The secret of success

Front matter

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Preface

IT must be admitted at the outset, that in the following pages I have no exclusive, peculiar, or wonderful " Secret " to unfold. If there be a royal road to knowledge, I know of none to success, and I make no pretensions to have discovered a shorter or easier path than before existed. The reader who takes up this book in the hope of learning some new way of Money-making, some fresh exposition of the gospel of Gettingon, may find himself disappointed. I do indeed profess to set forth the Secret of Success ; but it is a secret which has always been known to the successful. And then, again, the "Success " to which I seek to direct the reader's attention is no novel form of worldly prosperity, no extraordinary phase of fortune, but rather the acquisition of "a sound mind in a sound body," the complete culture of the physical, moral and intellectual faculties of the individual. It is true that I have not neglected the ordinary meaning which the world gives to "success," nor do I wish to contend that competent means for the wholesome enjoyment of life is not a very reasonable and proper object for a man's energies. But I have endeavored to realize for the word a wider and higher significance, and to

IV PREFACE.

deal with it as representing the development of mind, soul and body — the living, so far as is possible to man, a " perfect life." This is the only " success " which secures happiness. The materialistic "success," — the "success" of the great speculator, the millionaire — is too frequently a deplorable failure. " I confess," says Mr. Hillard, " that increasing years bring with them an increasing respect for men who do not succeed in life, as these words are commonly used." Men who do not succeed in life, as the Croesuses of society succeed, are the men who work for the good of their fellows, the men who endow the world with the masterpieces of art and literature, the men who in the happiness of others find their own happiness. It is well that the reader, whatever pursuit or calling he may adopt, should do his best in it ; that is a matter of duty and honor which cannot be conscientiously neglected.

It is told of a certain merchant-prince of Boston, that, on one occasion, he reprimanded for slovenly work a mechanic who had known him when in a very humble position. " I tell you what, Billy Gray," exclaimed the man, "I shan't stand such words from you. Why, I can remember when you were nothing but a drummer in a regiment!" "And so I was," retorted the merchant ; "so I was a drummer ; but didn't I drum well, eh? — didn't I drum well?" Now, to my thinking, this " drumming well " is the true, the genuine success. I hold that " success in life " is doing one's duty as well as it can be done in whatever may be one's position ; not for the sake of the reward that may accompany it, and yet not despising or refusing that reward when it comes. In this kind of success there is a pure and permanent pleasure, wholly unknown to

PREFACE. V

those for whom Success is synonymous with Mammon. The steadfast striving for this loftier success can never be without a happy issue. As Dr. Donne says :-—

" We are but farmers of ourselves ; yet may, If we can stock ourselves and thrive, uplay Much, much good treasure for the great rent-day."

If virtue be its own best recompense, so is the love of knowledge. The habit of diligent application, the habit of temperate living, the habit of high thinking, ever carries in itself a blessing. The cultivation of such habits is the Secret of Success ; and it is a secret which lies within the reach of all of us, if we will but use our opportunities and our means aright. Count Hamilton said of Richelieu, that " this great man commanded little armies, and little armies did great things." Let not the reader be discouraged if his means be small ; he may accomplish great things with them if he once lay firm hold upon the Secret of Success.

It may be objected to the present volume that it follows in the track of worthy predecessors, such as the evergreen " Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties," by Mr. Craik, and the admirable " Self-Help, " by Mr. Smiles. To some extent, no doubt, it traverses the same ground. On the other hand, it devotes a considerable space to illustrations from the departments of ''business" and "commerce" — departments which have hitherto, at least for such purposes, been comparatively overlooked ; and it pursues more than one course of inquiry which previous writers have scarcely glanced at. Another and obvious objection is, that it says nothing absolutely new ; that it repeats truths which have become the commonplaces of

VI PREFACE.

moralists and the stock-in-trade of our social teachers. But truths of so much importance cannot be too frequently enforced. Their repetition may impress minds which have not been impressed before, and they may be accompanied with fresh examples or presented in newer forms, so as to arrest the attention of the careless, or suggest to the thoughtful new lines of reflection. I have done what I could in this direction. While availing myself of the best of the illustrations collected by my predecessors, I have gathered a very large number from additional sources ; and accumulated in these pages the results of the reading and observation of many years. So that, to the question which concerns every young man so closely, " How am I to get on in the world ? " I hope I have furnished a tolerably exhaustive and not altogether unsatisfactory reply.

