Never say "Fail" again. —Richelieu.
It is the one neck nearer that wins the race and shows the blood; the one pull more of the oar that proves the "beefiness of the fellow," as Oxford men say; it is the one march more that wins the campaign; the five minutes' more persistent courage that wins the fight. Though your force be less than another's, you equal and out-master your opponent if you continue it longer and concentrate it more. —Smiles.
"I know no such unquestionable badge and ensign of a sovereign mind as that tenacity of purpose which, through all changes of companions, or parties, or fortunes, changes never, bates no jot of heart or hope, but wearies out opposition and arrives at its port."
"Well done, Tommy Brooks!" exclaimed his teacher in pleased surprise when the dunce of the school spoke his piece without omitting a single word. The other boys had laughed when he rose, for they expected a bad failure. But when the rest of the class had tried, the teacher said Tommy had done the best of all, and gave him the prize.
"And now tell me," said she, "how you learned the poem so well."
"Please, ma'am, it was the snail on the wall that taught me how to do it," said Tommy. At this the other pupils laughed aloud, but the teacher said: "You need not laugh, boys, for we may learn much from such things as snails. How did the snail teach you, Tommy?"
"I saw it crawl up the wall little by little," replied the boy. "It did not stop nor turn back, but went on, and on; and I thought I would do the same with the poem. So I learned it little by little, and did not give up. By the time the snail reached the top of the wall, I had learned the whole poem."
"I may here impart the secret of what is called good and bad luck," said Addison. "There are men who, supposing Providence to have an implacable spite against them, bemoan in the poverty of old age the misfortunes of their lives. Luck forever runs against them, and for others. One with a good profession lost his luck in the river, where he idled away his time a-fishing. Another with a good trade perpetually burnt up his luck by his hot temper, which provoked all his employes to leave him. Another with a lucrative business lost his luck by amazing diligence at everything but his own business. Another who steadily followed his trade, as steadily followed the bottle. Another who was honest and constant to his work, erred by his perpetual misjudgment,—he lacked discretion. Hundreds lose their luck by indulging sanguine expectations, by trusting fraudulent men, and by dishonest gains. A man never has good luck who has a bad wife. I never knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings and strictly honest, who complained of his bad luck. A good character, good habits, and iron industry are impregnable to the assaults of the ill luck that fools are dreaming of. But when I see a tatterdemalion creeping out of a grocery late in the forenoon with his hands stuck into his pockets, the rim of his hat turned up, and the crown knocked in, I know he has had bad luck,—for the worst of all luck is to be a sluggard, a knave, or a tippler."
"You have a difficult subject," said Anthony Trollope at Niagara Falls, to an artist who had attempted to draw the spray of the waters. "All subjects are difficult," was the reply, "to a man who desires to do well." "But yours, I fear, is impossible," said Trollope. "You have no right to say so till I have finished my picture," protested the artist.
"Tell Louisa to stick to her teaching; she can never succeed as a writer." When her father delivered the rejected manuscript of a story sent to James T. Fields, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, with the above message, Miss Alcott said, "Tell him I will succeed as a writer, and some day I shall write for the Atlantic." Not long after she sent an article to the Atlantic and received a check for $50. With the money she said she bought "a second hand carpet for the parlor, a bonnet for her sister, shoes and stockings for herself." Her father was calling upon Longfellow some time after this, when Longfellow took the Atlantic, and said, "I want to read to you Emerson's fine poem upon Thoreau's flute." Mr. Alcott interrupted him with delight and said, "My daughter Louisa wrote that."
"Men talk as if victory were something fortunate," says Emerson. "Work is victory. Wherever work is done victory is obtained. There is no chance and no blanks. You want but one verdict; if you have your own, you are secure of the rest. But if witnesses are wanted, witnesses are near."
"Young gentlemen," said Francis Wayland, "remember that nothing can stand day's work."
Alexander the Great exclaimed to his soldiers, disaffected after a long campaign, "Go home and tell them that you left Alexander to conquer the world alone."
