IMPERIAL IGHWAY, GIFT OF A. J. Dickie, Editor Pacific Marine Review 1942-1943 THE IMPERIAL HIGHWAY. ON BUSINESS AND HOME LIFE WITH BIOGRAPHIES OF SELF-MADE MEN. AMONG THE HUNDREDS OF DISTINGUISHED CONTRIBUTORS WHOSE THOUGHTS ENRICH THESE PAGES, ARE WASHINGTON, FRANKLIN, LONGFELLOW, SHAKESPEARE, MILTON. BACON, SMILES, MADAME MONTAGUE, SCOTT, CHESTERFIELD, HOLLAND, IRVING, MRS. HEMANS, CARLYLE, GOETHE, SCHILLER, MADAME DE STAEL, WELLINGTON, WORDSWORTH, DR. JOHNSON, LAMB, BEACONSFIELD, MRS. STOWE, EMERSON, DICKENS, LINCOLN, GARFIELD, AND MANY OTHERS. JEROME PAINE BATES, A. M. i) CHICAGO: THE NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION. 1888. COPYRIGHTED BY E. A. BORLAND 1881, 1883, 1884 and 1886. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PREFACE. It is the pride and boast of the world that this is an age of self-made men. However humble may be the position of a man, it is within his power to reach the pinnacle of fame and fortune. This book is full of the names of men who, without friends or money to help them, have risen by the force of their own genius to the highest positions, and their example stands out boldly to encourage and cheer others who are struggling onward on this High- way to success. The reading of such examples can not fail to stimulate us to earnest endeavors to be, like them, successful. In Part II prominence is given to social and family life. Pure, wholesome, and plain suggestions abound, applicable alike to the man who would build a home where brain and heart may find peace and rest ; to the wife, mother, or sister, whose aims are kindred, and to the young people who are growing up among those refining influences so fully described in this book. To all these a rich mine of practical thought is opened. Home life is exalted and made more cheerful by a careful reading of this beautiful volume. M234S30 , PREFACE. Part III touches upon that highway which all must tread, the highway to eternal life. Would you walk in it understandingly? Then follow the admoni- tions which are meant for all who desire happiness in the life to come. They are pure and sound. While no theology is taught, the lessons given are eminently Christian and holy. They leave no step of the way in doubt. Every faithful mother can gain here some new truth which shall help her to mould and direct the lives of those committed to her trust. Such, in brief, are the aims of the "Imperial High- way." Its treasure-house of rich and varied experi- ences has been gathered lavishly, and given to the public with a generous hand. Its sole aim is to do good, to scatter broadcast seeds of truth that shall spring up and bear fruit. To benefit all classes and all ages. And how faithfully and conscientiously its mission has been performed, we will let the verdict rest with our readers. CONTENTS. PART I. SUCCESS IN BUSINESS LIFE. PAGE. THE PURPOSE STATED 17 SUCCESS 19 ABILITY 21 PURPOSE 22 POWER OF CIRCUMSTANCES 25 LUCK 27 ACCIDENTS 29 OPPORTUNITIES 32 FORTUNE 33 VOCATION 36 NATURAL CAPACITIES 37 A WARNING EXAMPLE 39 EARLY INDICATIONS 43 CHANGING VOCATIONS 48 OCCUPATIONS 49 LOCATION 50 OVERCROWDED CITIES 5 l FARMING 53 FARMERS RARELY FAIL 54 ADAPTED TO ALL 56 BISTORT OF AGRICULTURE 59 IN GREECE 60 IN ROME 6 1 IN ENGLAND 64 IN AMERICA .... 68 [v] VI CONTENTS. PAGE. FARM AND CITT LIFE 72 BOOKS 75 CONCENTRATION OF MIND AND POWER.. 76 ONE* CAUSE OF FAILURE 77 SINGLENESS OF AIM 80 POWER OF ATTENTION 82 HARMONIOUS DEVELOPMENT 84 STICK TO ONE THING 87 SELF HELP 90 HARDSHIP IN EARLY LIFE. , 92 POVERTY AND RICHES 94 EARLY LIFE OF ANDREW JACKSON 97 SELF RELIANCE 101 IMAGINATION 102 SELF CONCEIT 103 THE PRESENT AGE 104 SELF ADVERTISING 106 LABOR 109 IDLENESS 109 GENIUS AND INDUSTRY no \V ORTHY EXAMPLES 112 GREAT ARTISTS 123 GREAT MUSICIANS 1 30 GREAT AUTHORS 132 GREAT ORATORS 1 36 LITTLE THINGS 141 ATTENTION TO DETAILS 146 \ SUCCESSFUL GENERALS 149 COMMON SENSE 156 BOOK-KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE 159 FAULTS OF GREAT MEN 161 EDUCATION. 165 SELF-CULTURE.. , 166 CONTENTS. Vll PAGE. NARROW-MINDEDNESS 170 LITERATURE AND BUSINESS 171 POLITENESS 176 GOOD MANNERS". 1 79 JESTING 181 / IMPRESSIVE ORATORY 183 COURTEST 186 PLEASANT ADDRESS 187 THE TRUE GENTLEMAN 190 FORCE OF WILL 195 WILL-POWER AND STRENGTH 198 RESOLUTION 203 PERSE VERANCE 208 ADVERSITY 212 THE ROAB TO SUCCESS 215 CAREER OF A FORTUNE HUNTER 218 RESER VE PO WER. 223 ACCUMULATION 226 / COOLNESS AND COURAGE 228 DANIEL WEBSTER 231 BUSINESS TRAITS 235 DECISION 235 / PRESENCE OF MIND 239 WISDOM 242 INDECISION 245 PATIENCE 248 ILLUSTRATIONS 251 HABITS 253 METHOD 255 PUNCTUALITY 258 ECONOMY 262 BEING IN DEBT 264 Vlll CONTENTS. PAGE. RIGHT USE OF TIME 267 ODD MOMENTS 268 PICKING UP FACTS 272 KNOWLEDGE 272 CHANGE AND VARIETY 274 HO W TO MAKE MONET 277 EXPENSE 279 SAVING 280 OUT OF DEBT 280 POWER OF MONET 282 WHAT MONEY DOES 283 ACQUIRING MONEY 284 BETTER THAN MONEY 286 POSSESSION OF MONEY 287 EMBARRASSED CIRCUMSTANCES 289 MECHANISM OF CHARACTER 291 WEIGHT OF CHARA CTER 294 POWER OF CHARACTER 296 BIOGRAPHIES 299 GARFIELD 300 LINCOLN 308 THOMAS 312 LEE 316 JACKSON 319 SUMNER 321 STEWART 326 VANDERBILT 331 GOULD 336 HOWE 343 GLADSTONE 349 BRIGHT 354 BISMARCK 356 EMMET 358 SELF-MADE MEN 360 CONTENTS. IX PART II. HAPPINESS IN SOCIAL AND FAMILY LIFE. PAGE. HAPPINESS 409 HAPPINESS DEFINED 410 PERMANENTLY HAPPY STATE 412 HEALTH AND HAPPINESS 414 * CULTURE OF THE BODY 415 JUVENILE VITALITY 416 MAN'S POWER 419 LAWS OF HEALTH 42 1 REST AND RECREATION 422 OVERWORK 423 SOMETHING BETTER 426 SLEEP 428 SOCIETT. 430 CHEERFULNESS 43 1 SYMPATHY 432 GOOD SOCIETY 434 AVOID EXCESS 435 FRIENDSHIP 438 KINDS OF FRIENDSHIP 438 NECESSARY TO FRIENDSHIP 440 I HUMAN LOVE 443 COURTSHIP 448 BASHFULNESS 449 GETTING ACQUAINTED 452 UNMASKED 453 MARRIAGE 455 X CONTENTS. PAGE. HUSBAND AND WIFE 464 MUTUALLY RESPECTFUL 465 HOUSEHOLD EXPENSES 467 THE HUSBAND 469 THE WIFE 472 HOUSEHOLD DUTIES. 475 COMFORT YOUR HUSBAND 478 DON'T QUARREL 480 WIVES, BE DISCREET 481 HOME 484 THE HOME CIRCLE 486 CHARACTER OF HOME 487 HOME INFLUENCE 489 MAKE HOME CHEERFUL 491 WOMAN AND HOME 493 HOUSEKEEPING 495 WOMAN'S TRUE POSITION 496 POWER OF WOMAN OVER MAN 498 TEMPTATION 499 THE MOTHER 502 WOMAN'S CHARMS 503 BECOMING A MOTHER 504 A MOTHER'S LOVE 506 MOTHERS OF GREAT MEN 510 MOTHER OF ELEVEN CHILDREN 514 STRIKING CONTRAST 516 MY BIRTHDAY 521 THE FAMILY 523 THE BABY. 525 THE CRADLE 526 CARE OF INFANTS 532 CHILDREN 535 LOVE OF CHILDREN 536 HEARTLESS PARENTS 539 How TO BRING UP CHILDREN 542 545 CONTENTS. XI PAGK. J Y 546 EARLY HAPPINESS 548 HOUSEHOLD VIRTUES 549 KINDNESS 550 PARENTAL LOVE 552 HOUSEHOLD ORDER 553 SKETCH OF A HAPPY FAMILY '. 556 RESPECT FOR THE AGED 559 EDUCATION OF GIRLS .565 ASSIST YOUR PARENTS 566 TREATMENT OF SERVANTS 569 DOMESTIC HABITS 571 A DUTIFUL DAUGHTER 573 CHOOSING A HUSBAND 576 WORDS TO TOUNG MEN 579 INDUSTRY 582 DISHONESTY 584 VIRTUE 59 1 x SELECTING A WIFE 595 WHO NOT TO MARRY 596 A GOOD HOUSEKEEPER 597 AN AFFECTIONATE WIFE 599 A SUNNT DISPOSITION. 600 KINDNESS 605 BEAUTT 611 DECORUM AND DRESS 618 AWKWARDNESS 62 1 SELF-COMMAND 623 BRILLIANT TALKERS 624 TABLE ETIQUETTE 627 SLANG 629 PROFANITY 630 DRESS 632 USING PAINT 634 RIDING HABIT 636 TRAVELING COSTUME 637 Xll CONTENTS. PART III. THE HIGHWAY TO ETERNAL LIFE. PAGE. RELIGION , 641 THE EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN SOUL 641 OUTLINES OF TRUE RELIGION 643 THE NEW TESTAMENT 644 THE CHARACTER OF GOD 646 HOLY, JUST AND GOOD 648 THE CHARACTER OF MAN 649 MAN is UNHOLY 650 POWER TO CHANGE MAN'S NATURE 653 THE GUIDE BOOK 654 PARTLY RIGHT 656 TRUTH AND ERROR IN RELIGION 657 INVISIBILITT OF GOD AND HE A VEN. 659 HEAVENLY THINGS 660 WE ALL WORSHIP A GOD 661 JUDGE OF ALL THE EARTH 662 THE SPIRITUAL PAST 664 THE SPIRITUAL PRESENT 665 MODES OF COMMUNICATION 667 VERBAL MESSAGES 668 FREE AGENTS 669 NATURAL LAWS 671 GROUNDS OF RELIGIOUS CERTAINTT 674 TESTIMONY OF THE SENSES 675 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 677 TESTIMONY OF HISTORY 680 SKEPTICAL CRITICISM. . . 68 1 CONTENTS. Xlll PAG*. TESTIMONY OF CONSCIENCE 683 POSITIVE PROOF e 685 REPENTANCE 688 THE HUMAN HEART 690 CONVERTED 692 A NEW CREATION 694 PRIMARY ELEMENTS 696 EARNESTNESS 697 CONSEQUENCES 698 PEACE TO THE SOUL 699 SIN AND PARDON. 702 HUMAN LAW 703 DIVINE LAW 705 JUSTICE AND PROVIDENCE 706 JUSTIFIED OR PARDONED 707 FAITH OF THE HEART 710 THE RESULTS ATTAINED 713 THE NA TURE AND PO WER OF FAITH 715 DIFFERENT KINDS OF FAITH 716 HOPE 717 POWER OF FAITH 723 WHAT FAITH BRINGS TO VIEW 724 THE VICTORY THAT OVERCOMETH 725 FAITH, THE GIFT OF GOD 727 RE GENERA TION, OR THE NE W BIRTH 729 BORN AGAIN 734 A NEW CREATURE 737 BELIE VING ON CHRIST 740 GENERAL BELIEF 741 CHRISTIAN BELIEF 743 GOD REVEALED THROUGH CHUIST 744 TRUE CONVERSION 746 CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS 748 XIV CONTENTS. PAGE. CHRISTIAN LOVE 752 ITS ORIGIN 753 LIKE A MOTHER'S LOVE 756 UNSELFISH IN CHARACTER 758 AN IMPARTIAL LOVE 761 STRONG AND ENDURING 763 THE HOLT SPIRIT 768 A COMFORTER 770 A SANCTIFIER 774 PRATER 776 PRAYER REASONABLE AND CONSISTENT 773 WHAT GOOD DOES PRAYER DO? 780 PRAYER ANSWERED 783 PRAYER A DUTY AND PRIVILEGE 785 CONSCIENCE 788 Is CONSCIENCE A SAFE GUIDE ? 789 A GUILTY CONSCIENCE 793 THE VOICE OF DUTT. 795 DUTY TO GOD 796 DUTY TO OTHERS , . . 798 DUTY TO OURSELVES 799 TIME AND ETERN1TT. . . 806 PART I. SUCCESS IN BUSINESS LIFE. " Years ago, a penniless boy on a journey paid for a meal by doing a job of work. Afterward he came to be the possessor of millions which he bestowed with a lavish hand upon works of charity and philanthropy. Thus fortune honored him, and he honored fortune. And when he died, the ships of two nations carried the remains of GEORGE PEABODY to his native shores." " It is lesson after lesson with the scholar, blow after blow with the laborer, crop after crop with the farmer, picture after picture with the painter, and mile after mile with the traveler, that secures what all so much desire SUCCESS." " No abilities, however splendid, can command success without intense labor and persevering application." A. T. STEWART. " I have always had these two things before me : Do what you undertake thoroughly. Be faithful in all accepted trusts." NICHOLAS LONGWORTH. TO ^oung ]V[cn anil tl[e ^oung "WHO DESIRE TO TRAVEL THE ROAD TO HAPPINESS, AND STERNAL IIIFB, IS THIS BOOK INSCRIBED. The Imperial Highway. THE PURPOSE STA TED. !N the days of Roman greatness, before rail- roads were known or even thought of, there were constructed imperial or military high- ways or roads leading from Rome to the most distant provinces of the Empire. Parts of these highways after the lapse of more 2,000 years, are still seen in a comfortable state of preservation so solidly were they built. These roads became very useful ; in fact, without them, the vast empire could hardly have been held together. Over them the victorious soldiers passed rapidly from one point to another to quell revolts or make new conquests. They were, as far as possible, built straight and level, smooth and wide. On them many persons could march abreast. Hills were cut down and valleys filled up, ravines were bridged, and swamps embanked. Enormous were the sums of money expended upon them, and prodigious the i8 THE PURPOSE STATED. amount of labor bestowed ; and they are universally regarded the most useful, as they are the most lasting, of all Rome's public works. In like manner, there is an imperial highway to a siiccessful and happy life; but like those which existed in olden time, it is not found ready-made. On the other hand, it must be built and perfected, as those were, at some expense of time and toil. And it is the object of this volume to tell you how to build it, and what materials to use. Such imperial highways nave been built all along through the ages from the very beginning of time. Noble, brave, heroic men and women have lived who have resolved to carve out for themselves through opposing hills of diffi- culty, and valleys of poverty, and quagmires of dis- couragement, a straight, level, and solid road to suc- cess, usefulness, and final felicity ; and they have done it. It cost them years of patient labor and persever- ing courage, it tried their souls sometimes pretty severely, but yet, in spite of all drawbacks, the high- way was built. SUCCESS. 19 SUCCESS. "Success in most things depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed." MONTESQUIEU. IMONG the deepest and most important thoughts that agitate the minds of human- ity, none is greater or more vital than the following : How can we make the most of life? In many respects, our lives are like the broad and boundless sea, but at no one point is this resemblance more vivid and truthful than in re- gard to the possibilities of success or failure. Like the ocean, life can be made the highway to fortune and happiness, or it can be made the scene of sad dis- aster and fatal wreck. As we come to the years of understanding and re- sponsibility, we all find ourselves in a world where the prizes and rewards of labor are very unequally dis- tributed. We look about and see a portion of our fellow-beings reveling in plenty and luxury, and an- other portion groveling in poverty and misery. We also find that the conditions of success, with some few exceptions, lie open to all alike, and that the laws and elements of nature are perfectly impartial in their operations. Why, then, are not all alike successful and happy ? What makes the difference between the two classes already mentioned ? 20 SUCCESS. In endeavoring to an'swer these questions some will talk about good and bad luck, others of external sur- roundings and influences, but we lay it down as one of the fundamental facts of life that every man can be something and do something worthy of himself and his opportunities, if in the first place he knows how to go to work, and then keeps at it until he accomplishes his chosen object. It has been well said that the talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, without a thought of fame. That is, by working conscientiously and faithfully without trying to make a big " splurge" over it, or at- tempting to "show off" too much, each man or woman can, in his or her sphere, be successful, and fulfill life's great mission. This is not saying that all persons are equally endowed with mental gifts, or that every man is a natural genius and only needs suitable opportun- ity to become the peer of the really great and good who, in all ages, have largely guided the current of thought and activity in the times when they lived, and who have left their indelible impress upon the pages of human history. There are, without doubt, real and specific differences in the minds and hearts of men, as there are real and visible differences in their physical constitutions and bodily powers. Some men are made up on scant and small patterns; others are simply medium or ordinary in ability; while others are large and heroic by nature; but as every man is made in the " image of God," so he can, by the proper cultivation and training of his powers, and by the diligent use of all the means within his reach, be truly fortunate or successful in business life, in family and social life, and in moral and religious life. We all remember that ABILITY. 2 I familiar yet immortal poem by Longfellow, entitled "The Psalm of Life." Let me quote a few verses here: Tell me not in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream ; For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Not enjoyment and not sorrow Is our destined end or way ; But to act, that each to-morrow Finds us farther than to-day. In the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle Be a Hero in the strife! Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of Time. ABILITT. There can be no truer utterance than this : ''What a man does is the real test of what a man is" Among the different kinds of ability which different men pos- sess, the kind which all men respect, and most men rank as highest in the scale of their estimation, is that which enables its possessor to do what he undertakes, and attain the object of his ambition or desire. Human ability can be classified under distinctive heads, and is commonly called by distinctive names. For example, there is the speculative or philosophi- cal cast of intellect ; the ability to think long and 22 ABILITY. connectedly upon abstract truth or propositions; the ability to investigate and discuss intelligently the higher range of questions and topics in physical, mental, and moral science. Then there is the poetical talent ; the power to see visions of beauty and phases of truth in the scenes and events of ordinary life, and the power to express these in easy, flowing, and me- lodious rhyme. Then there is the executive talent; the power to manage large and critical enterprises; the power of handling men and facts; the power to carry a scheme or a purpose into immediate and telling effect ; the power to " run things" generally, and make them "go." Then again there is the ingen- ious, inventive talent; the capacity for making discov- eries in science, mechanics, and the useful arts ; the power which makes a man fertile in expedients, and leads him to contrive all sorts of objects for ornament or use, or for both combined. Then there is the ability to write, which authors and editors are sup- posed to have; the ability to sing, play and compose, which is the peculiar characteristic of musicians; the ability to imitate and personify, which belongs espec- ially to actors; together with a hundred other kinds which we will not now attempt to enumerate. But after all, the ability to succeed in life, or as another has happily expressed it, the talent to "get on in the world" is something superior to all these, if a man can have but one kind ; because it is infinitely more practical and useful. Some are always saying, If this and that thing were not as it is, or if I had lived in other days, it would have been different with me. But such kind of rea- soning and murmuring never yet led to success in PURPOSE. 23 any undertaking or enterprise. If you wish to suc- ceed, you must do as you would to get in at a door through a crowd. Hold your ground and push hard. To merely stand still is to give up your chance and hope. No man has any right to ask himself whether he is a genius or not ; what he has to do is to go to work quietly and steadily, and if he has but moderate abilities, industry will at least partly supply their deficiency. PURPOSE. What most men want is not talent, but purpose ; not the power to achieve, but the will to labor. Said good old Richard Sharp, " After many years of thoughtful experience I can truly say that nearly all those who began life with me, have succeeded or failed, as they deserved." The wants of so-ciety raise thousands to distinction who are only possessed of common endowments. The utility of actions to man- kind is the final standard by which they are measured, and not the intellectual supremacy which is displayed by their performance. Years ago, a penniless boy on a journey paid for a meal by doing a job of work. Afterward he came to be the possessor of millions which he bestowed with a lavish hand upon works of charity and philanthropy. Thus fortune honored him, and he honored fortune. And when he died, the ships of two nations carried the remains of George Peabody to his native shores. The career of Sir Francis Horner, the eminent Scotchman, also illustrates our theme. Although he died at the early age of thirty-eight, he possessed greater public influence than many other private men, 24 PURPOSE. and was admired, beloved and trusted, by all except the heartless or the base. No greater homage was ever paid in Parliament to any deceased member. Now let every young man ask, How was this attained? By rank? He was the son of an Edinburgh merchant. By wealth? Neither he nor any of his relatives ever had a superfluous sixpence. By office? He held but one, and that only for a few years, of no influence, and with very little pay. By talents? His were not splendid, and he had no genius; cautious and slow, his only ambition was to be right. By eloquence? He spoke in calm good taste, without any of the ora- tory that either terrifies or seduces. By any fascina- tion of manner? His was only correct and agreeable. By what, then, was it? Merely by sense, industry, good principles, and a good heart, qualities which no well-constituted mind need ever despair of attain- ing. It was the force of his character that raised him, and this character not impressed upon him by nature, but formed out of no peculiarly fine elements by him- self. Horner was born to show what moderate powers, unaided by anything w r hatever except culture and goodness, may achieve, even when these powers are displayed amidst the competition and jealousy of public life. It is lesson after lesson with the scholar, blow after blow with the laborer, crop after crop with the farmer, picture after picture with the painter, and mile after mile with the traveler, that secures what all so much desire success. POWER OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 25 POWER OF CIRCUMSTANCES. "There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and miseries." SHAKESPERE. thoughtful person will deny that circum- stances have much to do in determining the course and current of human life, but there are hundreds of men who are al- ways talking about good and bad luck, and who seem to think that fate is ordering the course of their lives and bestowing success or failure as its caprice or fancy may at the time decide. It will be well, therefore, at the outset to examine this question carefully and see, if we can, how much of truth there is involved in it, and how much of error. About all of solid truth there is in the idea of "chance" is this: Circumstances do combine some- times to give men very favorable opportunities for improving their condition, as well as for grasping rare and precious prizes in life. These happy combina- tions of circumstances are apparently fortuitous, but, on the other hand, they may be the result of regular and established forces whose operations are entirely hidden from human vision ; and this, doubtless, is the idea that Shakespere intended to convey in the 26 POWER OF CIRCUMSTANCES. famous quotation which opens this chapter. " There is a tide," he says, " in the affairs of men, which, taken at ks flood, leads on to fortune." But who controlled this tide, or by what laws its ebbings and flowings were regulated, he does not pre- tend to state. And with good reason, for he did not know. Neither does any one. The utmost which can be said about the matter is, that circumstances will, and do combine to help men at some periods of their lives, and combine to thwart them at others. This much we freely admit ; but there is no fatality in these combinations, neither any such thing as "luck" or "chance," as commonly understood. They come and go like all other opportunities and occasions in life, and if they are seized upon and made the most of, the man whom they benefit is fortunate ; but if they are neglected and allowed to pass by unim- proved, he is unfortunate. " There is a divinity (or something else) which shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will." But Shakespere's thought here is not that this divinity, or this something else, invariably dictates just what a man shall be or shall do, but rather that this divinity is so kind, merciful, and fatherly in his feelings toward the race, as well as in his government over it, that he comes into life's workshop where man is building up an eternal character and destiny, and graciously smooths, polishes and rounds off what man in his ignorance and feebleness leaves in a rough- hewn state. In other words, he so fixes up the re- sults of human life for men, that they are in a much better shape and condition than they would be but for his kindly interference and assistance. LUCK. 27 There is, however, no absolute dictation or iron- bound fatality in all this rather the opposite. While we would not ignore the existence of a great Super- intending Power of the universe, in whose hands and under whose control are all things in heaven and on earth ; while we willingly recognize the existence of some circumstances over which man has no jurisdic- tion, still there is nothing in these two facts which in any way hinders one from being successful and happy if he observes well the laws of his being as well as those which control the movements of ordinary life, commercial activity, and historic development. We are not mere living and breathing human machines, by any means ; but on the contrary, we are free and responsible agents gifted with the power of choice, capable of discovering right from wrong, and with full and complete liberty to do what we will, and be what we can. LUCK. Dr. Matthews has well said that " there is hardly any word in the whole human vocabulary which is more cruelly abused than the word Muck.' To all the faults and failures of men, their positive sins and their less culpable shortcomings, it is made to stand a god- father and a sponsor. Go talk with the bankrupt man of business, who has swamped his fortune by wild speculation, extravagance of living, or lack of en- ergy, and you will find that he vindicates his course by confounding the steps which he took indiscreetly with those to which he was forced by 'circumstances/ and complacently regards himself as the victim of ill- luck. Go visit the incarcerated criminal, who has im- 28 LUCK. brued his hands in the blood of his fellow-man, or who is guilty of less heinous crimes, and you will find that, joining the temptations which were easy to avoid with those which were comparatively irresisti- ble, he has hurriedly patched up a treaty with his con- science, and stifles its compunctious visitings by per- suading himself that, from first to last, he was the victim of circumstances. Go talk with the weak- spirited man who, from lack of energy and applica- tion, has made but little headway in the world, being outstripped in the race of life by those whom he had despised as his inferiors, and you will find that he, too, acknowledges the all-potent power of luck, and soothes his humbled pride by deeming himself the victim of ill-fortune. In short, from the most venial offence to the most flagrant, there is hardly any wrong act or neglect to which this too fatally convenient word is not applied as a palliation." It is indeed singular how many men have professed to believe in this foolish idea of luck or chance. " Beau Brummell," as he was familiarly known (real name, George Bryan Brummell), had what he called a lucky sixpence, which he always carried in his pocket. Like all other fashionable men of his day (1812-20) he was addicted to gaming, and with this lucky sixpence about him he is said to have won 40,- ooo pounds in the clubs of London and Newmarket. Afterward, he lost his sixpence, and with it his "luck," as he was pleased to term it, was beaten out of his fortune, ran away to Calais in France, where he dragged out a miserable existence, and finally died in Caen, in beggary and imbecility. But for what, pray, was Beau Brummell distinguished ? Simply for ACCIDENTS. 29 the fastidiousness of his dress. He aspired to be the best-dressed gentleman in England, and won his greatest victories tying his cravats. Is he very good authority on this subject ? Cardinal Mazarin, the successor of Richelieu under Louis XIII, and the original Rothschild, seems also to have been wedded to this idea, while the ancient Greeks and Romans fully accepted the theory, and called the mysterious governing power Destiny. " Some people," says Pliny, "refer their successes to virtue and ability ; but it is all fate." The great Alexander depended much upon luck. Cicero speaks of it in connection with the Roman Emperors and Generals as a settled thing. Caesar was carried away with the idea, and once when crossing the sea in a storm, he pompously told the frightened pilot, " You carry Caesar and his good for- tune." Napoleon, the Caesar of modern times, was always talking about his "star." Marlborough, one of England's greatest generals, had some similar no- tions about destiny, and so had Cromwell and Lord Nelson. On the other hand, Wellington, the "Iron Duke," as he was called, though he never lost a battle, never spoke of luck or destiny, but always carefully guarded himself against all possible accidents. ACCIDENTS. There are also such things as "happy accidents," although the difference between this term and the one already used, is not very great. For example, we read of a man who, worn out by a painful disorder, at- tempted suicide, and was cured by opening an inter- nal abscess ; of a Persian, condemned to lose his 30 ACCIDENTS. tongue, on whom the* operation was so bunglingly performed that it merely removed an impediment in his speech ; of a painter who produced an effect he had long toiled after in vain, by throwing his brush at the picture in a fit of rage and despair ; of a musi- cal composer, who, having exhausted his patience in attempts to imitate on the piano a storm at sea, ac- complished the precise result by angrily extending his hands to the extremities of the keys, and bringing them rapidly together. We also read of Mahomet, who, flying from his enemies, was saved by a spider's web ; of a Whig Ministry, which was hurled from power in England by the spilling of some water on a lady's gown ; of our own Franklin, who always ascribed his turn of thought and conduct through life to the finding of a tattered copy of Cotton Mather's "Essays to Do Good;" of Jeremy Bentham, who attributed similar effects to the single phrase, "The greatest good of the greatest number," which caught his eye at the end of a pamphlet. But again, there are as many bad accidents as good ones, and they come and go just as mysteriously; so nothing definite can be determined concerning the causes of either good or bad. One man sucks an orange and is choked by the pit, and another swallows a penknife and recovers. One man runs a small thorn into his hand and dies in spite of the utmost efforts of medical skill, and another runs the shaft of a gig com- pletely through his body, and lives. The Scottish hero, Bruce, after passing through a series of perils greater than any ever conceived by the most daring romance-writer, dies from a fall in handing a lady down stairs after dinner. The African explorer, ACCIDENTS. 