The keynote of that reply may be found in the words of a great writer : — " 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 things that God meant him to do, and will be his best. No agonies nor heartrendings will make him to do any better ! If he be a great man, they will be great things ; if he be a small man, small things ; but always, if thus peacefully done, good and right ; always, if restlessly and ambitiously done, false, hollow and despicable." And again : — ''While in all things that we see or do, we are to desire perfection, and strive for it. We are nevertheless not to set the meaner thing in its narrow accomplishment above the nobler thing in its mighty progress ; not to esteem smooth minuteness above shattered majesty ; not to prefer mean victory to honorable

PREFACE. VII

defeat ; not to lower the level of our aim, that we may the more surely enjoy the complacency of success."

Though I have not thought it my duty or my province to encroach upon the work of the teachers of religion. I have not forgotten that the happiness of the Other Life depends upon the way in which Success in this life is achieved or understood. I have not forgotten that the spiritual side of our complex humanity needs watchful and assidious cultivation as much as its intellectual or moral. Sir George Mackenzie was of opinion that irreligious men could never make good statesmen ; " for none are such," he says " save they who from a principle of conviction or persuasion (say rather a religious sense of duty) manage public affairs to the advantage of those who employ them." I fancy the rule may be universally applied ; and that men indifferent to religious considerations cannot make good artists, good poets, good members of society. Finally, I offer this book to my young readers in the sincere desire that it may be of practical benefit to them ; that it may help to encourage, to stimulate, to warn : that it may quicken them to a sense of life's value as a period of preparation ; that it may open up to them the path to a true, a real, and a lasting Success. They who still stand at the point of departure may surely profit by the counsel of the feeblest traveller who has performed a considerable portion of the journey, and been taught by experience its trials, difficulties and dangers.

Contents

The Three P's — Punctuality, Prudence, Perseverance 75

Business Men and Business Notes . . . .191

KEY-NOTES

Chapter I. Time And Its Uses

" He lives long that lives well ; and time mis-spent is not lived, but lost." — Thomas Fuller.

" Not on flowery beds, nor under shade Of canopy reposing, heaven is won."

— Dante.

" For of all sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddest are these, ' It might have been ! ' "

—y. G. Whittier.

" How dull it is to pause, to make an end. To rust unburnished, not to shine in use ! As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains : but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things."

— Tennyson,

" Thrift of time will repay you in after-life with a usury of profit beyond your most sanguine dreams ; while the waste of it will make you dwindle, alike in intellectual and moral stature, beyond your darkest reckonings," — Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone.

CHAPTER I.

THE commodity of which every man has the least, and, generally speaking, wastes the most, is Time. When we consider how small is the portion allotted to each of us, we cannot but wonder at the carelessness with which men expend it. Of all the trite themes touched by moralists and poets, the tritest is the shortness of life. Life, we are told, is a bubble, a shifting dream, a thing of nought, evanescent as a morning mist, uncertain as a young maid's promise, brittle as a reed ; and yet men proceed to deal with it as if it were inexhaustible as the widow's cruse of oil, as if it were as sure and stable as the foundations of the everlasting hills. There is something very curious and very pitiable in this. When we see the waste of time which goes on around us, we cannot but marvel whether the teaching of sages and divines, and the lessons of centuries of experience, have been of any avail ; whether men have even yet learned to realize how precious a thing it is, how solemn a responsibility it brings with it, how great a trust it puts into their hands. Does this waste arise from want of thought, or from want of a sense of duty ? The two causes are closely connected, and may very well exert a

° TIME AND ITS USES.