"We discount only our own bills, and not those of private persons," said the cashier of the Bank of England, when a large bill was offered drawn by Anselm Rothschild of Frankfort, on Nathan Rothschild of London. "Private persons!" exclaimed Nathan, when told of the cashier's remark; "I will make these gentlemen see what sort of private persons we are." Three weeks later he presented a five-pound note at the bank at the opening of the office. The teller counted out five sovereigns, looking surprised that Baron Rothschild should have troubled himself about such a trifle. The baron examined the coins one by one, weighing them in the balance, as he said "the law gave him the right to do," put them into a little canvas bag, and offered a second, then a third, fourth, fiftieth, thousandth note. When a bag was full he handed it to a clerk in waiting, and proceeded to fill another. In seven hours he had changed £21,000, and, with nine employes of his house similarly engaged, had occupied the tellers so busily in changing $1,050,000 worth of notes that no one else could receive attention. The bankers laughed, but the next morning Rothschild appeared with his nine clerks and several drays to carry away the gold, remarking, "These gentlemen refuse to pay my bills; I have sworn not to keep theirs. They can pay at their leisure, only I notify them that I have enough to employ them for two months." The smiles faded from the features of the bank officials, as they thought of a draft of $55,000,000 in gold which they did not hold. Next morning notice was given in the newspapers that the Bank of England would pay Rothschild's bills as well as its own.
"Well," said Barnum to a friend in 1841, "I am going to buy the American Museum." "Buy it!" exclaimed the astonished friend, who knew that the showman had not a dollar; "what do you intend buying it with?" "Brass," was the prompt reply, "for silver and gold have I none."
Every one interested in public entertainments in New York knew Barnum, and knew the condition of his pocket; but Francis Olmstead, who owned the Museum building, consulted numerous references all telling of "a good showman, who would do as he agreed," and accepted a proposition to give security for the purchaser. Mr. Olmstead was to appoint a money-taker at the door, and credit Barnum toward the purchase with all above expenses and an allowance of fifty dollars per month to support his wife and three children. Mrs. Barnum gladly assented to the arrangement, and offered, if need be, to cut down the household expenses to a little more than a dollar a day. Some six months later Mr. Olmstead happened to enter the ticket office at noon, and found Barnum eating for dinner a few slices of bread and some corned beef. "Is this the way you eat your dinner?" he asked.
"I have not eaten a warm dinner since I bought the Museum, except on the Sabbath; and I intend never to eat another until I get out of debt." "Ah! you are safe, and will pay for the Museum before the year is out," said Mr. Olmstead, slapping the young man approvingly on the shoulder. He was right, for in less than a year Barnum had paid every cent out of the profits of the establishment.
A noted philosopher said: "The favors of fortune are like steep rocks; only eagles and creeping things mount to the summit." Lord Campbell, who became Chief Justice and Lord Chancellor of England and amassed a large fortune, began life as a drudge in a printing office. A little observation shows us that, as a rule, the men who accomplish the most in the world are the most useful, and sensible members of society, the men who are depended upon most in emergencies, the men of backbone and stamina, the bone and sinew of their communities; the men who can always be relied upon, who are healthiest and happiest, are, as a rule, of ordinary mental calibre and medium capacity. But with persistent and untiring industry, these are they, after all, who carry the burdens and reap the prizes of life. It is the men and women who keep everlastingly at it, who do not believe themselves geniuses, but who know that if they ever accomplish anything great, they must do it by common drudgery and persistent industry and with an unwavering aim in one pursuit. Those who believe themselves geniuses are apt to scatter their efforts and thus fritter away their great energies without accomplishing anything in proportion to their high promise. Often the men who promise the most pay the least.
Mrs. Frank Leslie often refers to the time she lived in her carpetless attic while striving to pay her husband's obligations. She has fought her way successfully through nine lawsuits, and has paid the entire debt. She manages her ten publications entirely herself, signs all checks and money-orders, makes all contracts, looks over all proofs, and approves the make-up of everything before it goes to press. She has developed great business ability, which no one dreamed she possessed.
A little boy was asked how he learned to skate. "Oh, by getting up every time I fell down," he replied.
The boy Thorwaldsen, whose father died in the poorhouse, and whose education was so scanty that he had to write his letters over many times before they could be posted, by his indomitable perseverance, tenacity and grit, fascinated the world with the genius which neither his discouraging father, poverty, nor hardship could repress.
"It is all very well," said Charles J. Fox, "to tell me that a young man has distinguished himself by a brilliant first speech. He may go on, or he may be satisfied with his first triumph; but show me a young man who has not succeeded at first, and nevertheless has gone on, and I will back that young man to do better than most of those who have succeeded at the first trial."
It was the last three days of the first voyage of Columbus that told. All his years of struggle and study would have availed nothing if he had yielded to the mutiny. It was all in those three days. But what days!
"Often defeated in battle," said Macaulay of Alexander the Great, "he was always successful in war." He might have said the same of Washington, and, with appropriate changes, of all who win great triumphs of any kind.
One of the greatest preachers of modern times, Lacordaire, failed again and again. Everybody said he would never make a preacher, but he was determined to succeed, and in two years from his humiliating failures he was preaching in Notre Dame to immense congregations.
