Success; a book of ideals, helps, and examples for all desiring to make the most of life

Front matter

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COPYRIGHT 1897, NOTMAN PHOTO. CO., BOSTON AND CAMBRIDGE.

HELEN KELLER.

Preface

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A preliminary description seems hardly necessary in a book whose every page is intended to stimulate, inspire, and encourage youth of all ages to do something and be somebody in the world, and to make the most of them¬ selves and their opportunities. But a few words in explanation of the author’s method of treating the various subjects considered may not be amiss.

Nearly every youth is ambitious to succeed in some¬ thing. For success, heads ache, hearts pant, and hands work, everywhere and always. Whatever may be the motive or ideal, whether high or low, good or bad, the watchword and the goal are usually the same — success.

But very few people are so constituted that they can overcome adverse circumstances without a spur of some kind, and in this volume the author has endeavored to furnish incentives to higher ideals and nobler endeavor. He has aimed to teach his lessons, as far as possible, by entertaining concrete examples. He believes that who¬ ever would help the average twentieth-century youth must first interest him. Mere abstract precepts and goody-goody moralizing will have no attraction for such a youth, and it is only a waste of time to lament the fact. Of course it is true that the snap should be in the horse; but, when it is not, we must put it into the whip.

Yet the energy of the least ambitious youth is only latent. There is gunpowder enough in most any one if we can only get the spark to it. To do this is the work of every true teacher.

PREFACE.

The age is intensely practical. The ambitious youth of to-day is eager for every bit of information, every suggestion or hint that will help him get on in the world, — that will teach him how he may acquire wealth or power. He does not care so much to know how genius succeeds, as how common, every-day people like himself have won the prizes of life.

The author has aimed to meet this demand on the part of young readers. He has tried to fill the book with suggestive material, with fresh, living truths; to make it a storehouse of incentives, a treasury of precious say¬ ings ; to put inspiration, encouragement, and helpfulness on every page; to drive his lesson home with such an abundance of telling illustrations drawn from actual experience that the reader will exclaim: “ Why, these people were worse handicapped than I am ! They suc¬ ceeded ; — why not I ? ”

But in and through and over all, the one great lesson he has tried to impress upon the reader is that manhood and womanhood are above all riches and superior to all titles, — that character is greater than any career.

“Everything wise has already been thought out,” says a German writer; “one can only try to think it once more.” Believing that this is largely true, the author makes no claim to originality except in his method. So far as his materials are concerned, he has culled flowers from many thought-gardens, and collected incidents from many typical lives.

He wishes, therefore, to express his obligation for many a hint and suggestion gathered from the works of other writers; and especially desires to acknowledge valuable assistance from Mr. Arthur W. Brown of West Kingston, It. I.

O. S. M.

Boston, Mass., May 25, 1897.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Enthusiasm.11

“ Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is the triumph of some enthusi¬ asm. Nothing great was ever achieved without it.”

Chapter I. Enthusiasm

Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is the triumph of some enthusiasm. Nothing great was ever achieved without it. — Emerson.

Nothing is so contagious as Enthusiasm; it is the real allegory of the lute of Orpheus — it moves stones, it charms brutes. Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity, and Truth accomplishes no victories without it. — Lord Lytton.

This world is given as a prize for the men in earnest. — F. W. Robertson.

Experience shows that success is due less to ability than to zeal. The winner is he who gives himself to his work, — body and soul.— Charles Buxton.

A man in earnest finds means or, if he cannot find, creates them.— Charming.

But never hope to stir the hearts of men,

And mold the souls of many into one,

By words which come not native from the heart! — Goethe.

When people meet with empty minds,—people who live only for amusement, not for anything serious, — how commonplace and how superficial is the talk ! Even when there is talent, culture, know¬ ledge, if there is not earnestness, it does not go to the root of things, — it is unsatisfactory. — James Freeman Clarke.

“How ages thine heart —towards youth? If not, doubt thy fitness for thy work.”

There is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere ear¬ nestness. — Dickens.