31 Speke, after escaping innumerable dangers in penetrat- ing to the sources of the Nile, accidentally shoots him- self at his home in England. A writer in the Dublin University Magazine gives the following facts concerning the poetical immortality of Sir John Moore, which have a bearing on this sub- ject. He says: " Moore had fought as other generals had, with alternate success and reverse, but on the whole had just been able to keep his head above water before the advancing army of Soult. On the walls of Corunna he met his fate, and might have lain there, as hundreds of others did, in an unrecorded grave, to this and to all future ages, had not an ordinary Irish parson, from a remote country parish, and from amid common prosaic pursuits, caught a glance, in his imagination, of the lifeless warrior, as he was hurried to a hasty grave, in the silence of the night, within the sound of the advancing enemy's guns. The look was enough, the picture was taken, with its full significance of pathos, into the heart of the poet; and, when it reappeared, it was found to have been incrusted with amber, thereafter nevermore to pass away. It is true, little ceremony was observed at that burial, 'Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note;' but the lyre was struck, and the echoes went forth to the ends of the earth; and so John Moore passed, by the narrow channel of those few hasty and careless stanzas, from the shores of oblivion, where he would have wandered till doomsday with thousands of un- recorded comrades, to the Isles of the Blest, wherein 32 OPPORTUNITIES. the favorite heroes of all ages have pitched their tents, and exalted their standard." OPP OR T UNITIES. So far then from circumstances being a hindrance to men in trying to be successful, they give men opportunities and occasions to do something. The successful man is not he who sits down and idly folds his arms, saying, it is of no use; but rather he who takes advantage of circumstances when they are propitious, and endeavors to overcome them when adverse. " 'Tis not in our stars, dear Brutus, but in ourselves, that we are underlings." The word luck is a mere bugbear for the idle, the languid, and the in- different. Here are two boys in the same home, with the same parents, and the same opportunities and means; but one grows up and uses his circumstances as stepping-stones to fortune, the other becomes reck- less, and dissipated, and worthless. The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but by the right application of swiftness and strength to the object in view, most any one can achieve success. For the world in general is won by doing the right thing, in the right way, and at the right time. Says Wendell Phillips: "Common sense bows to the in- evitable and makes use of it" as a skillful mariner uses the trade-wind. " It does not ask an impossible chess-board, but takes the one before it, and plays the best game " possible under existing combinations. " Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And breasts the blows of circumstance, And grapples with his evil star," FORTUNE. 33 is, in nine cases out of ten, the fortunate and success- ful man. Every man is placed more or less under the influence of events, and the influence of other men, and it is for himself to decide whether he will rule, or be ruled by them. Those whom the world calls "lucky fellows" will be found in the majority of cases, to be keen-sighted men who have surveyed the world with a scrutinizing eye, and who, to clear and exact ideas of what is necessary to be done, unite the skill necessary to execute their well-approved plans. As another has said: "In the life of the most unlucky person there are always some occasions when, by prompt and vigorous action, he may win the things he has at heart. Raleigh flung his laced jacket into a puddle, and won a proud queen's favor. A village apothecary chanced to visit the state apartments at the Pavilion, when George the Fourth was seized with a fit. He bled him, brought him back to conscious- ness, and, by his genial and quaint humor, made the king laugh. The monarch took a fancy to him, made him his physician, and made his fortune. Probably no man ever lives to middle age to whom two or three such opportunities do not present themselves. 'There is nobody,' says a Roman cardinal, 'whom Fortune does not visit once in his life ; but when she finds he is not ready to receive her, she goes in at the door, and out through the window.' Opportunity is coy. The careless, the slow, the unobservant, the lazy, fail to see it, or clutch at it when it has gone. The sharp fellows detect it instantly, and catch it when on the wing." FORTUNE. Fortune has usually been represented as a blind 34 FORTUNE. goddess. Rare Old Ben Jonson wrote many years ago that "All human business fortune doth command Without any order: and with her blind hand She, blind, bestows blind gifts." But he was speaking with poetic license just then, and told a practical untruth, although he only expressed a popular idea. Equally untrue is the following heathenish conception: "On high, where no hoarse winds or clouds resort, The hood-winked goddess keeps her partial court, Upon a wheel of amethyst she sits, Gives and resumes, smiles and frowns." Let us away with all such crude notions they are unworthy the intelligence and enlightenment of our nineteenth century. Robert Burns had better sense when he wrote, " To catch dame fortune's golden smile, Assiduous wait upon her." Fortune, luck, chance whatever you call it is nothing more or less than a happy or fortunate combi- nation of circumstances, which arise partly from the operation of invisible but established forces in nature, and in God, and partly from the activity of strong minds and wills in brave, heroic souls. Consequently they can be used to advantage, or allowed to crush one, just as the person himself decides. " Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to heaven; the fated sky FORTUNE. Gives us free scope ; and only backward pulls Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull." Walk Boldly and wisely in that light thou hast ; There is a hand above will help thee on." BAILEY'S FESTUS. 35 36 VOCATION. VOCA TION. "Brutes find out where their talents lie; A bear will not attempt to fly, A foundered horse will oft debate Before he tries a five-barred gate. A dog by instinct turns aside Who sees the ditch too deep and wide. But man we find the only creature Who, led by folly, combats nature; Who, when she loudly cries forbear! With obstinacy fixes there; And where his genius least inclines, Absurdly bends his whole designs." DEAN SWIFT. iHE two most important things for a young man just starting out in life to determine are, vocation and location, or what shall he turn his hand to, and where shall he settle ? Concerning the calling or occupation which a young man should choose as his life-work, we urge first that the question should engage his most serious thought and earnest study before coming to any decision. A mistake here may prove fatal through life, and no man can afford to throw away his time and energies reck- lessly. At the very best we have only one life to live on earth, and that one is not very long at the longest. NATURAL CAPACITIES. 37 There is many a man who has made perfect shipwreck of himself and his prospects, by rushing hastily and ill-advisedly into some business or profession for which he was in no wise adapted, and then not finding out his mistake until so many years of his life had passed away in experimenting, that it became too late to change callings to advantage. A man's only alter- native in such a case is to continue on as he begun, and make the best of his choice, or throw up his calling and try again with the feeling that he starts in his new line of work ten or fifteen years behind others in his class. Either horn of this dilemma will be sure to gore the mind and feelings of the one choosing it, and leave behind a perpetually sore spot in his memory and consciousness. Therefore we repeat the remark, that this question should be well considered by all concerned, by young men, their parents and friends, before any decision is made. NATURAL CAPACITIES. "Be what nature intended you for, and you will suc- ceed; but be anything else, and you will be worse than nothing." Good old Roger Ascham, who was the pre- ceptor of Queen Elizabeth, and one of the first writers on education in the English language (living about 1540), said upon this subject, "The ignorance in men who know not for what time and to what thing they be fit, causeth some to wish themselves rich for whom it were better a great deal to be poor ; some to desire to be in the court, which be born and be fitter rather for the cart ; some to be masters and rule others, who never yet began to rule themselves ; some to teach, NATURAL CAPACITIES. which rather should learn; some to be priests, which were fitter to be clerks." Again, Dr. Matthews has well observed that "to no other cause, perhaps, is failure in life so frequently to be traced, as to a mistaken calling. A youth who might become a first-rate mechanic chances to have been born of ambitious parents, who think it more honorable for their son to handle the lancet than the chisel, and so make him a doctor. Accordingly he is sent to college, pitchforked through a course of Latin and Greek, attends lectures, crams for an examination, gets a diploma, and with 'all his blushing honors thick upon his vacant head,' settles down to pour, as Voltaire said, drugs of which he knows little, into bodies of which he knows less, till his incapacity is discovered, when he starves. In another case, a boy is forced by unwise parents to measure tape and calico, when nature shows by his intellectual acumen, by his skill in hair-splitting, his adroitness at parry and thrust, his fertility of resources in every exigency, and a score of other signs, that she designed him for the bar or the forum." Many a man has gone into business possessing no business brains. But as no sensible father would try to make a musician of his son unless he had a natural ear for music, so no sensible father will put his son into business unless he discover in him some natural aptness for trade. Again, the idea that no man can be really respectable or honorable among men without going into one of the three learned professions, as they are called, namely, Law, Medicine and Divinity, is one of the most false, mischievous notions which ever obtained a lodgment in the popular mind. This A WARNING EXAMPLE. 39 idea "has spoiled many a good carpenter, done injus- tice to the sledge and the anvil, cheated the goose and the shears out of their rights, and committed fraud on the corn and the potato field. Thousands have died of broken hearts in these professions, thousands who might have been happy at the plow, or opulent be- hind the counter ; thousands, dispirited and hopeless, look upon the healthful and independent calling of the farmer with envy and chagrin ; thousands more, by a worse fate still, are reduced to necessities which degrade them in their own estimation, and render the most brilliant success but a wretched compensation for the humiliation with which it is accompanied." A WARNING EXAMPLE. To illustrate the truthfulness of the foregoing ob- servations, the writer remembers the case of a boy whom he knew in early youth. The lad was born and reared in a sparsely-settled and rather out-of-the-way corner of a New England town. His parents were poor but sensible farming people, working hard to bring up a somewhat numerous family on a naturally rocky and somewhat sterile piece of land. The boy was a bright, active lad, easy to learn and with a very retentive memory. His advantages for learning, however, were nothing more than ordinary, and up to early manhood he had attended nothing higher than the common district school. But as he began to read and expand mentally, he tired of these lowly and humble surroundings, and panted for distinction and greatness in a larger sphere of life. It was common in that part of the world and at that 40 A WARNING EXAMPLE. time, for the minister of the parish church to be looked upon as the highest in rank and ability of all the surrounding population. Moreover, the boy's mother was the daughter of a widely-known and justly- revered minister, whose visits to the boy's home, taken in connection with the general sentiment of the place and time, naturally turned his thoughts toward the ministerial calling. His mother, too, was very anxious that one of her sons should imitate her father's example, and follow in the same path of use- fulness and honor. This little boy, whom we will call Jerry, had been selected by her almost from his birth as the one to be thus consecrated to the Lord. So, when at the age of eighteen, Jerry was converted, joined the parish church and began to exhort in the evening meetings, his own thoughts, as well as those of his mother and the parish priest, at once recurred to this pre-determined choice of a profession. The duty of entering the ministry was urged upon him with a force which he found very difficult to resist, accompanied, as it was, by a mother's appeals and prayers, and a minister's solemn adjurations. Still Jerry hesitated; he did not really want to be a minis- ter. In fact, he had marked out in his own mind a career of a different sort. From boyhood he had always loved composition, and to be able to write an article for a paper or a magazine was at that time the height of his ambition. While working on the farm with his father, he went into the neighboring woods, set snares for wild game, sold it when caught, took the money, and bought paper, pens and ink, built himself a rude, unplaned, and unpainted pine table in the old attic, and there A WARNING EXAMPLE. 41 commenced to write articles for the weekly paper which came regularly to his home. The first three articles sent were rejected, but the fourth one, much changed by the editor, was published. The joy of Jerry's heart on seeing his own composition in print, along with others from higher and more gifted minds, was greater than can well be described here. He in- wardly resolved then and there that he would be an author, if it was a possible thing, and to that project his whole heart was given. Still, urged on by his mother and the parish minister, whose exhortations and warnings were half reinforced by the fears and misgivings of his own mind should he dare to refuse, he gave his consent to enter upon the sacred work, and posted off to school to prepare himself for it. Years rolled by, and the close of them found Jerry still halting between two opinions, endeavoring out- wardly to conform to the requirements of his chosen profession, and wishing inwardly that he could follow out the bent of his nature. The struggle went on between these forces up to the day of his formal en- trance upon his work ; yea, more than this, went right on after that event, just the same as before. And thus Jerry lived and worked for twelve years in a divided state of mind. Did he succeed in his profession ? It is almost superfluous to inquire. By the strictest at- tention to his work, buoyed up by the hope of being able to rise in his profession after awhile, he passed among others of his class as a man who had ability enough to succeed, but whose heart was not in sym- pathy with the duties and sacrifices of his calling. He was trying to do what nature never intended him to do ; under such circumstances no one can succeed. 42 A WARNING EXAMPLE. About the only really successful element in Jerry's ministerial life was his sermons. While writing these in his study alone, he could easily imagine himself writing articles for some religious periodical, and so was able to enter into their construction with enthusi- asm and delight. Finally, after twelve years of varying experience, Jerry resolved to live a divided life no longer. It cost him a terrible struggle to come to this conclusion, but he found the old, inward love of his heart daily growing stronger, and the outward professional ser- vices daily becoming correspondingly feeble and un- satisfactory ; and so there was no other alternative. But the next question was, what should he do after the change was made? He realized he was throwing away the results of all his previous years of prepara- tion and experience. He had reached the age of forty, and was pretty old to commence a new manner of life. His habits of thought and feeling, too, had by this time become somewhat fixed. And it would be necessary for him to break these all up, and commence anew. He also found it very much harder than he had ex- pected to adapt himself to any new service and its conditions. The transition trial and struggle was fearful. For a time it seemed doubtful whether Jerry would go on to fame and fortune, or "go to the dogs" in despair. But, like the traveler in the fable, as the storm increased he drew his cloak of resolution more tightly about him and pressed on toward the distant goal. By and by the clouds began to break a little, and the sun of prosperity came out on Jerry's lonely pathway. He had forded the stream running between two vocations of life in which he had tried to walk, EARLY INDICATIONS. 