Orange Judd was a remarkable example of success through grit. He earned corn by working for farmers, carried it on his back to mill, brought back the meal to his room, cooked it himself, milked cows for his pint of milk per day, and lived on mush and milk for months together. He worked his way through Wesleyan University, and took a three years' post-graduate course at Yale.
Oh, the triumphs of this indomitable spirit of the conqueror! This it was that enabled Franklin to dine on a small loaf in the printing-office with a book in his hand. It helped Locke to live on bread and water in a Dutch garret. It enabled Gideon Lee to go barefoot in the snow, half starved and thinly clad. It sustained Lincoln and Garfield on their hard journeys from the log cabin to the White House.
The very reputation of being strong-willed, plucky, and indefatigable is of priceless value. It often cowes enemies and dispels at the start opposition to one's undertakings which would otherwise be formidable.
"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as if you could not hold on a minute longer," said Harriet Beecher Stowe, "never give up then, for that's just the place and time that the tide'll turn."
"Never despair," says Burke, "but if you do, work on in despair."
Once when Marshal Ney was going into battle, looking down at his knees which were smiting together, he said, "You may well shake; you would shake worse yet if you knew where I am going to take you."
"Go it, William!" an old boxer was overheard saying to himself in the midst of a fight; "at him again!—never say 'die'!"
A striking incident is related of the early experience of George Law, who, in his day, was one of the most conspicuous financiers and capitalists of New York City. When he was a young man he went to New York, poor and friendless. One day he was walking along the streets, hungry, not knowing where his next meal would come from, and passed a new building in course of erection. Through some accident one of the hod carriers fell from the structure and dropped dead at his feet. Young Law, in his desperation, applied for the job to take the dead man's place, and the place was given him. He went to work, and this was how one of the wealthiest and shrewdest New York business men got his start.
See young Disraeli, sprung from a hated and persecuted race; without opportunity, pushing his way up through the middle classes, up through the upper classes, until he stands self-poised upon the topmost round of political and social power. Scoffed, ridiculed, rebuffed, hissed from the House of Commons, he simply says, "The time will come when you will hear me." The time did come, and the boy with no chance swayed the sceptre of England for a quarter of a century.
If impossibilities ever exist, popularly speaking, they ought to have been found somewhere between the birth and the death of Kitto, that deaf pauper and master of Oriental learning. But Kitto did not find them there. In the presence of his decision and imperial energy they melted away. Kitto begged his father to take him out of the poorhouse, even if he had to subsist like the Hottentots. He told him that he would sell his books and pawn his handkerchief, by which he thought he could raise about twelve shillings. He said he could live upon blackberries, nuts and field turnips, and was willing to sleep on a hayrick. Here was real grit. What were impossibilities to such a resolute will? Patrick Henry voiced that decision which characterized the great men of the Revolution when he said, "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
Look at Garrison reading this advertisement in a Southern paper: "Five thousand dollars will be paid for the head of W. L. Garrison by the Governor of Georgia." Behold him again; a broadcloth mob is leading him through the streets of Boston by a rope. He is hurried to jail. See him return calmly and unflinchingly to his work, beginning at the point at which he was interrupted. Note this heading in the Liberator, the type of which he set himself in an attic on State Street, in Boston: "I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard." Was Garrison heard? Ask a race set free largely by his efforts. Even the gallows erected in front of his own door did not daunt him. He held the ear of an unwilling world with that burning word "freedom," which was destined never to cease its vibrations until it had breathed its sweet secret to the last slave.
At a time when abolitionists were dangerously unpopular, a crowd of brawny Cape Cod fishermen had made such riotous demonstrations that all the speakers announced, except Stephen Foster and Lucy Stone, had fled from an open-air platform. "You had better run, Stephen," said she; "they are coming." "But who will take care of you?" asked Foster. "This gentleman will take care of me," she replied, calmly laying her hand within the arm of a burly rioter with a club, who had just sprung upon the platform. "Wh—what did you say?" stammered the astonished rowdy, as he looked at the little woman; "yes, I'll take care of you, and no one shall touch a hair of your head." With this he forced a way for her through the crowd, and, at her earnest request, placed her upon a stump and stood guard with his club while she delivered an address so effective that the audience offered no further violence, and even took up a collection of twenty dollars to repay Mr. Foster for the damage his clothes had received when the riot was at its height.
"Luck is ever waiting for something to turn up," says Cobden; "labor, with keen eyes and strong will, will turn up something. 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 hammer lays the foundation of a competence. Luck whines; labor whistles. Luck relies on chance; labor, on character."
