The best work we ever do is that which we do now, and can never repeat.
"Too late," is the curse of the unsuccessful, who forget that "one to-day is worth two to-morrows."
Time accepts no sacrifice; it admits of neither redemption nor atonement. _It is the true avenger._ Your enemy may become your friend,--your injurer may do you justice,--but Time is inexorable, and has no mercy.
Then stay the present instant, dear Horatio: Imprint the marks of wisdom on its wings.
"Tis of more worth than kingdoms! far more precious Than all the crimson treasures of life"s fountain.
O! let it not elude thy grasp; but, like The good old patriarch upon record, Hold the fleet angel fast until he bless thee.
--NATHANIEL COTTON.
CHAPTER XII.
THOROUGHNESS.
Doing well depends upon doing completely.
--PERSIAN PROVERB.
He who does well will always have patrons enough.
--PLAUTUS.
If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse-trap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.
--EMERSON.
I hate a thing done by halves. If it be right, do it boldly; if it be wrong, leave it undone.
--GILPIN.
No two things differ more than Hurry and Dispatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, Dispatch of a strong one. * * * Like a turnstile, he (the weak man) is in everybody"s way, but stops n.o.body; he talks a great deal, but says very little; looks into everything, but sees nothing; and has a hundred irons in the fire, but very few of them are hot, and with those few that are he only burns his fingers.
--COLTON.
"Make me as good a hammer as you know how," said a carpenter to the blacksmith in a New York village before the first railroad was built; "six of us have come to work on the new church, and I"ve left mine at home." "As good a one as I know how?" asked David Maydole, doubtfully, "but perhaps you don"t want to pay for as good a one as I know how to make." "Yes, I do," said the carpenter, "I want a good hammer."
It was indeed a good hammer that he received, the best, probably, that had ever been made. By means of a longer hole than usual, David had wedged the handle in its place so that the head could not fly off, a wonderful improvement in the eyes of the carpenter, who boasted of his prize to his companions. They all came to the shop next day, and each ordered just such a hammer. When the contractor saw the tools, he ordered two for himself, asking that they be made a little better than those for his men. "I can"t make any better ones," said Maydole; "when I make a thing, I make it as well as I can, no matter whom it is for."
The storekeeper soon ordered two dozen, a supply unheard of in his previous business career. A New York dealer in tools came to the village to sell his wares, and bought all the storekeeper had, and left a standing order for all the blacksmith could make. David might have grown very wealthy by making goods of the standard already attained; but throughout his long and successful life he never ceased to study still further to perfect his hammers in the minutest detail. They were usually sold without any warrant of excellence, the word "Maydole" stamped on the head being universally considered a guaranty of the best article the world could produce. Character is power, and is the best advertis.e.m.e.nt in the world.
"Yes," said he one day to the late James Parton, who told this story, "I have made hammers in this little village for twenty-eight years."
"Well," replied the great historian, "by this time you ought to make a pretty good hammer."
"No, I can"t," was the reply, "I can"t make a pretty good hammer. I make the best hammer that"s made. My only care is to make a perfect hammer.
If folks don"t want to pay me what they"re worth, they"re welcome to buy cheaper ones somewhere else. My wants are few, and I"m ready any time to go back to my blacksmith"s shop, where I worked forty years ago, before I thought of making hammers. Then I had a boy to blow by bellows, now I have one hundred and fifteen men. Do you see them over there watching the heads cook over the charcoal furnace, as your cook, if she knows what she is about, watches the chops broiling? Each of them is hammered out of a piece of iron, and is tempered under the inspection of an experienced man. Every handle is seasoned three years, or until there is no shrink left in it. Once I thought I could use machinery in manufacturing them; now I know that a perfect tool can"t be made by machinery, and every bit of the work is done by hand."
"In telling this little story," said Parton, "I have told thousands of stories. Take the word "hammer" out of it, and put "glue" in its place, and you have the history of Peter Cooper. By putting in other words, you can make the true history of every great business in the world which has lasted thirty years."
"We have no secret," said Manager Daniel J. Morrill, of the Cambria Iron Works, employing seven thousand men, at Johnstown, Pa. "We always try to beat our last batch of rails. That is all the secret we"ve got, and we don"t care who knows it."
"I don"t try to see how cheap a machine I can produce, but how good a machine," said the late John C. Whitin, of Northbridge, Ma.s.s., to a customer who complained of the high price of some cotton machinery.
Business men soon learned what this meant; and when there was occasion to advertise any machinery for sale, New England cotton manufacturers were accustomed to state the number of years it had been in use and add, as an all-sufficient guaranty of Northbridge products, "Whitin make."
