LIBRARY 
 
 .- 
 
 ] 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 ELIZABETH HARD I SON 
 
 ii^P^ 
 
 Wife*
 
 a~ i ME. 
 
 " The mill will never grind with the water that has past," 
 
 Page, 30.
 
 3ivd: c C3- O "V EJ ^?< 3ST, 
 
 (or THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE.) ' 
 
 AUTHOR OF "HISTORY OF COMMUNISM," "WORLDS WITHOUT END," "CROWN 
 JEWELS." "A PASTORAL POEM," ETC 
 
 old by IfubAcription 0nlt|. 
 
 UNION PUBLISHING HOUSE, 
 
 CHICAGO, ILL. 
 
 COLUMBUS, OHIO. KANSAS CITY, MO. 
 
 MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. 
 
 1 88*.
 
 COPYRIGHTED BY 
 
 M. B. DOWNER & F. C. SMEDLEY, 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 
 18811882.
 
 I take pleasure in laying before my readers a 
 volume the aim of which is to lighten the cares of 
 to-day and heighten the hopes of to-morrow. Every 
 human aspiration which is not an ignis fatuus or 
 fool's beacon is built on the realities of to-day. Every 
 young person evincing talents in any direction hears 
 predictions which are alone built on what he is doing 
 at present. He takes this hope and redoubles his 
 efforts. He usually succeeds therefore, the inher- 
 ited universality of hope. 
 
 Looking thus upon hope as a beautiful edifice 
 rising above the foundations of our lives, I have 
 striven to give my special attention to the duties 
 of to-day, those stones whereon the structure is 
 reared, that the first cruel tempest of adversity may 
 not transport an unsubstantial fabric, like the palace 
 of Aladdin, into the deserts of despair. 
 
 I have also tried to show that the lesson, so 
 
 true in a proper view of this life, is also applicable 
 
 [3]
 
 4 PREFACE. 
 
 to the far grander vista of eternity which, in the 
 mind of philosopher as well as divine, lies so clearly 
 before us. 
 
 In a Hard-Pan Series of ten chapters I have 
 endeavored to point out, to the young men just 
 starting in practical life, some things less general in 
 their scope than the other thoughts spread forth in 
 the book. The necessity of arming our youth with 
 those qualities which lead to business success has 
 made me confident that this attempt would be ap- 
 proved by the general reader.. 
 
 Wherever a writer versed in the deep myster- 
 ies of the heart has left his thoughts on record, and 
 they have fallen under my eye, I have eagerly 
 chained them to my humble chariot, always, when 
 possible, giving the authorship of the idea. The 
 value of a thoroughly good admonition is frequently 
 enhanced by the knowledge that it comes from the 
 mouth of a thoroughly good man.
 
 <sy 
 
 The Hopes of To-Morrow Must Have a Foundation in what We Are 
 Doing To-Day The same Thing True of Our Hopes of the Next Life 
 The Hard-Pan Series Page 3. 
 
 The Golden Censer which Hangs in the Temple of Life The Palace of 
 the Soul The Alarm-Bell Called Conscience George Washington The 
 Soldier in Battle Goldsmith's Pastor Duty the Reason for Living Duty 
 the Stern Daughter of the Voice of God Victor Hugo's Maxim A Cele- 
 brated Piece of Verse ..... .... Page 21. 
 
 of 
 
 We Are Old Before We Know It We are Then Shocked and Regretful 
 Need of Impressing the Young with This Truth A Golden Thought 
 How We Learned to Read Lorena Coal-Oil Johnny Get Interest on 
 Your Own Money Instead of Paying Interest on Other People's You Thus 
 Save Double Interest You Wish to Succeed Put out Your Ideas at Inter- 
 
 est " Lost ! " an Advertisement Haste and Waste Get to Bed Early and 
 
 [5]
 
 6 CONTENTS. 
 
 Cheat Rheumatism and Neuralgia Time the Corrector of Fools The Mill 
 Never Grinds with the Water that Has Gone Past. . . . Page 25. 
 
 Byron, Thomson, and Payne's Sweet Thoughts A Grand Thought in a 
 Grand Syllable The Murderer in His Cell The Letter from Home The 
 Thatch of Avarice The Man Who Wrote " Home, Sweet Home," Had no 
 Home Dr. Johnson The Halo that Surrounds the Word The Long-Ago 
 is Hidden in It Rembrandt and His Sister Dickens The Cottage of a 
 Godly Man Kings Have no Homes Democritus The Old Home Was 
 Happy Because We Were Shielded We Must, in Our Turn, Shield the 
 Little Ones Suffer Little Children Get a Home See that Your Children 
 Get Settled ........... Page 31. 
 
 o| 
 
 Thoughts Intended Especially for Their Ears Children a Blessing 
 Through Our Children We Become Immortal on the Earth Shakspeare 
 How Character is Built Up Good Example Father and Son Starting the 
 Boys and the Girls The Daughter Do not Blight Her Life Happy Wives 
 and Mothers " Thanking Death " Education of the Young The Power 
 and Beauty of the Bible Bible, Shakspeare, and Geography More Neces- 
 sary than Grammar, Botany, and Latin Worship A Suspicious Parent 
 The School-Master Experience Try and Cut Down the Extent of His 
 Services in the Education of Your Child ...... Page 42. 
 
 The Noble Brother Will Have a Noble Sister The Young Man of High 
 Tone Will See to It that His Sister is Treated with Respect He Sets the 
 Example to All Others Utter Selfishness of a Young Man Who Drags
 
 CONTENTS. 7 
 
 Down His Sister by Falling into Bad Society Himself The Summer Vaca- 
 tion Why a "Crooked Stick" Has Been Picked up By the Sister Your 
 Sister Your Other Half Watch He/ and Mend Your Weak Places A Quick 
 Temper Scene in a Field Near Stone River Battle-field The Sister's In- 
 fluence on Your Fortunes Brother and Sister as the Two Heads of One 
 Home . ... Page 53. 
 
 "Heaven Lies About Us in Our Infancy" The Great History Written 
 by Thiers, and Its Central Thought The Impressibility of Youth Much 
 Can Be Accomplished in Youth Alexander, Caesar, Pompey, Hannibal 
 Scipio, Napoleon, Charles XII, Alexander Hamilton, Shelley, Keats, Bryant 
 
 Youth Our Italy and Greece, full of Gods and Temples Edmund Burke 
 
 Rochefoucauld Chesterfield Lord Lytton*e Love of Youth Shortness 
 of Youthful Griefs Hannah More Sir Walter Raleigh's Wise Remark 
 The Extraordinary Expectations of Youth Dr. Watts Story of the Alpena 
 
 Lord Bacon's Summing up of the Differences Between Youth and Age 
 Introduction to the Hard-Pan Series. ..... Page 62. 
 
 -i/H Speech. 
 
 Need of Money Difficulty of Getting It Testimony of-ihe Closest 
 Mouthed Man Who Perhaps Ever Lived "No Man Can Be Happy or Even 
 Honest Without a Moderate Independence " You Find Yourself Behind a 
 Counter The Little Boy's Shoes Wear Out at the Toe They are There- 
 fore Copper-plated The Young Man's Common Sense Gives W r ay at the 
 Tip of His Tongue Difficulties in the Way of a Boy Who "Blabs" A 
 Man Who Is "Pumped" Like the Secretary of the Treasury Must Have 
 Praoticed Silence All His Life Story of the Barber of King Midas Beware
 
 8 CONTENTS. 
 
 of the First Error How Things Leak out Put a Copper-Toe on Your 
 Tongue . Page 74. 
 
 Courtesy Rests on a Deep Foundation He Who is Naturally Polite is 
 Naturally Moral You Wish to Have Your Customers Brighten up Brighten 
 up Yourself What is Good-Breeding? Read Chesterfield Study Your 
 Customer You are Young and Positive Be Careful on That Account Your 
 Hands Jewelry Act Respectfully and You Will Be Full of Good Manners 
 An Example How to Treat the Busybody Zachariah Fox Ralph 
 Waldo Emerson Milton's Allusion to the origin of the Word "Courtesy ' 
 The Celebrated "Beaux" of History Momentary Views of Our Souls 
 Your Clothes They Should Occupy Little of Your Mind Civility Costs 
 Nothing and Buys Everything Page 80. 
 
 A Small Leak Will Sink a Great Ship The Little Cloud Arising out of the 
 Sea Waxes into the Storm that Lashes the Trembling Ocean The People 
 with Small Wages Can Often Save the Most Money You Cannot Spend 
 Your Money Without the Righteous Criticism of Others How Young Men 
 Spend Much of Their Extra Cash Rural Saloons A Gallon of Whiskey 
 What It is Actually Worth What It is Sold For Ordinary Profits of 
 Legitimate Business Tobacco What Three Years' Savings Will Do for a 
 Man in America A Good Wagoner Can Turn in a Little Room When 
 You Buy a Horse Reckon on What He Will Eat Instead of What His Price 
 Is Save all You Can Harness It up and Make It Pull in Interest. Page 88. 
 
 Adversity's Lamp Youth Has Great need of Courage It should be
 
 CONTENTS. <> 
 
 Long-Suffering Rather than Intrepid You Must Gain the Battle by Taking 
 Sudden Advantages You Must Hurl. 10,000 Men Against 2,000 Before 
 Your Enemy Can Be Reinforced Story of a Young Man Who Broke 
 Through the Enemy's Lines at Chicago His Low Wages His Bad 
 Prospects Reading the Bible and Plutarch Studying French The 
 Attempt to Become an Actor Dismal Failure Difficulty of Conquering 
 Wounded Pride The Return to "Hard Work" Progress Triumph 
 Reason of the Victory Hope a Quality Closely Akin to Courage Courage, 
 However, the Grand Motor that Moves the World Courage Builds the 
 Great Bridges and Hope Rides on a Free Pass over Them. . Page 95. 
 
 Hope is a Gold-Leaf Which Can Be Beaten with the Hammer of Adversity 
 to Exceeding Thinness The Medicine of the Miserable Hope Should 
 Deposit Probabilities with Experience, His Banker Story of a Young Man 
 Whose Hope Carried him Across a Bad Place in Life Making Garden 
 Sandpapering Window-Frames in a Cellar Selling "Milton Gold Jewelry" 
 
 Working in a "gang," on a Farm, after the English Fashion A Situation 
 Found on the Very Day of the Great Fire, Just Without the Bounds of the 
 Conflagration Map-Making Success Hope Is the Cork to the Net We 
 Will Part With Our Money, but we will Never Sell Our Hope at any Price 
 
 The Celebrated Shield Hope Unjustly Defamed. . Page 107. 
 
 God's Exactitude One at a Time is the Way Rats Get into a Granary 
 The First Rat Eats Out the Hole Story of Sag Bridge The Collision The 
 Horror The Cause Imitate the Detectives Story of a Cashier Who Left 
 Off a " Simple Cipher," which Stood for a Hundred Thousand Dollars in 
 Cash to His Employers How to Mail a Letter "We Never Make Mistakes
 
 10 CONTENTS. 
 
 The Way People Are Convinced That Care Is Necessary How a Careless 
 Clerk Can Drive Away Custom- The Lightning Calculator He Is Simply 
 a Hard Worker Our Multiplication-Table Does Not Run High Enough 
 The Freaks of Figures Correct Your Spelling Learn to Avoid Foolish 
 Exaggeration Force of Habit " A Man of Good Habits" Is a Man Who 
 Would Be Positively Uncomfortable and Unhappy if He Attempted to 
 Become Dissolute ........ . Page 119. 
 
 Hard-Pan Reason Why Nothing Succeeds So Well as Success Your Good 
 Fortune in Living on American Soil Missing Battles and Allowing Others 
 to Be Promoted Instead of Yourself No City Ever Withstood a Good Siege 
 Get into the Strong Sunshine of active Life The Safe Time to Become 
 Discontented- What Praise Means What Gloomy Predictions Mean When 
 Your Employer Makes Them Practice Example in Proof-Reading 
 Captains are Made out of First Lieutenants The Retail Business Fools 
 Rushing in Where Angels Fear to Tread The Successful Grocery No 
 Wonder Success Sits on That Corner The Painter Who Mixed His Colors 
 With Brains Story of The Man Who Could Imitate Birds Do not Attempt 
 Impossible Journeys Stop at Each Inn ..... Page 132. 
 
 Truth of the adage that a Man Is Known by the Company He Keeps 
 Tam O'Shanter's Habits Building a House With a Party- Wall Playing 
 Billiards at Noon-Time Smelling of the Smoke of the Kitchen Bar-Room 
 Manners Judging a Man by His Clothes A Piece of Impertinence which 
 Cost the Keeping of Five Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars "The 
 Companion of Fools Shall Be Destroyed " Learn to Admire Rightly Charm 
 which the Look of Certain Loafers Has for Many Young Men Getting a
 
 CONTENTS. 1 1 
 
 Sitting in Church Keep i n Company Where You Will Be Under a Pleasant 
 Restraint Either Wise Bearing or Ignorant Carriage Is Caught, as Men 
 Take Diseases One from Another. . Page 144. 
 
 Natural Depression Certainty of Its Discontinuance The Best Salesman 
 Have Been Very Soft-Hearted on Their Early Trips Entering the Town 
 Riding One Block for Half a Dollar A Poor Meal Getting Your Wind 
 Planning the Charge Canvassing Yourself What Is the Almost Limitless 
 Power of Persuasion ? Abraham Lincoln The Whisky Which Made 
 Generals Win Battles was the Kind of Whisky He Was in Searsh of Your 
 Dress Your Entrance at Your Customer's Place Your Speed in Getting 
 Started Your Ease after the Start Is Made Never Stop the Customer 
 Your Perfect Accuracy as to Men and Places Story of a Meteoric Salesman 
 Trouble of Putting a Stop to his Flight Your Supper Tastes Good The 
 Men of Cold Exterior Stay Out but Do not Stay Up How to Get Vim and 
 Sparkle Extraordinary Value of a Man Who Can " Place Goods." Page 152. 
 
 The Tracks of Giants Napoleonic Miracles Webster and Astor George 
 Peabody Giving Away Eight Millions of Dollars Stewart Andrew 
 Johnson Barnum and Stanford Ulysses S. Grant Commodore Vanderbilt 
 Elihu Burritt Edgar Poe Greeley Chase, Garfield and William Tecumseh 
 Sherman Tennyson Robert E. Lee Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg 
 James Gordon Bennett Carlyle and Victor Hugo Garabaldi Agassiz, 
 Humboldt, Proctor, Seward, Farragut, Nelson, Abercrombie, Joseph E. 
 Johnston, Longstreet, and Fifty Others The Habit of Riding Over 
 Obstacles Herodotus, Seneca and Franklin on the Power of Example 
 Christ Never Wrote a Tract The System of Redoubling the Effort and
 
 12 CONTENTS. 
 
 Coming out, after one Victory, Ahead after Reckoning all Losses. Page 164. 
 
 STCcm. 
 
 Shakspeare's Eulogy, just as He Penned It Emerson A Columbus of 
 the Skies Carlyle's Panegyric Whately Man's Faults Horace Man and 
 Pascal The Poet Cowley and Boileau Fallacy of their Scoldings as Applied to 
 all Humankind What Is Man? Plato's Answer Addison's Answer 
 Burke's Answer Adam Smith's Answer Buffon's Failure to Make a Satis- 
 factory Answer Plutarch's Answer ' ' The Proper Study of Mankind is Man " 
 Henry Giles and John Ruskin The Wonderful Instrument Called the 
 Hand The Violin Its Slave Man's Opportunities What God Has Said 
 of His Children The Beautiful Language in Which It is Written Nobility 
 of Our Destiny A Stinging Epigram. .... Page 175. 
 
 The Hand That Made Woman Fair Made Her Good Wordsworth's 
 Beautiful lines to His Wife " She Was a Phanton of Delight"-CampbeH's 
 " Pleasures of Hope" A Pleasant Subject The Difference Between Love 
 in Man and Love in Woman Jean Paul Richter's Encomium Schiller's 
 Tribute Shelley Shakspeare Rousseau, Barrett and Balzac The Duke 
 of Halifax Addison Boyle Sex in The Soul Woman's Love of Ornament 
 Her Dress the Perfection of What Man Demands of Her Dr. Johnson's 
 Explanation Testimony of John Ledyard to the Goodness of Woman His 
 History Woman's Enormous Influence over Man How Men Live Where 
 There Are No Women The History of Human Sickness a Monument of 
 the Goodness of Woman, ,.,.... Page 187. 
 
 Overshadowing Antiquity of the Word "Papa" The Pope Is Simply
 
 CONTENTS. 13 
 
 Papa, in Italian Duties of the Son Toward the Father Honesty of His 
 Love for You Patriarchal Government the Beginning and Still the Prop of 
 Society Old Age the Childhood of Immortality Honor Attaching to Great- 
 ness of years in the past Age Still a Necesity in Many of the Learned 
 Professions Age Is Indulgent Because It sees no Fault it Has not Itself 
 Committed Time the Harper, Laying His Hand Gently on the Harp of 
 Life Love of Little Children The Village Blacksmith, the Mighty Man 
 Respect for Venerable Years a Fitting Thing in the Most Dignified of Young 
 Men Two Pictures, One Dark" and the Other Bright. . Page 197 
 
 A Great Subject Chords Struck by Coleridge and Tennyson She Has 
 Risked Her Life that Her Child Might Live She Has Grown Spectre-Like 
 that Her Child Might Wax Strong She Has Forgotten the Debt Due to 
 Her in Her Anxiety to Obtain an Acknowledgment of the Debt Due to God 
 Her Memory Christmas Her Sick Child Man the Mighty at His 
 Mother's Knee The Best Friend "An Ounce of Mother Worth a Pound 
 of Clergy " A Mother's Praise - The Dead Unalterable Fidelity 
 Forgetting a Mother's Claims The Mother Still in Middle Life The 
 Mother of Greater Years The Mother of Mothers She Gathered the 
 Orphans Together and Poured Out Her Tenderness Upon Them. Page 207. 
 
 A Great Passion, Therefore not one to Trifle and Be Familiar With Its 
 Tyranny Feelings and Actions of a Young Man in Love Utter Useless- 
 ness for Business of a Young Man During the Uncertain Period Between 
 Desire and Possession Love Rules The Universe How The Sages Look 
 upon Love It Is But the Flash in the Broad Pan of True Happiness 
 Shakspeare, Tennyson, Overbury, Mrs. Sigourney, South, Dryden, Plautus,
 
 1 4 CONTENTS. 
 
 Goethe, Burton, Valerius Maximus, Rochefoucauld, Addison. Hazlitt and 
 Emerson "The Wooden God's Remorse" "Love Me Little Love Me 
 Long" The Poet Petrarch's Strange Behavior "If She Do not Care for 
 Me, What Care I How Fair She Be ! " LaFontaine, Lyttleton, Schiller, 
 Ruffini, DuCceur, DeStael, Colton, Dudevant, Balzac, Moore, Beecher, 
 Victor Hugo, Longfellow, Limayrac, Howe, Deluzy and Jane Porter 
 "Solomon was So Seduced, and He Had a Very Good Wit " Alexander 
 Smith Great Space Given to Love in all the Books of the World Some 
 Things to Remember While Viewing the Passion in Others. Page 219' 
 
 The Young Man Finds Himself in Love and "Begins to Think" He 
 Wonders That He Never Before Thought of Money Difference Between a 
 Wharf-Rat and a Man Difference Between a Married Man and an Old 
 Bachelor Who Has Always Been Afraid of the Expense Everything Natural 
 in Marriage Be "Square" with Your Sweetheart The Circus-Poster 
 The Quarry of Truth Do not "Talk Big" and Love Little Courtship and 
 Marriage not a Matter of " Want to or Don't Want to," but a Strenuous 
 Case of "Got to " Marriage Like Life Insurance Closing Hints. Page 234. 
 
 . Sample of a " Swell Wedding" Undignified Aspects of a Swell Wedding 
 Where It Takes Every Cent a Man Can Earn, Beg and Borrow A Farce, 
 and an Example to Shun Let us Have Some Manhood .and Womanhood 
 at a Critical Point, the Start in Real Life To Be a Man Is to Be Married 
 Nature's Artful Treatment of Human Beings Folly of Men Who Throw 
 Away Their Happiness Be Inquisitive Before Marriage Be Blind 
 Thereafter The Law Approves and Encourages the Married State The 
 Married Man Is of the Greater Importance in the Nation A Thing to Be
 
 CONTENTS. 15 
 
 Kept in Mind Married Men Healthier than Bachelors Married Women 
 Healthier than Maids A Married Man Has a Greater Excess of Comforts 
 than of Troubles as Compared with the Comforts and Troubles of the 
 Bachelor. . . . . . ... * : t . . Page 246. 
 
 ifc. 
 
 A Practical Chapter on Life as It Is Actually Lived by a Man and Woman 
 Who Have a Fair Chance in the World A Home With a Young Wife in It 
 no Place for Other Men, no Matter How Dear they May Be to the Husband 
 Give the Wife a Chance Kindness Do not Be Afraid of Honoring Your 
 Wife any Too Much The Wife's Proper Cares A Reply to the Common 
 Form of Attack on the Prinaipal that Marriage Is Both Natural and 
 Expedient McFarlsnd A Man's Happy Experience as a Husband 
 Judgment, Vanity, Selfishness and Trepidation Good for Evil Astonishing 
 Changes in a Man's Needs The Fireside of a Man Who Is Trying to Do 
 Right His Profound Gratitude at the Accuracy of Mis Taste in Earlier 
 Years Death, or Worse than Death Three Studies Apology for a Some- 
 what Uncharitable Reply to a Selfish Argument. . . . Page 256 
 
 A Chapter on Bachelors Apt to Diverge into a Dissertation on Solitude-^ 
 Arguments which the Bachelor Applies to the Question of Marriage^ 
 Being the Soul of Selfishness He Is Unwilling to Believe Happiness In 
 Marriage Possible until He Shall Himself Have Embarked in Matrimony 
 Manner in Which He Usually Proclaims That all Men Who Marry Are 
 Fools Single Life Unavoidable with Some Men A Mere Spectator of Other 
 Men's Fortunes The One Grand Result of Single Life Wearing Out One 
 Set of Faculties by Forty Losing Control of the Other Set by Disuse' 
 The Way a Bachelor Judges a Young Girl His Somewhat Sordid Ideas
 
 1 6 CONTENTS. 
 
 Events Have Distorted His Nature A Bachelor's Great opportunities for 
 Getting Book-Knowledge Good out of Evil Mistaken Ideas about Bache- 
 lors, which the Ladies are Apt to Entertain Foolish Diatribes against 
 Women The Lack of Knowledge which Those Diatribes Betray The 
 Front-Porch View of Girlhood Esteemed to be the whole of Woman's 
 Nature! ..... * ..... Page 270. 
 
 Health, Even with Memory, cannot conceive the Feelings of Disease. 
 The Invalid's Sad Weakness The King cannot Hire a man to Have the 
 Typhoid Fever for Him The Strong man Felled to His Couch Chances 
 for Philosophy The Chances Usually Thrown Away with the Medicine 
 Bottles The Bachelor Sick His Body now as Full of the need of Woman's 
 attention as It was of Brags that He would Have none of Her Let Us do 
 something, by not attempting Everything in the way of Reformation. 
 ............. 281 
 
 The Tallest mountains, although They Gather the Heaviest Clouds about 
 Their Solemn Sides, Yet Look Through Cloudless Skies up Toward the Sun 
 
 Effect of Deep Sorrow on the Appearance of Beauties of Nature We 
 Deprecate Grief, andyet We Rail at Its Short Duration The Stricken Wife 
 
 The Young man who Loves and Is Rejected His Dilemma His Errone- 
 ous and Immature Decision that He would Love But One, and Love Forever 
 
 A Peak which Hardly Rises to the Bottom of the Valleys in the Mountains 
 Piled Down by Events in After-life True Greatness is True Humility 
 Affliction Beautifies Human Nature Blessedness of Employment Efficacy 
 of Religion The Beautiful Poem of " The Lamb in the Shepherd's Arms." 
 
 ........... Page 290.
 
 CONTENTS. 17 
 
 A Topic That Hits Close to Every Man In the Old World the Countries 
 Are to Blame ; In the New the Individual Is Generally at Fault Case of 
 Vanderbilt Fears of Enormously Rich men that their Wealth will excite the 
 Irresistible Cupidity of their Governments Burdens of Immense Riches in 
 an Active Land Like This The Shocking Imbecility of False Poverty 
 "Appearances" Popular Errors as to Servants Big Houses Story of the 
 Happy Man. . . . . . . . .,-' r Page 300. 
 
 Progress the Stride of God The Field-Hand in 1350 One hundred aim 
 Twelve Hours' Labor for a Bushel o^ Wheat The same Laborer in 1550, 
 in 1675, and in 1795 Seventy Hours for a Bushel of Wheat The Same 
 Laborer To-day Twenty Hours for the Bushel of Wheat The Children 
 of the Laborer who Came to America Seven or Eight Hours for a Bushel 
 of Wheat. . .- . .. . '-., . . . . -;.'- Page 311. 
 
 Lightning Is More Apt To hit a Scrag than a Tree Whick 
 has Never Been Riven The Scrags in Society The Loadstone of Failure 
 at the Foot of the Scrag The Lesson to be Derived from Hopeless Failure 
 in Others Sorrows March in Battalions, not as Single Spies, . Page 321. 
 
 The Man of Success Eggs Trying to Dance with Stones Trying to 
 Draw the Prize in a Lottery Without any Ticket Dray Horses' Honest 
 Belief that the Earth Moves Backward under the Racer's Feet, He Being So 
 Lucky The Heavy End of the Lifting How Fortune Tellers Make Their
 
 1 8 CONTENTS. 
 
 Money Grat Opportunities for All Who Were not Born Tired. Page 325, 
 
 One Reason of the Prosperity of the Precent Era Obey Orders How the 
 Wonders have been Piled Up Metaphor of the Organ and Its Pipes and 
 Reeds Sound Your Pipe only in Your Proper Turn, and You will hear 
 Beautiful Music. ' ........ Page 332. 
 
 We Multiply Our Sensations by Books Everyone Can have a Library 
 Books are the Best of Friends Charm of a Well-Read Comrade Bindings 
 A Book as Great a Thing as a Battle Importance of Some Battles Our 
 Eyes How to Judge a Book Rightly Large Type Need of Handy Vol- 
 umes Aid Others, as a Duty ....... Page 337. 
 
 Reason of the Melancholy Tone which Pervades the Great Writings of the 
 Ages on this Subject Man Expects to Get More than He Gives How a 
 man Prepares the Nostrum called Friendship Unsuccessful Substitution of 
 Selfishness for a Mother's Love What is Possible in the way of Ordinary 
 Friendship Spot Friendship Let us not Rail against Friendship. Page 345. 
 
 The Basest of all Traits A Wolf's Den The Tail-less Fox Envy is 
 Largely Ignorance Greatness attained only after Arduous Labors The 
 Tenor and The Stone-Front Thier's Long Life A Critical View of Glad- 
 stone's Public Sorrows Truly Distracting Dilemmas in which Circumstances 
 of Empire Involve Great Men An appeal to Envy. . . Page 354. 
 
 L:!ty First Surprise of the Newly-Rich The Scotch Mist The
 
 CONTENTS. 19 
 
 Angel Snt to Conduct an Empire and the One Sent to Sweep a Street Our 
 Principal Causes of Happiness Free to All. How Rich Men Secure Happi- 
 ness The Prisoner and His Three Pins Happiness Inalienable in Health 
 A Pleasant View of Egotism as a necessary Ingredient in Our Make-up. 
 Page 362. 
 
 The Need of a " Balance of Power " in the Mind Asa General Thing 
 Ambition a Quality to be Curbed Assassination of Merit by Envy The 
 Man Qualified to Deal with Ambition A Picture of His Unhappy Lot, as 
 Illustrated in Napoleon's Life Poem. ... . Page 368. 
 
 A. Favorite Chapter The Telegraph Outriding the Storms The Farmers 
 the Grand Comservative Forces of the Republic Difference between Business 
 and Farming How the Farmers Will Settle the Communists and the Mag- 
 nates The Farmer's Sons A Plea for Them A Picture of the Opportuni- 
 ties which We are Daily Missing. ...... Page 375. 
 
 The Drunkard's Wife A Drama of Horror Why Society Looks So Calm- 
 ly on Such Scenes The Wisdom and Exprience of Society Effort of the 
 Brother to Improve His Sister's Condition The Result What Society Is 
 Doing The Drift of Things Views of the Future A Better Time nearly 
 at Hand * Page 386. 
 
 The Highest Type ofReputation, a Silent but Powerful Influence Two 
 Instances of Good Reputation Tall Masts Needed for Great Ships The 
 Difference between Greatness on the Inside of a Man, and Great Appear- 
 ances on the Outside " . . , Page 395.
 
 20 CONTENTS. 
 
 Paramount Importance of Family Services The Iron Duke's Remark^ 
 
 Sayings of the Wisest and Best Scenes in Burned Chicago Newton and 
 
 La Place Their Testimony Victor Hugo : " I believe in the Sublimity of 
 
 Prayer " Wordsworth's Apostrophe Young's Prayer A Sweet Supplication 
 
 .......... Page 400. 
 
 The Owlet Atheism Hammer and Tongs used to work in. Fire False 
 Headings on News On The Plains of Chaldaea The Voice of Duty ever in 
 the way of the Atheist A Creator Demanded by Reason The Atheist Like 
 Falstaff, Leading a very Scrubby File of Soldiers. . . . Page 410. 
 
 The Bible is Authentic, Old, Beautiful It is the Only Hope We have- 
 It Out-dates the Chinese Empire Everything Good and Progressive is Found. 
 ed on It Practical Value of Studying It Its Eloquence Its Triumphs in 
 an Infinitude of Tests ....... . Page 421. 
 
 o| -ile. 
 
 Age the Outer Shore against which Dashes an Eternity We are on a small 
 Planet, but We Belong to a Larger Celestial Empire The Undevout Astron- 
 omer Insane Does the Beast Peer into the Stars ? Eternity is not a conceit 
 of Man Apostrophe to a Patriarch. -, ... Page 433. 
 
 Cato's Soliloquy Promises of God's Word clothed in Syllables of Unsur- 
 passable Sweetness He that holdeth the Pleiades in His Right Hand 
 Blissful Forecasts Shall God weigh out Arcturus to Stop the Un- 
 reasoning Clamor of the Fool who Hath Said in His Heart there Is No God? 
 CONCLUSION .% . . Page 441.
 
 THE GOLDEN CENSER. 
 
 _y 6) --,_-" 
 
 to 
 
 IX 
 
 Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer, 
 Swung by seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor. EDGAR POE. 
 
 GOLDEN CENSER swings in 
 the Temple of Life, making holy 
 its halls and grateful its corridors. 
 This fountain of our well-being is 
 Duty. There is little true pleas- 
 lure in the world which does not 
 i 
 
 flow, either directly or remotely, 
 from its depths. 
 
 It shall be the object of this volume to 
 point out and name a few of the balms 
 which burn in this Unseen Censer a few 
 of the lines of action which render our 
 memories sweet and forever pleasant if they be wrapt 
 in such perfume. 
 
 THE PALACE OF THE SOUL. 
 
 When the incense of a man's good actions spreads 
 
 [21]
 
 22 THE GOLDEN CENSER. 
 
 through the palace of the soul, " the powers that wait 
 on noble deeds " light up the edifice with radiance 
 brought from other worlds. In the eye of a good 
 man in the window of the palace of his soul we 
 behold an occupant who fears no duty. We are 
 fascinated, and gather about, anxious to peer in upon 
 the fortunate possessor. Therein lies the happiness 
 and the force of good example. 
 
 But let the Censer burn low, and flicker in final 
 sickliness; the great bell called Conscience, hanging in 
 the dome, strikes an alarm that rocks the building. 
 How oft the solemn tocsin sounds ! It drives us to 
 our duty ! Let us be thankful its clangor is so 
 harsh ! 
 
 THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY, 
 
 the man whose heart was torn each time his soldiers' 
 feet did bleed the man who stood like a rock 
 between the despot and the down-trodden that man, 
 at the end of the career which glorified him, and 
 which, with reflected glory will light the annals of 
 all coming centuries that kind, good man, George 
 Washington, could not discern the separating line 
 between Duty and human happiness. " The consid-
 
 THE GOLDEN CENSER. 23 
 
 eration that human happiness and moral duty," he 
 said, " are inseparately connected, will always con- 
 tinue to prompt me to promote the progress of the 
 one by inculcating the practice of the other." 
 
 LET US KEEP THE GOLDEN CENSER BURNING 
 
 with the frankincense of our highest endeavors. " Let 
 us," as Theodore Parker once said, " do our duty in 
 our shop, or our kitchen, the market, the street, the 
 office, the school, the home, just as faithfully as if 
 we stood in the front rank of some great battle, and 
 we knew that victory for mankind depended on our 
 bravery, strength, and skill. When we do that, the 
 humblest of us will be serving in that great army 
 which achieves the welfare of the world." 
 
 THE SOLDIER GOES FORTH 
 
 with his loins girded, hoping to conquer in the hard 
 battles of life. Let the incense of Duty cling to his 
 garments and keep him clean from selfish contagion. 
 How lovely the picture of that old man of Gold- 
 smith's time, swinging the Golden Censer before the 
 hearts that throbbed in unison with him : 
 
 He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all ; 
 And as a bird each fond endearment tries,
 
 24 THE GOLDEN CENSER. 
 
 To tempt her new-fledged offspring to the skies, 
 He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, 
 Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way. 
 
 Our duty was created with us. It is a pleasure to 
 live. What then should be the pleasure to think 
 there is a place for us a duty beneficently made 
 that gives us rights with our fellow-creatures ? 
 What though the duty may try your soul and stagger 
 your capabilities? " Skillful pilots gain their reputa- 
 tion from storms and tempests." Bear up with pa- 
 tient courage " the bird that flutters least is longest 
 on the wing." "Duty is the stern daughter of the 
 voice of God." 
 
 Let us then, upon entering this stately Temple of 
 Life, cast into the Golden Censer our courage, our 
 hope, our energy, our love, our industry, and all 
 those qualities which go to make the air around us 
 redolent with the fragrance of the achievements of 
 life. It cannot then well be that we shall lack in 
 allegiance to our Maker, our country, or ourselves. 
 " Duties are ours; events are God's." 
 
 " On parent knee, a naked, newborn child, 
 
 Weeping thou satst while all around thee smiled ; 
 So live that, sinking in thy last long sleep, 
 
 Calm thou mayst smile while all around thee weep."
 
 Age steals 
 
 Upon us like a snowstorm in the night : 
 How drear .life's landscape now ! HENRY GUY CARLETON. 
 
 Whose hand, 
 
 Like the base Judean, threw a pearl away 
 Richer than all his tribe. SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 E are intrusted with a few short 
 years, and yet with more than we 
 deserve. It is our misfortune to 
 value those fleeting moments only 
 when our stock of them is in dan- 
 ger of utter exhaustion. When 
 the bright, beautiful days have vanished, 
 and we find that, like the base Judean 's 
 pearl, those days were richer than all our 
 tribe our Vanderbilts, our Stanfords, 
 and our Goulds then we turn, in human 
 kindness, to our younger associates, and 
 sound our warning in their ears. Accord- 
 ing as our earnestness impresses them, they listen 
 or they hearken not. A golden thought which 
 the young should learn by heart, would run thus :
 
 26 THE FLIGHT OF TIME. 
 
 However* highly I have valued this day, I have 
 ''sold it on a rising market" and too cheaply. It 
 ivould grow in value as I looked back upon it, even 
 if I were to live to my eightieth year. This may not 
 seem true to you, who wish for Saturday night, that 
 you may receive your salary, or to you, who long 
 for Sunday, that you may gaze into a pair of eyes 
 that have deep beauties for you but when your 
 mother in your babyhood, said a certain letter 
 was " A, 1 ' 
 
 YOU HAD TO ACCEPT THE STATEMENT 
 
 without reservation, or you would not now be able to 
 exercise the grandest of human faculties to read, to 
 glean the thoughts of the ages, and to receive, with- 
 out toiling through the rugged regions of experience, 
 the impressions and the inspirations which have come 
 to man through all his labors and his pains. Sir 
 William Hamilton has well said that implicit belief is 
 at the foundation of all human happiness the knowl- 
 edge of the mind, as well as the certainty of the fu- 
 ture life. 
 
 The mind is rarely broad enough in youth to survey 
 the field of life with an impartial view. u The years
 
 THE FLIGHT OF TIME. 2 7 
 
 creep slowly by, Lorena," was written in the true 
 youthful, spendthrift spirit. 
 
 "COAL-OIL JOHNNY" 
 
 was left, as he supposed, inexhaustible riches. He 
 threw away his money as many of us throw away our 
 lives, and his money lasted him two years. Had his 
 life been equally at his disposal, he would have been 
 in the hands of the pale Receiver, Death, when his oil- 
 wells passed to other owners. Having so precious a 
 pearl, therefore, as this life, let us make its setting a 
 thing of beauty. Let us invest our moments as 
 
 THE WISE MAN, 
 
 who, instead of buying on time and paying eight 
 per cent, interest, saves his earnings and puts them 
 out at eight per cent, interest, thus reaping a differ- 
 ence of sixteen per cent., or nearly one-sixth of his 
 yearly surplus. Every idea put into your head is 
 invested at interest. Every expenditure of time which 
 is a waste is a payment of interest, a corroding, 
 double-acting agency of evil to your welfare. 
 
 YOU WANT TO SUCCEED IN THE WORLD, 
 
 of course, you .do ! Look out, and do not let the 
 thrifty men of brains lend you their ideas at that
 
 28 THE FLIGHT OF TIME. 
 
 fatal eight per cent., which, in reality, means fully 
 sixteen ! Put into the deposit-vaults of your memory 
 the diligent results of your study. Those you put in 
 earliest will pay the most profit. When you are 
 thirty years old there will be few with heavier coffers. 
 You will have little need to complain of 
 
 FAVORITISM AND DISCRIMINATION 
 
 then. On the contrary, you will, strangely enough, 
 hear many lay that very charge against those wise 
 old men who have been observing you and peep- 
 ing into your treasure-chests when you were not on 
 the watch. To the man, fortunate in his youth in 
 having been 
 
 ADVISED RIGHTLY, 
 
 who has not misspent a moment of his time, "the 
 thought of the last bitter hour " will not " come like 
 a blight," and there will be no " sad images of the 
 stern agony." The wise and good man, who has the 
 unmixed reverence of the great and the humble, 
 whose " hoary head is a crown of glory," approaches 
 his grave " like one who wraps the drapery of his 
 couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.' 1 
 " I wasted time, and now doth time waste me ! " is
 
 THE FLIGHT OF TIME. 29 
 
 the cry of a misspent life. If you have cast away a 
 portion of your existence, I beg of you to transfix 
 this public notice before your companions that they 
 may profit by your experience : 
 
 " LOST ! 
 
 " Yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, 
 two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes, 
 the gift of a kind Father ! " 
 
 HASTE AND WASTE. 
 
 The value of Time should never be so foolishly 
 conceived as to urge a man or a woman to that hurry 
 which shows a thing to be too big for him who under- 
 takes it. God makes Time. Can you, then, add to 
 it ? " Stay a while to make an end the sooner." 
 You do not gain an hour by robbing yourself of your 
 sleep. You do not gain in force by enlarging the 
 wheel that carries your belting. If your constitution 
 require eight hours' sleep, then go to your bed at ten 
 o'clock and rise like "the sun rejoicing in the east," 
 fresh-nerved and forceful, apt to carry all before you. 
 Do not encourage those tempters who come to you 
 asking you to break into the storehouse of your vital- 
 ity and rob yourself of two, three, and often four
 
 3 
 
 THE FLIGHT OF TIME. 
 
 hours of your rest, leaving you, in the bankruptcy 
 of afterlife a trembling alarmist, subject to the replevins 
 of rheumatic muscles and the reprisals of revengeful 
 nerves. Remember that age comes upon us like a 
 snowstorm in the night, and that the mill will never 
 grind with the water that has passed. Time is the stern 
 corrector of fools ; " Wisdom walks before it, Oppor- 
 tunity with it, and Temperance behind it. He that 
 has made it his friend will have little to fear from h's 
 enemies, but he that has made it his enemy will ha? e 
 little to hope from his friends."
 
 "T\s sweet to hear the honest watchdog's bark 
 Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home ; 
 
 'Tis sweet to know that the^e is an eye will mark 
 
 Our coming, and look brighter when we come. BYRON. 
 
 An elegant sufficiency, content, 
 
 Retirement, rural, quiet, friendship, books, 
 
 Ease and alternate labor, useful life, 
 
 Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven. THOMSON. 
 
 'Mid pleasures and palaces, though we may roam, 
 Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. 
 
 J. H. PAYNE, IN THE OPERA OF "CLARI." 
 
 O word in the English language 
 approaches in sweetness the sound 
 of this group of letters. Out of 
 this, grand syllable rush memories 
 and emotions always chaste, and 
 always noble. The murderer in his cell, 
 his heart black with crime, hears this 
 % word, and his crimes have not yet been 
 committed ; his heart is yet pure and 
 free ; in his mind he kneels at his moth- 
 er's side and lisps his prayers to God 
 that he, by a life of dignity and honor, 
 may gladden that mother's heart ; and
 
 32 HOME. 
 
 then he weeps, and for a while is not a murderer. 
 The Judge upon his bench deals out the dreaded jus- 
 tice to the scourged, and has no look of gentleness. 
 But breathe this word into his ear, his thoughts fly 
 to his fireside ; his heart relents ; he is no longer Jus- 
 tice, but weak and tender Mercy. 
 
 What makes that small, unopened missive so 
 precious to that great rough man? Why, 'tis from 
 Home from Home, that spot to which his heart is 
 tied with unseen cords and tendrils tighter than the 
 muscles which hold it in his swelling chest. Perhaps 
 he left his Home caring little for it at the time. Per- 
 haps harsh necessity drove him from its tender roof 
 to lie beneath 
 
 THE THATCH OF AVARICE. 
 
 It does not matter. As the great river broadens in 
 the Spring, so do his feelings swell and overflow his 
 nature now. Why does he tremble, that rough, 
 weather-beaten man? Because there is but one place 
 on the great earth where "an eye will mark his 
 coming and grow brighter." If that beacon still 
 burns for him, he can continue his voyage. If it has
 
 inaiimmiiiiHiamim 
 
 CHILDHOOD. 
 
 " Childhood is the bough where slumbered 
 
 Birds and blossoms many-numbered; 
 Age, that bough with snows encumbered."
 
 HUME. 33 
 
 gone out, if anything has happened to it, his way is 
 dark ; nothing but the abiding hand of the Great 
 Father can steady his helm and hold him to his des- 
 olate course. 
 
 The man who wandered " mid pleasures and pal- 
 aces," had no Home, and when he died he died on the 
 bleak shores of Northern Africa, and was buried 
 where he died, at the city of Tunis, where he held 
 the office of United States Consul. " To Adam," 
 says Bishop Hare, " Paradise was Home. To the good 
 among his descendants, 
 
 HOME IS PARADISE." 
 
 "Are you not surprised," writes Dr. James Hamilton, 
 " to find how independent of money peace of con- 
 science is, and how much happiness can be condensed 
 in the humblest home? A cottage will not hold the 
 bulky furniture and sumptuous accommodations of a 
 mansion ; but if love be there, a cottage will hold as 
 much happiness as might stock a palace." " To be 
 happy at home," writes Dr. Johnson in the Rambler, 
 "is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which 
 every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every 
 
 3
 
 34 HOME. 
 
 desire prompts the prosecution." In the mind of the 
 good there gather about the old Home, 
 
 HALO UPON HALO OF FOND THOUGHT, 
 
 of nearly idolatrous memory. Upon this very green, 
 the joyous march of youth went on. Here the glad 
 days whirled round like wheels. At morn the laugh 
 was loud ; at eve the laughter rang. To-day, per- 
 haps the most joyous of the flock lies in the earth. 
 Perhaps the chief spirit of the wildest gambols is 
 bent with sharp affliction ; the one that loved his 
 mother best is in a foreign land ; the one that doubled 
 her small cares with dolls goes every week to gaze 
 at little gravestones, and the one that would not stay 
 in bed upon the sun's bright rise now sits in awful 
 blindness. You cannot rob these hearts of their 
 sweet memories. The mystic keyword unlocks the 
 gates. The peaceful waters flow ; the thirsty soul is 
 satisfied. 
 
 THE LONG AGO. 
 
 A lady opens a short epistle from her brother. He 
 is rich, successful, busy, in short driven, cannot visit 
 her at a certain date, regrets, with love, etc., all in 
 ten short lines. What does this dry notice tell? It
 
 HOME. 35 
 
 v 
 
 tells of a buffalo-robe which, by much strategy, can 
 be secured from father's study ; it tells of a daring, 
 rollicking boy who has got the strategy and will soon 
 get the buffalo-robe. It tells of two boys and three 
 girls, all gathered in the robe, with the rollicking one 
 as fireman and engineer, making the famous trip 
 down the stairs which shall tumble them all into the 
 presence of a parent who will. make a weak demon- 
 stration of severity, clearly official, and merely 
 masking a very evident inclination to try a trip on 
 the same train. 
 
 WHERE WAS THIS? 
 
 Why at the dear old Home, in the Long Ago. Who 
 was the fireman and engineer ? Why, this great, 
 pompous man of business, whose short note his sister 
 has just laid down of course, he was the fireman 
 and the engineer ! 
 
 We see the sister of Rembrandt, the painter, travel' 
 ing weary miles to the house of the brother whom 
 in youth she shielded from the wrath of a drunken 
 father, whose rude pictures she concealed from eyes 
 that would have looked upon them in anger. Now 
 he is the most celebrated painter of his time. He is
 
 36 HOME. 
 
 rich beyond the imagination of his humble contem- 
 poraries. He never receives people into his stronghold. 
 
 TWO GREAT DOGS GUARD THE ENTRANCE. 
 
 Into a gloomy portal the aged sister enters, and soon 
 the miser and the good angel of his past are together. 
 There they sit in the dusk, and recall, after sixty 
 years of separation, the scenes of the Home which 
 existed eighty years before ! We marvel at a word 
 that comes along a cable under the ocean. Why 
 should we not also wonder at a little word that can 
 sound across the awful stretch of eighty years, 
 through 
 
 AN OCEAN OF LIFE, 
 
 stormy with fearful disappointments, boisterous with 
 seasons of success, and desolate with the drift, the 
 slime, and the fungus of miserly greed ! 
 
 Says Dickens: "If ever household affections and 
 loves are graceful things, they are graceful in the 
 poor. The ties that bind the wealthy and proud to 
 Home may be forged on earth, but those which link 
 the poor man to his humble hearth are of the true 
 metal, and bear the stamp of heaven." 
 
 If men knew what felicity dwells in the cottage of
 
 HOME. 37 
 
 a godly man," writes Jeremy Taylor, "how sound he 
 sleeps, how quiet his rest, how composed his mind, 
 how free from care, how easy his position, how moist 
 his mouth, how joyful his heart, they would never 
 admire the noises, the diseases, the throngs of pas 
 sions, and the violence of unnatural appetites that fill 
 the house of the luxurious and the heart of the 
 ambitious." 
 
 It has happened within a hundred years that men 
 of private station have become Kings. One of the 
 severest trials of their exalted lot has been the disaster 
 which came upon their homes. 
 
 KINGS HAVE NO HOMES. 
 
 I am told that the Presidents of the United States 
 have complained very naturally that they are denied 
 that privacy which is accorded to the lowliest citizen 
 in the land. It should content the possessor of a 
 Home that he has that which Kings cannot have, and 
 which if it be bright and free from wrong, is more 
 valuable than palaces and marble halls. Of this 
 golden ri^ht of asylum in the Home, Abraham Cowley 
 has wriittn : " Democritus relates, as if he gloried in 
 the good fortune of it, that when he came to Athens,
 
 38 HOME. 
 
 nobody there did so much as take notice of him ; and 
 Epicurus lived there very well, that is, lay hid many 
 years in his gardens, so famous since that time, with 
 his friend Metrodorus ; after whose death, making, in 
 one of his letters, a kind commemoration of the 
 happiness which they two had enjoyed together, he 
 adds at last that he thought it no disparagement to 
 those great felicities of their life, that, in the midst of 
 that most talked-of and talking country in the world, 
 they had lived so long, not only without fame, but 
 almost without being heard of ; and yet, within a very 
 few years afterward, there were 
 
 NO TWO NAMES OF MEN MORE KNOWN 
 
 or more generally celebrated. If we engage into a 
 large acquaintance and various familiarities, we set 
 open our gates to the invaders of most of our time ; 
 we expose our life to an ague of frigid impertinences 
 which would make a wise man tremble to think of." 
 What makes the remembrance of the old Home 
 so happy? Was it not because there the storms of 
 life were turned away from us by those who bore the 
 blasts to keep us in our innocence? And now that 
 future which then was on our horizon has neared us
 
 and is our zenith, the centre of our heavens. About 
 us are 
 
 PRATTLING LITTLE ONES 
 
 who in the far-off years will clothe this house about 
 with that holy mantle which will give it the right to 
 that same grand title, Home. Can we not, in thinking 
 of the good old Home, stand a little nearer to the 
 blast and warm some tiny heart a little more? Does 
 the merry laugh sing out as it did in our own youth? 
 Then this is indeed a Home, growing each day more 
 sacred in the mind of those fledglings who will so 
 soon fly from the nest to beat a fluttering and a weary 
 way through the tempests that will encompass them. 
 A Christmas-tree, a picnic, a May-day festival, make 
 trouble for limbs already weary with labor, but 
 
 IT IS THE WEARINESS AND THE SELF-SACRIFICE 
 
 as well as the mirth and the innocence which have 
 girt this great word round about with its bright girdle 
 of true glory. u Suffer little children to come unto 
 me," says the Lord Jesus, " and forbid them not, for 
 of such is the kingdom of heaven.' We may say 
 likewise, following the beauteous expression of our 
 Savior, " Suffer little children to come into our homes,
 
 40 HOME. 
 
 and lorbid them not their mirth and their Joy, for 
 their contentment is now the one lesson that will take 
 deep hold on their lives, and their souls will grow 
 rapidly in such surroundings. Says the poet Southey : 
 " A house is never perfectly furnished for enjoyment 
 unless there is a child in it rising three years old, and 
 a kitten rising six weeks." 
 
 " He'is the happiest, 1 ' says Goethe, " be he King or 
 peasant, who finds peace in his Home." Especially 
 should 
 
 THE YOUNG MAN 
 
 be taught the value of a Home. If his advisers lay 
 before him the lesson of life in all its aspects, he will 
 indeed be a prodigal if he have not a Home of his own 
 almost immediately upon leaving the fatherly roof. 
 There are no reasons, no exceptions, which relieve 
 the healthy, able-bodied young man from an early 
 advance on the enemies who threaten the welfare of 
 the citizen. The strongest fortification which the 
 human heart can throw up against temptatation is 
 the Home. Certain men are almost invincible against 
 the onslaughts of the many base allurements which 
 wreak such misery on all sides of us. Why are they
 
 HOME. 41 
 
 so firm ? It is because a glorious example has stood 
 before their minds, a liberal and older knowledge of 
 the world has aided their early endeavors, and a 
 plentiful advice has fastened in their understandings 
 the wisdom of virtue and industry. If yovfr sons 
 have Homes of their own, you can leave them, as a 
 great General leaves his lieutenants to occupy a 
 country, here a fortress held in safety, there a can- 
 tonment with natural defenses, and there a " city on a 
 hill," while you advance into those other regions 
 which are written on the map of your destiny, " sus- 
 tained by the unfaltering trust " that you have kept 
 the great obligation imposed on you, and handled 
 your forces for the best advantage of the cause you 
 served.
 
 Delightful task ! to rear the tender thought, 
 
 To teach the young idea how to shoot. THOMSON. 
 
 Y the general voice of mankind, 
 children are held to be a blessing 
 to the good. Where the bonds of 
 |L love do not tighten as the children 
 Y grow, it is like those cases where 
 the chords and muscles do not fasten together 
 after a hurt there has been malpractice. 
 Let us not live like quacks. There are 
 some general rules in life which will lead us 
 toward a greater enjoyment of our children's 
 lives. Through them and their issue we 
 become immortal on this earth. Death can- 
 not sweep us down entirely. We leave our 
 lives set in a younger cast of flesh, to hold the fight 
 against the enemy. While they thus serve us, to 
 guard us from extinction, we also stand as their am- 
 bassadors in heaven, presently to go on our mission, 
 first to finish our own preparations, and then to begin
 
 DUTIES OF PARENTS 43 
 
 those of our offspring, who will follow in our foot- 
 steps. Says Shakspeare : " The voice of parents is 
 the voice of gods, for to their children they are 
 heaven's lieutenants." Our experience teaches us that 
 virtue and honesty are in themselves great rewards. 
 Whether we be virtuous and honest matters little in 
 our estimation of the value of those qualities. The 
 thief, quaking before the Judge, cannot but compare 
 his own lot with that of the good man who sits above 
 him. The one has followed every bent of his inclina- 
 tion, which gradually became more and more capri- 
 cious, more difficult to satisfy. The other put on a 
 steadying curb in early life, denied himself nine times 
 where he humored himself once, and 
 
 FINALLY HAD A CHARACTER 
 
 which made few demands upon him, and whose de- 
 mands were decent and in order. Thus " some as 
 corrupt in their morals as vice could make them, have 
 yet been solicitous to have their children soberly, virtu- 
 ously, and piously brought up." We therefore, on 
 every ground, must teach our children religion, dig 
 nity, and probity. "Parents," says Jeremy Taylor, 
 " must give good example and reverent deportment
 
 44 DUTIES OF PARENTS. 
 
 in the presence of their children. And all those 
 instances of charity which usually endear each other 
 sweetness of conversation, affability, frequent admoni- 
 tion all significations of love and tenderness, care 
 and watchfulness, must be expressed toward.children; 
 that they may look upon their parents as their friends 
 and patrons, their defence and sanctuary, their treasure 
 and their guide." 
 
 FATHER AND SON. 
 
 Says Sir R. Steele: " It is the most beautiful object 
 the eyes of man can behold to see a man of worth 
 and his son live in an entire, unreserved correspond- 
 ence. The mutual kindness and affection between 
 them give an inexpressible satisfaction to all who 
 know them. It is a sublime pleasure which increases 
 by the participation. It is as sacred as friendship, as 
 pleasurable as love, and as joyful as religion. This 
 state of mind does not only dissipate sorrow which 
 would be extreme without it, but enlarges pleasures 
 which would otherwise be contemptible. The most 
 indifferent thing has its force and beauty when it is 
 spoken by a kind father, and an insignificant trifle has 
 its weight when offered by a dutiful child. I know
 
 DUTIES OF PARENTS. 45 
 
 ru t how to express it, but I think I may call it a 
 transplanted self-love." 
 
 THE OCCUPATION. 
 
 "The time will be coming is come, perhaps 
 when your young people must decide on the course 
 and main occupation of their future lives. You will 
 expect to have a voice in the matter. Quite right, 
 if a voice of counsel, of remonstrance, oi suggestion, 
 of pointing out unsuspected difficulties, of encourage- 
 ment by developing the means of success. Such a 
 voice as that from an elder will always be listened to. 
 But perhaps your have already settled in your own 
 mind the calling to be followed, and you mean simply 
 to call on the youngster to accept and register your 
 decree on the opening pages of his autobiography. 
 This is, indeed a questionable proceeding, unless you 
 are perfectly assured of what the young man's un- 
 biased choice will be." 
 
 THE DAUGHTER.' 
 
 " Certain it is," said Addison, " that there is no 
 kind of affection so purely angelic as that of a father 
 to a daughter. He beholds her both with and without 
 regard to her sex. In love to our sons there is ambi-
 
 DUTIES OF PARENTS. 
 
 tion, but in that to our daughters there is something 
 which there are no words to express." " There is, 
 however, an unkind measure by which a few persons 
 strive to avoid living by themselves in their old age. 
 They selfishly prevent their children (principally their 
 daughters) from marrying, in order to retain them 
 around them at home. Certainly matches are now 
 and then projected which it is the duty of a parent 
 to oppose ; but there are two kinds of opposition, a 
 conscientious and sorrowful opposition, and an egotis- 
 tical and captious opposition, and men and women, in 
 their self-deception, may sometimes mistake the one 
 for the other. ' Marry your daughters lest they marry 
 themselves, and run off with the ploughman or the 
 groom ' is an axiom of worldly wisdom. Marry 
 your daughters, if you can do so satisfactorily, that 
 they may become 
 
 HAPPY WIVES AND MOTHERS, 
 
 fulfilling the destiny allotted to them by their Great 
 Creator. Marry them, if worthy suitors offer, lest 
 they remain single and unprotected after your depar- 
 ture. Marry them, lest they say, in their bitter 
 disappointment and loneliness, ' Our parents thought
 
 DUTIES OF PARENTS. 47 
 
 only of their own comfort and convenience. We 
 now find that our welfare and settlement in life was 
 disregarded ! ' But I am sure my hard-hearted com- 
 rade in years," continues this aged writer, " that you 
 are more generous to your own dear girls than to 
 dream of preventing the completion of their own 
 little romance in order to keep them at home, pining 
 as your waiting minds." 
 
 THANKING DEATH. 
 
