Life, all sunshine without shade, all happiness without sorrow, all pleasure without pain, were not life at all--at least not human life. Take the lot of the happiest--it is a tangled yarn. It is made up of sorrows and joys; and the joys are all the sweeter because of the sorrows; bereavements and blessings, one following another, making us sad and blessed by turns. Even death itself makes life more loving; it binds us more closely together while here. Dr.
Thomas Browne has argued that death is one of the necessary conditions of human happiness, and he supports his argument with great force and eloquence. But when death comes into a household, we do not philosophize--we only feel. The eyes that are full of tears do not see; though in course of time they come to see more clearly and brightly than those that have never known sorrow.
There is much in life that, while in this state, we can never comprehend. There is, indeed, a great deal of mystery in life--much that we see "as in a gla.s.s darkly." But though we may not apprehend the full meaning of the discipline of trial through which the best have to pa.s.s, we must have faith in the completeness of the design of which our little individual lives form a part.
We have each to do our duty in that sphere of life in which we have been placed. Duty alone is true; there is no true action but in its accomplishment. Duty is the end and aim of the highest life; the truest pleasure of all is that derived from the consciousness of its fulfillment. Of all others, it is the one that is most thoroughly satisfying, and the least accompanied by regret and disappointment.
In the words of George Herbert, the consciousness of duty performed "gives us music at midnight."
And when we have done our work on earth--of necessity, of labor, of love, or of duty--like the silk-worm that spins its little coc.o.o.n and dies, we too depart. But, short though our stay in life may be, it is the appointed sphere in which each has to work out the great aim and end of his being to the best of his power; and when that is done, the accidents of the flesh will affect but little the immortality we shall at last put on.
CHAPTER X
SELECTING A CALLING.
In reading the lives of great men, one is struck with a very important fact: that their success has been won in callings for which in early manhood they had no particular liking. Necessity or chance has, in many cases, decided what their life-work should be.
But even where the employment was at first uncongenial, a strict sense of duty and a strong determination to master the difficult and to like the disagreeable, conquered in the end.
In these days of fierce compet.i.tion, no matter how ardent the desire for fame, he is a dreamer who loses sight of the monetary returns of his life-efforts.
There have been a few men whose wants were simple, and these wants guarded against by a certain official income, who could afford to ignore gain and to work for the truths of science or the good of humanity. The great English chemist Faraday was of this cla.s.s. Once asked by a friend why he did not use his great abilities and advantages to acc.u.mulate a fortune, he said: "My dear fellow, I haven"t time to give to money making."
It is, perhaps, to be regretted that in nearly every case the efforts of to-day, whether in commerce, trade, or science, have for their purpose the making of fortunes. Nor should this spirit be condemned, for fortune in the hands of the right men is a blessing to the world and particularly to those who are more improvident.
Peter Cooper, Stephen Girard, George Peabody, and many other eminent Americans who made their way to great wealth from comparative poverty, used that wealth to enable young men, starting life as they did, to achieve the same success without having to encounter the same obstacles.
It is a well-known fact that boys who live near the sea have an intense yearning to become sailors. Every healthy boy has a longing to be a soldier, and he takes the greatest delight in toy military weapons.
Our ideals for living, particularly when they are the creations of a youthful imagination, are but seldom safe guides for our mature years. The fairy stories that delighted our childhood and the romances that fired our youth, are found but poor guides to success, when the great life-battle is on us.
It is a mistake for parents and guardians to say that this boy or that girl shall follow out this or that life-calling, without any regard to the tastes, or any consideration of the natural capacity.
It is equally an error, because the boy or girl may like this or that branch of study more than another, to infer that this indicates a talent for that subject. Arithmetic is but seldom as popular with young people as history, simply because the latter requires less mental effort to master it. The world is full of professional incompetents--creatures of circ.u.mstances very often, but more frequently their life-failure is due to the whims of ambitious parents.