There is no luck, for all practical purposes, to him who is not striving, and whose senses are not all eagerly attent. What are called accidental discoveries are almost invariably made by those who are looking for something. A man incurs about as much risk of being struck by lightning as by accidental luck. There is, perhaps, an element of luck in the amount of success which crowns the efforts of different men; but even here it will usually be found that the sagacity with which the efforts are directed and the energy with which they are prosecuted measure pretty accurately the luck contained in the results achieved. Apparent exceptions will be found to relate almost wholly to single undertakings, while in the long run the rule will hold good. Two pearl-divers, equally expert, dive together and work with equal energy. One brings up a pearl, while the other returns empty-handed. But let both persevere and at the end of five, ten or twenty years it will be found that they succeeded almost in exact proportion to their skill and industry.
Lincoln, being asked by an anxious visitor what he would do after three or four years if the rebellion was not subdued, replied: "Oh, there is no alternative but to keep pegging away."
"It is in me and it shall come out," said Sheridan, when told that he would never make an orator, as he had failed in his first speech in Parliament. He became known as one of the foremost orators of his day.
It takes great courage to fight a lost cause when there is no hope even of victory. To contest every inch of ground with as much persistency and enthusiasm as if we were assured of victory; this is true courage.
The world admires the man who never flinches from unexpected difficulties, who calmly, patiently, and courageously grapples with his fate; who dies, if need be, at his post.
President Chadbourne put grit in place of his lost lung, and worked thirty-five years after his funeral had been planned.
Henry Fawcett put grit in place of eyesight, and became the greatest Postmaster-General England ever had.
Prescott also put grit in place of eyesight, and became one of America's greatest historians. Francis Parkman put grit in place of health and eyesight, and became the greatest historian of America in his line. Thousands of men have put grit in place of health, eyes, ears, hands, legs, and yet have achieved marvelous success. Indeed, most of the great things of the world have been accomplished by grit and pluck. You cannot keep a man down who has these qualities. He will make stepping-stones out of his stumbling-blocks, and lift himself to success.
Grit and pluck are not always exhibited only by poor boys who have no chance, for there are many notable examples of pluck, persistence and real grit among youth in good circumstances, who never have to fight their way to their own loaf. Mr. Mifflin, who has recently become the head of the celebrated publishing firm of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., is a notable example of persistency, push and grit. After graduating at Harvard and traveling abroad, he was determined, although not obliged to work for a living, to get a position at the Riverside Press in Cambridge. He called upon the late Mr. Houghton and asked him for a situation. Mr. Houghton told him that he had no opening, and that, even if he had, he did not believe that a graduate from Harvard who had money and who had traveled abroad would ever be willing to begin at the bottom and do the necessary drudgery, for boy's pay. Mr. Mifflin protested that he was not afraid of hard work, and that he was willing to do anything and take any sort of a position, if he could only learn the business. But Mr. Houghton would not give him any encouragement. Again and again Mr. Mifflin came to the Riverside Press, and pressed his suit, but to no purpose. Mr. Mifflin persuaded his father to intercede for him, but Mr. Houghton succeeded in convincing him that it would be very unwise for his son to attempt it. But young Mifflin was determined not to give up. Finally, Mr. Houghton, out of admiration for his persistence and pluck, made a place for him, which had been occupied by a boy, for $5 a week.
Young Mifflin took hold of the work with such earnestness, and showed so much pluck and determination, that Mr. Houghton soon called him into the office and raised his pay to $9 a week from the time he began. Although the young man lived in Boston, he was always at the Riverside Press in Cambridge early in the morning, and would frequently remain after all the others had gone. Mr. Houghton happened to go in late one night, after everybody had gone, as he supposed, and was surprised to find Mr. Mifflin there, taking one of the presses apart. Of course such a young man would be advanced. These are the boys who become the heads of firms.
It is victory after victory with the soldier, lesson after lesson with the scholar, blow after blow with the laborer, crop after crop with the farmer, picture after picture with the painter, and mile after mile with the traveler, that secures what all so much desire—Success.
Stick to the thing and carry it through. Believe you were made for the place you fill, and that no one else can fill it as well. Put forth your whole energies. Be awake, electrify yourself; go forth to the task. Only once learn to carry a thing through in all its completeness and proportion, and you will become a hero. You will think better of yourself; others will think better of you. The world in its very heart admires the stern, determined doer.
The best way to settle the quarrel between capital and labor is by allopathic doses of Peter-Cooperism. —Talmage.
In the sublimest flights of the soul, rectitude is never surmounted, love is never outgrown. —Emerson.
