 
 and what is best and truest in sweet domestic 
 life, and they make the best wives for our 
 American men. I have no patience with 
 those theories that would seek to place the 
 average American girl in any other position 
 than that which she occupies, ornaments, and 
 rightfully holds : the foremost place in our 
 respect, our admiration, and our love. She 
 is not the society girl of the day, and she is 
 better for it. She knows no superficial life ; 
 she knows only the life in a home where 
 husband, wife, and children are one in love, 
 one in thoughts, and one in every action. 
 She believes no woman to be so sweet as her 
 mother ; no man so good as her father. She 
 believes that there are good women and true 
 men in the world, and her belief is right. 
 And that young man will ever be happiest 
 who takes such a girl for his wife.
 
 170 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 I seek not to disparage the home life of 
 the wealthy of our land. Some of my best 
 friends live in homes of luxury, are deemed 
 by the world wealthy and fortunate, and the 
 atmosphere of their homes is as pure and 
 elevating as is their family life representative 
 of every element that makes good women 
 and men. Nor have I one word to say 
 against honest ancestral pride. On the con- 
 trary, I believe in it. I think if we had more 
 of it in this country it would be better. It 
 is one of the greatest stimulants to a young 
 man to know that he comes of a good family 
 and that he is expected to so carry himself 
 as to add respect and pride to the name of 
 his family. A good family name is one of 
 the strongest safeguards to a young man's 
 respectability. We cannot underestimate 
 the value of heredity. We should be proud 
 of an honorable ancestry. But we should 
 not boast of it, or use it to a detrimental 
 comparison of the ancestry of others. That 
 spirit is vulgar; certainly it is un-American.
 
 THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE 171 
 
 Nor should any of us, who have been a little 
 more favored with this world's goods, refuse 
 to recognize good in those not possessed of 
 equal possessions. I care not how tenderly 
 the favored son of a wealthy home may have 
 been reared ; with what care and precision 
 his mental and moral development may have 
 been guarded and watched ; what hopes may 
 be centered in him : I will match his worth 
 any hour of the day with a girl from a plainer 
 home and of lesser advantages. " But her 
 social position?" the proud mother asks. 
 Social station? What is social station? So 
 long as a girl is respectable, so long as she is 
 good, so long as she is a loving, tender, and 
 true woman, by what social standard can she 
 be measured? What right have we to apply 
 superficial standards to worth and character? 
 What comparison can a social standard bear 
 to the highest standard of morality, to good 
 womanhood, to the best wifehood, to the 
 truest conception of motherhood? Is the 
 girl in an office less of a woman than the girl
 
 172 SUCCESSIVARD 
 
 who rides in her carriage ? Is she less capa- 
 ble of making a good wife? Why do we 
 marry? To please society? To uphold 
 social standards as false as they are mythical ? 
 False pride has made enough trouble in this 
 world without letting it bring grief into our 
 homes. Let the young men of this country 
 be sufficiently broad-minded not to measure 
 a girl by her surroundings, but to judge her 
 for herself. True worth lasts longer and 
 wears to the end. The loving heart of a 
 good girl is better than all the wealth and 
 social accomplishments which she can bring 
 to a man. It is something that comes back 
 to a man three hundred and sixty-five times 
 in a year. We can get along with a little 
 money in this world if we will ; but love is 
 aquality of which we can scarce have too 
 much. 
 
 And when the conditions are reversed, and 
 the young man's income or financial posses- 
 sions are taken into account, the same gen- 
 eral principle is true. There is not a more
 
 THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE 173 
 
 cruel standard by which to measure a young 
 man than the position he is able to offer 
 the girl of his choice. I am not an advocate 
 of the " love-in-a-cottage " theory by any 
 means; but I do believe in the good old- 
 fashioned theory of a young couple starting 
 out in the world with a moderate income, 
 and then climbing upward together. I know 
 this sounds visionary, and like the sort of 
 reading we find in stories; but the truth is 
 there just the same. I give it as my earnest 
 conviction that a young girl will be far safer 
 in the hands of a young man born of parents 
 in moderate circumstances, honest in his 
 principles, energetic and industrious, than she 
 would with a young man who has known only 
 the luxuries of life, and to whom work is an 
 incidental matter rather than the aim and 
 purpose of life. I do not care how poor a 
 young man may be; if he has good health, 
 sound principles, is respectful of sacred 
 things, is temperate in his habits, and is not 
 afraid to work, and work hard, and face the
 
 174 SUCCESSW4RD 
 
 world with a determination to succeed, that 
 young man can be trusted with the best and 
 sweetest girl ever reared in an American 
 home. 
 