 One of the most learned observations to parents 
 has been made by Lord Burleigh. "Bring thy 
 children up," said he, in " learning and obedience, yet 
 without outward austerity. Give them good counte- 
 nance and convenient maintenance, according to thy 
 ability ; otherwise thy life will seem their bondage, 
 and what portion thou shalt leave them at thy death, 
 they will thank death for it, and not thee ! " 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 "I suppose it never occurs to parents," says John 
 Foster, in his Journal, " that to throw vilely-educated 
 young people on the world is, independently of .the 
 injury to the young people themselves, a positive 
 crime, and of very great magnitude ; as great, for
 
 48 DUTIES OF PARENTS. 
 
 instance, as ourning their neighbors house, or poison- 
 ing the water in his well. In pointing out to them 
 what is wrong, even if they acknowledge the justness 
 of the statement, one cannot make them feel a sense 
 of guilt, as in other proved charges. That they love 
 their children extenuates to their consciences every 
 parental folly that may at last produce in the child- 
 ren every desperate vice." As to this matter of 
 education, 
 
 OUR GREAT SCHOOLS 
 
 have taken it largely out of the parents' hands to 
 guide the course of instruction, and where this would 
 be done logically, I cannot but feel it is to the disad- 
 vantage of the child ; but the system is built for 
 public, not for individual benefit, and will probably 
 do the greatest good to the greatest number. If we 
 could have a little less Latin and a little better spelling, 
 a little less long Latin and a little more good short 
 Saxon I believe our youth would make their mark 
 easier. Our young people dislike interest tables and 
 are delighted with long words. Under the present 
 system and popular taste, our children despise 
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF THE BIBLE 
 
 until they are thirty years old, whereafter they grad-
 
 DUTIES OF PARENTS. 49 
 
 ually learn that the very essence of artful language 
 is contained in its pages. There is not much need 
 of a long word when a short one sounds better. " The 
 Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh 
 me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me 
 beside the still waters. 1 ' How like the ripple of a 
 brook the syllables drop from the tongue ! The fall 
 of the voice, and the fall of the idea, make the 
 passage a lovely instance oj the highest art in poetical 
 expression. If our youth could be taught respect, 
 attention, multiplication and division, spelling, short 
 words, short sentences, Bible, Shakspeare, and geo- 
 graphy, and could spend less time conjugating foreign 
 verbs, there would be a really higher grade of intelli- 
 gence in the end, perhaps, and there would, above 
 all, be more of that glorious independence of mind 
 which makes a thing worthy of commendation because 
 it is appreciated, not because somebody else has said 
 it is good. 
 
 WORSHIP. 
 
 The Catholics say that if they may have the spirit- 
 ual culture of the child till he is ten years of age, 
 they will willingly surrender him into the hands of
 
 5 DUTIES OF PARENTS. 
 
 the teachers of any other faith, resting secure in the 
 permanency of early teachings. The great value of 
 early religious instruction has always been conceded 
 by the most learned. " The first thing, therefore," 
 says Dr. Priestly, " that a Christian will naturally 
 inculcate upon his child, as soon as he is capable of 
 receiving such impressions, is the knowledge of his 
 Maker, and a steady principle of obedience to Him ; 
 the idea of his living under a constant inspection and 
 government of an invisible being, who will raise him 
 from the dead to an immortal life, and who will 
 reward and punish him hereafter according to his 
 character and actions here. 
 
 ON THESE PLAIN PRINCIPLES 
 
 I hesitate not to assert as a Christian, that religion 
 is the first rational object of education. Whatever 
 be the fate of my children in this transitory world, 
 about which I hope J*am as solicitous as I ought to 
 be, I would, if possible, secure a happy meeting with 
 them in a future and everlasting life." 
 
 "A suspicious parent makes an artful child," says 
 Haliburton. A tender parent makes a wayward 
 son. A cruel parent makes a timid son. Be harsh
 
 DUTIES OF PARENTS. 51 
 
 when harshness is necessary, but be kind when kind- 
 ness is needful, for as the grass of the fields needs the 
 light of the sun, so does the human heart yearn 
 for sympathy and kindness, in all the years of its 
 wonderful growth. Parents may in a great measure 
 do much of the teaching which that 
 
 NOTORIOUSLY HARSH SCHOOLMASTER, EXPERIENCE, 
 
 deals out, who beats our boys and girls so brutally. 
 I cannot, in closing this chapter, do better than to 
 quote the words of wise old Roger Ascham : " He 
 hazardeth sore that maketh wise by experience. An 
 unhappy sailor he is that is made wise by many ship- 
 wrecks, a miserable merchant that is neither rich nor 
 wise but after some bankrouts. It is a marvelous pain 
 to find a short way by long wandering. He needs 
 must be a swift runner that runneth fast out of 
 his way. And look well upon the former life of those 
 few who have gathered, by long experience, a little 
 wisdom and some happiness ; and when you do con- 
 sider what mischief they have committed, what 
 dangers they have escaped (and yet twenty for one 
 do perish in the adventure) then think well with your-
 
 5 2 
 
 DUTIES OF PARENTS. 
 
 self whether you would that your own son should 
 come to wisdom and happiness by such experience 
 
 or no.
 
 The noble sister of Publicola, 
 The moon of Rome; chaste as the icicle, 
 That's curdled by the frost from purest snow, 
 And hangs on Dian's temple. 
 
 But good my brother, 
 Do not as some ungracious pastors do, 
 Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, 
 Whilst like a puffed and reckless libertine, 
 Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, 
 And recks not his own rede. SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 HERE has always been a charm 
 for me in the speech of the 
 haughty Coriolanus concerning 
 Valeria, the sister of Publicola. 
 There is such a noble alliance of 
 the brother and the sister. The one is 
 a man in high regard ; therefore his 
 sister likewise takes on those correlative 
 qualities which make her the moon of 
 Rome, the Goddess Diana, as it were. 
 The young man of good quality will 
 begin his life with an exalted apprecia- 
 
 tion of his sister. 
 
 He will give her that 
 
 [53]
 
 54 BROTHER AND SISTER. 
 
 tender regard and assistance which is her gentle due, 
 and she, in turn, will form her ideas of young men by 
 the character of her brother, and, in choosing a 
 man upon whom to settle her womanly affections, 
 will be largely guided by her estimate of her brother's 
 manhood. The young man can not over-estimate 
 the importance of his influence in this connection. 
 Depend upon it, if he be high-minded, courteous, atten- 
 tive, self-sacrificing at the proper times, 
 
 HIS SISTER WILL DEMAND, 
 
 in the man who aspires to be her companion in life, 
 the qualities of a high mind, a courteous demeanor, an 
 attentive inclination, and a willingness to put aside 
 self at the time that duty and manhood demand. 
 The brother's acquaintances and associates are often 
 the first young men introduced to the si ,ler on terms 
 of intimacy. If the brother lower the standard of 
 his life, the colors of his house are also trailed. His 
 family pride should be, and usually is, one of the 
 strongest supports in holding him to a course of 
 action that will retain the entire respect of his com- 
 munity. When a son with a sister grown plunges 
 into ways of disrepute, there is no more sorrowful
 
 BROTHER AND SISTER. 55 
 
 example of the utter selfishness of a depraved human 
 heart. 
 
 HOW MUCH LESS GRASPING IS THE BURGLAR 
 
 who is not willing to let the hard-working citizen 
 keep his earnings, but steals upon him in the night 
 and robs him into poverty how much less selfish, I 
 say, is he than the brother who steals upon the fair 
 young life of a pure, good maiden, brands her as the 
 sister of a disreputable loafer, and leaves her to choose 
 loafers for a husband, or marry a stranger who may 
 afterward taunt her with her low connection ! I can 
 conceive of no keener spur to the young man of pride 
 and purpose than to keep this view of things before 
 him, that he may be worthy of the company of young 
 men who, in turn, will be worthy of the company of 
 his sister. 
 
 MANY OF THE NOBLEST YOUNG MEN 
 
 of the present day, when they go for a summer 
 vacation, take their sisters with them. The act gives 
 them their first true knowledge of the responsibilities 
 attaching to the care of a woman to the gravity of 
 married life. It being cheaper, as a rule, for man 
 and wife to travel together than for brother
 
 56 BROTHER AND SISTER. 
 
 and sister, the brother has an idea of future expense 
 awaiting him (after he shall have married) which is. 
 on the right side of an estimate that is, the surplus 
 side. The sister's mind is broadened by this kindness 
 and self-sacrifice of the brother. She has a higher 
 opinion of manhood, and her choice will fall all the 
 higher up. What makes our finest girls often go 
 through the forest of maidenhood rejecting the most 
 promising staffs of support, and, finally, nearing the 
 plains of spinsterhood, pick up in a panic 
 
 THE CROOKEDEST STICK OF THE LOT? 
 
 It is mainly the brother's fault. He has not shown 
 her how much of a man he himself can be, and 
 she has not noticed the manly qualities of many 
 of the admirers whom she has passed by in disdain* 
 A wise young woman should be on the lookout for 
 gentleness and courage in man. If she finds those 
 qualities if she can only become aware they are 
 there, her heart will relent in spite of her, and there 
 will be no hesitancy in her final choice, nor regret in 
 her final retrospect. 
 
 IN YOUR SISTER 
 
 you behold the exact complement of yourself.
 
 BROTHER AND SISTER. 57 
 
 Yourself and herself, brother and sister, are the links 
 which your parents have left to hold their minds, ' 
 their qualities, their aggregated development and 
 progression, to the earth. All that your parents 
 were, yourself and your sister will perpetuate, adding 
 the acquirements of your own lives. You have in 
 your sister an opportunity for self -study without its 
 like or equal. Where your sister is weak, there are 
 you weak (naturally) also. Your vanity may con- 
 ceal the fact in your own nature, but her character 
 will express it to you. 
 
 STRENGTHEN UP THESE POINTS. 
 
 As the calker goes through the hold of the ship, 
 peering intently for light, or listening for the trickling 
 of water, so should you, in observing your sister's char- 
 acter and family peculiarities, find and calk up all the 
 treacherous leaks in your own nature. Her care- 
 lessness is your forgetfulness. Mend it. Her heedless- 
 ness is undoubtedly your recklessness. Send out 
 scouts. Her impatiertce is possibly your high temper. 
 Hit yourself when you are in rage, and thus learn its 
 folly. I know of a man who once came within an 
 inch of braining his fellow-soldier. They were lying
 
 58 BROTHER AND SISTER. 
 
 on the grass, when the fellow struck my friend a smart 
 blow with the iron ramrod of a Springfield musket, 
 all in fun, you know. My friend was like Cowper, 
 who wrote : 
 
 The man who hails you Tom or Jack, 
 And proves, by thumping on your back 
 
 His sense of your great merit. 
 Is such a friend as one had need 
 Be very much his friend, indeed, 
 
 To pardon or to bear it. 
 
 Well, he felt the smart of the iron ramrod, and his 
 fury rose in a whirlwind ; and he got up, took the 
 musket by the barrel, raised it back for an awful 
 blow, and was just about to crush the head of the 
 joker when a white face and the simple word "Jim ! " 
 brought him to his senses. He dropped the musket 
 and sank upon the grass in a paroxysm of excitement, 
 but was saved from murder just by a hair's breadth. 
 He had never curbed his temper before. Here he 
 had been forced to overcome the fury of a building 
 all in flames. The lesson sank deep into his heart. 
 To-day nobody knows he has any temper at all. 
 THE SISTER'S INFLUENCE. 
 
 Again, as you are influential in the matter of the 
 future prospects of your sister, and can probably
 
 BROTHER AND SISTER. 59 
 
 elevate her lot by your aid in forming her character, 
 BO, too is she often, though to a smaller degree, potent 
 in turning the tides of your life. She has dear friends 
 of her own sex. They are at your house. They 
 may come to see you by coming to see her. You 
 meet these girls at your home, and, perhaps, some day 
 you wake up in love. Now, if your sister, who 
 admits these maidens into your home, has that true 
 womanhood which is so admirable, you are certain to 
 have fallen in love with one of the finest young 
 women in town, and it is 
 
 A LUCKY DAY FOR YOU, 
 
 for young women usually keep away from young men 
 for whose character they have no regard. Do not, 
 however, get into the opinion that you are irresistible, 
 or anywise attractive. It will give you many wounds. 
 Young women detect masculine vanity of this order 
 with a quickness that is appalling to the young man 
 They may have had no thought of you at all ! They 
 will then, all the readier, become influenced by your 
 good points, and, above all, by your habitual good 
 treatment of your sister. Be, therefore, on your guard,
 
 60 BROTHER AND SISTER. 
 
 even in self-interest, which is a low guide of action, 
 nevertheless but 
 
 EVEN FOR THIS IGNOBLE REASON. 
 
 
 
 Watch over your sister, to protect her from any 
 association whatever with bad young men, to minister 
 to her wants, to help your parents minister to her 
 health, and to love her with a sincere affection, for 
 as long as you live, you will find her devotion 
 unchangeable, through good and evil report. This 
 same sister may be your companion all through your 
 life. Where single life becomes the destiny of both 
 brother and sister this often happens. In almost every 
 neighborhood there are two persons thus domiciled, 
 honorably fullfilling their duties to society, and often 
 doing greater public service than any other two 
 people of the community. Look therefore upon your 
 sister as perhaps the best friend you will have 
 
 AFTER THE DEATH OF YOUR MOTHER. 
 
 Consider her as the person whose interests may be 
 more closely allied with your own than those of any 
 other soul on earth. It certainly cannot lessen your 
 respect for the high relation she sustains toward your 
 life and your happiness. Counsel her in . exceeding
 
 BROTHER AND SISTER. 
 
 6l 
 
 kindness, for you will find her inclined to retort, as 
 did Ophelia to her brother Laertes, at the head of 
 this chapter, bidding you be sure you " reck your own 
 rede," which was an an ancient form of admonishing 
 one to heed his own advice. 
 
 \
 
 Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 
 The soul that riseth with us, our life's Star, 
 
 Hath elsewhere had its setting, 
 And cometh from afar: 
 
 Not in entire forgetfulness, 
 
 And not in utter darkness, 
 But trailing clouds of glory, do we come 
 
 From God who is our home : 
 Heaven lies about us in our infancy. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 IKE virgin parchment," says 
 Montaigne, " youth is capable 
 of any inscription." Let us 
 have only those inscriptions 
 ^\, which will do us honor in the 
 long years that the parchment 
 will unroll before us. " Unless a tree has 
 borne its blossoms in the spring," writes 
 Bishop Hare, "you will vainly look for 
 fruit on it in autumn." All through the 
 great history of Thiers, wherein he recites 
 the scenes of the French revolution, the 
 Consulate, the Empire, and the rock of 
 St. Helena, there runs one consistent observation 
 
 [62]
 
 YOUTH. 63 
 
 that youth is noble and magnanimous. The thou- 
 sands of characters who " strut their brief- hour " 
 upon the stage in the terrible drama which this his- 
 torian depicts are young and generous, lofty and 
 incorruptible. Then they ripen into manhood, glory 
 waits upon their comings and their goings, and they 
 are soon between two masters, their interests and 
 their consciences. A circumstance threatens their 
 early resolutions, an event overturns their consciences, 
 and a selfish, jealous, ambitious mind thenceforth 
 guides the fortunes of a life. 
 
 HOW FORTUNATE FOR THE RACE OF MAN 
 
 that when the mind is least prejudiced with set beliefs 
 and when the heart is kindliest, it lies in the power 
 of those who have the young near them to bear them 
 frequent counsel, and to strengthen the natural nobility 
 of their natures ! 
 
 A great deal can be accomplished in the early 
 years of life. Many men have made all their fame 
 in the morning, and enjoyed it through the rest of 
 their lives. Alexander, Pompey, Hannibal, Scipio, 
 Napoleon, Charles XII., Alexander Hamilton, Shelley, 
 Keats, Bryant hundreds of examples readily come
 
 64 YOUTH. 
 
 to the recollection, showing how thoroughly the mind 
 can be trusted even in its immaturity. Youth is 
 beautiful. It is " the gay and pleasant spring of life, 
 . when joy is stirring in the dancing blood, and nature 
 calls us with a thousand songs to share her general 
 feast." "Keep true to the dreams of thy youth," 
 sings Schiller. We love the young. " The girls we 
 love for what they are," says Goethe, " young men 
 for what they promise to be." " The lovely time of 
 youth," says Jean Paul Richter, " is 
 
 OUR ITALY AND GREECE, 
 
 full of gods and temples." Let not the Vandals and 
 Goths of after-life swoop down *upon this sunny 
 region in our lives ; yet if they do, may we not look 
 upon our noble ruins, our Coliseum and our Parthenon, 
 in a kind of classic love that shall endear and sanctify 
 the rights of the young about us and lengthen out 
 their "golden age." Youth should be young. Says 
 Shakspeare : "Youth no less becomes 
 
 THE LIGHT AND CARELESS LIVERY THAT IT WEARS, 
 
 than settled age its sables and its weeds, importing 
 health and graveness." Youth is like Adam's early 
 walk in the Garden of Paradise. u The senses," says
 
 'Youth is our Italy and Greece, full of Gods and Temples." 
 
 Page, 64.
 
 YOUTH. 65 
 
 Edmund Burke, " are unworn and tender, and the 
 whole frame is awake in every part." The dew lies 
 upon the grass. No smoke of busy life has darkened 
 or stained the morning of our day. The pure light 
 shines about us. " If any little mist happen to rise," 
 says Willmott, " the sunbeam of hope catches and 
 glorifies it." 
 
 Youth is rash. It " skips like the hare over the 
 meshes of good counsel," says Shakspeare. Then let 
 our nets and snares of benevolence be laid with the 
 more cunning. Youth is a continual intoxication," 
 says Rochefoucauld ; " it is the fever of reason." We 
 must cool this fever, spread around it cheering flowers 
 of truth, bathe it in the water-brooks of gentleness 
 and self-sacrifice. " Young men," according to Ches- 
 terfield, " are apt to think themselves wise enough, as 
 drunken men are to think themselves sober enough," 
 yet joined with this self-esteem, we find that " youth 
 is ever confiding ; and we can almost forgive its dis- 
 inclination to follow the counsels of age, for the sake 
 of the generous disdain with which it rejects suspic- 
 ion." " How charming the young would be," writes 
 Arthur Helps, " with their freshness, fearlessness, and
 
 66 YOUTH. 
 
 truthfulness, if only to take a metaphor from paint- 
 ing they would make more use of grays and other 
 neutral tints, instead of dabbing on so wrecklessly the 
 strongest positives in color." Why should their colors 
 not be rich ? Are not the hues upon their cheeks as 
 rich as the sunset ? 
 
 DOES NOT THE CHERRY 
 
 " dab on " the scarlet and the carmine direct from 
 the- gorgeous sun himself ? Age marvels at the 
 happiness of youth. The sombre lessons of the world 
 have left their marks on the mind of the one ; the 
 other has everything to learn. It would seem as 
 though its residence had been (as the poet has written 
 so beautifully at the head of the chapter) in some 
 Paradise, whence, it issued to this earth, "trailing 
 clouds of glory " as it came. Age has suffered from 
 the heats and dust of the previous day, and sees in 
 the blood-red "copper sun," only the indication of 
 another march of weariness and thirst. 
 
 YOUTH BREATHES THE DEWY AIR, 
 
 and beholds only the roseate tints of the sunrise. 
 Why should not its heart rejoice ? Says Lord Lytton : 
 "Let youth cherish the happiest of earthly boons
 
 YOUTH. 67 
 
 while yet it is at its command ; for there cometh a 
 day to all ' when neither the voice of the lute nor the 
 birds ' shall bring back the sweet slumbers that fall 
 on their young eyes as unbidden as the dews." "Youth 
 holds no society with grief," says old Euripides. 
 Perhaps, rather, it makes those " formal calls " which 
 have no feeling in them. 
 
 THE LITTLE GIRL'S KITTEN DIES, 
 
 and the little human heart is inconsolable for half an 
 hour. In half a day, when asked to tell her greatest 
 grief, she will relate an accident to her doll, forgetting 
 the poor kitten yet waiting for burial ! How could 
 those lips and cheeks retain their delicate tints if the 
 wet seasons of grief set in with tropical intensity ? 
 Lord Lytton, often, in his highly colored writings, 
 cries out " O youth ! O youth ! " and there is a world 
 of regret in the exclamation. " O the joy of young 
 ideas," sighs Hannah Moore, " painted on the mind, 
 in the warm, glowing colors which fancy spreads on 
 objects not yet known, when all is new and all is 
 lovely ! " 
 
 SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 has justly claimed the respect and admiration of the
 
 68 YOUTH. 
 
 world for many high qualities of mind. One of the 
 most admirable of his remarks is an admonition to 
 youth, which runs as follows : " Use thy youth sc 
 that thou mayest have comfort to remember it when 
 it hath forsaken thee, and not sigh and grieve at the 
 account thereof. Use it as the spring-time which 
 soon departeth, and wherein thou ought est to plant 
 and sow all provisions for a long and happy life." 
 But this is difficult to do. The march of youth is 
 through a mountainous country. The scenery is 
 changing, but the progress is not encouraging. " Self- 
 flattered, unexperienced, high in hope when young," 
 says the poet Young, " with sanguine cheer and 
 streamers gay, we cut our cable, launch into the 
 world, and fondly dream each wind and star our friend." 
 How many youths have believed they would, by merit 
 alone, rise to the Presidency of the United States 
 
 THE FIRST MAN IN FIFTY MILLIONS ! 
 
 Youth keeps a diary, into which it pours a volume of 
 " thought " that seems a very mine of gems. - Take 
 up tha't chronicle at middle age and see its weak and 
 driveling character. Observe the almost total lack 
 of one idea that will aid you to some honorable end !
 
 YOUTH. 69 
 
 And yet there is something touching even in the great 
 trust and confidence of childhood. How sweet and 
 true are the beautiful lines of Thomas Hood called 
 " I remember, I remember : 
 
 I remember, I remember, 
 
 The fir trees dark and high ; 
 I used to think their slender tops 
 
 Were close against the sky ; 
 It was a childish ignorance, 
 
 But now 'tis little joy 
 To know I'm further off from heaven 
 
 Than when I was a boy. 
 
 Dr. Watts lays down to youth that it should have 
 a decent and agreeable behavior among men, " a mod- 
 est freedom of speech, a soft and elegant manner of 
 address, a graceful and lovely deportment, a cheerful 
 gravity and good humor, with a mind appearing ever 
 serene under the ruffling accidents of life." This 
 programme of action is far beyond the reach of a 
 well-balanced adult, much further the inexperienced 
 and untried mind of younger life. But the character 
 which should attain to such angelic proportions^ would 
 truly have a reverent place among men's memories. 
 
 THE ALPENA. 
 
 Youth has no knowledge of God's power. The 
 confidence that early years implant in the mind supplies
 
 70 YOUTH. 
 
 an unsubstantial substitute. I have pictured to myself 
 an illustration : A bright young man is present at a 
 grand concert. It is between the parts. He bends 
 suavely over the back of a lady's chair and talks 
 sweet music to her ear. He says : " Could you not 
 follow every thought of the composer in that symph- 
 ony ? " (which they have just heard). "And was not 
 the effect sublime when the storm reached the heights 
 of the mountains, and all the elements of Nature 
 struggled so stubbornly ? " And the young woman 
 demurely gives him an assuring look which con- 
 serves all her interests ; whereupon he backs off in 
 triumph, and feels that the concert is worth his week's 
 wages after all ! 
 
 AGAIN, 
 
 this young man at <jrand Haven, on the western 
 border of Lake Michigan, boards the structure of 
 pine wood and ten-penny nails called the Alpena. 
 The Alpena floats out into her last night into the 
 valley of the shadow of death. Presently the young 
 man feels his vessel and his life trembling like a cap- 
 tive wild bird in a remorseless grasp. Anon this 
 trembling grows into the awful, final, fatal paroxysms.
 
 YOUTH. yi 
 
 Then suddenly the mind of the young man breaks 
 from the shackles of vanity and self-sufficiency, and 
 he views, for the first time, the visible forms of 
 angered Nature. He recalls his white gloves, his 
 former complete idea of a storm, his triumphant, au 
 revoir retreat from the opera-box, and, as the discords 
 of the Everlasting gradually resolve toward the 
 diapason, the full chantj of His solemn eternity, the 
 young man cries out, in a spirit of revelation, " What 
 a worm am I ! " and adds his own piteous tragedy to 
 the unheard murmurs of bubbling death and muddy 
 burial ! 
 
 " REMEMBER NOW THY CREATOR, 
 
 in the days of thy youth,'' says Solomon. ' "Train up 
 a child in the way he should go, '' says the proverb, 
 "and when he is old he will not depart from it." Be 
 not afraid of the sneers of the ungodly. "As the crack- 
 ing of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of a 
 fool." " The fairest flower in the garden of creation," 
 says Sir James E. Smith, " is a young mind, offering 
 and unfolding itself to the influence of Divine Wis- 
 dom, as the heliotrope turns its sweet blossoms to 
 the sun."
 
 72 YOUTH. 
 
 Lord Bacon, in his forty-third essay, thus sums up 
 the qualities of youth : " Young men are fitter to 
 invent than to judge ; fitter for execution than for 
 counsel ; and fitter for new projects than for settled 
 business. For the experience of age, in things that 
 fall within the compass of it, directeth them ; but in 
 new things abuseth them. The errors of young men 
 are the ruin of business ; 
 
 BUT THE ERRORS OF AGED MEN 
 
 amount to but this, that more might have been done, 
 or sooner. Young men in the conduct and manage 
 of actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir 
 more than they can quiet; fly to the end without 
 consideration of the means and degrees, pursue 
 some few principles which they have chanced upon 
 absurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown 
 inconveniences ; use extreme remedies at first ; and, 
 that which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge 
 or retract them like an unready horse, they will 
 neither stop nor turn." 
 
 THE HARD-PAN SERIES. 
 
 Now with this wise parallel of youth and age before 
 me, with the importance which I attach to this period
 
 YOUTH. 73 
 
 of life as the precise moment at which the final cast 
 of the clay of life is set, and with the belief in Goethe's 
 statement that the destiny of any nation, at any given 
 time, depends on the opinions of its young men under 
 twenty-five years of age, I beg to call the especial 
 attention of the young to a Hard-Pan Series of ten 
 chapters which follow, devoted largely to just this 
 forming-period of life, when the mould is ready and the 
 governing characteristics are fast pouring in. I beg 
 parents and preceptors, if they approve my efforts, to 
 lend their aid in attracting toward these admonitions 
 such consideration as their merit shall warrant, and I 
 have so endeavored to dispose the bitterness of 
 practical advice as to both somewhat cover its 
 presence and gratify a youthful and adventurous 
 literary taste.
 
 Give thy thoughts no tongue, 
 Nor any unproportioned thought his act. 
 Be thou familiar but by no means vulgar; 
 Do not dull thy palm with entertainment 
 Of each new hatched unfledged comrade 
 Give every man thine ear but few thy voice; 
 Take each man's counsel but reserve thy judgment. 
 
 SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 OU live. To live is costly. 
 Who will pay for it? Your soul 
 cries out "I." But how will you 
 get the money ? " Oh ! I'll get it ! " 
 that is the confident cry of youth. 
 The confidence oozes out as life length- 
 ens and yet there are certain lines of 
 action which, if followed, in this bright 
 land of liberty, are sure to result in the ac- 
 cumulation of something for our old age. 
 
 THE MYSTERIOUS JUNIUS 
 
 one of the great exemplars in the matter of keeping a 
 secret wrote to his publisher: "Let all your views 
 
 [741
 
 PRUDENCE IN SPEECH. 75 
 
 in life, therefore, be directed to a solid, however mod- 
 erate independence. Without it no man can be hap- 
 py, nor even honest." This celebrated sentence was 
 written by a man who was refusing a proffer 
 of money for his writings (then in print) and it 
 should not be read as inspiring one to avarice. 
 The vice of avarice is more honest than envy, 
 but is not the less unpleasant and reprehensible. Let 
 us suppose you are fortunate enough to have some 
 grit and spunk about you. At the earliest point prac- 
 ticable you get something to do. Perhaps at a Fourth 
 of July celebration your Sunday schoof teacher trusts 
 you in a booth to deal out lemonade and handle mon- 
 ey. It is a good beginning. Perhaps you are 
 
 ESTABLISHED BEHIND A COUNTER 
 
 in a general store and intrusted with the great secret 
 of a cost-mark, fully as important a secret, 
 let me assure you, as you can buy in the most secret 
 of places ! What spot in your character will " wear 
 down " the quickest ? When you were little it was 
 your toes. They were copper-plated. Now the 
 wear falls where copper will not protect you. 
 Nothing but experience will now serve as the copper
 
 76 PRUDENCE IN SPEECH. 
 
 did then. The first place that " rubs " will be 
 
 YOUR TONGUE. 
 
 When you have conquered the natural inclination to 
 be what is familiarly known as a " smarty, " there is 
 still a greater wisdom to acquire. Avoid hearing, 
 where it is not absolutely necessary, anything that you 
 will have to keep secret. The less secrets you have 
 the less discretion will be necessary to protect them. 
 After you have heard a thing from your employer, keep 
 it to yourself. The youth who talks about his employ- 
 er's business must have other marvelous faculties to 
 succeed in life. He is a Blind Tom. He plays the 
 piano, but the wonder is how he does it. It must be 
 that it would hurt your feelings if you heard another 
 merchant say of your employer that he keeps a pretty 
 good boy, except that 
 
 HE "BLABS A GOOD DEAL." 
 
 If you can shut up your mouth now, you can keep 
 it shut when you get to be Secretary of the Treasury 
 and a whole syndicate of bankers are trying to pump 
 out of you whether you mean to pay off $100,000,000 
 of 5 per cent bonds the next week, or merely reduce 
 the interest i^ per cent. If they could tell, they
 
 PRUDENCE IN SPEECH. 77 
 
 could make a million dollars, and unless you have 
 been all your life a discreet man, be assured they 'will 
 tell. If your employer's rivals in business find out 
 through you where your people get a certain line of 
 goods, how much is paid for it, or 
 
 THE TIME ON WHICH IT IS BOUGHT, 
 
 be assured you will never succeed either as a man in 
 business for yourself, or as a worker under the direc. 
 tion of others. Your employer may be embarrassed 
 and the fatal knowledge may have come into your 
 unlucky ears. You will hear it whispered all around 
 you. Why ? Because no one knows " for sure." 
 Everybody wants to see if you know anything about 
 it. Can you not see how much luckier you would 
 have been had you really known nothing of the 
 state of things? A word, a look, from you, may turn 
 from your employer just the helping hand that would 
 have carried him across a tight place. How many 
 battles have been won by the arrival, just in time, of 
 a reinforcement ! Make it a point that, if you are 
 inclined 
 
 TO " BLOW YOUR AFFAIRS," 
 
 you were not cut out for " business." You had better
 
 78 PRUDENCE IN SPEECH. 
 
 become a lecturer, a farmer, or something else, and 
 occupy a field where industry alone will save all your 
 interests. Remember the miserable barber of King 
 Midas in mythology. The King had been cursed by 
 the offended god Apollo with asses' ears. To hide 
 his deformity he had his barber dress the hair over the 
 ears, and the barber was~*then sworn with an awful 
 oath of secrecy. But the " tonsorial artist " (as they 
 call him in the city ! ) was one of those people who 
 could not stand the pressure. He went out in the field 
 and dug a little hole, and 
 
 INTO THIS HOLE HE BREATHED THE SECRET 
 
 that His Majesty had been smitten by Apollo. What 
 was the astonishment of the world ut hearing the 
 reeds that grew hard by whispering among them- 
 selves, whenever the wind blew them confidentially 
 together, " King Midas hath asses' ears ! " 
 
 Be in mortal fear of the first error in this regard. 
 When a boy has made a record for bad, it seems to 
 hang to him. The fact that he has told something 
 which he ought to have kept to himself is quoted 
 against him until it becomes a positive habit to speak 
 about it every time his name is mentioned.
 
 PRUDENCE IN SPEECH. 79 
 
 "Jimmie, where's your outside man ? I heard he 
 was in town. His cousin asked me to inquire." 
 
 " Oh ! no ! he's not in town. He went out on 
 the road last night. He will be in Eagertown to-mor- 
 row, Brightside Wednesday, and Upearly Saturday." 
 
 That is exactly what was wanted out of you, and 
 you must excuse your questioner if he hurries on, so 
 as not to be seen pumping you any longer than is 
 necessary. 
 
 Now this style of gaining information is low and 
 contemptible, but of two boys who talked, one of 
 whom said a good deal that did not amount to much, 
 learning a good deal that did, and the other letting out 
 a great deal and learning nothing, there can be little 
 doubt of the business success of the first as compared 
 to that of the second. 
 
 Put a copper-toe on your tongue. Remember that 
 Gen. Grant made a great part of his fame by letting 
 other folks do his talking.
 
 When ray friends are blind of one eye, I look at them in profile. 
 
 JOUBERT. 
 
 'HERE is no outward sign of 
 courtesy that does not rest on a 
 deep moral foundation. If you 
 are always courteous without 
 difficulty, you are endowed with 
 a nature naturally moral. You are 
 naturally a gentleman. Anyhow, you 
 are behind the counter, and you desire 
 to sell goods. You wish to have 
 customers brighten up when they see 
 you. Very well, brighten up yourself. 
 You ought to be glad to see them. If 
 they are not glad, they, perhaps, have 
 less reason for joy. They are about to part with 
 their money in order to get something they cannot 
 part with so easily. You went to work in the 
 morning hoping a good many people would come in. 
 Now here they are. You can smile on the young 
 
 lady, but can you smile on the old , woman ? You 
 [80]
 
 COURTESY. 8 1 
 
 can if you are a man. It is nothing but good-breeding 
 to do it. What is this boasted word " good-breeding ?" 
 It is "the result of much good sense, some good 
 nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of 
 others, and with a view to obtain the same indulgence 
 from them." Chesterfield, a man who was as 
 prominent in England as Daniel Webster in America, 
 expressed his astonishment that anybody who had 
 good sense and good nature could essentially fail in 
 good-breeding. 
 
 STUDY YOUR CUSTOMER. 
 
 If he or she be brusque, be yourself pliable, respectful, 
 and by all means quick. Do not stand in front of 
 him or her with your head down ready to hook or to 
 butt. You are glad the customer has come in. That 
 should solve the wht>le problem. In the city you are re- 
 quired to " put up with " the bad mannered fashion that 
 people have of treating a clerk as if he were a piece 
 of furniture, but in the town this is all changed. A 
 majority of the citizens knew you, and all regard you 
 with better breeding than would the city customer. 
 You are young and positive, because you know very 
 
 little about life. Curb yourself, Let the customer 
 
 *
 
 g 2 COURTESY. 
 
 make all the statements he has to make. He will 
 run out of them presently. In case he want any of 
 yours, he will then ask for them, and literally be at 
 your mercy. As to 
 
 YOUR HANDS, 
 
 have them very clean. It will be a positive advantage 
 to you to wear no rings. In case the people like 
 jewelry, it distracts their attention from the great idea 
 (a sale); in case they do not like gew-gaws, it will 
 put you in opposition. Make your great effort in the 
 direction you think the customer's mind is taking. 
 Sell him what he thinks he wants first. So much, 
 sure. Then, if he changes his mind, it will be to your 
 profit, generally. When the customer speaks to you. 
 it gives you your programme. If he be cheery, imitate 
 him. He is your friend and is giving you an example, 
 If he look hard at you, 
 
 LOOK RESPECTFULLY 
 
 at him. Serve him with alacrity, say nothing' not 
 necessary, and the joy in your heart will thaw him 
 out before long. Express to your customers your 
 desire that they should come again, never by words, 
 because that is too difficult, except in a barber-shop,
 
 COURTESY. 83 
 
 where it is a custom but by opening the door for 
 them at their departure, even if you have to keep 
 another customer waiting, and by thanking them on 
 receipt of the money, or upon delivery of the goods 
 if it be on account. There are very few people who 
 will remain cold toward you after they find out you 
 are really glad to see them. The general store of 
 the rural town makes 
 
 THE FINEST-MANNERED MEN IN THE COUNTRY, 
 
 respectful, dignified, alert, and unruffled. I saw a 
 clerk at the postal-money-order office in St Paul. 
 The Swedes and Poles go there often to send away 
 money. That young man had such a charming way 
 of showing an old Swedish woman just how to 
 make out an order before she had learned to write, 
 and he had such an awe-stricken way of receiving the 
 instructions of other money-senders who knew all 
 about it, that I felt he was a credit to America, and 
 I mention the reminiscence only with diminished 
 pleasure from the fact that I have forgotten the young 
 man's name. Courteous treatment of a customer is 
 necessary under every conceivable circumstance. It 
 may be a busybody has come in to worry you,
 
 84 COURTESY. 
 
 who never bought a cent's worth of you or anybody 
 else whom you know ; nevertheless her tongue is an 
 advertisement. If you can gain her good will, even 
 comparatively, as weighed by her estimate of other 
 clerks, it is better than a column advertisement in the 
 local papers. When Zachariah Fox, a great 
 merchant of Liverpool, was asked by what means he 
 contrived to amass so large a fortune as he possessed, 
 his reply was : " Friend, by one article alone, and in 
 which thou mayest deal too, if thou pleasest, it is 
 civility. " " Hail ! ye small sweet courtesies of life, 
 for smooth do ye make the road of it, like grace and 
 beauty, which beget inclinations to love at first sight ; 
 it is ye who open the door and let the stranger in. " 
 " We must be as courteous," says 
 
 RALPH WALJDO EMERSON, 
 
 "to a man as we are to a picture, which we are 
 willing to give the advantage of a good light." There 
 is more natural courtesy in the country than in the 
 city, just as there are more privileges where three 
 clerks are at work than where these are a hundred, 
 And then, again, civility seems to be lacking in the 
 city as well naturally as out of necessity. Milton has
 
 COURTESY. 85 
 
 put this forcibly by saying " courtesy oft is sooner 
 found in lowly sheds, with smoky rafters, than in 
 tapestry halls and courts of princes, where it first 
 was named." The small courtesies sweeten life. 
 The great ones ennoble it. The extent to which a 
 man can make himself agreeable, as seen in the lives 
 of Swift, Thomas Moore, Chesterfield, Coleridge, 
 Sydney Smith, Aaron Burr, Edgar Poe, and those 
 odd creatures called 
 
 "BEAUX," SUCH AS BRUMMEL, NASH, ETC., 
 goes to show the immense importance of the art, and 
 its influence in determining the success of any 
 man in business. Good-breeding shows itself the 
 most where to an ordinary eye it appears the least. 
 Says Chesterfield : " How often have I seen the most 
 solid merit and knowledge neglected, unwelcome, and 
 even rejected; while flimsy parts, little knowledge, and 
 less merit, introduced by the Graces, have been 
 received, cherished, and admired." You have seen 
 beautiful swords of auroral flame dart into the zenith ; 
 you have seen marvelous flights of meteors, which 
 were gone ere your admiration had given rise to a 
 cry of pleasure. So it is with manners. They
 
 86 COURTESY. 
 
 irradiate our presence, giving to GUI' associates 
 
 MOMENTARY VIEWS 
 
 of those qualities which are universally loved and re- 
 spected gentleness, unselfishness, gladness and peace. 
 Your clothes, while under twenty-five years of age, 
 should be very neat. Your shirt should be clean. 
 This does not imply that you are to break extra backs 
 to keep fresh shirts ready for you, but that you are to 
 make extra efforts to keep the one you have on un- 
 soiled for a decent length of time. If your clothes are 
 dark, get in the habit of wearing a black silk or satin 
 neck-tie and wear it some one way all your life. It 
 helps people to " place " you. Generally a sack coat 
 makes a very tall man look shorter, and a frock-coat 
 looks all the better for a change. The clothes should 
 be loose, so that they will 
 
 OCCUPY AS LITTLE OF THE MIND AS POSSIBLE. 
 
 The young man who purposely keeps his mind on his 
 fine clothes is lost. He is a coxcomb. He has no 
 greater influence with the young ladies for all his fine 
 feathers. Let me leave you selling a large bill, 
 remembering that civility costs nothing and buys
 
 COURTESY. 
 
 87 
 
 everything, and feeling that the very perfection of 
 good manners is not to think of yourself.
 
 Behold there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand. 
 
 I KINGS, XVIII, 44. 
 
 RANKLIN says that, if you 
 know how to spend less than you 
 get, you have the philosopher's 
 stone. Cicero, many hundreds of 
 rears before Ben Franklin said : 
 "Economy is of itself a great 
 revenue," and another Roman writer 
 put it still better when he said : 
 " There is no gain so certain as that 
 which arises from sparing what you have." 
 " Beware of small expenses," again writes 
 Franklin ; " a small leak will sink a great ship." 
 In our large cities there are thousands of servant girls 
 earning from two and a half to three dollars a week. 
 The men who employ them often get from twenty-five 
 to one hundred dollars per week, yet it is a notorious 
 fact that the prudent servant girl usually has more 
 money at her command, clear of all debts, than her 
 
 [88]
 
 ECONOMY. 189 
 
 employer) whose expenses scrape very closely against 
 his income. Now you are on a salary in a store. 
 Perhaps that salary is yours, to spend as you see fit. 
 If so, remember that, like the highest officer in the 
 land, you have certain duties. If you were President 
 you could not appoint your old schoolmate Secretary 
 of State unless he had made as much progress in 
 politics as yourself. So, too, 
 
 IN YOUR MONEY MATTERS, 
 
 you cannot make yourself so valuable to your 
 employer that he will not, before he advances you, 
 inquire into your personal expenses, and find out what 
 you do with your money. If you have spent it, year 
 after year, as fast as you could get it, he will have 
 great misgivings about letting you into a position 
 where your desire to distribute currency can possibly 
 lead you to practice on his funds. Among the easy 
 ways to spend money in a small town is the habit of 
 hiring livery-rigs. The business is just as useful as a 
 drug-store, but no poor boy should hire equipages for 
 mere pleasure. To attend a funeral, or to take a sick 
 mother or sister out in the sunshine, is commendable. 
 The youth who does that rarely needs the other sugges-
 
 9 ECONOMY. 
 
 tion, however, for those who spend the most money at a 
 livery stable are usually seen with their mothers and 
 sisters the least. No young man who thinks well of 
 himself will enter a saloon at all. Often the worst 
 classes in the whole country frequent 
 
 RURAL SALOONS, 
 
 men who dare not walk through the streets of any of 
 the large cities. Perhaps at the card-table in the 
 groggery across the street is a man who has come to 
 your town to break into your employer's store ! 
 Anyway, there is no " business " in the world which 
 returns so little for the money accepted as the saloon. 
 Take 
 
 A GALLON OF WHISKY, 
 
 for instance. It is worth a dollar to a dollar and a 
 half. It has been taxed ninety cents by the 
 Government, leaving it worth that much less. Well, 
 now, a man is expected to go into a saloon, and, for 
 about three tablespoonsful of this stuff, he pays ten 
 cents in the town and fifteen cents in the city. Your 
 news dealer pays eight cents for an illustrated paper, 
 and twenty-eight cents for a popular magazine. He
 
 ECONOMY. 91 
 
 sells the one for ten cents and the other for thirty-five 
 cents, taking all the risk of not getting a sale. If 
 you could afford to travel with such people as are 
 found in saloons, in the first place, and to put such 
 truly abominable stuff in your mouth in the second 
 place, you could not, even then, in the third place, 
 afford to give fifteen cents for what is in fact worth 
 less than a mill. You are in reality giving away your 
 money to the Government and the saloon keeper. 
 
 LET VANDERBILT SUPPORT THE GOVERNMENT, 
 
 and those who have made their fortunes and their 
 bad habits the saloon-keeper. I have dwelt on this, 
 because these are few young men who are not tempt- 
 ed. All the above applies to tobacco. It is an utter- 
 ly obnoxious habit to use tobacco. It is the cause, 
 together with the dough falsely called pastry, of all 
 the dyspepsia in our climate. It ruins the eyes, it 
 costs money in vast quantities, returning almost noth- 
 ing in goods, and has but one redeeming feature that 
 I know of it is 
 
 JUST AS BAD ON MOTHS AS IT IS ON MEN, 
 
 and it makes a musty room smell a little better. If 
 you can keep out of saloons and shooting galleries,
 
 tyi ECONOMY; 
 
 'you will not play billiards or cards both very e*> 
 pensive you will not use tobacco, and you will be 
 less apt to go to dances and hire livery teams. 
 Should you preserve yourself against these vices of 
 our young men, you will have money without deny- 
 ing yourself clothes as handsome as a poor young 
 man looks well in. Three short years' savings will 
 put you in possession of a sum of money sufficient to 
 set you to thinking about business for yourself, 
 either with your employer or alone, for 
 
 LIFE IN AMERICA IS SHORT. 
 
 A man is a failure almost before he thinks he ought 
 to have been considered as started. If you have 
 been receiving small remuneration, be assured that a 
 capital all the smaller is needed in your town. The 
 market value of labor is the largest element in the 
 problem of business. If you worked cheap, then 
 others will, and if they will, it is because living is 
 cheap. The high-priced man in the city has to be 
 paid highly because of his expenses, not because he 
 has taken a vow to save a large amount of money. 
 " He who is taught to live upon little owes more to 
 his father's wisdom than he that has a great deal left
 
 ECONOMY. 93 
 
 to him does to his father's care," says William Penn. 
 " He is a good wagoner who can turn in 
 a little room," says Bishop Hall. How many a 
 man, in getting a costly home, has found 
 that old Franklin was right when he said it was easier 
 to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel. 
 Therefore, when you get anything, 
 
 BEWARE IT ENTAILS LITTLE EXPENSE OF KEEPING. 
 
 A horse will eat you poor ; a gun will cost you a 
 hundred guns. Think of it when you buy them, 
 and yon will thereafter have no regrets, besides being 
 less apt to make such purchases. " Gain may be 
 temporary and uncertain," says Franklin, " but 
 expense is constant and certain." " Not to be covet- 
 ous is money ; not to be a purchaser is income," 
 says Cicero. "A fool and his money are soon part- 
 ed, " says the adage. " Live by hope, and you will 
 die by despair," says tjie Italian proverb. Save all 
 you can honorably. J-f^rness it up and make it pull 
 also by bringing in to you a little interest. Here 
 will be your first real business move one of grave 
 importance. The little cloud that ^riseth put of the
 
 94 
 
 ECONOMY. 
 
 sea, like a man's hand, will soon cover your financial 
 sky, and bring an abundant shower of the good 
 things of this life.
 
 I dare do all that may become a man ; 
 Who dares do more is none. SHAKSPEARE, 
 
 OURAGE is adversity's lamp. 
 Perhaps the young man's courage 
 is more sorely tried than that of the 
 man of middle age, for age dreads 
 the whip of events, while youth 
 champs their bit. Youth cannot endure 
 the thought of a long siege. The ladders 
 must be put against the walls, the breach 
 must be clambered through, and if the citadel 
 be strong, the rash onset will be repulsed 
 with heavy loss. But Hope dotes on 
 youth. The young are her flock, her fold, 
 her children. Into the hands of her children she puts 
 the scimetar of courage, and bids them go forth 
 again. Let us suppose you have been cast down 
 your ladder, and have little but your courage. It 
 may be necessary to leave your pleasant little town 
 and seek employment where men are used as machines 
 in the great cities. Such a fate is, indeed, a sad 
 
 [951
 
 06 COURAGE. 
 
 reverse. The safety of home, the magazines of mor- 
 al ammunition stored all about you, the bomb-proofs 
 against the shells of soul-destruction aimed at every 
 soldier in life, will all be torn from you, and you will 
 be as a Knight of the Cross, alone on the desert. 
 Perhaps 
 
 YOU HAVE REACHED THE GREAT CITY. 
 
 Now buckle on your armor. You do not need an 
 intrepid courage, now ; intrepid courage may have 
 brought you here ; intrepid courage is but a holiday 
 kind of a virtue, to be seldom exercised, as experience 
 will teach you. You need firmness to resist all kinds 
 of attacks. You need good-nature, and yet you must 
 repel temptation with a look as black as Erebus. 
 You need affability, yet you must speak almost by 
 rote, and the opportunities to keep from speaking 
 outnumber the exigencies in which you must speak 
 by ten to one. You must be tender, and yet you 
 must be cruel as a surgeon. Without these opposites 
 well balanced in your character, you will not fight 
 the battle successfully. 
 
 NAPOLEON 
 
 won his battles by hurling ten thousand rrjen upon
 
 COURAGE. 
 
 97 
 
 two thousand. Simple, was it not? Now you are 
 one young soldier. You will have to find a place in 
 the enemy's lines which is even weaker than you 
 before you can throw yourself against it with success. 
 You, therefore, cannot be too circumspect. If the 
 General pushes two thousand men against one thous- 
 and, on ground that is otherwise even, he is a 
 wise leader, but if he finds four thousand enemies 
 there, and if his principal attack is hazarded in the 
 action, he is always accounted a daring fool. Let 
 me recall 
 
 THE ATTACK OF A YOUNG MAN 
 
 who broke through the enemy's lines, in the City of 
 Chicago. He got eight dollars a week in a city on 
 the Mississippi River, and was led to believe that, if 
 he went to Chicago, he could get ten dollars. He 
 was employed as a clerk in a Commercial Agency, 
 a business which aims to ascertain the standing 
 and degree of success or lack of fortune of the retail 
 dealers ot the region it covers. He felt that eight 
 dollars a week were all that he could ever get where 
 he was. Upon his arrival in the City of Chicago he 
 was put at work for seven dollars, the representations 
 
 7
 
 98 COURAGE. 
 
 made to him having proven unreliable. There were 
 about fifty young men and women in the same room. 
 Seated at his desk when eight o'clock came, he 
 found that his chances to rise were seemingly re- 
 stricted to the hours of noon and six o'clock. In this 
 way he worked for six months. He was fortunate 
 enough to obtain board at five dollars a week, leaving 
 him, after his washing, perhaps a dollar and a quarter 
 clear. To a man of twenty-five years who could 
 see the real difficulties of his future, the need of a 
 high quality of moral courage was urgent. And he 
 had it. He got acquainted with a humble friend, 
 considerably better off, who therefore, could talk 
 to him very bravely of the dignity of labor, and the 
 honor of paying one's way, even if it took only five 
 dollars and seventy-five cents to do it. This young 
 friend did thus encourage and inspire the young 
 clerk, and he was able to set about improving his 
 mind. 
 
 HE READ THE BIBLE THROUGH 
 
 g 
 
 during this six months, and thus acquired a style of 
 simple expression which would be of value to him in 
 liis reports when he should travel. He read Plutarch's
 
 COURAGE. 99 
 
 Laves. He studied French, and read " The Man Who 
 Laughs" and " Paul and Virginia," two remarkably 
 different works. You see he was a man of persistence. 
 But such a mind finds the humiliation of a dollar and 
 a quarter a week all the more bitter. A 
 man conversing with Plutarch about the relative 
 merits of Pompey and Lucullus, or of Marius and 
 Sylla, dislikes to be 
 
 DOCKED THREE HOURS 
 
 for being ten minutes late, and dislikes to return to 
 his landlady at the end of the week and give her five- 
 sevenths of the whole spoil of Bythnia and the 
 Propontis ! One day the second assistant manager 
 spoke to him, and this ray of hope lit his way to a 
 seat on a high stool to write out " tickets " for 
 merchants who send in to see about Blow & Co., of 
 Bugleville. This gave him eight dollars a week, and 
 enabled him to go to a theatre once in a while and 
 hear , 
 
 SHAKSPEARE'S PLAYS. 
 
 One night he approached his friend and announced 
 that the die was cast, and that he should become an 
 actor. Nothing could be worse than he was doing.
 
 100 COURAGE. 
 
 Absolutely no business paid less than eight dollars per 
 week, unless it were his own itself which had paid 
 him seven dollars. It was a summer month. A 
 theatre was empty. A dramatic agent had agreed 
 to get up a company and run the place a week. It 
 would require only twenty-five dollars from the young 
 man. He would then be a sharer in the profits, 
 would be given a minor part in the cast of characters, 
 and would thereafter be secured 
 
 AN ENGAGEMENT WITH JOHN M'CULLOUGH 
 
 or John Raymond at about fifteen dollars a week. 
 The dramatic agent was to have ten dollars from the 
 first week's salary of the regular engagement. As 
 he was working at absolutely bottom figures (board 
 usually costing at least six dollars a week) and as he 
 was skillful at his business, and could command 
 work at all times if he were willing to work for his 
 board, the young man thought he was not very rash 
 in making an attempt, and yet it seemed to the friend 
 of the young man like the memorable jump of the fish 
 out of the frying-pan. The difficulty of going back 
 to work after a failure was entirely overlooked. The 
 young man paid his twenty-five dollars, absolutely
 
 COURAGE. 10 1 
 
 the frugal hoard of six months of toil, got a leave of 
 absence for three weeks, and studied all one week, 
 meanwhile eating five dollars' worth of very poor 
 board. 
 
 HE "ACTED" THROUGH THE WEEK 
 
 up to Thursday, when the company failed to pay in 
 advance for the gas, and it was shut off. He spent 
 the next two or three days preparing himself for a 
 part in " The Gilded Age." On the second night the 
 "heavy man," Raymond, became enraged at the 
 manner in which this part was borne, and demanded 
 that the character be given into the hands of another 
 person. This was the finishing stroke. The young 
 man stayed at " home " for three days, and on Friday 
 night went to see his more fortunate associate. To 
 his friend, who perhaps saw things in a prejudiced 
 light, it seemed like a conspiracy to make good the 
 dramatic agent's word of promise to keep it to the 
 ear and break-it to the hope. 
 
 THE YOUNG MAN'S MONEY WAS GONE, 
 
 he was in debt for three weeks' board, and he had 
 been ruthlessly and ignominiously branded with failure. 
 He reverted to Brutus at Philippi, to Cato, and he
 
 102 COURAGE. 
 
 was nearly on the verge of suicide. It may be that 
 the cheering words of his friend brought out his true 
 but latent courage. What were a troop of vulgar and 
 ill-mannered players to him ? What was a dramatic 
 agent but a harpy ? He was worth a whole theatre 
 full of actors such as had worked almost his ruin. 
 Go back and put his nose down to the grindstone, his 
 desk, where, at least they paid men enough to live on, 
 and did not make it necessary to cheat a poor landlady ! 
 
 JEREMY COLLIER 
 
 has said that " true courage is the result of reasoning. 
 Resolution lies more in the head than in the veins, 
 and a just sense of honor and of infamy, of duty and 
 religion, will carry us farther than all the force of 
 mechanism." The young man had the courage to 
 go back. His friend was gratified. As the months 
 passed the bitterness departed. Christmas Day the 
 young man was sent to the Stock Yards to do a 
 week's reporting. That Christmas-week was one of 
 the coldest ever seen in this climate. The young 
 man's unweathered ears and nose were badly frost- 
 bitten. But notwithstanding this great obstacle of a 
 cold snap he made a success of his expedition. His
 
 COUkAGE. 103 
 
 imports demonstrated that the Bible and Plutarch had 
 not been sown on stony places, and that good English 
 could be used in reporting the standing and prospects 
 of a retail firm as well as in a memorial to Congress. 
 When he got back 
 
 THE MANAGER OF THE HOUSE HIMSELF 
 
 spoke to him, and the second assistant assured him 
 that one of the " outside men " would soon be put 
 aside to give him a chance on the road. When a 
 young man goes on the road his board is paid, so 
 that it is that much of an advance of salary. Six 
 long months, however, ran along at eight dollars a 
 week, and the unsatisfactory man on the road proved 
 more influential than the second assistant. When 
 our young man saw this, he went to the manager, 
 demanded nine dollars a week, and got it after a loud 
 protest from that broad-hearted functionary. The 
 next week this was in the summer he went on the 
 road in place of a sick man, traveled through nearly 
 all the towns in Illinois and Iowa, and made a fine 
 record, both as to the character of his work, his speed, 
 and his expenses. Upon his return a rival firm, hearing 
 of his work, made him a proposition at a thousand
 
 104 COURAGE. 
 
 dollars a year ana expenses, with two months' holiday 
 each year, and he signed a contract. His first year's 
 tramp took him through nearly all the towns of 
 Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and 
 Colorado. He returned in August, with nine hundred 
 dollars in cash credited to his account in the bank and 
 demanded and received fifteen hundred dollars and 
 expenses for going over the same route the next 
 year, and to-day he stands with his head as high among 
 his fellows as any young man in America. Now a 
 retrospect of the young man's short career shows that 
 
 HE HAD GENUINE COURAGE. 
 
 He never failed when he had any chance to succeed. 
 He never will. For such a man the world is not a 
 world of chance. It is almost a certainty. The 
 opportunities are more frequent than the men with 
 courage. 
 
 DURING THE HARDEST WINTER 
 
 since 1842 the young man passed through experiences 
 on the road, brought about by deep snows and 
 blundering Postmasters that would sicken anybody's 
 heart, experiences that without excellent brain-work 
 would simply have stalled anybody, but his coolness,
 
 COURAGE. 105 
 
 his use of the telegraph with unerring judgment in 
 following the movements. of his superior (who was 
 traveling in like difficulties it was like Kepler 
 making a path for Mars while himself riding on the 
 earth, extricated him, and made his journeys little 
 more costly, all told, than those of the preceding year. 
 In the city all depends on courage. This young man 
 espied a few weak places in the enemy's lines. He 
 attacked with vigor. In the charge on the theatre 
 he met the enemy in force and was thrown back with 
 heavy loss, but in all the other onsets the enemy had 
 no force to withstand him. One quality which the 
 young man had in a large measure was the fear of 
 failure. " The brave man is not he who feels no fear, 
 for that were stupid and irrational ; but he whose 
 noble soul its fear subdues, and bravely dares the danger 
 Nature shrinks from." There is a quality much akin 
 to moral courage, which, however, is not present very 
 noticeably in the strongest natures, but which is 
 
 THE ANCHOR TO MANY LIVES. 
 
 I will present it in the following pages. But let me 
 assure you that if you have the truest courage the 
 kind that this young man had you will not need the
 
 io6 
 
 COURAGE. 
 
 quality which I will next take up. Hope rides in 
 a palace-car, along the .railroad, and ever the 
 tremendous bridges which Courage has constructed.
 
 Hope, like the gleaming taper's light, 
 Adorns and cheers the way : 
 
 And still, as darker grows the night, 
 Emits a brighter ray. GOLDSMITH. 
 
 ,OPE is the best part of our 
 riches. For it alone reaches 
 further than any other off in- 
 to the world which is to come. 
 But I am speaking to you of 
 the practical advantages of hope. 
 Bacon says : " Hope is leaf -joy, 
 which may be beaten out to a great exten- 
 sion, like gold. 11 It has been most beauti- 
 fully said by Hillard that the shadow of 
 human life is traced upon a golden 
 ground of immortal hope. Shakspeare 
 says the miserable have no other medicine 
 " Hope is a prodigal young heir, and Experience is his 
 banker, but his drafts are seldom honored, since there is 
 often a heavy balance against him. 1 ' Now to make 
 
 his account good in the First National Bank of Expe- 
 
 [107]
 
 108 HOPE. 
 
 . 
 
 rience, what should Hope do? He plainly should be. 
 gin the deposit of probabilities to draw against. Wal- 
 ter Scott says : " Hope is brightest when it dawns from 
 fears," and I should think his drafts would be honored 
 just so far as they were drawn with circumspection. 
 " Folly ends " writes Cowper " where genuine hope be- 
 gins." But where there is no hope there can be no 
 endeavor, so whether it exist in superabundance or not 
 let us cultivate it as one of the loveliest of the flowers 
 of life, as absolutely the sweetest perfume that ever 
 burns in the Golden Censer. Let me tell you how 
 
 HOPE ALONE SAVED THE LIFE 
 
 of one of the finest young men in the land. He was 
 the son of a wealthy wine merchant who had failed in 
 business near Bath-Easton, England. Like many oth. 
 er lads, he felt the sting of circumstances which prom, 
 ised to alter, and without good advice got ready to 
 come to America He was well trained in the wine 
 trade, and supposed that employment would at once 
 open to him. He brought over two guns, two revol- 
 vers, a field glass, a sword, much valuable jewelry, 
 about twelve suits of clothes and not a very large 
 amount of money possibly three hundred dollars.
 