"One ruddy drop of manly blood the surging sea outweighs."
He believed that he was born, not for himself, but for the whole world. —Lucan.
Wherever man goes to dwell, his character goes with him. —African Proverb.
"No, say what you have to say in her presence, too," said King Cleomenes of Sparta, when his visitor Anistagoras asked him to send away his little daughter Gorgo, ten years old, knowing how much harder it is to persuade a man to do wrong when his child is at his side. So Gorgo sat at her father's feet, and listened while the stranger offered more and more money if Cleomenes would aid him to become king in a neighboring country. She did not understand the matter, but when she saw her father look troubled and hesitate, she took hold of his hand and said, "Papa, come away—come, or this strange man will make you do wrong." The king went away with the child, and saved himself and his country from dishonor. Character is power, even in a child. When grown to womanhood, Gorgo was married to the hero Leonidas. One day a messenger brought a tablet sent by a friend who was a prisoner in Persia. But the closest scrutiny failed to reveal a single word or line on the white waxen surface, and the king and all his noblemen concluded that it was sent as a jest. "Let me take it," said Queen Gorgo; and, after looking it all over, she exclaimed, "There must be some writing underneath the wax!" They scraped away the wax and found a warning to Leonidas from the Grecian prisoner, saying that Xerxes was coming with his immense host to conquer all Greece. Acting on this warning, Leonidas and the other kings assembled their armies and checked the mighty host of Xerxes, which is said to have shaken the earth as it marched.
"I fear John Knox's prayers more than an army of ten thousand men," said Mary, Queen of Scotland.
"The man behind the sermon," said William M. Evarts, "is the secret of John Hall's power." In fact if there is not a man with a character behind it nothing about it is of the slightest consequence.
Thackeray says, "Nature has written a letter of credit upon some men's faces which is honored wherever presented. You can not help trusting such men; their very presence gives confidence. There is a 'promise to pay' in their very faces which gives confidence, and you prefer it to another man's indorsement." Character is credit.
In the great monetary panic of 1857, a meeting was called of the various bank presidents of New York City. When asked what percentage of specie had been drawn during the day, some replied fifty per cent., some even as high as seventy-five per cent., but Moses Taylor of the City Bank said: "We had in the bank this morning, $400,000; this evening, $470,000." While other banks were badly "run," the confidence in the City Bank under Mr. Taylor's management was such that people had deposited in that institution what they had drawn from other banks. Character gives confidence.
"There is no such thing as a small country," said Victor Hugo. "The greatness of a people is no more affected by the number of its inhabitants than the greatness of an individual is measured by his height."
"It is the nature of party in England," said John Russell, "to ask the assistance of men of genius, but to follow the guidance of men of character."
"A handful of good life," says George Herbert, "is worth a bushel of learning."
"I have read," Emerson says, "that they who listened to Lord Chatham felt that there was something finer in the man than anything which he said." It has been complained of Carlyle that when he has told all his facts about Mirabeau they do not justify his estimate of the latter's genius. The Gracchi, Agis, Cleomenes, and others of Plutarch's heroes do not in the record of facts equal their own fame. Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Walter Raleigh are men of great figure and of few deeds. We cannot find the smallest part of the personal weight of Washington in the narrative of his exploits. The authority of the name of Schiller is too great for his books. This inequality of the reputation to the works or the anecdotes is not accounted for by saying that the reverberation is longer than the thunder-clap; but something resided in these men which begot an expectation that outran all their performance. The largest part of their power was latent. This is that which we call character,—a reserved force which acts directly by presence, and without means. What others effect by talent or eloquence, the man of character accomplishes by some magnetism. "Half his strength he puts not forth." His victories are by demonstration of superiority, and not by crossing bayonets. He conquers, because his arrival alters the face of affairs. "O Iole! how didst thou know that Hercules was a god?" "Because," answered Iole, "I was content the moment my eyes fell on him. When I beheld Theseus, I desired that I might see him offer battle, or at least drive his horses in the chariot-race; but Hercules did not wait for a contest; he conquered whether he stood, or walked, or sat, or whatever else he did."
"Show me," said Omar the Caliph to Amru the warrior, "the sword with which you have fought so many battles and slain so many infidels." "Ah," replied Amru, "the sword without the arm of the master is no sharper nor heavier than the sword of Farezdak the poet." So one hundred and fifty pounds of flesh and blood without character is of no great value.
"No man throws away his vote," says Francis Willard, "when he places it in the ballot-box with his conviction behind it. The party which elected Lincoln in 1860 polled only seven thousand votes in 1840. Revolutions never go backward, and the fanaticisms of to-day are the victories of to-morrow."