 At the same time I believe that no young 
 man has a right to ask a girl to be his wife 
 until he has reached a certain point in his life. 
 And I would apply this both to his age and 
 to his prospects. As to age, I think a young 
 man should wait until he is at least twenty- 
 five before he marries. Before that time his 
 impressions and his fancies are apt to be 
 fleeting. He drifts and flounders in almost 
 everything he does wife-choosing included 
 before he is twenty-five. He himself 
 rarely knows what he wants in anything. 
 He does not know the world nor its people. 
 He may think he does a young man be- 
 tween eighteen and twenty- five generally 
 does but he does not all the same. It re- 
 quires him to reach and pass the twenty-five- 
 year period to find out how little he knew 
 before. After he passes twenty- five he be-
 
 gins to learn, and from that time things come 
 to have a meaning to him. The difference 
 before and after this twenty- five-year period 
 is that before he is twenty- five he wonders 
 that he is so much more mature than others 
 and knows so much; while after he passes 
 twenty-five he wonders that he is so imma- 
 ture and knows so little. And when a young 
 man reaches that point where he is convinced 
 that he knows very little, then his time of 
 learning commences. Young men generally 
 think they know " a great deal about girls " 
 when they are twenty-one, and can easily 
 choose a wife. But the wisdom of twenty- 
 one on that point is a little slippery, and I 
 would advise no young man to test it. 
 
 Then, too, a young man has no conception 
 of his capabilities before he reaches twenty- 
 five. He has no fixed purpose in mind ; he 
 has no idea what he is capable of doing ; he 
 does not know the business world nor its 
 chances. He has had no opportunity of 
 showing his employers his capacity to fill a
 
 176 SUCCESSWARD 
 
 more important position. He has, therefore, 
 no practical idea of his prospects, and he can 
 form none. The period between the ages 
 of twenty and twenty- five is the formative 
 period in his life, and during that time it is 
 better that he has no additional responsibili- 
 ties upon him other than his own struggles 
 will demand. But when he reaches twenty- 
 five he generally begins to develop. His 
 opinions on matters begin to be listened to 
 casually, it is true, at first, but they command 
 attention, nevertheless, where formerly they 
 were ignored, and justly so. From this time 
 his career begins, and he can, with a greater 
 degree of accuracy, decide for himself whether 
 he can ask the girl of his choice to share 
 his life with him. Between twenty-five and 
 thirty a young man should, if he hopes to 
 amount to anything, choose his path in life 
 and test his capabilities. And then it is that 
 the love of a good wife and her counsel will 
 mean everything to him. If we look at cur- 
 rent statistics we find at once that the greater
 
 THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE 111 
 
 majority I think it is something like seventy 
 per cent. of our young men are marrying 
 between twenty- five and thirty, with a lean- 
 ing toward the latter age. Years ago it was 
 different, and the marrying age for young 
 men was between twenty-two and twenty- 
 five. 
 
 But, likewise, a young man cannot afford 
 to wait too long in this question of marriage ; 
 and when I say too long I mean beyond the 
 age of thirty. After a man passes thirty 
 years his habits are very likely to become 
 fixed, and from that time it will be harder 
 for him each year to tear away from his 
 bachelor habits. For marriage demands a 
 few sacrifices from a man, and he must be pre- 
 pared to meet them, just as the girl gives up 
 many of her girlish pleasures. Marriage is 
 not a lark, as some young people are apt to 
 suppose, and it should not be entered into 
 just for the fun of the thing, nor for the sake 
 of being married. Better is it for a young 
 man never to marry than to marry simply for
 
 178 SUCCESSW/1RD 
 
 the sake of marrying, or because he feels 
 that he is getting along in years. 
 
 There is only one safe rule for a young 
 man to follow in this whole question of mar- 
 riage, and it solves the problem of the girl 
 and the age: wait until the right girl comes 
 along and then marry her. But, if possible, 
 don't marry her this side of twenty years, 
 and don't you marry this side of twenty- five. 
 
 Regarding the question of engagements, I 
 believe thoroughly in their short duration. 
 This whole question of matrimonial engage- 
 ments might be changed somewhat by young 
 people themselves, and to their own benefit. 
 In many cases the young become engaged 
 too soon, and then they are restless because 
 they cannot marry; whereas, if the period 
 of acquaintanceship were made longer, and 
 the engagement time shorter, things would 
 be much improved. Long engagements are 
 never advisable ; in fact, they are bad from 
 every point of view ; long periods of acquain- 
 tance previous to an engagement are far
 
 THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE 179 
 
 better. So far as actually knowing each 
 other is concerned well, for that matter, 
 what woman has ever known a man until 
 after she is married to him, or what man has 
 ever known a woman ? 
 