 HOPE. 
 
 After seeing Boston and New York, he " left for the 
 plains," and 
 
 ARRIVED IN CHICAGO ON CHRISTMAS, 
 
 the year before the great conflagration. Here he was 
 met by other English friends, and the New Year's calls 
 customary in the city were made " in fine style," for 
 he was an engaging young man. In just a casual 
 way he inquired for work, but found his trade did not 
 exist in the New World. He was thus in the worst 
 business position conceivable. He had had no drill 
 in anything that would do him any good. Upon 
 spending the last of his money one night I think it 
 was for a game of billiards he made up his mind 
 that he would go out after work the next day. This 
 he did. He tramped the snowy streets early in the 
 morning. He waded in the slush at noon. He clam 
 bered over the frozen mud at night. But everywhere 
 it was dull. The employers were keeping their men 
 simply to have them when the busy season began. 
 All would say: 
 
 " CALL IN NEXT MAY !" 
 
 His campaign in Chicago was methodic. He took
 
 II HOPE. 
 
 a certain street each day. He canvassed one side in 
 the forenoon. He returned in the afternoon, often 
 carrying his lunch. He never lost hope. But oh! it 
 was discouraging to those who saw it. Another 
 young man came from St. Louis to the boarding-house 
 and got a situation in a great dry -goods house, as en- 
 try clerk, for he was a skilled man. This was unfor- 
 tunate for our friend, for the companionship of the St. 
 Louis accession was a positive injury. He resembled 
 the pictures of Byron and was of a viciously despond- 
 ent turn of mind. He hated life and life's duties. 
 Our friend fell into the toils. Together they be- 
 moaned the hardness of the world, and presently, 
 
 LIKE THE COMMUNISTS IN AMERICA, 
 
 they overturned kingdoms and systems of society as 
 they blew the foam from their beer. This folly led 
 to a fight at the boarding-house which lowered our 
 friend from an English gentleman to a fellow who was 
 destitute and drunken, but it opened his eyes. St. 
 Louis left for warmer climes, but our friend redoubled 
 his energy, and finished the actual canvass of every 
 decent-looking place of business and factory in Chi- 
 cago! This is, as I believe, from actual evidences I
 
 HOPE. Ill 
 
 had at the time, an actual fact. 
 
 A FINE-LOOKING HEALTHY YOUNG MAN 
 
 asked every probable employer in Chicago whose at- 
 tention he could secure if there were any work, and 
 the answer was " No,' sir!" This took him till about 
 the first of May. He had no influence. He had no 
 friend who had influence, nor any chance to get one. 
 His watch, rings, and scarf-pin gradually went to the 
 landlady. His shot-gun, field-glass and clothes were 
 carried to the pawnbrokers. For his musket he got 
 a dollar, and 
 
 FOR HIS SWORD 
 
 half as much upon a solemn promise to redeem it, as 
 even the pawnbroker doubted the wisdom of such an 
 investment at his own figures. That week the young 
 man encountered a gentleman who, in England, had 
 known him well. The disparity in their positions was 
 great, as the gentleman was now able to give and 
 recently had given his church ten thousand dollars, 
 but that disparity had been greater in England, where 
 it had been in favor of the young man. However? 
 this did not prevent the gentleman offering the young
 
 112 HOPE. 
 
 man a job of gardening at a dollar a day, as that was 
 a good bargain, and that did not prevent the young 
 man eagerly accepting the offer. That week he 
 earned his board. The next week he was adrift 
 again, quite well used up from heavy work, but 
 very active. His hope was the one striking point in 
 his character. 
 
 HIS CHEERY VOICE 
 
 could always be heard. People liked to have him 
 around, but they never seemed to pay him anything in 
 return. Early in June he got a job sandpapering 
 window-frames in a city cellar. This tried his mettle 
 for it broke his hands to pieces, but he worked 
 through the job at eight dollars a week. It ruined 
 about twenty-five dollars' worth of clothes unavoidably. 
 Coming out of the cellar the last day of the job, he 
 looked into a store which was just opening. Did 
 they want clerks ? Oh, yes. " Lots " of them. How 
 much did they pay ? Five per cent. What were 
 they to sell ? "Milton gold jewelry." All right. 
 
 " MILTON GOLD JEWELRY " 
 
 was made a sensation. It was all in the name. Had 
 they called it brass the people would have stood off.
 
 HOPE. 113 
 
 Make a chain that looks like gold, call it Milton or 
 Shakspeare or Byron gold, and the people want it or, 
 at least they did, the year of the fire. The sales of 
 our friend footed up more than those of any of thirty 
 clerks, and netted him about a dollar and a quarter 
 a day. But this charming industry could not last. 
 The people had bought a chain which they supposed 
 to be worth sixty dollars for a dollar and a half. In 
 two weeks the chain would fade. It was a necessity 
 of the business to keep moving. Our friend could 
 have gone to some other city with the lover of Milton, 
 if he had paid his own fare, but he was heartily dis- 
 gusted with the business, the scheme being essentially 
 American. He next was taken to Morris, 111., by 
 some kind of a gang-worker. The English system 
 of working from farm to farm with a large force was 
 to be tried. There he was treated a good deal 
 worse than hogs should be used. Finding his way 
 back to Chicago, he again began 
 
 HIS TRAMP FOR WORK. 
 
 He called on an advertiser who wanted him to travel 
 at a figure so low that the question arose as to how 
 he would pay his t>oard, when the advertiser tolcl 
 
 8
 
 1 14 HOPE. 
 
 him he supposed his applicant understood that he 
 * would have to beat the hotels !" In September 
 came the news of the death of his sister and mother. 
 And still he tramped. He was now in what his 
 casual acquaintances considered "a haixl hole." . His 
 landlady was " carrying " him that is, she was 
 wanting his room worse than his company, but, being 
 a kind-hearted Irish woman, she could not believe 
 another week would pass without better success. No 
 one with a trade no one with the slightest influence 
 knows what difficulties are before a stranger in a 
 strange land. 
 
 AS GOD WOULD HAVE IT, 
 
 on Saturday the seventh of October, 1871, he started 
 out, again full of hope. About a mile and a half to 
 the west of the city he entered a hotel at which he 
 had often applied before. The proprietor had broken 
 his leg the day before. He wanted " a likely young 
 man," Here was one. The proprietor was himself 
 an Englishman. Here was a youth whose rosy cheeks 
 proclaimed the shores Albion. On Sunday he 
 made ready. That night and the following two days 
 there came a oalamity that horrified the civilized world
 
 HOPE. 1 15 
 
 perhaps the barbarians as well. The employers 
 who had refused him shelter and food ran like droves 
 of wolves before a prairie-fire, and filled their famished 
 bodies off a charity that has been likened to that of 
 the Savior of the world, so freely was it given. His 
 hotel was not burned. In the arduous labors of 
 housing three where one had before been quartered he 
 showed an ability which attracted the attention of a 
 dealer in real estate who soon took him into his office. 
 Here he learned a trade. His employer soon found 
 that he had a man who could make a map worth 
 fifty dollars as well as the map-makers, and this gave 
 the young man practice. Hope, kindled into such a 
 flame, led the young man in a march of improvement 
 that even continued in his dreams, for he often 
 dreamed out some combination of colors, some freak 
 of lettering, that elicited everybody's admiration. 
 All this improvement 
 
 DID NOT COME IN A WEEK OR A YEAR, 
 
 but k led to his permanent engagement in a sub- 
 stantial enterprise of the kind, where work, elegant 
 and original, wiH always await him, and where his 
 usefulness is ever apparent to the most unwiHmg
 
 1 16 HOPE 
 
 investigator. From being the victim of the most 
 cruel circumstances which a man in health ever 
 encountered under my observation, he has become the 
 valued companion of the leaders of thought, of art, 
 and of music, and I feel confident that the whole of 
 his ultimate success at one time in his career depended 
 on the fact that he had more hope than any other man I 
 ever saw. 
 
 HOPE IS LIKE THE CORK TO THE NET, 
 
 which keeps the soul from sinking in despair. Hope 
 is the sun, which as we journey towards it, casts the 
 shadow of our burden behind us. Dr. Johnson has 
 well and truly said that the flights of the human 
 mind are not from enjoyment to enjoyment, but from 
 hope to hope. It is a strange frailty of human nature 
 that we part more willingly with what we really 
 possess than with our expectations of what we wish 
 for. The man who curbs this tendency is known as 
 a man of wisdom. What a beautiful poem is 
 CAMPBELL'S " PLEASURES OF HOPE ! " 
 How the changes ring upon the beauties of " Hope, 
 the charmer, 11 until, at last, we see her smiling at the 
 general conflagration, we see her lighting her torch
 
 HOtE. I ty 
 
 at nature's funeral pile ! And yet what an ingenious 
 device was that of the ancient, who, knowing the 
 powerful allurements of Hope, put on the front of the 
 magic shield " Be bold ! Be bold ! " and on the other side 
 u Be not too bold ! " There is a development of 
 hope known as audacity. A touch of audacity is 
 generally considered necessary to get along in the 
 world. Be careful that your audacity is never 
 called " cheek." When you have rights to retrieve, 
 you cannot be too audacious ; when you expect 
 something for nothing, and demand instead of 
 appealing, you are " cheeky." It does not pay in the 
 long run. It is the sign and seal of a greedy nature. 
 
 WHEN POOR FRANCE 
 
 trembled in the nightmare of the Revolution, and 
 the Kings of Europe had agreed to conquer and dis- 
 member her, there arose a dark-faced man m the 
 tribune of the French Congress. He was a man of 
 terrible personal power and magnetism. Hope must 
 have cradled him in his baby-hood. He hurled a 
 defiance at Europe that fairly shook France to a 
 delirium of patriotism, and as he was drawing to a 
 close he thundered ; "What needs France to
 
 1 1 8 HOPE. 
 
 vanquish her enemies * to terrify them ? Naught but 
 audacity! still more audacity! always! audacity!" 
 Fourteen republican armies sprang forth full armed, 
 as though Danton's words had been the fabulous 
 dragon's teeth sown ages before in the bright fields 
 of mythology. 
 
 FRANCE WAS RIGHT, 
 
 therefore God inspired her. Be sure, when your 
 flights are bold, that you have the right. " Thrice 
 armed is he who hath his quarrel just." Hope has 
 been defamed more than any other of the joys of life, 
 just as the most charitable become the target of the 
 greater portion of the malignity of fault-finding fellow- 
 creatures. Treat Hope fairly, my young friend, 
 and she will never desert you, neither will she poison 
 your expectations, as did the hags who prophesied to 
 Macbeth.
 
 Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, 
 
 A hero perish or a sparrow fall. 
 
 Atoms or systems into ruin hurled. 
 
 And now a bubble burst, and now a world. POPE. 
 
 HAVE here quoted one of the 
 grandest flights of the human 
 fancy, and with a purpose. If 
 God, who is perfection, and in 
 whose image we are faintly 
 formed, watches the weakliest of his lambs, 
 supports the weariest of his poor sparrows, 
 should not we, in trying to be 'true men, 
 endeavor to pay equal care to all things 
 intrusted to our attention, be they great or 
 be they small ! And more than that. 
 The little errors beget myriads of their 
 kind. "Manymickles make a muckle." 
 The habit sooner or later, leads some of us into an 
 awful abyss, where it had been better we had not lived. 
 Errors creep into character just as ideas get into our 
 brain. Says Moore :
 
 120 15E CORRECT, 
 
 And how like forts, to which beleaguers win 
 Unhoped-for entrance through some friend within. 
 One clear idea, wakened in the breast 
 By memory's magic, lets in all the rest. 
 
 Says Franklin: "A little neglect may breed great 
 mischief ; for want of a nail the shoe was lost ; for 
 want of a shoe the horse was lost ; for want of 
 a horse the driver was lost ; being overtaken and 
 slain by an enemy, all for the want of care about a 
 horse -shoe nail." " In persons grafted with a serious 
 trust," says Shakspeare "negligence is a serious 
 crime." And so it is. 
 
 STORY OF SAG BRIDGE. 
 
 In September, 1873, a conductor on the Chicago and 
 Alton Railroad started south with a freight train. 
 He was to stop at a station a few miles from Joliet 
 and wait for the incoming passenger train from St. 
 Louis. He consulted his watch. That unhappy 
 piece of mechanism told him that he had time to 
 reach the next station. He spoke to the operator of 
 the telegraph. That person could give him no 
 information as to where the passenger train was, 
 and he, determining not to wait, pulled out. As his 
 train was still within hearing, the operator rushed
 
 BE CORRECT 121 
 
 to the platform with the news that the passenger 
 train had left the nearest station ! The operator 
 knew that 
 
 TWO TRAINS WERE ABOUT TO COME IN COLLISION, 
 
 a knowledge that has sometimes deprived railroad 
 men of their minds forever. Soon the awful shock 
 reverberated afar, and from nine to fifteen persons 
 were killed in a horrible manner. One of the most 
 prominent men of Chicago was scalded so that 
 the flesh left his skeleton. An unkind fate preserved 
 the conductor to confront his ignominy. It was 
 found that 
 
 HE HAD FORGOTTEN TO WIND UP HIS WATCH ! 
 
 How could such a butchery have been brought about, 
 save by a course of small errors which had eaten into 
 his moral nature, leaving him a great ghoulish fiend 
 of Carelessness, running his pitiless Juggernaut up 
 and down the highway between two great cities ! 
 The hideous errors made by men are always indicative 
 of those particular men. Some people never make 
 errors at all ! Why ? Because they are careful. 
 Simple, is it not like Napoleon's tactics ? Yet that 
 constant care is so wonderful in its effects that human
 
 122 BE CORRECT. 
 
 science cannot peer into the mystery of its action. 
 Men laboring; under total aberration of the mind have 
 
 O 
 
 been known to carefully wind, a clock at a given 
 hour, and evince no other power to do a reasonable 
 thing. Begin early in life to do all these little things 
 with the greatest care. 
 
 IMITATE THE CELEBRATED DETECTIVES, 
 
 who actually pay little attention to things g^oss and 
 palpable, but follow the more closely those minute 
 clews which, interlacing and concentering, often as 
 a whole, lead them, with the greatest certainty, to 
 the dark hand that did the foul deed. Here is 
 
 A RIDICULOUS ERROR : 
 
 On Tuesday, the third of May, 1881, Scranton, 
 Willard & Co., brokers, of New York City, sold to 
 Decker & Co. stocks to the enormous sum of 
 $127,000. For this property Decker & Co. wrote 
 a check on a bank for $127,000, and a messenger 
 was sent by the cashier of Scranton, Willard & Co., 
 to have the check certified that is, to have the bank 
 officials write across the face of the check in red ink 
 " Certified," meaning that the money was there and 
 would thenceforth be dedicated to the redemption of
 
 BE CORRECT. 123 
 
 that particular piece of paper. The boy returned 
 with the check, the cashier put upon his own file a 
 "tag " representing the amount of money, along with 
 many other similar records, and the boy was sent 
 with the check to the Bank of North America. 
 The boy handed to the banker, with the check, a 
 similar " tag v from the cashier, which was also filed. 
 When you deposit money, at many banks, you fill 
 out a " tag " or deposit-check, and offer it with the 
 money, which "tag" is used by the banker as a 
 safeguard against errors and lapses of all kinds. 
 When Scranton, Willard & Co.'s cashier reckoned up 
 his " tags ' ' he found no record of a check for 
 $127,000. He immediately accused the boy of pur- 
 loining the check, and inquiry at the bank (met by 
 the reply that no such check had been deposited, as 
 shown by the depositor's own " tags") strengthened 
 his suspicions. 
 
 ALL THE BANKS OF NEW YORK 
 
 were at once notified of the loss of the great check, 
 and costly engagements were made to advertise the 
 matter all over the country. The boy was not ar- 
 rested, but his case was not neglected, you may be
 
 124 **E CORRECT* 
 
 assured. Repeated cross-questioning failed to shake 
 his simple statement, that he had done as he had been 
 told to do. 
 
 THE ACCOUNTS OF THE BANK OF NORTH AMERICA 
 
 were behind that afternoon, and the cashier stayed 
 until late in the day to get them balanced. After he 
 had finally secured the totals of the day's transactions, 
 he found that he had received, according to the de- 
 positors 1 "tags," $114,300 less than he had paid out.' 
 In some perturbation he recalled the notice of Scran- 
 ton, Willard & Co., and at once sent to them, to see 
 if that affair had anything to do with his immense 
 discrepancy. Following this line of inquiry, Scranton, 
 Willard & Co.'s cashier found that, in attempting to 
 put the figures " 127,000 " on the "tag " of deposit 
 he had neglected to write the last cipher, and the 
 "tag "for $12, 700 which had been made in its place, 
 added to $i 14,300 which the banker lacked in " tags," 
 exactly made up the $127,000 which the bank had 
 in reality credited to Scranton, Willard & Co.'s ac- 
 count. How could a man leave oft 
 
 A CIPHER WHICH MEANT $1 14,300 ? 
 
 Simply by a course of instruction and development
 
 BE CORRECT. I2C 
 
 in error, until, probably nothing save the most colossal 
 sums would command his unqualified attention. Let 
 us suppose your mother or sister gives you a letter to 
 mail. Do not put that letter in your pocket. Carry 
 it in your hand until you reach the place to post it. 
 Do this for years. After that drill, when you get a 
 letter to mail, you will not heed to keep it in your 
 hand, for you will feel it in your hand just as long as 
 it is in your pocket, as the one-armed man has sensa- 
 tions in both hands ! 
 
 " WE NEVER MAKE MISTAKES ! " 
 
 I spoke in the preceding chapter of the ancient shield 
 with its " Be Bold ! Be Bold ! " Now, on our modern 
 shield we would put " Be Correct ! Be Correct ! " and 
 it would not be necessary to put on the reverse side 
 " Be not too Correct ! " You cannot afford to make 
 errors! Last year a gentleman drew a sum of money 
 from the First National Bank of New York City. 
 As he was about to leave the building, he discovered 
 an error. He returned to the paying teller. He 
 said: " I think you have made a mistake in paying 
 me. The cashier stood there, by chance. " No, sir," 
 said he, "we never make mistakes!" (i But," sai4
 
 126 BE CORRECT. 
 
 the gentleman, "you gave me twe-nty dollars too 
 much money! " " No, sir!" thundered the cashier, 
 u .we never make mistakes ! " Not for twenty dollars 
 in cash would that banker admit that the establish- 
 ment with which he was connected ever made a mis- 
 take. And you can be assured that 
 
 most of the ordinary blunders of business. Now if 
 this great rich banker could not afford to indulge in 
 mistakes, how much less can you, who have your 
 whole fortune to make, be anything less than strictly 
 accurate in all your operations? Study the spirit of 
 that banker's answer. Imitate his horror of an error. 
 He must have had good reasons for that feeling. 
 
 A HOMELY EXAMPLE. 
 
 A customer comes in from the country. He sajs : 
 " I have brought a load of wheat to town to-day 
 about fifty bushel I should guess. I'll be in after noon 
 and settle my account with you." Very good; you, 
 the clerk, hurry to your books, to make out his ac- 
 count. When he comes in, he glances over it, and 
 says: "Good gracious! you haven't given me credit
 
 BE CORRECT. 127 
 
 for four dollars and seventy-five cents I paid you last 
 May. I recollect it because I was in town to get a 
 corn-planter when I paid it. And I've got your re- 
 ceipt, too." Sure enough, there is the receipt, which 
 you have filled out yourself. And yet you failed to 
 make an entry of the fact in his account. Shame 
 covers you. 
 
 THE FARMER BEGINS TO HAVE SUSPICIONS. 
 
 Your employer begins to talk of -the fall plowing as 
 soon as he can, but the farmer goes over to your un- 
 scrupulous competitors in business, relates to them the 
 fact that his scrupulous attention to details has saved 
 him four dollars and seventy-five cents, and asks their 
 opinion as to whether or not an attempt were not 
 made to cheat him. His listeners talk about you in a 
 
 mild- mannered way- 
 Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
 : And without sneering," teach the rest to sneer. 
 
 Off goes your customer in his lumber- wagon, carrying 
 that gross libel upon your place of* business, to fill the 
 prairies and the openings wkh its brood of gossiped 
 offspring, until, some day, it comes back that your 
 employer is a horsethief and has served a term in the 
 penitentiary!
 
 128 BE CORRECT. 
 
 The errors which are often made in handling figures 
 are just as annoying. It is a trifling error to call eight 
 and four thirteen, but it often may disconcert an im- 
 mense calculation. Like the pebble in the shoe, 
 small in itself, it may do great injury. Some years 
 ago there traveled through the country a genuine 
 " lightning calculator." You could put down any 
 number, big or little, while his back was turned, and. 
 he would turn again and mark the total with far 
 greater rapidity than he could speak, and he thought 
 out the total far quicker than he could mark it. * Of 
 course, he had a magic book to sell, but when you 
 came to read his magic book and see how he did it, 
 you found it was the same old way, only he was 
 more expert than you. He could add four thousand 
 two hundred and twenty eight and three thousand 
 six hundred and fifty four as easily as you eould forty 
 two and thirty six, or perhaps four and three, so you 
 see that the scheme of running up a single column of 
 figures is at best a clumsy one. 
 
 YOU EXPOSE YOURSELF 
 
 to additional errors by enlarging the possible addi- 
 tions in a body of numbers. We are taught the.
 
 BE CORRECT. 
 
 129 
 
 multiplication table up to twelve times twelve. We 
 never stumble up to that point. But it ought to con- 
 tinue up to one hundred times one hundred. We 
 could then always add two figures to two figures 
 easier then to parcel the operation out into two jobs. 
 The " lightning calculator " had probably carried 
 it up to five thousand times five thousand. Take an 
 interest in " sums." Learn 
 
 THE FREAKS OF FIGURES. 
 
 For instance, to multiply any set of figures by n 
 say 54 add the 5 and 4 together and put the 9 
 between the 5 and the 4. To multiply i, 2, 3, 4, 5 
 and 6 by n, do the same way, only carry your lo's. 
 Thus 6 and 5 are n, put down i before the 6 ; 5 and 
 4 are 9 and i to carry is 10 ; put down the o before 
 the 16, etc. Again to multiply, say 18 9's by 9, bring 
 down a i, then make lyo'sand a 9 out to the left. 
 Again to square numbers, call even lo's the body ; 
 call the rest the surplus, 104 add surplus to body 
 making it 108 ; now square the surplus (4) making 16 
 and put it after the 108, or 10,816. This is simply 
 taking advantage of the los. Take 33 and you will 
 see. Here 3 is the surplus ; add the surplus, making
 
 130 BE CORRECT. 
 
 36 ; multiply 36 by 30, making i ,080 ; square the 
 surplus, 3 times 3 9 ; add to 1,080 making 1,089 
 You see you get an even thirty to multiply by and 
 load up the sum to be multiplied sufficiently to 
 balance. Above 5 call it a deficit and go to your 
 next 10 for your body. 
 
 I MENTION THESE TRICKS 
 
 not because they are good for anything practical, but 
 to get you to take up figures and be quick with them. 
 Get yourself up a multiplication table running to 
 50 times 50 there's something practical. The man 
 quick and accurate at figures is always esteemed. 
 
 OUR LANGUAGE 
 
 is a vast record of the changes in pronunciation which 
 have been brought about by affected people as well 
 as careless and ignorant people. " 'Tis true 'tis pity, 
 and pity 'tis 'tis true." But you cannot change it by 
 spelling "balance " with two /s, or "sure " with an h. 
 Be accurate in your spelling. Restrict yourself to 
 such words as you can spell, and you will soon 
 improve if you are guilty of such errors. In 
 conclusion, if you go fishing and catch three percli
 
 BE CORRECT. 131 
 
 and one black bass, say that you caught those fish, 
 and not that you caught three black bass and one 
 perch. Right there is where you can form habits that 
 will shine out in your face as you grow to the full 
 dignity of manhood. You see I lay special stress on 
 habit. The Duke of Wellington said that habit was 
 ten times nature. Horace Mann said 
 
 " HABIT IS A CABLE. 
 
 We weave a thread of it every day, and at last we 
 cannot break it." Dr. Locke said with a wonderful 
 knowledge of life: "Habit works more constantly 
 and with greater facility than reason; which, when we 
 have most need of it, is seldom fairly consulted, and 
 more rarely obeyed." Thus, you see, when a man is 
 spoken of as a person "of good habits," it means some- 
 thing more than is usually conceived. It means he 
 is under chains which he cannot break and, in reality, 
 that he could not be a bad man without suffering and 
 discomfort.
 
 Nothing; succeeds so well as success. TALLEYRAND. 
 
 HE man Talleyrand, who made 
 the above mocking assertion, was 
 one of the closest observers of 
 human nature who have ever 
 lived. And yet what he said in a 
 spirit of uncommon hatred of his fellow- 
 beings is really another way of saying the 
 exact truth that success comes only after 
 so many trials and disappointments that 
 the world, considering it a safe rule, 
 admires the result, and feels that the 
 reflected credit for a great result belongs 
 to him upon whom it falls. Beside you 
 toils a young man of your own age. He does not seem 
 to care to rise. He dislikes the few duties of the 
 present, and would be inclined to shrink from further 
 responsibilities. It may be that he is the happier as 
 compared with you, but men must not consult simply
 
 SUCCESS, 
 
 133 
 
 their own individual happiness. Sooner or later all 
 men take on a broader burden than merely their own 
 support. Try early in life to get the start which 
 the experience of others furnishes you. You are 
 lucky that you were born in the latter half of the 
 nineteenth century. Men before you have, by 
 ambition and energy, made the affair of living easier 
 for you. Right here in youth is the time to begin 
 the battle. You are now a private. 
 
 OFFICERS ARE VERY SCARCE. 
 
 Make up your mind to have shoulder-straps early in 
 the campaign. You cannot afford to miss a single 
 battle. Every opportunity which opens to you is a 
 city to be taken, and you are to be put in command. 
 See that it surrenders. No city ever properly 
 besieged evaded final capitulation. The chances are 
 all in your favor. Remember, when you contemplate 
 your unambitious comrade, that he is likely to change 
 his tastes as he grows older. If he cannot give a 
 reasonable degree of encouragement to those tastes 
 he will then become crabbed and sour. Wherever 
 you see men crusty and difficult to please, be sure
 
 134 SUCCESS. 
 
 they have had cities to take and failed to capture 
 them. 
 
 ALEXANDER SMITH, 
 
 a Scotch poet who died at a very early age, said very 
 appropriately : " To bring the best human qualities 
 to anything like perfection, to fill them with the sweet 
 juices of courtesy and charity, prosperity, or, at all 
 events, a moderate amount of it, is required just as 
 sunshine is needed for the ripening of peaches and 
 strawberries." Now how are you to catch this 
 marvelous sunshine of prosperity ? Simply, do not 
 shut it out. Your comrade has had the moral ague. 
 He fears that, if the sun shine on him, it will bring a 
 return ef his fever. When the sun shines on you, do 
 not miss a ray. It makes you grow. 
 
 YOUR PARTICULAR DUTIES 
 
 are soon learned. Why is it that the affairs of 
 walking behind a counter find actually knowing what 
 your employer pays for his goods so soon lose the 
 magic there once was in them ? It is because the 
 human brain is supple, and comprehends quickly. 
 By the time certain problems are solved others 
 spring up. See that you solve them. The mind
 
 SUCCESO. 135 
 
 should be pacified in its desire for new conquests. 
 
 THF SAFE RULE 
 
 as to whether or not you are fitted for new 
 endeavors is to find to your own true satisfaction 
 that you can do your duties better than anyone not 
 in daily practice of the same kind of work. If 
 your employer can take hold and do a thing once a 
 week better than you who do it a hundred times a 
 day, then it should still have considerable charm for 
 yju, for your mind is strangely unfamiliar with the 
 procedure. When a clerk stays in one position all 
 his life, it is certain to be from 
 
 LACK OF BOTH AMBITION AND ABILITY, 
 
 and he lacks a good deal of each. Every little while, 
 through the sickness, advancement, or bad judgment 
 of others, a place just a little more responsible than 
 your own is left vacant. Somebody is wanted badly. 
 You are the man, and are put there for the interval. 
 There is the pivotal point. By unusual endeavor 
 you can probably fill the place better than it was filled 
 by the regular occupant. Your employer, expecting 
 less of you, gets more, and praises you. Now, by
 
 136 SUCCESS. 
 
 praising you, he is, somehow or other, 
 
 "TAKING STOCK IN YOU." 
 
 If he "keeps you down," he shows his poor judgment, 
 and he is not going to do that if he can help it. On 
 the other hand, your comrade is put in the vacant 
 place. The duties are hard and perplexing. He is 
 compelled to go and ask a man for some money. 
 The man is mean. He not only refuses the money, 
 but addresses some personal considerations to your 
 comrade which sicken him to the heart. He returns 
 to your employer with a tale of failure well tinged 
 with his own morbid feelings and wounded vanity. 
 Your employer is irritated, and attributes the fiasco 
 to the ambassador. To satisfy his own views of 
 things, he prophesies that your comrade never will 
 amount to anything, anyhow. Now, to see this 
 prediction verified is, unfortunately for your comrade, 
 just as necessary to your employer's self-love as to 
 see you succeed. The point of the first opportunity, 
 the first impression on your employer, is really central, 
 pivotal. If you get a big iron safe on such a .spot, 
 you can turn it with extraordinary ease. 
 
 There is no road to practical business so good as
 
 SUCCESS. 137 
 
 practice. You read of clerks being educated by 
 sham forms of business. You might as well read of 
 men gambling with counterfeit money. Business men 
 want clerks who have been private, corporal, sergeant, 
 lieutenant, captain. When a man starts in as captain 
 he is likely to get discharged as private. In the 
 great printing houses 
 
 PROOF READERS 
 
 are required, to see that the types are spelled out, one 
 by one, into the right words, and that the right words 
 are rightly spelled. Now let a college graduate ap- 
 ply for such a position. He knows Greek and Latin. 
 He can spell or thinks he can. He can turn you 
 out a sentence, which, after going about so far, refers 
 to what it is talking about, cuts a pigeon- wing like 
 the boys on the ice ? tells a little tale between two 
 dashes, and one inside of that between two parenthe- 
 ses (" finger-nails," the printers call them), again refers 
 to what it is talking about, and closes up with three 
 unaccented syllables following a heavy sound. Some- 
 times folks hire this gentleman. The proof-slip is 
 thrown in wet, greatly to his horror, and after drying 
 it he finds they are waiting for it outside, and some
 
 138 SUCCESS. 
 
 other proof-reader is compelled to take it. Then he 
 learns he must read it wet, as it is. Pretty 
 soon the foreman of the printers brings in a proof-slip 
 which is set in three sizes of type where the gentle- 
 man discovered but one size. Then the foreman of 
 the proof-room has a discouraging way of taking the 
 gentleman's proof and marking from eight to ten glar- 
 ing typographical errors which the gentleman has 
 overlooked, and eight or ten typographical absurdities, 
 which he has approved, and, horrors upon horrors! 
 eight or ten errors of " style." Now, for the first 
 time, the gentleman has learned that every time the 
 word " President " appears in the newspaper it is 
 either capitalized or uncapitalized, while he had nat- 
 urally supposed that it took its chances, the way a 
 pic-nic does! 
 
 THUS THE GENTLEMAN GETS AN IDEA 
 
 of his utter incompetency to fill the place of a trained 
 man. And he never gets half so complete a view of 
 his uselessness as do those around him. Such proof- 
 readers rarely work two nights. They are corporals 
 in captains' places. Or, perhaps, they are captains 
 of artillery in the infantry service. What do folks do
 
 SUCCESS. 139 
 
 when the best proof-reader is missing? They go out 
 into the type-setting room and take the brightest prin- 
 ter they can find. He cannot tell French from Latin, 
 but he can see a fair share of the errors in a proof- 
 slip, and will not let the telegraphic abbreviation for 
 government go into the paper as "goat," nor that for 
 Republican as " roofer," as I have seen collegiates do. 
 
 HE IS ALREADY A LIEUTENANT. 
 
 Give him a little practice and he is a captain. With 
 energy and ambition failure never comes if you only 
 know the difficulties. " Fools rush in where angels 
 fear to tread " is as good in business as in poetry. In 
 the great cities there are long streets lined with retail 
 store-rooms of every quality of location. They rent at 
 from twenty-five to a hundred dollars a month. Many 
 a store-room has not had an occupant in it for ten 
 years who did not grow poorer. No good business 
 man could be induced to enter into a business at such 
 a point. But 
 
 THE FOOLS HAVE RUSHED IN, 
 
 like the collegiate into the proof-room, convinced that 
 they could do what good business men know to be 
 impossible, that is take in eight dollars a day and
 
 140 . SUCCESS. 
 
 pay fifty dollars rent, on forty per cent profit. Here 
 and there is a grocer who gets up at half past five 
 in the morning, opens up, puts out his eggs, oranges, 
 berries, lemons, potatoes, beans, and bananas, sweeps 
 out, gets out his horse, goes to the market-street, does 
 a day's buying there and elsewhere, and by eight 
 o'clock is ready for business, just about as the man 
 who expects to share in trade with him is unlocking 
 his doors. Speak to the eight o'clock man and he will 
 tell you that he has to stay up till ten at night, and 
 that he cannot burn the candle of life at both ends. 
 But, for all that, he is grievously disappointed when 
 the final collapse comes. Nothing succeeds like suc- 
 cess because very few things are like success. Noth- 
 ing on the street succeeds like this grocery, because 
 nowhere else on the street is so much work dome by 
 so few men. Nowhere else does the proprietor put 
 all of his time and his money into his business, and, in 
 strawberry time, for instance, retail thirty-five dollars' 
 worth of strawberries in one day with only one clerk, 
 one delivery-boy and a cashier! At the same time, 
 this successful grocer would not invest one cent in the 
 store-room opposite, where, with so much confidence,
 
 SUCCESS. 
 
 the eight-o'clock man has put all his money. 
 
 THE MAN OF SUCCESS KNOWS THE DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 " Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast him- 
 self as he that putteth it off, "says the Bible, yet that is 
 precisely what we are doing when we smile at the 
 sally of some envious dealer about the "luck " of our 
 grocer that " nothing succeeds as well as success." 
 But the landlord goes on renting his store-room, and 
 thanking his stars that the fools are not all dead yet. 
 Do not desire a position two grades ahead of you. 
 The one that is next to you is your proper goal. 
 Over the shoulder of the companion who holds it you 
 can get many a glance long before your chance 
 comes to do the work, and, even then, what looked so 
 very easy to you before it came your turn to do it, will 
 now "shoot light horrors through you." In a large 
 measure people are bought at their own prices. If 
 they are worth those figures, their fortune is made. 
 A celebrated painter was once asked how he mixed 
 his colors. He replied that . 
 
 HE "MIXED THEM WITH BRAINS." 
 Mix brains with your business. Like the opium or 
 chloral slave you will be able to endure a largei quan-
 
 142 SUCCESS. 
 
 tity each day, and the effect will not be darkness and 
 death, but light and life. Simply because you think 
 you can do a thing is no great sign you can do it- 
 You must have brains and probabilities in your favor. 
 You must absolutely have done something very nearly 
 like it. I never saw a more signal instance of the 
 general self-conceit of the race than in the experience 
 of a young man who once sold a little rubber reed 
 which he laid on his tongue, and with which 
 
 HE MOCKED ALL KINDS OF BIRDS. 
 
 After seeing him do it, the crowd would gather about 
 in great herd.;, with their " quarters " high in the air, 
 anxious to purchase, and just as sure they could do the 
 same thing as the eight o'clock man that he can get 
 a crowd into his store. I do not remember a solitary 
 instance where a purchaser ever acquired the least fa- 
 cility in imitating the sounds of birds, and I have been 
 tempted to believe the "machine "was a "dummy" 
 by which the salesman conveyed to the gaping crowd 
 fehe hope of acquiring his wonderful art.. Do not, in 
 the journey of life, attempt impossible stages of travel 
 because they look easy at the start. Stop at each inn
 
 SUCCESS. 
 
 which the experience of years has shown to be neces- 
 sary for your continued comfort. But never, on any 
 account, lie down between the inns, for the outlaws 
 called Failure and Discredit will fall upon you and 
 work your destruction. " Whatsoever thy hand find- 
 eth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, 
 nor device, nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave." 
 " In the morning sow thy seed." " Let us crown our 
 selves with rosebuds before they be withered."
 
 But to our tale. Ae market night 
 
 Tarn had got planted unco right 
 
 Fast by an ingle bleezing finely 
 
 Wi reaming swats that drank divinely; 
 
 And at his elbow Souter Johnny, 
 
 His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony; 
 
 Tarn lo'ed him like a very brither 
 
 They had been fou for weeks thegither ! BURNS. 
 
 CANNOT but feel much ap- 
 prehension in approaching a 
 subject so nearly allied to the 
 actual inner character of a man. 
 "A man is known by the 
 company he keeps." I cannot 
 admonish the blind that they should see. 
 I cannot suggest to Tam O'Shanter that 
 he should not associate with Cobbler 
 Johnny. Why, he loves him like a very 
 brother ! Indeed, as the last sublime 
 token of friendship, have they not been 
 drunk for weeks together ? Besides, are 
 
 they not such worthless wights that they will do 
 [144]
 
 "Adieu, valor ' rust, rapier ! be still, drum : 
 For your manager is in love ; yea, he loveth.
 
 COMPANIONS. H5 
 
 less harm in associating with each other than in en- 
 larging their power of evil by operating on new 
 material ? If you are Tarn O'Shanter, I cannot 
 very well advise you to seek out some worthy young 
 man for an associate and attaint his character and his 
 reputation by clinging to him. Now the only thing 
 I can consistently do is to hope you are a young man 
 
 FAR REMOVED FROM TAM O'SHANTER IN HABITS 
 
 and selfishness. I can hope that you are a young 
 man who, in going on a fishing excursion with some 
 reputable person of your age, will not cast a cloud on 
 the mind of that person's employer, and cause him to 
 fear that his clerk is falling instead of rising in self- 
 esteem. Let my hope be taken as an enduring fact. 
 Now I feel I am on safe ground. You are building a 
 structure. On your west party -wall your neighbor is 
 also erecting one. He is building it so that it will 
 fall down that is plain. When it falls it will involve 
 you in its ruins because the middle wall supports both 
 edifices. What do you do ? You go to the 
 authorities, and they make him take down his house 
 brick by brick. In this way the law surrounds you 
 with its beneficent protection, and you need not suffer
 
 1 46 COMPANIONS. 
 
 from the faults of others. But alas ! 
 
 MORALLY, 
 
 when you put up a party-wall you must abide by the 
 conclusion. If your companion reflect credit on you, 
 then you are doubly strong, but if he pull you down } 
 then there is no relief and little sympathy. Let us 
 suppose that, in an absolutely evil hour, you have 
 learned to play billiards. A brother-clerk says : 
 "Let us play a string at dinner-time !" Across 
 your mind flits the bright green table, the beautiful 
 ivory balls, the wonderful angle which you discovered 
 the last time you played, and, compared with the 
 dull routine of the store, you momentarily feel that 
 
 A GAME OF BILLIARDS 
 
 would be truly beneficial. So, at noon you go. 
 There never was a game of billiards that would end 
 precisely at the moment you should leave for duty. 
 There never were two employes who played billiards 
 who did not eheat their employers out of considerable 
 time. There never was an employer who would not 
 resent this injustke. The comrade who does not 
 play billiards will, sooner qr later, get an absolute
 
 COMPANIONS. 147 
 
 advantage over you. You will come in, complaining 
 of your luck only to find that your slow-going 
 comrade has " got something " which you have missed. 
 Employers do not want head-clerks or partners who 
 hang around billiard saloons or livery stables. " He 
 who comes from the kitchen smells of its smoke." 
 What can you get at a billiard saloon ? You can 
 get the good opinion of some person who is never 
 civil to anybody. His incivility has a charm for 
 your young mind. You naturally imitate him. 
 
 YOU TRY IT ON A CUSTOMER. 
 
 He says : " Have you any buttons like this ? " showing 
 one about fourteen years old. You look at him 
 insolently and say " Nah ! " (meaning " No, sir "). 
 This makes the other clerk (who plays billiards with 
 you) laugh very heartily, but it makes your employer 
 laugh out of the other corner of his mouth, for he has 
 no business to keep such a clerk, and the customer 
 knows it. The customer may avenge himself by 
 refusing an extension on a note which he holds, and 
 that note, possibly, may have your employer's name 
 on it ! The mistake you make in this particular case
 
 148 COMPANIONS. 
 
 is in applying the manners of a billiard-saloon to the 
 uses of a place of business. A very ordinary- 
 looking- old man was one day standing in a great 
 bank in New York City. He was talking with 
 a friend, and the friend spoke of desiring to have a 
 draft cashed which had been drawn in his favor. 
 Knowing that the old man banked at that place, he 
 asked him to step up to the paying teller and identify 
 the drawer of the money. This the old man, nat- 
 urally, attempted to do. He said : "I know this 
 gentleman to be Alvin H. Hamilton. 1 ' The paying 
 teller looked at the old man and judged him by his 
 clothes. He said : " I don't know you at all, sir ! 
 Pass along." This did not please the old man. He 
 expostulated. " Pass along ! " yelled the teller, 
 looking ominously toward the policeman, who edged 
 toward the group. 
 
 "I'LL PASS ALONG!" 
 
 said the old man, hotly. And he drew a blank check, 
 engraved in a costly manner, from his pocket, and 
 wrote on the " please-pay " line, " Five hundred and 
 fifty thousand dollars." Then he signed his name to 
 it, turned it over, put his name on the back of it, and
 
 COMPANIONS; 149 
 
 got in line again. By the time he was at the window 
 the word had gone along the line. The receiving 
 teller, the collecting clerk, the certifying clerk and the 
 examiners, had passed the news to 
 
 THE CASHIER AND THE PRESIDENT 
 
 that something unusual was about to happen, and 
 those magnates had rushed to the paying teller's side. 
 "Do you know that signature?" said the old man with 
 a gleam in his eye. Now it was the teller's turn to 
 feel wretched. " Pay five hundred and fifty thousand 
 Babbit, soap man ! oh! what an idiot I am!" All 
 this went through his head. The president, the cash- 
 ier, abased themselves before the irate old man. It 
 was all a mistake ! They assured him ! They assured 
 him! Beg pardon! Impertinence of new teller. And 
 a' that, and a' that. But it would not do! The mon- 
 ey went to another bank, and a business worth thous- 
 ands of dollars annually was lost, together with the 
 natural prestige of such patronage. There was what 
 I should call 
 
 A CASE OF BILLIARD-ROOM MANNERS, 
 
 and a costly one. Drop that style. Says Bishop
 
 150 COMPANIONS. 
 
 Home: "It is expedient to have an acquaintance 
 with those who have looked into the world; who 
 know men, understand business, and can give you 
 good intelligence and good advice when they are want- 
 ed." " He that walketh with wise men " says the 
 Bible, shall be wise ; but a companion of fools shall be 
 destroyed." Try to frequent the company of your 
 betters. Good books are safe companions. Good 
 men, a little older than yourself, are still better. Per- 
 haps good women, who take an interest in young men, 
 are better than all others, for they are more unselfish, 
 and often have a spare thought for the young man 
 that makes his life happier. 
 
 LEARN TO ADMIRE RIGHTLY. 
 
 The leer of the man who has sold lemonade in a cir- 
 cus has a strange charm for a young man. It has a 
 strange repulsiveness for the " solid man" of business. 
 The look of a man with a cigar put in his mouth at 
 a sharp upward angle and with a hat lurched like the 
 cargo of a bad sailer, has a strong fascination for a 
 young man. It is a strong irritant to the man whose 
 companionship is an honor. You cannot do better 
 than to frequent some church, rent a sitting, and have
 
 COMPANIONS. 
 
 a positive engagement two or three times a week. 
 You are a great gainer by this. It may cost you a 
 little; but you will get all that back in moral capital 
 just as valuable in business as money. Says George 
 Washington : " The company in which you will im- 
 prove most will be least expensive to you." In your, 
 church you will meet men who do not live all for 
 themselves, as does the dominant mind in the bar- 
 room. Their drill and discipline have made them more 
 unselfish. They will help you in many ways. They 
 will throw a rope to you and pull you aboard. Soon- 
 er or later your association with them will get you 
 position, respect, family, happiness, success, and 
 above all, that peace which passeth all understanding. 
 Do not take this as preaching. It is as practical as 
 anything in this book. Chesterfield says : " No man 
 can possibly improve in any company for which he 
 has not respect enough to be under some degree of 
 restraint. " What makes mankind revere Shakspeare ? 
 Because he said fine things? No. But because he 
 said true things. Listen to him: " It is certain that 
 either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught, as 
 men take diseases of one another."
 
 Conference maketh a ready man. LORI> BACON. 
 
 Now stirs the lated traveler apace 
 
 To gain the timely inn. MACBETH, ACT III., Sc. 3. 
 
 HAT is there about going to a 
 strange town on business which 
 should make a man's heart feel 
 like a cold biscuit inside of him ? 
 A young man may have been to 
 a certain village on endless ex- 
 cursions of pleasure, when his pulse beat as 
 gloriously as the bass drum on a grand circus- 
 entry into town, yet when he has to go to 
 the depot to take the cars for that same town 
 to sell goods there for the first time in his 
 life, it is harder to carry his heart to the 
 train than it is to lug his grip-sacks. When you feel 
 that way, do not feel ashamed. All the " old heads '' 
 on the road have been in that predicament. Talk to 
 your heart the way you think about a mother when 
 
 she mourns for her child. You say " Let her feel 
 [152]
 
 ON THE ROAt). 153 
 
 bad. It's natural. It'll do her good." Now when 
 your home begins to drop out of sight behind, and 
 the conductor comes along to punch your ticket rather 
 than to comfort you, say to your heart " Go it, you 
 you old ninnyhammer ! It's natural for you to 
 thump, but you can't interfere with business, you 
 know ! " Your mind is all right. It's your body. 
 Now, while 
 
 YOU ARE NEARING THAT FATAL TOWN, 
 
 you look back over the goods in the store. Of course, 
 you are positively familiar with everything in stock. 
 You came out on the road either because you asked 
 to go, or because other folks had espied a faculty of 
 persuasion in you which they thought would sell 
 goods. Sometimes a man looks persuasively, 
 sometimes he talks persuasively ; sometimes he both 
 looks and talks it. This is after he has had practice. 
 "Iron sharpeneth iron. So a man sharpeneth the 
 countenance of his friend." Now this town you are 
 going to is a band of enemies. How can you make 
 a conquest ? By doing as Napoleon did. Set your 
 own time for the fight, pitch upon one man at a time, 
 always pick out one not used to your mode of warfare,
 
 t$4 ON THE ROAD. 
 
 and then clean him out before he thinks the action 
 has begun. "Formerly, 1 ' says Bovee, naively, 
 " when great fortunes were only made in war, war 
 was business ; but now, when great fortunes are 
 only made by business, business is war." 
 
 HERE IS THE TOWN NOW. 
 
 How dirty those houses look ! O, yes, they are the 
 habitations of the poor. You know the hotel you are 
 going to, of course. You know where it is. Now 
 you grab your valises, your overcoat is on, and you 
 climb down. Want a 'bus ? It's only fifty cents for 
 a ride of a block and a half ! Well, you will get 
 along without it. The labor will get your blood 
 going. You have thus made a sale already, equal to 
 two dollars. Put that down to your credit. By 
 this time, although you are among the Philistines, 
 you are yourself again. You go into the wash-room 
 of the hotel, enter the dining-room, eat a very poor 
 meal, and get up to begin the fight. Now sit down 
 a half-hour and let your food get started in your 
 stomach. 
 
 GETTING YOUR MIND. 
 
 Does not the General spread his maps before him ?
 
 ON THE ROAD. 155 
 
 You probably have a certain firm in your mind, either 
 by chance or direction from your employer. This, 
 of course, is the weak point in the enemy's lines. 
 Here he has trusted to the ground as it looked from 
 his side of the field, when, in reality, it presented few 
 difficulties from yours. Some experience in the world 
 has led me to believe that if a salesman has come to 
 the opinion, even in the most absurd manner, that he 
 can sell a certain man goods, he can do it, almost 
 beyond the chance of a doubt. I once knew a 
 successful solicitor who seemed to do all his work at 
 his desk. He would sit in the greatest gloom 
 
 CANVASSING HIMSELF ! 
 
 That was a fact. He was really revolving the weak 
 places of the enemy in his mind. Suddenly he would 
 start up, seize his paraphernalia, make his expedition, 
 and return rich-laden. This taught me the wonderful 
 power of persuasion when directed in exactly the right 
 way. One of the first things to forget is yourself. 
 I think possibly the finding in your mind of a man 
 to whom you can sell goods depends principally upon 
 your belief that when you make your dash on him 
 you forget what he will think of you. You have the
 
 156 ON THE ROAD, 
 
 willingness to sacrifice all that to the one object before 
 you. In the possible places of attack which you 
 reject, you are not yet willing to make that sacrifice. 
 You know 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 was a great man. Why ? Well, here is one reason. 
 The little men came to him one day with horror 
 spread upon their narrow features. Said they : " O, 
 Mr. Lincoln, we have just discovered that Grant 
 drinks whisky. We have come to ask you to put a 
 Temperance General in control of the more important 
 of his actions. He has the lives of our children and 
 our friends in his handPs. Save us from his liability 
 to plunge us all in general blood ! " Now this was 
 after Vicksburg. Mr. Lincoln took an interest in 
 this revelation that elated the petitioners. "You are 
 quite sure he drinks whisky, are you ? " " O, yes. 
 
 HE WAS DRUNK AT SHILOH." 
 
 "Well, will you not try hard to find out where he 
 gets his whisky ?" said Old Abe ; "I want some of 
 it for my other generals ! " 
 
 This man Abraham Lincoln wanted to put down
 
 ON THE ROAD. 1 57 
 
 the Rebellion for the sake of both the North and the 
 South. Anything that would contribute to that end 
 was what he wanted in large quantities. 
 
 YOU ARE DRESSED 
 
 as you have always dressed with easy-fitting business 
 garments. Absolutely nothing on your person gives 
 offense, either in newness or pldness. You enter the 
 store to whose proprietor you intend to sell goods. 
 If you know him and he is busy, you nod and avoid a 
 talk. This is both difficult and unlucky. If he is at 
 your service, you state that you have come to show 
 him your samples. You do not hope he needs 
 anything at the start. Of course, he needs nothing. 
 That does not enter into the question. He will buy 
 at the end. You now, if your samples are with you, 
 pick out some medium bargains. Reserve your 
 powerful arguments. Try to make him understand 
 the true value of these goods. Nothing under the 
 sun is so powerful as example. Now, to furnish ex- 
 amples, you must state who sells this particular line 
 of goods. Mention the names with all precision 
 volubility and confidence in the world. He may 
 evince no interest, but it has moved him greatly to
 
 158 ON THE ROAD. 
 
 hear all those names ! Now he begins to talk prices 
 to you. The chances are that he is " drawing the 
 long bow " that is, that he is putting the prices at 
 which he buys full low enough ! Do not dispute him. 
 Never argue with him. Accept all he says as gospel. 
 Very soon he will be on the other tack. You will be 
 talking, and you can judge whether he has told the 
 truth or not. Now you are both on excellent terms. 
 He thinks you are a very decent young fellow. 
 
 BRING ON YOUR " LEADERS." 
 
 You ought to have some little line that you are sell- 
 ing for less than it is worth. Give him the solemn 
 privilege of getting some of it. He wavers, he is 
 lost. This is the entering wedge. If he is sharp 
 enough to buy only " leaders," he is too sharp for you, 
 and for your house. Ten chances to one he would 
 never pay anyway. You must have picked out a 
 poor man to start on. But if you have an ordinary 
 gentlemanly man of business, he will take some goods 
 of you. Canvass him for everything. Do not neg- 
 lect your work now it has come. He is wavering 
 everywhere. He is contradicting by his acts nearly 
 every assertion he made behind his entrenchments,
 
 ON THE ROAD. 159 
 
 Never mind that. Do not leave him until there is 
 "no more buy in him." Now, after you have all the 
 items and 
 
 NEVER STOP HIM 
 
 when he is giving them sum them up, read them 
 over, take his name (firm name), his post-office (not 
 his railroad station), his railroad station, his express 
 company, his railroad, absolutely everything. Make 
 his name " Owens," not " Owen," "Ransom's Sons " 
 not Ransom & Sons, " Smythe " not " Smith," if that 
 be the way he puts it. A man is very tender about 
 his name. Never forget that. Impress those things 
 on your shipping-clerk at home. Tell him you have 
 sold Edwards Pierrepont a bill of goods, and that this 
 particular buyer has 
 
 A PRIVATE GRAVEYARD 
 
 for shipping-clerks who mark it " Edward." You 
 have already consulted your commercial " testament " 
 to see if the firm will pay. If the biH be too large for 
 the credit allowed in the " testament," telegraph to 
 your firm about it and get instructions. Of course, 
 you cannot have mistaken prices or sold below the 
 necessary profit. A firrn in Boston started out a con-
 
 l6o ON THE ROAD. 
 
 fident young man, and he sold tremendous bills of 
 goods. He took no account of the value of the goods* 
 freight, or time of payment. All those merchants 
 who had friends on his " beat " telegraphed to them 
 to be sure and give him an order. He was the rage. 
 There was also some Vage at Boston when the orders 
 began coming in. They telegraphed to Madison 
 
 TO HEAD HIM OFF, 
 
 but he had "taken a shoot" to Rockford. They 
 telegraphed to Dubuque, but he had doubled down 
 toward Galesburg. They telegraphed to Galesburg 
 but he had escaped into Iowa. Finally they sent, to 
 every town on three parallel lines of railroad in lowa^ 
 a postal card with " Come Home !" covering one side 
 of it, and captured him somewhere about the middle 
 of the State, also in the middle of the greatest of all 
 his campaigns. The firm settled his expenses, but re- 
 fused to deliver the goods, and hired an extra lawyer 
 or two to contest 
 
 THE LARGE CROP OF LEGAL SUITS 
 
 which brought up the rear of his triumph, like the 
 tail of a gorgeous cornet. This young man was pe- 
 culiar. I only mention his flight through the western
 
 ON THE ROAD. l'6i 
 
 commercial sky to make you smile when you think of 
 it and lighten your heart, when this remembrance 
 comes in a lonesome hour. If you are unacquainted 
 with the gentleman to whom you are to sell, use your 
 habitual salutation. A majority of successful men say 
 " How are you, sir? 11 You have your card right side 
 up, close to his hand. You say: "My name is Ben- 
 nington I am from Chicago Remington & Com- 
 pany let me talk to you a little about some of our 
 goods." You have accompanied some such speech as 
 this by an expeditious display of your samples. If your 
 choice of attack was sound, he is already looking at 
 your goods. . 
 
 THE BOARD AT THE HOTEL 
 
 has greatly improved this evening, so you will find. 
 Make up your mind that when a man does not ac- 
 cord you a fair hearing you have erred in your ap- 
 proach. There are some men who have to be ap- 
 proached through a personal introduction. If you 
 take advantage of the chances that come in your way, 
 you can afford to accept the misfortunes which befall 
 you, for it is a real misfortune to attack a cold, hard- 
 surfaced man in his moment of strength and get a full
 
 1 62 ON THE ROAD. 
 
 broadside from his guns. Go in force against such 
 men. Two men would have him at a disadvantage. 
 
 IN CONCLUSION, 
 
 Do not be in a hurry to get back home. Have books 
 with you. Shun traveling men, as they cannot bene- 
 fit you. The desire to have company often makes a 
 man "lose a town." It often keeps him up nights. 
 What is the reason you dread the attack ? Because you 
 have no electricity in you . You have not slept enough . 
 Have you not often felt you could walk ten miles as 
 easily as one? That was just the moment to "fall up 
 against " the hard-surfaced man. Have you not often 
 felt you would like to be in the little white cottage, 
 reading what a wonderful place New York is? Just 
 then you ought to be in bed, 
 
 MANUFACTURING SNAP AND SPARKLE. 
 
 In all your expedition, judgment has been at work. 
 Judgment sent you out, and judgment pointed out 
 your attack. You therefore have sold goods to re- 
 sponsible people, and your firm are delighted. You 
 now have the most powerful lines of money-making 
 in the world right in your hands. You are the man 
 who can "place the goods." You are practically a
 
 ON THE ROAD. 163 
 
 partner. If you have perfected yourself in your art, 
 and if you are not in business for yourself, it is because 
 you do not want it so to be.
 
 Lives of great men all remind us 
 
 \Ve may make our lives sublime, 
 And, departing, leave behind us, 
 
 Footprints on the sands of time. LONGFELLOW. 
 