combined influence. It is difficult to believe that the great majority of time wasters are inspired by feelings of recklessness and desperation ; are in a feverish hurry to consume as rapidly and as waywardly as possible the precious treasure committed to their charge. Their folly is doubtless due to an unwillingness or an inability to reflect, and to the absence of high purposes and lofty motives. In most cases they have not been taught how to value time or how to use it. What they should do with that which is their real wealth, our children never learn. We provide them with instruction in the "various branches of a polite education ; " we open up to them the regions of art and science ; we guide them sedulously in the flowery paths of literature ; but we do not teach them how to employ and economize their time. We don't impress upon them the value of the minutes : " Take care of the minutes, and the days will take care of themselves." It is astonishing how much " raw material " is allowed to run to waste in every school. Precious quarters of an hour are thrown aside which might be turned to excellent account ; and thus the young grow accustomed to a thoughtless and unprofitable expenditure. They find, too frequently, the same waste at home. Time is squandered before and after meals, in the morning, in the evening, up-stairs and down-stairs, in the bedroom, and the dining-room, and the drawing-room ; and at the end of each day the burden is, " This should have been done, and has been left undone ; that should have been remembered and has been forgotten ; but never mind, we'll make up for lost time to-morrow ! " Yes, to-morrow ! We venture to say that no other word in our language has to answer for so much sin and folly, for so many broken vows, so many blighted hopes, so many neglected duties, so many wrecked lives. For the worst of it is, " to-morrow " never comes. It is always " to-day " and " yesterday." The yesterday we can never recall ; can never take up and absorb into to-day. When once it is dead, let it lie. There is nothing more to be done but to shed a tear on its grave, and turn to the to-day. Some people, be it said, waste a good deal of time in grieving over the time they waste. In other words, they spend the day in fretting over the useless yesterday. It is said of the Emperor Titus that when he had done no good deed in the course of a day he would exclaim, " Perdidi diem ! " The lament was natural ; but be it remembered he did not wait until the morrow to make it, and he did not fail to turn the " to-day " to better account by professing his regret over the yesterday that had gone out so blankly. We desire to advocate a constant recollection of the inestimable value of " minutes," but not a vain yearning after those that can never be recovered.

Men become great and good just as they understand how to make use of their time.* The most brilliant genius avails its possessor nothing if he do not seize his opportunities ; and opportunities never occur to the spendthrift. The hours he wastes may be the very hours that would have insured his success. Therefore it is that, at the outset of the present volume, we seek to enforce on its readers the necessity of economising time, of turning every minute to the best advantage. That seems to us the very first lesson to be learned by

* In his last hours the American merchant, Gideon Lee, specially enjoined upon his sons, speaking to them with all the authority of experience, to "fill up the measure of time." " Be always employed profitably," he said, "in doing good, in building up ; aim to promote the good of yourselves and of society. No one can do much good without doing some harm, but you will do less harm by striving to do good. Be industrious, and be honest."

a young man who honestly desires to do his duty towards his God and his neighbor. Let him not trouble himself about his talents or his means ; he can at least say, with the celebrated Italian, that " Time is his estate," and his first care must be to understand its proper cultivation. We think it is Horace Mann who suggests that most young men (and, we fear, too many of riper years) might daily put forth some such melancholy notice as the following : " Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each one worth sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever." Gone forever ! in these words lies the sting of the moralist. Bitter jest ! What more deplorable sight can there be than that too common one of the unfortunate who has lost (in other words, wasted) a " golden hour" at the beginning of the day, and for the rest of the twenty-four is fruitlessly endeavoring to overtake it ? * Why, it is gone irrevocably ; like the empire of the Pharaohs, like the wisdom of the Chaldeans, like the old man's youth, like last year's summer sunshine. It would be easier to rebuild the temple-palaces of Karnak than to recover it. And hence it happens that people are incessantly complaining of want of time. It is astonishing how much good not done is idly attributed to this cause. We know persons who, according to their own account, would surpass John Howard in philanthrophy if they had but the time ; would visit the sick, and relieve the poor, and comfort the widow and the fatherless in their affliction, if they had but the time. There are others who would become modern Magliabecchis by virtue of their erudition ; would carve out for

* As Lord Chesterfield said of the Duke of Newcastle. " His Grace loses an hour in the morning, and is looking for it all the rest of the day."

METHOD MAKES TIME. 9

themselves a way to fame or fortune, would benefit the world by their discoveries in science or art, if they had but the time. Listen to their complaints, and you would believe that every moment is charged with some imperative duty or necessary occupation ; that it is want of time, and not its misuse, that throws them so hopelessly out of the world's race.

