Getting on in the world

Front matter

Class i__i

Book

Copyright N°.

Preface

THE origin of this book, which will account for some of its peculiarities of style, is as follows. In the early part of 1871 the author wrote for the Chicago Tribune a series of articles on the subject here treated, after the publication of which a considerable number of persons in different parts of the Northwest expressed a wish that they should be gathered into a volume. This led to their revision, and the addition of nearly twice as much new matter, the whole forming the work which is now offered to the public.

That the book has many imperfections, the author is well aware ; they are due partly to the fact that it has been written by economizing moments of leisure snatched from professional labors, and, to use a phrase of Milton, with his left hand. Upon a subject which so many pens have discussed, it is, of course, hardly possible to say anything absolutely new; the most that a writer can hope to do is to recombine and present in novel and attractive forms, with fresh illustrations, so as to impress persons who have not been impressed before, thoughts which have substantially been repeated from the days of

VI PREFACE.

Solomon to those of Smiles and "Titcomb." Some of the topics, however, have been less hackneyed than others ; as, for example, the important one of " Eeserved Power, " — in writing the chapter upon which the author has been materially aided by some of the suggestions contained in " The Army of the Eeserve," an eloquent and scholarly address delivered at Bowdoin College, in 1862, by Hon. B. F. Thomas, LL.D.

If this book shall serve to rouse to honorable effort any young man who is wasting his time and energies through indifference to life's prizes, — to cheer, stimulate, and inspire with enthusiasm any one who is desponding through distrust of his own abilities, — or to reveal to any one who is puzzled to discover the path to success and usefulness the art of " getting on " to the goal of his wishes, — the author will feel himself abundantly repaid for his labors. Doubtless there are many persons who are better qualified by their worldly knowledge to discuss the subject here considered ; but, unhappily, the most successful men do not reveal the secret of their successes ; and if we do not reject criticisms on paintings from men who have never handled a brush, nor refuse to follow the directions of a guide-post though it has never hopped off upon its one leg and travelled the road to which it points, a young man who is beginning life may accept the hints of a well-wisher whose knowledge of his needs has been derived from observation, rather than from experience.

Chicago, October 9, 1872.

True and False Success 346

INDEX 353

GETTING ON IN THE WORLD.

Chapter I. Success And Failure

Let every man be occupied, and occupied in the highest employment of which his nature is capable, and die with the consciousness that he has done his best. — Sydney Smith. ) / Men must know that in this theatre of man's life it remaineth only to God and angels to be lookers-on. — Bacon.

Toil alone could not have produced the " Paradise Lost " or the " Principia." The born dwarf never grows to the middle size. — Rev. R. A. Willmott.

/'The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, (without a thought of fame. — Henry W. Longfellow.

TN attending a concert in one of our large cities, did you ever X- observe the wide chasm that separates the first and second violinists of the orchestra? One is all pomp, fire, bustle, enthusiasm, energy. Now waving his bow high in the air, he silently guides the harmony ; now rapidly tapping on the rest-board, he hurries the movement ; and again, bringing the violin to his shoulder, he takes the leading strain, and high above the crash of sound, above the shrill blast of the trumpet, the braying of horns, the ear-piercing notes of the fife, the sobbing of oboes, the wailing of violoncellos, and all the thunders of the orchestra, are heard, distinct and clear, the shrieking notes of the first violin. Dressed in unimpeachable broadcloth, with kids and linen of immaculate purity, stamping his feet, wagging his head, nodding earnestly to the right and to the left, and beating time with mad energy, he enters heart and 1 soul into the music, oblivious of all things else ; and all because he is the leader, and plays the first violin. Standing by his side, but upon a lower platform, and before a lower music-rest, is a patient, careworn man, who saws quietly on the strings, with the air rather of the hired laborer than of the enthusiast. His eye you never see in a fine frenzy rolling, glancing from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, nor does his facile hand run off in roulades of melody ; he never wags his head, nor stamps Ins foot, nor labors to wreak his thoughts upon expression ; but steadily and conscientiously he pours a rich undercurrent of harmony into the music, which few hear, fewer care for, but without which, losing the charm of contrast, it would be as dreary as the droning of a bagpipe, as monotonous as a picture which is all lights and no shadows. With his eye fixed on the notes, he scrapes away with diligence, not with enthusiasm ; he is moved, not by the inspiration of a master, but by the reflection that he is exchanging his notes for dollars, and that, with each quaver, he earns so much bread and butter for his family. Yet this automaton — this musical machine, that plays its part so mechanically, with apparently as little interest in the result as Babbage's calculating-machine in the solution of a mathematical problem — may have been endowed by nature with as much genius and fire as that thundering Jupiter of the orchestra, the leader ; but, alas ! he plays second fiddle.