I think I love and reverence all arts equally, only putting my own just above the others. — Charlotte Cushman.

“ Rub-a -dub-dub, rub-a-dub-dub, rub-a-dub-dub-dub-dub,” sounded through the keen Alpine air; and cheerily from behind the drum looked forth the fresh, rosy face of a boy but ten years old, so bright

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and pretty and buoyant among the grim, scarred visages of the army of veterans. When the cutting wind whirled a shower of snow in his face, he dashed it away with a jolly laugh, and awoke the echoes with a lively rattle of his drum, till it seemed as if the huge, beetling rocks, the icicles, and the pinnacles of snow around were all singing in the reverberating chorus.

“Bravo, petit tambour /” (little drummer), ex¬ claimed “ Fighting Macdonald,” one of the bravest of Napoleon’s marshals.

“ Rub-a-dub-dub, rub-a-dub-dub, rub-a-dub-dub-dub-dub,” rattled the drummer, with redoubled zeal and a bright, optimistic air that spread a contagion of hope and ambition through the division.

“ Long live our General! ” shouted a hoarse voice, and from mouth to mouth a cheer rolled like dis¬ tant thunder along the towering mountains.

But hark! What undertone is that, so tremulous yet so rustling, so faint yet so oppressive, so mys¬ terious in its muffled whisper like the sound of viewless wings, yet so ominous in its husky menace of coming doom ? It is not well to shout among the Alps, lest the drifted snow swoop downward on its storm-wings to punish the intruder.

Scarcely had the echo died away, when the sec¬ ond noise, so different in kind from the echo, — a strange, uncanny murmur, — seemed to moan and wail far up the mountain side. Nearer and nearer it swelled, and louder and harsher it grew, until all the air shuddered in the deep, hoarse roar.

ENTHUSIASM.

“ On your faces, lads! down, for your lives! ” shouted Macdonald; “it’s an avalanche!”

Down thundered the ruin, sweeping the narrow path like a cataract, and bearing along heaps of bowlders and gravel, and uprooted bushes and trees, and great blocks of pale blue ice. Darkness as of midnight followed for a moment, — the darkness of the grave to many a soldier, caught in the whirl¬ wind rush.

“Where’s our Pierre? Where’s our little drum¬ mer?” were the first words that broke the awful stillness when the avalanche had come to rest in the valleys, and its echoes had died among the hills.

W here indeed ?

A cry of grief burst from many a veteran who had looked unmoved into the muzzles of a line of leveled muskets.

“ Rub-a-dub-dub, rub-a-dub-dub, rub-a-dub-dub-dub-dub, dub-dub,” came the faint roll of a drum beating the charge from far below.

“ What courage! What enthusiasm! ” exclaimed an old grenadier, with tears in his eyes. “We must save him, lads, or he’ll freeze to death down there! He must be saved!”

“ He shall be saved! ” broke in the deep voice of Macdonald, as he threw off his cloak on the very brink of the precipice.

“No, no, General!” cried the grenadiers; “you mustn’t run such a risk as that. Let one of us go instead; your life is worth more than all of ours put together,”

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“My soldiers are my children,” said Macdonald, quietly, “and no father grudges his own life to save his son.”

Down, down by a rope they lowered their Gen¬ eral until he disappeared in the cold, black depth below.

“Pierre!” shouted he as loud as he could; “ where are you, my boy ? ”

“ Here, General,” came a weak voice from a huge mound of snow whose softness alone had saved the little fellow.

“All right now, brave boy,” said Macdonald, as he pulled the half-buried drummer out. “ Put your arms round my neck and hold tight; we’ll have you out of this in a minute.”

But the stiffened fingers of the boy had lost their strength; and, even when the General clasped the tiny arms about his neck, their hold gave way at once.

The numbing cold of that dismal place would soon make him as powerless as the boy. What could be done?

Tearing off his sash and knotting one end to the rope, he bound Pierre and himself together with the other, signaled upward, and soon they were on the cliff above. Forgetting all risk of an ava¬ lanche, the soldiers gave cheer after cheer, and the echoes joined until it seemed as if the hills shared in the rejoicing.