43 but he came within a step of being drowned in the passage. Jerry still lives, and is working away bravely to realize his early hope and dream, but he feels that he will always be a crippled man to what he might have been, had he been allowed to follow the bent of his nature from the beginning. Hence we urge upon parents the folly of trying to make children over into something for which they were never fitted by birth, endowments, or early training. Better far allow them to choose their own calling in life, after giving the matter proper attention and thought, than try to coerce them into vocations which they naturally and instinctively shun. EARLT INDICATIONS. It often happens that this bent or leaning of a child's nature toward a certain calling or vocation, displays itself quite early in life. Thus Handel, the great musical composer, when a little boy, secretly bought a musical instrument, called a clavichord, hid it away in the attic, and at midnight used to go up there and play on it. The strings of the instrument were muffled with small bits of fine woolen cloth so that the softened sounds should not wake the sleeping inmates of the house. Another equally famous com- poser, Bach, used to copy whole books by moonlight when a candle had been meanly denied him. Benja- min West, the famous painter, began his career when a boy in the garret of his home, and made his brushes out of the long hairs of the old family cat. Michael Angelo, the Italian architect and painter, neglected 44 EARLY INDICATIONS. school to copy drawings which he dared not bring home. Murillo, a Spanish artist, filled the margin of his school-books with drawings. Dryden, an English poet, read Polybius before he was ten years old. Le Brim, in childhood, drew with a piece of charcoal on the walls of the house. Alexander Pope wrote excel- lent verses at fourteen. Blaise Pascal, the celebrated French mathematician, composed at sixteen a tract on the Conic Sections. Lawrence painted beautifully when a mere boy. Madame de Stael was deep in the philosophy of politics at an age when other girls were dressing dolls. Lord Nelson had made up his mind to be a hero before he was old enough to be a mid- shipman ; and Napoleon was already at the head of armies when pelting his comrades with snowballs at the military school of Brienne. Richard Wilson, when a mere child, indulged him- self with tracing figures of men and animals on the walls of his father's house with a burnt stick. He first directed his attention to portrait-painting, but when in Italy, calling one day at the house of Zucarelli and growing weary with waiting, he began painting the scene on which his friend's chamber window looked. When Zucarelli arrived, he was so charmed with the picture that he asked if Wilson had not studied landscape, to which he replied that he had not. " Then I advise you," said the other, "to try; for you are sure of great success." Wilson adopted the advice, studied, and worked hard, and became a great English landscape-painter. Sir Joshua Rey- nolds, when a boy, forgot his lessons, and took pleasure only in drawing, for which his father was accustomed to rebuke him. The boy was destined for EARLY INDICATIONS. 45 the profession of physic, but his strong instinct for art could not be repressed, and he became a painter. Gainsborough went sketching, when a school-boy, in the woods of Sudbury, and at twelve he was a con- firmed artist ; he was a keen observer and a hard worker, no picturesque feature of any scene he had once looked upon, escaping his diligent pencil. William Blake, a hosier's son, employed himself in drawing designs on the backs of his father's shopbills, and making sketches on the counter. Edward Bird, when a child only three or four years old, would mount a chair and draw figures on the walls, which he called French and English soldiers. A box of colors was purchased for him, and his father, desirous of turning his love of art to account, put him apprentice to a maker of tea-trays. Out of this trade he grad- ually raised himself by study and labor, to the rank of a Royal Academician. Hogarth, though a very dull boy at his lessons, took pleasure in making drawings of the letters of the alphabet, and his school exercises were more remark- able for the ornaments with which he embellished them, than for-the matter of the exercises themselves. Mulready, when a boy, went to the house of the sculptor Banks, but the servant, angry at the loud knock he had given, scolded him, and was about send- ing him away, when Banks, overhearing her, himself went out. The little boy stood at the door with some drawings in his hand. " What do you want with me?" asked the sculptor. " I want, sir, if you please, to be admitted to draw at the Academy." Banks explained that he himself could not procure his admission, but he asked to look at the boy's drawings. Examining 4 6 EARLY INDICATIONS. them, Tie said, "Time enough for the Academy, my little man ! Go home, mind your schooling, try to make a better drawing of the Apollo, and in a month come again and let me see it." The boy went home, sketched and worked with redoubled diligence, and, at the end of the month, called again on the sculptor. The drawing was better, but again Banks sent him back, with good advice, to work and study. In a week the boy was again at his door with drawing much improved. Banks now bade him be of good cheer, for if he continued to improve thus, he would be sure to distinguish himself ; which prophecy was afterward amply fulfilled. Faraday, the noted scientist, made his first electri- cal machine out of a bottle, while Lord Bacon, at the age of sixteen, had successfully pointed out the er- rors of Aristotle's philosophy. So, John Smeaton, the builder of the Eddystone lighthouse, on the English coast, when in petticoats was discovered on the top of his father's barn fixing up the model of a windmill which he had constructed. M. Carnot, who, during the Napoleonic wars, could direct the movements of fourteen armies at one and the same time, went to a theater when a boy, and seeing some poor military tactics on the stage, instinctively cried out his disap- probation at the players. Sometimes little circumstances wake up the right idea in a boy or man. Thus George Law, the steam- boat king and millionaire, found in an old stray volume the story of a farmer's son who went away to seek his fortune, and came home rich ; whereupon George himself set out and beat the achievements of the boy in the story all out of sight. It is said of the EARLY INDICATIONS. 47 great philanthropist, Thomas Clarkson, that when he was a competitor for the prize essay at Cambridge, he had never thought upon the subject to be handled, which was, "May one man lawfully enslave another?" Chancing one day to pick up in a friend's house a newspaper, advertising a History of Guinea, he hastened to London, bought the work, and there found a picture of cruelties that filled his soul with horror. " Coming one day in sight of Wade's mill in Hertfordshire," he says, "I sat down disconsolate on the turf by the roadside, and held my horse. Here a thought came into my mind, that, if the contents of this essay were true, it was time that some person should see those calamities to their end." Sometimes a youth is put at one calling and fails, and then tries another and succeeds. But this must always be done in early life. To change vocations after many years have gone by, is more or less danger- ous, as has been shown. It is said that the father of John Adams, the second President of the United States, tried to make a shoemaker of his son, and accordingly gave him, one day, some uppers to cut out by a pattern that had a three-cornered hole in it, by which it had hung upon a nail. John went to work, and followed the pattern exactly, three-cornered hole and all ! In Macmillan's Magazine there is an incident of a similar nature. A young man, whose bluntness was such that every effort to turn him to account in a linen drapery establishment was found unavailing, received from his employer the customary note that he would not suit, and must go. ' But I'm good for something," said the poor fellow, unwilling to be turned out into the street. " You are good for 4 8 CHANGING VOCATIONS, nothing as a salesman," said the principal, regarding him from his selfish point of view " I am sure I can be useful," repeated the young man " How ? tell me how." " I don't know, sir ; I don't know." " Nor do I." And the principal laughed as he saw the eager- ness the lad displayed. " Only don't put me away, sir ; don't put me away. Try me at something besides selling. I cannot sell; I know I cannot sell" "I know that, too ; that is what is wrong." " But I can make myself useful somehow ; I know I can." The blunt boy, who could not be turned into a salesman ; and whose manner was so little captivating that he was nearly sent about his business, was accordingly tried at something else. He was placed in the count- ing-house, where his aptitude for figures soon showed itself, and in a few years he became, not only chief cashier in the concern, but eminent as an accountant throughout the country. CHANGING VOCATIONS The only remaining point in this connection to be considered is this : After choosing a vocation in life deliberately and thoughtfully, it will be better ; as a general rule, to stick to it than to change. Each man will have to determine for himself whether his case furnishes an exception to the rule. If it does, then it will be best to change ; but he ought to be sure he is right before he goes ahead. A late writer on this point has forcibly said: "In hours of despondency, or when smarting under some disappointment, a young man is apt to fancy that in some other calling he would have been more successful. It is so easy, while re- OCCUPATION. 49 garding it at a distance, to look at its bright side only, shutting the eyes at what is ugly and disagreeable ; it is so easy to dream of the resolution and tenacity of purpose with which he would follow it, and to mount up in imagination to its most dazzling honors, and clutch them in defiance of every rival, that it is not strange that men abandon their professions for others for which they are less fitted. But when we reflect that the man remains the same, whatever his calling that a mere change of his position can make no radi- cal change of his mind, either by adding to its strength or diminishing its weakness we shall conclude that in many cases what he is in one calling, that he would be, substantially, in any other, and that he will gain nothing by the exchange." OCCUPATION. It makes little difference what vocation a man fol- lows, if honorable and legitimate, so far as his success is concerned, if he really likes it and finds himself adapted to it. All callings are alike honorable, if pursued with an honorable spirit ; it is the heart only which degrades the intention carried into the work, and not the work itself. The most despised calling may be made honorable by the honor of its profes- sors ; a blacksmith may be a man of polished manners, and a millionaire a clown ; a shoemaker may put genius and taste into his work, while a lawyer may only cobble. Better be a first-class bootblack than a miserable, starving lawyer or doctor. The day has long gone by when a man need to hang down his head because of the humbleness of his vocation, if it is useful. 50 LOCATION LOCA TION. " God made the country, and man made the town c What wonder, then, that health and virtue, gifts That can alone make sweet the bitter draught That life holds out to all, should most abound And least be threatened, in* the fields and groves?" COWPER. HERE is, on the part of young people in the country, an eager, restless desire to get away from farm life, and go to a city. They dislike the drudgery, the steady hard work of the farm, and think it would be much better and nicer if they could stand behind a counter in some dry-goods store, or work in an office. They would then be "among folks," they think, and would be able to see for themselves "what is going on." The glare and glitter, the noise and bustle, the activity and commotion, the apparent splendor and gayety of a city life, they think, would just suit them, and would be so different from the solitude and lone- someness of the farm and the farm home. Said Dr. J. G. Holland : " We see young men push- ing everywhere into trade, into mechanical pursuits, into the learned professions, into insignificant clerk- ships ; into salaried positions of every sort that will OVERCROWDED CITIES. 5! take them into towns, and support and hold them there. We find it impossible to drive poor people from the cities with the threat of starvation, or to coax them with the promise of better pay and cheaper fare. There they stay, and starve, and sicken, and sink. Young women resort to the shops and the fac- tories rather than take service in farmers' houses, where they are received as members of the family ; and when they marry, they seek an alliance, when practicable, with mechanics and tradesmen who live in villages and large towns. The daughters of the farmer fly the farm at the first opportunity. The towns grow larger all the time, and in New England, at least, the farms are becoming wider and longer, and the farming population are diminished in numbers, and, in some localities, degraded in quality and character." While the last part of this quotation will not apply as forcibly to Western life as to Eastern, yet the re- mainder of it is very appropriate, and very true. OVERCROWDED CITIES. All cities are generally overcrowded. One-fifth of the entire population of this country is now in the cities. Many of these are men with families, but a large proportion of the number are young men and women who crowd to the cities from all quarters, look- ing for a chance to change their mode of life. Some- how or other, the social life of the village and the city has intense fascination to the lonely dwellers on the farm, or to a great multitude of them. Especially is this the case with the young. The youth of both 52 OVERCROWDED CITIES. sexes who have seen nothing of the world, have an overwhelming desire to meet life, and to be among the multitude. " They feel their lot to be narrow in its opportunities and its rewards, and the pulsations of the great social heart that comes to them in rush- ing trains, and passing steamers, and daily newspapers, damp with the dews of a hundred brows, thrill them with longings for the places where the rhythmic throb is felt and heard." Still, the fascination, we are in- clined to think, is akin in nature, if not in destructive- ness, to the fascination of gaming-tables for some minds, of drinking-cups for others, and of theatrical performances for all. We have a few words to say to this class of young people. Shakespere wrote more than two hundred years ago, that it was " better to endure the ills we already have, than fly to others we know not of." And this remark holds good in its application to the subject in hand. The temptations and seductiveness of city life, its opportunities for self-destruction by gambling, drinking, licentiousness, and a thousand other evils, the peculiar isolation and lonesomeness of living and moving among people whose names, even, you do not know, is not half as pleasant as might ap- pear at first thought. No one, by looking merely at the outside, can begin to tell the amount of magnifi- cent misery and gilded poverty which exist within city walls. Besides, there is as much drudgery to be done in the city as in the country, and, if anything, even more. There is also as much hard, steady work. It is a little different in kind, to be sure, but then it tires you out just as soon, and you feel just as weary at night. In fact, one can work to better advantage in FARMING. 