The truth is, that Method makes Time. The old adage runs, " A place for everything, and everything in its place." It would be wiser to say, " A time for everything, and everything in its time." If we mix and muddle our hours as some men mix and muddle their papers, no good result can be anticipated. A careful apportionment of the hours is the first step towards a successful employment of them. We do not ask the reader to enthral himself in an intolerable bondage. Time must be his servant, and not he the slave of time. But he should be guided by certain fixed rules, and allow of no causeless deviation from them. One man will be found to accomplish in a day as much as another man accomplishes in a week. Inquiry will show that the difference is due not so much to greater power of intellect, or greater quickness of apprehension, as to better application of time. The successful man never talks of " leisure," because he never has any. He has for every hour its proper task. It is only the idler who has leisure ; leisure for small talk, for idle pleasures, for trivial amusements, for hopes and fears and regrets. He has so much leisure that he never has any time for work ! There is such an element of expansion in leisure that, unless carefully repressed and limited, it will before long absorb a man's whole life. Like the monster that Frankenstein created, it soon defies the control of its master. Leisure ! How in this busy human life of

IO TIME AND ITS USES.

ours can any serious mind find space for it ? Unhappy is he who has " an hour or two" to spare. We may be sure that he has never learned the value of time, nor the necessity of economising it.

The world owes much to the men who have made the best of every minute. Such men have been its leaders of thought, its great discoverers, its poets, its essayists, its doers of good. They have known how to utilize those odd half-hours and spare quarters which ordinary persons treat with so little consideration. They have never suffered a minute to pass without levying toil upon it. As Cuvier rolled in his carriage from place to place, he read and thought ; and the sum of that reading and thinking swelled his researches in " Comparative Anatomy." While walking to and from the dusty office, where he occupied a stool of a lawyer's clerk, Henry Kirke White acquired a knowledge of Greek. Dr. Mason Good's excellent translation of the great metaphysical poem of Lucretius was composed during his daily journeys to his numerous patients. A German physician in the same way contrived to commit to memory the " Iliad " of Homer. Sir Matthew Hale, while travelling as judge on circuit, prepared his thoughtful and wellweighed " Contemplations." Dr. Darwin's curious scientific poems were jotted down on little bits of paper as his carriage conveyed him from house to house. These men acted on the poet's admonition : —

" Think nought a trifle, though it small appear; Small sands the mountain, moments make the year, And trifles, life."

When those trifles are minutes, wise men pick them up. Hugh Miller, while laboring as a stone-mason, made such good use of his, that he learned to write a style of remarkable fluency and

vigor. The Chancellor d'Aguesseau translated the Greek Testament in the quarters of an hour which his wife wasted before dinner. Elihu Burritt, the "learned blacksmith," improved to such good purpose the odds and ends of time that fell to his disposal, as to gain a mastery of eighteen languages and twenty-two dialects. Equally expert in the utilization of unconsidered moments was the late Charles Kingsley, whose multifarious knowledge was acquired by his tact in seizing on every opportunity. Robertson of Brighton was also a stern economist of time, and vigilantly looked after those "spare minutes " which most of us throw away without a pang of remorse. Franklin's hours of study were stolen from the time that should have been given to meals and sleep ; and though we do not recommend the practice, we think better of it than of the habit of stealing the too long time for meal and sleep from the hours that should be devoted to work. " We are now old," said Pierre Nicole to Arnaul • " is it not time to rest ? " *' Rest ! " was the grave reply ; " have we not all eternity to rest in ? " This has been the principle of conduct of all great thinkers and doers. They have methodised and economised their time, so as to get out of it the most thay could ; knowing that rest was not for time but for eternity. They have suffered nothing to pass by unheeded. They have anticipated or remembered the language of Goethe '. — " Do not wait for extraordinary opportunities, but make use of common situations. A long-continued walk is better than a short flight." " Never be unemployed," says John Wesley ; "never be triflingly employed, never while away time," an admirable maxim, if not too sternly enforced ; if not converted into an oppressive law. We add this caution, because wholesome recreation may sometimes be the best way of employing

"an odd quarter of an hour." We are recommending the economy of time, but we are not unwilling that that economyshould include a rational amount of mental refreshment. We are the enemies of leisure, but we do not want every hour to be spent in exactly the same way, and at exactly the same expenditure of brain-power. A man should be always learning : but not unfrequently he may learn most when least thinking of it. "Every kind of knowledge," it has been justly said, "comes into play some time or other; not only that which is systematic and methodised, but that which is fragmentary, even the odds and ends, the merest rag or tag of information. Single facts, anecdotes, expressions, recur to the mind, and, by the power of association, just in the right place. Many of these are laid in during what we think our idlest days. All that fund of matter which is used allusively in similitudes or illustrations is collected in diversions from the path of hard study. He will do best in this line whose range has been the widest and freest. A man may study so much by rule as to lose all this, just as one may ride so much in the highway as to know nothing that is off the road."