“We’ve been under fire and snow together,” said the General, tenderly chafing the cold hands of the boy, “ and nothing shall part us as long as we live.”

ENTHUSIASM.

In an hour Pierre felt as well as ever; and, when the order was given to advance, his “ rub-a-dub-dub, rub-a-dub-dub, rub-a-dub-dub-dub-dub,” rolled from the drum with redoubled determination and zeal. All through that fearful winter “ Passage of the Splugen,” — more terrible in many ways than Na¬ poleon’s feat of crossing the Alps in summer, — the little drummer’s enthusiasm proved an inspiration and encouragement to officers and men alike.

What may not even a boy do when his whole heart is in his work?

Rufus Choate was so moved by the sight of his audience that it was necessary for him to remain in the anteroom until it was time for him to speak, to reserve his strength and magnetism.

After Spenser had finished his poem, “The Fairy Queen,” he carried it to the Earl of Southampton, the great patron of the poets of that day. When the manu¬ script was sent to the Earl, he read a few pages and ordered his servant to give the writer twenty pounds. Reading on, he cried in rapture, “Carry that man another twenty pounds.” Turning a few more pages, he exclaimed, “ Give him twenty pounds more.” But at length he lost all patience and said, “Go, turn that fellow out of the house, for if I read further I shall be ruined.”

“ I would give my skin for the architect’s design of that building!” exclaimed Christopher Wren, as he gazed at the Louvre in Paris, whither he had gone to get ideas for the restoration of St. Paul’s Cathe¬ dral in London. His enthusiasm seemed to possess

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him. When he died, the following epitaph was placed on his tombstone:

“ Underneath is laid the builder of this church and city, Christopher Wren, who lived more than ninety years, not for himself, but for the public good. Reader, if you seek his monument, look around ! ”

He who does look around will soon find that the finest architecture in England is the work of Christo¬ pher Wren.

Nearly all the great improvements, discoveries, in¬ ventions, and achievements which have elevated and blessed humanity have been the triumphs of enthu¬ siasm.

What is enthusiasm but a passionate belief in what seems to be a high and holy aim, — an unselfish de¬ votion to some noble cause, — a consecration of heart and mind and soul to the attainment of a great ob¬ ject ? What is it but an earnest effort to attain the heights of spiritual and intellectual endeavor? What is it but the life, the force, the power, which makes individuals or nations capable of enduring much and waiting long, in the conviction that ultimately the thing they have at heart will be accomplished ? It is easy to ridicule this boundless hope, this all-em¬ bracing faith, to sneer at visionaries, and laugh at their dreams. But in the eyes of the Pharisees was not our Lord an enthusiast , and his kingdom a delu¬ sion or a deception ? And what urns St. Paul but an enthusiast in the opinion of King Agrippa, as he turned from him with an easy smile, protesting that he was “ almost persuaded ” to be a Christian ? And

ENTHUSIASM.

the saints and martyrs of the first two centuries, — those men who went on their way unmoved by the fatal cry of “ Christiani ad leones ,” — by threats of torture in the Roman arena, — what were they but enthusiasts ? Are not all men enthusiasts who , at the risk of their heart's blood and the sacrifice of much that is very dear , incessantly labor to purify and better the world f

Palissy, toiling in the face of poverty and failure to discover the secret of the white enamel, was so intoxicated with enthusiasm that men thought him a fool. God’s fool lie was, with a great hope in his heart for which he gladly suffered the loss of all things. When he saw in a show-window an imported enam¬ eled cup which no one in his country knew how to du¬ plicate, the ware fascinated him, and he could not rest until he had discovered the secret of its manufacture.

“ Cranks, my son ? ” asks Robert J. Burdette. “ The world is full of them. What would we do were it not for the cranks? How slowly the tired old world would move, did not the cranks keep it rushing along! Columbus was a crank on the subject of discovery and circumnavigation, and at last he met the fate of most cranks, — was thrown into prison, and died in poverty and disgrace. Greatly venerated now ? Oh, yes, Telemachus, we usually esteem a crank most profoundly after we starve him to death.