"O sir, we are beaten," exclaimed the general in command of Sheridan's army, retreating before the victorious Early. "No, sir," replied the indignant Sheridan; "you are beaten, but this army is not beaten." Drawing his sword, he waved it above his head, and pointed it at the pursuing host, while his clarion voice rose above the horrid din in a command to charge once more. The lines paused, turned,—
and the Confederate army was wildly routed.
When war with France seemed imminent, in 1798, President Adams wrote to George Washington, then a private citizen in retirement at Mount Vernon: "We must have your name, if you will permit us to use it; there will be more efficacy in it than in many an army." Character is power.
When Pope Paul IV. heard of the death of Calvin he exclaimed with a sigh, "Ah, the strength of that proud heretic lay in—riches? No! Honors? No! But nothing could move him from his course. Holy Virgin! With two such servants, our Church would soon be mistress of both worlds."
Eighteen hundred years ago, when night closed over the city of Pompeii, a lady sat in her house nursing her son of ten years of age. The child had been ill for some days; his form was wasted, his little limbs were shrunk; and we may imagine with what infinite anxiety she watched every motion of the helpless one, whose existence was so dear. What did take place we know with an exactness very remarkable. That distant mountain which reared its awful head on the shore of the bay, Vesuvius, was troubled that same night with an eruption, and threw into the air such clouds of pumice-stones that the streets and squares of Pompeii became filled, and gradually the stones grew higher and higher, until they reached the level of the windows. There was no chance of escape then by the doors; and those who attempted to get away stepped out of their first floor windows and rushed over the sulphurous stones—a short distance only, for they were quickly overpowered by the poisonous vapors and fell dead. After the stones there fell ashes, and after ashes hot water fell in showers, which changed the ashes into clay. Those who ran out of their houses during the fall of stones were utterly consumed, while those who waited until the ashes began to fall perished likewise, but their bodies were preserved by the ashes and water which fell upon them. The Pompeiian mother we have mentioned opened the window of her house when she thought the fall of stones was over, and with the child in her arms took a few hurried steps forward, when, overpowered by the sulphur, she fell forward, at which moment the shower of ashes began to fall, and quickly buried mother and child. The hot water afterward changed into a mould; the ashes and the sun baked the fatal clay to such a degree of hardness that it has endured to the present day. A short time ago the spot where mother and child lay was found, liquid plaster-of-Paris was poured into the mould formed by the bodies, and then the mould was broken up, leaving the plaster-cast whole. Thus one touching incident in the terrible tragedy of eighteen centuries ago has been preserved for the admiration and respect of posterity. The arms and legs of the child showed a contraction and emaciation which could only result from illness. Of the mother only the right arm was preserved; she fell upon the ashes, and the remaining portion of her body was consumed. But the right hand still clasped the legs of the child; on her arm were two gold bracelets, and on her fingers were two gold rings—one set with an emerald, the other with a cut amethyst. This touching illustration of a mother's love now rests in the museum of the celebrated city.
"I was sitting with Grant once," says General Fisk, "when a major-general entered, dressed in the uniform of his rank, who said: 'Boys, I have a good story to tell you. I believe there are no ladies present.' Grant said, 'No, but there are gentlemen present.'"
Mr. George W. Childs, in referring to this trait, said:
"Another great trait of his character was his purity in every way. I never heard him express or make an indelicate allusion in any way or shape. There is nothing I ever heard that man say that could not be repeated in the presence of women."
The writer has heard of several incidents illustrating his answer to impure stories. On one occasion, when Grant formed one of a dinner-party of American gentlemen in a foreign city, conversation drifted into references to questionable affairs, when he suddenly rose and said, "Gentlemen, please excuse me; I will retire."
When Attila, flushed with conquest, appeared with his barbarian horde before the gates of Rome in 452, Pope Leo alone of all the people dared go forth and try to turn his wrath aside. A single magistrate followed him. The Huns were awed by the fearless majesty of the unarmed old man, and led him before their chief, whose respect was so great that he agreed not to enter the city, provided a tribute should be paid to him.
Wellington said that Napoleon's presence in the French army was equivalent to forty thousand additional soldiers, and Richter said of the invincible Luther, "His words were half battles."
"I know no great men," says Voltaire, "except those who have rendered great services to the human race." Men are measured by what they do; not by what they seem or possess.