53 the stillness and quietude, and amidst the unexcitable surroundings of country life, than he can with the noise and confusion of passing multitudes around him. There will be far less of nerve-exhaustion and consumption of vital forces at the old home, than in any great city. The man who ought to be the hap- piest of all men, is he who has a good farm, free from debt, and under a good state of cultivation, with a cheerful, loving wife, and a number of healthy, bright, dutiful children around him, to make music and assist in keeping his homestead. FARMING. The only really prosperous class, as a whole, is the agricultural. The farmer is demonstrably better off, more independent, fares better, lodges better, and gets a better return for his labor than the worker in the city. The country must be fed, and the farmers feed it. The city family may do without new clothes, and a thousand luxurious appliances, but it must have bread and meat. There is nothing that can prevent the steady prosperity of the American farmer but the combinations and "corners" of the middle-men, that force unnatural conditions upon the finances and markets of the country. The gains of the husband- man are slow, but sure. Speculation is not legitimate farm business. Farm stock cannot be watered like railroad stock, and made to expand at pleasure. Those who go into farming expecting to make sudden fortunes, will be disappointed. It is a highway to health and competence, but not to sudden wealth and luxury. 54 FARMERS RARELY FAIL. Says Alexander Hyde, himself a large and success- ful farmer in Massachusetts: "While we concede that the profits of farming are slow and sure, rather than rapid and uncertain, we still maintain that no business pays better in the long run for the capital, and skill invested. FARMERS RARELT FAIL. "While 90 per cent, of those who enter upon a mer- cantile career become bankrupt, it is an anomaly for a farmer to ask his creditors to take fifty cents on a dollar. We never hear of farmer princes, and we cannot point you to millionaires among husbandmen, but we can point you to thousands and tens of thou- sands among the cultivators of the soil who are inde- pendent as any prince, and live surrounded with the comforts, if not the luxuries of life, all brought from the bountiful earth. The number of these might be increased indefinitely, if more intelligence, and more system generally, attended the labors of the husband- man. In this, as in every other pursuit, it is intelli- gent labor that commands success. Were a manu- facturer to conduct his business in the shiftless man- ner in which many farmers direct their affairs, he would speedily come to the end of his career." Agriculture was not only the primeval occupation of man, and the pursuit which the majority of men in all ages have followed, but it has been, is, and ever must be, the mainspring of all industry. All are dependent upon it for their daily sustenance. " The king himself is served by the field. The profit of the earth is for all." The banker and the beggar, the prince and the peasant, are alike fed from the FARMERS RARELY FAIL. 55 products of the soil. Nothing can supply the place of these products. All the gold of California, and all the Erie railroad stock, multiplied indefinitely, cannot keep the soul and body of man together. No matter what business we pursue, we must, like the fabled Antaeus, draw our life afresh every day from Mother Earth. Agriculture not only gives life to man and beast, but is the foundation of all other business. All trades and manufactures, all commerce, in short, all business, is the result directly or indirectly of agriculture. The thousands of wheels which are revolving in the country to-day, whether moved by water or steam, are only re-moulding the products of the earth into some useful form, and the thousands of ships which are traversing the oceans and rivers of the world, are merely transporting these products, either in raw or manufactured state, to a market. The merchants, whether wholesale or retail, are the mediums of exchange for the product of the soil. The millions of money deposited in our banks represent the capital accumulated from this produce. Our costly and com- modious public buildings, our beautiful private res* idences, our splendid turn-outs, the adornments of fashion ; indeed, all the representatives of value, are ultimate results from the crops of the earth. A merchant prince once said to us, pointing to hi? splendid mansion, ''Every stone in this house is the result of the prairie soil of Illinois." Were the annual harvests of the earth to cease, the whirling spindles and flying shuttles of our manufactories would also cease, our ships would rot by the wharves, and our banks would have no demand for discounts. 56 ADAPTED TO ALL. When the labors of the husbandman are rewarded with bountiful harvests, the spindles multiply, the ships are well freighted, and money is current. The resources of a country exist mainly in the soil. ADAPTED TO ALL. Moreover, the adaptation of agriculture to all ranks and conditions of society, is not less wonderful. The king himself, without any loss of dignity, can be a farmer. Most of the presidents of these United States have been farmers, and have retired from their high position to the cultivation of their broad acres. We should be sorry to see a president reduced to selling lace and broadcloth, but of Washington as a farmer, we are almost as proud as of Washington the president. Adams on his farm at Quincy, Jefferson on his estate at Monticello, Jackson at the Hermitage, were just as dignified as when in the presidential chair. Van Buren prided himself as much upon his large patch of cabbages at Kinderhook as upon his sharp diplomacy at Washington. Clay, surrounded by his short-horns at Ashland, was as much a nobleman as when gazed upon with delight by his compeers in the Senate chamber. The massive intellect of Webster was as conspicuous in the guidance of his farm at Marshfield as when he guided the affairs of State. Prince and peasant alike feel that in cultivating the soil they are fulfilling the mission which the Creator gave to man when he placed him in the garden of Eden. The pleasure, too, which the cultivator feels in raising his own fruits and flowers is very analogous to the pleasure of the Creator when he looked upon ADAPTED TO ALL. 57 the works of his hands, and pronounced them good. We doubt not there is pleasure in the successful pros- ecution of any branch of useful industry. The conversion of cotton and wool into fabrics for the protection and adornment of our persons is a species of creation, a re-moulding of raw material into forms of beauty and utility, which must give the manufacturer great satisfaction ; but this does not seem so much like a miracle as the creation of new life from inert matter ; a transformation which the farmer constantly sees going on around him, and in the conduct of which he has a directing agency. In the case of the manufacturer, no new life is the result of his skill and labor. Matter is transformed and is made useful and beautiful, but cloth, glass and paper have no life. Not so with the products of the farm. Here dead, inert matter is transformed, not only into a thing of beauty and utility, but becomes also a thing of life. An apple tree lives and grows, and this vegetable life is destined to enter into the composition of a still higher organization in animal life. How the vile, offensive matter in the Compost heap is converted into the luscious and fragrant peach, is beyond the power of human ken to discern, It is a living, perpetual miracle, attesting the wisdom and power of the great Creator; but the farmer acts an important part in the transformation. He prepares the compost, he deter- mines whether it shall fertilize a melon or a cabbage, sows the seed, and cultivates the plant, and so is a o> worker with the Great First Cause, and shares with him the pleasure of creation, as the worker in no other branch of industry can. Many a professional man, with his head aching with 5o ADAPTED TO ALL. the perplexities of his business, sighs for the quiet, simple pleasures of farm life, and many a merchant constantly on the qui vive to outstrip his competitors in trade, and fearing commercial revulsions which may strip him of the results of a life of toil and enterprise, longs for a home in the country, where he may spend quietly the evening of his days. A professional man with a brilliant genius, fitting him "to govern men and guide the State," and shine in the most polished society, recently said to us, "Can I manage a few acres of land? I long to be the owner of some land, and a tiller of the soil." An extensive manufacturer, who in former years expatiated on the pleasure he derived from the music of his water-wheels, and the satisfac- tion he found in guiding the labors of a multitude of men, and seeing the town prosperous from the stimu- lus which he gave to business generally, has lately turned his attention to agriculture, and confesses that he finds in his new pursuit an enjoyment he never experienced before. Living in the open air, and exercising his muscles more vigorously, and his brains more gently, dyspepsia, whi^h formerly tormented him, has disappeared. He finds the sleep of a labor- ing man sweet, whether he eats little or much. In draining his swamps and creating fertile land from a worthless bog ; in tending his herds and studying and developing the good points of his animals ; in planting his vines, and fruit trees, he says he finds a pleasure which the old mill never gave. HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. 59 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. " None can describe the sweets of country life But those blest men that do enjoy and taste them. Plain husbandmen, though far below our pitch Of fortune placed, enjoy a wealth above us. They breathe the fresh and uncorrupted air, And in pure homes enjoy untroubled sleep. Their state is fearless and secure, enriched With many blessings such as greatest kings Might in true justice envy, and themselves Would count too happy if they truly knew them." THOMAS MAY. ILLING the soil was man's primeval occu- pation. Adam was the first farmer. God put him into the garden of Eden " to dress and to keep it." Cain and Abel made the first great division in agricultural labor, Cain tilling the ground, and Abel keeping the sheep ; which distinction in kinds of work is kept up unto the present day. After the flood, we read that Noah be- came "a husbandman, and planted a vineyard." The patriarchs also dwelt in tents, and their property con- sisted mainly in cattle, flocks, and herds. Land at that time seems to have been common property, and every man pitched his tent wherever he pleased, and 60 IN GREECE. moved about from place to place as often as he pleased. Egypt, called in Scripture the " Garden of the Lord," being yearly enriched by the overflowing of the Nile, early attracted the attention of the tillers of the soil. This country furnished a refuge from the terrible drouths which affected the pastures of Western Asia. As population centered on the banks of the Nile, agriculture rose in importance, but the progress was slow. The change from the state of nature, and from a wandering, pastoral life, must have been the work of ages. The nutritious qualities of the cereals, wheat, barley, etc., were a long time in being discovered, and, when known, these grains were cultivated in the rudest manner. They were sown on the rich deposit of mud made by the annual overflow of the river, and the only harrowing they received was done by a herd of swine trampling the seed into the ground. In Egypt, too, animal power was first ap- plied to agriculture, but the plow, as delineated among the hieroglyphics on the ancient tombs, was an instru- ment much resembling our common picks. IN GREECE. From Egypt, agriculture as well as letters migrated to Greece. Here, in a soil by no means as congenial as that of Egypt, agriculture rose to a degree of per- fection hitherto unknown, and here agricultural litera- ture makes its first appearance. Hesiod, who lived a thousand years before Christ, in his homely poem, " Works and Days," gives a detailed description of a plow, consisting of beam, share, and handles. It must have been a clumsy, unwieldy instrument, for he IN ROME. 6 1 recommends that the plowman be forty years old before he undertakes to handle it. He says : " Let a plowman yeared to forty, drive, And see the careful husbandman fed With plenteous morsels, and of wholesome bread." There is no question but that in the palmy days of Greece, agriculture attained a high degree of perfec- tion. Fine breeds of cattle and horses were raised, and extensive importations were made to improve the native stock. The use of manures was also well un- derstood, which Pliny says was first taught by the old King Augeas. The compost heap was skilfully cared for, and everything added to it which could con- tribute to the fertility of the soil. Drainage was un- derstood and practiced, and the swamps and marshes around Sparta were drained, and rendered tillable. Farm tools were greatly improved, and the land was thoroughly plowed, and even subsoiled by the aid of mules and oxen. The Greek farmers also enjoyed the luxury of fruits, and had apples, pears, quinces, cherries, plums, peaches, nectarines, and figs. With good culture of the soil, good houses became also a necessity, and rural architecture was carried to a high degree of perfection, though their architects devoted their highest skill to the construction of temples and public buildings. IN ROME. With the march of empire westward, the march of agriculture took its way from Greece to Italy. The culture of the soil was a fundamental idea in the 62 IN ROME. Roman civilization. Seven acres of land were allotted by the State to each citizen, and in the early years of Rome no man was allowed to own more than this. Trading was never a characteristic of the Romans, and a merchant was ever considered by them inferior to a farmer. As the territory of the empire was ex- tended, the right of freehold to each individual was increased to fifty acres, and still later to five hundred ; but, as in Germany every man was once expected to learn a trade, so in Rome every citizen was expected to be a farmer ; and Pliny ascribed the exceeding fer- tility of Italy to the fact that the "earth took delight in being tilled by the hands of men crowned with laurels, and decorated with triumphal honors." A Roman coveted, next to the honors of war, the honor of being a good husbandman. Distinguished generals and private solders, statesmen and citizens, the learned and the unlettered, alike prided themselves on their skill in agriculture. Cato, the wise censor, eloquent orator and able general, wrote a treatise on agriculture. Cato's summary of the art of terraculture cannot be excelled by the president of any modern agricultural college. He says : "The first thing is to plow thoroughly, the second to plow, the third to manure, the fourth to choose good seeds and plenty of them, the fifth to root out all weeds." Neither Lord Bacon nor Horace Greeley ever uttered more practical truth for farmers in less space. They are the grand principles on which successful agriculture ever has rested, and ever will rest. Science may explain these principles, but will never annul them. Cato not only understood the value of the plow, but insisted upon a thorough pulverization of the soil by IN ROME. 63 the harrow. He also knew the necessity of drainage, and recommended plowing wet land so as to throw it into ridges with deep furrows between them to carry off the water. From Columella's account of a Roman farm estab- lishment we conclude the seven-acre arrangement was outgrown in his day. He divides the farm buildings into three classes, the mansion house, the laborers' cottages, and the barns and fruit houses. The details of these buildings show an age of great wealth and luxury among the rural classes. The mansion house is a