“ Harvey was a crank on the subject of the circu¬ lation of the blood ; Galileo was an astronomical crank; Fulton was a crank on the subject of steam navigation; Morse was a telegraph crank; all the

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abolitionists were cranks; John Bunyan was a crank; any man who doesn’t think as you do, my son, is a crank.

“ And by and by the crank you despise will have his name in every man’s mouth, and a half-completed monument to his memory crumbling down in a dozen cities, while nobody outside of your native village will know that you ever lived. Deal gently with the crank, my boy. Of course, some cranks are crankier than others, but do you be very slow to sneer at a man because he knows only one thing and you can’t understand him. A crank, Telemachus, is a thing that turns something, it makes the wheels go round, it insures progress. True, it turns the same wheel all the time, and it can’t do anything else, but that’s what keeps the ship going ahead.

“ The thing that goes in for variety, versatility, that changes its position a hundred times a day, that is no crank; that is the weather-vane, my son. What? You nevertheless thank Heaven you are not a crank? Don’t do that, my son. Maybe you couldn’t be a crank if you would. Heaven is not very particular when it wants a weather-vane; al¬ most any man will do for that. But when it wants a crank, my boy, it looks about very carefully for the best man in the community. Before you thank Heaven that you are not a crank, examine yourself carefully, and see what is the great deficiency that debars you from such an election.”

It is this solid faith in one's mission , — the rooted belief that it is the one thing to which he has been

ENTHUSIASM.

called, — this enthusiasm, attracting an Agassiz to the Alps or the Amazon, impelling a Pliny to ex¬ plore the volcano in which he is to lose his life, and nerving a Yernet, when tossing in a fierce tempest, to sketch the waste of waters, and even the wave that is leaping up to devour him, — that marks the heroic spirit.

Watt’s whole heart was buried in his engine. “ I can think of nothing else,” he says, “ but I cannot let my family starve.”

Raphael’s enthusiasm inspired every artist in Italy.

Turner could not bear to sell a favorite painting. It was a portion of his being; to part with it was the rendering up, the blotting out of that space of his life spent in its creation. He was always dejected and melancholy after such a transaction. “ I lost one of my children this week,” he would sadly ex¬ claim, and that with tears in his eyes.

From the baking of a loaf of bread for the family to the law-making of a statesman for a nation, there must enter in this vivifying element that electrifies and makes potent every effort. Just as soon as this dies away, no matter what success has been attained in the past, a season of dry rot sets in, and the end is death to further accomplishment.

“ I should think myself a criminal,” says Charles Dudley Warner, “ if I said anything to chill the en¬ thusiasm of the young scholar, or to dash with any skepticism his longing and his hope. He has chosen the highest. His beautiful faith and his aspiration are the light of life. Without his fresh enthusiasm,

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and his gallant devotion to learning, to art, to cul¬ ture, the world would be dreary enough.

“ Through him comes the ever-springing inspira¬ tion in affairs. Baffled at every turn, and driven defeated from a hundred fields, he carries victory in himself. He belongs to a great and immortal army. Let him not be discouraged at his apparently small influence, even though every sally of every young life may seem like a forlorn hope. Ho man can see the whole of the battle. It must needs be that regiment after regiment, trained, accomplished, gay and high with hope, shall be sent into the field, marching on, into the smoke, into the fire, and be swept away. The battle swallows them, one after the other, and the foe is yet unyielding, and the ever-remorseless trumpet calls for more and more. But not in vain; for some day, and every day, along the line, there is a cry, ‘ They fly, they fly 5 ; and the whole army advances, and the flag is planted on an ancient fortress, where it never waved before. And even if you never see this, better than inglorious camp-following is it to go in with the wasted regi¬ ment, to carry the colors up the slope of the enemy’s works, though the next moment you fall and find a grave at the foot of the glacis.”

