Congressman William W. c.r.a.po, while working his way through college, being too poor to buy a dictionary, actually copied one, walking from his home in the village of Dartmouth, Ma.s.s., to New Bedford to replenish his store of words and definitions from the town library.
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.
President Chadbourne put grit in place of his lost lung, and worked thirty-five years after his funeral had been planned.
Lord Cavanagh put grit in the place of arms and legs, and went to Parliament in spite of his deformity.
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.
At fifty, Barnum was a ruined man, owing thousands more than he possessed, yet he resolutely resumed business once more, fairly wringing success from adverse fortune, and paying his notes at the same time. Again and again he was ruined, but phoenix-like, he rose repeatedly from the ashes of his misfortune each time more determined than before.
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!
"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."
Cobden broke down completely the first time he appeared on a platform in Manchester, and the chairman apologized for him. But he did not give up speaking till every poor man in England had a larger, better, and cheaper loaf.
See young Disraeli, sprung from a hated and persecuted race; without opportunity, pushing his way up through the middle cla.s.ses, up through the upper cla.s.ses, 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.
One of the most remarkable examples in history is Disraeli, forcing his leadership upon that very party whose prejudices were deepest against his race, and which had an utter contempt for self-made men and interlopers. Imagine England"s surprise when she awoke to find this insignificant Hebrew actually Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was easily master of all the tortures supplied by the armory of rhetoric; he could exhaust the resources of the bitterest invective; he could sting Gladstone out of his self-control; he was absolute master of himself and his situation. You can see that this young man intends to make his way in the world. A determined audacity is in his very face.
He is a gay fop. Handsome, with the hated Hebrew blood in his veins, after three defeats in parliamentary elections he was not the least daunted, for he knew his day would come, as it did. Lord Melbourne, the great Prime Minister, when this gay young fop was introduced to him, asked him what he wished to be. "Prime Minister of England," was his audacious reply.
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.
The boy Thorwaldsen, whose father died in the poor-house, 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 suppress.
William H. Seward was given a thousand dollars by his father to go to college with; this was all he was to have. The son returned at the end of the freshman year with extravagant habits and no money. His father refused to give him more, and told him he could not stay at home. When the youth found the props all taken out from under him, and that he must now sink or swim, he left home moneyless, returned to college, graduated at the head of his cla.s.s, studied law, was elected Governor of New York, and became Lincoln"s great Secretary of State during the Civil War.
Louisa M. Alcott wrote the conclusion to "An Old-Fashioned Girl" with her left hand in a sling, one foot up, head aching, and no voice. She proudly writes in her diary, "Twenty years ago I resolved to make the family independent if I could. At forty, that is done. Debts all paid, even the outlawed ones, and we have enough to be comfortable. It has cost me my health, perhaps." She earned two hundred thousand dollars by her pen.
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.
Garfield said, "If the power to do hard work is not talent, it is the best possible subst.i.tute for it." The triumph of industry and grit over low birth and iron fortune in America, this land of opportunity, ought to be sufficient to put to shame all grumblers over their hard fortune and those who attempt to excuse aimless, shiftless, successless men because they have no chance.
The fear of ridicule and the dread of humiliation often hinder one from taking decisive steps when it is plainly a duty, so that courage is a very important element of decision. In a New England academy a pupil who was engaged to a.s.sist the teacher was unable to solve a problem in algebra. The cla.s.s was approaching the problem, and he was mortified because, after many trials, he was obliged to take it to the teacher for solution. The teacher returned it unsolved. What could he do? He would not confess to the cla.s.s that he could not solve it, so, after many futile attempts, he went to a distant town to seek the a.s.sistance of a friend who, he believed, could do the work. But, alas! his friend had gone away, and would not be back for a week. On his way back he said to himself, "What a fool! am I unable to perform a problem in algebra, and shall I go back to my cla.s.s and confess my ignorance? I can solve it and I will." He shut himself in his room, determined not to sleep until he had mastered the problem, and finally he won success.
Underneath the solution he wrote, "Obtained Monday evening, September 2, at half past eleven o"clock, after more than a dozen trials that have consumed more than twenty hours of time."
During a winter in the war of 1812, General Jackson"s troops, unprovided for and starving, became mutinous and were going home. But the general set the example of living on acorns; then rode before the rebellious line and threatened with death the first mutineer that should try to leave.