The occupations of our childhood are frequently found to color and influence our later life. As Cowley puts it, they are like letters engraved on the bark of a young tree, which grow and enlarge as the tree does. Watt sits by the fireside, with eyes intent upon the cover of the tea-kettle uplifted by the expansive force of steam, and receives an impulse and an impression which guide him in his after pursuits, until he gives to the world his great gift of the steam-engine. The boy Smeaton climbs to the roof-ridge of his father's barn to erect upon it the tiny wind-mill he has modelled, foreshadowing, as

OCCUPATIONS OF CHILDHOOD. 1 3

it were, the boldness of invention which produced the Eddystone lighthouse. Conington, at the age of six, sleeps with his Bible under his pillow, that he may begin to read it as soon as he wakes. Two years later he amuses himself by comparing different editions of Virgil. When he reaches thirteen he exhausts his pocket-money in buying a copy of Sotheby's Homer. The late Professor Mozley displays the " controversial spirit in the nursery," and as the advocate of free-will, disputes with his nurse, whom he considers to have been led away by a sophistical curate. At thirteen he writes to his mother : — " I have gone into Lucretius, a book full of odd opinions and deistical notions. In short, he is called the deistical poet ; but as many of his opinions have long ago been refuted, you need be in no fear of my getting them into my head, especially as many of them seem to be absurd." Tournefort leaves his college class, and wanders into the lone meadows, gathering their plants and flowers. He is laying the foundation of a great system of botany, Count Zinzendorf, the founder of the Moravians, when a boy at school, founds a little society, which he calls the " Order of the grain of mustard seed," and of which the badge is a gold ring, inscribed with the words, " None of us liveth to himself." Cowley in his mother's parlor pores over the enchanted pages of the " Faery Queen," and derives the inspiration which makes him in after years a poet. Opie, the Cornish artist, watches a companion drawing a butterfly, and thence receives the bias which leads him onward to a distinguished reputation.

In the parlor window of the old mossy vicarage where Coleridge spent his dreamy childhood lay a well-thumbed copy of that volume of Oriental fancy, the " Arabian Nights." And he has told us with what mingled desire and apprehension he was wont to look at the precious book, until the morning sunshine had touched and illuminated it, when, seizing it hastily, he would carry it off in triumph to some leafy nook in the vicarage garden, and plunge delightedly into its maze of marvels and enchantments. It is recorded of Dr. Johnson that in his boyhood, believing that his brother had hidden some apples beneath a large folio which reposed among the dust and cobwebs of an upper shelf in his father's shop, he clambered thither to effect a capture. The apples were not forthcoming, but the folio, which proved to be the works of Petrarch, attracted his attention, and its perusal awoke in him his dormant literary tastes. That the child is father of the man was shown by the early occupations of Macaulay. He was only eight years old when his mother wrote of him ; — " He gets on wonderfully in all branches of his education, and the extent of his reading, and of the knowledge he has derived from it, are truly astonishing. * * To give you some idea of the activity of his mind I will mention a few circumstances. * * He took it into his head to write a compendium of universal history about a year ago, and he really contrived to give a tolerably connected view of the leading events from the creation to the present time, filling about a quire of paper. He told me one day that he had been writing a paper, which Henry Daly (a friend of his father's) was to translate into Malabar, to persuade the people of Travancore to embrace the Christian religion. On reading it, I found it to contain a very clear idea of the leading facts and doctrines of that religion, with some strong arguments for its adoption. He was so fired with reading Scott's 'Lay' and 'Marmion,' the former of which he got

SIR WILLIAM JONES. I 5

entirely, and the latter almost entirely, by heart, merely from his delight in reading them, that he determined on writing a poem in six cantos, which he called the * Battle of Cheviot.' After he had finished about three of the cantos of about '120 lines each, which he did in a couple of days, he became tired of it. I make no doubt he would have finished his design, "but, as he was proceeding with it, the thought struck him of writing an heroic poem to be called ' Olaus the Great, or the Conquest of Mona,' in which, after the manner of Virgil, he might introduce in prophetic song, the future fortunes of the family j among others, those of the hero who aided in the fall of the tyrant of Mysore, after having long suffered from his tyranny ; and of another of his race who had exerted himself for the deliverance of the wretched Africans. He has just begun it. He has composed I know not how many hymns." Such was Macaulay in his childhood, and such he was in his manhood. No man ever economised his time more wisely, or more diligently sought every opportunity of adding to his accumulation of knowledge.