The foreman of a bootblack shop in Madison Square, New York, is a continual source of surprise to the customers, but his conduct justifies his em¬ ployer’s confidence. He is the hardest worker among the employees, and frequently takes the brushes from one of his subordinates when there are not enough

ENTHUSIASM.

customers to keep all busy. He never allows a cus¬ tomer to go away unless he is satisfied that his boots have been polished in the best manner possible. lie is ever full of enthusiasm, and works at the end of a busy day with as much energy as at the beginning. His humor never lags, and his muscles never tire.

“It is a lesson in enthusiasm; watch that fellow,” said a spectator; “ he is the only man I ever saw who always seems to love to work.”

There is a wide range of skill in the blacking of boots, from that which covers them with a coarse, fibrous, lustreless paste to that which changes them to polished ebony. I have seen an artistic zeal and pride in his work shown by a shabby, grimy little street Arab which would have redeemed many an ambitious canvas from ignoble mediocrity.

The clerks in a large mercantile house ridiculed a young companion who began as an office boy, for doing so manj 7 things which did not belong to him to do. They laughed at his enthusiasm and interest in the business, saying that there was no sense in it, and that he would never get a cent for it. Hot long afterwards, he was selected from all the employees and taken into the firm as a partner, and became in time manager of one of the largest concerns in the country.

The most irresistible charm of youth is its bubbling enthusiasm. Youth sees no darkness ahead, — no defile that has no outlet, — it forgets that there is such a thing as failure in the world, and believes that mankind has been waiting all these centuries for him

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to come and be the liberator of truth and energy and beauty.

Carnot was chairman of the Committee of Public Safety during the French Revolution, and directed the operations of fourteen armies, which turned back the invaders who rushed down from the Alps and Pyre¬ nees. As a proof and explanation of his great military genius, it is told of his boyhood that he was taken to the theatre to witness the representation of a battle scene. At one stage of the play he saw that the attacking party was exposed to the sweep of a battery, and he startled the audience by crying out to the commanding officer to change his position or his men would be shot.

Enthusiastic youth faces the sun, its shadows all behind it. The heart rules youth ; the head, man¬ hood. Napoleon had conquered Italy at twenty-five. Henry Kirke White died at twenty-one, but what a record for a youth he left! Byron and Raphael died at thirty-seven, an age which has been fatal to many a genius, and Poe lived but a few months longer. Romulus founded Rome at twenty. Glad¬ stone was in Parliament in early manhood.

It is the enthusiasm of youth which cuts the Gordian knot age cannot untie.

John Jacob Astor would hang a fine fur in his counting-room as others hang pictures; he would stroke it with enthusiasm, extol its beauty, and add that it was worth five hundred dollars in Canton.

The simple, innocent Maid of Orleans with her sacred sword and consecrated banner, and her belief

ENTHUSIASM.

in her great mission, sent a thrill of enthusiasm through the whole French army, which neither King nor previous leader had been able to produce. Her zeal carried everything before it, and made hers a name of dread to the English army. Charles YII., who had not dared to appear on the scene of action until inspired by this simple girl, boldly set out for Rheims, where, Joan told him, he would be crowned ; and, although the intervening country was in the hands of the English, every city-gate opened to them as they advanced. The coronation occurred as she had said it would.

It was enthusiasm that sent Phil. Sheridan dashing down the Shenandoah valley, to utterly rout Early and his rebel host. The same power enables the Cubans to hold out against the policy of a tyrannical government and will eventually bring them to a welldeserved freedom.

Courage recognizes the danger and meets it with a serene front. Confidence in one’s powers, the thought of the prize to be won, the love of glory and reputa¬ tion, a knowledge of the means at our disposal, and a faith in fortune are the considerations which strengthen courage, and if they are marshaled in battle array and led by enthusiasm, the fears which hovered over our path will be routed like flocks of evil-boding birds.