The world is an orchestra, and men are players. All of us are playing some part in the production of life's harmony, — some wielding the baton, and fired by the sympathy of lookers-on ; others feeling that they are but second fiddles, humbled by conscious inferiority, and drudging on as the treadmill horse plods through his monotonous task. Our object will be, in this series of papers, to show the reason of this inequality, and especially how, whether one plays first or second fiddle, or is gifted with talents that qualify him only to strike the cymbals or beat the drum, he may magnify his calling, and act well his part, " where all the honor lies."

We purpose, in this volume, to discuss the subject of success in life ; or, in other words, to answer the question which every young man, as he enters upon his career of self-dependence, is likely to ask of himself or others, " How shall I get on in the world 1 " The theme is as old as the human race t yet, though volumes have been written on it, it is still new to each successive generation, and assuming, as it does, new phases with the ceaseless changes in society, must be inexhaustible. Out of the thousand topics which it offers for consideration, we shall select only those of vital interest, just notions of which are indispensable to every young man who would act well his part in the great drama of life. To the mass of men, and especially to those who are about embarking on the voyage of active life, no theme can be of deeper interest than this. A man sailing on tibfct voyage has been compared to a vessel of war leaving port under sealed orders. He knows not, but as the ways of Providence are disclosed, to what ports he must go, or on what seas he must sail. The dangers of the voyage — the sunken reefs, the icebergs, or the stormy capes, which may be his ruin — are unknown. Through perilous storms and treacherous calms must he steer his unknown course, nor is there any exact chart laid down for the voyage. No man ever sailed over exactly the same route that another sailed over before him \ every man who starts on the ocean of life arches his sails to an untried breeze. Like Coleridge's mariner, "he is the first that ever burst into that lonely sea."

In looking about among the circle of our acquaintances, we are surprised to see how few have made the voyage successfully, that fewer still have reached the ports for which they sailed. Many a shallop, which sailed out of harbor noiselessly and unnoticed, has anchored at last safely in port; many a noble argosy, freighted with precious hopes, and launched with streamers flying, amid the salvos of artillery and the huzzas of thousands, has sunk beneath the waves. To what impotent conclusions, indeed, do young men of brilliant parts frequently come ! What becomes of the foremost boy at the academy, of the "senior wrangler" of the university, of the champion of the debating club, the law school, or the lyceum 1 Where are to be found, in the various walks of life, all of the geniuses to which almost every village periodically gives birth? All along the shores of the great ocean, on whose currents we are borne with resistless sweep, are strewn the wrecks of those whose embarkation was seemingly under the very star of hope. On whatever shoals or hidden rocks they may have struck, it matters not to them ; only one voyage is vouchsafed, and failure is irretrievable : but to all who come after them, an explanation of the causes of disaster is of deep interest, and may save many from a similar fate.

Before discussing, however, the causes of shipwreck, let us anticipate a few of the objections that may meet us at the threshold. And, first, there are those who deny that success is pre-eminently desirable, or that it is by any means identical with happiness. No doubt there are many enjoyments outside of worldly success. After all, it is pleasant to lie in bed till eight o'clock in the morning, instead of turning out at five ; it is pleasant to hug the chimney-corner, instead of breasting the pitiless storm ; it is pleasant to pass one's evenings in the bosom of a family ; pleasant, too, to taste the difference between winter and spring, fine sunsets and storms, town and country. The path of success, never "a primrose path of dalliance," is steeper and more thorny to-day than ever before. Never before in the world's history was competition in every calling and pursuit so fierce as now ; never did success, in more than a moderate degree, demand for its attainment such a union of physical and intellectual qualities, — of alertness, activity, prudence, persistence, boldness, and decision, — as in this latter half of the nineteenth century. Carlyle truly says that " the race of life has become intense ; the runners are treading upon each other's heels ; woe be to him who stops to tie his shoestrings ! " This fact alone is sufficient to show the absurdity of the opinion sometimes advanced, that success is not, as a general thing, a test of merit. In spite of the occasional triumphs of mediocre men and charlatans, the rule still holds, that the men who make their way to the front, becoming rich or famous by force of their personal characters, must have something more in them than impudence, and even the Hudsons and Fisks could not have won their positions without some sterling qualities, however alloyed Avith their opposites.