While the child and even the young man are but seldom the best judges of what a life-calling should be, yet the observant parent and teacher can discover the natural inclination, and by encouragement, develop this inclination.
As the wrecks on sandy beaches and by rock-bound sh.o.r.es, warn the careful mariner from the same fate, so the countless wrecks which the young man sees on every hand, increasing as he goes through life, should warn him from the same dangers.
It is stated, on what seems good authority, that ninety-five percent of the men who go into business for themselves, fail at some time.
It would be an error, however, to infer from this that the failures were due to a mistaken life-calling. They have been due rather to unforeseen circ.u.mstances, over-confidence, or the desire to succeed too rapidly. Benefiting by these reverses, a large percent of the failures have entered on the life-struggle again and won.
In the early days of the world"s history, the callings or fields of effort were necessarily limited to the chase, herding or agriculture. In those times, the toiler had not only to work for the support of himself and family, but he had also to be a warrior, trained to the use of arms, and ready to defend the products of his labor from the theft of robber neighbors.
In this later and broader day, civilization has opened up thousands of avenues of effort that were unknown to our less fortunate ancestors.
While the world is filled with human misfits, round pegs in square holes and square pegs in round holes, the choice of callings has so spread with the growth of civilization, that every young man who reasons for himself and studies his own powers, can with more or less certainty find out his calling, and pursue it with a success entirely dependent on his own fitness and energy.
In a general way, the great fields of human effort, at this time, may be divided into three cla.s.ses. First, the so-called "learned professions"--journalism, theology, medicine and law. Second, the callings pertaining to public life, such as politics, military, science, and education. Third, those vocations that pertain to production, like agriculture, manufactures, and commerce.
But apart from the callings selected, it should be kept carefully in mind that, no matter the business, success is dependent entirely on the man.
Business is the salt of life, which not only gives a grateful smack to it, but dries up those crudities that would offend, preserves from putrefaction, and drives off all those blowing flies that would corrupt it. Let a man be sure to drive his business rather than let it drive him. When a man is but once brought to be driven, he becomes a va.s.sal to his affairs. Reason and right give the quickest dispatch. All the entanglements that we meet with arise from the irrationality of ourselves or others. With a wise and honest man a business is soon ended, but with a fool and knave there is no conclusion, and seldom even a beginning.
Having decided on a calling, bear ever in mind that faith and trustfulness lie at the foundation of trade and commercial intercourse, and business transactions of every kind. A community of known swindlers and knaves would try in vain to avail themselves of the advantages of traffic, or to gain access to those circles where honor and honesty are indispensable pa.s.sports. Hence the value which is attached, by all right-minded men, to purity of purpose and integrity of character. A man may be unfortunate, he may be poor and penniless; but if he is known to possess unbending integrity, an unwavering purpose to do what is honest and just, he will have friends and patrons whatever may be the embarra.s.sments and exigencies into which he is thrown. The poor man may thus possess a capital of which none of the misfortunes and calamities of life can deprive him. We have known men who have been suddenly reduced from affluence to penury by misfortunes, which they could neither foresee nor prevent. A fire has swept away the acc.u.mulations of years; misplaced confidence, a flood, or some of the thousand casualties to which commercial men are exposed, have stripped them of their possessions. To-day they have been prosperous, to-morrow every prospect is blighted, and everything in its aspect is dark and dismal. Their business is gone, their property is gone, and they feel that all is gone; but they have a rich treasure which the fire cannot consume, which the flood cannot carry away. They have integrity of character, and this gives them influence, raises up friends, and furnishes them with means to start afresh in the world once more. Young men, especially, should be deeply impressed with the vast importance of cherishing those principles, and of cultivating those habits, which will secure for them the confidence and esteem of the wise and good. Let it be borne in mind that no brilliancy of genius, no tact or talent in business, and no amount of success, will compensate for duplicity, shuffling, and trickery.