It is this most potent factor that is present in all accomplishment which is of value. Does a speaker thrill you with the magic of an eloquence that seems to carry you out of your ordinary self, and sometimes

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to lead your very convictions captive? Be assured that it is because the speech is vitalized with the enthusiasm of an earnest belief which knows no doubt or hesitation. It enters into every invention, every masterpiece of painting or sculpture, every great poem, essay, or novel that holds the world breathless with admiration.

It is a spiritual power. It has its birth among the higher potencies. You never find true enthusiasm in those people who are always groveling in the dirt at the feet of the senses. In its very nature it is uplifting.

Earnest, practical, and patriotic, Henry Clay needed little assistance from books to teach him what to say. When speaking in the Senate he forgot him¬ self as completely as if he were a father pleading for his children. On one occasion in appealing to the President of the Senate, he became so oblivious of everybody and everything but his subject, that he left his place on the floor of the Senate Chamber, and by gradual steps came down to the chair of the Vice-President, where he stood appealing to him as if none but the latter and himself were present, leav¬ ing behind him all his colleagues, who were watching him and listening to him in silent but wondering admiration.

It was enthusiasm that led Patrick Henry to utter those patriotic words so familiar to every boy and girl, and the same element made Webster defend right rather than a selfish desire.

Professor Iioentgen was enthusiastic in his research

HENRY CLAY.

“The only conclusive evidence of a man’s sincerity is that he gives himself or a principle. Words, money, all things else are comparatively easy to give away; but when a man makes a gift of his daily life and practise, it is plain that the truth, whatever it may be, has taken possession of him.”

ENTHUSIASM.

for knowledge which has made his name a house¬ hold word throughout every civilized land. Arouse yourself, wake up, don’t dream ; this is a bad habit during the night, but a ruinous one after sunrise. Don’t be a leaner, but an enthusiastic lifter.

Do not be afraid of enthusiasm. Let people call you an enthusiast with an inflection of pity or half contempt in the voice. If a thing seems to you worth working for at all, if it appears to you of moment enough to challenge any effort, then put into what you do all the enthusiasm of which you are capable, regardless of criticism. He laughs best who laughs last. It is never the half-hearted, the coldly critical, the doubting and fearing, that accom¬ plish the most.

Enthusiasm will steady the heart and strengthen the will; it will give force to the thought, and nerve the hand until what was only a possibility becomes a reality.

“ What do you think of Mr. Whitefield? ” asked a man who had just been listening to the great preacher. “Think of him ?” asked a ship-builder; “I tell you, sir, every Sunday that I go to my parish church I can build a ship from stem to stern under the ser¬ mon ; but were I to save my soul, under Mr. Whitefield I could not lay a single plank.”

A hot iron, even though blunt, will penetrate further into a board than a cold tool, though it be sharp.

“The best method is obtained by earnestness,” said Salvini. “ If you can impress people with the

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conviction that you feel what you say, they will par¬ don many shortcomings. And above all, study, study, study ! All the genius in the world will not help you along with any art unless you become a hard student. It has taken me years to master a single part.”

A certain bishop once said to Garrick, the famous actor, “ How is it, Mr. Garrick, that you can, by your acting, persuade people that a made-up story is true, while I have difficulty in making them believe the real truth ? ” “ Is it not, my lord,” said Garrick,

“that you preach the truth as if you did not believe it, while I act that which is not true as if I did be¬ lieve it ? ”

The “Moses” of Michael Angelo is one of the colossal figures designed by him for the mausoleum of Julius II., and is now in the church of San Pietro in Yincoli, Rome. It stood in the sculptor’s work¬ shop for over forty years, and it is related that the master so deeply impressed himself with the lifelike appearance of the figure that he rushed up to it and, striking it vehemently with his hammer, — making a crack in one knee, — exclaimed, “ Speak to me! ” thus, in one moment, marring the crowning work of a lifetime.

Mozart declared on his death-bed that he began “ to see what may be done in music.”

In the course of the investigation which Professor Tyndall made, seeking to separate light from heat, he made one of the most daring experiments that ever a scientific man ventured to attempt. Knowing that a layer of iodine placed before the eye intercepts