 T is hard to follow in the tracks oi 
 giants, but nevertheless the sands 
 of our time are filled with that 
 kind of footprints. The present 
 century has beholden some of the 
 most astonishing elevations of all 
 history. Slaves have become Roman 
 Emperors, but we hardly know what 
 " slave " meant in those days. Within the 
 last hundred years we see a poor old dame 
 with three sons called Joseph, Napoleon 
 and Jerome. We see a cooper's son called 
 Michel Ney, an inn-keeper's son called 
 Joaquin Murat, a lawyer's son named Jean Bernadotte, 
 a military cadet named Louis Davout, and a lame 
 boy called Charles Talleyrand. Behold them 
 mounting the ladder until, at the end of thirty years, 
 the roster stands thus ; Joseph Bonaparte, King of 
 
 [164]
 
 EXAMPLES. 165 
 
 Spain ; Napoleon Bonaparte, greatest warrior of 
 modern times and Emperor of France, which meant 
 dictator of I^urope ; Jerome Bonaparte, King of 
 Westphalia ; Michel Ney, Prince of the Moskwa and 
 Bravest of the Brave ; JoaquinMurat, King of Naples ; 
 Jean Bernadotte, King of Sweden, and founder of the 
 present dynasty ; Louis Davout, Prince of Eckmuhl, 
 and, in 1811, 
 
 COMMANDER OF NEARLY 6oO,OOO MEN J 
 
 Charles Talleyrand, Prince of Benevento, and perhaps 
 the greatest diplomat in history. We have Ben 
 Franklin learning to ink type in his youth and in his 
 maturity teaching the world how to subdue our favorite 
 slave, the lightning. We have Daniel Webster 
 ploughing on a farm and afterward delighting two 
 worlds^with the magic of his voice. We see John 
 Jacob Astor arrive in America scarcely able to speak 
 English, and die in 1848 worth more than any other 
 man in America at that time. We see George 
 Peabody at work in a grocery at Danvers.' Years 
 afterward, as a London banker, we chronicle his 
 charities, almost fabulous in their extent : To 
 Danvers, Mass., two hundred and fifty thousand
 
 1 66 EXAMPLES. 
 
 dollars ; to the Baltimore Institute, one million four 
 hundred thousand dollars ; to the poor of London, 
 two million five hundred thousand dollars ; to the 
 southern negroes, three million five hundred thousand 
 dollars ; to eight institutions, three hundred and fifty 
 thousand dollars ; to his relatives, five million dollars ; 
 We see A. T. Stewart hard pressed for a dollar, and 
 we find him worth thirty millions when he dies. We 
 watch 
 
 THE WIFE OF ANDREW JOHNSON 
 
 teaching him the alphabet, and we listen to his 
 proclamations as President of the United States. We 
 tell Abraham Lincoln where he can borrow a book 
 that will benefit him, and we pass by his great dust 
 in numbers almost like the stars in heaven. We see 
 Phineas T. Barnum first humbugging the people with 
 a lemonade-stand worth all told two dollars, and we 
 next see him humbugging the people with the greatest 
 show on earth, worth a million. We lend Leland 
 Stanford a quarter and he next buys up three or 
 four high-priced legislatures and defies the Constitution 
 of the United States to prevent him levying a tax on
 
 EXAMPLES. 167 
 
 " his people " of a million dollars with a stroke of his 
 pen. We see 
 
 ULYSSES S. GRANT 
 
 working by the day in a tanyard, and then receiving 
 the sword of a warrior whose name will also echo far 
 out into the " corridors of time," and then again 
 accepting as the representative of America, the 
 pent-up admiration of the Old World for the New. 
 We see Jay Gould investing a thousand dollars in a 
 country store and then in turn dictating to all the 
 railroads and controlling all the telegraphs in the 
 greatest empire that has ever existed. We watch 
 Cornelius Vanderbilt, Sr., begin as a poor lad, save, 
 build, command, and die, leaving to his favorite son 
 
 EIGHTY MILLIONS OF DOLLARS ! 
 
 We see that son, beginning on that paltry patrimony, 
 already the possessor, in a few short years, of seventy 
 millions in addition. We help Elihu Burritt to say 
 his letters at noon-time in a blacksmith shop, and 
 afterward, lo ! he converses in thirty languages. 
 We see Edgar Poe, dying as poor as man ever died, 
 yet leaving to the world a name as a writer that 
 Europeans persist is as yet the brightest in American
 
 1 68 EXAMPLES. 
 
 literature. See Horace Greeley, trudging across a 
 State, anxious to get a job for his board and clothes ; 
 then listen to his voice in the councils of the President 
 and in the hearts of the people. Remember Salmon 
 P. Chase, a poor Ohio boy, Governor, Secretary of 
 the Treasury, author of the best currency system so 
 far conceived, and Chief Justice of the Supreme 
 Court. 
 
 JAMES A. GARFIELD 
 
 is now at work driving a canal-boat, now 
 Republican leader of the House, now Senator, now 
 President, and now the object of a weeping world's 
 affection. See the poor boy Sherman, born in Lan- 
 caster, O. A short space flies past us, and he has 
 cut his own communications and marched with his 
 army into the enemy's country. The London 
 Times says if he emerges from the unknown 
 country with his army, he will be " the greatest 
 captain of modern times." Soon his banners float 
 on the coast, soon the cities are blazing behind his 
 fearful stride, and soon the cruel war is over. We 
 behold the third son of a very large family of 
 
 TENNYSONS 
 
 begin writing verses. He writes trash at first, but
 
 EXAMPLES. 169 
 
 by and by he is proclaimed the greatest living poet, 
 and his art of writing (all that part of his work which 
 was difficult) is pronounced the greatest the world 
 has ever seen. We see the boy Lee, studying"hard 
 to sustain the illustrious name he bore, advancing in 
 science to the great study of astronomy, becoming 
 the intellectual credit of his surroundings, the tutor of 
 the scholarly. We behold him clasping the sword 
 put in his hands by the greatest unsuccessful in- 
 surrection of all past time, and, seated on his horse, 
 smiling at the awful repulse of 
 
 PICKETT'S IMMORTAL CHARGE AT GETTYSBURG, 
 saying, simply: "We cannot always expect to have 
 our own way in an attack," when down in his great 
 heart he knows that the proudest people ever defeated 
 have cast the final die, and lost. We stand over his 
 ashes and feel that they are the ashes of a truly great 
 man whom "unmerciful disaster followed fast and fol- 
 lowed faster." We see James Gordon Bennett, the jibe 
 of all the printers because of his crooked eyes. Yet 
 he dies the owner of the greatest money-making 
 newspaper of all newspaper history, a journal which 
 sends expeditions to Africa and squadrons to the north
 
 170 
 
 EXAMPLES. 
 
 pole. We see a "canny" Scotch boy at study. He 
 "takes wonderfully to German," and soon the English 
 world is hailing him as the " literary Columbus." He 
 has shown them the greatness of Frederick, of Schiller, 
 and Goethe. He writes a history of the French Rev- 
 olution, and calls it the " truth clad in hell-fire." He 
 reads a library in a few hours, or, rather, he reads 
 what he has not read and finally he lies down, hating 
 the world, hating freedom, but full of genius, and 
 men say "Carlyle is dead." 
 
 A BOY CALLED VICTOR HUGO 
 
 is born in France. At thirty he is famous. Then 
 tor fifty years he wields an influence through the lit- 
 eratures of all nations second only to Shakspeare's. 
 We see the sailor-boy Garibaldi, the commander-in- 
 chief and savior of Uruguay in South America, the 
 idol and king-maker of Italy, and the stern patriot 
 without rank or gew-gaw on 
 
 THE ROCK OF CAPRI, 
 
 a joining of the characters of such men as Socrates 
 and Washington. We see Disraeli, a poor boy and 
 we see Disraeli more powerful than any other man on 
 earth. We look at Gladstone as a boy starting in
 
 EXAMPLES. 
 
 life, determined to be a scholar. We hear his glori- 
 ous voice, we read his books, we study the laws he 
 has framed, we watch the empire he governs, and we 
 feel he succeeded in his boyish ambition. Every- 
 where in the lives of Agassiz, Humboldt, Proctor, 
 Seward, Farragut, Nelson, Abercrombie, Joseph E. 
 Johnston, Longstreet, Stanton, Aspinwall, Lorillard, 
 Ayer, Helmbold, Scott, Garrett, Ralston, Garner, 
 Watson, Howe, Singer, Steinway, McCormick, Morse, 
 Edison, Bell, Gray, Applegarth, Hoe, Thomas, Wag- 
 ner, Verdi, Jurgensen, Picard, Stephenson, Fulton, 
 Rumsey, Fitch, Lamb, Fairbanks, Corliss, Dahlgren, 
 Parrot, Armstrong, Gatling, Pullman, Alden, Cromp- 
 ton, Faber, Remington, Sharp, Colt, Daguerre, Bess- 
 emer, Goodyear, Yale, Keene, Gould, Villard, and 
 
 IN THE LIVES OF THE THOUSANDS 
 
 which my limits exclude me from mentioning, there is 
 the example of the hard worker, the promise of re- 
 sults that will follow a well-directed effort. " In order 
 to do great things, it is necessary to live as if one was 
 never to die " that is, pay attention only to the ob- 
 ject aimed at. I remember a man of success who 
 meant to break up housekeeping and go to Europe on
 
 172 EXAMPLES. 
 
 a matter of business. This was the first of January." 
 The fact that the weather suddenly turned cold to the 
 extent of thirty degrees below zero did not seem to 
 attract his attention. He was absent-minded on that 
 question ! When it came to going out to hire an ex- 
 pressman to haul his effects to a storehouse he found 
 no one would venture out with his horse until the 
 thermometer should rise, and his astonishment knew 
 no bounds! He had been 
 
 SO IN THE HABIT OF RIDING OVER OBSTACLES 
 
 that his distress was very noticeable when he was 
 compelled to wait in idleness for three days. Never 
 allow obstacles to stop you. When the waters meet 
 an obstacle they run around it. So do the ants. 
 Read the lives of successful men. Watch successful 
 men. "We are less convinced by what we hear 
 than what we see," said Herodotus thousands of years 
 ago. Said Seneca, nineteen hundred years ago: 
 " Men trust rather to their eyes than to their ears; the 
 effect of precepts, is, therefore, slow and tedious, while 
 that of example is summary and effectual." Says 
 Franklin: " None teaches better than the ant, and 
 she says nothing." " Not the cry " say the Chinese,
 
 EXAMPLL-b. 
 
 '73 
 
 " but the flight of the wild duck, leads the flock to fly 
 and follow." 
 
 " CHRIST NEVER WROTE A TRACT," 
 
 says Horace Mann. " The people look at their pastor 
 six days in the week," says Cecil, "to see what he 
 means on the seventh." Says Dr. Johnson: " Those 
 who attain any excellence commonly spend life in one 
 common pursuit; for excellence is not often gained 
 upon easier grounds," and the examples of a majority 
 of the successful men will show this to be true. It 
 seeems to me, in conclusion, that 
 
 LIFE IS LIKE THE SYSTEM 
 
 upon which gamblers often stake their money. If 
 they lose one, they stake two; if they lose, they stake, 
 four; if they lose, they stake eight; if they still lose 
 they stake sixteen; now if they win, they have, of 
 course, won one more than they have lost altogether. 
 The banker guards against this system by limiting 
 their progression to a certain figure and thus break- 
 ing it down. But in the game of life we have no 
 limit put upon our enterprises. We may redouble our 
 efforts after every failure, and we find, upon the first 
 success, that we have, in one stroke of prosperity,
 
 174 EXAMPLES. ' 
 
 more than made ourselves whole for failures which 
 may have extended behind us indefinitely. You can- 
 not fail in life if you will stake an effort on each suc- 
 ceeding attempt twice as great as the effort which lost 
 you your last desire.
 
 A combination and a form, indeed, 
 Where every god did seem to set his seal 
 To give the world assurance of a man. 
 
 His life was gentle, and the elements 
 
 So mixed in him, that nature might stand up 
 
 And say to all the world " This was a man ! " SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 HAT a piece of wrke is a man ? 
 How Noble in Reason? how 
 infinite in faculty ? in forme and 
 mouing how expresse and ad- 
 mirable ? in Action how like an 
 Angel ? in apprehension how like 
 a God ? the beauty of the world, the Paragon 
 of Animals ? " This is the exalted panegyric 
 of the greatest mind so far vouchsafed to 
 our race this, then, was Shakspeare's ideal 
 of a true man. Says Emerson : " O rich and 
 various man ! thou palace of sight and sound, 
 carrying in thy senses the morning and the night, and 
 the unfathomable galaxy ; in thy brain the 
 geometry of the city of God ; in thy heart the power
 
 176 MAN. 
 
 of love and the realms of right and wrong." "Man 
 was sent into the world to be a growing and 
 exhaustless force," says Chapin ; "the world was 
 spread out around him to be seized and conquered. 
 Realms of infinite truth burst open above him, 
 inviting him to to tread those shining coasts along 
 which Newton dropped his plummet, and Herschel 
 sailed, 
 
 A COLUMBUS OF THE SKIES." 
 
 "Man," says Carlyle, "has reflected his two-fold 
 nature in history. ' He is of earth,' but his thoughts 
 are with the stars. Mean and petty his wants and 
 his desires ; yet they serve a soul exalted with grand, 
 glorious aims, with immortal longings, with thoughts 
 which sweep the heavens and * wander through 
 eternity.' A pigmy standing on the outward crust 
 of this small planet, his far-reaching spirit stretches 
 outward to the infinite, and there finds rest." Then 
 turning to the combined effects of individual lives, 
 the same great writer says : " History is a reflex of 
 this double life. Every epoch has two aspects one 
 calm, broad and solemn looking towards eternity ; 
 the other agitated, petty, vehement, and confused^
 
 MAN. 177 
 
 looking towards time." "Man," says Sir William 
 Hamilton, one of the greatest of true philosophers, 
 44 is not an organism : he is an intelligence, served by 
 organs." Says Whately : "The heavens do indeed 
 4 declare the glory of God, 1 and the human body is 
 4 fearfully and wonderfully made ;' but man, considered, 
 not merely as an organized being, but as a rational 
 agent, and as a member of society, is perhaps the 
 most wonderfully contrived, and to us the most 
 interesting, specimen of divine wisdom that we have 
 any knowledge of." 
 
 MAN'S FAULTS. 
 
 So much in compliment of mankind. Now this 
 same marvelous creature, man, has a critical spirit. 
 He is endued with a quality of progression. The 
 motive power in this progression is dissatisfaction. 
 Let us listen to the sages when they drop eulogy and 
 become out of conceit with themselves. 
 
 44 MAN IS IMPROVABLE," 
 
 says Horace Mann. " Some think he is only a machine, 
 and that the only difference between a man and a 
 mill is, that one is carried by blood and the other by 
 water." Says Pascal: "What a chimera is man!
 
 178 MAN. 
 
 what a singular phenomenon ! what a chaos ! what 
 a scene of contrariety ! A judge of all things yet a 
 feeble worm ; the shrine of truth, yet a mass of doubt 
 and uncertainty ; at once the glory and the scorn of 
 the universe. If he boasts, I lower him ; if he lowers 
 himself I raise him ; either way I contradict him, till 
 he learns he is a monstrous, incomprehensible 
 
 * 
 
 mystery." " Make yourself an honest man," says 
 Carlyle sarcastically, "and then you may be sure 
 there is one less rascal in the world." This remark 
 sprang, probably, from a reading of 
 
 YVHATELEY'S COMPARISON 
 
 of a rogue with a man of honor : " Other things 
 being equal, an honest man has this advantage over 
 a knave, that he understands more of human nature : 
 for he knows that one honest man exists, and 
 concludes that there must be more ; and he also 
 knows, if he is not a mere simpleton, that there are 
 some who are knavish. But the knave can seldom 
 be brought to believe in the existence of an honest 
 man. The honest man may be deceived in particular 
 persons, but the knave is sure' to be deceived
 
 MAN. lyp 
 
 whenever he comes across an honest man who is not 
 a mere fool." " Man is 
 
 TOO NEAR ALL KINDS OF BEASTS 
 
 a fawning dog, a roaring lion, a thieving fox, a 
 robbing wolf, a dissembling crocodile, a treacherous 
 decoy, and a rapacious vulture." This was the poet 
 Cowley's opinion. u Of all the animals " scolds 
 Boileau, " which fly in the air, walk on the ground, 
 or swim in the sea, from Paris to Peru, from Japan 
 to Rome, the most foolish animal, in my opinion, is 
 man." People must be very bad, indeed, who get 
 opinions as low as the two last quoted. That 
 rapacious vulture George Peabody ! that dissembling 
 crocodile William Cowper ! that robbing wolf Girard ! 
 that thieving fox Charles Sumner ! that fawning dog 
 Napoleon Bonaparte ! and those most foolish animals 
 Louis Agassiz and Isaac Newton ! It does not well 
 become the weakest links in a chain to boast that 
 they gauge that chain's strength, for the chain can be 
 greatly strengthened, upon this easy discovery of 
 those weak links, by simply dropping them out of 
 connection.
 
 l8o MAN. 
 
 And now comes the query : "What is man ? Vp 
 He has always been more or less at a loss for some 
 striking and succinct statement of his peculiar char- 
 acteristics of the mark that separates him from other 
 animals. Diogenes Laertius says that Plato having 
 defined man to be a two-legged animal without feathers, 
 he (Diogenes) plucked a cock, and, bringing him into 
 the school, said " Here is Plato's man." From this 
 joke there was added to the definition "With broad 
 flat nails." Even this definition is just as faulty, as it 
 does not exclude many species of the monkey. 
 Again it was thought that man was the only 
 being who laughs. Says Addison, poetically : 
 " Man is the merriest species of the creation ; all 
 above and below him are serious." But scientists 
 refuse to accept this distinction as accurate. " Man 
 is an animal 
 
 THAT COOKS HIS VICTUALS," 
 
 says Burke. "So does the' buzzard" (in the sun) 
 say the learned men. " Man uses tools," says another. 
 " So does the beaver the ourang-outang hurls stones, 
 and fights with clubs," say the scientists. Finally, 
 says Adam Smith, in his " Wealth of Nations ;"
 
 MAN. 1 8 1 
 
 " Man is an animal that makes bargains ; no other 
 animal does this one dog does not change a bone 
 with another." We must be satisfied with this, I 
 suppose, but it is a very faulty declaration, for I have 
 seen one dog change a bone with another, in which' 
 instance a big dog traded with a little dog, and im- 
 pressed the little dog with the desirability, under the 
 circumstances, of the smaller of two bones ! And I 
 am not sure but that 
 
 ALL BARGAINS, WHETHER HUMAN OR CANINE, 
 
 are of that stripe, wherein the superior of two bone 
 or money getters acquaints the inferior with the good 
 points of a bad bargain. BufFon, at the beginning of 
 his Natural History, is unable, even, to give any line 
 of demarcation between vegetable and animal sub- 
 stances, and perplexes the mind with an infinitude of 
 faulty attempts, in turn showing the weak spot in each. 
 " For man is a plant," 
 
 SAYS PLUTARCH, 
 
 " not fixed in the earth nor immovable, but heavenly, 
 whose head, rising, as it were, from a root upwards, 
 is turned towards heaven." " A man ought to carry 
 himself in the world," says Henry Ward Beecher,
 
 182 MAN. 
 
 continuing and building on Plutarch's thought, " as 
 an orange-tree would, if it could walk up and down in 
 the garden, swinging perfume from every little cen- 
 ser it holds up to the air." 
 
 Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; 
 The proper study of mankind is man. 
 
 This is the declaration of the great poet Pope, and 
 a glance across the world's literature will show that 
 the mandate was unneeded. For ages before the 
 birth of the celebrated u wasp of Twickenham," man- 
 kind had been at study on the subject. " The burden 
 of history " says George Finlayson, " is what man has 
 been; of law, what he does; of physiology, what he is; 
 of ethics, what he ought to be; of revelation, what he 
 shall be." " Man is the product of his own history," 
 says Theodore Parker. " The discoverer finds noth- 
 ing so grand or tall as himself, nothing so valuable to 
 him. The greatest star is that at the end of the tele- 
 scope 
 
 THE STAR THAT IS LOOKING, NOT LOOKED AFTER, 
 
 nor looked at." " Man is greater than a world, than 
 systems of worlds ; there is more mystery in the union 
 of soul with the physical than in the creation of the
 
 MAN. 183 
 
 This sentence is by Henry Giles. To 
 the first portion of it I give unqualified belief. I be- 
 lieve, too, with John Ruskin, that " the basest thought 
 possible concerning man is that he has no spiritual 
 nature; and the foolishest misunderstanding of him 
 possible is, that he has, or should have, no animal 
 nature. For his nature is nobly animal, nobly spirit- 
 ual coherently and irrevocably so; neither part of it 
 may, but at its peril, expel, despise, or defy the other." 
 " Man is the metre of all things," says Aristotle, 
 
 "THE HAND 
 
 is the instrument of instruments, and the mind Ik the 
 form of forms." The remark of the great Athenian 
 regarding the hand, while no truer than that one 
 touching the mind, is yet easier of demonstration to 
 the unphilosophical reader. For instance, the prin- 
 ters of the finest engravings to this day use the palm 
 of the hand to apply the ink ; the type-setting machine 
 is so far a failure for the want of the human fingers ; 
 the most perfect performance of music on a machine 
 yet lacks that sympathy and exception to mathemat- 
 ical rule which the human fingers, highly trained, im- 
 part to the keyboard, an 1 the violin, that thing
 
 l8| MAN. 
 
 most nearly in communication with the soul 
 of man, pays no allegiance whatever save to the 
 human hand well practiced in its mastery; the hand 
 skilled in love soothes the aching brow; the whole 
 framework of this instrument, the hand, filled with 
 gold coins, almost without volition spurns the spuri- 
 ous piece; the false bank-note is lifted with suspicion; 
 across the signature the deft fingers run to aid the 
 eye ; over the letters the mind of the sightless pushes 
 its loyal touch, and the signal comes faithfully back 
 to the dungeoned intelligence ! 
 
 OUR OPPORTUNITIES 
 
 are the greatest of those of any living beings. It fol- 
 lows, it seems to me, that our responsibilities should 
 be greater, both in justice and in reason. Every 
 opportunity is equivalent to a duty. We owe with 
 all these miracles of the living world centered and 
 perfected in our bodies, : a duty equally grand and 
 difficult. Let us ennoble ourselves. John Fletcher 
 wrote a beautiful metaphor in very clumsy verse 
 when he said : 
 
 Man is his own star, and the soul that can 
 Rendei an honest and a perfect man 
 Commands all light, all influence, all fate,
 
 MAN. 185 
 
 Nothing to him falls early, or too late. 
 Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, 
 Our fatal shadows that walk by us still. 
 
 HOLY WRIT. 
 
 The Lord has well loved man : " He found him in 
 a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; 
 he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as 
 the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirreth up her 
 nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her 
 wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings, so 
 the Lord alone did lead him." " The Lord hath 
 sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord 
 hath commanded him to be a captain over his people." 
 " When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fin- 
 gers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, 
 [then] what is man, that thou art mindful of him ? 
 and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For 
 thou hast made him 
 
 A LITTLE LOWER THAN THE ANGELS, 
 
 and hast crowned him with glory and honor !" "I 
 have set the Lord before me. Because he is at my 
 right hand, I shall not be moved." "Thy rod and 
 thy staff they comfort me." " I have been young, and 
 now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsak-
 
 186 MAN. 
 
 en, nor his seed begging bread." "For a thousand 
 years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, 
 and as a watch in the night." " For all our days 
 are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years 
 as a tale that is told." "So teach us to number our 
 days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." 
 " Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto 
 my path." " He giveth his beloved sleep." " A 
 man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth 
 his steps." " One event happeneth to them all." 
 " Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was ; and 
 the spirit shall turn unto God who gave it. 1 ' 
 
 We perceive, upon a glance at this broad subject, 
 that a book would be better fitted to its treatment 
 than a chapter, and yet a chapter alone will aid in 
 attuning the mind to the nobility of our destiny. A 
 single thought entering the mind at the right time 
 will turn the current of a life. Let us elevate and 
 strengthen our present into the nobler foundation of a 
 happier future on earth and a blissful eternity in 
 heaven. We are endowed with shame. Let it keep 
 us from meriting the stinging epigram: " God made 
 him, and therefore let him pass for a man."
 
 She was a. phanton of delight 
 
 When first she gleamed upon my sight. 
 
 And now I see, with eye serene, 
 
 The very pulse of the machine ; 
 
 A being breathing thoughtful breath, 
 
 A traveler betwixt life and death ; 
 
 The reason firm, the temperate will, 
 
 Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill ; 
 
 A perfect woman, nobly planned, 
 
 To warm, to comfort, and command 
 
 And yet a spirit still, and bright, 
 
 With something of an angel light. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 AN is the image and glory 
 of God, but the woman is 
 the glory of the man," 
 says the great Book. This 
 is so true that most of the 
 charities and mercies for 
 
 which mankind gets credit in his own 
 Amoral intelligence are inspired by the 
 
 charitable and merciful attributes so 
 
 characteristic of true womanhood. 
 
 Campbell, in the "Pleasures of Hope," 
 
 speaks thus of the Garden of Paradise : 
 
 [187]
 
 1 88 WOMAN. 
 
 The world was sad the garden was a wild , 
 And man, the hermit, sighed, till woman smiled. 
 
 And lovely woman has smiled forever. Into the 
 lot of life she has put all that has endeared it or made 
 it tolerable ; into the hope of the hereafter she has 
 ever breathed the breath of life and kept it a living 
 force. Besides the charms she has for man as a 
 thing of superexcellent beauty, woman has ever 
 held him in the second greatest debt he owes. She 
 teaches him, not less, a greater debt (to God), and 
 brings him before that Chief Creditor with little 
 thought of her own dues. Upon 
 
 A SUBJECT SO PLEASANT TO MAN, 
 
 it is not strange that he has spent his days in framing 
 speeches to reward the admirable devotion of woman, 
 and it is pleasant to believe the object of those en- 
 comiums has received them as the most desirable 
 form of remuneration. She has listened to his praise 
 with beating heart, and blossomed into greater 
 loveliness. She has had no greed of money, save as 
 it would array her in beauteous raiment, that she 
 might better guard the love she has won ; she has 
 had little ambition, save as she might be of service
 
 WOMAN. 189 
 
 bo her mate, whose unquiet soul has never ceased its 
 
 PLUNGING INTO THE NIGHT OF DESTINY, 
 
 the storm of life. But she has had great powers of 
 love, great powers of sacrifice, great depths of 
 forgiveness, great fountains of tears those still 
 waters where bathes the human soul and rises clean 
 before God's sight. "Women are the poetry of the 
 world, in the same sense that the stars are the poetry 
 of heaven," says Hargrave ; "clear, light-giving, 
 harmonious, they are the terrestrial planets that rule 
 the destinies of mankind." "Man," says Washington 
 Irving, "is the creature of interest and ambition. 
 His nature leads him forth into the struggle and 
 bustle of the world. Love is but the embellishment 
 of his early life, or a song piped in the intervals of his 
 acts. But a woman's whole life is 
 
 A HISTORY OF THE AFFECTIONS 
 
 The heart is her world ; it is there her ambition 
 strives for empire ; it is there her avarice seeks for 
 hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on 
 adventure, she embarks her whole soul in the traffic 
 pf affection ; and, if shipwrecked, her case is
 
 190 WOMAN. 
 
 hopeless, for it is a bankruptcy of the heart. 1 ' 
 u O, if the loving, closed heart of a good 
 woman," cries Jean Paul Richter, "Should 
 open before man, how much controlled tenderness, 
 how many veiled sacrifices and dumb virtues, would 
 he see reposing therein ! " " Honor to women ! " 
 sings his brother-countryman, 
 
 SCHILLER ; 
 
 they twine and weave the roses of heaven into the 
 life of men ; it is they that unite us in the fascinating 
 bonds of love; and, concealed in the modest veil of the 
 graces, they cherish carefully the external fire of 
 delicate feeling with holy hands." "Win her and 
 wear her, if you can," says Shelley; "she is the 
 most delightful of God's creatures Heaven's best 
 gift man's joy and pride in prosperity man's 
 support and comforter in affliction." "Her passions 
 are made of the finest parts of pure love," says 
 ShaEspeare. "Her commands are caresses, her 
 menaces are tears," says Rousseau. "She was 
 
 LAST AT THE CROSS, EARLIEST AT THE GRAVE," 
 
 says Barrett. "Her errors spring almost always
 
 WOMAN. 19! 
 
 from her faith in tne good or her confidence in th 
 true " declares Balzac. " She has more strength in 
 her looks than we have in our laws, and more power 
 fey her tears than we have by our arguments," says 
 the Duke of Halifax, a great statesman. "All the 
 reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of 
 woman, 1 ' says Voltaire, skeptic in all else. " Women 
 in their nature are much more gay and joyous than 
 men," writes Addison, "whether it be that their 
 blood is more refined, their fibers more delicate, and 
 their animal spirits more light and volatile ; or 
 whether, as some have imagined, there may not be a 
 kind of 
 
 SEX IN THE VERY SOUL, 
 
 I shall not pretend to determine." "It is not strange 
 to me" says Boyle, a good, sensible man, "that 
 persons of the fairer sex should like, in all things 
 about them, that handsomeness for which they find 
 themselves most liked." Man reviles woman for her 
 vanity. At the same time it is the particular delight 
 of the man who will himself wear no decoration to 
 load upon his willing wife the trinkets of his fancy as 
 far as his purse will pay for them. Without woman's
 
 192 WOMAN. 
 
 
 
 almost savage love of display, man would be robbed 
 of nearly all the pleasure which 
 
 PERSONAL ORNAMENTS 
 
 now give him. He loves woman, just as she is. 
 Just as she is she is much above the level of the thing 
 he would love had he not her to claim his rapt at- 
 tention. Man smiles at woman's weaknesses, but if 
 he thought of his great meanness of soul when his 
 mercy and fidelity are in the scale against her own, 
 he would look grave and troubled. She dresses 
 with expense and variety, because it is the first 
 ordinance of her master. Her very love of dress is 
 the sign and seal of her intelligence. If it be folly, 
 arraign man at the dock ! Says 
 
 STAID OLD DR. JOHNSON : 
 
 " We see women universally jealous of the reputation 
 of their beauty, and frequently look with contempt on 
 the care with which they study their complexions, 
 endeavor to preserve or supply the bloom of youth, 
 regulate every ornament, twist their hair into curls, 
 and shade their faces from the weather. We 
 recommend the care of their nobler part, and tell 
 them r^ow little addition is made by all their arts feo
 
 WOMAN. 193 
 
 the graces of the mind. But when was it known 
 that female goodness or knowledge was able to 
 attract that officiousness, or inspire that ardor, which 
 beauty produces wherever it appears ? And with 
 what hope can we endeavor to persuade the ladies 
 that 
 
 THE TIME SPENT AT THE TOILET 
 
 is lost in vanity, when they have every moment some 
 new conviction that their interest is more effectually 
 promoted by a ribbon well disposed than by the 
 brightest act of heroic virtue ? " Listen to the praise 
 of practical John Ledyard, whose word has the solid 
 ring of fact about it : "I have observed among all 
 nations [that he had seen, the statement not being 
 applicable to a majority of the savages] that the 
 women ornament themselves more than the men ; 
 that, 
 
 WHEREVER FOUND, THEY ARE THE MOST CIVIL, 
 
 kind, obliging, humane, tender beings; that* they are 
 ever inclined to be gay and cheerful, timorous and 
 modest. They do not hesitate, like man, to perform 
 a hospitable or generous action; not haughty, nor 
 arrogant, nor supercilious, but full of courtesy and
 
 194 N O.MAN. 
 
 fond of society; industrious, economical, ingenuous; 
 more liable, in general, to err than man; but, in gen- 
 eral, also more virtuous, and performing more good 
 actions than he. I never addressed myself in the lan- 
 guage of decency and friendship to a woman, wheth- 
 er civilized or savage, without receiving 
 
 A DECENT AND FRIENDLY ANSWER. 
 
 With men it has often been otherwise. In wandering 
 over the plains of inhospitable Denmark, through hon- 
 est Sweden, frozen .Lapland, rude and churlish Fin- 
 land, unprincipled Russia, and the widespread regions 
 of the wandering Tartar, if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or 
 sick, woman has ever been friendly to me, and uni- 
 formly so: and, to add to this virtue, so worthy of the 
 appellation of benevolence, these actions have been 
 performed in so free and so kind a manner, that, if I 
 was dry, I drank the sweet draught, and, if hungry, 
 ate the coarse morsel with a double relish," Woman 
 may read ' 
 
 THIS CANDID TESTIMONY 
 
 with a blush of gratification, for there oreathes no 
 flattery in it only the serious observations of an old 
 man bent on getting knowledge by personal experi-
 
 WOMAN. 195 
 
 ence. "A man may flatter himself as he pleases," 
 says Sir Richard Steele, " but he will find that the 
 women have more understanding in their own affairs 
 than we have." Man suffers in his loves for woman. 
 She often casts him on the rocks like an angry unfeel- 
 ing sea, but when, at last she has smiled upon him, he 
 becomes a broader, better man. Without the com- 
 panionship of woman, man is truly half-made up. He 
 loses his self-esteem, he lives without laws, without 
 churches, without hospitals. 
 
 THE WESTERN WILDS, 
 
 during the early period of their settlement by Ameri- 
 cans, have furnished us with accurate views of society 
 without women. And what has that society been? 
 More a den of wild beasts than a congregation of the 
 most reasoning of God's creatures! There we find 
 men living in constant suspicion of their comrades, in 
 constant danger of hazarding their lives for some sen- 
 timental canon of personal vanity that, if they were 
 boys in civilized society, would be flogged out of 
 their moral code. 
 
 THE WHOLE HISTORY OF HUMAN SICKNESS 
 
 is a continuous outcry of the goodness of woman,
 
 196 WOMAN. 
 
 Wherever the red hand of war has risen to smite, 
 there the white hand of woman has hastened to soothe. 
 After the roar of the conflagration and amidst the 
 ruins piled up by the earthquake ever has that sweet 
 minister sought out the hungry and succored the suff- 
 ering. 
 
 CRITICISM OUT OF PLACE. 
 
 One does not feel that he can do any good by criti- 
 cising woman. We love fruit that is perfect. We 
 do not describe, and we would have little thanks for a 
 description of, those specimens of cherries, strawber- 
 ries, or grapes which fail to realize our anticipations of 
 a delightful product of the orchard, the garden, or 
 the vineyard. But I have perhaps, by showing the 
 respect in which men of intellect and honor hold a 
 good woman, given needed encouragement to patient 
 hearts, and testified my own humble regard for wo- 
 manhood.
 
 His hair just grizzled, 
 As in a green old age. DRYDEN. 
 
 HE word papa, I believe, goes 
 back, just as it is, through all the 
 languages, to the Sanscrit, and 
 even beyond to the unknown 
 Aryan, the stock of our civilized 
 tongues. The Pope is papa, kind father, 
 in Italian. How his name ever came to 
 be twisted into the ugly sound we hear 
 in English is a problem, for the 
 difference on the feelings between the 
 sounds of Pope, and papa, kind father, 
 cannot well be exaggerated. The kind 
 father of a good man occupies an en- 
 viable place in that man's thoughts. It is no passing 
 admiration ; that father is no hero of to-day, no study 
 of tomorrow, no dim recollection when the future 
 shall have come but an active exemplar, an honored 
 
 memory, a potent spur and stay combined a spur 
 
 [197]
 
 198 FATHER. 
 
 to urge to all a man should do ; a stay to curb un- 
 wisdom's flying feet. That father has toiled in 
 weariness that his son might follow an easier path of 
 life. Perhaps you now tread that path. How 
 carefully should your steps be taken ; how earnestly 
 you should climb to reach the round which meets 
 your self-denying parent's gaze ! With him there 
 have come few paroxysms of delight in his labor. 
 He has not been endowed with that mysterious joy 
 your mother has felt in all your existence. He has 
 delighted in you because he hoped you would bring 
 honor to his house ; he would rather you had not 
 lived than to see you in a prisoner's cell far rather. 
 This could not be said of your mother. She would 
 be contented that you had lived at all, that you had 
 looked into her eyes and laughed. Your father has 
 taken care of you, dutifully. Repay him in kindness. 
 "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days 
 may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God 
 giveth thee." This was graven by the Lord in the 
 marble tablets on Sinai, and has been in 
 turn graven on the countless millions of hearts that
 
 FATHER. 199 
 
 have beaten " their short funeral marches " since that 
 awful hour. 
 
 ALL SOCIETY 
 
 has at one time or another rested on the sustaining 
 power of the father. The patriarch, in ancient times, 
 protected and sustained his dependents, and, in return, 
 received their entire allegiance, wielding over them 
 the power of life and death, and thus initiating the 
 first form of human government. Next came the 
 cities, where the government was formed by all the 
 fathers together in council, and our village and city 
 legislators are, to this day, called "the city fathers," 
 although the reverence in which so august a body 
 was once held has departed with the silent flight of 
 the dignity of our modern convocations. Some one 
 has said of 
 
 A FINE AND HONORABLE OtD MAN, 
 
 that he is in the childhood of immortality. " One's 
 age should be tranquil," says Dr. Arnold, " as one's 
 childhood should be playful ; hard work at either ex- 
 tremity of human existence, seems to me out of place ; 
 the morning and the evening should be alike cool 
 and peaceful ; at midday the sun may burn, and
 
 2OO FATHER. 
 
 men may labor under it." See to it, if it be within 
 your power, that your father has the rest due to the 
 evening of his days. Let him sit in the cool. Let 
 him listen to the voices of his night the crickets 
 that cry out his mortality and the nightingales that 
 sing of Paradise ! 
 
 "GRAY HAIRS 
 
 seem to fancy," says Richter, "like the light of a soft 
 moon silvering over the evening of life." " Old age,"" 
 says Madame Swetchine, " is not one of the beauties 
 of creation, but it is one of its harmonies. The law 
 of contrasts is one of the laws of beauty. Shadows 
 give light its worth ; sternness enchances mildness ; 
 solemnity splendor." 
 
 EXPERIENCE. 
 
 " Old age was naturally more honored," says 
 Joubert, " in times when people could not know much 
 more than what they had seen." There are still 
 many avenues of learning in which practical ex- 
 perience seems to be paramount in value. In business 
 its great worth is never underestimated. You have 
 heard of the partnership built on a contribution by 
 one firm-member of the money, and by the other of the
 
 FATHER. 201 
 
 experience ; and of the dissolution of that firm, 
 leaving the one who put in the money with all the 
 experience, and the one who put -in the experience 
 with all the money ! The practices of law and 
 medicine are famous for the need of age, which they 
 harness anew with the labors and exertions ordinarily 
 demanded of youth. "Tell me," says Shakerly 
 Marmion, " what you find better or more honorable 
 than age. Is not wisdom entailed upon it ? 
 
 TAKE THE PRE-EMINENCE OF IT IN EVERYTHING 
 
 in an old friend, in old wine, in an old pedigree." 
 " I venerate old age," says the great and good poet 
 Longfellow ; " and I love not the man who can look 
 without emotion upon the sunset of life, when the 
 dusk of evening begins to gather over the watery eye, 
 and the shadows of twilight grow broader and deeper 
 upon the understanding." "It is only necessary to 
 grow old to become more indulgent," writes Goethe ; 
 " I see no fault committed that I have not committed 
 myself." " An aged Christian," says Chapin, 
 beautifully enlarging on Goldsmith's and Dr. Donne's 
 ideas, " with the snow of time on his head, may re-
 
 202 FATHER. 
 
 mind us that those points of earth are whitest which 
 are nearest heaven." 
 
 "LIKE A MORNING DREAM," 
 
 again says Richter, " life becomes more and more 
 bright the longer we live, and the reason of everything 
 appears more clear. What has puzzled us before 
 seems less mysterious, and the crooked paths look 
 straighter as we approach the end." " Time has laid 
 his hand upon my heart gently," says Longfellow, 
 " not smiting it ; but 
 
 AS A HARPER LAYS HIS OPEN PALM 
 
 upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations." "I think 
 that to have known one good old man," George 
 William Curtis says, "one man who, through the 
 chances and mischances of a long life, has carried his 
 heart in his hand, like a palm branch, waving all dis- 
 cords into peace helps our faith in God, in ourselves, 
 and in each other more than many sermons." "He 
 that would pass the declining years of his life with 
 honor and comfort," says Addison, with fine opposi- 
 tion, " should, when young, consider that he may 
 one day become old, and remember, when he is old, 
 that he has once been young." On the principle that
 
 FATHER. 203 
 
 blessings brighten as they take their flight we come 
 to love the sunshine and the birds and all God's glori- 
 ous works just as we grow old. 
 
 " IF WE NEVER CARED FOR LITTE CHILDREN BEFORE " 
 
 
 
 says Lord Lytton, " we delight to see them roll on 
 the grass over which we hobble. The grandsire 
 turns wearily from his middle-aged, care-worn son, 
 to listen with infant laugh to the prattle of an infant 
 grandchild. It is the old who plant young trees ; it 
 is the old who are most saddened by the autumn, and 
 feel most delight in the returning spring. " "Winter," 
 says Richter, " which strips the leaves from around 
 us, makes us see the distant regions they formerly 
 concealed ; so does old age rob us of our enjoyments, 
 only to enlarge the prospect of eteinity before us." 
 Seneca says that there is nothing more disgraceful 
 than that an old man should have nothing to produce 
 as a proof that he has lived long except his years. 
 I love Longfellow's picture of 
 
 THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH, 
 
 the mighty man. It has been set to one of the best 
 musical accompaniments that I have ever heard. 
 When the verses below are reached, the key is changed
 
 204 FATHER. 
 
 to one where the sadness intensifies, until the hon- 
 est old heart hears the " mother's voice singing in 
 Paradise: " 
 
 He goes on Sunday to the church ; 
 
 And sits among his boys ; 
 He hears the parson pray and preach, 
 
 He hears his daughter's voice, 
 Singing in the village choir, 
 
 And it makes his heart rejoice. 
 
 It sounds to him like her mother's voice, 
 
 Singing in Paradise; 
 He needs must think of her once more, 
 
 How in the grave she lies ; 
 And with his hard, rough hand he wipes 
 
 A tear out of his eyes. 
 
 I wish, instead of merely printing these simple 
 words, I could breathe them out to you, as some great 
 tenor or baritone like Sims Reeves or Santley sings 
 them there is such a world of human life and feel- 
 ing hidden there, ready to spring forth with the touch 
 of sympathetic sounds ! 
 
 NOTHING BECOMES A YOUNG MAN SO MUCH 
 
 as a respectful demeanor toward a reverend man 
 Nothing lowers a man so much as flippant speech con- 
 cerning his elders. The young man with the most 
 dignity has the most deference for age. He takes 
 sincere delight in bowing before ripe years and wis-
 
 FATHER. 205 
 
 dom. Alas ! how sad that ever age should come to 
 one who is not fitted for its honors ! 
 
 I have known a son to thwart every dream of his 
 father. I have seen the parent, struggling with ad- 
 versity, yet succeed in opening before the child a ca. 
 reer of honor and comfort; and I have seen the son 
 clutch those opportunities as a highwayman seizes 
 upon the wayfarer, and throttle them in the dust and 
 ashes of failure and disgrace. How sad the picture ! 
 
 A BRIGHTER VIEW. 
 
 I have seen a parent toil for years, carrying to his 
 cottage the wages which should support his son in 
 seven long years of careful education. I have watched 
 that son in his ceaseless studies and found he thought 
 only of gladdening his father's heart. I have seen 
 him graduate second in a class of one hundred and 
 fifteen, and then after two years of additional study, 
 first in a body of eighty young men> each of whom 
 was a scholar. The best men of a great city have 
 given that young man encouragement. Their homes 
 and their wives and their daughters have smiled at his 
 approach, and his course has been upward without a 
 fall, and with few pauses for rest. Has he forgotten
 
 FATHER. 
 
 his poor father ? No. He still lives in the cottage, 
 and will make the small house with a great man in 
 it more hospitable and more honorable than a wide 
 door that swings open to a narrow soul. How pleas- 
 ant the picture !
 
 A mother is a mother still, 
 
 The holiest thing alive. COLERIDGE. 
 
 Not learned save in gracious household ways, 
 Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants, 
 No angel, but a dearer being, all dipt 
 In angel instincts, breathing Paradise. 
 
 Who looked all native to her place, and yet 
 On tiptoe seemed to touch upon a sphere 
 Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce 
 Swayed to her from their orbits as they moved, 
 And girdled her with music. Happy he 
 With such a mother ! faith in womankind 
 Beats with his blood. TENNYSON. 
 
 O high and holy a title as mother 
 cannot fall too reverently from man's 
 lips. That he might live the moth- 
 er has gone down into the valley of 
 the shadow of death; that he might 
 thrive she has fed him with willingness 
 from her own weak body, and grown 
 spectre-like as he grew strong and impor- 
 tunate; that he might go among his fel- 
 lows on an equal footing, she has toiled 
 with his small weak brain teaching him 
 the beginning of his education and tilling 
 u a rank unweeded garden;" that he might
 
 208 MOTHER. 
 
 have everlasting life, she has instilled into his mind 
 that saving fear of God, which, though he think him- 
 self an atheist, will claim the mastery when Death grins 
 by his couch, and grant him'a stay of the awful judg- 
 ment till he may make his peace with a Creator 
 whose mercy endureth forever. Everything a man is 
 he can owe but to his mother ; everything he may be in 
 future life has possibly come from her fond intercess- 
 ion, her gentle admonitions. " Unhappy is the man 
 for whom his own mother has not made all other 
 mothers venerable, 11 says Richter. " The future des- 
 tiny of the child, 11 
 
 SAYS NAPOLEON, 
 
 "is always the work of the mother, 1 ' and it is certain 
 that he had ample reason in his own remarkable ca- 
 reer for making this important admission. He inher- 
 ited from his mother all those attributes which made 
 him great, and owed his sudden downfall to none of 
 her teachings. She was noted for her sagacity and 
 prudence, but possibly it required more than human 
 sagacity and prudence to balance the mighty impulses 
 which moved Napoleon Bonaparte. " A father may 
 turn his back on his child," says Washington Irving,
 
 MOTHER. 209 
 
 "brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies, 
 husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands; 
 but a mother's love endures through all; in good rep- 
 ute, in bad repute, in the face of the world's condem- 
 nation, a mother still loves on, and still hopes that her 
 child may turn from his evil ways, and repent ; still 
 
 SHE REMEMBERS THE INFANT SMILES 
 
 that once filled her bosom with rapture, the merry 
 laugh, the joyful shout of his childhood, the opening 
 promise of his youth; and she can never be brought 
 to think him all unworthy." " There is in all this 
 cold and hollow world," says Mrs. Hemans, "no 
 fount of deep, strong, deathless love, save that within 
 a mother's heart." " Even He that died for us upon 
 the cross," says Longfellow, "in the last hour, in the 
 unutterable agony of death, was mindful of his moth- 
 er, as if to teach us that this holy love should be our 
 last worldly thought the last point of earth from 
 which .the soul should take its flight for heaven." 
 Who ever saw 
 
 A MOTHER ROMPING WITH HER THREE- YEAR-OLD 
 
 that did not look upon her as one of the happiest, 
 therefore, necessarily, one of the best of God's crea-
 
 2IO MOTHER. 
 
 tures ? O, in that peek-a-boo, that capturing of that 
 last squealing " pig," the little toe, that paddy- 
 cake opera, is there not the one great bliss of life, to 
 be happy in making others happy? And how the 
 laughter rings through the house ! And then the 
 toil and self-denial for the stocking and the tree 
 
 AT CHRISTMAS ! 
 
 Is it any wonder that the child is so easily deceived, 
 and credits all his joys to unseen ministers ? It would 
 not be hard to convince the philosopher himself of the 
 dual earthly character of the mother, visibly a woman, 
 invisibly but not the less really to her child, an 
 ethereal spirit of mercy and goodness ! What gnaws 
 her cheek and cheats Death into the belief a flag of 
 truce summons him to the final parley ? Has not her 
 babe, her hope, been fevered and in pain, and should 
 she sleep lest it should leave her on this world behind, 
 that then would need her not ? . " Canst bind the 
 sweet influences of the Pleiades ? " No more can her 
 
 anxiety be 
 
 ' - '. v 
 
 FETTERED INTO SLEEP ; 
 
 no more can her quick ear be deafened to the little 
 wail that echoes pitiful within the chambers of her
 
 MOTHER. 211 
 
 heart ! When we remember the great passion of 
 motherhood, the intensity of the drama, the prolong- 
 ation into years of its deep interplots, we cannot mar- 
 vel longer at the perennial, lasting character of the 
 mother's love. Given, the marvel, there is no further 
 marvel. Given life, the scientists say, there is no other 
 problem on this narrow world. And thus the mar- 
 vel and the mystery never grow less. 
 
 MAN ENTERS THE WORLD, 
 
 of all animals the most pitiable and weakly. Left to 
 himself he would immediately perish. Extinguish the 
 mother's love and he would at once peiish. His 
 growth is by far the slowest of that of all animals, 
 therefore the wisdom of God in so lengthening the 
 tenure of the mother's solicitude. The mighty man 
 who wields the iron halberd which no two people can 
 lift was still a helpless infant, unable to put his own 
 chubby fist into his own mouth ! The autocrat who 
 sweeps whole communities into Siberia with a stroke 
 of his pen was ill when his mother was alarmed, was 
 in agony when she was indiscreet with her food ! 
 She cannot forget this. It is but yesterday she dried 
 his flesh to keep it sound. It is but yesterday she let
 
 212 MOTHER. 
 
 him bite his aching gum upon her finger, wishing the 
 ache might go from him to her hoping that if he 
 gave her pain he would have less. One can well 
 pardon the vanity that would lead a son to insist 
 that his mother should accompany him to 
 
 THE EXECUTIVE MANSION OF THE GREAT REPUBLIC, 
 
 that she might behold him enter upon the Chief 
 Magistracy of fifty millions of freemen, gained by the 
 first choice of a majority of those freemen, yea, 
 by the unanimous first and second choice, for none so 
 ready to fight for his right to rule as he who yesterday 
 voted for an honored .opponent the very summit of 
 true political ambition the apex of the mother's 
 boldest hope ! " The mother's love is indeed the golden 
 link that binds youth to old age," says Bovee ; " and 
 he is still but a child, however time may have furrowed 
 his cheek, or silvered his brow, who can yet recall, 
 with a softened heart, the fond devotion, or the gentle 
 chidings, of 
 
 THE BEST FRIEND 
 
 that God ever gives us ! " I knew an aged woman, 
 who interested me very greatly in tales of " her boy " 
 that good son who had s often proven his gratitude
 
 MOTHER. 2t3 
 
 for her long love. One day, chancing to consider 
 her great number of years, I inquired how old " her 
 boy " was, and found that he had been a grand father 
 for twenty-three years, and had lately had the satis- 
 faction of holding a great grandson in his arms. 
 Still he was her curly haired-boy she could remember 
 him in no other condition of life with so much 
 satisfaction. 
 
 "I WOULD DESIRE FOR A FRIEND," 
 
 says Lacretelle, " the son who never resisted the tears 
 of his mother." "Love droops, youth fades, the 
 leaves of friendship fall ; a mother's secret hope out- 
 lives them aliasings Oliver Wendell Holmes. "At 
 first," says Beecher, " babies feed on the mother's 
 bosom, but always on her heart." "Stories first 
 heard at a mother's knee," affirms Ruffini, "are never 
 wholly forgotten a little spring that never quite 
 dries up in our journey through scorching years." 
 
 "AN OUNCE OF MOTHER," 
 
 says the Spanish proverb, " is a pound of clergy." 
 " The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom," says 
 another writer. "Men are what their mother's made 
 them," says Emerson, in study of Napoleon's idea ;
 
 214 MOTHER. 
 
 "you may as well ask a loom which weaves 
 huckabuck why it does not make cashmere, as expect 
 poetry from this engineer, or a chemical discovery 
 from that jobber." " It is generally admitted," says 
 Theodore Hook, " and frequently proved, that virtue 
 and genius, and all the natural good qualities which 
 men possess, are derived from their mothers." " It is 
 well for us," says Bishop Hare " that we are born 
 babies in intellect. Could we understand half what 
 mothers say and do to their infants, we should be 
 filled with 
 
 A CONCEIT OF OUR OWN IMPORTANCE 
 
 which would render us insupportable through life. 
 Happy the boy whose mother is tired of talking 
 nonsense to him before he is old enough to know the 
 sense of it." Perhaps the praises of our mothers 
 tarry in our brains too long anyway. It may be a 
 provision of nature that woman shall inspire her 
 child with sufficient self-esteem to take him through 
 the world with a first-class ticket, a cabin passage, 
 that he may escape the poor accomodations of ex- 
 cessive humility, the steerage of the ship of life. It 
 seems incredible that our mother was mistaken in
 
 MOTHER. 215 
 
 thinking her boys the brightest, best, and most 
 creditable in all the region roundabout ! Let us by 
 our lives, marvel rather at the correctness of her 
 vision than tfye blindness of her love. 
 
 "SHE WHO HAS LOST AN INFANT," 
 says Leigh Hunt, " is never, as it were, without an 
 infant child. Her other children grow up to manhood 
 and womanhood, and suffer all the changes of 
 mortality ; but this one alone is rendered an 
 immortal child ; for death has arrested it with his 
 kindly harshness, and blessed it into an eternal image 
 of youth and innocence." The mother teaches us the 
 one grand lesson of 
 
 UNALTERABLE FIDELITY. 
 
 "Nothing is more noble," says Cicero, "nothing 
 more venerable." One of the most beautiful tributes 
 to an, aged mother was written by Lamartine. " The 
 loss of a mother," he says "is always severely felt. 
 Even though her health may incapacitate her from 
 taking an active part in the care of her family, still 
 she is a sweet rallying-point, around which affection 
 and obedience, and a thousand endeavors to please, 
 concentrate ; and dreary is the blank when such a 

 
 2l6 MOTHER. 
 
 point is withdrawn ! It is like that lonely star before 
 us ; neither its heat nor light are anything to us in 
 themselves ; yet the shepherd would feel his heart sad 
 if he missed it when he lifts his eye to the brow of 
 the mountain over which it rises when the sun 
 descends." 
 
 THERE ARE MEN WHO FORGET THE CLAIMS 
 
 their mothers have upon them. Of such ungrateful 
 wretches, though clothed in outward excellences, the 
 pen can write nothing too harsh in justice. As old 
 Dr. South says, " the greatest favors are to such a 
 one but the motion of a ship upon the waves ; they 
 leave no trace, no sign behind them. All kindness 
 descend as showers of rain or rivers of fresh water 
 falling into the main sea ; the sea swallows them all, 
 but is not all changed or sweetened by them. If you 
 look backward and trace him up to his original, you 
 will find that he was born so ; and if you look 
 forward enough, it is a thousand to one that you 
 will find that 
 
 HE ALSO DIES SO. 
 
 / 
 
 The thread that nature spins is seldom broken off by 
 anything but death. I do not by this limit the
 
 MOTHER. 2 1 7 
 
 operation of God's grace, for that may do wonders." 
 Be glad, if you are ungrateful, that a wise man has 
 given you so good counsel to pray and pray as you 
 do when you think yourself in extreme peril ! 
 
 IF YOUR MOTHER IS YET YOUNG, 
 
 you have many years of her great friendship before 
 you. Try and pattern after her boundless affection. 
 Let it melt into your heart and make it warmer. If 
 " age has snowed white hairs " upon her head, 
 treasure her the more fondly during the few swift 
 years she will be left to you. Soon she will go to 
 her reward, and you will be without the only friend 
 of man whose love seems to be inalienable whose 
 esteem he cannot barter away, either in greed or in 
 vice. 
 
 THE MOTHER OF MOTHERS. 
 
 In almost every .community there is " a mother in 
 Israel," a mother of mothers, whose great heart is 
 like the ocean, and claims the outpourings of every 
 stream of life. To these grand souls of virtue and 
 goodness let every man bow in reverence, for they 
 are mothers to the motherless. When the Reaper 
 came forth to reap he aimed to take the richest sheaf,
 
 218 
 
 MOTHER. 
 
 but lo ! the mother in Israel gathered the orphans 
 together, and poured out her tenderness upon them.
 
 Had we never loved sae kindly 
 
 Had we never loved sae blindly, <,.- 
 
 Never met or never parted, 
 
 We had ne'er been broken-hearted ! BURNS. 
 
 Dear as remembered kisses after death, 
 
 And sweet as those for others ; deep as love, 
 
 Deep as first love, and wild with all regret ; 
 
 O Death in Life ! the days that are no more. TENNYSON. 
 
 OVE, says Cowley, " is a great 
 passion, and therefore I hope 
 I have done with it." I think 
 most people will agree with 
 this sentiment. Love is such a 
 tyrant, it leaves common sense 
 ' so little to say, that the majority 
 of people are heartily glad when reason 
 returns to her throne and the thrilling 
 lunacy is a remembrance instead of a fact. 
 The remembrance is sweet, and has no 
 angry thorn, no peremptory mandate. The 
 young man is going along in the full en- 
 joyment of his life, when suddenly a huge 
 
 coiled spring, the existence of which has not attracted 
 
 [219]
 
 220 LOVE. 
 
 his notice, is loosed in his breast, his whole in- 
 tellectual forces centre on the attainment of one object, 
 and a mental strain begins which is of the exact 
 nature of madness, and has ever been termed so by 
 people who have looked at things merely by what they 
 have seen. In the highly-feverish state of the brain the 
 nerves of the whole system soon become involved, 
 the stomach refuses to perform its functions, and 
 physical emaciation and deep melancholia rapidly 
 ensue. The obvious reason is the insane state of 
 the brain. Nature has suddenly impressed that organ 
 with the one idea that a certain fair maid is actually 
 without the faults of her associates. She is the prize 
 of the whole world ! Had the world the information 
 of her perfections which is lodged in this young man's 
 secret brain, there would be a war of extermination 
 for her possession a second sack of Troy at the 
 very least. Deep pity for other men with wives, 
 who cannot marry this maiden, and pity for young 
 men who have seemingly preferred other maidens, 
 intermit with joy that all the world ha been so blind. 
 
 CAUTIOUSLY THE YOUTH ADVANCES 
 
 toward his prey. The expedition is one of
 
 I.OVE. 231 
 
 tremendous importance, therefore his exceeding 
 amount of thought. When he is in the ineffable 
 presence, he is there as an actor in a tragedy, or as a 
 tenor in an opera. He has almost counted his hairs ; 
 he certainly counts the winkings of his eyelids ! Can 
 any detail be unimportant in an undertaking of such 
 measureless risk ? It is no wonder, then, that a 
 young man who is giving as much thought as this to 
 a young, thoughtless girl is not worth much in his 
 business for the time being ! In fact, it is a miracle 
 to him, after 
 
 SOME DOOMFUL FROWN 
 
 from his queen, that he has survived the night and 
 goes to his work at all ! He is confident that it is 
 base habit. " O, that this too too solid flesh would 
 melt ! " he cries, as his dissatisfied employer, or father, 
 requires some reasonable action and fails to get it. 
 In afterlife this same young man is glad the " grand 
 passion " will never come to him again. He feels 
 that it has not heightened him in his own regard. 
 His love may have been smooth or it may have been 
 swallowed in the quicksands of adversity the 
 difference is small. It is not creditable to the human
 
 222 LOVE. 
 
 brain to be so hoodwinked and purblind as Cupid 
 ' makes his victims. But 
 
 LOVE RULES THE UNIVERSE, 
 
 having its climax in God himself, and its earthly 
 ideality in the mother's affection. We should not 
 complain that when the potent essence is first 
 administered to us it shakes us seriously. Without 
 this passion, selfishness would triumph, and man 
 would not take on thet^ares of wedded life. Society 
 and religion would wither. The world would be 
 a howling den of chaos and deep crime. 
 