 Touching the question of a young man's 
 income when he marries, no rule can be laid 
 down. There are thousands of married peo- 
 ple who are living the happiest of lives on six 
 hundred dollars per year, while there are 
 thousands, on the other hand, who struggle 
 to keep out of debt on six thousand a year. 
 Arid so it goes. Everything depends upon 
 the people. Hundreds of men constantly 
 ask the question, " Can I marry on six hun- 
 dred, eight hundred, or a thousand dollars 
 per year?" No one can determine this 
 question but the young fellow himself, and 
 particularly the girl whom he loves. As I 
 wrote to a young fellow who asked me if I 
 believed it would be safe for him to marry 
 on a thousand dollars per year, so do I 
 say to all young men who are asking the
 
 180 SUCCESSW/1RD 
 
 question, irrespective of the amount in- 
 volved : no one can tell you. You and the 
 girl in question must settle that. But, on 
 general principles, I think the sooner we look 
 at this question of marriage from some other 
 than this strictly mercenary standpoint the 
 better. I do not believe, as I said a few 
 paragraphs back, in the theory of love in a 
 cottage, with nothing else. But I do be- 
 lieve in young people starting at the low- 
 est rung in the ladder and then climbing 
 up. Nothing else in the world knits the in- 
 terests of two people so closely together, 
 or insures such absolute happiness in the 
 future as their lives progress. I cannot ad- 
 vise any young fellow what to do, but I 
 know if I were earning six hundred, eight 
 hundred, or a thousand dollars a year, and I 
 really loved a girl felt, in other words, as if 
 I could not live without her and the girl 
 was of the right kind that is, sensible in her 
 ideas, frugal in her tastes, and of a marriage- 
 able age I would let her settle my doubt
 
 THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE 181 
 
 for me. Girls have a very interesting way 
 of settling doubts of this kind when they 
 are fond of the fellow in doubt. One thing 
 is certain : the greatest safety in this world 
 for a man is to place his interests in the keep- 
 ing of the woman who loves him. 
 
 These are the only points which I or any 
 other writer can possibly advance regard- 
 ing this question of marriage. Every young 
 man must necessarily settle it for himself; 
 all that a writer can do is to lay down the 
 best and what he considers to be the safest 
 general principles, and each reader must ap- 
 ply those principles to his own individual 
 needs and condition. 
 
 But there is one thing which a writer can 
 safely do, and that is to counsel in every 
 young man a firm belief in womanhood and 
 an honest faith in marriage. He must not 
 paint the marriage relation all of a rose- 
 colored hue. Necessarily it has its purple 
 lights ; sometimes its black shadows. No 
 condition of life is without its little trials, its
 
 182 SUCCESSW4RD 
 
 vexations, or its anxieties, and marriage is 
 not an exception to this rule. But it is 
 through the marriage state, through the love 
 of woman, as I have said before, that man 
 has reached his present status. Married to a 
 woman, he may wonder now and then a little 
 whether she is not rather expensive. Her 
 ways may not always be his ways. Occa- 
 sionally he may frown a little, and perhaps 
 scold a bit. He may leave home in the 
 morning and go to his office without the 
 customary farewell kiss. He may sometimes 
 get provoked because she is " so slow in get- 
 ting ready " when he goes out with her. He 
 may want to stay at home when she wants 
 to go out. He may be led to say once in a 
 great while, " Women are queer, and you are 
 one of the queerest!" He may fly into a 
 passion, only to feel sorry for it afterward. 
 He may feel piqued at times because she is 
 not home when he comes from the office ; that 
 dinner is not ready just at the precise moment 
 when he wants it; that she wants to retire
 
 THE QUESTION OF MARRIAGE 183 
 
 about three hours earlier than he does. But, 
 "after all," he says to himself, "I tell you 
 what, my wife is an angel. She always 
 seems to know what is best for me, and what 
 is not. She looks at nothing in the light 
 of a sacrifice. When I have been tired for 
 three hours she keeps going. Well, she is 
 my daily joy ; sick, my comfort, and the best 
 of nurses ; in trouble, my star of hope. When 
 I want to be rash she is cautious. I could 
 stake my life on the honesty of a man; she, 
 at a glance, has read his innermost thoughts 
 and knows his character. And take her year 
 in and year out she is the most patient, most 
 loving, and dearest of women. Faults? Of 
 course she has, but so have I lots of them, 
 too. I notice all she has, but some way or 
 other she never seems to see mine, and talks 
 only of my best side. And, after all, is she 
 not right ? " And then, as a pair of arms are 
 twined around him from behind, as he sits in 
 a comfortable chair, a soft, fluffy sleeve just 
 rubs gently against his face, a pair of eyes
 
 184 SUCCESSWARD. 
 
 look into his eyes as he raises them, a pair of 
 lips lovingly press his, a gentle, loving voice 
 says, " Do you know, dear, you look very 
 comfortable and happy," everything that is 
 good swells up in him and finds its expression 
 in the typical Americanism : 
 "You bet I am!"
 
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