large, square building, constructed around an inner court with two complete suites of apartments, the one on the sunny side designed for winter, the other for summer. The drawing-rooms, dining-rooms, bathing-rooms, library, and servants' apartments, are all on a scale of magnificence which no seven or fifty acres, however highly cultivated, could support. Italy, however, had far greater facilities for the advancement of agriculture than Greece. Her soil was naturally fertile, agriculture was the honorable employment, and she had all the experience of Egypt and Greece to enlighten her in the art. Still, with all these advantages there were many other things in the very organization of Roman society which prevented the art from reaching its highest development. The farmer received little aid from the merchant. Com- merce was looked upon with contempt, and the merchant was treated as belonging to an inferior caste. Mechanics also received but little encouragement from the State; the mechanic arts consequently languished, and hence there was little co-operation of labor. Agriculture cannot rise to its highest perfection with- 64 IN ENGLAND. out the aid of commerce, manufactures, and the mechanic arts. They support each other as do the trees of the forest, and any jealousy between them is foolish and suicidal. Another impediment to the advance of agriculture in Italy, was the want of general intelligence. The patricians and nobles were highly educated, but the plebeians were kept in ignorance. The masses toiled on without knowledge or hope, serving the nobility and amassing property for the few to whom wealth brought luxury and that extreme refinement known by the ungallant term, "effeminacy." The tillage of the soil was left more and more in the hands of menial slaves till in the fifth century, when the vast tide of barbarians from the North swept over Italy, and in- deed, the whole of Southern Europe, bringing on the long night of the Middle Ages, when might made right, and all kinds of property, and especially the products of the farm, as most exposed, were insecure. This long night continued with scarcely a gleam of light from the fifth to the sixteenth century, during which time agriculture maintained but a feeble existence. IN ENGLAND. We pass now from Italy to Britain, and from the old to the modern type of agriculture. The Romans introduced the art into England during the first four centuries of the Christian era. But when the Roman power fell, and the Saxons invaded England, a great check was given to agriculture. These Saxons were a rude people, subsisting mainly by the chase and by keeping large numbers of cattle, sheep, and swine. IN ENGLAND. 65 The latter were fattened in the forests on the mast of the oak and beech, as but small quantities of grain were raised, not enough to furnish a decent supply of breadstuffs. The character of the food is said by physiologists to determine somewhat the character of the man and the nation. We are inclined to think there is a basis of truth in this, but whether true or not we cannot deny that our Saxon ancestors were wild and semi-savage, too much like the beasts they hunted, and on whose flesh they mainly subsisted. No hoed crops and no edible vegetables were raised, and as late as the time of Henry the Vlllth, salad was brought over from Holland to supply the table of Queen Catharine, who had been accustomed in her early childhood to a more civilized diet than England afforded. Neither Indian corn, nor potatoes, nor squashes, nor carrots, nor cabbages, nor turnips were known in England till after the beginning of the six- teenth century. The suffering among the people was often intense. The shelters for man and beast were of the rudest kind, and it was estimated that one-fifth of the cattle perished each winter for the want of proper food and care. The condition of the peasantry was miserable in the extreme. They seemingly had no rights which the landlords were bound to respect. If an estate was sold, the tenants were obliged to give up all, even their standing crops, without compensation. With such an uncertain tenure of property, agriculture could not be expected to flourish. So late as 1745, Marshal Noailles remarked to the king of France, "The misery of the mass of the people is indescribable ; " and the remark was as applicable to England as to 66 IN ENGLAND. France. The feudal system gave some little protec- tion to persons and property against petty feuds and depredations among neighbors, but it was too much like the protection that cats give to mice. The igno- rant and tyrannical lords protected the peasantry much as they protected their cattle and horses, and for the same selfish reasons. The darkness of the Middle Ages retired slowly. It was left to Jethro Tull, in the earlier part of the eighteenth century, to make the first stride in both the science and art of agriculture. Tull investigated the principles of fertility, and invented a horse-hoe and the grain-drill to carry out his idea of thorough tillage. He also invented the threshing machine, but the ignorant English landholders declared it to be an " engine of the devil," and continued the use of the, flail and fan until the commencement of the present century. If Tull had not made the great mistake of rejecting the aid of manure, his theory of the thorough pulverization of the soil, and his improved agricultural implements, would have been adopted at a much earlier day. What Tull did for the benefit of the culture of the soil, Bakewell did in the improvement of the herds of cattle and sheep. He studied the laws of breeding patiently and intelligently, and laid the foundation for the present thoroughbreds of England, which confessedly stand at the head of the herds and flocks of the world, though we expect to see still better in America. To Arthur Young, who died in 1820, the world is indebted more than to any other man for the advance- ment of the modern science of agriculture. He visited different parts of Europe to study his favorite art, IN ENGLAND. 67 and made many experiments to ascertain the causes of fertility. To him we are indebted for ascertaining the value of ammonia, which, previous to his time, had been thought to be injurious to vegetation. Young tried it on various soils and various crops, and found it in every trial to succeed. We now look upon ammonia as the test of value for most manures. Young also experimented with summer fallows, and came to the conclusion that covering the soil is more beneficial than naked fallow, and that a rotation of crops is all the rest the land needs a conclusion which has added millions to the wealth of England and America. Young drew from his experiments the important principle that nitrogenous manures increase the power of plants to avail themselves of the mineral resources of the soil, thus establishing the necessity for the use of both these classes of manure a princi- ple fully corroborated by all experimenters since his day. By him, also, salt was first introduced into England as a manure. Young embodied the results of his investigations in a comprehensive work, called the " Annals of Agriculture." In 1793, at the request of the English Board of Agriculture, Sir Humphrey Davy, the first chemist of his age, was induced to investigate the elements of soil and manure, and his lectures mark an important era in the history of the art. They were published in 1813, under the title, " Elements of Agriculture." In this work, Davy explains the construction of plants, gives the analyses of soils and manures, and their adaptation to each other. The zeal of Davy for agri- culture led him to a practical testing of his theories in the field. We find him in 1805 experimenting 68 IN AMERICA. with guano, which Baron Humboldt had discovered in the islands of the Pacific. He first recommended the use of bones for manure, which have since played so important a part in English agriculture. What Davy and Johnston did for agriculture in England, Liebig has done in Germany. IN AMERICA. While our own country has been slow in adopting all the theories of the European savans, yet their works have been extensively circulated, and the seed sown by them has borne legitimate and satisfactory fruit. In the department of farm implements we are leading the world. In cattle and sheep breeding we also compare favorably with the Old World. But still the capacities of American agriculture, as a whole, have only begun to be developed, and there never was a time when, and never a country where, husbandry could be carried on to such advantage as in this country. Farmers have only to be true to themselves and their opportunities, to be esteemed as the real noblemen of the land. So much for the pleasure, dignity, and profitable- ness of a country life, and the history of agricultural pursuits. These, however, are the sober and prosaic aspects of the subject. Let us now glance at its poetical side. In the Odyssey of Homer, written in the noontide vigor of Grecian life, we find the follow- ing description of the garden of Alcinous : " Four acres was the allotted space of ground, Fenced with a green enclosure all around; IN AMERICA. 69 Tall thriving trees confined the fruitful mold, The reddening apple ripens here to gold. Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows, With deeper red the full pomegranate glows; The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear, And verdant olives flourish round the year. The balmy spirit of the western gale Eternal breathes on fruits untaught to fail ; Each dropping pear a following pear supplies, On apples, apples, figs on figs arise. The same mild season gives the bloom to blow, The buds to harden, and the fruits to grow. Here ordered vines in equal ranks appear, With all th' united labors of the year. Some to unload the fertile branches run, Some dry the blackening clusters in the sun; Others to tread the liquid harvest join ; The groaning presses foam with floods of wine. Here are the vines in early flowers descried, Here grapes discolored on the sunny side, And there in Autumn's richest purple dyed." Sir Walter Raleigh, a courtier and warrior of Queen Elizabeth's time, writes : "Abused mortals! did you know Where joy, heart's-ease, and comforts grow, You'd scorn proud towers, And seek them in rural bowers." John Gay, another English poet, writing of " Rural Sports/' says : " O happy shepherds who, secure from fear, On open downs preserve their fleecy care! Whose spacious barns groan with increasing store, And whirling flails disjoint the cracking floor." 7O IN AMERICA. And again in the same poem he adds : What happiness the rural maid attends, In cheerful labor while each day she spends! She gratefully receives what Heaven hath sent, And, rich in poverty, enjoys content. She never loses life in thoughtless ease, Nor on the velvet couch invites disease ; Her homespun dress in simple neatness lies, And for no glaring gaudy trappings sighs. No midnight masquerade her beauty wears, And health, not paint, the fading bloom repairs." Goldsmith, in the " Deserted Village," thus paints a picture of country life : " Sweet was the sound when oft at evening's close, Up yonder hill the village murmur rose; There, as I passed with careless steps and slow, The mingled notes came softened from below; The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung, The sober herd that lowed to meet their young, The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, The playful children just let loose from school ; The watch-dog's voice that bayed the gentle wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind : These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And rilled each pause the nightingale had made." James Beattie, the Scottish minstrel, asks: c How canst thou renounce the boundless store Of charms which nature to her votary yields! The warbling woodland, the resounding shore, The pomp of groves, the garniture of fields; All that the genial ray of morning gilds, And all that echoes to the song of even ; IN AMERICA. 71 All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, And all the dread magnificence of heaven O how canst these renounce, and hope to be forgiven ! " Coming to our own country, listen to what Ralph Waldo Emerson says : " O when I am safe in my sylvan home, I mock at the pride of Greece and Rome ; And when I am stretched beneath the pines, When the evening star so holy shines, I laugh at the lore and pride of man, At the sophist schools and the learned clan; For what are they all, in their high conceit, When man in the bush with God may meet?" On the other hand, Cowper, writing of city life and pleasures, says : " Suburban villas, highway-side retreats, That dread the encroachment of growing streets, Tight boxes, neatly sashed, and all in a blaze With a July's sun collected rays, Delight the city man, who, gasping there, Breathes clouds of dust, and calls it country air." FARM AND CITY LIFE. FARM AND CITY LIFE. " The city merchant has his house in town, But a country-seat near Banstead Down; From one he dates his foreign letters, Sends out his goods, and duns his debtors; In the other, during hours of leisure, He smokes his pipe and takes his pleasure." [E say to the reader, whether young man or young lady, or middle-aged man with- out a family, go where you are sure you can do the best, be it in city, in town, or in the country ; but be very sure that you will better yourself materially, before leaving a good, comfortable place in the country to go to the city. The chances are ten to one that before a year passes over your head, you will wish yourself back again in the old place. If a man has plenty of money to spend or to invest in business, he can get along in a city very nicely while his money lasts; but the moment that is gone, he might as well be in a prison, or in a desert, as in a city. As financial and business matters go in times of depression, the city is the last place on earth for a poor man with a family, or even for a single person, unless they know just what they are to do before they go there, and FARM AND CITY LIFE. 73 unless they are pretty certain they will succeed in their new work before beginning it. To go to a city with a vague idea or hope of get- ting into some kind of profitable business, or falling in with some grand chance to make money, is the greatest folly imaginable. Such chances rarely occur to begin with, and when found, a thousand men on the ground, waiting and watching, stand ready to seize upon it before the opportunity is an hour old. As a rule, there is no greater slave on earth than the average city clerk, bookkeeper, apprentice, or work- man of any kind. Late and early hours, steady ap- plication, conformity to strict rules, and a constant liability to discharge for the smallest offences, are a permanent quantity in the life of every working man or working woman in the city. Nor is it much better for the capitalist, if he be not well posted in all the games of sharpers and confidence men and rascals of every kind, and if he be not very sharp and keen himself; for his money will be cheated out of him, or he will lose it in unlucky speculation, before he is aware of it. The history of all kinds of business or of speculative ventures in any city would not offer any encourage- ment to a man of means to try his hand in such un- certain enterprises; for where one succeeds, a dozen or twenty fail. To be sure, there is more to be seen and heard in a city than in the country, there is also much more life and bustle, noise and clatter. The shop windows display elegant goods of every description, but there is little satisfaction to sensible minds in seeing and wanting, and not being able to purchase. Again, there is always a higher and more aristocratic class of people 74 FARM AND CITY LIFE. living in cities, generally speaking, than in small places, but poor people, or people below a certain social level, cannot associate with them, so their superior elegance does one no good unless he or she is within the ring. If a man commences life in a small place with limited opportunities for expansion, fairly and honestly outgrows his straitened quarters, and, like Alex- ander the Great, sighs for more worlds to conquer, in such a case, if he takes pains beforehand to inquire thoroughly into the difficulties likely to be en- countered in a new situation, and if he feels compe- tent to grapple with them and conquer them, let him come to a city and try his hand in a new and larger sphere. But other things being equal, if a man is doing well, and is comfortably situated in the country, he had by all means better let well enough alone, than venture out on an unknown and untried city sea, where financial and moral shipwrecks abound on every hand, and where possible disasters multiply and thicken in about an equal ratio with the increase of population. Time was, when young business men could go into cities and do well, but that time has gone by and will probably never return, for the simple reason that the cities are overcrowded already, and there is no prospect of their population growing less. Beware, then, of that foolish fascination which the idea of living in the city is liable to exercise over every young heart and mind. There is a class of people who had rather die by inches in a city than live well in the country, but such people are so shallow and weak-minded that it makes but little difference BOOKS. 