Again, it must be confessed that success does not always yield the happiness expected; that the prizes of life, like the apples of Sodom, often turn to ashes in the grasp. Of every object of human pursuit, however dazzling in the distance, it may be said as the poet has said of woman, —

" The lovely toy, so fiercely sought, Hath lost its charm by being caught."

But persons who reason thus concerning human happiness forget its true nature. They forget that it does not consist in the gratification of the desires, nor in that freedom from care, that imaginary state of repose, to which most men look so anxiously forward, and with the prospect of which their labors are lightened, but which is more languid, irksome, and insupportable than all the toils of active life. True, the objects we pursue with so much ardor are insignificant in themselves, and never fulfil our extravagant expectations ; but this by no means proves them unworthy of pursuit. Properly to estimate their value, we must take into view all the pleasurable emotions they awaken prior to attainment.

" Man never is, but always to be blest,"

says the poet. That is, his true happiness consists in the means, and not in the end ; in acquisition, and not in possession. The principle and source of it is not the gratification of the desires, nor does its amount depend on the frequency of such gratifications. He who cultivates a tree derives far more satisfaction from the care he bestows upon it than from the fruit. Give the huntsman his game, and the gambler the money that is staked, that they both may enjoy, without care or perplexity, the objects they pursue, and they will smile at your folly.

" If my son," said a certain wealthy man, whose wasteful heir was fast dissipating the fruits of his exertions, "can take as much pleasure in spending my property as I have derived from acquiring it, I will not complain." Lessing declared that if he had been offered the choice between the possession of truth and the pleasure of seeking for it, he would unhesitatingly have preferred the latter. A state of constant fruition would be, according to our present notions, a state truly lamentable, since it would preclude, in a great degree, the pleasing emotions that spring from hope and expectation, and thus extinguish the lights that principally serve to cheer our path through life. Were all our desires satiated at their birth, or were we always satisfied with our present condition, in either case, as there would be nothing to draw forth our active energies, life would stagnate. In short, man was made for action, and life is a mere scene for the exercise of the mind and the engagements of the heart, — a scene where the most important occupations are, in a sense, but graver species of amusement, and where, so long as we take pleasure in the pursuit of an object, it matters but little that we attain it not, or that it fades when acquired. Hope is, indeed, a deceitful enchantress ; but she sheds a sweet radiance on the stream of life, and never exerts her magic except to our advantage. We seldom attain what she beckons us to pursue ; but her deceptions resemble those which the dying husbandman in the fable practised upon his sons, who, by telling them of a hidden mass of wealth, which he had buried in a secret place in his vineyard, led them so sedulously to delve the ground, and turn up the earth about the roots of the vines, that they found, indeed, a treasure, though not in gold, in wine.

The truth is, we owe a large part of our happiness to our mistakes. As in the natural world, it would be only necessary to improve our vision to a higher degree of acuteness, to make the sublimest scenes in nature and the most magnificent works of art appear horrid and deformed, so in the moral, too nicely to consider the intrinsic worth of the objects we pursue, will infallibly lead to a wrong estimate of the value of human life.

But whatever the views we may take of this subject, one thing is quite certain, and that is, that if happiness is not found in success, it is not found in failure. It is a sad thing to feel, even when we have done our best, — when the stinging sense of time and talents wasted is absent, — that we have foundered in our earthly voyage j to feel that we have ingloriously stranded^ while those who set sail with us pass by with streamers flying and swelling sail. Mediocre men often mistake aspiration for inspiration ; they have first-class ambition along with third-rate powers ; and these coming together make a most ill-matched pair of legs, which bear a person along awkwardly in his path of life, and expose him to endless mortifications. Philosophy or religion may take the sting out of disappointment ; but generally the impossibility of connecting the ideas of felicity and failure is so great, that though examples abound to show that success is not happiness, it is yet clear that it is essential to it. The moments in a man's life when, Alexander like, he feels that the world has no more prizes to be coveted, are few indeed. It has been truly said that an object to be desired is at once the pleasure and the torment of life ; sometimes a great object to be steadily pursued, all else being made subservient to it ; or, more commonly, a succession of minor objects, rising, one after another, in endless succession. Clf Keats did somewhat exaggerate when he declared that " there is no fiercer hell than the failure in a great attempt," yet it must be admitted that the pleasure of a long-sought, ardently desired success, dreamed of by night and toiled for by day, is, probably, as complete as anything this side of heaven ; and it is universally felt to be a compensation for all toil or hardship ; it is well, if not for any sin. )