 HOW HAVE THE SAGES LOOKED UPON LOVE ? 
 
 I think they are inclined to praise it, as a whole to 
 indorse it merely as a sensation, a passing grat- 
 ification. It has always, on the contrary, seemed to 
 me like an exquisitely painful means to an exquisitely 
 beautiful end. The warm genial love of the home 
 the love which is as an open grate, cheerful, and 
 which is without those thunderstorms needful to clear 
 the heavily charged atmosphere of youthful love 
 pleases and repays me for "the dangers I have passed." 
 " The greatest pleasure of life is love," says Sir 
 William Temple. " Love is like the hunter," says
 
 LOVE. 223 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, "who cares not for the game 
 when once caught, which he may have pursued with the 
 most intense and breathless eagerness." This is true 
 of only a minority of the hunters. I have more 
 frequently bought additional fish than thrown away 
 those I have caught. Why ? Because the weariness 
 and difficulty of catching two or three rock bass had 
 impressed me with the value of a whole string of fish. 
 You have seen 
 
 THE ANXIETY OF THE CAT 
 
 to make the captive mouse believe she is not on 
 guard. She walks away with the utmost indifference. 
 But let the mouse so much as move its crushed little 
 body, she is upon it with the ferocity of the greatest 
 members of her agile tribe. So it is with us. Let 
 our possesion escape us, our consternation is complete. 
 Again the spring uncoils, and again we are madmen. 
 " A murderous guilt shows not itself more soon than 
 love that would seem hid ; love's night is noon," says 
 Shakspeare. " It is better to have loved and lost, 
 than never to have loved at all " sings Tennyson. 
 " Nothing but real love," says Lord Lytton, "can
 
 224 LOVE. 
 
 repay us for the loss of freedom, the cares and fears of 
 poverty, 
 
 THE COLD PITY OF THE WORLD 
 
 that we both despise and respect." " Love," says 
 Sir Thomas Overbury, wittily, " is a superstition that 
 doth fear the idol which itself hath made." "To reveal 
 its complacence by gifts," says Mrs. Sigourney, '" is one 
 of the native dialects of love." " Love is never so 
 blind as when it is to spy faults " says South. " Love 
 reckons days for years," says Dry den. " and every 
 little absence is an age." "Where love has once 
 obtained an influence," observes Plautus dryly, " any 
 flavoring, I believe, will please." "That is the true 
 reason of love," says Goethe, "when we believe that 
 we alone can love, that no one could either have 
 loved so before us, and that no one will love in the 
 same way after us." 
 
 " NO CORD OR CABLE CAN DRAW 
 
 so forcibly or bind so fast," says melancholy Burton, 
 " as love can do with only a single thread." " Where 
 there exists the most ardent and true love," says Val- 
 erius Maximus, "it is often better to be united in death 
 than separated in life." "A man of sense may love
 
 LOVE. 225 
 
 like a madman," says Rochefoucauld, "but not like a 
 fool." Says Addison, who was a bachelor, and knew 
 little about the heart: " Ridicule, perhaps, is a better 
 expedient against love than sober advice ; and I am of 
 the opinion that Hudibras and Don Quixote may be 
 as effectual to cure the extravagance of this passion 
 as any one of the old philosophers." " Love lessens 
 woman's delicacy and increases man's," says Richter. 
 This accords with common observation. " It makes 
 us proud when our love of a mistress is returned," 
 says Hazlitt, in a rambling manner; "it ought to 
 make us prouder still when we can love her for herself 
 alone, without the aid of any such selfish reflection 
 This is the religion of love." All such argument pro- 
 ceeds on the theory that love is a sawing of wood, a dig- 
 ging of potatoes, or some such " emotion, "to be entirely 
 controlled by the will and regulated by the decencies. 
 "Loving," says Shakspeare, "goes by haps; some 
 Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps." "The 
 accepted and betrothed, lover has lost the wildest 
 charms of his maiden, in her acceptance of him." 
 says Emerson, again; " she was heaven whilst he pur- 
 sued her as a star she cannot be heaven if she
 
 LOVE. 
 
 stoops to such a one as he." I do not think Emerson 
 has got exactly the right idea of the way a lover feels 
 just there. Here it is and nearer the truth I do 
 not know the author's name : 
 
 I've thought, if those dumb, heathen gods could breathe. 
 
 As shapeless, strengthless, wooden things they stand. 
 And feel the holy incense round them wreathe, 
 
 And see before them offerings of the land ; 
 And know that unto them is worship paid 
 
 From pure hearts, kneeling on the verdant sod. 
 Looking to helplessness, for light and aid 
 
 Because by fate they know no higher god : 
 How their dull hearts must ache with constant pain. 
 
 And sense of shame, and fear to be flung down 
 When all their weakness must one day be plain, 
 
 And fire avenge the undeserved crown, 
 And reading my love's letter, sad and sweet, I sigh. 
 
 Knowing that such a helpless, wooden god am I. 
 
 " The comparison of love to fire holds good in one re, s 
 spect," says Henry Home, " that the fiercer it burns 
 the sooner.it is extinguished." ".Love me little love 
 me long" says Marlowe. " The plainest man, that 
 can convince a woman," says Colton, " that he is really 
 in love with her, has done more to make her in love 
 with him than the handsomest man, if he can produce 
 no such conviction." " There is a gloom in love," 
 says Walter Savage Landor, "as in deep water;
 
 LOVE. 227 
 
 there is a silence in it that suspends the foot ; and the 
 folded arms and the dejected head are the images it 
 reflects." " Love is but another name for that in- 
 scrutable presence by which the soul is connected with 
 humanity," says Simms. " The beings who appear 
 cold," says Madame Swetchine, " adore where they 
 dare to love." " Man, while he loves, is never quite 
 depraved," says Charles Lamb. " It is possible," says 
 Terence, referring to the unquestionable temporary 
 insanity of the passion, " that a man can be so changed 
 by love that one could not recognize him to be the 
 same person." " Solid love, whose root is virtue, can 
 no more die, than virtue itself," says Erasmus, who 
 was probably talking about a requited affection. 
 
 THE CASE OF THE POET PETRARCH, 
 
 who loved another man's wife all his life, simply be- 
 cause he fell in love with her before she married the 
 other fellow, does not strike me as exactly the proper 
 thing, or exactly the manly thing. I like better the 
 Sensible Shepherd of George Wither, who sang jaun- 
 tily: 
 
 Be she fairer than the day. 
 Or the flowery meads in May,
 
 228 LOVE. 
 
 If she be not so to me, 
 What care I how fair she be ? 
 
 Kill off your love if it be not returned, as though it 
 were a condemned felon. The execution is a painful 
 scene, but the effect on your manhood is good. " True 
 love were very unlovely, "says Sir Philip Sidney, "if 
 it were half so deadly as lovers term it ! " " There 
 are few people," says Rochefoucauld, " who are not 
 ashamed of their loves when the fit is over." " In 
 love we are all fools alike," says Gay. "We that 
 are true lovers " says Shakspeare, " run into strange 
 capers; but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature 
 in love mortal in folly." U O love," cries LaFon- 
 taine, " when thou gettest dominion over us, 
 
 WE MAY BID GOOD-BY TO PRUDENCE." 
 
 " Love can hope where reason would despair," says 
 Lyttleton. " O love, the beautiful, the brief ! " ex- 
 claims Schiller. " Love at two-and-twenty is a terribly- 
 intoxicating draught," says.Ruffini. "At lovers 1 per- 
 juries they say Jove laughs," smiles Shakspeare. 
 " Where love and wisdom drink out of the same cup, 
 in this everyday world, it is the exception," said Mad- 
 ame Neckar. " The poets, the moralists, the painters, 
 in all their descriptions, allegories, and pictures, "says
 
 :. 229 
 
 Addison, " have represented love as a soft torment, a 
 bitter sweet, a pleasing pain, or an agreeable distress." 
 " O how this spring of love resembleth the uncertain 
 glory of an April day ! 
 
 ADIEU, VALOR ! RUST, RAPIER ? 
 
 be still, drum ! for your manager is in lov.e; yea, he 
 loveth !" says Shakspeare. " I do much wonder," 
 says the King of Thought, again, " that one man, see- 
 ing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates 
 his favor to love, will, after he hath laughed at such 
 shallow follies in others, became the argument of 
 his own scorn, by falling in love." 
 
 " LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP EXCLUDE EACH OTHER," 
 
 says DuCoeur. "Love begins by love, and the 
 strongest friendship could only give birth to a feeble 
 love." " Love, which is only an episode in the life of 
 man," says Madame DeStael, " is the entire history 
 of woman's life." " Love is a spaniel," says Colton, 
 " that prefers even punishment from one hand to ca- 
 resses from another." "A man loved by a beautiful 
 and virtuous woman, carries a talisman that renders 
 him invulnerable," says Madame Dudevant; "every- 
 one feels that such a one's life has a higher value than
 
 230 LOVE, 
 
 that of others." " There are no little events with 
 love," says Balzac; "it places in the same scales the 
 fall of an empire and the dropping of a woman's glove." 
 " There's nothing half so sweet in life as love's young 
 dream," says Moore. " Where there is love in fche 
 heart," says Beecher, " there are rainbows in the eyes, 
 which cover every black cloud with gorgeous hues." 
 " The greatest happiness of life, " says Victor Hugo, 
 "is the conviction that we are loved for ourselves 
 say, 
 
 RATHER IN 'SPITE OF OURSELVES." 
 
 " Love makes its record in deeper colors," says Long- 
 fellow, " as we grow out of childhood into manhood ; 
 as the Emperors signed their names in green ink 
 when under age, but when of age, in purple." The 
 heart of a young v/oman in love is a golden sanctuary," 
 says Paulin Limayrac, " which often enshrines an 
 ido of clay." This thought, the reader can see is a 
 close neighbor of the Boston poet's idea of the " base 
 wooden god," spoken of a while back. " We forgive 
 more faults in love than in friendship," says Henry 
 Home; " expostulations betwixt friends end generally 
 ill, but well betwixt lovers."
 
 LOVE. 231 
 
 " Gold," says Deluzy, " does not satisfy love; it must 
 be paid back in its own coin." " The platform of the 
 altar of love," says Jane Porter, with great accuracy 
 of metaphor, " is constructed of virtue, beauty, and 
 affection; such is the pyre, such the offering; but the 
 ethereal spark must come from heaven that lights the 
 sacrifice." " This passion is," says Dr. South, " the 
 great instrument and engine of nature, the bond and 
 cement of society, the spring and spirit of the uni- 
 verse. It is the whole man wrapped up into one de- 
 sire, all the power, vigor, and faculties of the soul 
 
 ABRIDGED INTO ONE INCLINATION." 
 
 " Samson was so tempted," says Shakspeare, " and he 
 had an excellent strength; yet was Soloman so se- 
 duced; and he had a very good wit." There has al- 
 ways been one time in a man's life when he felt poets 
 should sing only of this one act in the drama of life. 
 Here is the idea the same idea we have all had, 
 only dressed in better raiment, for Alexander Smith 
 took great pride in the children of his biain: "Me- 
 thinks all poets should be gentle, fair, and ever young, 
 and ever beautiful; I would have all poets to be like 
 to this gold-haired and rosy-lipped, to sing of love."
 
 232 LOVE. 
 
 Finally, said the Great Napoleon: " Love is the oc- 
 cupation of the idle man, the amusement of the busy 
 one, and 
 
 THE SHIPWRECK OF A SOVEREIGN." 
 
 Thus, if we will turn through the pages of our books, 
 we will see everywhere the marks of love upon men's 
 minds. It is a rude bath, which when we have grown 
 more accustomed to the waters, delights and satisfies, 
 and in our sleep our dreams are beautiful. It is nat- 
 ural, and therefore need not be called laudable 
 though if it were not a part of our development, 
 schools of love would be a necessity, to teach men how 
 to love without scandal in the sight of God. 
 
 THE FIRST ATTACK OF LOVE IS RIDICULOUS 
 
 to those not acting one of the two parts, yet it is well 
 to remember our own experience. " Love is the ful- 
 filling of the law," says the Bible; " many waters can- 
 not quench it, neither can the floods drown it." Neith- 
 er can the selfish aim nor the cruel jest of the parent 
 whom it discommodes do aught but fan the flame if 
 God and not folly have truly lighted it. The danger 
 of handling carelessly the fire of the heart is one of 
 the gravest which confront the guardians of younger
 
 LOVE. 
 
 2 33 
 
 lives. The switch is fixed; the train is approaching; 
 if you attempt to turn the train you must not only 
 know where it is going after it shall be . turned, but 
 you must have the skill to see whether there yet re- 
 mains time to make the movement with success. 
 A wreck by a switchman is a fearful thing !
 
 ' Their Love was like the lava-flood 
 That burns in ^Etna's breast of flame." 
 
 And when with envy Time, transported, 
 Shall think to rob us of our joys, 
 
 You'll in your girls again be courted, 
 And I'll go wooing in my boys. PERCY. 
 
 N flies time, and thus the tale goes 
 on. You are in love with an 
 amiable maiden, and she is pleased. 
 | If you could see further into her 
 'heart you would find she was 
 idolatrous. But this matter of courtship 
 must have shown you how careless you 
 have been with your money through all 
 those years you might have been hoarding 
 it for this great need. But you did not 
 save your wages, probably, or if you did 
 you are an exceptional young man. You now need 
 money. You should work about fifteen months 
 before you marry. It will be a long, tedious, un- 
 pleasant pull, trying to the affections, and it is 
 
 [54]
 
 COURTSHIP. 235 
 
 generally very trying to the health ; but it is necessary, 
 and if you have not the persistence to save money for 
 fifteen months, in the meantime quarreling and 
 making up, with all the quarters of the moon, you 
 have not the solidity of citizenship, and will be better 
 unmarried. "Successful love takes a load off our 
 hearts, and puts it upon pur shoulders " says Bovee. 
 Square up your shoulders ! Get under the load so 
 that you can carry it ! The days of responsibility 
 have come. The larger the responsibilities look, the 
 deeper the young man usually loves. The day of the 
 Chicago fire a man put up a pine shed on the ruins of 
 a marble palace, and on his sign he painted 
 
 " ALL GONE BUT WIFE AND HOPE ! " 
 
 People who thought those two things a small capital 
 were greatly mistaken, for that same man is now 
 rich again. When you hear of a man being ruined 
 by getting married, ask for names and dates. The 
 name will usually settle it. Along the front of the 
 lake at Chicago is a breakwater. In hot weather 
 this pier is nearly covered with men of leisure, taking 
 midsummer-night dreams. They are the so-called 
 " harvesters " who start out in droves into the country
 
 236 COURTSHIP. 
 
 
 
 after something to do " forced to search for work 
 and not find it ! " Marriage has not ruined them. 
 You will find that the men your adviser shows you 
 who has been ruined by marriage, was a born wharf- 
 rat, fit only to be shot with a gun big enough to save 
 the expense of any further funeral. 
 
 THERE IS NO POSSIBLE CHANCE 
 
 of a man being worse off married than single. As a 
 married man, he is on the right path. As a single 
 man, there is no anchor for him. He may be here 
 to-day, in San Francisco next week. Then, in two 
 or three years, he will be back, as poor as ever. You 
 will have to work, of course. But you have never 
 before done your share of the work. If you are a 
 smart man, you can do your share and more too. 
 You will have a home of your own. You coufd 
 never get one as a single man, perhaps, because you 
 would not need one. 
 
 YOU WILL BE SAFER 
 
 as a married man. It seems to me that a virtuous, 
 sober, Christian, unmarried man should have twice 
 the credit of a married man, for he is certainly
 
 COURTSHIP. 237 
 
 exposed to thousands of extra temptations. Every- 
 thing is natural in marriage. The builder has 
 " builded wiser than he knew." At thirty-five he 
 finds himself well along on the successful journey of life. 
 His bachelor friend who has lived a selfish existence is 
 poorer, has lost the charm of youth, and is skurrying 
 around to get a wife who will be a queen and slave 
 at the same time. His bachelor friend is 
 
 A LAUGHING-STOCK 
 
 among the last crop of young girls, who can recollect 
 how he went with their married sisters^ and he will 
 be satisfied with nothing above eighteen, though his 
 hair is dropping out, or frosting like a cold night in 
 September. If he had not been so selfish he would 
 have been married eight or ten years ago. Now 
 
 NATURE BEGINS TO ASSERT HERSELF. 
 
 The friends of his youth have formed the new ties 
 that have come with the march of the years. The 
 trees have their leaves, and cast a grateful shadow, 
 cool and sweet. The bachelor is bare, and under 
 his branches the hot and withering sun pours down 
 unpleasantly. You are lucky to have escaped such a
 
 238 COURTSHIP. 
 
 lot, for it is O, so lonesome and unsatisfactory to 
 man ! It is not good for him to be alone. Now, 
 
 IN TALKING TO YOUR SWEETHEART, 
 
 there is one bearing alone which will bring forth good 
 fruit. Be honest and sincere. Remember that the 
 philosophers and sages of the centuries have been 
 studying and marveling over the thing called Truth 
 why it is that it always asserts itself why it is 
 that its parts always coincide with each other, as 
 though they had first been put together ! When 
 you see cut stones unloading before the site of a 
 building, you know by the marks on them that, when 
 they are put together, they will make a fine-looking 
 front, for the architect has copied them from the front 
 of some building which has, sometime or other, been 
 erected just as this projected structure will be, But 
 here is 
 
 THIS QUARRY OF TRUTH ; 
 
 you enter it without a human architect, hew out a 
 stone, hew out another, and another, and soon a 
 beautiful edifice arises, in the walls of which there is 
 not a single peep-hole or blemish. Everything fits. 
 So bear yourself toward your future partner for life
 
 COURTSHIP. 239 
 
 that when you enter the quarry of your brain for her 
 information, you also enter this quarry of Truth. The 
 stones you now cut out will stand as the buttresses of 
 the walls ! 
 
 HOW SHOCKING IF THEY ARE LIES ! 
 
 Tell her, when you tell her anything at all, the exact 
 truth. Be very careful about this. Tell her 
 particularly about your money affairs. Your 
 happiness depends more on food and clothes than you 
 are now able to understand. But if you put in solid 
 blocks of truth for the basement, the finer develop- 
 ments of your life will join on with precision and 
 effect. I know a young man who went in debt for 
 a fine span of horses and wagon. His bride supposed 
 they were his own, and he " let her suppose." 
 
 A WHOLE AFTERLIFE 
 
 of the veriest toil and the most honorable career 
 never wholly expunged the blame which attached to 
 him in both her mind and the minds of her people. 
 It was so foolish in him ! One little speech, and 
 long years of bitter pride-wounding would have been 
 averted. The young woman would have married 
 him, just as quickly, for it is easy to make terras
 
 240 COURTSHIP. 
 
 before marriage in this country. Do not promise to 
 do things which depend more on events than on 
 yourself. Do not promise to love your future wife 
 always. She may prove unworthy of it. You may 
 prove incapable of it. 
 
 INWARDLY MAKE UP YOUR MIND 
 
 to ennoble yourself so that your affections will solidify. 
 The companionship if a woman will do much to help 
 you. Promise little by word of mouth everything 
 by actions. Then, as your days come and go, your 
 character constantly comes more fully into the light, 
 and that light is one of broad, pleasant, humanly love. 
 Your wife will be sure to live happily, for you have 
 built within her mind no extravagant expectations. 
 
 ' - .: / 
 
 LOOK AT A CIRCUS POSTER ! 
 
 See the absurd and ridiculous promises made upon it ! 
 Why do they dare so to humbug the people ? 
 Because, in no other way could they get people to 
 ride ten or twelve miles through a summer drouth to 
 hand over their money to the man who is anxious to 
 get it ! Here is a man in a chariot, with tigers 
 plunging under his rein like the rays from the sun,
 
 COURTSHIP. 
 
 " New hope may bloom, and days may come, 
 Of milder, calmer beam, 
 But there's nothing half so sweet in life, 
 As love's young dream."
 
 COURTSHIP. 241 
 
 Here is a pyramid of elephants four elephants high ! 
 Here is the acrobat in the midst of the smoke and 
 blaze of an Armstrong cannon, beginning some flight 
 to a far-off trapeze, or swing, in the air ! It is some- 
 what different inside. 
 
 THE CHARIOT OF TIGERS 
 
 is an enlarged rat trap with two sleepy, disgusted 
 overgrown cats in it cats which do not thrive well 
 in this cold land, and which do not smell any too 
 sweet and clean. The pyramid of fine-looking picture- 
 elephants is an ugly live elephant or two standing on 
 a beer-keg or two, which is a wonderful feat for 
 elephants, of course, but not an entertaining one to 
 human sight-seers ; and as a final swindle, the cannon 
 act is a man on a spring disguised as a wooden 
 cannon, who is thus hoisted a few feet into the air, 
 where he catches hold of his swinging bar and 
 completes the usual act of an "aerial acrobat." 
 " Fi on't ! " as Hamlet says f " reform it altogether ! " 
 
 DO NOT " BILL YOURSELF TOO STRONGLY " 
 
 before your divinity. She would love you if she 
 thought you were just a common man, like George 
 Washington or Abraham Lincoln ; so, if you tell ker 
 
 16
 
 242 COURTSHIP. 
 
 you are poverty-stricken and prodigal, and it be true, 
 then she will think that she had rather have a demi- 
 god, poor as Job's turkey, than a common young 
 man, like your brother or your friend, with all the 
 gold of King Plutus ! Bring to her an honest heart, 
 and you will, indeed, bring treasures before her, and 
 she would have no right to complain, even were she 
 so inclined. Love does not seem to be a matter of 
 volition 
 
 / OF "WANT TO, OR DON'T WANT TO." 
 " No man or woman," says Arthur Helps, "was ever 
 cured of love by discovering the falseness of his or 
 her lover. The living together for three, long rainy 
 days in the country, has done more to dispel love 
 than all the perfidies in love that have ever been 
 committed." Just think of that during all the time 
 of your courtship. Dread the " living together," and 
 when you come to stand the test, the test will not be 
 too great for you/ A young man, truly, doesn't 
 need to be married, as a full-grown one does. But 
 
 IN ORDER TO REAP WE MUST SOW. 
 
 Our bachelor friend of forty wants to reap just as 
 bidly as you, but his fields will be waste while yours
 
 COURTSHIP. 243 
 
 will be growing. When you get your life insured at 
 twenty-one they charge you about ten times what 
 the risk really is. Why ? Because, although they 
 have not the least idea that you are going to die now, 
 they know the mortgage is on your life, and the dues, 
 when you pass fifty, would, in justice, be higher than 
 mortal man would pay. Therefore they even it up. 
 
 YOU LAY ASIDE A SURPLUS 
 
 for your old age, and, until lately, the courts held you 
 could collect that surplus, if your contract were not 
 completed to the end of your existence. Thus, in 
 marrying, you are following the wise ordinance of 
 God. You are choosing a blooming, healthy young 
 woman while you are yourself fresh enough to attract 
 her love and hold it. You are living as a married 
 man while you might, probably, live with more 
 strictly selfish personal comfort up to thirty-five as a 
 single man ; but you are, 
 
 AFTER THIRTY-FIVE, 
 
 immensely better off than the single man, and you 
 will, besides, always be given a better place in society 
 than he, because society likes to see every member 
 in its ranks doing his duty like a man and helping to
 
 244 COURTSHIP. 
 
 bear the burdens as well as reap the benefits which 
 our system of living deals out to those who participate 
 in it. 
 
 IF YOU HAVE THE CONSUMPTION 
 
 and the young lady also have that disease, consult the 
 physicians of your families. A very learned man, in 
 a series of papers in the Atlantic Monthly, some 
 years ago, refused to forbid such marriages entirely. 
 Put yourselves especially under the care of your 
 doctors, and follow their advice implicitly. If the 
 young lady, alone, is consumptive, extend your en- 
 gagement and wait for events. If you yourself are 
 thus tainted with disease, I have little hesitation in 
 saying that it is not manly to get married until you 
 are entirely out of the reach of pecuniary want 
 without your labor, and even then there are other 
 considerations of nearly equal importance which 
 should lead you to frequent conferences with your 
 family doctor. 
 
 YOU THUS SEE THAT "LIFE IS REAL, 
 
 and life is earnest." If you are healthy, thank God 
 for it, and sing merrily while you build the nest which 
 will hold the mate in warmth and comfort. After
 
 COURTSHIP. 
 
 2 45 
 
 the harbor of refuge is built, the ship will find a 
 pleasant and ever-welcome anchorage during the 
 big storms outside. 
 
 Take the daughter of a good mother.
 
 The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men; 
 A thousand hearts beat happily; and when 
 Music arose with its voluptuous swell, 
 Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, 
 And all went merry as a marriage-bell. BYRON. 
 
 UOTATION of this verse is 
 made, not because it celebrated 
 a marriage it, rather, com- 
 memorated the frightful car- 
 nage of Waterloo but because 
 it very faithfully represents the 
 fashionable beginning of wedded life, to 
 which it alludes. There seems to be in 
 woman an inherited, instinctive desire for 
 this kind of thing at her marriage. It is 
 cruel to deny her, therefore man usually ' 
 goes through with it like a martyr. My 
 prejudices are so heartily enlisted against 
 
 " blow-outs " of this kind that I feel the compunctions 
 [246]
 
 MARRIAGE. 247 
 
 of an honest judge at sitting in such a case. Never- 
 theless, I may relate some things I have seen, to show 
 how badly a couple may start in life. Here is one 
 instance: The dust has filled the air for six blocks 
 around some stately church. The " hacks " and pri- 
 vate barouches and coupes have been packed togeth- 
 er so that any movement was entirely impossible ; 
 the bride has come like a queen of the orient ; she has 
 walked on flowers to the vestibule; there she has 
 passed under an arch of tuberoses; half-way down 
 the aisle a gate of jessamines and smilax has opened 
 with a smothering sense of richness; at the altar she 
 has actually knelt on a pillow of camellias (fifty cents 
 apiece) ; and a fifty-dollar organist has put on his full 
 instrument, as though he were proclaiming the glory 
 of God most mighty, instead of the folly of man most 
 miserable. Into the church have thronged the elect, 
 proud and disdainful; on the outside has stared the 
 vulgar multitude, too ignorant for anything but rapt 
 wonderment. From the temple of high-priced wor- 
 ship the celebrants have passed, in a still more exclu- 
 sive body, to a residence where a banquet has been 
 prepared by a man who generally makes ice cream for
 
 248 MARRIAGE. 
 
 a living, and where a dazzling display of wedding 
 presents has been uncovered to the careless gaze. 
 Then the train bears away the twain of one foolish 
 flesh, and the farce is over. 
 
 OF COURSE IT WAS A FARCE. 
 
 The elect read the newspapers next morning with a 
 smile. None but he of the vulgar multitude was 
 hoodwinked. The man and the woman have spent 
 all their money to purchase a "swell wedding." The 
 presents were hired, so were most of the " hacks." 
 The florist has got part of his money. The couple, 
 six months afterward, are " beating " some poor land- 
 lady out of their board, and the man, in all likelihood, 
 will never again be heard of. But the women have 
 been intensely agitated by the event. They have 
 never thought about the subsequent aspects of the 
 case. 
 
 NO ONE OF THE SAME " SET " 
 
 would be willing to spare a single " hack " or one 
 double camellia. Why did the young man and the 
 young woman do it ? They did it principally out of 
 vanity, in imitation of some rich person who desired 
 to distribute his money among hard-working folks
 
 MARRIAGE. 249 
 
 and at the same time create a feeling of envy among 
 his fellows and " please the women folk. 1 ' 
 
 LET US HAVE THE MANHOOD AND THE WOMANHOOD, 
 
 if we have five hundred or a thousand dollars, to buy 
 those necessaries of life which will enable us to live 
 without debt after we are settled for life. We are 
 sailing out of the harbor. Would it not be ridiculous 
 for us to heave into the water our provisions, as a 
 symbol of our delirious joy ? would not our ship be 
 a ship of death when we reached the middle of the 
 sea ? There is just as much joy in a simple wedding 
 which has properly shown our respect for the event 
 as the third in importance of all which will punctuate 
 our history. We have been born; we will die; 
 
 WE NOW MARRY. 
 
 " A man finds himself seven years older, the day af- 
 ter his marriage, says Lord Bacon. " Men should 
 keep their eyes wide open before marriage, and half 
 shut afterwards," says Madame Scuderie. " Mar- 
 riage is a feast," says Colton, " where the grace is 
 sometimes better than the dinner." " Mistress," cries 
 Shakspeare, " know yourself; down on your kneesi 
 and thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love'
 
 250 MARRIAGE. 
 
 For I must tell you friendly in your ear, sell when 
 you can; you are not for all markets." "To love 
 early and marry late," says Richter, " is to hear a 
 lark singing at dawn, and at night to eat it roasted 
 for supper." " Marriages are best of dissimilar ma- 
 terial," says Theodore Parker. 
 
 " TO BE A MAN 
 
 in a true sense," says Michelet, " is, in the first place, 
 and above all things, to have a wife." "It is in vain 
 for a man to be born fortunate," says Dacier, "if he 
 be unfortunate in his marriage." "When it shall 
 please God to bring thee to man's restate," says Sir 
 Philip Sidney, "use great providence and circum- 
 spection in choosing thy wife. For from thence will 
 spring all thy future good or evil ; and it is an action 
 of life, like unto a stratagem of war; wherein a man 
 can err but once!" "We are not very much to 
 blame for our bad marriages," says Ralph Waldo 
 Emeison; 
 
 "WE LIVE AMID HALLUCINATIONS, 
 
 and this especial trap is laid to trip up our feet with, 
 and all are tripped up, first or last. But the mighty 
 mother nature, who had been so sly with us, as iFshe
 
 MARRIAGE. 251 
 
 felt she owed us some indemnity, insinuates into the 
 Pandora box of marriage some deep and serious ben- 
 efits and some great joys." " It is a mistake to con- 
 sider marriage merely as a scheme of happiness," 
 says Chapin; " it is also a bond of service. It is the 
 most ancient form of that social ministration which 
 God has ordained for human beings, and which is 
 symbolized by all the relations of nature." " Mar. 
 riage " says Selden, ll is a desperate thing ; 
 
 THE FROGS IN JESOP 
 
 were extremely wise; they had a great mind to some 
 water, but they would not leap into the well, because 
 they could not get out again." Why were they wise? 
 They were not wise at all. I have seen frogs in wells 
 who are more contented than they would be outside. 
 " Men are April when they woo, December when 
 they wed," says Shakspeare; but he also says that 
 " maids are May when they are maids, but the sky 
 changes when they are wives," so it is an even tilt 
 between two forms of human nature. " If idleness be 
 the root of all evil," says Vanbruch, " then matrimony 
 is good for something, for it sets many a poor woman 
 to work." "In the opinion of the world," says Mad-
 
 252 MARRIAGE. 
 
 ame Swetchine, "marriage ends all; as it does in a 
 comedy. 
 
 THE TRUTH IS PRECISELY THE REVERSE. 
 
 It begins all. So they say of death, ' It is the end of 
 all things.' Yes, just as much as marriage ! " 
 "Humble wedlock," says St. Augustine, "is far 
 better than proud virginity." " Never marry but for 
 love," says William Penn, in his will ; " but see that 
 thou lovest what is lovely ! " "Strong are the instincts 
 with which God has guarded the sacredness of 
 marriage," says Maria Mclntosh. We cannot bear 
 this remark too constantly in mind. You would not 
 dare shut off your supply of water, because you know 
 you will need it. But you are sometimes tempted to 
 shut off your supplies of love ; and men do sometimes 
 do it, and 
 
 AFTERWARD GO MAD 
 
 from clear soul-starvation. " Up to twenty-one I 
 hold the father to have power over his children as to 
 marriage," says Coleridge ; " after that age he has 
 authority and influence only. Show me one couple 
 unhappy merely on account of their limited 
 circumstances, and I will show you ten who are
 
 MARRIAGE. 253 
 
 wretched from other causes." " He that takes a 
 wife takes care," says Ben Franklin. " I chose 
 my wife," says Goldsmith, " as she did her wedding 
 gown, for qualities that would wear well." " Before 
 marriage," says Addison, 
 
 "WE CANNOT BE TOO INQUISITIVE 
 
 and discerning in the faults of the person beloved, 
 nor after it too dimsighted and superficial. Marriage 
 enlarges the scene of our happiness and miseries. 
 
 A MARRIAGE OF LOVE 
 
 is pleasant ; a marriage of interest easy ; and a 
 marriage where both meet, happy. A happy 
 marriage has in it all the pleasures of friendship, all 
 the enjoyments of sense and reason, and, indeed, all 
 the sweets of life." " It is the policy of the Londoners," 
 says Thomas Fuller, "when they send a ship into the 
 Mediterranean Sea, to make every mariner therein a 
 merchant, each seaman venturing somewhat of his 
 own, which will make him more wary to avoid, and 
 more valiant to undergo dangers. Thus married 
 men, especially if having posterity, are 
 
 THE DEEPER SHARERS IN THAT NATION 
 
 wherein they live, which engageth their affections to
 
 254 MARRIAGE. 
 
 the greater loyalty." "Matrimony hath something in it 
 of nature, something of civility, something of divinity," 
 says Bishop Hall. " Though matrimony may have 
 some pains, celibacy has few pleasures," says old 
 Dr. Johnson, a bachelor. Again says he: "Marriage 
 is the best state for man in general ; and every man 
 is a worse man in proportion as he is unfit for the 
 married state." "Marriage is an institution," says 
 -Sir Richard Steele "celebrated for a constant ' scene 
 of as much delight as our being is capable of." 
 
 ONE THING KEEP IN MIND ! 
 
 When the sages, the critics, and the people who love 
 to say smart things, paint the infelicities of marriage, 
 they as often paint simply the general troubles of life, 
 which are common to all people. The bachelor is 
 more apt to be kept awake by the crying child in the 
 next chamber than is the father in the same room 
 with the child. The young man quarrels with his 
 landlady as often as the young husband quarrels with 
 his wife. The young man notoriously finds his wants 
 as lightly resting on the memories of those he hires 
 to attend to them as does the husband of the most 
 careless wife. He cannot escape the sickness of life
 
 MARRIAGE. 255 
 
 with even the good fortune of a married man, 
 according to the statistics of the Government. The 
 married woman is also healthier than the maid. So, 
 then, get the critics of the married state to specify its 
 various unhappinesses ; then subtract from that 
 schedule all that come alike to the single state, and 
 you will find that marriage, for its separate joys, has 
 not a separate set of troubles in as great proportion. 
 The very highest evidence of the usefulness and 
 agreeableness of marriage is gathered from the well- 
 known haste in which both men and women, when 
 
 
 death takes away their companions, seek, in a second 
 
 marriage, a renewal of those relations which, in their 
 opinion, lend additional charm to the drama f life.
 
 You are my true and wedded wife; 
 As dear to me as are the ruddy drops 
 That visit my sad heart. SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 She's adorned 
 
 Amply that in her husband's eye looks lovly 
 The truest mirror that an honest wife 
 Can see her beauty in. JOHN TOBIN. 
 
 F all the actions of a man's life, his 
 marriage does least concern other 
 people," says Selden, " yet, of all 
 ' actions of our life, it is most med- 
 'died with by other people." In 
 fact, if people would take home their atten- 
 tion* thus so liberally bestowed abroad, it 
 would enable them to make matches of their 
 own far better than those which now bur- 
 den the records of the churches and the 
 courts. If a young man and a young wo- 
 man can be left alne three or four years, to wear 
 
 into the new relations they have assumed, there is 
 [256]
 
 WEDDED LIFE. 257 
 
 little chance of their being unhappily married. An 
 instinct of the strongest character brought them to- 
 gether, and is likely to hold them by its own force. 
 Man is a creature of habit. Strip him of his home 
 after he has been for four years habituated to it, and 
 he will be unhappy, no matter how unpeaceful that 
 home may have been. Therefore, if possible, have 
 your wife and yourself in a house by yourselves for 
 the first four years of your married life. As a gen- 
 eral thing this is possible, and I think a firm will, in 
 most cases, greatly aids the possibility of such a 
 course. One thing, at least, is clear, 
 
 NO HUSBAND IS DOING RIGHT 
 
 to admit to his home as a sharer of its comforts any 
 other man. It is a common sentiment among any 
 two homeless young men that the first one who mar. 
 ries shall take the other to live with him. Nothing 
 is more absurd or out of place. I do not think there 
 could be so dangerous a foe to the peace of the wife, 
 in case the young man do not think his friend has 
 married wisely, and he must think so, or he would 
 himself have married her if he could have done so. 
 His criticisms will estrange the husband's heart and
 
 258 WEDDED LIFE. 
 
 cool his love. On the other hand, if he has admired 
 the lady, then the situation is all the more atrocious. 
 
 THOSE HORRIBLE EVENTS IN LIFE, 
 
 where a man's home is transformed suddenly into 
 what has been bitterly but justly termed a " hell on 
 earth," are more than half the time traceable to the 
 carelessness of the husband in not throwing around 
 his wife those barriers which shall ever keep her from 
 temptation. The wife of pure instincts will generally 
 object to the admission of another man to her home 
 as a member of it. How often her womanly and hon- 
 orable objection is overruled by the husband as the 
 mark of an inhospitable nature. .Live alone. Let 
 no one see your meannesses, for the third party will 
 remember and recite those meannesses where you 
 .would either never have seen them, or have forgotten 
 them altogether. 
 
 BE KIND TO YOUR WIFE. 
 
 If you find this difficult, begin by making up your 
 mind that, during the next week, you will not, under 
 any circumstances whatever, speak a cross word to 
 her. Carry out this resolution as well as you can.
 
 WEDDED LIFE. 259 
 
 Then the next week takes off the strain. The natural 
 tendency of cross words to misery will so startle you 
 that you will soon try it for another week. You will 
 do better on the second trial. This is important for 
 your own peace of mind, for, in scolding and fretting, 
 the average woman, if you get her started, can easily 
 hold her own. This woman is bound to you by 
 stronger ties than you suppose. 
 
 GO OFF TWO HUNDRED MILES AND SEE ! 
 
 She is also bound to you by very strong bonds in the 
 law, as you would find out if you deserted her. She 
 is also entitled to a very high place in your goings 
 and comings, as society teaches you. When the 
 President is inaugurated, there is a front seat close by 
 for his wife. The Chief Justice administers the oath, 
 and there is another front seat for his wife, also. So 
 you need not be afraid of doing her too much honor. 
 Speak to her respectfully. Perhaps there is a 
 youngster watching you you have no idea how 
 closely. This youngster will try on his hand 
 governing his mother, if he sees any opportunity 
 whatsoever. Just look to it that he does not see such 
 an opening ! Your wife as you will know, has cares
 
 260 WEDDED LIFE. 
 
 )f a multifarious kind. Her hours of labor greatly 
 c: ceed yours, though she cannot concentrate her 
 mind on one thing as you can. She is fitted, by long 
 years of inherited housewifery, to do this and then 
 that with untiring devotion to the interests of her 
 household. You cannot, as a general thing, lighten 
 those legitimate cares save by your smiles. But you 
 are a selfish man if you increase them by requiring 
 any great amount of extra personal attention. You 
 will find it her nature to minister to you in many 
 ways. Let her alone in it. Accept all gratefully, 
 and do something in return 
 
 BY WAY OF FORMAL RECEIPT. 
 
 You will grow happier day by day, and your wife 
 will be the happiest woman in the neighborhood. 
 She will be proud of you because you have had the 
 brains to be happy and sensible. We hear a good 
 deal of railing against the general wisdom of getting 
 married. There seems to be a sort of popular con- 
 tagion lately, making it fashionable to fling jeers and 
 jibes at the cares and sorrows of marriage. We find 
 young men writing to the newspapers that it costs 
 them six dollars to board singly, and that the same
 
 WEDDED LIFE. 26 I 
 
 
 
 " style " of living and enjoyment could not be 
 purchased at 
 
 A " BOARDING-HOUSE OF ONE'S OWN " 
 
 for less than twenty-two. And again the same sort 
 of writer will assert that he can quit one " boarding- 
 house " when he pleases, whereas he must eat the 
 cold roast beef and cranberry sauce of the other until 
 he crosses the creek called Styx. Let me call this 
 young man Mr. Bachelor, and reply to him in about 
 his own style : 
 
 A FEW THOUGHTS IN GENERAL : 
 
 i. A man named Payne wrote a seemingly- 
 ordinary song entitled " Home, Sweet Home." This 
 piece, on account of certain sentiments conveyed, at 
 once received the seal of nearly universal approbation. 
 It is safe to say Mr. Bachelor and the class in which 
 he may be placed were not among those who accorded 
 extraordinary attention to the little song. He is and 
 they are, therefore, at once separated from the vast 
 mass of the people. Evidently the sentiments of the 
 song were based on experiences largely known to the 
 general gender and unknown to Mr. Bachelor.
 
 262 WEDDED LIFE. 
 
 2. The man Daniel McFarland was so worthless 
 that his wife refused to live with him, and, sadly 
 enough, fell in love with still another man. The 
 worthless husband, discovering that Richardson was 
 coming into property which had not always been his 
 own, resorted,to an ambuscade, and killed Richardson. 
 To the dullest comprehension this act revealed a deep 
 jealousy. Jealousy is founded on a solid fear of 
 losing something. In this unhappy family, where the 
 man believed he had nothing to care for, he suddenly 
 awoke to find he had thrown away a pearl richer 
 than all' his tribe. 
 
 3. It seems to me as natural for a man to establish 
 a home, with a wife, as to grow a beard on his face. 
 
 SOME CONSIDERATIONS IN PARTICULAR. 
 
 1. At twenty -seven years of age a man whom I 
 know met the finest young woman he had ever seen. 
 He wanted her and he got her. Five years have, 
 passed. 
 
 2. At marriage the man found himself endowed 
 with a godlike selfishness. This he probably owed 
 to the the past struggle for existence. With this not 
 very estimable faculty he carried to his home a young
 
 WEDDED LIFE. 263 
 
 woman endowed with nearly the opposite faculties. 
 She only acquired selfishness through association with 
 her companion. At the start, then, they were both 
 willin' oxen one ox was willing to do all the pulling, 
 and the other ox was willing he should. 
 
 3. Now the man had also a high faculty called 
 judgment. He continually wondered why the 
 woman did not despise him on account of his 
 selfishness. He soon discovered that it was because 
 the woman lacked sadly in judgment. The baby 
 would lift up its voice in the night. That baby must 
 be attended to. The weather might be very cold. 
 The man despised that fact, but the woman, because 
 it made her teeth ache and her body cake and cramp, 
 feared the cold. But the man also despised the baby 
 and all its appertainings particularly the appertain- 
 ings. Therefore, the man debated within himself 
 that he was very selfish, or he would get up. Perhaps, 
 being a "just" man, the way men go, he really got 
 up about once in a dozen times, but, candidly, he 
 would probably have seen that baby suffer ere he 
 would have attended its wants any oftener. The 
 woman took it for granted that the man would not
 
 264 WEDDED LIFE. 
 
 get up, and yet she did not despise him. She did 
 not have judgment enough to do it. 
 
 VANITY AND SELFISHNESS. 
 
 4. A man's vanity and selfishness are present (to 
 a woman's perception) in every movement. She 
 likes them. They are the characteristics of mas- 
 culinity. 
 
 5. The man entered matrimony with all the 
 trepidation born out of thinking too much about it. 
 It seemed to him like buying a fifteen-thousand-dollar 
 horse on instalments. This is just as it seems to 
 Mr. Bachelor, too. It was a pretty good price, but 
 it was a high-stepper, a flyer, a beauty. It 
 would take him all his life to pay for it, and it might 
 founder the first year. But he had never in his life 
 wanted anything the way he wanted that woman. 
 Mr. Bachelor has not yet got to that stage. 
 
 RETURNING GOOD FOR EVIL. 
 
 6. There is little doubt that, speaking of man as 
 an animal, unchastened by the benign influence of 
 religion, "the male hates the sick female." The 
 female knows that. Yet in return she exhibits 
 toward the sick male a tenderness that makes his hair
 
 WEDDED LIFE. 265 
 
 stand on end when he thinks of his own short-comings. 
 7. The man's astonishment at reaching thirty was 
 tremendous. He found he was changing, and that 
 marriage was evidently 
 
 THE EXPRESS PREPARATION FOR THIS CONTINGENCY. 
 
 He used to go to the theatre a great deal. He did 
 not then notice that the air in the auditorium was 
 more rotten than the midnight winds that blow over 
 Chicago from the industrious rendering-houses on her 
 outskirts. It is now a real hardship to go to an 
 ordinary dramatic performance, and he thinks theatre- 
 goers are as a class the most discontented people 
 there are in society. He used to spend his earnings 
 in various other places which now weary him beyond 
 measure, and are equally wearisome to those bachelor 
 friends of his who used to keep him company, and 
 are forced by single life, to still frequent such resorts. 
 
 THIS HE FINDS OUT 
 
 when his wife goes into the country for a week or 
 two. Those two weeks are never halcyon days with 
 him. There is a smell about a restaurant that elo- 
 quently pleads the sweetness of home, and there is a 
 lack of confidence expressed in a pewter spoon and a
 
 266 WEDDED LIFE. 
 
 general disinclination to believe that anyone is careful 
 molded in with the thickness of the teacup, which 
 startle him at once into a better -conception of his 
 wife's confidence in him. 
 
 8. My friend comes home and finds his dressing- 
 gown and slippers in front of the fire. He is tired and 
 cross, and doesn't want to sling ashes nor bang a 
 coal-hod. But the sight of the fire makes him feel 
 better at once, and if there be no fire, there are no 
 ashes. He sits in front of a coke fire in a grate. His 
 little girl brings his slippers and carries off his shoes 
 or carries off one shoe and one slipper. Then he 
 falls to thinking that girls are poor property as com- 
 pared with boys, but that any kind of children are a 
 pretty good investment against one's old age. His 
 increasing wonder is that the whole state of things is 
 so natural. His wife takes comfort in having him in 
 the same room with her. When he is reading and 
 she is darning socks, she is the very embodiment of 
 the fine French expression " I am content." She is 
 not as beautiful as she once was. But 
 
 ALL THE ELEMENTS OF HER BEAUTY 
 
 are still present, and with a return of the flesh she
 
 WEDDED LIFE. 267 
 
 has lost in hard work she will have all her looks. A 
 handsome woman is just as handsome to a man as a 
 handsome girl is to a green young man like Mr. 
 Bachelor. My friend is hugging the shores of person- 
 al expense very closely for the purpose of having two 
 weeks in the country with his wife during the heat of 
 July. This woman's face does not intoxicate him as 
 it once unquestionably did. Neither does the " Tro 
 vatore miserere," nor the " William Tell" or "Poet 
 and Peasant " overtures so delight him as once upon . 
 a time. Nevertheless there is in him a secret joy of 
 possession, calm and pleasant, in contemplating the 
 wife, and a quiet satisfaction, in hearing the music, 
 that the taste of his youth was so thoroughly good. 
 
 A WIFE'S PRAYER. 
 
 9. When his wife goes to bed she loves to put her 
 head on her husband's knees to say her prayers, and 
 he loves to have her. He has great confidence in a 
 woman's prayers, and he is disposed, selfishly but cor- 
 
 
 
 rectly, to believe the supplication is nearly dual in its 
 character. In his speech he treats his wife as though 
 she were the wife of an honored friend. If he talked 
 either loosely or coarsely to his wife he might fall in
 
 268 WEDDED LIFE. 
 
 love with any woman to whom he showed greater 
 respect. He would, beside, proclaim his folly, for 
 woman has small sense of humor. 
 
 DEATH OR WORSE. 
 
 io. If my friend were suddenly to lose this home 
 by the death of the wife, he would receive an unmeas- 
 ured sympathy from all thoughtful men not included 
 in the small class who never understood what there 
 was in "Home, Sweet Home," to set people to humming 
 it. If he were to have this wrenched from him by a 
 sudden awakening of his wife to all his faults, and as 
 blind an infatuation with the faults of another man as 
 was once extended to his own, he would know just 
 how Daniel McFarland felt. My friend is induced 
 to believe, however, that his wife will be strongly un- 
 der his influence so long as he does not inspire her 
 with fear. He will not pound her unless he falls to 
 whisky-guzzling, which, considering that he does not 
 yet use tobacco, is impossible. 
 
 SO MUCH OF A PARTICULAR HOME. 
 
 By the study of other women than his own wife 
 (which is a very unjust mode of study) man learns to 
 hate women in general. By observing his wife, how"
 
 WEDDED LIFE. 269 
 
 ever, he is inclined to love all her sex. Again, by 
 contemplating himself he falls into detestation of all 
 humankind. Such " men " as young Mr. Bachelor 
 have spent their time in exhaustive subjective research- 
 es. They know themselves too well. They should, 
 in reforming, take an easy step upward, and, by con- 
 templating the good points of Swift's Yahoos, some- 
 what elevate their opinion of the species which they 
 so graciously ornament! A green old age is univer- 
 sally admired, The color of greenness at thirty, how- 
 ever, is not fashionable. If I have lacked in charity 
 in defending the wisdom of married life, it is because 
 I have seen too much grass thrown at bad boys. 
 When you hear a fool prating of the misery of mar- 
 ried men as compared with single men, answer him 
 according to his folly, or, perhaps better, answer him 
 not at all.
 
 I would not my unhoused free condition 
 Put into circumspection and confine, 
 For the sea's worth. SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till 
 I were married. SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 OTHING is further from the 
 single man's thoughts than that 
 he will continue in the single 
 state all his life. He expects, 
 when the young woman meets 
 his gaze who satisfies either his esthetic 
 or pecuniary ideas, generally the latter, 
 or both, to take that young woman to 
 his bosom and begin married life. This 
 is a natural state of mind, and there is 
 no harm in indulging it. It shall be the 
 object of a few of these pages to present 
 such aspects of the unmarried state of 
 man as have principally commended themselves to 
 
 general attention. The bachelor has plenty of 
 [270]
 
 BACHELORS. 271 
 
 arguments to keep him single while he is not in love. 
 He thinks the arguments keep him single, good 
 fellow. He says, as I heard one of them say : "I 
 would ask the unbiased observer what there is in the 
 world, after all, to induce a man to commit 
 matrimony. Some one will say : ' To have some 
 one to care for him when sick.' This is complimentary 
 to woman indicating that she marries to become a 
 nurser of the sick and old. And must a man endure 
 all the pains and throes of years of matrimonial 
 cyclones that he may have some one to stew his gruel 
 during the brief space of his last illness ? If a 
 bachelor have money, he will have friends to care 
 for him, no fear, and if he be poor, a wife is the last 
 thing in the world he needs. She divides his 
 pleasures and doubles his sorrows. 
 
 HE MUST DANCE TO FASHION'S TUNE 
 
 a palatial residence, a corps of servants, a livery, and 
 dresses from Paris for the sake of having some one 
 to receive and entertain his friends' wives. He must 
 support his wife's relations, and endure no end of 
 feminine abuse, which is not always so feminine. 
 The world is divided into two classes : Those who
 
 272 BACHELORS. 
 
 are unmarried, but wish they were, and those who 
 are married, but wish they were not." 
 
 THIS IS A FAIR SPECIMEN 
 
 of the argument by which the bachelor convinces him- 
 self that he is happy. If it does contribute to his peace 
 of mind, why should the world care ? And the world 
 really does not care. When he comes to have his 
 gruel stewed for him in a hospital, or, worse yet, a 
 boarding-house, he finds out, all of a sudden, that he 
 is really in the way, and that, in his life of perfect 
 selfishness, he has never secured that thing which 
 cannot be bought, yet which he so yearns for now in 
 the hour of his feebleness, a woman's love. A good 
 long sickness has greatly enlarged many a man's 
 philosophy ! 
 
 Still, it is not in the destiny of every man to have a 
 wife, or to keep her if he get one. It is not unwise, 
 therefore to consider that state as one of the phases 
 of life, and to contemplate its various aspects, good 
 and bad, as we have the other conditions of existence. 
 " A man unattached and without wife," says Bruyere, 
 "if he have any genius at all, may raise himself above 
 his original position, may mingle with the world of
 
 BACHELORS 373 
 
 fashion, and hold himself on a level with the highest ; 
 this is less easy for him who is engaged ; it seems as 
 if marriage put the whole world in their proper rank." 
 " I have " says Burton, the melancholy, " no wife or 
 children, good or bad, to provide for, and am a mere 
 spectator of other men's fortunes and adventures." 
 
 THE ONE GRAND RESULT OF SINGLE LIFE, 
 
 so far as is generally noticeable, is selfishness.. The 
 chief lesson of marriage is self-denial. Which is the 
 more pleasing of the two traits ? When the 
 bachelor views life, he sees nothing good in it, for it 
 all looks selfish. Being so deeply jaundiced, the eye 
 tints everything with yellow. At forty he is heartily 
 sick of it all. Why ? Because he has learned that 
 he has squeezed the orange dry. The faculties which 
 God gave him to be pleased with when a recipient 
 have been worked to death. 
 
 HE HAS BEEN A RECIPIENT WITHOUT CEASE. 
 
 He has chewed on one side of his mouth all his life. 
 The teeth on the other side have loosened and are 
 ready to fall out, while the overworked molars on 
 the other are about to run into decay. The faculties 
 whereby he' was expected to please other people have
 
 274 BACHELORS 
 
 become rudimentary, and he can now no more 
 fascinate other people than he can sing soprano. He 
 makes an effort to engage the interest of a young 
 lady. The hollowness of his attack at once arrests 
 her attention. The ease with which he speaks long 
 sentences of admiration proclaims his long practice in 
 the art, and the utter lack of real meaning in them 
 He knows that the girl will 
 
 LAUGH BEHIND HIS BACK, 
 
 and it irritates him, and disposes him to attribute her 
 act to " the falseness of her sex," when it is merely 
 her keen intelligence in such matters. The fact of 
 the matter is, that though an old bachelor is seemingly 
 greatly smitten with nearly every young girl he sees, 
 he does not succeed in marrying because he is a hard 
 man to catch. The young woman takes his measure- 
 ment. His devotion is overpowering, but she easily 
 sees that it is a sham. The bachelor looks at her 
 glove, and, instead of admiring the hand, as the 
 " marrying young man " does, he says " Dollar and 
 a half ! " 
 
 HE LOOKS INTO HER EYES AND FIGURES 
 
 on the probable cost of board for two. The time of
 
 BACHELORS. 275 
 
 mating is past with him, and that young woman can 
 see it " as*quick as a flash of lightning." He may be 
 the man she could love if she "let go of herself," but 
 his slippery words do not mean " marry," and she 
 " passes him around." He loves to go to pic-nics 
 and church sociables, for he must be amused, and he 
 hopes to find that pleasure in next Tuesday's donation 
 party which he did not get at last Friday's rehearsal. 
 
 THE TROUBLE ALL LIES 
 
 in his intense love of self. Society in general regards 
 him as useful, and pities him. The older women 
 generally suppose he would marry the first girl who 
 would have him, and he himself hopes to sooner or 
 later to come across a lady who is superior to all 
 others, and who has money enough to pay her share 
 of the expense of living. I wish him success, for 
 
 HE IS GENERALLY A GOOD FELLOW, 
 
 and strictly a creature of circumstances. If we catch 
 the small-pox nothing is surer than that we will have 
 it in spite of our pride. If a man is cast into a mold 
 of events where he is bound to be taught nothing but 
 selfishness, and to see nothing but the selfishness of
 
 276 BACHELORS. 
 
 others, the wonder is that he will assume, in the 
 matter of self-denial, those relations, even for a day, 
 which he so assiduously avoids for life. 
 
 SCHOLASTIC OPPORTUNITIES. 
 
 The single man has a fine chance to be " a scholar 
 and a ripe good one." Having been denied the joys 
 of a household all dependent on him, he may surround 
 himself with books, he may pursue investigations, he 
 may gather the ideas of the wits and the thinkers, 
 and he may thus broaden his brains until he is the 
 honored associate of the best minds in his region. 
 This form of happiness is, to those who are within 
 reach of it, one of the most satisfying within the gift 
 of God. There is no reaction, there is no sorrow. 
 
 MAN LIVES TO LEARN, 
 
 after all. If the mind goes on in the culture of those 
 high qualities which have been inwoven with his 
 weak frame, it seems to me his selfishness has been 
 well disposed of. The dollar which, in the cautious 
 mind, was begrudged to a wee toddler who never 
 lived, for a pair of shoes, has been placed where it 
 has brought new knowledge of the power and wisdom
 
 BACHELORS. 277 
 
 of God, the Creator and Conservator of the Uni- 
 verse. The wisdom thus born out of selfishness will 
 inculcate in those to follow him the folly of selfishness, 
 and the tastelessness of its brightest apples of gold. 
 
 BE KIND TO THE OLD BACHELOR. 
 
 When he tries to be friendly, give him a lift. His 
 mode of life has left him with many advantages for 
 usefulness which married people have not got. On 
 committees and in preliminary work he is often the 
 best man in the neighborhood. At funerals, in- 
 sickness, he has been known to be almost the very 
 instrument of the merciful Father. Teach the young 
 ladies that he is harder to" catch " than they suppose, 
 and perhaps they will turn toward him a portion of 
 their character which will please him better with 
 womankind. 
 
 TO HEAR SOME MEN TALK, 
 
 and from experience, too, you would think that a 
 breed of creatures born from such women as are now 
 . living would be a herd of monsters, incapable of civ- 
 ilization and refinement. And yet the world will go 
 
 j <D 
 
 on, and we know, almost, that our posterity will bring 
 about wonders in the arts and sciences, and perhaps
 
 278 BACHELORS. 
 
 even in society itself, wonders which will even sur- 
 pass the triumph of our own generation. We are on the 
 eve of both traveling and talking through the bare 
 air. We are in a way to avoid the worst of our wars. 
 It cannot be that the women who will bear the men 
 who will do all these things are to be 
 
 JUDGED AS THE BACHELORS VIEW THEM. 
 