Francis Horner, of England, was a man of whom Sydney Smith said, that "the ten commandments were stamped upon his forehead." The valuable and peculiar light in which Horner's history is calculated to inspire every right-minded youth is this: he died at the age of thirty-eight, possessed of greater influence than any other private man, and admired, beloved, trusted, and deplored by all except the heartless and the base. No greater homage was ever paid in Parliament to any deceased member. How was this attained? By rank? He was the son of an Edinburgh merchant. By wealth? Neither he nor any of his relatives ever had a superfluous sixpence. By office? He held but one; and that for only a few years, of no influence, and with very little pay. By talents? His were not splendid, and he had no genius. Cautious and slow, his only ambition was to be right. By eloquence? He spoke in calm, good taste, without any of the oratory that either terrifies or seduces. By any fascination of manner? His was only correct and agreeable. By what was it, then? Merely by sense, industry, good principles and a good heart, qualities which no well constituted mind need ever despair of attaining. It was the force of his character that raised him; and this character was not impressed on him by nature, but formed, out of no peculiarly fine elements, by himself. There were many in the House of Commons of far greater ability and eloquence. But no one surpassed him in the combination of an adequate portion of these with moral worth. Horner was born to show what moderate powers, unaided by anything whatever except culture and goodness, may achieve, even when these powers are displayed amidst the competition and jealousies of public life.
A hundred years hence what difference will it make whether you were rich or poor, a peer or a peasant? But what difference may it not make whether you did what was right or what was wrong?
At a large dinner-party given by Lord Stratford after the Crimean War, it was proposed that every one should write on a slip of paper the name which appeared most likely to descend to posterity with renown. When the papers were opened everyone of them contained the name of Florence Nightingale.
Professor Blackie, of the University of Edinburgh, said to a class of young men: "Money is not needful; power is not needful; liberty is not needful; even health is not the one thing needful; but character alone is that which can truly save us, and if we are not saved in this sense, we certainly must be damned." It has been said that "when poverty is your inheritance, virtue must be your capital."
"Hence it was," said Franklin, speaking of the influence of his known integrity of character, "that I had so much weight with my fellow-citizens. I was but a bad speaker, never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my choice of words, hardly correct in language, and yet I generally carried my point."
When a man's character is gone, all is gone. All peace of mind, all complacency in himself is fled forever. He despises himself. He is despised by his fellow-men. Within is shame and remorse; without neglect and reproach. He is of necessity a miserable and useless man; he is so even though he be clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day. It is better to be poor; it is better to be reduced to beggary; it is better to be cast into prison, or condemned to perpetual slavery, than to be destitute of a good name or endure the pains and the evils of a conscious worthlessness of character.
The time is soon coming when, by the common consent of mankind, it will be esteemed more honorable to have been John Pounds, putting new and beautiful souls into the ragged children of the neighborhood while he mended his father's shoes, than to have sat upon the British throne. The time now is when, if Queen Victoria, in one of her magnificent progresses through her realms, were to meet that more than American queen, Miss Dix, in her "circumnavigation of charity" among the insane, the former should kneel and kiss the hand of the latter; and the ruler over more than a hundred millions of people should pay homage to the angel whom God has sent to the maniac.
"At your age," said to a youth an old man who had honorably held many positions of trust and responsibility, "both position and wealth appear enduring things; but at mine a man sees that nothing lasts but character."
Several eminent clergymen were discussing the qualities of self-made men. They each admitted that they belonged to that class, except a certain bishop, who remained silent, and was intensely absorbed in the repast. The host was determined to draw him out, and so, addressing him, said: "All at this table are self-made men, unless the bishop is an exception." The bishop promptly replied, "I am not made yet," and the reply contained a profound truth. So long as life lasts, with its discipline of joy or sorrow, its opportunities for good or evil, so long our characters are being shaped and fixed.
Milton said: "He who would write heroic poems, must make his whole life an heroic poem." We are responsible for our thoughts, and unless we could command them, mental and moral excellence would be impossible.
Charles Kingsley has well said: "Let any one set his heart to do what is right and nothing else, and it will not be long ere his brow is stamped with all that goes to make up the heroic expression, with noble indignation, noble self-restraint, great hopes, great sorrows, perhaps even with the print of the martyr's crown of thorns."
Said James Martineau: "God insists on having a concurrence between our practice and our thoughts. If we proceed to make a contradiction between them, He forthwith begins to abolish it, and if the will will not rise to the reason, the reason must be degraded to the will."