75 where they live or die. They are simply human moths fluttering round the great city candle. With proper care and effort, a country life can be made just as enjoyable as a life in the city, and much more healthy and profitable. BOOKS. How can it be done ? By filling the farmhouses with books. Establish central reading rooms, or neighborhood clubs. Encourage the social meetings of the young. Have concerts, lectures, amateur dramatic associations. Establish a bright, active social life, that shall give some significance to labor. Above all, build, as far as possible, in villages. It is better to go a mile to one's daily labor than to place one's self a mile away from a neighbor. The isola- tion of American farm-life is the great curse of that life. The towns of Hadley, Northfield, Hatfield and Deerfield, on the Connecticut River, to this day remain villages of agriculturists. Europe, for many centuries, was cultivated by people who lived in villages. And this is the way in which all farmers should live. Settle in colonies, instead of singly, whenever feasible or possible. 76 CONCENTRATION OF MIND AND POWER. CONCENTRATION OF MIND AND POWER. " Men make resolves, and pass into decrees The motions of the mind." |HE man who attempts to know or do every- thing, will succeed in really knowing or accomplishing but very little. Sidney Smith said : " Very often the modern pre- cept of education is, Be ignorant of nothing. But my advice is, have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, that you may avoid the calamity of being ignorant of all things." It is generally thought that when a man is said to be dissipated in his habits, he must be a drinking man, a gambler, or licentious, or all three ; but dissipation is of two kinds coarse and refined. A man can dis- sipate or scatter all of his mental energies and physical power, by indulging in too many respectable diver- sions, as easily as in habits of a viler nature. Property and its cares make some men dissipated ; too many friends make others. The exactions of " society," the balls, parties, receptions, and various entertainments constantly being given and attended by the beau monde, constitute a most wasting species of dissipa- ONE CAUSE OF FAILURE. 77 tion. Others, again, fritter away all their time and strength in political agitations, or in controversies and gossip ; others in idling with music or some other one of the fine arts ; others in feasting or fasting, as their dispositions and feelings incline. But the man of concentration of purpose is never a dissipated man in any sense, good or bad. He has no time to devote to useless trifling of any kind, but puts in as many strokes of faithful work as possible toward the attainment of some definite good. ONE CAUSE OF FAILURE. Thousands of men have failed in life by dabbling in too many things. In ancient times, great men and scholars aspired to know everything, but the day of universal knowledge and scholarship is past. The range of human inquiry has now extended to a degree when the true measure of a man's learning will be the amount of his voluntary ignorance, or the number of studies which he chooses to let alone. And as with knowledge, so with work. Every man who means to be successful, must single out, from a vast number of possible employments, some specialty, and to that devote himself thoroughly. It will, in fact, puzzle the wisest and strongest of men now to keep fairly abreast of any single branch of knowledge, or of industrial enter- prise. "It is said that a Yankee can splice a rope in many different ways ; an English sailor knows but one mode, but that mode is the best. The one thing which an Englishman detests with his whole soul is a Jack-of-all-trades, the miscellaneous man, who knows a little of everything. England is not a country for 78 ONE CAUSE OF FAILURE. average men ; every profession is overstocked, and the only chance of success is for the man of signal ability and address to climb to a lofty position over the heads of a hundred others. America, on the other hand, is full of persons who can do many things, but who do no one thing well. The secret of their failure is mental dissipation the squandering of their energies upon a distracting variety of objects, instead of condensing them upon one." And what is true of England in respect to numbers, is true of all European countries ; hence, the best workmen in almost every department of industry in this country are largely foreigners, who, in the Old World, devoted the early part of their lives to the learning of some one trade or profession, and then emigrated to this country, bringing their superior attainment in workmanship with them. There are very few universal geniuses in the world. Said a learned American chemist, "My friend laughs at me because I have but one idea, but I have learned that if I wish ever to make a breach in a wall, I must play my guns continually upon one point." And such gunnery is usually successful. Said Charles Dickens, "Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well. What I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to, com- pletely." This he found to be a golden rule. Says Dr. Mathews: "Many a person misses of being a great man by splitting into two middling ones. The highest ability will accomplish but little, if scattered on a multiplicity of objects; while, on the other hand, if one has but a thimbleful of brains, and concentrates them all upon the thing he has in hand, he may achieve ONE CAUSE OF FAILURE. 79 miracles. Momentum in physics, properly directed, will drive a tallow candle through an inch board." Once in a great while a man appears in history like Cicero, or Bacon, or Dante, or Leonardo da Vinci, who is a real prodigy of genius, and who, like these, acquires an immense amount of learning, and does a great many different kinds of work, and does them all well; but the very rareness of such men proves the contrary condition to be the rule. Da Vinci, the last-named of the above four, was a Florentine painter and sculptor, living from 1452 to 1519. Besides his devotion to painting and sculpture, he excelled in architecture (as did Michael Angelo, his cotempo- rary), engineering and mechanics generally, botany, anatomy, mathematics and astronomy. He was also a poet and an admirable performer on the lyre. His greatest work in painting, by which he became most famous, was "The Last Supper," originally executed in oil on the wall of a Dominican convent, and con- sidered at. the time to be the best work of art ever produced. Gladstone, when Prime Minister of England, not only attended to the multiplied affairs of State, but at the same time made experiments with Sykes' hydrometer (an instrument for determining the specific gravity of liquids), answered letters innumer- able, conducted a. correspondence with half a dozen Greek scholars concerning controverted points in Homer, translated scores of English hymns into Latin verse, and wrote occasional pamphlets of forty pages or so, on some legal point. But this very dis- traction of thought, this want of concentration in effort, was the precise cause of his failure as a party leader, and gave occasion for Disraeli, his rival and 8o SINGLENESS OF AIM. political opponent, to take advantage of his weakness, oust him from his exalted seat, and sit down there himself in triumph ! SINGLENESS OF AIM. But with these few exceptions, made by minds essentially creative and phenomenally great, most of the great historic names are identified with some single achievement to which they gave their lives. When you read of James Watt, his name stands associated with improvements in the steam-engine. This was his great and only lifework. Sir Richard Arkwright's work was the invention and improve- ment of machinery for spinning cotton. Dr. Wm. Harvey is distinguished for the discovery of the cir- culation of the blood, and for that alone. Professor Morse only succeeded in working out one thing, and that the electric telegraph. Count Cavour gave his life to the unification of his beloved country, Italy, and Bismarck has accomplished the same political results for Germany. Commodore Macdonough, the hero of Lake Champlain, won his memorable naval victory by pointing all his guns at the " big ship " of the enemy, until her fire was silenced. Rufus Choate, the great lawyer, was wont to so concentrate his energies upon a case in hand, after once espousing it, that he could not sleep. His mind, as he himself said, took up the cause involved like a great ship, and bore it on night and day till a verdict was reached ; and he was generally so exhausted that several days elapsed before he dared to take up a new case. Another marvelous career was that of William Pitt the celebrated English statesmen. "If there was an;' SINGLENESS OF AIM. 8 1 thing divine in this man, whom his cotemporaries called a heaven-born statesman, it was the marvelous gift of concentrating his powers. Whatever he did he did with all his might. Ever master of himself, he con- verged all the rays of his mind, as into a focus, upon the object in hand, worked like a horse, and did nothing by halves. Hence with him there was no half vision, no sleepy eyes, no dawning sense. All his life he had his wits about him so intensely directed to the point required, that, it is said, he seemed never to learn, but only to recollect. He gave men an answer before they knew there was a riddle; he had formed a decision before they had heard of a diffi- culty. His lightning had struck and done its work, before they had heard the thunder-clap which an- nounced it. Is it strange that such a man went straightway from college into the House of Commons, and in two years to the Prime Ministership of Great Britain, -reigned for nearly a quarter of a century, virtual king, and carried his measures in spite of the opposition of some of the greatest men England ever produced ? The simple secret of his success was, that his whole soul was swallowed up in the one passion for political power. So we see him neglecting every- thing else, careless of friends, careless of expendi- tures, so that with an income of fifty thousand dollars yearly, and no family, he died hopelessly in debt; tearing up by the roots from his heart a love most deep and tender, because it ran counter to his ambition ; totally indifferent to posthumous fame, so that he did not take the pains to transmit to posterity a single one of his speeches ; utterly insensible to the claims of art, literature, and belles-lettres ; living and 82 POWER OF ATTENTION. working terribly for tKe one sole purpose of wielding the governing power of the nation." One of Ignatius Loyola's maxims was, "He who does well one work at a time, does more than all." By spreading our efforts over too large a surface we inevitably weaken our force, hinder our progress, and acquire a habit of fitfulness and ineffective working. Whatever a youth undertakes to learn, he should not be suffered to leave until he can reach his arms round it and clench his hands on the other side. Thus he will learn the habit of thoroughness. Lord St. Leonards once communicated to Sir Powell Bux- ton the mode in which he had conducted his studies, and thus explained the secret of his success. "I resolved," said he, "when beginning to read law, to make everything I acquired perfectly my own, and never to go to a second thing till I had entirely ac- complished the first. Many of my competitors read as much in a day as I read in a week ; but, at the end of twelve months, my knowledge was as fresh as the day it was acquired, while theirs had glided away from recollection." Sir E. B. Lytton, once explain- ing how it was that, whilst so fully engaged in active life, he had written so many books, observed, "I con- trived to do so much by never doing too much at a time. As a general rule, I have devoted to study not more than three hours a day; and, when Parliament is sitting, not always that. But, during those hours, I have given my whole attention to what I was about." POWER OF ATTENTION. It is not the quantity of study that one gets through that makes a wise man, but the appositeness POWER OF ATTENTION. 83 of the study to the purpose for which it is pursued ; the concentration of mind, for the time being, upon the subject under consideration, and the habitual discipline by which the whole system of mental application is regulated. Abernethy was even of opinion that there was a point of saturation in his own mind, and that if he took into it something more than it could hold, it only had the effect of pushing something else out. And every brain-worker knows by experience that this opinion is founded on fact. One of the qualities which early distinguished John C. Calhoun was his power of attention. A gentleman who in his youth was wont to accompany Mr. Calhoun in his strolls, states that the latter endeavored to im- press upon his friend the importance of cultivating this faculty ; " and to encourage me in my efforts," says the writer, " he stated that to this end he had early subjected his mind to such a rigid course of discipline, and had persisted without faltering until he had early acquired a perfect control over it, that he could now confine it to any subject as long as he pleased, without wandering, even for a moment ; that it was his uniform habit, when he set out alone to walk or ride, to select a subject for reflection, and that he never suffered his attention to wander from it until he was satisfied with its examination." It has been remarked by Sir William Hamilton, that "the difference between an ordinary mind and the mind of Newton consists principally in this, that the one is capable of a more continuous attention than the other ; that a Newton is able, without fatigue, to connect inference with inference in one long series toward a determined end ; while the man of inferior 84 HARMONIOUS DEVELOPMENT. capacity is soon obliged to break or let fall the thread which he has begun to spin." Some people are always complaining that they can- not keep their thoughts from wandering whenever they sit down to write, read, or work ; in other words, they have no power to concentrate their minds on any given point or theme, to the exclusion of others. But such people have never really learned to think. They lack mental discipline and culture. They need to cultivate strength of will. Napoleon said of himself that his mind resembled a bureau. He could pull out one drawer, examine its contents to the exclusion of all others, shut it up when he had finished, and then pull out another. That is, he was able to take up one subject after another, concentrate the whole power of his mind upon it while under examination, then dismiss it at once and completely, like the shutting up of a drawer in a bureau, and so proceed until the entire range of topics in his mind had been passed upon. Such power is a very valuable acquisition ; in fact, there can be little progress in mental growth without it. If a man cannot first control his thoughts in some measure, how can he control his acts ? And if not able to control either thought or act, he is like a balloon in the air, or a ship on the ocean without a rudder, the sport of wind and wave. The power which he may possess will drive him ahead, but it will not drive him straight toward the goal of his ambition. HARMONIOUS DEVELOPMENT. We would not deny, however, but there is an injurious and even an offensive sense in which a man HARMONIOUS DEVELOPMENT. 