 The bachelor sees as through a glass, darkly. Being, 
 foi the time, incapable of the passion of love, having 
 failed to exercise it when it came upon him, he thus 
 rails at woman. If you are young enough, watch 
 the events of the next thirty years, and see how they 
 will give the lie to such a tirade as this, from 
 
 THE SAME BACHELOR 
 
 I quoted at the start : " Not one-half of our marriages 
 have unbiased love as a foundation on both sides. 
 (The love is usually on the man's side.) A woman 
 marries for money, position, spite, pride, contrariness, 
 fear of being an old maid, or for a home which she 
 thinks will afford her more pleasure than the one she' 
 leaves. Love is the last thing to enter her head, and 
 never her heart. Men of real sound judgment in 
 business throw this judgment entirely aside when
 
 BACHELORS. 279 
 
 they come to select a wife. A man might better re- 
 main single than marry with the chances nine out of 
 ten in favor of his making a mistake for life." 
 
 SEE HOW LITTLE KNOWLEDGE 
 
 of anybody's good points this gentleman displays. 
 The young woman who has worked at ironing in the 
 forenoon until her feet were swollen and her head has 
 got dizzy, comes into the parlor in the evening, all 
 frills and tucks, all " highty-tighty," all full of fun and 
 God's good humor, and impresses my friend with the 
 belief that she has never done an honest hour's labor 
 in her life! Pshaw! she has got more pluck, and 
 nerve, and " sand," than half a dozen men, when it 
 comes to where the need is ! She is going to be 
 
 THE MOTHER OF AN AMERICAN, 
 
 and Americans are not noted for their servility, their 
 laziness, their mediocrity, or their lack of brains ! 
 For shame, then to judge a young woman as she ap. 
 pears to you when she is anxious to get rid of you! 
 How would you like to be judged solely at those times 
 when you were " carrying on," and " didn't care 
 whether school kept or not " ? That is precisely the 
 way this gentleman has spoken of young women a
 
 UACHKLOHS. 
 
 page back. He thinks they love no one because they 
 have never loved him ! He never loved them, and 
 how could he expect them to be swindled ? Read his 
 remarks over again, and see how events themselves 
 deny his correctness. 
 
 HOW MANY HUSBANDS HAS HE SEEN 
 
 follow a drunken wife into a gutter? And, on the 
 contrary, has he not seen the reverse of this sad pic- 
 ture many a time? I heard a Judge say to a poor 
 woman once, she was all scars: " I would send this 
 woman-beater to the work-house for two hundred 
 days if I did not know you would starve yourself to 
 pay his way out." And then the poor, foolish, faith- 
 ful heart appealed to his Honor to u spare the man ? 
 just once more;" she was sure he was a little the 
 worse for drink when he misused her. What does 
 our friend call this thing in woman, if it be not love ? 
 The being capable of a wife's love, and a mother's 
 love, and a sister's love, is not much in danger of the 
 criticisms of a man who has only a front-porch knowl- 
 edge of all her sex !
 
 VEN with the best of our philos- 
 ophy we who are well are unable 
 to command at will the feelings 
 of those who are ill. We lie 
 on a bed, racked with the pains 
 of some passing affliction, and the chasm 
 which separates us from the hale and 
 hearty seems prodigious. We are led down 
 the stairs, out into the sunlight. The very 
 rays themselves sit heavily upon our 
 shoulders, and nearly crush us to the earth. 
 With those vivid impressions of the terrors of illness, 
 we feel that our brains will remain steeped in 
 memories such as will enable us to appreciate our 
 health if we ever get it again, yea, though we have 
 hardly a crust of bread to spare. But lo ! behold us 
 once well again, and we have forgotten our good 
 fortune ; at the slightest turn in our personal affairs 
 
 [281]
 
 282 SICKNESS. 
 
 we bemoan our fate as sharply as though the whole 
 night had been rolling in upon us through some fever, 
 or all the blasts of the arctic world had crept through 
 our bones in some frigid chill. There is no boon so 
 great as health. Of course everybody admits that. 
 But why can we not attach meaning to it ? If a man 
 rise in a public gathering and -say "I will give a 
 hundred dollars ! " he knows exactly what he is 
 saying, and so do his hearers know. But if he rise 
 
 behind a pulpit or on a rostrum arid say 
 
 t 
 "PRESERVE YOUR HEALTH 
 
 at all hazards ! " no significance so deep attaches, 
 though the one statement is a thousand times as im- 
 portant as the other. I cannot understand why we 
 are so oblivious to the sufferings of illness while we 
 are well unless it be a provision of nature to keep us 
 from that suffering through sympathy which we 
 would surely undergo if we really had any vivid 
 feeling for the sick. On this earth each one has to 
 do his own suffering the King in the palace of the 
 royal family and the baby in the hut of the miner. 
 All who are well go their way rejoicing, even having 
 no momentary realization of the state of mind of the
 
 SICKNESS. 283 
 
 disabled associate. It may be that this has not always 
 been so, for we inherit a salutation among our other 
 traits which implies a desire to be informed as to the 
 physical condition of the body of the person addressed. 
 Two men of affairs meet. One says : 
 
 " HOW ARE YE ? " 
 
 The other responds: ,"How are ye? Are you 
 going to be at the meeting to-night ? " etc,, the con- 
 versation being now under full headway. The 
 words indicate that, at one time, they carried a 
 meaning which they have lost. Yet we are not 
 worse than our fathers before us, and are not exceeded 
 in the milk of human kindness. It may be that the 
 old form was such a cumbrous piece of hypocrisy 
 that latter-day people have thrown it off in disgust. 
 Anyway, there is nothing more certain nor more 
 astonishing than that a well man cannot conceive the 
 feelings of a sick man, even though he try, and that 
 those who are sick have to grin and bear it all with- 
 out any very great affliction falling to the lot of those 
 who stand at the bedside. 
 
 BEHOLD THE STRONG MAN IN THE FEVERISH AIR 
 
 of the sick-chamber. Last week all his clock-wheels
 
 284 SICKNESS 
 
 worked with ease, and merrily struck the hours of 
 feast and sleep. Afterward the wheels dragged a 
 little and annoyed him some. Suddenly a whole 
 handful of sand was thrown into the cogs, and the 
 cogs have beer^.. grinding it and the hammer striking 
 continuously ever since. His brain is distracted, his 
 soul is sorely perplexed, and his mind is like an infant 
 in house-cleaning time, strangely in the way and 
 infinitely aware of it. Here lies proud-riding vanity, 
 thrown from his high saddle. Kindnesses are show- 
 ered on him of which he feels that he deserves few, 
 and yet wants more. 
 
 SYMPATHY IS EXPRESSED 
 
 for him which greatly moves him, for he is 
 accompanying the words he hears with the ills he 
 feels, while the speaker is speaking a conventionality 
 which he would feel had he the ability. The sick 
 man mentally resolves that all the mistakes of his life 
 shall be corrected if he shall survive, and yet there 
 are few who are able to fulfill the programmes thus 
 formulated frequently the thriftless man is more 
 prodigal after an illness which has stabbed his pride 
 with an advertisement of his indigence than he was
 
 SICKNESS. 285 
 
 before his great vow of future economy was recorded 
 up on the ceiling, where, 
 
 IN THE RIFTS OF THE PLASTER, 
 
 the Missouri River flows into the Mississippi ! Per- 
 haps if the would-be reformer would take a look 
 frequently at those objects in his whilom sick-room 
 which so riveted his fevered attention, some of thei r 
 old association would return upon him, and do him 
 good. The ancients practiced the memory in this 
 way. After a course of meanderings through a garden, 
 each object represented and recalled some piece of 
 knowledge which it was important the pupil should 
 retain in his mind. " Few persons, " says Thomas a 
 Kempis "are made better by the pain and languor of 
 sickness ; as few great pilgrims become eminent 
 saints." Here lies your bachelor now. He has 
 always felt that when he got sick he could get his 
 gruel stewed as well by the hired girl of his landlady, 
 as the French say, as by a wife. He lies up there? 
 O, so in need of care and kindnees ! 
 
 HIS BRAGS WERE MADE IN TIME OF STRENGTH, 
 
 and he expected to have strength to keep himself sto- 
 ical. But now he is weak, weak and truly miser-
 
 286 . SICKNESS. 
 
 able. He hears the people come in to their supper, 
 go to their rooms, wash, run gayly down-stairs, chat, 
 go down another pair of stairs, and then come the 
 jarring sounds of plates and knives and spoons, and, 
 worse, the sickening smell of victuals. How can they 
 laugh and joke when he, a man and a brother, lies 
 sick of a fever? Ah ! my friend, it would not be so 
 were you the head of the house. All would be 
 changed. The supper-hour would come with a 
 hush instead of a clatter. The light stol'n forth o 1 
 the building would leave the whole house in gloom. 
 And in your selfish soul you would be glad, for God 
 so made all of us ! Now you turn yourself to the 
 wall, and marvel at the lightness of human words and 
 
 THE GREEDINESS OF HUMAN WANTS. 
 
 You are little to be pitied in justice greatly, in mer- 
 cy ! Lie there and pity humanity, for they would be 
 all like you, did not they follow in nature's paths, 
 where the roses of the way-side hide more of their 
 ugliness. All I would impose is that you walk where 
 you will look least hideous, even in your own eyes. 
 
 As, in Paradise, when Milton was all ablaze with 
 poetic glory, he waved his more than kingly sceptre
 
 SICKNESS. 287 
 
 and thus ushered in the night 
 
 Now came still evening on 
 
 Now glowed the firmament 
 With living sapphires: Hesperus that led 
 The starry host rode brightest 
 
 So does woman, soft as still Evening, shining as all 
 the starry hosts with goodness and with mercy, come 
 into the night of disease, and soften its harsh desert 
 with the dews of her kindness. Sickness teaches us 
 how good and true is woman, how useful in the world, 
 how necessary to our welfare and proper destiny. If 
 any man have learned this on a sick bed 
 
 HE HAS NOT BEEN SICK FOR NAUGHT. 
 
 He is a man of progressive ideas and unfolding nature. 
 Sir Walter Scott has put into words a thought that 
 has ever had man's approbation: 
 
 O woman ! in our hours of ease, 
 Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, 
 Arid variable as the shade 
 By the light, quivering aspen made; 
 When pain and anguish wring the brow, 
 A ministering angel thou ! 
 
 " It is in sickness," says Hosea Ballou, " that we 
 most feel the need of that sympathy which shows how 
 much we are dependent one upon another for our 
 comfort and even necessities. This desire, opening
 
 288 SICKNESS. 
 
 our eyes to the realities of life, is an indirect blessing.' 1 
 "Sickness," says Burton, "puts us in mind of our 
 mortality, and while we drive on heedlessly in the fall 
 career of worldly pomp and jollity, kindly pulls us by 
 the ear, and brings us to a sense of our duty." "It is 
 then," says Pliny, " that man recollects there is a God, 
 and that he himself is but a man. No mortal is then 
 the object of his envy, his admiration, or his contempt." 
 " In sickness," says Shakspeare, playing with his 
 prepositions, " let me not so much say, 'Am I getting 
 better of my pain?' as 'Am I getting better for it?" 
 
 LET US THEREFORE GIVE UP THE IDEA 
 
 of those great reformations which we formulate upon 
 our mattresses of misery, and rather confine ourselves 
 to a few betterments of our lives which are possible. 
 If we are spendthrifts, we should vow to spend our 
 money for goods of more solid worth than a taste of 
 this thing, a whiff of that, or a sight of the other. If 
 we are proud, let us resolve to speak kindly at least 
 to those who have been lately ill. If we are stingy, 
 let us make ready to give, notwithstanding, to those 
 who need as badly as we have needed. If we are 
 doubtful of the goodness of the gentle sex, let us at
 
 SICKNESS. 
 
 289 
 
 any rate thereafter except fcrever their qualities as 
 a faithful succor of 
 
 THE MOST MISERABLE OF CREATURES, 
 
 a sick man who cannot move from his bed of pain and 
 discontent. If we are impenitent, let us arise out of 
 our wearying couch respectful to those who worship 
 God, and reverent also before God in the presence of 
 other worshipers. Perhaps if we aim our sudden 
 goodness at a lower mark, we may make a record that 
 will not entirely proclaim (as the quick eye of Pope 
 has cynically perceived) our unpromising folly, and 
 our unteachable ignorance of human nature.
 
 When sorrows come, they come not single spies, 
 But in battalions. SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn, 
 
 And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away, CAMPBELL. 
 
 ATHERING clouds crowd thick- 
 est round the tallest mountain, yet 
 do their summits, far up above, 
 forevei gaze out upon the un- 
 dimmed sun. So is it with the great 
 heart smitten with deep sorrow. 
 There is no soul upon whom the glory of 
 God's love falls more serenely and unin- 
 terruptedly. There is no better friend, no 
 lovelier associate. " Blessed are they that 
 mourn, for they shall be comforted." And 
 comfort does come, in the broad and kind- 
 ly love and mercy toward humanity which those who 
 have known suffering so frequently evince. " Out of 
 suffering have emerged the strongest souls ;" says 
 Chapin, " the most massive characters are seamed 
 
 with scars; martyrs have put on their coronation 
 [290!
 
 SORROW. 291 
 
 robes glittering with fire, and through their tears have 
 the sorrowful first seen the gates of heaven." " The 
 echo of the nest-life, the voice of our modest, fairer, 
 holier soul " says Richter, " is audible only in a sor- 
 row -darkened bosom, as the nightingales warble when 
 one veils their eye." " Every noble crown is, and on 
 earth will ever be, a crown of thorns," says Carlyle 
 " Sorrow, says Haunay, with rare knowledge, "turns 
 all the stars into mourners , and every wind of heaven 
 into a dirge." Sometimes all nature seems to condole 
 with animate woes: 
 
 One weeping heart may tone a rural scene 
 To sadness. Reverently the trees will bend; 
 The little stream will sigh, with heaving pulse, 
 And swans, in soft and solemn silence float 
 Grief's snowy celebrants. 
 
 It is a manifest peculiarity of the human mind to 
 believe that its sorrows should be more enduring 
 than they really are. We have in this phenomenon 
 some of the clearest views of our weakness and incon" 
 sistency, for though we deplore the destiny which 
 deals out so much misery to us, yet we despise our- 
 selves, and are also thought somewhat less of by our 
 associates, if we do not embalm our griefs and remain
 
 292 SORROW. 
 
 a sort of mummy-house above ground until the mem. 
 ory of our friends has grown faulty and unreliable 
 when applied to our affairs. Thus, 
 
 A WIFE LOSES HER HUSBAND. 
 
 The grief which she feels nearly crushes her spirit and 
 evokes the sympathies of her neighbors, as well it 
 may. She finds a bitterness within her heart which 
 it*is difficult to sweeten into resignation. Why should 
 the blow have singled her as its object ? Then, with 
 the lapse of the days, comes a change of the season, 
 and the wonderful climatic effects on both mind and 
 body accompanying them. She wanders into the 
 woods, and the rustling of the leaves beneath her feet 
 betrays her from her dead husband for the first time, 
 
 and her 
 
 / , 
 
 CONSCIENCE, THE SOLEMN OFFICER 
 
 of her moral nature, suddenly arrests a little girl wan- 
 dering in the woods in search of a butternut tree 
 which lives like a hermit in the deep of the forest. 
 It is a stray memory of herself in the long ago ! Ir 
 has wandered into her house of grief, and when it falls 
 under the hand of the law she feels great guilt for 
 having harbored it. "O, my poor, dear husband,
 
 SORROW. 293 
 
 have I so forgotten you ?" she cries in mental sack- 
 cloth and ashes. And then the frailty of human rea- 
 son and action appear before her and appall her. 
 The time flies by. Soon still another season is here, 
 with 
 
 A TROOP OF LITTLE TRAITORS, HAPPY MEMORIES, 
 
 carrying her " over the hills and far away " into that 
 dim past whence she emerged, all happiness and 
 health. The conscience now has loosened its harsh 
 rule. The memories play in her brain like children 
 on a lawn, and their merry music often drowns the 
 dirges still sadly chanted in her deeper soul. And 
 thus the winter passes not in a whirlwind of grief 
 as did the summer, whose days she never saw, or will 
 not know she saw, until they come again hot and 
 heavy with the association of her bitterness. But it 
 is safe to say her dread of those days will exceed the 
 actual grief they cause her, and she can soon look 
 back upon her sorrow, and say that she has mourned 
 
 RATHER NOT ENOUGH THAN TOO MUCH. 
 
 If there be joined to this a new association, one that 
 nature and God have both approved, then there is 
 lifted up the sneer of the world, and again the weak-
 
 294 SORROW. 
 
 ness of woman, the frivolity of humanity, is deplored 
 by those who demand that grief shall co-survive with 
 remembrance. We do not suffer so much as we 
 think we ought to, and yet, foolish and illogical, we 
 call upon our fate in a grand monotony of complaint 
 at the heaviness of our ills. The young man falls in 
 love. His love is not returned. He has believed 
 himself capable of undying and unalterable affection 
 for a maiden. Unselfish, therefore, it must endure, 
 whether she love him or not, for 
 
 HAS HE NOT PROCLAIMED IT TO HIS OWN SOUL ? 
 
 She loves him not ! The test is come. He must de- 
 spise himself as a shallow-hearted hind, or dwell in 
 extacies of adoration over one who will resign herself 
 into the keeping of another, a thing most detestable 
 to this young man. Either horn of the dilemma 
 shows him life, true life. Not a poem or a dream, 
 but as a range of mountains would form if they were 
 piled down from some other world ; first a row of lit' 
 tie peaks, then monster heights arising where valleys 
 hid, and valleys forming on the points of peaks. 
 
 THIS YOUTHFUL PEAK OF GRIEF, 
 
 the young man finds in after years, is but the mora
 
 SORROW. 295 
 
 substantial bottom of two slopes which rise sublimely 
 toward the zenith of his life. He banishes his false 
 conceptions of the grandeur of the human mind. He 
 banishes an attachment which had not a substantial 
 girder under it, and within a few years his heart is all 
 the broader, gentler and more charitable for his young 
 sorrow. Do not think me underrating the poignancy 
 of ill-requited love. It is no mean sorrow. But no 
 great mind ever was crushed under it. No great 
 mind ever was crushed under any sorrow dealt out to 
 humanity. 
 
 TRUE GREATNESS, 
 
 after all, lies in true humanity, true understanding of 
 the feebleness of our nature and our capacities. We 
 do not overload an animal, merely because it evinces 
 a willingness to make an effort. We therefore must 
 not overweight our soul with sorrow. We must not 
 nurse our woe. We must not have that grand, con 
 ceited idea of our nobility which demands of us a 
 great long future of melancholy; but rather must we 
 nurse our bodies, suspecting our liver if our soul be 
 heavy, and blaming our chamber if our brow be 
 clouded. Then, if a high intelligence wait at the
 
 296 SORROW. 
 
 couch >f our sick soul, as does faithful woman by an 
 invalid, soon will vanish all the clouds, soon will come 
 a brighter vista in the journey of our lives. We are 
 as God has made us, weak, miserable and sinful. 
 Let us expect from ourselves conduct becoming a 
 being weak, sinful and miserable. It would seem 
 that this is the secret of those great lives who profit by 
 adversity. They have charity, for they have erred. 
 They have hope, for it has been their true anchor, 
 never failing. They have withal more consistency 
 than have we, though they have 
 
 NEVER MADE SUCH HIGH-SOUNDING REQUISITIONS 
 
 on their untried natures. Where they have stepped 
 into the stream of their existence in some new fording, 
 place, they have gone with great caution, not with 
 an immature confidence born of naught save foolish 
 audacity. Their river of life is an open water before 
 their pleasant eyes ; they prepare not for a flood in 
 the fall, neither do they make ready to pass over dry- 
 shod when the waters come down in the spring. 
 Though they have the more mercy, they make the 
 lesser appeals for mercy ; though they have the more 
 strength, they pray the oftener for aid. Sorrow has
 
 SORROW. 
 
 Page, 291.
 
 SORROW. 297 
 
 brought it about. Affliction has stretched their heart- 
 chords 
 
 INTO TRUE HARMONY. 
 
 "The safe and general antidote against sorrow, 17 
 says Dr. Johnson, " is employment. It is commonly 
 observed that among soldiers and seamen, though 
 there is much kindness, there is little grief ; they see 
 their friend fall without any of that lamentation 
 which is indulged in security and idleness, because 
 they have no leisure to spare from the care of them- 
 selves ; and whoever shall keep himself equally busy 
 will find himself equally unaffected with irretrievable 
 losses. Time is observed to wear out sorrow, and 
 its effects might doubtless be accelerated by 
 quickening the succession and enlarging the variety 
 of objects." 
 
 THERE IS ANOTHER AND AN UNHAPPY PHASE 
 
 of sorrow. "When it is real," says Madame 
 Swetchine, "it is almost as difficult to discover as 
 real poverty. An instinctive delicacy hides the rags 
 of the one and the wounds of the other." "The 
 deeper the sorrow, the less tongue hath it," says the 
 Talmud. " Light griefs do speak," says Seneca,
 
 298 SORROW. 
 
 " while sorrow's tongue is bound." " The wringing of 
 the hands and knocking of the breast," says Dr. South, 
 " or the wishing of one's self unborn : all are but the 
 ceremonies of sorrow, the pomp and ostentation of an 
 effeminate grief, which speak not so much the great- 
 ness of the misery as the smallness of the mind." 
 
 NOW COMES RELIGION, 
 
 shining down into this Alpine valley of grief, not as 
 the sun of the Alps, but as a continual orb of light ; 
 not between a few short hours in a " long, long weary 
 day," but as a constant illumination of the soul, 
 irradiating its beams out upon the countenances of 
 God's afflicted, and setting them before mankind as 
 a beacon for groping humanity. I know of no more 
 perfect expression of the power of sorrow to chasten 
 the soul and draw it nearer the Maker than is con- 
 tained in 
 MARIA LOWELL'S " LAMB IN THE SHEPHERD'S ARMS." 
 
 I quote it as giving that lesson which my humble 
 prose would never teach : 
 
 i. After our child's untroubled breath 
 
 Up to the Father took its way, 
 And on our home the shade of death, 
 Like a long twilight, haunting lay,
 
 SORROW. 299 
 
 And friends came round with us to weep 
 
 Her little spirit's swift remove, 
 This story of the Alpine sheep 
 
 Was told to us by one we love : 
 
 2. They, in the valley's sheltering care. 
 
 Soon crop the meadow's tender prime, 
 And, when the sod grows brown and bare, 
 
 The shepherd strives to make them climb 
 To airy shelves of pastures green 
 
 That hang along the mountain-side, 
 Where grass and flowers together lean, 
 
 And down through mist the sunbeams glide. 
 
 3. But nought can tempt the timid things 
 
 That steep and rugged path to try, 
 Though sweet the shepherd calls and sings, 
 
 And seared below the pastures lie ; 
 Till in his arms their lambs he takes 
 
 Along the dizzy verge to go, 
 Then, heedless of the rifts and breaks, 
 
 They follow on o'er rock and snow ; 
 
 4. And, in those pastures lifted fair, 
 
 More dewy soft than lowland mead, 
 The shepherd drops his lowly care, 
 
 And sheep and lambs together feed. 
 This parable by Nature breathed 
 
 Blew on me as the south wind free 
 O'er frozen brooks that float unsheathed 
 
 From icy thrall dom to the sea. 
 
 5. A blissful vision, through the night, 
 
 Would all my happy senses sway, 
 Of the Good Shepherd on the height 
 
 Or climbing up the starry way. 
 Holding our little lamb asleep ; 
 
 And like the burthen of the sea, 
 Sounded that voice along the deep, 
 
 Saying, "Arise, and follow me."
 
 ' Tis a little thing 
 
 To give a cup of water, yet its draught 
 Of cool refreshment, drained by fevered lips, 
 May give a shock of pleasure to the frame 
 More exquisite than when nectarea n juice 
 Renews the life of joy in happiest hours. TALFOURD. 
 
 EAL poverty, it may not be im- 
 possible, is to the individual, more 
 of a question when directed to his 
 country than to his actions. In 
 Ireland or Italy, it seems to me, 
 the greatest of individual excel- 
 lence in sobriety and economy may not 
 shield the citizen from abject want, which is 
 a terrible thing. But in America the man 
 who is often called " poor " gets as much 
 rest for his body and quite as beneficial food 
 for his stomach as the man whose wealth is 
 the wonder of the world. It is a magnifi- 
 cent land where there is so much food raised and so 
 [300]
 
 POVERTY. 3OI 
 
 many clothes made that a man calls himself poor if he 
 have only plenty to eat and wear ! Our definition of 
 the word " poverty " is a marvelous corruption of the 
 word. To be poor in the true sense of the word, in 
 this great land, one must have either been sick or 
 criminally negligent. Many a clerk eats as much 
 and dresses as well as Vanderbilt. What does Van. 
 derbilt do with the great number of millions which he 
 controls ? 
 
 HE FEEDS AND DRESSES AN ARMY 
 
 of about one hundred thousand other men. If he 
 kept his wheat, it would rot. If he kept his 
 clothes, they would pass into speedy decay. By 
 spending one hundred and fifty million dollars he 
 is enabled to secure services which return an aggre- 
 gate result of about one hundred and sixty-five mill- 
 ion dollars in a year. Men have eaten up his first 
 one hundred and fifty million dollars, but their works 
 are worth one hundred and sixty-five million dollars, 
 and he has fifteen million dollars profit. Sup- 
 pose the men took his one hundred and fifty 
 million dollars away from him and ate it up and 
 wore it out in a year, doing no work in the mean
 
 302 POVERTY. 
 
 time. At the end of the year they would begin starv- 
 ing if they relied on him alone, and he would have 
 neither one hundred and fifty million dollars capital 
 nor fifteen million dollars profit. 
 
 VIEWED AS IT IS, 
 
 Vanderbilt is really only richer than other people to 
 the extent that he can gratify rational desires more 
 than others, and this at once puts him alongside hun- 
 dreds of thousands who have money enough to pur- 
 chase everything they can rationally want. In the 
 system of labor for wages, Vanderbilt is only a com- 
 mander, haviivr the the largest force intrusted to his 
 supervision or paid with his money; the thing is the 
 same. Almost all 
 
 THE ENORMOUSLY RICH MEN OF THE WORLD 
 
 have lived in the apprehension of having the bulk of 
 their possessions seized by envious rulers or fellow 
 citizens. Not many years ago Vanderbilt suddenly 
 bought fifty million dollars of four per cent Govern- 
 ment bonds, simply, it is believed, for the purpose of 
 shifting the enormous risk of active employment upon 
 shoulders which would be less apt to excite popular
 
 POVERTY. 303 
 
 manifestations of greed should the Commune bring 
 about its foolish and chaotic reign. The cares of 
 great wealth are a class of the most serious burdens 
 borne by humanity. 
 
 THEY SHOULD NEVER BE FORGOTTEN 
 
 in making up the account between the citizen who 
 has all he needs and the citizen who has to spare for 
 others who will pay him a profit. Men who have 
 lived in constant dread of poverty have been aston. 
 ished, upon being stranded on that shore of ill-repute 
 to find the sun shining more brightly and the birds 
 singing more cheerily than when, driven with the 
 ever multiplying engagements of business, they had no 
 slumber which was not an imaginary hurrying into a 
 bank -president's parlor, and no conversation which 
 was not distressing some impatient caller in an ante- 
 room. 
 
 BUT ACTUAL, HARSH, GRINDING WANT 
 
 is a nightmare, a delirium of misfortune. It lowers 
 the human being at once to the condition of a brute 
 somewhat of the order of the cats. Men on board a 
 ship, driven to despair by hunger, enter the most 
 wretched state conceivable. The qualities of faith
 
 304 POVERTY. 
 
 and mercy disappear at once. No man trusts any- 
 body else. Each expects the others to pounce upon 
 him to eat him, and none of them would dare to 
 sleep if he could, owing to the certainty of his peril 
 should his vigilance be relaxed. From this baleful 
 picture of the lowest depths of poverty we may rise 
 to comparatively stupendous heights, and yet be rel- 
 atively poor as to the consideration of other conditions 
 of life still above us. Let us, then, view poverty as 
 
 A REAL, ACTIVE, "INCONVENIENCE," 
 
 as the French wit has put it. " One solitary philoso- 
 pher maybe great, virtuous and happy in the depth of 
 poverty," says Isaac Iselin, "but not a whole people." 
 " Poverty " says Lucian, " persuades a man to do and 
 suffer everything that he may escape from it." "It 
 i equires a great deal of poetry to gild the pill of pov- 
 erty," says Madame Deluzy; " and then it will pass 
 for a pleasant dose only in theory; the reality is a 
 failure." " A generous and noble spirit " saysDiony- 
 sius, " cannot be expected to dwell in the breast of 
 men who are struggling for their daily bread." 
 
 " HOW LIKE A RAILWAY TUNNEL 
 
 is the poor man's life," says Bovee, u with the light of
 
 POVERTY. 305 
 
 childhood at one end, the intermediate gloom, and 
 only the glimmer of a future life at the other extrem- 
 ity ! " " Poverty," says Euripides, " possesses this 
 disease through want it teaches a man evil." " Pov- 
 erty," says Saadi, " snatches the reins out of the hands 
 of pity," which is true only in one sense. 
 
 MANY PEOPLE ARE GOOD 
 
 who would not be so good were they poorer, but the 
 Irish in Ireland are perhaps the poorest and at the 
 same time the most pious people of whom we read or 
 hear. " Poverty makes man satirical, soberly, sadly, 
 bitterly satirical," says Friswell. " Men praise it," 
 says Alexander Smith, 
 
 AS THE AFRICAN WORSHIPS MUMBO JUMBO 
 
 from terror of the malign power, and a desire to pro- 
 pitiate it." "It oft deprives a man of all spirit and 
 virtue," says Ben Franklin; it is hard for an empty 
 bag to stand upright." 
 
 THE SCENES OF DARKEST POVERTY 
 
 in this land of ours are surely the results of ignorance 
 and folly. With the crops which follow each other 
 in our favored region of the earth, and with member- 
 
 20
 
 306 POVERTY. 
 
 ship in any mutual aid society, the industrious poor 
 man of America has an assurance that no picture so 
 black can be drawn of his lot "in the rainy day." 
 We cannot reform human nature. When men cheat, 
 steal, lie, and remain idle, they must sufFeMhe results 
 of their deeds, and, at present, those whom they drag 
 down with them must also suffer. But, with industry 
 and sobriety assured, 
 
 THE FANGS OF POVERTY 
 
 have been drawn, for the poor man in sickness 
 receives his support, and in health contributes his 
 small share to his sick brother. In leaving this 
 painful branch of so vital a portion of any book 
 devoted to the improvement of humanity, let us abjure 
 each other to fry from the sins of idleness and waste, 
 that make this dark panorama in a world which 
 could be bright, and which, rolling along in its foolish 
 fashion, even now gives promise of exceeding joy in 
 the future. Work and save and give work ! This 
 is the light of the world, the open sesame of the 
 millennium ? Let us come again to the follies of 
 
 FALSE POVERTY. 
 
 How ridiculous that one should suffer from want of
 
 POVERTY. 307 
 
 a frill or a furbelow ! " I do not call a healthy young 
 man, cheerful in his mind and vigorous in his arms, I 
 cannot call such a man poor" says the eloquent 
 Edmund Burke ; " I cannot pity my kind as a kind, 
 merely because the}' are men." "It is the great 
 privilege of poverty " says Dr. Johnson, " to be happy 
 unenvied, to be healthy without physic, and to be 
 secure without guard." Is it not ridiculous for the 
 poor man, by aping the habits of the rich, to spurn 
 some of the greatest blessings attaching to our life ? 
 Thus, as Dr. Johnson says : 
 
 "POVERTY, IN LARGE CITIES 
 
 is often concealed in splendor and often in 
 extravagance." The tendency of people in comfort- 
 able circumstances to move out of a pleasant cottage 
 into a brick house with two inches of marble-front is 
 a sorrowful one. We can progress only through this 
 same sad tendency, but how many happy homes are 
 thus ruined ! It requires much brains to count the 
 ultimate cost. There is hardly an article of 
 furniture in the old home which does not look out of 
 place in the new. There is additional work to be done 
 which had been entirely overlooked. The servant is
 
 308 POVERTY. 
 
 a grievious expense. We do not get the result of her 
 work only the profit. If she earn the one hundred 
 and fifty million dollars we get only the fifteen million 
 dollars. She must be "kept" must add her clothes 
 to the wash, her meat to the dish, her bed-room to 
 the house. She breaks with a smile. She scatters 
 as the sower who goeth forth to sow. From every 
 conceivable cranny creep forth disbursements the 
 expenses of the rich man creeping like tigers upon 
 his poor but vainer neighbor. O, pshaw ! why will 
 men and women do it ? If those two fine spirits, 
 Prudence and Economy look down upon us, such 
 houses must attract attention only by seeming to 
 mark out upon the earth they cover the writing at 
 Belshazzar's feast 
 
 THE MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN, 
 
 of the nineteenth century. I know of an actual 
 instance of a family being forced to eat the bread of 
 charity within the walls of a house for which they had 
 engaged to pay, and had so far paid, the sum of two 
 thousand dollars a year as rent ! What foolish thing a 
 vain human being will riot do is a more difficult problem 
 than what he will do. If we had no rich people to
 
 POVERTY. 309 
 
 fire up our self-conceit, we would be happier, though 
 we rose more slowly ; yet are we to be despised for 
 being willing to throw the blame so freely from our 
 shoulders. "Poverty is," says Cobbett, "except 
 where there is an actual want of food and raiment, a 
 thing much more imaginary than real. The shame 
 of poverty the shame of being thought poor it is 
 
 A GREAT AND FATAL WEAKNESS, 
 
 though arising in this country from the fashion of the 
 times themselves." Let us shake off this fatal 
 weakness. That man is a coward who, from what- 
 ever reason, keeps up the expenditure of a rich man 
 a moment longer than his income will warrant it. 
 
 "POVERTY is ONLY CONTEMPTIBLE 
 when it is felt to be so," says Bovee. " That man," 
 says Bishop Paley, "is to be accounted poor, of 
 whatever rank he be, who suffers the pains of poverty, 
 whose expenses exceed his resources ; and no man, 
 properly speaking, poor, but he." " The poor are 
 only they who seem poor," says Emerson, "and 
 poverty consists in feeling poor." Doubtless you are 
 familiar with the story of the unhappy Sultan to 
 whom the Magi, traveling from the East to his relief,
 
 JPOVERTY. 
 
 could give no hope unless he could get and wear 
 the shirt of a happy man. Proclamation went forth 
 to all the lands of the empire, offering glittering 
 rewards for a happy man. At last learned doctors 
 and experts, who had gone out into the outer regions, 
 brought in a shepherd, who was vowed to be an 
 entirely happy man. But lo ! when he came before 
 the Magi, it was found that 
 
 HE HAD NO SHIRT ! 
 
 The men who have caught this circling planet in 
 the palms of their hands, as God grasps the inconceiv- 
 able universes, were born poor and struggled in 
 adversity ; the men who have throttled the fiery 
 lightning, and chained the fire and the water into 
 willing servitude, were poor boys ; the men who 
 have developed the human imagination into a thing 
 almost perfect and unapproachable were poor boys ; 
 the men who have led millions of their Maker's feet, 
 were poor both in youth and age. Bear it then, in 
 mind, that all honorable endeavors to ease the yoke M 
 life are good; that all repinings whatsoever are totally 
 ridiculous, and mostly dishonorable.
 
 Vet I douljt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
 And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns. 
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 NE of the pillars upon which the 
 atheists and social iconoclasts and 
 demolishers base their erroneous 
 philosophy is a seeming belief that the 
 men of to-day work harder fora liv- 
 ing than the men of olden times. Now I will 
 lay hold of this pillar, and, although I be 
 not Samson, I may yet hope to rend an ill- 
 constructed edifice. With the aid of a few 
 figures and a little history the mind may 
 possibly discern, through the centuries be- 
 hind us, some evidence of that progress which Victor 
 Hugo has called " the stride of God." . 
 
 It is reasonable to suppose that the poor man, dur- 
 ing the period of his veritable history, has always, 
 when not suffering severe privation, eaten nearly the 
 same amount of food in any given number of hours. 
 
 3"
 
 312 FACTS ABOUT PROGRESS. 
 
 We may, I think, judge of the amount of work cast 
 to his lot if we can find the ruling values of several of 
 the articles of food which have contributed to sustain 
 his life. I have chosen the earlier civilization of 
 England in my examples, not because the Book of 
 Exodus, the Pyramids, and the temples of Baalbec 
 and Karnac fail to betray the needed evidences 
 of almost super human toil, but because the authori- 
 ties at my disposal touching upon earlier times fail 
 to furnish me 
 
 THE SATISFACTORY COMMERCIAL DATA 
 
 also needed as a parallel. Let us, then, put our la- 
 borer in England in the year 1350. He had at that 
 time so far progressed that, under certain very 
 restricted circumstances, his life was preserved, and 
 he was allowed to earn wages for his labor. He 
 worked fourteen hours for a legal day's work in winter 
 and fifteen hours in summer, but I have everywhere 
 in the following statements computed his hours as 
 fourteen. If he were a common laborer- he received 
 one penny. If he were 
 
 A SKILLED FIELD HAND, 
 
 he could earn three times as much money. The
 
 FACTS ABOUT PROGRESS. 313 
 
 English penny is to-day a very large copper coin, be- 
 ing worth two cents, but in those times it weighed 
 three times as much as to-day, as did all current coins. 
 In addition to this great weight, money was very 
 scarce, and fully six or seven times as valuable in 
 many commodities as to-day. We will not err far in 
 calling the laborer's penny forty American cents. In 
 1350, then, the skilled laborer earned 3 pence in a 
 day. He paid of his dear money, I shilling 10*^ 
 pence for a bushel of wheat, and i 4 shillings 6 
 pence for an ox. This means that he paid eight days' 
 (i 1 2 hours') labor for his bushel of wheat, and 98 
 days' (1372 hours') labor for his ox. The ox would 
 to-day rate far below a " scalawag " at the Stock 
 Yards of Chicago or East St. Louis, weighing, per- 
 haps, 400 pounds. 
 
 TWO HUNDRED YEARS LATER, 
 
 in 1550, the same kind of a laborer earned 4 pence 
 in a day. He paid i shilling io*4 pence for a bush- 
 el of wheat and i 16 shillings 7 pence for an 
 ox. This means that he paid nearly six days' (about 
 80 hours') labor for his bushel of wheat, and no 
 days' (1540 hours') labor for his ox. The high price
 
 314 PACTS ABOUT PROGRESS. 
 
 of the latter was justified by its great improvement 
 in weight and quality. 
 
 IN THE FORTY-THIRD YEAR OF ELIZABETH 
 
 the coinage was lowered to about its present weight. 
 In 1675, therefore, we see the laborer getting 7 */ 
 pence for a day's service. But he was compelled to 
 pay 4 shillings 6 pence for a bushel of wheat, 
 and 3 6 shillings for an ox. He thus was going 
 backward, for temporary reasons, however, and had 
 to pay seven days' (98 hours') labor for his bushel 
 of wheat and no days' (1540 hours') labor for 
 his ox. The ox had twice as much beef on him as 
 the ox of 1350. 
 
 AND STILL FOR ANOTHER HUNDRED YEARS, 
 
 the march of the laborer upward was retarded by 
 wars, famines, and "deaths," as their plagues were 
 called. In 1795, one of the darkest of those dark 
 years, we find the skilled laborer receiving i shilling 
 5*4 pence per day (still of fourteen hours in winter, 
 fifteen in summer). He paid 7 shillings 10 pence for 
 a bushel of wheat and 16 8 shillings for an ox. 
 This means that he paid five days' (70 hours') labor 
 for his bushel of wheat and 119 days' (1666 hours')
 
 FACTS ABOUT PROGRESS. 315 
 
 labor for his ox. The ox was what is technically 
 called "a fair critter." 
 
 TO-DAY THE SAME LABORER, 
 
 working ten hours a day counting all the perquisites 
 which have fallen to his lot, the crumbs from the 
 tables of his prosperous superiors, the same laborer, 
 I say, gets 3 shillings a day. He pays 6 shillings for 
 a bushel of wheat and 12 for an ox. This means 
 that he pays two days' (twenty hours') labor for 
 his bushel of wheat and 80 days' (800 hours') labor 
 for his ox. The ox rates better than a butchers' 
 " beast," as the English say. In the meantime, 
 
 THE CHILDREN OF THE LABORER 
 
 have sailed across the ocean and settled in a land 
 where the fields yield steady harvests and where the 
 genius of the inventor has exceeded with its results 
 the wonders of the Arabian Nights. In this land of 
 freedom and plenty the day laborer gets $1.50 a day. 
 He pays 90 cents to $1.30 for a bushel of wheat, and 
 if he desire such food, he can pay $80 for a monster 
 ox weighing 1600 pounds. He thus pays less than a 
 day's labor of ten hours for his bushel of wheat, and 
 about fifty-three days' (530 hours') labor for his ox.
 
 316 FACTS ABOUT PROGRESS. 
 
 He does not need this high grade of meat, however, 
 as few English laborers ever buy from even the round 
 of such beef, and no ordinary American householder 
 in city or country gets as good once a year. 
 
 PROGRESS IN FIVE HUNDRED YEARS. 
 
 We thus see the condition of the laboring man rise, 
 in five hundred years, from 112 hours' labor 
 for sixty pounds of wheat to about six or seven 
 hours' work, and from 1372 hours' labor for 400 
 pounds of beef to 267 hours' labor for the same 
 weight of better food ! 
 
 But the atheist will say that the laborer of the olden 
 time did not work, and got along by hook or crook ; 
 that, as it was a miracle if he lived with such wages, 
 anyway, he had every inducement to become a vag- 
 abond. But all this had " been seen to." Such things 
 are never unforeseen. 
 
 FOR INSTANCE : 
 
 " Here is a package of worm-medicine which, 
 for one dollar will save the life of your child. 
 Will you have it? No!! you will not pay 
 one single dollar to save the life of your little
 
 FACTS ABOUT PROGRESS. 317 
 
 child ! Here is a man, who, for one standard dol- 
 lar, in silver, worth intrinsically less than 90 cents, 
 will let his child be lowered into the grave will lis 
 ten to the clods falling on its little coffin ! But ah! 
 1 am provided against such men ! They cannot es- 
 cape me ! Here is a smaller package which will save 
 your child's life for fifty cents. It is yours. "Death 
 has missed his mark ! " Now, with the inevitable 
 forethought of 
 
 THIS VERMIFUGE FIEND 
 
 whom I have quoted, the law- makers of those days 
 also saw to it that the laborer should not escape the 
 original terms of Eve's surrender to "that first grand 
 thief who clomb into God's fold." Under a statute of 
 Richard II. the laborer was forbidden to remove from 
 one part of the kingdom to another, or to otherwise 
 seek to raise the price of his labor. This law stood 
 for centuries, and was reiterated in the seventeenth 
 George II. and the thirty-second George III., along 
 with fixed wages for services rendered. Personal lib- 
 erty was held to be the privilege of the proprietary 
 class. By a statute of Henry VIII. (1536), Chil- 
 dren of five years and up, were compelled
 
 318 . FACTS ABOUT PROGRESS. 
 
 to labor. A man able to work who refused 
 a proffer of work was, according to law, drag- 
 ged to the nearest town on a hurdle, stripped, 
 and whipped through the town until his body was 
 covered with blood. For a second offense his right 
 ear was cut off and he received the bastinado. For a 
 third offense he was put to death. An act passed 
 under Edward VI. (1555) provided that the able- 
 bodied laborer refusing work should be branded on 
 the breast with the letter V and adjudged to the in- 
 former as his slave for two years. The master might 
 fasten a ring about the neck, arm, or leg. 
 
 REFORM. 
 
 Under William IV., by the act of 1832, the labor- 
 ing hours of children were reduced to ten hours. By 
 the act of 1847 women were included in the ten-hour 
 law. By 1867 the power of the English working 
 man had secured the permanence of a custom making 
 ten hours a day's work. In the factories of Notting- 
 ham, England, the men make as high as fourteen dol- 
 lars a week. Improved machinery has raised their 
 wages. At the spinning machines which formerly 
 required two men, who each received $4.50 a week,
 
 FACTS ABOUT PROGRESS. 319 
 
 there is now required one man, who gets $6.25. At 
 the beginning of the present century the workman in 
 these mills earned 4^ shillings a week. At the pres- 
 ent day he earns 10^ shillings, with twenty-four 
 hours' less labor. 
 
 THE ENGLISH FIELD-LABORER 
 
 who now earns 3 shillings a day spends, for a family 
 of eight, 15 shillings a week in bread, cheese, butter, 
 washing, tea, sugar and schooling. How much cheese, 
 tea, butter, washing, sugar and schooling did our 
 friend and his cubs of the fourteenth century enjoy? 
 
 Invention and economy are keeping far in advance 
 of the effects of growth in population. In 1766 Eng- 
 land and Wales had but 8,500,000 inhabitants; now, 
 there are 25,000,000. The same thing is 
 
 TRUE OF AMERICA. 
 
 I have for authorities "England, Political and So- 
 cial by August Laugel, private secretary of the Due 
 d' Aumale, Notes and Queries, No "283, Green's 
 " History of the English People," "Froude's History 
 of England," and current numbers of the Mark Lane 
 Ex-press.
 
 320 FACTS ABOUT PROGRESS. 
 
 In the terms applied to the laborer, from 
 pariah, helot, servus, serf, knecht, thrall, slave, 
 villain, peasant, and laborer, to artisan and working- 
 man there is a vision of progress as bright as the 
 light which fell upon Saul of Tarsus as he journeyed 
 toward Damascus. 
 
 To the man whose whole mind is given to the 
 work he does, the time goes swiftly. Many a man 
 whom success has translated from the grocery, the 
 plow-factory, the farm, to the matting and the yellow 
 bedsteads of the seaside hotel, finds that he was hap- 
 pier at home, when he was poor, and that he was 
 then often far more comfortable in body. 
 
 THE ATHEIST 
 
 does not " look upon a beautiful face and see a grin- 
 ning skull." He must not, then, gaze upon the freest 
 body of workingmen of all the ages and see but a 
 chain of quarry-slaves scourged to their dungeons. 
 
 "God is a worker, He has thickly strewn 
 Infinity with grandeur. God is love ; 
 He yet shall wipe away Creation's tears, 
 And all the worlds shall summer in His smile."
 
 MACBETH, If we should fail 
 
 LADY MACBETH. We fail! 
 
 But screw your courage lo the sticking-place, 
 And we'll not fail. SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 >OU see that scrag over m the 
 woods there ? Crack ! goes the 
 lightning ! The scrag has been 
 hit again ! Unfortunate ! Now, per- 
 haps you know somebody who is a 
 scrag in society. When the thunder 
 storms of life roll and rumble, tell him 
 to look well to himself. He is very liable 
 to another dose of disaster. Why is this ? 
 The reason is plain. There is some partic- 
 ular attraction for the bolt which hits him. 
 There is a loadstone of reason -in the earth 
 at his roots for this constant attack of misfortune. 
 
 However badly off he may be, something still worse 
 
 [321] 
 
 21
 
 322 FAILURE IN LIFE. 
 
 will happen to him. If he have something profitable 
 to do with his hands, he will get a felon on his 
 finger. If he have walking to do, he will get a peeled 
 heel. If he have only to sit and attend to a certain 
 thing, he will get the brain fever. If he be expected 
 at seven in the morning, his child will suffer an attack 
 of croup at 6 : 45. The lightning is darting around 
 him silently all the time, a good deal like the move- 
 ments of a snake's tongue. After all, it is a scrag 
 that has been struck, and every-body laughs and 
 seems to think it a good joke. It is, indeed, close to 
 the ridiculous to see the number of undoubted afflic- 
 tions which will beset 
 
 "A REAL OLD FAILURE IN LIFE." 
 
 He is a good old fellow. He hates with a mortal 
 hate only one thing, and that is hard work ; that 
 will make him deliriously ill inside of three days. 
 The boils, and felons, and fevers, and chilblains, and 
 fractures, and bereavements he has had are enough to 
 fill an encyclopedia. He never has worked long at 
 any one thing, and he never will. He can relate to 
 you how the lightning broke off his biggest limb, 
 knocked off his bark, broke him off half-way up>
 
 FAILURE IN LIFE. 323 
 
 finally split him clear through the trunk, and never 
 hit another tree in the whole piece of timber ! This 
 will bring tears to his eyes, for it seems so strange to 
 him. But if you get tears in your eyes, also, hire him 
 by the day for a while, and look into " the pulse of 
 the machine," you will soon understand the won- 
 derful workings of society, and the nicety of that 
 order of things which separates the wheat from the 
 tare. When the winds of adversity sweep down 
 upon us, 
 
 IT IS THE CHAFF WHICH RISES ON THE GALE. 
 
 Many a man with a bilious attack coming upon his 
 system goes to his work, sets his blood dancing, and, 
 drives away the intruder before the reinforcements of 
 the disease arrive. The failure goes out to the enemy, 
 makes a weak parley, and opens his gates to the first 
 squad that will enter. 
 
 WHAT CAN WE DO FOR THESE RANK FAILURES? 
 
 Nothing. We can take warning from them. " A 
 failure establishes only this," says Bovee, " that our 
 determination was not strong enough." This is very 
 nearly the truth. We fail because we feel the game 
 to be hardly worth the candle. We are not willing
 
 324 FAILURE IN LIFE. 
 
 to pay the price and the value of success. We had 
 rather slide down the hill than climb up higher. 
 When you hit your head against a door in the dark, 
 you are stunned. You are then twice as likely as be- 
 fore to hurt yourself. Bear that in mind. Stop. 
 Move with the greatest of caution. 
 
 THIS IS WHY SHAKSPEARE SAYS 
 
 that when sorrows come, they come not single spies, 
 but in battalions. When you have failed, try and 
 get a new start, clear of the consequences of the last 
 disaster. You know exactly where you erred, and 
 can guard against the weak places in your judgment, 
 the cause of your defeat. Above all, study the 
 " dead rank failure " in your community, and do 
 everything precisely opposite to the way he invariably 
 operates.
 
 Virtue without success 
 Is a fair picture shown by an ill light ; 
 But lucky men are favorites of heaven : 
 All own the chief, when fortune owns the cause. DRYDKN. 
 
 UCKY men are favorites of 
 heaven, simply because they 
 have been endowed with that 
 charming blindness which keeps 
 them from seeing when they 
 are whipped in the battle of life. 
 The man of success has usually a greater 
 sense of the value of a ten-dollar note than 
 his clerk who, like the braggart Pistol, 
 has got the world for his oyster, and ex- 
 pects to open that tough old mollusk with 
 his rusty sword. The man of success sees 
 
 each young helper around him given better 
 
 [325]
 
 326 GAINS AND BRAINS. 
 
 opportunities than he himself had to begin with. His 
 astonishment that inexperienced young men should 
 think they have no chance is always noticeable. He 
 half-envies some stripling soldier in the battle who is 
 yet a high private in the rear rank. The high pri- 
 vate cannot understand how this envy can be possible, 
 and will not believe it exists. If you will study the 
 lucky man you will see that his " luck " is usually 
 more of a matter of course than an extraordinary 
 happening. Reverse the thing, and you can compre- 
 hend it. Here is a brakeman. He gets killed by 
 the cars. 
 
 WAS IT NOT ASTONISHING? 
 
 Well, yes, it was; still, if anybody were going to be 
 killed, the brakeman would be the most likely to be 
 the victim. Go to the accident insurance office and 
 observe how little anxious they are to take such a risk, 
 and what an enormous premium they ask when they 
 do take one ! Here is a man running a powder-fac- 
 tory. The insurance men will not touch him at all ! 
 Now our man of success is like the brakeman, in a 
 sense. He is always on the train, always between 
 the cars, always standing in the frog. If any such
 
 GAINS AND BRAINS. 327 
 
 thing as luck is out, it must hit him, or some other 
 brakeman like him. Certainly, it will not touch the 
 man asleep in his house 
 
 HALF *A MILE FROM THE TRACK ! 
 
 You have a very small chance to draw money in a 
 lottery, and it is a very foolish thing to throw away 
 earnings buying tickets yet of two fools who ex- 
 pected to draw the grand prize, that one would be 
 the greatest who had no ticket in the lottery ! The 
 man of success wants something to strike around his 
 premises. He, therefore, has got conductors of the 
 celestial fluid on his house, and on his barns. His 
 chicken-coops, his corn-cribs point to heaven, and 
 even the stumps in his back yard 
 
 BRISTLE WITH LIGHTNING-RODS. 
 
 Clap ! comes the bolt; the man of success is the one 
 who has been hit, and those persons who do not un- 
 derstand it are astonished at his luck ! The man of 
 success is a stone ; there are a number of .eggs who 
 are bent on dancing in the same cotillon with him ; 
 they think he has great luck to last through to such 
 music ! The man of success is a thoroughbred; his
 
 328 GAINS AND BRAINS. 
 
 sire won a Derby; all the drayhorses believe that, 
 when this lucky thoroughbred runs, 
 
 THE EARTH MOVES BACKWARD 
 
 beneath his feet, to help him in overcoming distance ! 
 The man of success is a lightning calculator; the 
 spectators all think he is a lucky fellow to guess at 
 the sum of a great block of figures so quickly and 
 always guess right ; they never could do it ! 
 
 " LUCK " SAYS RICHARD COBDEN, 
 
 " is ever waiting for something to turn up. Labor, 
 with keen eyes and strong will, will turn up some- 
 thing. Luck lies in bed, and wishes the postman 
 would bring him the news of a legacy. Labor turns 
 out at six o'clock, and with busy pen or ringing ham- 
 mer lays the foundation of a competence. Luck 
 whines. Laboi whistles. Luck relies on chance. 
 Labor on character." The man of success who owns 
 a mill is seen in the water up to his waist, dragging a 
 log behind him. " Is he not lucky to get his dam 
 fixed so soon after the flood !" say the neighbors. 
 The man of success who owns a grocery has got ten 
 barrels of flour on the sidewalk, two casks of petro-
 
 GAINS AND BRAINS. 329 
 
 leum in the alley, and twelve barrels of sugar on his 
 trucks. At night the barrels are all in their places, 
 and, so far as I have ever seen, in the retail business, 
 at least, it was not the clerks of the man of success 
 who did 
 
 THE HEAVY END OF THE LIFTING. 
 
 " I never " says Addison, " knew an early-rising, hard- 
 working, prudent man, careful of his earnings, and 
 strictly honest, who complained of bad luck. A 
 good character, good habits, and iron industry are 
 impregnable to the assaults of all the ill-luck that 
 fools ever dreamed of." " Strong men believe in 
 cause and effect," says Emerson. " There are no 
 chances so unlucky," says Rochefoucauld, " that peo- 
 ple are not able to reap some advantage from them, 
 and none so lucky that the foolish are not able to turn 
 them to their own disadvantage." 
 
 WHEN WE TALK ABOUT LUCK, 
 
 we never mean that a man is lucky to be endowed 
 with successful qualities. So long as we do not go 
 back to the real matter of fortune, which lies in the 
 character, let us, at least, be intelligent, and stop talk-
 
 33 GAINS AND BRAINS. 
 
 ing about one man having any more good things 
 happen to him than another. There is only one 
 sure thing about events, and that is the law of chance. 
 If men take to chance, they will come out even, if it 
 be a fair chance. 
 
 THIS IS CERTAIN. 
 
 If you try to match the penny some one has covered, 
 and fail ten times in succession, it is a certainty that 
 you will succeed often enough, ere long, to make 
 your failures and your successes balance. Everything 
 which depends entirely on chance is exactly even. 
 If the man you envy to-day on account of some piece 
 of unquestionably good luck, were to be as closely 
 watched to-morrow, he would be seen to suffer some 
 piece of as unquestionably bad luck. You cannot 
 help noticing his good fortune, and he never howls 
 about his disasters. 
 
 FORTUNE TELLERS 
 
 thrive on this principle taking even guesses, and 
 trusting to the victim's remembrance of all that 
 
 o 
 
 comes true and his forgetfulness of all that does not. 
 Put up your lightning-rods, get between the cars,
 
 GAINS AND BRAINS. 33! 
 
 begin making powder increase your probabilities of 
 getting blown up, of having something out of the or. 
 dinary run happen to you. If you are food for big 
 fish, go where the big fish are, and you will not' be 
 left over for lunch. If you can be useful to a great 
 railroad man, a great statesman, or, even, a great na- 
 tion, they are going to thrive on you. They will take 
 a taste of you almost before you know it. If you are 
 smart, sober, and were not born tired, there is no bad 
 luck that can get even a shade the best of you.
 
 "Tarry a while," says Slow. MOTHER Gooste. 
 
 UR generation is formed largely 
 of men who went to war and 
 experienced the trials and the 
 combats of one of the greatest 
 commotions of all history. Upon 
 those men was imposed the glorious rod of 
 discipline. "Thus far and no farther !" is 
 written upon their broad foreheads as plain- 
 ly as the God of the great sea marks it on 
 I \ \2) the rocks with which he has hemmed the 
 \| shores, and I would not wonder if the vast 
 prosperity of the present day were largely attributa- 
 ble to that stern fondness with which the true man 
 passes into the action of daily life, and obeys orders 
 
 under fire. Young man, carve yourself down to that 
 333
 
 DISCIPLINE. 333 
 
 rugged line that will make you a fitting part of the 
 structure in which you are an element. 
 
 BE RATHER THE GIRDER 
 
 holding the building than the creaking clapboard 
 flapping in the wind. When you get an order from 
 your employer, school yourself to move mechanically 
 to the action implied. Glory in it. Be sure, only, 
 that you are carrying out the wishes of your superior. 
 Make it your pleasure. It will become an intense 
 delight. Suppose that you are allowed a holiday. 
 You return to your home and find a command to 
 appear at your place of business. A delay in finding 
 you has happened. You can reach your employer 
 just at the end of business hours. You say " I will 
 not mind this ; there is not time enough. 1 ' Alas ! 
 You have done yourself 
 
 A CRUEL WRONG. 
 
 You have given an entrance to a wedge that will 
 rend you in pieces. On the other hand, you do not 
 stop to look twice at the dial. You go. Good ! 
 You have strengthened your character. You can 
 depend on yourself. You admire yourself. " I re- 
 ceived your directions at 5.30. I have obeyed orders."
 
 334 DISCIPLINE. 
 
 Drill of this sort will soon hew your mind down to 
 the solid heart of oak. You will know what you 
 mean when you say a thing. " I will get up at 6 
 o'clock." When 6 o'clock arrives, and you are 
 aroused, your mind is not 
 
 A MESS OF PULP, 
 
 ready to take the impression of the first lazy wish 
 that comes over you. No, your brain says resolute- 
 ly, " I will arise, 1 ' and lo ! a victory ! and no 
 small one either. In this way, true firmness is made. 
 It is a growth. Beware of the insects which beset 
 the lordly tree, v. ithering its leaves and driving its 
 sap into the earth. 
 