"When I say, in conducting your understanding," says Sidney Smith, "love knowledge with a great love, with a vehement love, with a love co-eval with life—what do I say but love innocence, love virtue, love purity of conduct, love that which, if you are rich and great, will vindicate the blind fortune which has made you so, and make them call it justice; love that which, if you are poor, will render your poverty respectable, and make the proudest feel that it is unjust to laugh at the meanness of your fortunes; love that which will comfort you, adorn you, and never quit you—which will open to you the kingdom of thought, and all the boundless regions of conception as an asylum against the cruelty, the injustice, and the pain that may be your lot in the world—that which will make your motives habitually great and honorable, and light up in an instant a thousand noble disdains at the very thought of meanness and of fraud?"
The Arabs express this by a parable that incarnates, as is their wont, the Word in the recital. King Nimrod, say they, one day summoned his three sons into his presence. He ordered to be set before them three urns under seal. One of the urns was of gold, another of amber, and the third of clay. The king bade the eldest of his sons choose among the urns that which appeared to him to contain the treasure of greatest price. The eldest chose the vase of gold, on which was written the word "Empire." He opened it and found it full of blood. The second chose the amber vase whereon was written the word "Glory." He opened it and found it contained the ashes of the great men who had made a sensation in the world. The third son took the only remaining vase, the one of clay; he found it quite empty, but on the bottom the potter had written the word "God." "Which of these vases weighs the most?" asked the king of the courtiers. The men of ambition replied it was the vase of gold; the poets and conquerors, the amber one; the sages that it was the empty vase, because a single letter of the name God weighs more than the entire globe. We are of the opinion of the sages. We believe the greatest things are great but in the proportion of divinity they contain.
"Although genius always commands admiration," says Smiles, "character most secures respect. The former is more the product of brain-power, the latter of heart-power; and in the long run it is the heart that rules in life. Men of genius stand to society in the relation of its intellect, as men of character of its conscience; and while the former are admired, the latter are followed.
"Commonplace though it may appear, this doing of one's duty embodies the highest ideal of life and character. There may be nothing heroic about it; but the common lot of men is not heroic. And though the abiding sense of duty upholds man in his highest attitudes, it also equally sustains him in the transaction of the ordinary affairs of every-day existence. The most influential of all the virtues are those which are the most in request for daily use. They wear the best and last the longest. We can always better understand and appreciate a man's real character by the manner in which he conducts himself toward those who are the most nearly related to him, and by his transaction of the seemingly commonplace details of daily duty, than by his public exhibition of himself as an author, an orator, or a statesman. Intellectual culture has no necessary relation to purity or excellence of character.
"On the contrary, a condition of comparative poverty is compatible with character in its highest form. A man may possess only his industry, his frugality, his integrity, and yet stand high in the rank of true manhood.
"Character is property. It is the noblest of possessions. It is an estate in the general good-will and respect of men; and they who invest in it—though they may not become rich in this world's goods—will find their reward in esteem and reputation fairly and honorably won. Without principles, a man is like a ship without rudder or compass, left to drift hither and thither with every wind that blows."
What a contrast is afforded by the lives of Bacon and More. Bacon sought office with as much desire as More avoided it; Bacon used as much solicitation to obtain it as More endured to accept it, and each, when in it, was equally true to his character. More was simple, as Bacon was ostentatious. More was as incorruptible as Bacon was venal. More spent his private fortune in office, and Bacon spent the wages of corruption there. Both left office poor in worldly goods; but while More was rich in honor and good deeds, Bacon was poor in everything; poor in the mammon for which he bartered his integrity; poor in the gawd for which he sacrificed his peace; poor in the presence of the worthless; covered with shame in the midst of the people; trusting his fame to posterity, of which posterity is only able to say, that the wisest of men was adviser to the silliest of kings, yet that such a king had a sort of majesty when morally compared with the official director of his conscience. Both More and Bacon served each a great purpose for the world. More illustrated the beauty of holiness; Bacon expounded the infinitude of science. Bacon became the prophet of intellect; More, the martyr of conscience. The one pours over our understandings the light of knowledge; but the other inflames our hearts with the love of virtue.
All have read of the proud Egyptian king who ordered a colossal staircase built in his new palace, and was chagrined to find that he required a ladder to climb from one step to the next. A king's legs are as short as those of a beggar. So, too, a prince's ability to enjoy the pleasures of life is no greater than that of a pauper.
"All that is valuable in this world is to be had for nothing. Genius, beauty, health, piety, love, are not bought and sold. The richest man on earth would vainly offer a fortune to be qualified to write a verse like Milton, or to compose a melody like Mozart. You may summon all the physicians, but they cannot procure for you the sweet, healthful sleep which the tired laborer gets without price. Let no man, then, call himself a proprietor. He owns but the breath as it traverses his lips and the idea as it flits across his mind; and of that breath he may be deprived by the sting of a bee, and that idea, perhaps, truly belongs to another."