85 can be possessed of one idea. A man may become like a tree with all its branches on one side, and so become a mental and moral deformity. What would we think of a man who was all head, or all stomach, or all arms and legs ? Even so a man may become so warped and one-sided, mentally, as to practically forget there is anything else in the world besides his own trade or profession ; and then he is not a whole man, but simply a distorted fragment. The first thing to be done in human culture is to develop as far as possible all the powers of the mind, and then ask nature which one faculty she intended to have in the front, as leader of the rest. A clergyman all divinity and nothing else, or a lawyer all precedents and de- cisions and revised statutes, or a scholar all book- learning and nothing more, is always a more or less pitiable sight. The seamstress should be something more than an animated needle, and the day-laborer more than a walking spade. Saint Bernard, the pious abbot of Clairvaux, was so much of a saint that he could keep no flesh on his bones. Neander, church historian and a professor in one of the German uni- versities, so neglected the practical side of his nature that, after walking over the ground for nearly thirty years, he could not find his way from the lecture- room to his own house alone. Coleridge and Wads- worth, with all their learning and poetical fame, did not together know enough to take off the collar from a horse, but had to be shown how by a servant girl. Douglas Jerrold said he once knew a man with twenty-four languages, but who had not an idea in any of them. All these are cases of one-ideaism pushed too far. 86 HARMONIOUS DEVELOPMENT. Such characters are not good specimens of fully- developed men, but are only distortions or dwarfs. Walpole tells us that Charles James Fox, after making his great and exhausting speech in the trial of Warren Hastings, could so far drop his specialty and his lawyer-like greatness as to go out, after the speech was concluded, and hand the ladies into their coaches with all the sprightliness and easy gayety of an idle gallant. It makes not so much difference if a man have two or three side-tracks on which he can " switch off " now and then, provided the side-tracks all lead to the same terminus with the main line. But a man must not be on side-tracks all his life. Edward Everett is an example of a man who tried to do so many different kinds of work, that he really excelled in none. He started life as a Unitarian minister, then became a professor in Harvard College, from which he had previously graduated at seventeen, went to Europe and studied four years more, came home and became an orator and lecturer, went to Congress for ten years as a representative, was Gov- ernor of Massachusetts for four years, became Minister to England in 1841, was elected President of Harvard College in 1849, was next ma de Secretary of State under President Fillmore, was chosen U. S. Senator in 1853, but resigned, and lastly ran as candidate for Vice-President in 1860 on the ticket with John Bell of Tennessee. He died two or three years after the civil war broke out. De Quincey, the English writer and opium-eater, is another example of the same kind, and so is Coleridge, a man of gigantic intel- lectual capacity. When Charles Lamb heard of his death, he wrote to a friend : " Coleridge is dead, and STICK TO ONE THING. 87 is said to have left behind him above forty thousand treatises on metaphysics and divinity and not one of them complete." The poet Praead, describing a certain vicar, says of him : " His talk is likea stream which runs With rapid change from rocks to roses; It slips from politics to puns, It glides from Mahomet to Moses. Beginning with the laws that keep The planets in their radiant courses, And ending with some precept deep, For skinning eels, or shoeing horses." STICK TO ONE THING. All men who hope to be successful in life, must choose some kind of work for which they find them- selves best adapted, and then stick to it. Bishop But- ler spent twenty years of his life writing one book, the "Analogy," but the book is as immortal as the Bible itself. Edward Gibbon, the historian, worked the same number of years over his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," but that work will never die. Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher, devoted fifty years to the investigation of metaphysic prob- lems. Isaac Newton wrote his "Chronology" over, seventeen times. Adam Smith worked ten years at "The Wealth of Nations." Indeed, "to strive for a high professional position, and yet expect to have all the delights of leisure ; to labor for vast riches, and yet to ask for freedom from anxiety and care, and all the happiness which flows from a contented mind ; to indulge in sensual gratification, and yet demand 88 STICK TO ONE THING. health, strength, and vigor ; to live for self, and yet to look for the joys that spring from a virtuous and self-denying life, is to ask for impossibilities. The world is a market where everything is marked at a settled price ; and whatever we buy with our time, labor, or ingenuity, whether riches, ease, tranquil- ity, fame, integrity, or knowledge, we must stand by our decision, and not, like children, when we have purchased one thing repine that we do not possess another which we did not buy." In one of Lucian's Dialogues, Jupiter complains to Cupid that, though he has had so many intrigues, he was never sincerely beloved. In order to be loved, says Cupid, you must lay aside your segis and your thunderbolts, and you must curl and perfume your hair, and place a garland on your head, and walk with a soft step, and assume a winning, obsequious deport- ment. But, replied Jupiter, I am not willing to resign so much of my dignity. Then, returns Cupid, leave off desiring to be loved. He wanted to be Jupiter and Adonis at the same time, and he could not Alex- andre, of Paris, made ''kid" gloves his specialty, and now his trademark imparts to manufactured ratskins a value peculiarly their own. William and Robert Chambers devoted their energies to the production of cheap books and periodicals, and their wealth is counted by millions. Faber has fabricated pencils till he has literally made his mark in every land. The genius of the great Dr. Brandreth ran to pills, and his name is now as familiar as a household word all over the world. Mason gave his whole soul to the invention of good blacking, and now his name shines like a pair of boots to which it has been applied. STICK TO ONE THING. 89 Herring, the manufacturer of safes, has salamandered himself into celebrity, and Tobias, the watchmaker, has ticked his way to fame and fortune. A. T. Stew- art made bales of dry-goods his stepping-stones to the proud position of a millionaire, becoming at once the Crcesus and the Colossus of the trade ; and Robert Bonner, advertising by the acre, discovered a new way of reaping golden harvests from the overworked soil of journalism. The greatest actors are those who take one or a few characters, and leave all others alone. Edwin Booth plays ever the same list of characters, while Joe Jefferson sticks to one, but in that he has become so perfect as to almost lose in it his personal identity. And the same is true of Lawrence Barrett, John T. Raymond, and a score of others. Broad culture, many-sidedness, are beautiful accomplishments to look at and admire, but it is always the men of single and intense purpose who concentrate their power, that do the hard and valuable work of the world, and who are everywhere in demand when such work is to be done. 9 o SELF-HELP. SELF-HELP. "At thirty, man suspects himself a fool; At forty, knows it, and reforms his plan; At fifty, chiding infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve, In all the magnanimity of thought Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same." EDWARD YOUNG. poverty, and difficulties of all kinds in early life, help develop and bring out the heroic qualities of a young, manly spirit, and assist in making it great, strong, and wise, if it ever becomes such. Where- as, if the pathway of a young man is made easy, safe and smooth before him by the advice and pecuniary aid of others, it will practically be ruinous to character by making him weak, irresolute, and effeminate. It is not in the sheltered garden or the hot-house, but on the rugged Alpine cliffs, where the storms beat most violently, that the toughest plants are reared. It is not by the use of corks, bladders, and life-preservers that you can best learn to swim, but by plunging courageously into the wave and buf- feting it, like Cassius and Caesar, with lusty sinews ; that difficulties and trials in life knit one's muscles SELF-HELP. 91 more firmly and teach him self-reliance, just as by wrestling with an athlete who is a superior in strength, one would not only increase his own strength, but learn the secret of his conqueror's skill. A certain amount of difficulty, when happily over- come, undoubtedly does strengthen resolution, invig- orate the will, and toughen the cords and sinews of the mind and heart. But let the obstacles thicken around any human spirit until they become practically insurmountable, they crush it to the earth. Poe, in " The Raven," speaks of such an one, " Whom unmerciful disaster Followed fast, and followed faster, Till his songs one burden bore ; Till the dirges of his hope, the Melancholy burden bore, Of ' Never nevermore.' " No human spirit can bear up long under the crushing weight of despair, and whenever difficulties and trials in life are of such a nature, or come so fast, as to induce this state, then they cripple, hinder, and bruise the mind more than they assist in developing its latent resources. The mother eagle, when her birdlings have grown large and strong enough to fly, calls them out of the nest, drives them to the edge of the cliff, and then deliberately pushes them off. But does she abandon them then ? By no means ; on the contrary, when she sees them fluttering and falling farther and farther down, swifter than an arrow she darts beneath them, lets them fall upon her strong, wide back, and carries them triumphantly to the old nest again. This is nature's method of developing 92 HARDSHIP IN EARLY LIFE. latent power, and from this we may gain a hint for human reason to profit by, in the treatment of young and growing minds. HARDSHIP IN EARLT LIFE. A certain amount of hardship in early life seems essential to ultimate success, but every young mind needs to be under the constant watch-care of some fostering and protecting parent or guardian. To send young people out into the world, and then leave them to shift for themselves, or to start a young man on a course of education, and then say, " Oh, if he has the right stuff in him, he will manage to get along, somehow," is not only hazardous, but a policy which is prompted by false philosophy, not to say by criminal ignorance of life's dangers, and of the inherent sus- ceptibilities of an ardent, youthful nature. We fully agree with Dr. Mathews, when he de- nounces " young men of vivid imaginations, who, instead of carrying their own burdens, are always dreaming of some Hercules to come and give them a ' lift.' The vision haunts their minds of some benevo- lent old gentleman -a bachelor, with no children, of course, but with a bag full of money and a trunk full of mortgages and stocks who, being astonishingly quick to detect merit or genius, will give them a trifle of ten or twenty thousand dollars, with which they will earn a hundred thousand more. Or, perhaps, they will have a legacy from some unheard-of relative, who will suddenly and conveniently die." Also with another writer, who says : " One of the most disgust- ing sights in this world, is that of a young man with HARDSHIP IN EARLY LIFE. 93 healthy blood, broad shoulders, presentable calves, and a hundred and fifty pounds, more or less, of good bone and muscle, standing with his hands in his pockets, longing for help." It is told of Lord Thur- low, the Chancellor of England, that, on being con- sulted by a parent as to the best means his son could adopt to secure success at the bar, he thus replied : " Let your son spend his own fortune, marry and spend his wife's, and then go to the bar ; there will be little fear of his failure." It was for this reason that Thurlow withheld from Lord Eldon, when poor, a commissionership of bankruptcy which he had prom- ised him, saying it was a favor to Eldon to withhold it. " What he meant," says Eldon, " was, that he had learned (a clear truth) that I was by nature very indo- lent, and it was only want that could make me very industrious." Beethoven said of Rossini, that he had the right stuff in him to make a good musician, if he had only been well flogged when a boy ; but he was spoiled by the ease with which he composed. Shelley tells us of certain poets that they "Are cradled into poetry by wrong; They learn in suffering what they teach in song." A great musician once said concerning a promising, but passionless cantatrice : " She sings well, but she wants something, and in that something, everything. If I were single, I would court her; I would marry her ; I would maltreat her ; I would break her heart ; and in six months she would be the greatest singer in Europe." These, however, are extreme views and extreme cases, and while such a course of treatment might be 94 POVERTY AND RICHES. beneficial in some cases, 1t would, as in many others, prove the opposite. There is and must be in the very nature of things a wise limit, a golden mean, which may be said to constitute the boundary line between judicious giving or aiding, and judicious withholding of aid. PO VBRTT AND RICHES. Parents are often blamed for working hard to accu- mulate property for their children, and are sometimes called their children's worst enemies for so doing, but there are a great many heavier curses for children to bear than a "good start in the world" through inher- ited wealth. Sometimes, indeed, the proverb holds good that those rich young men who begin their for- tunes where their fathers leave off, generally leave off where their fathers begun. But all rich men's sons are not fools or spendthrifts, any more than all poor children are bright, energetic, thrifty and saving. The Astor boys manage to keep that great estate together, and even to increase its proportions ; Wm. H. Vander- bilt is no unworthy descendant of the great Com- modore, and so in hundreds of similar instances. In fact, take the country through, the large accumula- tions of property, as a rule, continue in the same family through successive generations ; the father handing it over to the children, and they in turn pre- serving it, if not adding to it, for the next generation, and so on. Of course, there are exceptions t