There may be apparent advantage in the art and practice of dissimulation, and in violating those great principles which lie at the foundation of truth and duty; but it will at length be seen that a dollar was lost where a cent was gained; that present successes are outweighed, a thousand-fold, by the pains and penalties which result from loss of confidence and loss of reputation. It cannot be too strongly impressed upon the minds of young men to abstain from every course, from every act, which shocks their moral sensibilities, wounds their conscience, and has a tendency to weaken their sense of honor and integrity.
CHAPTER XI
WE MUST HELP OURSELVES.
To the young man of the right kind, the inheritance of a fortune, or the possession of influential friends, may be great advantages, but more frequently they are hindrances. To win you must fight for yourself, and the effort will give you strength.
The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it const.i.tutes the true source of national vigor and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is done _for_ men or cla.s.ses, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over- government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless.
The privileges of a superior education, like the inheritance of a fortune, depends upon the man. It should encourage those who have only themselves and G.o.d to look to for support, to remember that self-education is the best education, and that some of the greatest men have had few or no school advantages.
Daily experience shows that it is energetic individualism which produces the most powerful effects upon the life and action of others, and really const.i.tutes the best practical education.
Schools, academies, and colleges give but the merest beginnings of culture in comparison with it. Far more influential is the life- education daily given in our homes, in the streets, behind counters, in workshops, at the loom and the plough, in counting-houses and manufactories, and in the busy haunts of men. This is that finishing instruction as members of society, which Schiller designated "the education of the human race," consisting in action, conduct, self- culture, self-control--all that tends to discipline a man truly, and fit him for the proper performance of the duties and business of life--a kind of education not to be learned from books, or acquired by any amount of mere literary training. With his usual weight of words Bacon observes, that "Studies teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation;"
a remark that holds true of actual life, as well as of the cultivation of the intellect itself. For all experience serves to ill.u.s.trate and enforce the lesson, that a man perfects himself by work more than by reading--that it is life rather than literature, action rather than study, and character rather than biography, which tend perpetually to renovate mankind.
No matter how humble your calling in life may be, take heart from the fact that many of the world"s greatest men have had no superior advantages. Lincoln studied law lying on his face before a log-fire; General Garfield drove a mule on a ca.n.a.l tow-path in his boyhood, and George Peabody, owing to the poverty of his family, was an errand boy in a grocery store at the age of eleven.
Great men of science, literature, and art--apostles of great thoughts and lords of the great heart--have belonged to no exclusive cla.s.s or rank in life. They have come alike, from colleges, workshops, and farm-houses--from the huts of poor men and the mansions of the rich.
Some of G.o.d"s greatest apostles have come from "the ranks." The poorest have sometimes taken the highest places, nor have difficulties apparently the most insuperable proved obstacles in their way. Those very difficulties, in many instances, would even seem to have been their best helpers, by evoking their powers of labor and endurance, and stimulating into life faculties which might otherwise have lain dormant. The instances of obstacles thus surmounted, and of triumphs thus achieved, are indeed so numerous as almost to justify the proverb that "with will one can do anything."
If we took to England, the mother country, a land where the advantages are not nearly so great as in this and the difficulties greater, we shall find n.o.ble spirits rising to usefulness and eminence in the face of difficulties equally great.
Shoemakers have given us Sir Cloudesley Shovel the great admiral, Sturgeon the electrician, Samuel Drew the essayist, Gifford the editor of the _Quarterly Review_, Bloomfield the poet, and William Carey the missionary; whilst Morrison, another laborious missionary, was a maker of shoe-lasts. Within the last few years, a profound naturalist has been discovered in the person of a shoemaker at Banff, named Thomas Edwards, who, while maintaining himself by his trade, has devoted his leisure to the study of natural science in all its brandies, his researches in connection with the smaller crustaceae having been rewarded by the discovery of a new species, to which the name of "Praniza Edwardsii" has been given by naturalists.