Again, while success is necessary to happiness, it must be remembered that the term is a relative one ; in other words, that there are many degrees of success, among which the highest are neither attainable by all, nor essential to felicity. A man may be a very successful lawyer, though he should fail of becoming Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States ; a successful physician, though far inferior in skill to a Brodie or Magendie ; a successful merchant, though he may never accumulate a tithe of the wealth of a Stewart, a Girard, or an Astor. All this, we are aware, is obvious enough ; and we should not think of repeating such truisms, were not the contrary so often explicitly or implicitly taught in so many " Young Men's Own Books," " Student's Manuals," and articles in popular newspapers. As if restlessness, dissatisfaction with its lot, contempt for reasonable and attainable successes, were altogether wanting in Young America, our youth are hardly out of their jackets ere they are urged by a certain class of writers and lecturers to look with scorn upon, and to struggle out of, the sphere or place in life to which, if a lowly one, Providence has assigned them, and to become " great men," that is, governors, members of Congress, foreign ministers, major-generals, railroad kings, et id omne, which they are told they may become, if they only mil to do it. Forgetting that all callings are alike honorable, if pursued with an honorable spirit ; that it is the heart only which degrades, the intention carried into the work, and not the work a man does ; that the most despised calling may be made honorable by the honor of its professors ; ^hat a blacksmith may be a man of polished manners, and a milliontiaire a clown ; that a shoemaker may put genius and taste into his work, while a lawyer may cobble ; V- these writers are continually pointing to the Herschels and the Stevensons, the Astors and the Angelos, and telling the young that they, too, may shine as stars in the firmament of art, science, or mammon, provided that they will scorn delights, " outwatch the bear," concentrate their energies, and convert their intellectual diamond dust into a diamond.

From the general spirit of these appeals, one would suppose the writers to believe that every human being at birth is potentially a Shakespeare or a jSTewton, and that, provided he is educated properly, and labors long and hard enough, he may astonish the world with " Hamlets " and " Principias." Genius these writers are fond of defining with Buffon as " patience," and they will quote to you with gusto the saying of Newton, that, if he differed from other men, it was only by " patient thought." A great orator, like Clay or Chatham ; a wondrous musical composer, like Handel or Eossini ; a great architect of buildings, like Wren, or a more marvellous architect of periods, like De Quincey, — all the great lights of physical science, the superior intelligences of art and literature, — have attained to eminence by steps easily traceable by themselves, and which all other men may follow, if they will but concentrate their efforts upon one point, and not fritter away their resources in a variety of pursuits. Let us, it is said, but search into and analyze the causes of that excellence which in its intensity has dazzled and confounded us, — let us but trace it through the various minor stages through which it has passed to its present summit of power, — and we shall find that to labor unceasing does it owe its splendor, and that under similar circumstances, with equal advantages of cidture, equal incentives, and as firm a will, there are few persons who could not present the same result. Shelley, we may infer, hardly exaggerated, when he said that the Almighty had given men arms long enough to reach the stars, if they would only put them out. /If the young man will but exert himself to the utmost, say these writers, there is no height of greatness to which he may not soar. Ah ! but how immense is that " if ! " It is the castle in which these possible Mirabeaus, unlike the thunderer of the French tribune, are always confined. " If my aunt had been a man, she would have been my uncle " ! They forget, who talk thus, that the power of patient labor was the very essence of Newton's genius ; that continuity and concentration of thought are in exact proportion to the size and vitality of the thinking principle. What a man does is the real test of what a man is ; and to talk of what great things one would accomplish, if he had more activity of mind, is to say how strong a man would be if he only had more strength ; or how swiftly 1* a steamer would cut the waves, if she had only a bigger boiler, or could generate steam fast enough !

It is easy to theorize as to what men might become, if they were something different from what they are. Give a man the mental energy, the spiritual force of Newton, and he may unquestionably do as great things as Newton. Give a dog the muscular strength, the physical qualities of the lion, and he will be as terrible as the monarch of the forest ; or, vice versa, make the lion cease to be carnivorous in his instincts, and he will be a pleasant playfellow for your dogs and children.