The race is not always to the swift, the battle is not always to the strong. Horses are sometimes weighted or hampered in the race, and this is taken into account in the result. So in the race of life the distance alone does not determine the prize. We must take into consideration the hindrances, the weights we have carried, the disadvantages of education, of breeding, of training, of surroundings, of circ.u.mstances. How many young men are weighted down with debt, with poverty, with the support of invalid parents or brothers and sisters, or friends? How many are fettered with ignorance, hampered by inhospitable surroundings, with the opposition of parents who do not understand them? How many a round boy is hindered in the race by being forced into a square hole? How many are delayed in their course because n.o.body believes in them, because n.o.body encourages them, because they get no sympathy and are forever tortured for not doing that against which every fibre of their being protests, and every drop of their blood rebels? How many have to feel their way to the goal, through the blindness of ignorance and lack of experience? How many go bungling along from the lack of early discipline and drill in the vocation they have chosen? How many have to hobble along on crutches because they were never taught to help themselves, but to lean upon a father"s wealth or a mother"s indulgence? How many are weakened for the journey of life by self-indulgence, by dissipation, by "life-sappers;" how many are crippled by disease, by a weak const.i.tution, by impaired eyesight or hearing?
When the prizes of life shall be awarded by the Supreme Judge, who knows our weaknesses and frailties, the distance we have run, the weights we have carried, the handicaps, will all be taken into account.
Not the distance we have run, but the obstacles we have overcome, the disadvantages under which we have made the race, will decide the prizes. The poor wretch who has plodded along against unknown temptations, the poor woman who has buried her sorrows in her silent heart and sewed her weary way through life, those who have suffered abuse in silence, and who have been unrecognized or despised by their fellow-runners, will often receive the greater prize.
"The wise and active conquer difficulties, By daring to attempt them: sloth and folly Shiver and sink at sight of toil and hazard, And make the impossibility they fear."
Tumble me down, and I will sit Upon my ruins, smiling yet: Tear me to tatters, yet I"ll be Patient in my necessity: Laugh at my sc.r.a.ps of clothes, and shun Me as a fear"d infection: Yet scare-crow like I"ll walk, as one Neglecting thy derision.
ROBERT HERRICK.
CHAPTER XI.
THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD.
"One ruddy drop of manly blood the surging sea outweighs."
"Manhood overtops all t.i.tles."
The truest test of civilization is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops; no, but the kind of man the country turns out.--EMERSON.
Hew the block off, and get out the man.--POPE.
Eternity alone will reveal to the human race its debt of grat.i.tude to the peerless and immortal name of Washington.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
Better not be at all Than not be n.o.ble.
TENNYSON.
Be n.o.ble! and the n.o.bleness that lies In other men, sleeping, but never dead, Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.
LOWELL.
Virtue alone out-builds the pyramids: Her monuments shall last when Egypt"s fall.
YOUNG.
Were one so tall to touch the pole, Or grasp creation in his span, He must be measured by his soul, The mind"s the measure of the man.
WATTS.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the n.o.blest, acts the best.
BAILEY.
"Good name in man or woman Is the immediate jewel of their souls."
But this one thing I know, that these qualities did not now begin to exist, cannot be sick with my sickness, nor buried in my grave.--EMERSON.
A Moor was walking in his garden when a Spanish cavalier suddenly fell at his feet, pleading for concealment from pursuers who sought his life in revenge for the killing of a Moorish gentleman. The Moor promised aid, and locked his visitor in a summer-house until night should afford opportunity for his escape. Not long after the dead body of his son was brought home, and from the description given he knew the Spaniard was the murderer. He concealed his horror, however, and at midnight unlocked the summer-house, saying, "Christian, the youth whom you have murdered was my only son. Your crime deserves the severest punishment. But I have solemnly pledged my word not to betray you, and I disdain to violate a rash engagement even with a cruel enemy." Then, saddling one of his fleetest mules, he said, "Flee while the darkness of night conceals you.
Your hands are polluted with blood; but G.o.d is just; and I humbly thank Him that my faith is unspotted, and that I have resigned judgment to Him."
[Ill.u.s.tration: John Greenleaf Whittier (missing from book)]
Character never dies. As Longfellow says:--
"Were a star quenched on high, For ages would its light, Still traveling downward from the sky, Shine on our mortal sight.