Nor have tailors been undistinguished. John Stow, the historian, worked at the trade during some part of his life. Jackson, the painter, made clothes until he reached manhood. The brave Sir John Hawkswood, who so greatly distinguished himself at Poictiers, and was knighted by Edward III for his valor, was in early life apprenticed to a London tailor. Admiral Hobson, who broke the boom at Vigo in 1702, belonged to the same calling. He was working as tailor"s apprentice near Bonchurch, in the Isle of Wight, when the news flew through the village that a squadron of men-of-war was sailing off the island. He sprang from the s...o...b..ard, and ran down with his comrades to the beach, to gaze upon the glorious sight. The boy was suddenly inflamed with the ambition to be a sailor; and springing into a boat, he rowed off to the squadron, gained the admiral"s ship, and was accepted as a volunteer. Years after, he returned to his native village full of honors, and dined off bacon and eggs in the cottage where he had worked as an apprentice.
Oliver Goldsmith was regarded as a dunce in his school days, and Daniel Webster was so dull as a school-boy as not to indicate in any way the great abilities he was to display.
Humbert was a scapegrace when a youth; at sixteen he ran away from home and was by turns servant to a tradesman at Nancy, a workman at Lyons, and a hawker of rabbit-skins. In 1792, he enlisted as a volunteer and in a year he was general of brigade. Kleber, Lefebvre, Suchet, Victor, Lannes, Soult, Ma.s.sena, St. Cyr, D"Erlon, Murat, Augereau, Bessieres and Ney, all rose from the ranks. In some cases promotion was rapid, in others it was slow. St. Cyr, the son of a tanner of Toul, began life as an actor, after which he enlisted in the cha.s.seurs and was promoted to a captaincy within a year. Victor, Due de Belluno, enlisted in the artillery in 1781: during the events preceding the Revolution he was discharged; but immediately on the outbreak of war he re-enlisted, and in the course of a few months his intrepidity and ability secured his promotion as adjutant-major and chief of battalion. Murat was the son of a village innkeeper in Perigord, where he looked after the horses. He first enlisted in a regiment of cha.s.seurs, from which he was dismissed for insubordination; but again, enlisting he shortly rose to the rank of colonel. Ney enlisted at eighteen in a hussar regiment and gradually advanced step by step; Kleber soon discovered his merits, surnaming him "The Indefatigable," and promoted him to be adjutant-general when only twenty-five.
General Christopher Carson, or "Kit" Carson as he is known to the world, although strictly temperate in his life and as gentle as a blue-eyed child in his manner, ran away from his home in Missouri to the Western wilds, when he was a boy of fourteen. His father wanted him to be a farmer, but Providence had greater if not n.o.bler uses for him. Out in the Rocky Mountains--then a wilderness--he learned the Indian languages, and became as familiar with every trail and pa.s.s as the red men.
It was the knowledge gained in those early days that enabled Kit Carson to carry succor to Fremont"s men perishing in the mountains.
Not only did Carson bring food to the dying men, but when they were strong enough to move he guided them to a place of safety.
This truly great man averted many an Indian war, and did as much for the settlement and civilization of the West as any man of his day-- more, indeed. In the days of secession he was a patriot, and though he might have grown rich at the expense of the Government, he preferred to die a poor and honored man.
Admiral Farragut, although born in East Tennessee, went into the United States Navy at the early age of eleven. He was the youngest midshipman in the service. "Before I had reached the age of sixteen," he says, "I prided myself on my profanity, and could drink with the strongest."
One morning on recovering from a debauch he reviewed the situation and saw the shoals ahead. Then and there he fell on his knees and asked G.o.d to help him. From that day on he gave up tobacco, liquor, and profanity, devoted himself to the study of his profession, and so became the greatest Admiral of modern times. "The ca.n.a.l boat captains, when I was a boy," said General Garfield, "were a profane, carousing, ignorant lot, and, as a boy, I was eager to imitate them.
But my eyes were opened before I contracted their habits, and I left them."