 "Let us put a cable under the ocean," says Cyrus 
 Field. " Tarry a while," says Slow. " Let us put 
 the cities within actual speaking distance ! " say 
 Bell, and Gray and Edison. " Tarry a while," says 
 Slow. " Let us print thirty thousand newspapers in 
 an hour, and give them out of the press folded, 
 and pasted, and cut ! " say Potter, and Hoe, and 
 Kahler. u Tarry a while " says Slow. And yet, in 
 spite of Slow and Sleepyhead, wonders have accumu- 
 lated upon wonders, until the Arabian Nights and
 
 DISCIPLINE. 335 
 
 Gulliver's Travels are only the creations of a poor 
 fancy, while the intimations which the future affords 
 us stagger the understanding and make us almost 
 idolatrous in our admiration of the quiet, keen-acting 
 men who have dared out into fairy-land and returned 
 laden like the spies coming from Canaan. 
 
 Our whole history is one of discipline. And what 
 has it made of us? A nation that has sung 
 
 THE DEATH-KNELL OF THE KINGS OF THE EARTH. 
 
 I think a good deal of these lines of James Russell 
 Lowell : 
 
 This land o* ourn, I tell ye 's gut to be 
 
 A better country than man ever see ; 
 
 I feel my sperit swellin with a cry 
 
 That seems to say : "Break forth and prophesy." 
 
 O strange New World, that yet wast never young, 
 
 Whose youth from thee by gripin' want was wrung, 
 
 Brown foundlin" o' the woods, whose baby bed 
 
 Was prowled round by the Injun's cracklin' tread, 
 
 An' who grewst strong thru' shifts, and wants, an' pains, 
 
 Nursed by stern men, with empires in their brains ! 
 
 Another sweet poet has sung : 
 
 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey 
 Where wealth accumulates and men decay. 
 
 There can be no question that wealth is fast accu- 
 mulating. Let fathers, and mothers, and preceptors 
 spur the rising generation to that love of accuracy, 
 of " right dress," as the soldiers say, which puts each
 
 DISCIPLINE. 
 
 man in his place, certain to stay there as long as he 
 has agreed to, and certain to act when the fitting 
 time arrives. 
 
 THE ORGAN AND ITS PIPES AND REEDS. 
 
 Perhaps I can impress the true necessity of disci- 
 pline no more forcibly than by comparing society to 
 a grand organ upon which the Creator sounds his 
 mighty fugue of years. We are the pipes some 
 the colossal columns which shake the world, and 
 others the tiny tubes which make a feeble cry, almost 
 unheard. No one of us must sound his note save in 
 that proper place and at that proper time which Duty 
 indicates. We mar a perfect harmony by 
 ill-tempered silence, and perhaps ruin the labors of 
 our associates by a continuous sounding of our own 
 ridiculous reed. 
 
 WHEREVER WE ARE 
 
 In the factory, the counting house, the workshops of 
 the grand industries, or on the broad acres which 
 watch so fondly for the sun, let us be careful, when 
 there is a troubling jar, a fatal discord, that our 
 key is not the guilty one.
 
 Books, we know, 
 
 Are a substantial world, both pure and good; 
 
 Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, 
 
 Our pastime and our happiness will grow. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Y the aid of books we multiply our 
 sensations a million-fold. Often the 
 reader actually feels what he reads. 
 Such impressions would perhaps 
 never have fallen to his lot in the 
 ordinary way of getting experience. 
 Our indebtedness, then, to the art of print- 
 ing, is perhaps greater than to any other of 
 the remarkable discoveries which have lent 
 enduring charms to human life. And yet, 
 with all its progress, the book-reading world 
 is still in its infancy. The people do not 
 read half enough, they do not discriminate 
 wisely between good reading and indifferent reading, 
 and they read too much matter of an ephemeral na- 
 ture, little calculated to be of the slightest benefit to 
 them a week after its perusal. If a man lived on the 
 banks of a beautiful lake, and went down to its shore 
 
 1337] 
 22
 
 BOOKS. 
 
 each pleasant day to take a ride, and, after an excur- 
 sion upon the peaceful waters, stove his boat in, or 
 cast it adrift, he would be actually following the 
 practice of our people of the present day. The man 
 who owns a library in these times, is considered either 
 a book-worm or an opulent citizen. And yet what 
 treasures are within everyone's reach ! Suppose you 
 buy and read a volume. You are 
 
 FILLED WITH IDEAS NEW TO YOU, 
 
 and you derive great pleasure. Keep that book a 
 year and read it over. It is safe to say you will gain 
 more benefit and reap greater enjoyment from the 
 second perusal than from the first. A library of books, 
 every one of which you have read, is a mine without 
 "walls." It is a merry assembly of old friends ever 
 faithful. Grief cannot drive them away. Slander 
 cannot alienate them. They cannot have rival inter- 
 ests. They cannot want anything you Jjave got, and 
 you can take all they have got, 
 
 AND NOT ROB THEM AT ALL. 
 
 You have a memory which is as treacherous as the 
 most of the other attributes of human nature. You
 
 BOOKS. 339 
 
 sit down and read two hours on an interesting topic. 
 A friend opens the same subject to you, a day after- 
 ward, in conversation, and you fairly carry him by 
 storm. That is unfair, for you should say you have 
 been " posting up " but it shows the value of a li- 
 brary. By frequent " posting " on whatever you 
 have read, you become a learned man, which is 
 
 A TITLE OF GREAT CREDIT AND DIGNITY 
 
 in most men's eyes. The men who read once and 
 "read everything" are never called "learned." 
 They are called " superficial." It is a little unjust, 
 for they have been just as studious as the "learned 
 men," but they have spread themselves out too thin. 
 They have not bought and kept the books they have 
 read, and they cannot remember the vital points. 
 Suppose you recollect that Lord Bacon has said some- 
 thing very wise about riches. That is all you can 
 call to mind. That carries no impression to anybody. 
 If you had the book in which you saw the speech, 
 you could repeat it accurately, and the probability is 
 that the next time you referred to it you could give 
 
 THE GIST OF THE WHOLE THOUGHT, 
 
 and, by the next attempt, the language itself. You
 
 34 BOOKS. 
 
 could say to your friend when you were talking about 
 wealth, that you have admired that speech of Bacon 
 where he says that he cannot call riches better than 
 the "baggage" of virtue; that he thinks the Roman 
 word " impedimenta " still better; that, as baggage is 
 to an army, so is riches to virtue; it cannot be spared 
 or left behind, but, in his quaint expression, " it hin- 
 dereth the march ; yea, and the care of it sometimes 
 loseth or disturbeth the victory." Your friend would 
 be gratified with so perfect a figure of speech, and he 
 would never call you " superficial." That is real 
 experience. It is not theory. A book has little val- 
 ue to a man until he has read it at least twice. He 
 has then labeled and pigeon-holed it, and really needs 
 to possess it. 
 
 A MAN OUGHT TO READ 
 
 his favorite portions of Shakspeare a thousand times 
 of the Bible a million times. Reading is much more 
 like painting than we think. Go into a palace car. 
 Do you think this polish was put on the wood with 
 one application of the brush with two, three, 
 four ? No; it would possibly be cheaper to cover it 
 with silk plush than to go over it as the skilled work-
 
 BOOKS. 341 
 
 men have done. Let us buy less ephemeral stuff, 
 to be set adrift and stove m when we have skimmed 
 over it. Let us season our reading, polish it, grain 
 it, varnish it, repolish it and revarnish' it, until we are 
 just like it ourselves clear, concise, intelligent. 
 How enjoyable it is to meet an intelligent person ! 
 
 WHAT A CHARM 
 
 there is about a comrade who can understand what 
 you say, and who can swap ideas with you " even 
 Steven !" It cannot be done without books. 
 
 Considering the vast importance of learning in 
 saving labor and reducing the actual cost of existence, 
 there has been little growth in the business of book- 
 making compared with what there should have been. 
 The trade in books in America is large, because the 
 country is large. Everything is- large here. Com- 
 paratively, however, it probably sinks below fishing 
 for mackerel as an industry. As it is now, a shock- 
 ingly large portion of the industry such as it is is given 
 over to costly bindings. It does not seem that the 
 people, even when they first had books, cared so 
 much for the privilege of reading as they did for a 
 gaudy covering to the volume, on which they
 
 34 2 BOOKS. 
 
 ^* 
 could expend a barbaric love for ornament. 
 
 The wise men of those times marveled, just 
 as the wise men marvel nowadays. " Learning 
 hath gained most by those books," says Old Fuller, 
 " by which the printers have lost." Our follies in 
 the way of "books that are all binding" are almost 
 microscopically small when put beside those of the 
 olden times, when, one would think the art of print- 
 ing, being new, would have been best appreciated, for 
 surely the grass looks the greenest to us in the spring ! 
 Let us do something more than 
 
 MAKE JEWELRY OUT OF THE ART OF GUTTENBERG. 
 
 " A book may be as great a thing as a battle," 
 said Disraeli, and he meant by that a decisive battle- 
 Now there are sometimes very decisive battles. A 
 Turk once came up against the walls of Vienna and 
 the walls of Tour's, in France, and, if he had got 
 through, you and I would to-day, so the scholars say, 
 be "good Mussulmans," instead of Christians, living 
 in freedom and decency. "When a book," says 
 Bruyere, " raises your spirits, and inspires you with 
 noble and courageous feelings, seek for no other rule 
 to judge the work by; it is good, and made by a
 
 BOOKS. 343 
 
 good workman." The books you buy should have 
 large clear type. They are to be 
 
 YOUR COMPANIONS THROUGH LIFE. 
 
 Your eyes will not be so bright in their old age. The 
 volumes should not be bulky that is, for true, 
 practical use. "Great books," says Clulow, "like 
 large skulls, have often the least brains." " Books,' 
 says Dr. Johnson, " that you may carry to the fire? 
 and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful, 
 after all." There is no objection to a costly and 
 beautifully-bound Bible, out of which you may read 
 each day with added veneration, but your sons and 
 daughters should have pocket copies. From these 
 modest little volumes, the marvels of language 
 and thought may be gathered without seeming effort. 
 Do not be afraid you are spending too much money 
 on reading. If yoa read each book as you buy it, 
 you cannot buy too many that is, if you are an hon- 
 orable man, earning your living in the world, and 
 not sponging it off some one else. Read your book 
 slowly, above all things. Read it as you would ride 
 in your boat on the waters, looking down at the peb- 
 bles, the fishes, the grasses, and the roots of the pond-
 
 344 BOOKS. 
 
 lilies which, being of God's creation like yourself, 
 send a responsive thrill of acquaintance through your 
 heart as you float above them. You can, at best, 
 but glide over a book. Even the writer has been 
 but a passing observer of a few of its truths. It is 
 
 THE RECORD OF THE CENTURIES. 
 
 Respect it. " My latest passion will be for books," 
 said Frederick the Great, in his old age. He had 
 hardly looked down into the waters until he got near- 
 ly to the other shore. Gibbon declared that a taste 
 for books was the pleasure and glory of his life ; and 
 Carlyle, who, it is supposed, was better acquainted 
 with books than any man who has yet lived, declared 
 that of all man could do or make here below, by far 
 the most momentous, wonderful, and worthy were 
 the things we call books. 
 
 HELP OTHERS. 
 
 If any memDers of your family have the love of 
 books, aid them in satisfying it. Sucli are the salt of 
 the earth. They are the blazed trees in the dark 
 forests of the present generations, to mark out that 
 course which shall, in future ages, be the highway of 
 the whole world.
 
 The friend thou hast, and his adoption tried, 
 
 Grapple him to thy soul with hooks of steel. SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 I praise the Frenchman, his remark was shrewd, 
 "How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude ! " 
 But grant me still a friend in my retreat, 
 Whom I may whisper "Solitude is sweet ! " COWPER. 
 
 HATEVER the number of a 
 man's friends " says Lord Lytton, 
 u there are times in his life when 
 he has one too few." " Life," 
 says Sydney Smith, "is to be 
 fortified by many friendships.'' 
 Says Bishop Hare : " Friendship is love with- 
 out its flowers or veil." "A faithful friend is 
 the true image of the Deity," said Napoleon, 
 who never believed he had a true friend not a 
 born fool. "A friend loveth at all times," says 
 the Bible. Says Herr Gotthold : "with a 
 clear sky, a bright sun, and a gentle breeze, you will 
 have friends in plenty, but let fortune frown and the 
 
 345
 
 346 FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 firmament be overcast, and then your friends will prove 
 
 LIKE THE STRINGS OF THE LUTE, 
 
 of which you will tighten ten before you find one 
 that will bear the stretch and keep the pitch." 
 "What an argument in favor of social connections," 
 says Lord Greville, " is the observation that by com- 
 municating our grief we have less, and by communi- 
 cating our pleasures we have more." Horace 
 Walpole has given clear expression to one of the 
 chief pleasures of friendship : 
 
 "OLD FRIENDS 
 
 are the great blessings of one's latter years. Half a 
 word conveys one's meaning. They have memory 
 of the same events, and have the same mode of 
 thinking. I have young relations that may grow 
 upon me, for my nature is affectionate, but can they 
 grow old friends ? My age forbids that. Still less 
 can they grow companions. Is it friendship to ex- 
 plain half one says ? One must relate the history 
 of one's memory and ideas; and what is that to the 
 young but old stories ? " " Fast-won, fast lost," says 
 Shakspeare. Says Dr. Johnson : " If a man does not
 
 FRIENDSHIP. 347 
 
 make new acquaintances as he advances through life, 
 he will soon find himself left alone. A man should 
 keep his friendships in constant repair ! " 
 
 ALL THROUGH THE WRITINGS OF THE SAGES 
 
 on this subject there is a tinge of melancholy. "There 
 are no friends ! " says Aristotle. " There have been 
 fewer friends on earth than Kings, says the poet 
 Cowley. Why is this ? Let us peer into the sol- 
 emn question. The ideal of true manhood is easily 
 
 
 formulated. Alas ! what an abyss separates a man's 
 daily life, as it is, from that high quality he has pic- 
 tured in his imagination. We are all the time reach- 
 ing for 
 
 THINGS WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND, 
 
 and could not assimilate with if they were placed-at 
 our disposal. In this way a weary, well-read novel- 
 reader, worn out in all lines of light letters, enters a 
 circulating library, and queruously asks : " Have 
 you any new books ? " She expects a negative 
 answer, and in that case would suffer a -keen disap- 
 pointment. The man says " Yes," and brings out 
 several new books. Every one of these is new in 
 every sense. It may be the most trivial set of pages
 
 348 FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 yet printed in this era of scribblers, or, yet, it may be 
 a great work, worthy of the attention of the thought- 
 ful, and the commendation of the pure in heart. 
 Nobody can tell. Then, illogically, she asks : " Is 
 this good ? " or " Is that good ? " and upon being 
 reminded that she wanted something new or nothing, 
 she asks for something by May Agnes Fleming, or 
 Mary Jane Holmes, and goes off happy, to re-read 
 those expressions which have so well pleased her in 
 the past. 
 
 I think I espy in this exhibition of the working of 
 the mind in a rude and unsatisfactory state 
 
 A GENERAL PRINCIPLE, 
 
 just as potent in the mighty brain of Sir Isaac Newton 
 or of Louis Agassiz. Man idealizes the affair of 
 friendship. He forgets whether he really wants it or 
 not, and then persistently inquires for it. It is not in 
 the library of possibilities. He therefore goes off 
 angry and disappointed. Could he get a glimpse at 
 it, I am afraid he would walk away satisfied with 
 something more nearly en rapport with his nature 
 and and his habits. Let us view this golden word 
 friendship as man idealizes it : Being a changeable
 
 FRIENDSHIP. 349 
 
 thing, he views friendship (of which he knows nothing), 
 entirely by comparison with something of which in 
 its turn he knows but little. This something is al- 
 ways a mother's love for her son, notorious as the 
 strongest affection shown by our species. He there- 
 fore doubles up this marvelous fact of a mother's love, 
 and creates in his imagination a reciprocatory agency 
 co-respondent to this mother's love. Now, with this 
 magnificent product of invention, he goes forth into 
 the world, seeking for some man upon whom he may 
 bestow a mother's love (of which the "bestower" is 
 entirely incapable), and who will, in payment, respond 
 with a mother's love (of which that man would, of 
 course, be also incapable). In the jargon of electricity a 
 positive and a negative are absolutely necessary to 
 electric energy. 
 
 A MOTHER'S LOVE 
 
 is a deplorably one-sided action, but it is the highest 
 and noblest of the faculties of affection. Anything 
 beyond it is ideal, made up of two positives, and a 
 thousand years ahead of us. Is it any wonder that 
 when man makes his experiments with the mother's 
 love which he supposes himself capable of bestowing
 
 350 FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 that a universal wail arises, or that Shakspeare, the 
 greatest of mortal minds, brought in those awful verdicts 
 against mankind " Lear " and " Timon of Athens"? 
 
 I THINK THAT IS WHY 
 
 the very deepest philosophers grow sad when they 
 touch the question of friendship. The problem is 
 itself the saddest of commentaries upon the weakness 
 of our higher faculties. Separate man from his wife 
 and family and view him in his relations to other 
 persons similarly placed, and the result is not only 
 unsatisfactory, but distressing to a mind anxious to 
 hold to a good opinion of humanity. Put to the right 
 test the quality of human friendship is found to be 
 highly strained to be liable to curdle in the first 
 thundershower to sour upon the sensitive stomach. 
 We at once behold mankind forced to flee to God's 
 kind institution of the family and the home to escape 
 a desolation of the heart which follows fruitless efforts 
 to kindle a blaze out of the damp driftwood of life's 
 general associations. 
 
 Now, what is possible ? Spot friendship is possible, 
 and delightful. "To-morrow do thy worst, for I 
 have lived to-day." Man is a social animal.
 
 FRIENDSHIP. 351 
 
 He u gregates," he flocks. Of nothing am I fonder 
 than the sparkle of a friend's eye, and the gabble of 
 half an hour, or three hours. But I ought not to 
 build on any future gabbles, for, to-morrow, lo ! my 
 friend may have discovered my ignoble reality, 
 whereas he has heretofore been shaking hands with 
 my noble ideality. 
 
 ANOTHER THING 
 
 should always be considered : " Kindred weaknesses" 
 says Bovee, "induce friendships as often as kindred 
 virtues." Here is Herder's beautiful view : "As 
 the shadow in early morning, is friendship with the 
 wicked ; it dwindles hour by hour. But friendship 
 with the good increases, like the evening shadows, 
 till the sun of life sets." "People young, and raw, 
 and soft-natured," says South, " think it an easy 
 thing to gain love, and reckon their own friendships 
 a sure price of any man's : but when experience shall 
 have shown them the hardness of most hearts, the 
 hollowness of others, and the baseness and ingratitude 
 of almost all, they will then find that 
 
 A TRUE FRIEND IS THE GIFT OF GOD, 
 
 and that He only who made hearts can unite them."
 
 352. FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 Says the wise Lord Bacon : " It is a good discretion 
 not to make too much of any man at the first ; be. 
 cause one cannot hold out that proportion," and that 
 is so, for some of the strongest bonds of friendship 
 ever felt have been woven without thought of pleasure 
 on either side at the commencement. 
 
 " Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in 
 their lives, and in their death they were not divided." 
 " 1 am distressed for thee, my brother, Jonathan : 
 very pleasant hast thou been unto me : thy love to 
 me was wonderful, passing the love of woman." 
 
 " Very few friends," says Sydney Smith, " will 
 bear to be told of their faults ; and, if done at all, it 
 must be done with infinite management and delicacy ; 
 for if you indulge often in this practice, men think 
 you hate, and avoid you. If the evil is not very 
 alarming, it is better, indeed, to let it alone, and not 
 to turn friendship into a system of lawful and unpun- 
 ishable impertinence. I am for frank explanations 
 with friends in cases of affront. They sometimes 
 
 SAVE A PERISHING FRIENDSHIP, 
 
 and even place it on a firmer basis than at first ; but 
 secret discontent must always end badly."
 
 FRIENDSHIP. 353 
 
 v 
 
 Let us love our friends for what they are to-day 
 not for what they will be when we come to make 
 unreasonable demands on them. The sun is beautiful 
 and delightful. It will not shine for us in the night 
 nor, in the daytime shine for us alone. We were 
 bereft of our minds did we, therefore, enter a cave 
 and forswear all further pleasure in its genial rays. 
 
 IT IS EASIER TO RAIL 
 
 against friendship than to enact our parts in that 
 drama ot life which is to elevate the term. Thus we 
 hear Goldsmith cry 
 
 What is friendship but a name, 
 
 A charm that lulls to sleep, 
 A shade that follows wealth or fame, 
 
 And leaves the wretch to weep. 
 
 Yet this same Goldsmith was a burden on his 
 friends. He did his duty to posterity, in leaving 
 them beautiful literature and song, but to his own 
 associates he was unsparing in his good-natured de- 
 mands. It is safe to say that he who tries to ennoble 
 friendship is best worthy of the name of friend, and he 
 who belittles it, has fewer claims to man's humanity. 
 Everytime we deny the existence of a satisfying, 
 friendship, we proclaim aloud our own baseness. 
 
 Let us avoid it. 
 
 23
 
 Envy will merit as its shade pursue. 
 But, like a shadow, proves the substance true. 
 POPE. ESSAY ON CRITICISM. 
 
 O passion has been more univer- 
 sally recognized than envy as the 
 basest of all the traits that under 
 mine the nobility of man ; and yet 
 there is no obnoxious quality so 
 universal in men's characters. In the 
 
 life of the good man it reminds one * of 
 the mice, in our houses, which eat their 
 way to our attention and their own de- 
 struction; for there are few men who 
 have looked into their own hearts who 
 have not seen the small but odious traces 
 of this gnawing evil. Again, the mind 
 of the bad man, who has given himself entirely up to 
 
 envy, is 
 
 A WOLF'S DEN 
 
 a howling pandemonium, where no quarter is given, 
 and where the merits of the deserving rather than the 
 
 [354]
 
 ENVY. 355 
 
 lapses of the blameworthy are torn as the most tooth- 
 some morsel in a furious feast. The Bible says that 
 envy is the rottenness of the bones, meaning that utter 
 corruption which has finally reached the framework 
 of the structure. Society as now organized is really 
 making progress toward the extinction of this hideous 
 blemish. When, as in ^Esop's fables, 
 
 A TAILLESS FOX 
 
 is found advocating the disuse of tails, he is at once 
 suspected, and his influence greatly limited. For the 
 world is waking up to the meanness of envy. The 
 world, in its better moments, is rising above it. It is 
 one of our principal duties, on entering the Temple of 
 Life, to search our hearts for the little fox with the 
 sharp tooth. When we find ourselves about to enter 
 upon a course of action, either momentary or long 
 continuous, which will be adverse to another of our 
 fellow-creatures, let us ask: u ls there anything of 
 envy in this act?" If there be, let us refrain from 
 acting the soul is not yet pure, the body fragrant. 
 
 Let us see how ignorant this contemptible quality 
 of envy becomes under the lenses of practcial life. 
 "Base envy withers at another's joy." What has
 
 356 ENVY. 
 
 caused it? In nine cases out of ever) 7 ten, it is simply 
 the one-sided view of an ignorant mind, which sees 
 only the bare result of unceasing efforts. Envy sees 
 Fame on the peak. Envy therefore hates Fame, and 
 declares that there are no crags, or rifts, or snows, 
 or storms on the way up that, the path is an easy 
 one, over which all who ever went that way traveled 
 in preference to all other routes ! 
 
 I lay upon a boarding-house bed day after day, one 
 summer, sick of a fever. On the one side, a building 
 was going up, and workmen filled the air with mighty 
 din. On the other side, a young man sang 
 
 " DO, HOORAY, ME, FAH, SOLE, LAH, SE, DO !" 
 
 I thought: "The one will be a grand house, and the 
 other will be a great tenor, but oh the way is long. 
 The feet grow weary !" 
 
 It has often seemed to me that this was my first 
 true view of life, and nowadays, when I am tired, 
 especially, I do not envy the truly great in any 
 avenue of distinction. The walker has walked, the 
 builder has groaned, the fighter has fought, the scribe 
 has scribbled, the statesman has lied and betrayed.
 
 ENVY. 357 
 
 Any one of them will tell you his pay has been sadly 
 inadequate. 
 
 TAKE A MAN LIKE TRIERS. 
 
 Born in an age still drunk with the glory of Napoleon, 
 but himself infused with ideas of popular liberty; 
 chained to the chariot of circumstances, and made to 
 swell the sawdust-magnificence of unpopular kings 
 and the ridiculous success of Napoleon III., the great- 
 est impostor of all history, this Marie Joseph Louis 
 Adolphe Thiers went through a life the bare retro- 
 spect of which would actually tire the mind. In his 
 old age this little lover and critic of greatness this 
 man who could show the weaknesses of Napoleon 
 Bonaparte so clearly that one would feel the critic 
 must be the superior of Napoleon this squeak- 
 voiced orator, must have felt that whatever greatness 
 might come to him in history was well-earned that 
 the way had indeed been long ! 
 
 THE SAME OF GLADSTONE. 
 
 Who in his sane mind would be Gladstone living any 
 more than Homer living ? Of course, he survives those 
 horrible crises in which public duty has made him the 
 most pitiable object, and in the most dreadful com.
 
 35$ ENVY. 
 
 plication of great interests shines forth as Venus fresh- 
 lighted. But I would not have Gladstone's fame for the 
 boon of rest eternal, from fear that his retros- 
 pect of inconsistency and apostacy would be its ac- 
 companiment, its deeper shadow. Yet who shall blame 
 Gladstone? He was the executor and administrator 
 of the policy of a parvenu Jew, one of the very bad 
 men of the earth. He 
 
 REAPED ANOTHER MAN'S WHIRLWINDS. 
 
 Forced into geographical relations with the Irish, an 
 unwarlike people with indomitable tongues, England 
 has in the middle ages, naturally done to this unwar- 
 like people just what a warlike people would do in 
 the middle ages taken everything. With painful 
 volubility the unwarlike people has for centuries 
 sounded its fate over the world, touching the heart of 
 Gladstone and other good Englishmen, and tempting 
 him and them to many struggles. Behold him at 
 the next step, then, in the role of warring upon the 
 unwarlike, of oppressing the oppressed, of answering 
 an Irish clack with a British click ! Is it not pitiful ? 
 Gladstone fell ill from it. He paid there and then 
 for his illustrious name. And, next, of those brave
 
 ENVY. 359 
 
 Boers ! God nerved their quick muscles and darted 
 straight their wonderful eye; and when the single 
 hand rose against the hundred hands of British Bria- 
 rius they were not forsaken. Oh ! how clearly that 
 question seemed to an American ! No geographical 
 necessity was there no race hatred, no hotbed to fo- 
 ment conspiracy against the sister country England. 
 The independence of those Boers, if they desired it, 
 ought to have been fought for by England, by Glad- 
 stone, willingly, irresistibly in the very name of 
 England's own love of liberty for herself. And final- 
 ly Gladstone so saw it. 
 
 What a puzzle are those Hibernians ! 
 
 HOW BITING THE WITTICISM OF CHIN LAN PIN, 
 
 the Chinese Ambassador to the United States, that 
 they are able to govern every other country save their 
 own ! Behold a statesman like Gladstone, forced to 
 change his policy toward them the moment he has 
 the responsibility of governing them ! Oh ! what an 
 opportunity for the little foxes ! How easily Envy 
 spears him with its jest ! How truly Envy shines 
 with the wings of that fly that passes all the sounder 
 parts of a man's body to dwell upon the sores ! In
 
 360 ENVY. 
 
 this rapid glance across two of the trials of a great 
 man, across the path up to the peak where one clamb- 
 ering must bind himself with strong ropes to his com- 
 panions, that if one sink into a snow-covered abyss 
 the others may bring him forth we get, perhaps, a 
 truer view of 
 
 . J THE MEANNESS OF ENVY. 
 
 Let us look at Gladstone as the great, wise, good, 
 learned man he is, whose wreath of laurel covers a 
 crown of thorns. And if we find an associate mak- 
 ing those fatiguing efforts that ever precede the rec- 
 ognition of this cold world, let us glance rather at his 
 efforts than at his fame, that no rust may gather on 
 the brightness of our eye, and no withering cloud 
 shut out the sunlight from our spirits. 
 
 I CANNOT CLOSE THIS CHAPTER 
 
 without imploring the reader to exterminate this char- 
 acteristic of envy^ altogether. Because it is at first 
 so little and so ridiculous, envy often escapes the 
 hand of discipline. Yet the homely saying is a true 
 one that " they which play with the devil's rattles 
 will be brought by degrees to wield his sword," and
 
 ENVY. 361 
 
 the force of a nature given up to envy is truly a two- 
 edged sword from the bottomless pit, cutting both the 
 fiend who smites and the victim who smarts.
 
 Mrs. Lofty keeps a carriage 
 
 So do I. 
 She has dappled grays to draw it 
 
 None have I. ALMA CALDER. 
 
 UNQUESTIONABLY, thebaby- 
 
 carriage of the poet, with con- 
 tentment, was a far richer estab- 
 lishment than the gilded barouche 
 and the dappled grays of child- 
 less Mrs. Lofty. Riches are often 
 childless; poverty is often contented. Hap- 
 piness is a golden spell inwoven with most 
 ^ of our lives at certain times, whether we 
 be rich or poor. The first surprise of the 
 newly-rich comes in the non-discovery of 
 additional happiness. Additional cares and 
 duties come thickly enough. The greed 
 
 [362]
 
 CONTENTMENT. 363 
 
 of the envious, and the demands of the poor who are 
 likewise needy in thoughtfulness for their more fortu- 
 nate neighbors, fall upon the wealthy like a mist. 
 There is no escaping it. As James Russell Lowell 
 says of a Scotch fog an umbrella will afford no pro- 
 tection. They must give all, or accept the hatred of 
 those who believe it to be easier to give than to re- 
 ceive. " Contentment is natural wealth," says Socra- 
 tes ;" luxury is artificial poverty." Contentment is 
 generally a sign of a high class of character. " If 
 two angels were sent down," says John Newton, 
 " one to conduct an empire and the other to sweep a 
 street, they would feel no inclination to change 
 employments." 
 
 HUMAN GREATNESS 
 
 is at best such a little thing that wise men do not la- 
 ment its absence in their own persons. Our main 
 pleasures are free to rich as well as poor. What 
 sight is so grand as the sun? What pleasure is' 
 greater than to breathe? What fluid is more grate- 
 ful for all purposes than water? What music is 
 sweeter than the singing of birds, the ringing of free 
 school bells and the hum of machinery? The extra
 
 364 CONTENTMENT. 
 
 pleasures which the rich man, if he be foolish, tries 
 to buy, almost invariably 
 
 END IN HIS EARLY DEATH, 
 
 and in his hatred of the whole world. Those noble 
 men of wealth who gain the plaudits of their fellows, 
 have earned those plaudits just as poor men would 
 earn them by service to their fellow-creatures. 
 Man is not constituted so that he can " take his ease " 
 and be happy. The prisoner in solitary confinement 
 is forced to take his ease, and we are told that he 
 suffers terribly under the ordeal. Of course you 
 have heard of 
 
 THE PRISONER IN THE DARK DUNGEON 
 
 who had three pins, and who gave himself employ- 
 ment by throwing them into the air and then begin- 
 ning the long search which should finally secure them 
 Sometimes a pin would be hidden for years in a crev- 
 ice. In this way the prisoner preserved his mind 
 from utter decay, and was almost happy nay, was 
 really happy when his arduous labor would result in 
 the discovery of all three of the objects of his pitiful 
 quest. Instances like this should impress upon us
 
 CONTENTMENT. 365 
 
 the fact that the principal sum of our happiness is in- 
 alienable. We cannot, in health, possibly lose it.. 
 The hale pauper is far better off than the invalid 
 Duke. We breathe and eat and see and hear with 
 ease. All of those offices of the body are unquestion- 
 ably delightful, as is proven by the relative view we 
 get when we are ill and can neither breathe nor eat 
 nor see nor hear without great suffering. " There is 
 scarce any lot so low, " says Sterne, " but there is 
 something in it to satisfy the man whom it has befall- 
 en." The reason of this lies in this same fact that 
 when the tree of happiness loses superfluous wealth, 
 it but loses its foliage. 
 
 THE POOR MAN CARRIES INTO HIS COTTAGE 
 
 all the great and marvelous blessings of life. He 
 leaves outside only a lot of artificialities, the most of 
 which are so-called pleasures, but are really miseries. 
 If we cannot be contented without these artificialities, 
 we certainly would not be satisfied with an addition 
 so unimportant. " A tub was large enough for 
 Diogenes," says Colton ; " but a world was too little 
 for Alexander." Alexander valued the true blessings 
 of life as nothing, and the power of life and death
 
 366 CONTENTMENT. 
 
 over others as everything. His disappointment and 
 the contentment of Diogenes, who viewed things 
 more correctly, ^re matters of tradition. " Content- 
 ment," says Fuller, " consisteth not in adding more 
 fuel', but 
 
 IN TAKING AWAY SOME FIRE." 
 
 Therefore, if you are spending so much money 
 that you need more income, take away some of the 
 fire. If you reduce your expenses two dollars a week, 
 you have added nearly eighteen hundred dollars to 
 your account in fifteen years. If you wear your 
 boots one month after you could well persuade your- 
 self to have a new pair, your new ones will not wear 
 out a month sooner for that reason ! 
 
 GOOD FORTUNE OF OUR LITTLE EGOTISMS. 
 
 We are all, fortunately, greatly disposed to con- 
 tentment with our lot. We do not seem to realize 
 it, but the importance of the pleasures of life which 
 cannot be bartered in, has its noticeable effect on the 
 mind. Horace remarked this ages ago, and Dr. 
 Johnson has thus translated the thoughts hinging 
 upon it : "Howsoever every man may complain
 
 CONTENTMENT. 367 
 
 occasionally," says he, " of the hardships of his con- 
 dition, he is seldom willing to change it for any other 
 on the same level. Whether it be that he who follows 
 an employment, chose it at first on account of its 
 suitableness to his inclination ; or that when accident, 
 or the determination of others, have pleased him in 
 a particular station, he, by endeavoring to reconcile 
 himself to it, gets the custom of viewing it only on 
 the fairest side ; or whether every man thinks that 
 class to which he belongs the most illustrious, merely 
 
 BECAUSE HE HAS HONORED IT WITH HIS NAME 
 
 it is certain that, whatever be the reason, most men 
 have a very strong and active prejudice, in favor of 
 their own vocation, always working upon their minds 
 and influencing their action." Let us be thankful for 
 that laughable egotism which is born with us, and 
 within us, and which, in this natural and unobtrusive 
 affair of contentment, becomes a true anchor, holding 
 us inside the peaceful haven.
 
 Marble may rise from crystal waters spanned 
 By other marbles : founts may plash on stone, 
 And fashionably-branched trees may stand 
 As thieves upon a scaffold. Yet, how cold ! 
 How cold ! 
 
 e are made up of elements. 
 These elements should be well 
 balanced. The delicacy of equi- 
 librium is what makes the perfect 
 man, or, rather, the honorable 
 man. Too much avarice makes a contemp- 
 tibly mean man; not enough makes a foolish 
 spendthrift, who is always appealing to his 
 friends for help. Too much bravery in man 
 makes a bully ; not enough a coward. Too 
 much speech in man makes a bore ; not 
 enough a " stick." Too much hope in man makes a 
 speculator and a gambler ; not enough, a hermit and 
 a man-hater. So of ambition. It is a flame to be 
 guarded a willing slave, an unpitying master. In 
 its full sway it is the very essence of self-conceit and 
 [368]
 
 AMBITION. 369 
 
 'selfishness, two traits, a little of which goes a good 
 way. You know that you do not put much blueing 
 into a washtub full of water. Well, use ambition in 
 the same sparing way. If you spill it in using it, you 
 will have a difficult affair on your hands. It may be 
 just possible, of course,that you have clothes to wash, 
 so to speak, which require the whole box or bottle. 
 If so, your chance of happiness is not great. 
 
 " HE WHO SURPASSES OR SUBDUES MANKIND," 
 
 says Byron, "must look down on the hate of those 
 below." " Who soars too near the sun, with golden 
 wings, melts them," says Shakspeare. We all have 
 upon us golden wings of happiness. Let us not soar 
 near the sun. " Fling away ambition," mourns old 
 Cardinal Wolsely in Henry VIII ; " by that sin fell 
 the angels ; how can man, then, the image of his 
 Maker, hope to win by it?" " It often puts men upon 
 doing the meanest offices," says Swift, " as climbing 
 is performed in the same posture with creeping." 
 It has been aptly called by Sir William Davenant, 
 
 " THE MIND'S IMMODESTY." 
 
 Watch this petty man. He is consumed by a desire 
 
 24
 
 370 AMBITION. 
 
 to be a little higher than he now is. He is driver on 
 a street car, in a city. Unconsciously, he is an excel- 
 lent driver. He has not become so by the silent care 
 which befits a real climber. No ! he was born 
 a horseman. But he was also born ambitious. If he 
 were private secretary to the President, he would 
 want to be President, simply because his -attention 
 would be more closely directed to the Chief Magis' 
 tracy than elsewhere. 
 
 BEHOLD HIM INSTALLED AS CONDUCTOR. 
 
 He rings the bell incessantly for a milk-wagon to get 
 out of the road. The passengers expostulate. One 
 of them is drunk, therefore extra-expostulatory. Our 
 conductor beholds the moment arrived when he must 
 " bounce " the passenger. The passenger is landed 
 free on track, with only the conductor's badge in his 
 mind, which he reports to the office. The next day 
 ^he conductor tells a passenger to get his feet off that 
 seat, or he will put him off. In a dispute which fol- 
 lows, the conductor loses a chance to get across a 
 swinging-bridge, and a passenger who has thus missed 
 a train, gets angry and reports the conductor. The 
 driver is quietly asked about our friend, and our
 
 AMBITION. 371 
 
 friend is thrown out of his place like a shot out of 
 a gun. He is too proud to drive.again, and takes a 
 trip into the country for his health. This homely 
 drama is played in all the hotels where head-waiters 
 are employed, in all the departments of business where 
 head-clerks are needed; in all the great stores where 
 floor-walkers " strut their brief hour,"- --every where 
 that gives an opportunity for little Envy to peep, from 
 
 THE RIDICULOUS AMBUSCADE 
 
 of some incompetent subordinate, out upon the go- 
 ings and comings of unsuspecting Mei it. " There is 
 a native baseness," says Simms, " in the ambition 
 which seeks beyond its desert, that never shows more 
 conspicuously than when, no matter how, it tempora- 
 rily gains its object." So, to me, there has always 
 seemed a real baseness in these attempts of unfit people, 
 who have only their self-conceit for training and their 
 cheek for capital. Half our failures in business come 
 from men attempting something they know nothing 
 about. A printer will open a drug store, and a 
 country dry goods merchant will start a daily paper 
 in a city ! "Alas!" says Young, "ambition makes 
 my little less."
 
 372 AMBITION. 
 
 Once in a while there is born, in every State, a 
 soul which is to be "like a star and dwell apart." It 
 is to be gifted with qualities of an exalted character. 
 But it is also to be lashed with the scourge of ambi. 
 tion. It is to stand, as William Penn said, 
 
 "THE TALLEST TREE, 
 
 therefore the most in the power of the blasts of for- 
 tune." How little should we desire the dizzy niche 
 in which it seats itself. Our little heads would swim 
 in the sickness of our unfamiliarity. We would fall. 
 "Remarkable places," said Madame Necker, "are 
 like the summits of rocks ; eagles and reptiles only 
 can get there." Napoleon, possibly, never had a true 
 friend in his life. He certainly never deserved one. 
 Each year saw him surrounded by new associates, 
 whom he meant to sacrifice, if he could. 
 
 UPON THE BLOODY FIELD OF ASPERN AND ESSLING, 
 
 he offered up Marshal Lannes. He was forced to stand 
 by that brave dying man and listen to his awful re- 
 proaches. So, again, in the terrible carnage of Spain 
 at Eylau, at Borodino, Lutzen, Bautzen, Dresden, 
 Leipsic, Hanau, everywhere, fe was compelled to 
 hear the outspoken protests of the men who had held
 
 AMBITION. 373 
 
 the ladder for him to stamp his foot at the constant 
 declarations of " Dukes," " Princes," and " Kings," 
 that he was a monster whose thirst demanded only 
 human blood. At last, the whole world cried out 
 that it had had 
 
 " ENOUGH OF BONAPARTE ! " 
 
 The expression became a war-cry, and the world es- 
 caped from the baleful sceptre under whose shadow 
 it had too long suspired. " What millions died that 
 Caesar might be great ! " cries Campbell. " None 
 think the great unhappy but the great," says Young 
 They deserve their unhappiness. It is the mess of 
 pottage to obtain which they have sold everything. 
 Fame has always seemed to the philosopher like some 
 mountain in a polar clime cold, lonesome, inhospit- 
 able. 
 
 Tall mountains meet, and giddy greet 
 
 The clouds in their exalted homes ; 
 What may they show, save ice and snow, 
 
 Unto the fleets that pass their domes ? 
 
 Their crests are bold with solar gold : 
 Their charming cliffs enchant the eye ; 
 
 Yet earth shows not more dreary spot 
 Than toilers in their heights descry.
 
 374 AMBITION. 
 
 There points a peak which mortals seek 
 Fraught are its crags with human woes ; 
 
 Shrill through its fasts shriek envy-blasts 
 Forever drift hate's blinding snows. 
 
 Its towering height beams with a light 
 
 The wondrous blaze of Glory's orb ; 
 Still those who gaze feel most the rays, 
 While they who climb no warmth absorb. 
 
 Contentment creeps Renown climbs steeps 
 Where consummations ne'er appease ; 
 
 Below, how oft, when Care's aloft, 
 Unhappiness, distrusting, flees.
 
 In ancient times the sacred plough employed 
 The kings and awful fathers of mankind. 
 
 WORK of this character-a book 
 for the home would be mani- 
 festly halt without some consider- 
 ation of that grand subject, Agri- 
 Culture, the tilling of the conti- 
 nents of this wide earth, to whose 
 fruitfulness the oceans apply their benefi- 
 cent offices ; to whose generosity the sun 
 lends his quickening rays of brightness and 
 beauty. "The awful fathers of mankind " 
 to-day pay attention to the "sacred plough" 
 as in ancient days, aye, thousands of times as much 
 attention ! The tribes which then wandered upon the 
 globe have now increased until Nature must needs 
 groan' with the load of her gifts to sustain them, and the 
 rulers must scan the sky, and send the telegraph out- 
 riding the storms, to warn the husbandman that dan. 
 
 ger to his crops approaches danger, which if not 
 
 [375]
 
 376 THE REPUBLIC'S ANCHOR. 
 
 averted, were more deadly than the hatred of an 
 enemy on a foreign strand. 
 
 The magnificent, conservative forces of our Repub- 
 lic live upon its farms. There is our safety in 
 the hour of trial ! Rome fell because 
 
 HER LOAFERS AND CITYITES 
 
 were the only voters. They had no homes to protect 
 they had only votes to sell. But here, with our 
 mighty experiment in human government, we have 
 an irresistible power, the elements of which are 
 straight-thinking men, who want only the right to 
 prevail, and who have wheat and corn to sell, but 
 absolutely no votes ! God be thanked for this ! 
 When the torch of Communism shall 
 
 BURN THE SENATE HOUSE 
 
 in the city, the swords which were yesterday plow- 
 shares will surround the glaring pile, and steadfastly 
 blot out of existence the conspiracy of the beer-saloon 
 and the "dead-fall;" when the bayonet of the gaudy 
 foreigner shall glisten on our coasts, the ranks of 
 farmers will hurry, side by side with the metropoli- 
 tans, to chase the adventurers back into the seas.
 
 THE REPUBLIC S ANCHOR. 377 
 
 " Agriculture," says Zenophon, " for an honorable 
 and high minded man, is the best of all occupations 
 and arts by which men obtain the means of living." 
 How true this is ! One would think 
 
 " BUSINESS " 
 
 in the days of the Greek were carried on just as it is 
 now the concourse of a pack of men turned wolves, 
 hungry for trade, and devouring each other in the 
 absence of common sustenance. To succeed in busi- 
 ness in a city in this epoch, and to be at the same 
 time a high-minded and honorable man, is very rare 
 is usually the result of employing lieutenants to do 
 the "business," and keeping the "dirty work" away 
 from the knowledge of the principal. But when the 
 farmer drives a bargain with 
 
 " THE GOOD GODDESS " 
 
 how clean is the transaction ! There is no lying, no 
 cheating, no treachery, no rivalry. How frank and 
 open is the face of him who has concealed nothing ! 
 How hearty is his laugh for has he not laughed 
 with nature with the twitter of the birds, with the 
 low beating of the bells ? Has he not faithful friends-
 
 378 THE REPUBLIC'S ANCHOR. 
 
 friends of a life-time? When he has gone into debt 
 has he not paid ? Has he ever considered 
 
 FIFTY CENTS ON HIS NEIGHBOR'S DOLLAR 
 
 a full return, and has he walked into his neighbor's 
 parlor (shabby for lack of the fifty per cent) and 
 congratulated him on the return of the holidays ? A 
 spade is a spade with him. A thief is a thief. He 
 does not like thieves. He says so. Neither does 
 his city cousin like thieves. His city cousin is very 
 careful not to say so. He does not like monopolies, 
 he says so. Neither does his city cousin like monop- 
 olies. His city cousin would " turn off" any clerk 
 who said so very loudly, let alone saying it himself. 
 He does not like corruption and hypocrisy. On this 
 point his city cousin has 
 
 POSITIVELY NO OPINION, 
 
 as " it really would ruin his business." Thus we see 
 the farmer free, ingenuous, independent. Thuswe 
 see the city merchant smooth, prudent, sycophantic. 
 Thank God for Agriculture ! And now 
 
 CANNOT WE INSPIRE YOUNG MEN 
 
 with a kittle truer idea of life ? Cannot we teach
 
 THE REPUBLIC'S ANCHOR. 379 
 
 them that money in itself is not what they want 
 above all things ? How little wealth the really wise 
 find necessary ! On the farm is health, independence, 
 high standing all within the reach of any young 
 man. He certainly sacrifices one or two of these ob- 
 jects when he enters a city. He can get money but 
 he will lose his health. If he get true independence 
 he will be 
 
 ONE OUT OF TEN THOUSAND, 
 
 all the rest of whom are slaves. With the new com- 
 binations forming in the business of the world, new 
 experiences are constant. The man employing three 
 hundred fortunate workers to-day, may be himself 
 searching for work next year. The man getting 
 $5,000 a year to-day may next week be trying to 
 find labor at a dollar a day, and may absolutely fail. 
 The financial panic has no such thing in store for the 
 farmer. He will live on, just as his brook runs on, 
 and when the sleek magnates in the hotel-parlor de- 
 cree that he must lose his farm, as they need it for a 
 "colony," he will rise up arid smite them, and there- 
 after the sleek magnate will be an affair of the past. 
 Young man, if you have not an absolute genius for
 
 380 THE REPUBLIC'S ANCHOR. 
 
 something else, stay on the farm. Read books which 
 will make you desire to be a pure man, just for the 
 noble name it will give you. If you can get as great 
 a desire to be a good man as you have to be a purse- 
 proud man, you will be on the right track ; for you 
 will see that honesty is easier in the perfumed fields 
 than it is in the polluted air of a city business-house. 
 Read over the biographies, and see how certainly all 
 our great men got their greatness in the open air of 
 the country. Take a big city, for instance. Has it 
 not surprised you to see how few great men New 
 York or Chicago have furnished to the nation? The 
 city levels men. It drags them down. Their indi- 
 vidualities are put into a dredge-box, and the flour of 
 mediocrity is scattered on all alike. 
 
 " IN A MORAL POINT OF VIEW," 
 
 says Lord John Russell, " the life of the agriculturist 
 is the most pure and holy of any class of men ; pure 
 because it is the most healthful, and vice can hardly 
 find time to contaminate it; and holy because it 
 brings the Deity perpetually before his view, giving 
 him thereby the most exalted notions of supreme
 
 THE REPUBLIC'S ANCHOR. 381 
 
 power, and the most fascinating and endearing view 
 of moral benignity." 
 
 Farmers, you take pains to get two teams, so that 
 the boys can take hold at the ploughing and in the 
 corn. See to it that you also get the boys a light 
 wagon, so that they can go to a pic-nic or a bee with- 
 out discommoding you. 
 
 START YOUR BOYS OUT IN THIS WAY, 
 
 and they will not abuse their opportunities. Instead 
 of going six miles on Sunday to a lake or river, they 
 will " turn out " of their own accord and go to 
 church with their heads up, self-reliant, perhaps just 
 a little bit proud. Why? Because when they sneak 
 off to a river, it is because they have nothing with 
 which they are decently pleased for all their hard toil. 
 Make your home a pleasant place for your sons, even 
 if it be at great hazards. It will all come out right- 
 Give the children some comforts before you take big 
 chances on a short-horn herd. Rig up a bath-room, 
 a swing, a sort of gymnasium. Buy games of recre - 
 ation, such as your taste approves. Buy above 
 all things good books and plenty of them. Remember
 
 382 THE REPUBLIC'S ANCHOR. 
 
 some book in your own old childhood-home! What a 
 gigantic influence that book has exercised on your 
 whole life ! It does not seem to you that your sons 
 will pay so much attention to the books in your 
 house, but they will. Some one book will furnish a 
 key to a life will sway its reader while young, while 
 old, until he goes over the bounds of its dominion into 
 the next life. You and Society both desire your 
 young people to 
 
 STAY OUT OF THE CITIES. 
 
 The safety of our Great Republic entirely depends 
 upon the existence of a conservative class of indepen- 
 dent individuals, unable to become crazed, through 
 laziness, over some miserable idea unconnected with 
 the business of living. When any great wrong is to 
 be righted by absolute force it is necessary that the 
 body exercising that force should be amenable to a 
 sense of practical justice. If it shall be necessary to take 
 the railroads away from their owners, or to close the 
 boards of trade, or to go the other way and farm out 
 the post-office and machinery of the government to 
 get rid of the crime of office-hunting, why 
 then, the action of independent men is nee-
 
 THE REPUBLIC'S ANCHOR. 383 
 
 essary the doings of wage-workers are not 
 satisfactory, and are almost always fatal to the order 
 of things which was to be renovated. If this Repub- 
 lic have any vitality not enjoyed formerly by the 
 democracies now buried in the yellow pages of his- 
 tory, it is the tremendous scope of her quarter-sec- 
 tion farms. Not many years ago one of the largest 
 business houses in Chicago put up a placard, just 
 before election, stating that the proprietor considered 
 his interests justly the interests of his clerks, and it 
 was decidedly to his interests to have the Honorable 
 Barnacle Bigbug re-elected. All employes were re- 
 quested to note well. You see the crime of this dry- 
 goods "prince" (how we all run to idiotic titles !) lay in 
 subordinating the good- of the State to the good of 
 his particular millions. He totally forgot that the 
 good of each clerk was as much to be looked after 
 by the Government as the good of his own ambitious 
 ftesh and blood. He drowned every principle of de- 
 mocracy in the monarchical desire to "get it all and 
 then give some away." The desire to give away is 
 where the theory gives away. Now this can 
 happen on the farm.
 
 384 THE REPUBLIC'S ANCHOR. 
 
 The plutocrats must always tremble before the man 
 with hay-seed in his hair. They cannot reach him. 
 They cannot tempt or debauch him. Teach this to 
 your sons. Teach it with horses, buggies, churches, 
 pic-nics, schools, books, rest, and travel. Take the 
 boys to the rank -smelling cities; show them the fac- 
 tories, the store-gangs, and the street gangs. Then 
 they will go home with joy in their hearts, and when 
 Old Brindle moos and Old Sorrel whinnies in recog- 
 nition at their gate you may be sure that the greedy 
 city will never swallow up your sturdy sons, the 
 pride of your declining years. I have been some- 
 what earnest in this because my life on a farm was 
 harder than circumstances make imperative now-a- 
 days. Clearing is heavy work. The culture of an 
 Indiana opening among stumps that make a field 
 look like a drag turned wrong-side-up leaves little 
 chance for gymnasium or bath-room. But all that 
 is gone by. I have been earnest, again, because 
 
 THE FOREIGNERS 
 
 are all getting our farms, while our own folk seem to 
 think that a precarious existence as a rich man's
 
 THE REPUBLIC S ANCHOR. 
 
 slave in the city, is a more sensible thing than to take 
 advantage of opportunities for which- the people of 
 other worlds tear out their heart-strings, leave native 
 climate, language, habits, government, everything, 
 and hurry hitherward. For shame upon ourselves ! 
 
 My lord rides through his palace gate; 
 My lady sweeps along in state ; 
 The sage thinks long on many a thing 
 And the maiden muses on marrying ; 
 The minstrel harpeth merrily, 
 The sailor plows the foaming sea, 
 The huntsman kills the good red deer, 
 And the soldier wars withouta fear-; 
 
 Nevertheless, whatever befall, 
 
 The farmer he must feed them att.
 
 O thou invisible spirit of wine ; if thou hast no name to be known by, 
 (et us call thee devil. SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 OCIETY has much to attend to. 
 The whole wonderful mechanism 
 by which those citizens who now 
 do measurably right, can have bless- 
 ings far beyond the totals of luxuries 
 enjoyed by Kings a few centuries ago 
 whole mechanism, I think, has been 
 perfected by one law, the self-interest of 
 the class wielding the force necessary to 
 compel the change desired. To-day, 
 among the evils which we suffer, not as 
 results of the new civilization, but as ves- 
 tiges of the old barbarism, is the abuse of stimulants. 
 The effects of this abuse are, perhaps, next to atro- 
 cious crime, the most discouraging *which menace 
 the march of progress, and 
 
 EVEN THE ANNALS OF ATROCIOUS CRIME 
 
 so closely link the curse of strong drink with deeds 
 [385;
 
 TEMPERANCE. 387 
 
 of violence as to totally extinguish the mark of differ- 
 ence in the minds of many good men. Society as to- 
 day organized, commits the keeping of a woman to 
 the hands of a man, who in turn, is legally free to con- 
 demn her to the horrors of companionship with a man 
 (that man being himself) bereft periodically or con- 
 tinuously of his moral motives of conduct. He is en- 
 titled by law to return to his wretched home with 
 murder in his heart, and to vent upon a woman, from 
 whom he fears no defense, the anger which 
 
 IT WOULD BE UNSAFE TO MANIFEST 
 
 toward the person who may have originally inspired 
 the passion. The point at which this cruelty be- 
 comes practically illegal is that limit which the wife 
 puts to her own endurance, which in turn, is generally 
 gauged not by her own powers, but by the personal 
 safety of her children. So long as her own life seems 
 to be alone in jeopardy, she waits to be killed as in 
 the notable case at Minneapolis, Minn., and Society 
 permits itself to be called in simply to attend the fu- 
 neral of the murdered woman, who, however, is often 
 buried as a victim of some hypothetical disease, in-
 
 TEMPERANCE. 
 
 
 
 vented to take the blame off the prevailing order of 
 things. Now while this is 
 
 ENTIRELY HORRIBLE IN THE ABSTRACT, 
 
 the abstract is notoriously a false way ot getting the 
 general drift of things. The abstract philosopher, 
 the moment he is charged with the practical conduct 
 of an affair, as a general rule, fails ignominiously, 
 even in his own opinion. With regard to drunkenness, 
 for instance, let us ask ourselves : " Is drunkenness 
 less prevalent now than in olden times ?" Yes. 
 "Is the condition of the woman better, in addition to 
 the improved habits of the man?" Yes. Therefore, 
 it is evident Society, 
 
 THE GRAND MACHINE 
 
 (let us never say " Society " when we mean spike- 
 tailed coats), has an eye on the scourge of Rum, and 
 will eventually stamp it out. " But why," asks the 
 Impracticable, "does not Society stamp it out at 
 once ?" " Why does not the sun shine twenty-four 
 hours in America on the Fourth of July ?" Simply 
 because America is not the whole world. Neither
 
 TEMPERANCE. 389 
 
 is the subject of the murder of wives and the degra- 
 dation of offspring the whole affair with which Socie- 
 ty deals. 
 
 THE FIRST GREAT DUTY OF SOCIETY 
 
 is to feed and clothe her individuals. This burden is 
 just beginning to sit on her shoulders without galling 
 weight. The next effort is to protect the more in- 
 dustrious against the forays of the wicked and the 
 mistakes of the unwise. This is the problem with 
 which the past century has had most to deal. It is 
 an immeasurably greater question than is that of 
 drunkenness, and it is immeasurably far from solution. 
 For instance, a foolish statesman can to-day 
 plunge fifty millions of people into 
 
 WAR 
 
 a thing represented among words by three letters, 
 but which among events entirely fails to find com- 
 plete expression, from the lack of any other misfor- 
 tune worthy of comparison. An angry statesman, 
 acting like a boy, may stop, not a game of marbles, 
 but ten thousand grain-laden ships. But, notwith-
 
 390 TEMPERANCE. 
 
 standing, as an attendant in the betterment of her 
 
 condition, Society is advancing rightly toward the 
 
 rum-bottle. She does not hearken always to the 
 voice of 
 
 THE PROFESSIOFAL TEMPERANCE "WORKER" 
 
 because a betterment in Society is naturally and 
 rightly the result of self-interest. The man who 
 spends his time altogether in the bettering of others 
 does not establish reforms on the surest basis. Soci- 
 ety usually has to do his work after him, with consid- 
 erable delay and additional cost. He is all right in 
 the abstract, but he delays matters. What I would 
 illustrate is this : The place for the reformer to deal 
 with drink on a fair battle field is in the city. The 
 place where the professional reformer finds it profita- 
 ble to go is in the country, where the youth wear 
 
 THE BADGE OF TEMPERANCE 
 
 in their cheeks not in the button-hole of their coats. 
 In the country, surrounded by circles of persons as 
 free from stimulants or the need of them as is their 
 snow from the smut of soft-coal, they swear eternal
 
 TEMPERANCE. 39! 
 