All experience shows that it is the nature of genius to labor patiently, and hence it is easy to leap to the conclusion that genius is but patient labor. But though genius is essentially active, and will labor, though not always by square rule and compass, it is the falsest of notions that will can do the work of intellect, that effort can supply genius, and that mere intensity of desire can give intensity of power. As well might the tortoise hope, by intense striving, to run as fast as the greyhound, the truck-horse to rival Dexter in fleetness, or the monkey to acquire the strength of the elephant. It is perhaps doubtful whether any great intellectual thing was ever done by great effort ; a great thing can be done only by a great man, and he does it without effort. Hazlitt goes so far as to say that " an improving actor never becomes a great one. I have known such in my time, who were always advancing by slow and sure steps to the height of their profession ; but in the mean time some man of genius rose, and, passing them, at once seized on the topmost round of ambition's ladder, so that they still remained in the second class." As the same acute writer further adds, a volcano does not give warning when it will break out, nor a thunderbolt send word of its approach. Kean stamped himself the first night in Shylock ; he never did it any better. A man of genius is sui generis ; to be known, he needs only to be seen; you can no more dispute whether he is one, than you can dispute whether it is a panther that is shown you in a cage.

SUCCESS AND FAILURE. II

Neither do great occasions make great men, — as our late civil war and the struggle of France with Prussia too painfully prove. Great occasions are the necessities only for which great men are the supplies. Great men even make great occasions ; nay more, they are great occasions, the great events of history ; " not merely the beacon-lights on the line of human progress, but the efficient motive-powers, the causes causantes; they make, they constitute history." There was never a truer sentiment uttered, than that quoted some years ago at a scientific meeting in England, by Professor Owen, from the note-book of the late Dr. Hunter, namely, that no man was ever a great man who wanted to be one. To achieve any species of greatness, we must be utterly unconscious of the way we arrive at it. It is not to be acquired by "malice prepense." As well might one by taking thought add a cubit to his stature. Great works do not make greatness ; they only reveal it. They are the outgoings of an inward being ; they are the embodiments of the soul, which was born great. The greatest works of human genius were written, not to immortalize their authors, but to provide for some practical need. Homer sang, partly to kindle patriotism in his countrymen, partly, perhaps, to get a good night's lodging as he wandered on the shores of Greece and Asia ; Shakespeare wrote his dramas, not for glory, but to " put money in his purse " ; Hooker's great work was composed to quiet the strifes of his time ; and the masterpiece of Burke, on which he lavished such a prodigality of thought, was thrown out as a bastion to protect the British citadel from French republicanism. So in all other callings. "When the Duke of Wellington carried out any of his great strategical operations in Spain, or put the keystone to the arch of Ins glory at Waterloo, think you he was dreaming of a star and a garter? No; he thought only of giving the French a sound thrashing.

It is well known that hero-worshippers are almost universally disappointed in President Grant. The closest scrutiny of his features or manner fails to detect any signs of genius in him. Senator Yates well observed in a speech, that the genius of

General Grant "is not ostentatious nor dramatic. It is tM genius of accomplishment that he has. When his work is done, there it is, done ; and there is the man, except for the work, ordinary as before." Such men are content to do, and leave their glory to take care of itself.

Paradoxical as this may all seem, it is nevertheless true, nor does it offer any encouragement to idleness, or natter the conceit of heaven-descended genius in turn-down collars, that labor may be dispensed with. It simply says that the crow is not the eagle, and that no amount of sun-starings will make it one ; therefore as an able writer, himself a man of brilliant genius, has said, "It is no man's business whether he has genius or not ; work he must, whatever he is, but quietly and steadily, and the natural and unforced results of such work will be always the tilings that God meant him to do, and will be his best. No agonies, nor heart-rendings, will enable him to do any better ! If he be a great man, they will be great things ; if he is a small man, small things; but always, if thus peacefully done, good and right ; always, if restlessly and ambitiously done, false, hollow, and despicable."

The writers who talk of the great tilings that may be achieved by a determined will — by an intense, continuous act of volition to do and to be such and such things — forget that this power of willing strongly is, to a large extent, a gift of nature, and as rare as any other good thing in the world. Again, while some pre-eminently successful men have pursued paths previously marked out, many have proposed to themselves no distinct goal to be reached. As a sensible writer says : "A man starts on his career with a tacit understanding with himself that he is to rise. It is a step-by-step progress. He probably has no distinct aim. It is only in books that he resolves from the first dawning of ambition to become owner of such an estate, or bishop of such a see. But he means to get on, and devotes all his powers to that end. He fixes his thought beyond immediate self-indulgence, chooses his friends as they will help the main design, falls in love on the sam»