 " conversion " to the views of a man usually a for 
 mer victim of intoxication, often a subsequent wal- 
 lower in his same old gutters. Society sometimes 
 looks upon this Peter the Hermit with little pleasure. 
 The excitements, the passions and the commotions 
 which he sometimes foments are pitiable from the 
 very fact that 
 
 NO RUM CAN BE BLAMED 
 
 as having fired the unhappy brains that rush into the 
 vortex of public confusion, like ships into the whirl- 
 pool. All the practical laws would be passed (and 
 at a date earlier than that at which the public finally 
 accept them in reality) without the sacrifices of the 
 man who proudly calls himself a " horrible example" 
 of the power of strong drink. How does Society do 
 it? I am sure I do not know. All I know is this : 
 
 ON THE REAL BATTLE-GROUND, 
 
 in the city, where stimulant is often needed whisky, 
 iron, quinine, coffee, tobacco, opium, or tea the 
 men who waste the most nerve-tissue are more rigid- 
 ly required to abstain from the abuse of stimulants
 
 39 2 TEMPERANCE, 
 
 than was the case fifteen years ago. To put it plain- 
 er, fifteen years ago, a smart man would be employ- 
 ed on a newspaper to "write" or "report". If he 
 were brilliant, he was entitled almost by custom to 
 " go on the war-path " once a week that is, to be 
 drunk that often, and to be totally unable or unwilling 
 to do the current day's work. 
 
 NOW-A-DAYS, 
 
 i v 
 
 if a man in the same position were to get drunk once 
 a year he would be superseded. No matter how 
 brilliant he may be, the drunkard at once sinks to 
 the bottom. The "fat jobs" are filled by men as 
 steady as clock-work. How has Society done this 
 wonderful thing ? Hard to tell. She has constantly 
 tempted the steady man. In fact, she inclines to 
 treat him a shade the better if he can drink some 
 stimulant each day without unbalancing himself 
 some alcohol, some coffee or some tea but 
 
 WOE TO HIM 
 
 if he transgress her limits. In the country it is asked 
 "Does he drink?" In the city it is asked "Does he
 
 TEMPERANCE. 393 
 
 get drunk ?" The two methods are essentially the 
 results of two conditions. The mistake of the one 
 locality is to apply its own preliminary to the other. 
 Now, again, to this frightful question of woman-tor- 
 ture : Society knows all about woman. It knows 
 that the wife must be the arbiter of her own suffer- 
 ings. Her brother, being less wise than Society, sep- 
 arates the wife from 
 
 THE OCCASIONAL BRUTE 
 
 who married her, takes her ills and her children to 
 his house, kicks the brute on the street, and, for all 
 his pains, is eventually either assassinated by the 
 wretch or anathematized by the wife. Having made 
 matters much worse (by unanimous opinion), he 
 abandons his reform, and then, with his valuable ex- 
 perience, joins Society and becomes a wave in the 
 tide of events, instead of a presumptuous pebble roll- 
 ing in small opposition on the beach of time. How 
 will Society approach the wife-beater ? Nobody 
 knows. Probably she will exterminate the breed. 
 The woman, like the newspaper proprietor, will at 
 last awake. The man who gets drunk will not gain
 
 394 TEMPERANCE. 
 
 her affections above all, he will not keep them. 
 The "old soak" will be wifeless. Monsters will 
 cease to propagate their species. When once the 
 strong hand of Bread-and-Butter gets hold of Whisky, 
 then whisky will be as useful for good as it now is 
 powerful in evil. Society however deals with the 
 affections cautiously, and wisely, because her experi- 
 ence is inconceivably great. 
 
 TRY PLAYING ON HEARTSTRINGS YOURSELF 
 
 to hear the music you make ! Let us then pray for 
 the day when the "drop too much" with the bottle 
 will be as nefarious as a cut too much with the razor, 
 or a blaze too much with the torch. 
 
 26
 
 Virtue maketh men on the earth famous, in their graves illustrious, in the 
 heavens immortal. CHILD. 
 
 ERHAPS there is no man so 
 well known and yet so little 
 thought about in any one com- 
 munity as he who, in the uni- 
 versal opinion, bears a good 
 name. Upon his brow he wears 
 the modern laurel, the highest 
 emblem of his worth, yet the simplest 
 tribute of his fellow citizens. 
 
 There are certain exigencies in the his 
 tories of all groups of people when the or- 
 dinary machinery of life will not operate. 
 The citizens require the utmost letter of 
 the bond; they look with suspicion on all 
 who have usually given satisfaction by their ser- 
 vices. A great man is needed. It is then that the 
 people, with one voice, cry out for succor from him of 
 
 of whom, in days of greater prosperity , they had no im- 
 [395]
 
 396 A GOOD NAME. 
 
 ploring need ; and it is then astonishing to what a de- 
 gree the voice of the people at once becomes the 
 voice of God. 
 
 A bank which, owing to its high-sounding title, had 
 attracted the savings of the people, fell into the hands 
 of a clique of scoundrels and was compelled to sud- 
 denly suspend, the President flying to a distant land 
 to escape the penalties of his crimes. When thirteen 
 thousand depositors were thus confronted with total 
 or partial ruin, there was but one man in a great city 
 whom they would trust to enter the desecrated temple 
 of their hopes and set to rights the treasure yet un- 
 stolen. This man came 
 
 LIKE CINCINNATUS FROM HIS FARM 
 
 like a father to his children and from the hearts of 
 plundered widows and orphans there breathed relief 
 in every sigh. In peaceful times this great man was 
 seldom heard of ; rogues could be elected over him to 
 places of usual trust ; but, in a crisis, his whole biog- 
 raphy seemed embossed upon the people's hearts, ris- 
 ing forth like muscles in an agony. 
 
 Again a city itself an exhalation, rising like Mil- 
 ton's hall of Pandemonium perished in a night.
 
 A GOOD NAME. 397 
 
 Where, in one week, there had been one hundred 
 " leading candidates '' for Mayor, in the next week 
 there was none so rash as to offer himself. A strick- 
 en city the pity of a Christlike world cast its eyes 
 upon one citizen. ; and he, as an act of supreme duty, 
 took the perilous post of helmsman through a storm 
 that unsettled the deeps of credit and prosperity all 
 over the earth. 
 
 In each of these illustrations party politics played 
 no part. Tall masts were needed for the great ships, 
 and these two men, like red-wood patriarchs, touched 
 hard against the zenith of the people's vision. Admir- 
 able tributes ! Magnificent rewards of life-times of 
 virtue and high character ! 
 
 THE SILENT GROWTH OF REPUTATION. 
 
 How does a man become so great that malice and 
 envy and utter hatred cannot by their constant stings 
 infect his blood? How can a man silently amass a 
 capital of virtuous renown which, when the clear 
 vision of adversity is given to the people, will show 
 with unerring certainty his assets and liabilities of 
 character? It is hard to say. Accidents and cir- 
 cumstances so surround us all that we are the clay,
 
 398 A GOOD NAME. 
 
 baked either in fair moulds or foul. When the mould 
 is made we have the least judgment ; yet when the 
 clay is baked we must abide. 
 
 Josh Billings has said that, " after the age of forty, 
 a man cannot form new habits ; the best he can do is 
 to learn to steer the old ones." Yoke, therefore, the 
 ox you call Firmness with the one you call Content- 
 ment. When you come to drive them down the road 
 the neighbors may laugh at the hawing and jeeing, 
 and jee-hawing, but keep on until you break your 
 oxen in. No man ever got so he could handle that 
 team but had 
 
 A HIGH STANDING ON THE ROAD OF LIFE. 
 
 Never discuss other folks' affairs except with the 
 common-sense view of doing the folks good. Never 
 start out to do a thing which is impossible of execution. 
 Never start back after you have started out. Never pay 
 the slightest attention to the criticism of persons who 
 are trying to do what you are trying to do. When 
 he who has ever done you a kindness gets angry and 
 addresses you angrily, ponder on every word he says- 
 Pearls then drop from his mouth. Live in no great 
 regard of the passing fashion ; it may be a very fool-
 
 A GOOD NAME. 399 
 
 ish one, and people who are foolish have a surprising 
 power of perception in pointing to folly in others. 
 Owe no man other than your good office. Have no 
 pride above your fellow mortal ; he is essentially like 
 you. 
 
 THE BAG OF THINGS 
 
 in which ye are alike (if each thing were a grain of 
 wheat) would freight a ship ; the things in which you 
 are better than he could be put into your vest-pocket. 
 Gold does not tarnish, and good names do not soil 
 easily, though herein custom has something to do with 
 the affair. " The soul's calm sunshine " however, 
 should spread abroacl. It often reflects hidden beauty 
 in other faces. "Be just, and fear not." You may 
 stand apparently without honor when )'ou have it 
 most. If you are the man of good name in your 
 community, you are on the high hill where your peo- 
 ple will gather in time of need, as did the ancients 
 to the rocky acropolis.
 
 Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, 
 
 He wales a portion with judicious care ; 
 
 And "Let us worship God,' : he says, with solemn air. BURNS. 
 
 HE good and holy custom of 
 family prayers is, I fear, dropping 
 into disuse. Our lives are so full 
 of business that a season of God's 
 service in the morning and in the 
 evening is almost thought to be an ex- 
 cuse of sloth. But what a sad effect do 
 we see on our youth! They have quick 
 eyes for cant and hypocrisy. They fol- 
 low us to church on Sunday less and less 
 willingly, until finally there is rebellion 
 in their hearts and irreligion in their 
 souls. Family worship is a fount of 
 piety pure enough for even the young, who are pure 
 themselves. Into its depths they look and see only a 
 chastity of spirit reflected. The machinery and the 
 ambition that adulterate the true faith at the church 
 
 have not had their birth at the fireside of a good 
 [400]
 
 WORSHIP. 401 
 
 man. At that fireside the child grows up religious, 
 because he loves religion. It is kind and good to 
 him. His shrine is at home. And where can we ever 
 build 
 
 SO HOLY AN ALTAR 
 
 as at that sweet spot where life has come in upon us, 
 and love been wrapped around us! Burns sees the 
 humble cotter finish his family service in the presence 
 of his little ones, and then, to show a further duteous 
 regard for the souls intrusted to his care, kneel again 
 with the wife : 
 
 The parent-pair their secret homage pay, 
 And proffer up to Heaven the warm request, 
 
 That he who stills the raven's clamorous nest, 
 And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, 
 
 Would in the way his wisdom sees the best, 
 For them and for their little ones provide; 
 
 But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside. 
 
 "From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur 
 springs," sings the sweet poet, and this very poem 
 has touched a chord in the hearts of all humanity, in 
 every clime, and nearly every tongue, that has almost 
 doubled that Scotia's fame. " A house without family 
 worship," says Mason, "has neither foundation nor 
 
 covering." "Measure not men by Sundays," says 
 
 afi
 
 402 WORSHIP. 
 
 Fuller, "without regarding what they do all the 
 week after." "Educate men without religion, "said 
 the Duke of Wellington, " and you make them but 
 clever devils." 
 
 THE IRON DUKE 
 
 was forced to fight one of the cleverest of this kind, 
 and his victory was earned so hardly that he remem- 
 bered it. " The dullest observer must be sensible," 
 says Washington Irving, " of the order and serenity 
 prevalent in those households where the occasional 
 exercise of a beautiful form of worship in the morning 
 gives, as it were, the key-note to every temper for the 
 day, and attunes every spirit to harmony." " It is 
 for the sake of man, not of God," says Blair, " that 
 worship and prayers are required; not that God may 
 be rendered more glorious, but that men may be made 
 better that he may acquire those pious and virtuous 
 dispositions in which his highest improvement con- 
 sists." How can religion bear fruit so well as by 
 daily instruction from God? How can the family 
 bear its burdens more easily than with God's help? 
 
 HOW CAN THE ROOD BE GATHERED TOGETHER 
 
 at night so surely as when there is an engagement
 
 WORSHIP. 
 
 with the Creator at the hearth where life began? In 
 all views, from all sides, this holy custom is seen to 
 be founded in divine wisdom and divine wisdom 
 includes human wisdom " as the sea her waves." 
 
 I have prefaced this subject of worship with the 
 matter of family services, on account of its vital im- 
 portance. Without the reading of the Bible and the 
 praise of God at home, worship appears to the young 
 like the grinding of the corn, the shoeing of the 
 horses, or the aid of the physician a matter to be 
 paid for rather than to be done by one's self. 
 
 SOME OF THE HAPPIEST AND BEST FAMILIES, 
 
 who have turned out into the world the strongest, 
 bravest men, have not limited their worship to stated 
 hours, even, but upon occasions of unusual peril or 
 unusual gladness have poured out to God their prayers 
 or their gratitude. Charnock, in his "Attributes," 
 says : " As to private worship, let us lay hold of the 
 most melting .opportunities and frames. When we 
 find our hearts in a more than ordinary spiritual 
 frame, let us look upon it as a call from God to attend 
 Him; such impressions and notions are God's voice, 
 inviting us into communion with Him in some par-
 
 404 WORSHIP. 
 
 ticular act of worship, and promising us some suc- 
 cess in it. When the Psalmist had a secret notion 
 
 'TO SEEK GOD'S FACE' 
 
 and complied with it, the issue is the encouragement 
 of his heart, which breaks out into an exhortation to 
 others to be of good courage, and wait on the Lord: 
 ' Wait on the Lord and be of good courage, and He 
 shall strengthen thy heart; wait, I say, on the Lord.' 
 One blow will do more on the iron when it is hot, 
 than a hundred when it is cold; melted metals may 
 be stamped with any impression; but once hardened, 
 will, with difficulty, be brought into the figure we 
 intend." 
 
 THE WISEST AND THE BEST. 
 
 We have in religion the experience of the wisest 
 and the best minds before us. Their guarantee in all 
 else is of the very highest human standing and 
 degree. We must, therefore, in reason, profit by 
 their knowledge. In this, also, we are aided by our 
 own development. Behold the truth of this from the 
 mouth of Colton : " Philosophy is a bully that talks 
 very loud when the danger is at a distance, but the 
 moment she is hard pressed by the enemy she is not
 
 WORSHIP. 405 
 
 to be found at her post, but leaves the brunt of the 
 battle to be Borne by her humbler but steadier com- 
 rade Religion, whom, on most other occasions, she 
 effects to despise." There died in Paris, not long 
 ago, a man named Emile Littre, as well known in 
 France for his infidelity as is Colonel Ingersoll in this 
 country. Over there 
 
 THEY CALL ATHEISM POSITIVISM, 
 
 which is a good name. It signifies that a man is 
 positive he knows more about the future state than 
 God ! Upon his death-bed this Monsieur Littre, 
 although he had been the means of sending thousands 
 of other souls before their Maker, rebellious and un. 
 redeemed this same Monsieur Littre dared not to 
 meet God with his Positivism on his soul, and em- 
 braced the offices of the Church with great relief. 
 Men, before entering upon a course which flings 
 away the only hope a man has, 
 
 SHOULD LOOK WELL TO IT 
 
 that they know what they are doing. I wandered in 
 the terror-stricken streets of burned Chicago. The 
 multitudes nearly two hundred thousand were eat- 
 ing in gratitude; the mothers with babes were under
 
 406 
 
 shelter. Was the unburned temple of the atheist 
 open ? Oh, no ! He had none. Who was cutting 
 the meats and breaking the bread? The wives and 
 daughters of the parishes which had been spared 
 from the hot flames. It was a solemn lesson. I said: 
 " I will not, Colonel Ingersoll, throw away the hope 
 1 have." By their works shall ye know them ! 'Tis 
 as true upon the field of blood as in the track of fire, 
 but we must pass on. " When I was young," said 
 
 THE GREAT NEWTON, 
 
 the ornament of his race, " I was sure of many things; 
 there are only two things of which I am sure now: 
 one is that I am a miserable sinner; and the other, 
 that Jesus Christ is an all-sufficient savior." The 
 closing pages of Dr. Johnson's works are filled with 
 simple little prayers to his Lord and Savior, Jesus 
 Christ. " I have lived long enough to know what I 
 did not at one time believe that no society can be 
 upheld in happiness and honor without the sentiment 
 of religion." This is the language of La Place, the 
 author of " La Mecanique Celeste," one of the greatest 
 books of the world. He spoke from real experience. 
 He had seen religion " abolished by law." He had
 
 WORSHIP. 407 
 
 seen the " worship of Reason " established with the 
 decapitation of seven thousand innocent citizens of 
 France. He had heard one of the apostles of Reason 
 arise in the Constituent Assembly and demand two 
 hundred and ninety thousand corpses instead of seven 
 thousand. Then this man who had grasped the machin- 
 ery of the heavens, who had shown the absolute accur- 
 acy of Newton's great discovery, wrote, in the same 
 spirit of absolute knowledge : " I have lived long enough 
 to know what I did not once believe." Magnificent 
 testimony! Almost as valuable as the teachings of 
 our own hearts! The same statement comes from 
 
 THE ROCK OF ST. HELENA. 
 
 Victor Hugo, with a mind like that of Shakspeare, 
 says: " I believe in the sublimity of prayer." " If we 
 traverse the world," says Plutarch, " it is possible to 
 find cities without walls, without letters, without 
 Kings, without wealth, without coin, without schools, 
 without theatres; but a city without a temple, or that 
 practiceth not worship, prayers, and the like, no one 
 ever saw." "Wonderful !" cries Montesquieu, "that 
 the Christian religion, which seems to have no other
 
 408 WORSHIP. 
 
 object than the felicity of another life, should also 
 constitute the happiness of this ! " 
 
 SAYS GEORGE WASHINGTON: 
 
 " Religion is as necessary to reason as reason is to 
 religion." "Religion is a necessary, an indispensable 
 element in any great human character," says Daniel 
 Webster. " Nothing," says Gladstone, " can be hos- 
 tile to religion which is agreeable to justice." "It is 
 the property of the religious spirit," admits Emerson, 
 "to be the most refining of all influences." The 
 writers against religion," says Edmund Burke, 
 " whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful 
 never to set up any of their own." "I fear God," 
 says Saadi, " and next to God, I chiefly fear him who 
 fears him not." "Space is the statue of God," cries 
 Joubert. " Truth is his body and light his shadow," 
 says Plato. 
 
 There is almost a revelation of God in the cries 
 upward to Himj- of some of his human souls. Says 
 Wordsworth : 
 
 Thou who didst wrap the cloud 
 Of infancy around us, that Thyself, 
 Therein with our simplicity awhile 
 Mightst hold on earth communion undisturbed; 
 Who from the anarchy of dreaming sleep,
 
 WORSHIP. 409 
 
 Or from its deathlike void, with punctual care, 
 And touch as gentle as the morning light, 
 Restor'st us daily 
 
 Thou, Thou alone, 
 Art everlasting! 
 
 The poet Young, driven by sorrow to God's foot, 
 stool, addresses his Creator in the same nobility of 
 language : 
 
 Thou, who didst put to flight 
 Primeval silence, when the morning stars, 
 Exulting, shouted o'er the rising ball ; 
 O Thou ! whose word from solid darkness struck 
 That spark the sun, strike wisdom from my soul ; 
 My soul which flies to Thee, her trust, her treasure, 
 As misers to their gold, while others rest. 
 
 " Come unto me, ye that are weary and heavy- 
 laden, and I will give you rest." Therefore, accept 
 this boon. Take your own child by the hand, and 
 pray, and pray : 
 
 The way is long, my Father ! and my soul 
 
 Longs for the rest and quiet of the goal ; 
 While yet I journey through this weary land, 
 
 Keep me from wandering, Father, take my hand.
 
 Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place, 
 (Portentous sight !) the owlet Atheism, 
 Sailing on obscene wings, athwart the noon, 
 Drops his blue-fringed lids and holds them close, 
 And hooting at the glorious Sun in heaven, 
 Cries out : "Where is it ? " COLERIDGE. 
 
 HE laugh of the foolish infidel 
 and the sneer of the solemn 
 atheist are abroad in the land. 
 The awful draught they hold to 
 the lips of humanity is well hon- 
 eyed with some of the adjuncts of re- 
 ligion itself, else the perilous cup would 
 be rejected. Let us see how the atheist 
 secures his victim, for he is never con- 
 tent to enjoy alone the extravagances of 
 his folly. I have noticed that when a 
 Democratic editor receives dispatches 
 containing news of a Republican vic- 
 tory, he is frequently expert enough in the guile per- 
 taining to his profession to put a displayed heading 
 [410]
 
 THE ATHEIST. 41 1 
 
 on those same dispatches which clearly saves the day 
 for the Democrats-^-or vice versa. And I have also 
 noticed that it takes true mental pluck to rightly 
 scan, first, that rooster of roosters (invented during 
 the last few years), then the ten lines of Democratic 
 lo Paians which follow, and lastly, the small type 
 containing the real facts. 
 
 MAN IS SO MUCH LIKE A FISH 
 
 that certain bait is sure to catch him. The morning 
 after- the election the most astute Republican or 
 Democrat in the country trembles before the terrors 
 of a ten-line Democratic or Republican displayed 
 heading, as the case may be. Now the crafty atheist 
 has a way of laying down fallacies which often ter- 
 rifies one into involuntarily believing that those fal- 
 lacies are facts, until one stops to think that the 
 atheist is but a man, after all, and that there is an 
 appeal from his findings. It is, therefore, in the 
 defense of humanity that I advance against him, 
 
 HOPING TO HIT HIM BECAUSE HE IS SO BIG, 
 
 and to escape his blows because I am so small. " What 
 though the day be lost, all is not lost ! " Though
 
 4 12 THE ATHEIST. 
 
 man have glaring faults, he is still a problem far 
 beyond the fiat of any atheist. He still has a destiny. 
 The atheist lays down dogma after dogma. In this 
 changing world, where even the little balance-wheel 
 of a watch must be "compensated," it is clearly as 
 impossible for any atheist to lay down an undevi* 
 ating dogma as it was for the Cretan to truly say 
 that all Cretans were liars! "Broadly, an unselfish 
 deed is impossible. There never was a human 
 thought that reached beyond the human body." Let 
 us capture those two atheistic dogmas and take 
 off their displayed headings. 
 
 AWAY BACK ON THE PLAINS OF CHALD^EA, 
 
 in the youth of the world, there lived men who 
 watched their flocks by day and the hosts of heaven 
 by night. Their study of the heavens lifted them 
 out of themselves, in my belief, and their observa- 
 tions of celestial phenomena led them to the discovery 
 of the fact that eclipses of the great heavenly lights 
 happened in a regular rotation of eighteen years and 
 ten days. This discovery has been very useful in 
 purging the idolatry from eclipses as, had it not
 
 THE ATHEIST. 413 
 
 been for the Chaldseans, perhaps the mother of the 
 atheist might have offered him as an oblation in 
 
 THE FIRST TOTAL ECLIPSE 
 
 after his birth! Again, Proctor and Airy have been 
 for ten years mapping stars for the use of humanity 
 25,868 years after the map is done that is, that 
 period will furnish the first opportunity for the utili- 
 zation of a truly laborious task. There is no glory 
 in it. The difference between glory and hard work 
 in astronomy is just the difference between Ptolemy 
 and Hipparchus. The one made a great noise in the 
 world and got up an atheistic solar system which put 
 science back a thousand years, while the other stayed 
 on his island and mapped stars to the best of his 
 ability, rendering possible some of 
 
 THE GODLIKE DEDUCTIONS 
 
 of Kepler, Halley, and Newton. The affairs of this 
 world are managed in the light of history. It is tech- 
 nically called precedent. There is yet no history of 
 astronomy. In the desired actual placing of the 
 present positions of the stars there would be a record 
 which, 25,868 years hence, would enable the observer 
 of those times to accurately measure movements f
 
 4M THE ATHEIST. 
 
 the earth now beyond mortal ken for lack of history. 
 By the character of those movements, the force, speed, 
 heat, and 
 
 OTHER QUALITIES OF GRAVITATION 
 
 might possibly be determined. Now I cannot connect 
 the idea of selfishness with this view of the aspirations 
 of humanity. Proctor and Airy absolutely know 
 that they will be forgotten so far out in on-coming 
 time, but still they drudge away, in the belief that 
 man can only acquire knowledge of God's works as 
 the coral reef attains continental proportions that is, 
 by the infinitesimal contributions of countless unselfish 
 individualities. They are desirous that man should 
 some day know the truth. Is there any unselfishness 
 in the aspiration? 
 
 THE ATHEIST 
 
 says: "First and last of all, we have no idea of any- 
 thing beyond, above, or superior to these curious 
 bodies of ours. The highest flight of genius in art, 
 religion, or invention has never reached beyond the 
 body of man." These statements are false. They 
 should not be accepted by anybody as true, for they 
 tend to a lower grade of existence. They lead the
 
 THE ATHEIST. 415 
 
 pardoned convict back to his hatching-house of crime. 
 Philosophy of this kind forgets the " still small voice." 
 
 THE NOBLE " IT BEHOOVETH ME!" 
 
 rings in every intelligent mind. " I have not 
 done that which I ought to have done; I therefore 
 am disturbed and in unrest." Where does this thought 
 come from? Why do I sit in judgment on myself? 
 The atheist says it is selfishness. A peculiar selfish- 
 ness is that voice of duty which cries to those whom 
 we rightly call good to go forth to the bedside of the 
 distressed, is it not? At the corner of Lake and 
 Paulina streets, in Chicago, a man, his wife, and his 
 child were nearly burned to death. The child died, 
 and perhaps they all died. They were taken to the 
 hospital. The next day a thrifty landlord tumbled 
 their goods down-stairs to the sidewalk. 
 
 WHAT WAS IT IN MY SOUL 
 
 which, when I saw the young barbarians all at play 
 tearing and destroying those meagre comforts, cried 
 out so sharply: "O, ignoble! you do not lift your 
 ringer to succor this poor man! Have shame upon 
 
 you ! " Why is it that that voice still sounds in my 
 j j /
 
 41 6 THE ATHEIST. 
 
 ears? Surely it is not selfishness. Listen to a short 
 colloquy: 
 
 Immanuel Kant Duty! wondrous thought, that 
 workest neither by fond insinuation, nor flattery, nor 
 by any threat, but merely by holding up thy naked 
 law to the soul, and so extorting for thyself always 
 reverence, if not obedience; before whom all appe- 
 tites are dumb, however secretly they rebel; whence 
 thy original? 
 
 The Atheist I am glad to inform you that selfish- 
 ness is the original you seek! 
 
 FURTHER FALLACIES. 
 
 In the interest of an advancing Christian humanity, 
 I call attention to still further fallacies as I hear them 
 in the mouth of atheism: "While we cannot quite 
 hold that the idea expressed by the modern word 
 * selfishness ' is new to mankind, we can safely say 
 that it is only recently that selfishness came to be held 
 a very sin. In the day of lance, and fort, and mailed 
 right hand, the Knight took what he could, and held 
 what he could, and there were no mealy-mouthed 
 words about the rights of others., and a broad Chris-
 
 THE ATHEIST. 417 
 
 tian charity, either. To-day, all of society has the 
 precise motive of the old Robber-Barons." 
 
 LET US LOOK DOWN BROADWAY 
 
 some Saturday forenoon. Myriads of vehicles con- 
 fuse the common mind with their din and their 
 movement. A horse comes along, walking on a hoof 
 that is no longer a hoof. What stops every team 
 within two blocks for twenty minutes? Why, an 
 officer has rushed into that torrent of traffic, has. 
 grasped that poor beast by the bridle, and has sent g 
 bullet on a mission of mercy through its brain. Ho\ 
 is it that the frightful objurgations of the high-chan 
 ioted host fall so lightly on that officer? Why does 
 he not get killed himself? Because he is in the 
 second largest aggregation of human beings in the 
 world, where the voice of religion is strongest, and 
 where that voice cries in unmistakable tones, 
 "WELL DONE!" 
 
 It could not be done in Leadville! It could not be 
 done even in Chicago ! Not enough religious educa- 
 tion; not enough development; not enough of the 
 voice of duty ! Let not the atheist say that there is 
 
 a child in the back alley dying. So there is, but 
 
 27 /
 
 41 8 THE ATHEIST. 
 
 society will get there in time. Let not the atheist 
 criticise society; it is too big an affair. Inside of a 
 thousand years it will be a necessity of society as well 
 as it now is of religion, to be kind to humanity as well 
 as to the brute creation. Society will then attend to it. 
 When a victim fell before Achilles or Diomedes, that 
 victim begged for mercy. The spear then went 
 through his bowels. The times demanded it. They 
 knew no mercy. There is no mercy in the Iliad. 
 The Barons, also, were a crowd of thugs. To-day, 
 in New York, or London, or Paris, they would each 
 get twenty years on general principles. We have no 
 sluggers who are not their superiors. The atheist 
 should know it, and does. The world moves. 
 
 THERE MUST BE THOUGHTS 
 
 which reach beyond the human body. I remember 
 well a day of serious mental depression which I once 
 suffered. But out of my sadness came peace. Points 
 in our memory lose their coloring rapidly, of course, 
 yet the feelings of that day and night still cause a 
 thrill of pleasure in my mind. I had been for days 
 convinced that there were no real joys in life. As my 
 peace came, I began laboriously to pick out some
 
 THE ATHEIST. 419 
 
 choids on a piano from the opera of "Lucretia Bor- 
 gia" the finale of the second act. My labor was 
 rewarded by the most pleasing sounds I had ever 
 made with my own fingers, and there was a general 
 ebullition of pleasure and expectation of future har- 
 monies through my whole body for many hours after- 
 ward. That night I went to hear a great scientist 
 lecture on astronomy. 
 
 THE SUBLIMITY OF HIS SUBJECT, 
 
 the idea of a universe of stars as yet unbounded, the 
 higher idea of an infinitude of such universes, each 
 but a handful of mist in the greatest telescope, raised 
 me to a point of feeling which made life an ineffable 
 delight. I went to my bed, and thanked a Creator 
 out of a boundless thankfulness. I have thought that 
 the twenty-third Psalm (beginning, " The Lord is my 
 shepherd) " is a hymn of thanksgiving inspired with 
 the same high quality of satisfaction. Surely, 
 
 MAN IS NOT THE VICIOUS LUMP OF CLAY 
 
 which the atheist would have him when he is able to 
 command that picture of Faith which Wordsworth 
 wrote: 
 
 I have seen 
 
 A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract 
 Of inland ground, applying to his ear
 
 420 THE ATHEIST. 
 
 The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell ; 
 
 To which in silence hushed, his very soul 
 
 Listened intensely, and his countenance soon 
 
 Brightened with joy, for murmurings from within 
 
 Were heard, sonorous cadences ! whereby, 
 
 To his belief the monitor expressed 
 
 Mysterious union with its native sea. 
 
 Even such a shell the universe itself j- 
 
 Is to the ear of Faith ; and there are times 
 
 I doubt not, when to you it doth impart 
 
 Authentic tidings of invisible things. 
 
 . No! No! To found the problem or the actions 
 of man on any one agent, and to cut him off from 
 God, is peurile! The reason of man necessitated the 
 discovery of gravitation, and 1 it is to-day the best- 
 established physical fact before our view. The reason 
 of man also demands a Creator, to endow us witli 
 motives above our own development, and that reason, 
 in the soul of every man, atheist and Christian alike, 
 must and will, secretly or openly, have divine satis- 
 faction. 
 
 The atheist, in these days, is the champion and the 
 leader of a scrubby lot of social and religious ideas. 
 He should not " march them through Coventry that's 
 flat."
 
 Those holy fields 
 
 Over whose acres walked those blessed feet 
 Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nailed 
 For our advantage on the bitter cross. SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 OUR little child, on Christmas day, may 
 give you a beautiful copy of the history 
 of "those holy fields." But a few hund- 
 red years ago, it might have cost a throne. 
 I To-day we may have either Testament 
 printed in our daily newspaper and put 
 upon our table before breakfast, So 
 free is the word of God that only the 
 mere wish to have it is necessary to secure at once 
 the greatest of spiritual boons and the most perfect 
 piece of writing in our language, or in any other 
 tongue. The beauties of the Bible have charmed 
 the critical of all ages. The young have departed 
 from its simplicity of speech only to return in riper 
 years for rapt tuition. The wise have lingered over 
 its perfect sentences, striving to catch the art which 
 was showered upon those unassuming translators 
 
 who gave its pages to the English-speaking world. 
 
 (421)
 
 422 THE BIBLE. 
 
 One of the brightest wits of his time was Sidney 
 Smith. His love of the Bible, not only as his guide 
 and his strength, but as the greatest of all literary 
 works, was passionate. He once impressed a circle 
 of friends very deeply with this noble veneration : 
 " What," said he, "is so beautiful as 
 
 THE STYLE OF THE BIBLE ? 
 
 what poetry in its language and ideas ! " and taking 
 it down from the book-case he read, with his clear, 
 manly voice, and in his most affecting manner, several 
 of his favorite p'assages ; among others : " Thou 
 shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the 
 face of an old man ; " and part of that most beauti- 
 ful of Psalms, the i3Qth: "O Lord, thou hast 
 searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my 
 downsitting and mine uprising ; thou understandest 
 my thoughts afar off. Thou compassest my path 
 and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my 
 ways. Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither 
 shall I flee from thy presence ? If I ascend up into 
 heaven, thou art there ; if I make my bed in hell, 
 behold thou art there ; if I take the wings of the 
 morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea ;
 
 THE BIBLE. 423 
 
 even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand 
 shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall 
 cover me, even the night shall be light about me ; yea, 
 the darkness hideth not from thee ; but the night 
 shineth as the day ; the darkness and the light are 
 both alike unto thee." And thus he would charm 
 his hearers, visiting their ears, perhaps, with the 
 first true knowledge of Biblical beauty which Jiad 
 ever sounded upon them. Listen to 
 
 THE MERITED EULOGY 
 
 of a Roman Catholic, in the Dublin Review, of 
 June, 1853: "Who will say that the uncommon 
 beauty and marvelous English of the Protestant 
 Bible is not one of the strongholds of heresy in this 
 country? It lives on the ear like music that .can 
 never be forgotten, like the sound of church-bells, 
 which the convert hardly knows how he can forego. 
 Its felicities often seem to be things rather than mere 
 words. It is part of the national mind, and the 
 anchor of national seriousness. Nay, it is worshiped 
 with, a positive idolatry, in extenuation of whose 
 gross fanaticism its intrinsic beauty pleads availingly 
 with the man of letters and the scholar. The mem-
 
 424 THE BIBLE. 
 
 ory of the dead passes into it. The potent tra- 
 ditions of childhood are ' 
 
 STEREOTYPED IN ITS PHRASES. 
 
 The power of all the griefs and trials of a man is 
 hidden beneath the words. It is the representative 
 of his best moments ; and all that there has been 
 about him of soft, and gentle, and pure, and peni- 
 - tent, and good, speaks to him forever out of his 
 English Bible. It is his sacred thing, which doubt 
 has never dimmed, and controversy never soiled. It 
 has been to him all along as the silent, but oh ! 
 how intelligible voice of his guardian angel ; and 
 in the length and breadth of the land there is not a 
 Protestant with one spark of religiousness about 
 him whose spiritual biography is not in his Saxon 
 Bible." 
 
 WHAT A PANEGYRIC 
 
 from an avowed opponent of this translation ! And 
 to whom are we principally indebted for this lovely 
 poem of God ? To William Tyndale. Says Froude, 
 the historian : " The peculiar genius, if such a word 
 may be permitted, which breathes through the Bible, 
 the mingled tenderness and majesty, the Saxon
 
 THE BIBLE. 425 
 
 simplicity, the preternatural grandeui unequaled, 
 unapproached, in the attempted improvements of 
 modern scholars all are here, and bear the impress 
 of one man, and that man William Tyndale." 
 
 AND WHO WAS WILLIAM TYNDALE ? 
 
 He was a gentle clergyman of great piety and learn- 
 ing. He was born in Gloucestershire, England, in 
 1477. He endured great persecution and was forced 
 to quit England. He visited Luther in Germany. 
 He printed his New Testament at Antwerp. Its 
 
 * 
 
 beauties were at once recognized in England, al- 
 though to read it was illegal and punishable with 
 death. Cardinal Wolsely did his best to entice 
 the translator to England, to destroy him. An 
 assistant in the work, named John Frith, was lured 
 back and burned to death. Finally Henry the Eighth 
 of England procured Tyndale's arrest at Antwerp. 
 He was given a " trial," at Vilvoorden, near Antwerp, 
 and pronounced guilty. In September, 1536, 
 
 THEY STRANGLED THIS INSPIRED SERVANT 
 
 of God, and then burned his body. At the stake 
 he cried : " Lord, open the King of England's 
 eyes ! " Upon Tyndale's version of the Bible the
 
 426 THE BIBLE. 
 
 King James translation is solidly based. "It is 
 astonishing," says Dr. Geddes, a profound scholar, 
 " how little obsolete the language of it is, even at 
 this day ; and, in point of perspicuity and noble 
 simplicity, propriety of idiom, and purity of style, 
 no English version has yet surpassed it." Of course 
 our language has changed greatly in 400 years. Yet 
 
 THE LORD'S PRAYER 
 
 does not contain, in Tyndale's exact language, one 
 unrecognizable word. It ran as follows: "Oure 
 Father which arte in heven, halowed be thy name. 
 Let thy kingdom come. Thy wyll be fulfilled, as well 
 in erth, as hit ys in heven. Geve vs this daye oure 
 dayly breade. And forgeve vs oure treaspases, even 
 as we forgeve them which treaspas vs. Leede vs not 
 into temptacion, but delyvre vs from yvell. Amen." 
 
 THE MARKED POETICAL SUPERIORITY 
 
 of the Protestant over the Catholic Bible may be 
 shown in the twenty-third Psalm, and elsewhere. 
 The first says : " The Lord is my shepherd ; I shall 
 not want ; " the second : " The Lord ruleth me ; and 
 I shall want nothing." The first says: "He 
 maketh me to lie down in green pastures ; he leadeth
 
 THE BIBLE. 427 
 
 me beside the still waters ; he restoreth my soul ; " 
 the second : " He hath set me in a place of pasture ; 
 he hath brought me up on the water of refreshment ; 
 he hath converted my soul" (thus completely losing 
 the original metaphor of the shepherd). The first 
 says : " Yea, though I walk through the valley of 
 the shadow of death, I will fear no evil ; " the second : 
 " For though I should walk in the midst of the 
 shadow of death, I will fear no evils." In Job v. 7, 
 the first says : " Yet man is born unto trouble, as 
 the sparks fly upward ; " the second : " Man is born 
 to labor, and the bird to fly." In Job xiv. i, the 
 first says : " Man that is born of a woman is of few 
 days, and full of trouble ; " the second : " Man born 
 of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with 
 many miseries. " These examples will suffice to 
 show the differences which pervade the two transla- 
 tions. 
 
 " INTENSE STUDY OF THE BIBLE 
 
 will keep any one from being vulgar in point of 
 style," says Coleridge. "There are no songs," says 
 Milton, "comparable to the songs of Zion, no 
 orations equal to those of the prophets, and no
 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 politics like those which the scriptures teach." "The 
 pure and noble, the graceful and dignified simplicity 
 of language," says Pope, "is nowhere in such perfec- 
 tion as in the Scriptures. The whole book of Job, 
 with regard both to sublimity of thought and moral- 
 ity, exceeds, beyond all comparison, the most noble 
 parts of Homer." " I use the Scriptures," says Boyle, 
 " not as an arsenal to be resorted to only for arms and 
 weapons, but as 
 
 A MATCHLESS TEMPLE, 
 
 where I delight to contemplate the beauty, the sym- 
 metry, and the magnificence of the structure, and to 
 increase my awe and excite my devotion to the 
 Deity there preached and adored." "There never 
 was found, in any age of the world," says Bacon, 
 " either religion or law that did so highly exalt the 
 public good as the Bible." "It is the window in this 
 prison of hope," says Dwight, "through which we 
 look into eternity." " How admirable and beautiful," 
 says Racine, "is the simplicity of the Evangelists! 
 They never speak injuriously of the enemies of Jesus 
 Christ, of his judges, nor of his executioners. They 
 speak the facts without a single reflection. They
 
 THE BIBLE. 429 
 
 comment neither on their Master's mildness, nor on 
 his constancy in the hour of his ignominious death, 
 which they thus describe : ( And they crucified Jesus.' " 
 " Men cannot be well educated without the Bible," 
 says Dr. Nott. " It ought, therefore, to hold a chief 
 place in every situation of learning throughout Chris- 
 tendom." " I am of the opinion," says Sir William 
 Jones, " that the Bible contains more true sublimity, 
 more exquisite beauty, more pure morality, more 
 important history, and finer strains of poetry and 
 eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, 
 in whatever age or language they have been written." 
 " I will answer for it," says Romaine, 
 
 "THE LONGER YOU READ THE BIBLE 
 the more you will like it; it will grow sweeter and 
 sweeter; and the more you get into the spirit of it, 
 the more you will get into the spirit of Christ." " The 
 greatest pleasures the imagination can be entertained 
 with," says Sir Richard Steele, " are to be found in 
 the Bible; and even the style of the Scriptures is 
 more than human." 
 
 THE BIBLE IS AUTHENTIC. 
 
 It is old. It is beautiful. It is the only hope we
 
 430 THE BIBLE. 
 
 have. If we cast it away we become as the brutes 
 of the field, both in spirit and in body. The strong 
 take from the weak and perish into nothing this is 
 all that is offered us by those who reject and revile 
 the Bible. Such have exceeding deep ignorance, 
 exceeding ill manners, exceeding bad taste, and ex- 
 ceeding great folly. " I find more sure marks of the 
 authenticity of the Bible," says Sir Isaac Newton, 
 " than in any profane history whatever." We use the 
 word "secular" nowadays where "profane" was 
 formerly written. " Profane " meant " before " or 
 "outside " the "fane," or "temple." 
 
 THE BOOK OF JOB 
 
 is older than any other writing on earth. It ante- 
 dates the Chinese Empire. It is lost in the mist of 
 years. The histories of Moses are as old as the 
 pyramids, and the pyramids and obelisks proclaim 
 the integrity of the Hebrew leader and chronicler. 
 So let us prize this greatest gift of God to man. Let 
 us humbly thank Him for the liberties and comforts it 
 has brought us for even the Atheist himself refrains 
 from robbing us of our property through the influ- 
 ence of the Christian religion. Let us thank God for
 
 THE BIBLE. 431 
 
 the schools, and the hospitals, and the charities which 
 have 
 
 THE BIBLE AT THEIR FOUNDATION, 
 
 and which, without it, it is fair to say, would not be 
 in existence to-day. Those who are the best are 
 guided by its precepts. Those who are the wisest 
 have implicit confidence in it. Those who are the 
 most eloquent have studied it intensely. Those who 
 are powerful in narration of events have imitated its 
 divine simplicity. Have it at your bedside. Your 
 mind will broaden faster under its influence than 
 under that of the daily newspaper. If you have not 
 time to read both, sacrifice the paper. The paper is 
 trash. The Bible is solid gold. If you fill your 
 mind with grand thoughts, your mind will be noble. 
 You will have principle. 
 
 WHERE CAN YOU FIND AS GRAND LANGUAGE 
 
 in any politician's speech? "The voice of the Lord 
 is upon the waters ; the God of glory thundereth ; deep 
 calleth unto deep; the voice of the Lord shaketh the 
 wilderness." Where can you find as graceful speech? 
 "He shall come down as rain upon the mown 
 grass; mercy and truth are met together; righteous-
 
 43 2 
 
 THE BIBLE. 
 
 ness and peace have kissed each other." The day 
 is now dawning in this Western world when taste 
 and poetic feeling are to flourish. We have got the 
 dollars. We must now get something for the dol- 
 lars. Now will the Bible, as ever at such epochs 
 in the past, shine out anew, the criterion, not only of 
 the soul, but of the sentiments the book that is first 
 " ;he scholar's lamp and alone in his bedchamber.
 
 Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die, 
 Nor leave thee when gray hairs are nigh 
 
 A melancholy slave ; 
 
 But an old age serene and bright, 
 
 And lovely as a Lapland night, 
 Shall lead thee to thy grave. WORDSWORTH. 
 
 GE is the outer shore against which 
 dashes an eternity. The mysterious 
 ocean is either tempestuous or tran- 
 'quil, just as we view it. If we look 
 hard down the cliff of death we are 
 appalled with the force of the waves ; 
 we are frightened by the din and 
 shock of collision. But if we gaze 
 afar off we see no great disturbance. All is moving 
 with the true poetry of motion, in the fitness of God's 
 plan, even as viewed by one of His works. "The 
 more we sink into the infirmities of age," says Jeremy 
 Collier, " the nearer we are. to immortal youth. All 
 people are young in the other world. That state is 
 an eternal spring, ever fresh and flourishing. Now, 
 to pass from midnight into noon on the sudden ; to 
 
 28 (433)
 
 434 THE EVENING OF LIFE. 
 
 be decrepit one minute and all spirit and activity 
 the next, must be a desirable change. To call this 
 dying is an abuse of language." Death to the aged 
 is natural, therefore as pleasant and easy as any 
 other natural office of the body. Indeed, it is far 
 easier than the operation by which we even get GUI' 
 teeth in youth. If we, then, are able to forget that 
 greatest shock of pain so quickly as we do, why 
 shall we dread a little sinking of the breath, and the 
 inwilling battle of a body that is tired and 
 
 LITERALLY WILLING AT HEART 
 
 to surrender? "In expectation of a better, I can 
 with patience embrace this life," says Sir Thomas 
 Browne, "yet in my best meditations do I often 
 desire death. For a pagan there may be some 
 motive to be in love with life ; but for a Christian 
 to be amazed at death, I see not how he can escape 
 this dilemma that he is too sensible of this life, or 
 hopeless of the life to come." We are now of the 
 earth ; but all the high reason which has taught us 
 to master fire, and water, and the thunderbolts them-
 
 
 THE EVENING OF LIFE
 
 THE EVENING OF LIFE. 435 
 
 selves, has also instructed us that we are only sojour- 
 ners on this little planet. 
 
 OUR MINDS ARE AS BROAD 
 
 as the range of stellar systems. We are not as large 
 as a horse or an elephant. Are we, therefore, in- 
 ferior ? We are inhabiting bodies which thrive but 
 a few years, on a planet remarkable for its smallness- 
 But we stretch our knowledge over mighty distances ; 
 we construct triangles which have for one side the 
 whole sweep of the earth, over 1 80 millions of miles ; 
 we measure the distance of other worlds by this side 
 of a triangle, and the nearest star is thus found to 
 be 103,000 of our measures away from us 103,000 
 times 1 80,000,000 miles ! Young has well said that 
 
 THE UNDEVOUT ASTRONOMER IS MAD. 
 
 So did Napoleon die. Was he not the mightiest 
 man of his time ? Did not the whole world sigh 
 with relief when the final end came ? Yet he was 
 on a tiny rock in the great ocean ? On a map of 
 the world that rock has no title even to a dot. Yet 
 it would be foolish to say he belonged simply to that
 
 436 THE EVENING OF LIFE. 
 
 rock. No. He had come from other human worlds. 
 He was as broad as the earth. We, too, have come 
 from other worlds. We are as broad as the universe. 
 Even our minds, clad in clay, betray the high char- 
 acter of our souls. 
 
 i 
 
 DOES THE BEAST PEER INTO THE STARS ? 
 
 Do the birds that pass so easily into the air go on 
 voyages of discovery past Sirius ? And yet the air 
 refuses to bear us, and wafts them gently on its 
 lightest zephyrs ! We have sublime faculties the 
 fit companions of a soul. It is not our self-conceit. 
 The Milky Way is not our conceit. The eclipses 
 are not our conceit. The awful sweep of our whole 
 family of planets, moons, and sun, onward in celes- 
 tial space, is not a conceit. Therefore we possess 
 our souls, flashing within caskets which have not 
 been altogether unworthy of their priceless treasures. 
 
 AS THE CASKET DULLS 
 
 and grows to its decay, we cannot weep greatly over 
 
 its loss, for will it not reveal the splendors all within ? 
 
 " It is worthy the observing," says Lord Bacon,
 
 THE EVENING OF LIFE. 437 
 
 -wisest of men," "that there is no passion in the 
 mind of men so weak, but it mates and masters the 
 fear of death ; and, therefore, death is no such 
 terrible enemy when a man hath so many attendants 
 about him that can win the combat from him. Re- 
 venge triumphs over death ; love slights it ; honor 
 aspireth to it ; grief flieth to it ; fear pre-occupateth 
 it ; nay, we read, after Otho the Emperor had slain 
 himself, 
 
 PITY (WHICH IS THE TENDEREST OF AFFECTIONS) 
 
 provoked many to die out of mere compassion to 
 their sovereign, and as the truest sort of followers. 
 A man would die, though he were neither valiant 
 nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same 
 thing so oft over and over again." We all must die, 
 sooner or later. It is easier to die than to live again 
 our stormy and tempestuous lives. Few would re- 
 embark at the cradle, suffer the pains of childhood, 
 the hurts which the feelings of youth get, the pangs 
 of love, the shock of loneliness coming from the 
 departure of those we cling to, the vicissitudes of 
 fortune, the stings of penury, the journeys into the 
 lands of strangers, the flight of summer friends,
 
 438 THE EVENING OF LIFE. 
 
 the alienation of children, and the fevers and the 
 
 
 wounds which human nature crosses on its way to 
 
 the kind haven of a good old age. Jesus stands 
 near. When death comes, his voice will sound, just 
 at the brink: " It is I ; be not afraid." " When I 
 look at the tombs of the great," said Joseph Ad- 
 dison, on 
 
 HIS VISIT TO WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 
 
 "every motion of envy dies in me ; when I read the 
 epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire 
 goes out ; when I meet with the grief of parents 
 upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion ; 
 when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I 
 consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we 
 must quickly follow. When I see Kings lying by 
 those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits 
 placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the 
 world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with 
 sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, 
 factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the 
 several dates of the tombs, of some that died yes- 
 terday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider
 
 THE EVENING OF LIFE. 439 
 
 that great judgment day when we shall all of us be 
 contemporaries, and make our appearance together." 
 
 THE AGED MAN 
 
 who has "walked with God " is always ready for the 
 Master's call. His loins are girded about and his 
 lights burning. He " lies down with the Kings of 
 the earth," and that leveling process which is thus 
 intimated and begun in death he feels is the order 
 of a higher plane of life to come, when all the 
 abuses and incongruities of human government will 
 be swept away, and the light of omniscient wisdom 
 will shine on all alike. There will he meet the little 
 child who strayed from the fold into the snows of 
 death early in the married life, and there will he sit 
 beside that fond old heart who heard his first piteous 
 wail in this cold world, and nestled him to her bosom 
 all warm with a mother's love. 
 
 IT IS THE ONE POSSIBLE CHANCE 
 
 of happiness, and only death stands in the way. 
 Nature carries the soul gently over the river, where 
 those who have gone before stand waiting in glad 
 expectation. Shall we doubt either the goodness
 
 440 THE EVENING OF LIFE. 
 
 of God or the perfection of nature ? Shall we hesi- 
 tate to weave the silk of death around our bodies 
 when we know that we may thence issue a being 
 worthy of a celestial sphere of action ? 
 
 APOSTROPHE. 
 
 Venerable sir, thou hast borne the burdens of the 
 world to the last mile-post. Thy companions have 
 fallen by the wayside, and even some of them may 
 have gone unbidden to their Judge. But thou, 
 having in view the dignity of the human mind and 
 the will of God, hast labored while the light was 
 given thee, and hast journeyed while thy strength 
 remained. Thy destiny is now but opening to thy 
 sight. Thou lookest through the inner doors and 
 seest that infinite cathedral which openeth beyond 
 the vestibule of death. 
 
 ' ' The stars shall fade away, the sun himself 
 Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years ; 
 But thou shalt nourish in immortal youth, 
 Unhurt amidst the war of elements, 
 The wreck of matter and the crush of worlds."
 
 Whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, 
 
 This longing after immortality ? 
 
 Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror, 
 
 Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul 
 
 Back on herself, and startles at destruction ? 
 
 'Tis the divinity that stirs within us ; 
 
 'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter, 
 
 And intimates eternity to man. 
 
 Eternity ! thou pleasing, dreadful thought ! ADDISON. 
 
 SK and it shall be given you ; 
 seek and ye shall find ; knock 
 and it shall be opened unto you." 
 So spake the Savior. " We 
 know," says Paul, " that all things 
 ;work together for good to them 
 that love God. In a moment, 
 in the twinkling of an eye, at the last 
 trump ; for the trumpet shall sound, and 
 the dead shall be raised incorruptible, 
 and we shall be changed. So when this 
 corruptible shall have put on incorruption, 
 
 and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then 
 
 (441)
 
 442 THE FUTURE LIFE. * 
 
 shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, 
 Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where 
 is my sting ? O grave, where is thy victory ? For 
 I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my 
 departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, 
 I have finished my course, I have kept the faith : 
 henceforth there is laid up for me 
 
 A CROWN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, 
 
 which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me 
 at that day ; and not to me only, but unto all them 
 also that love his appearing." "These things saith 
 He that holdeth the Seven Stars in his right hand: 
 Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a 
 crown of life." These are a few of the bright pro- 
 mises held out to us in the Book of Life. Are we 
 not blest? "The joys of heaven," says Bishop 
 Norns, " are without example, above experience, 
 and beyond imagination, for which the whole crea- 
 tion wants a comparison; we an apprehension ; and 
 even the Word of God a revelation." "Heaven," 
 says Shakspeare, "is the treasury of everlasting 
 joy." " By heaven we understand a state of happi-
 
 THE FUTURE LIFE." 443 
 
 ness," says Franklin, " infinite in degree, and endless 
 in duration." With man's finite mind man solaces 
 himself with 
 
 PICTURES OF PARADISE 
 
 mortal in their scope. He is not to be blamed for 
 this, for it is God's will to let him grope in darkness 
 a few short years. But man's imagination in all 
 earthly things conjures up that which is far beyond 
 the earthly reality, leaving him a prey to dissatis- 
 faction. How good to believe that our imagination 
 finds in heaven a field where all our most beautiful 
 ideas, collated, joined and woven together into a 
 whole, fail to approach the true glories of the home 
 in the far skies which our kind Father, taking us in 
 His arms, will open before us. " How should we 
 rejoice," says Sir Robert Hall, " in the prospect, 
 
 THE CERTAINTY,* RATHER, 
 
 of spending a blissful eternity with those whom we 
 loved on earth ; of seeing them emerge from the 
 ruins of the tomb and the deeper ruins of the fall, 
 not only uninjured, but refined and perfected, 'with
 
 444 THE FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 every tear wiped from their eyes/ standing before 
 the throne of God and the Lamb, ' in white robes 
 and palms in their hands, crying with a loud voice, 
 Salvation to God that sitteth upon the throne, and 
 to the Lamb, for ever and ever ! ' 
 
 WHAT DELIGHT WILL IT AFFORD 
 
 to renew the sweet counsel we have taken together, 
 to recount the toils of combat and the labor of the 
 way, and to approach, not the house, but the throne 
 of God in company, in order to join in the sympho- 
 nies of heavenly voices, and lose ourselves amid the 
 splendor and fruition of the beatific vision ! " Dr. 
 Dick supposes that the soul may find endless em- 
 ployment in beholding " those magnificent displays 
 which will be exhibited of the extent, the magnitude, 
 the motions, the mechanism, the scenery, the inhab- 
 itants, and the general constitution of other systems, 
 and the general arrangement and order of the uni- 
 versal system comprehended under the government 
 of the Almighty." 
 
 THIS IS ENTIRELY IN REASON. 
 
 So far as we are able to judge, there is abso-
 
 THE FUTURE LIFE. 445 
 
 lutely no limit to the universe of stars. We are as 
 sure of the law of gravity as we are of the existence 
 of heaven. We build larger telescopes each year 
 only to behold additional millions of stars, each 
 star, possibly, the larger on account of our being 
 able to see it at all. We absolutely know that one 
 star is larger than our sun by 324 times. The moon 
 is about nine times around the earth away from us. 
 The sun is larger than the track of the moon around 
 the earth by 167,000 miles in every direction. If 
 you had a ball which would just fit in the track of 
 the moon, and stuck it all full of pins 167,000 miles 
 long, you would have the size of the sun. 
 
 SIRIUS, THE STAR, 
 
 is 324 times as large as the sun, and so are many 
 other stars. Now, the most distant star in the largest 
 telescope cannot be at the edge of the universe. 
 Why ? It must be in the middle. It must be bal- 
 anced by exactly as much attraction on one side as 
 another. There must be, above, below, beyond 
 that star, the same stupendous array of worlds, and 
 each relatively outer star, aye, even the star on the
 
 446 THE FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 farther side of that outer star, must in its turn, be 
 held in the same magnificent and awful suspension. 
 So forever. We actually have Infinity forced on 
 our reason. Eternity is the correlative and co-exis- 
 tent necessity of infinity. Infinity, Eternity, Immor- 
 tality, become the solemn Trinity confronting the 
 physical as well as the spiritual world ! God has 
 even ordained that, when you move your hand, you- 
 affect the farthest of His worlds. Can you not grasp 
 the idea that, in reason, the universe is boundless ? 
 Why, then, in reason, shall it not be our infinite 
 pleasure to study God's plans forever ? I know of 
 no greater pleasure which I could conceive. Those 
 who ask for evidences, 
 
 AS THEY ASK FOR BREAD AND CHEESE, 
 
 expecting these great truths to be clear to their 
 clotted minds, cannot even be brought to believe 
 a house-fly has 25,000 eyes, constructed each on the 
 plan of our own ? They will hardly believe an 
 unseen force flows through the magnetic needle, 
 turning it to the north. If they had refused, with 
 the same logic, to believe that A was A when they
 
 THE FUTURE LIFE. 447 
 
 had to so believe in order to learn at all, they would 
 now be groping in that stupid illiteracy, which, by a 
 parity of reasoning, they so richly deserve. 
 
 SHALL GOD WEIGH OUT ARCTURUS FOR US, 
 
 to exhibit His power or its magnitude ? Shall He 
 speak to us, and not only kill us with his softer 
 syllables, but send our nicely-balanced earth whirl- 
 ing in toward the sun, and all because some fool 
 hath said in his heart there is no God ? No. Our 
 reason and our Oldest Record both point to Eternity 
 as our proper life, the ripening of our soul, our 
 comprehension of the infinite, and our better worthi- 
 ness to praise God's holy name. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 No author of a work calculated to elevate the 
 mind and ennoble the ambitions of mankind could 
 aspire to a, higher climax ; no writer of a series of 
 admonitions, in escaping "a lame and impotent 
 conclusion," could rest more calmly than he who, 
 having built his tower upon the solid duties of tP-day,
 
 448 
 
 THE FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 peers out with the great lenses of Religion, into the 
 hopes of the future 
 
 " Past flaming bounds of place and time, 
 The living throne, the sapphire blaze, 
 Where angels tremble while they gaze."
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
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