Put thoroughness into your work: it pays.
"The accurate boy is always the favored one," said President Tuttle. If a carpenter must stand at his journeyman"s elbow to be sure his work is right, or if a cashier must run over his bookkeeper"s columns, he might as well do the work himself as employ another to do it in that way.
"Mr. Girard, can you not a.s.sist me by giving me a little work?" asked one John Smith, who had formerly worked for the great banker and attracted attention by his activity.
"a.s.sistance--work--ah? You want work?" "Yes sir; it"s a long time since I"ve had anything to do."
"Very well, I shall give you some. You see dem stone yondare?" "Yes, sir." "Very well; you shall fetch and put them in this place; you see?"
"Yes sir." "And when you done, come to me at my bank."
Smith finished his task, reported to Mr. Girard, and asked for more work. "Ah, ha, oui. You want more work? Very well; you shall go place dem stone where you got him. Understandez? You take him back." "Yes, sir."
Again Smith performed the work and waited on Mr. Girard for payment.
"Ah, ha, you all finish?" "Yes, sir." "Very well; how much money shall I give you?" "One dollar, sir." "Dat is honest. You take no advantage.
Dare is your dollar." "Can I do anything else for you?" "Oui, come here when you get up to-morrow. You shall have more work."
Smith was punctual, but for the third time, and yet again for the fourth, he was ordered to "take dem stone back again." When he called for his pay in the evening Stephen Girard spoke very cordially. "Ah, Monsieur Smit, you shall be my man; you mind your own business and do it, ask no questions, you do not interfere. You got one vife?" "Yes, sir." "Ah, dat is bad. Von vife is bad. Any little chicks?" "Yes, sir, five living."
"Five? Dat is good; I like five. I like you, Monsieur Smit; you like to work; you mind your business. Now I do something for your five little chicks. There: take these five pieces of paper for your five little chicks; you shall work for them; you shall mind your own business, and your little chicks shall never want five more." In a few years Mr. Smith became one of the wealthiest and most respected merchants of Philadelphia.
It is difficult to estimate the great influence upon a life of the early formed habit of doing everything to a finish, not leaving it half done, or pretty nearly done, but completely done. Nature finishes every little leaf, even to every little rib, its edges and stem, as exactly and perfectly as though it were the only leaf to be made that year. Even the flower that blooms in the mountain dell, where no human eye will ever behold it, is finished with the same perfection and exactness of form and outline, with the same delicate shade of color, with the same completeness of beauty, as though it was made for royalty in the queen"s garden. "Perfection to the finish" is a motto which every youth should adopt.
"How did you attain such excellence in your profession?" was asked of Sir Joshua Reynolds. "By observing one simple rule, namely, to make each picture the best," he replied.
The discipline of being exact is uplifting. Progress is never more rapid than it is when we are studying to be accurate. The effort educates all the powers. Arthur Helps says: "I do not know that there is anything except it be humility, which is so valuable, as an incident of education, as accuracy: and accuracy can be taught. Direct lies told to the world are as dust in the balance when weighed against the falsehoods of inaccuracy."
Too many youths enter upon their business in a languid, half-hearted way, and do their work in a slipshod manner. The consequence is that they inspire neither admiration nor confidence on the part of their superiors, and cut off almost every chance of success. There is a loose, perfunctory method of doing one"s work that never merits advance, and very rarely wins it. Instead of buckling to their task with all the force they possess, they merely touch it with the tips of their fingers, their rule apparently being, the maximum of ease with the minimum of work. The principle of Strafford, the great minister of Charles I., is indicated by his motto, the one word "Thorough." It was said of King Hezekiah, "In every work that he began, he did it with all his heart and prospered."
The stone-cutter goes to work on a stone and most patiently shapes it.
He carves that bit of fern, putting all his skill and taste into it. And by-and-by the master says, "Well done," and takes it away and gives him another block and tells him to work on that. And so he works on that from the rising of the sun till the going down of the same, and he only knows that he is earning his bread. And he continues to put all his skill and taste into his work. He has no idea what use will be made of these few stones which he has been carving, until afterward, when, one day, walking along the street, and looking up at the front of the Art Gallery, he sees the stones upon which he has worked. He did not know what they were for, but the architect did. And as he stands looking at his work on that structure which is the beauty of the whole street, he says: "I am glad I did it well." And every day as he pa.s.ses that way, he says to himself exultingly, "I did it well." He did not draw the design, nor plan the building, and he knew nothing of what use was to be made of his work: but he took pains in cutting those stems; and when he saw they were a part of that magnificent structure, his soul rejoiced.
Work that is not finished, is not work at all; it is merely a botch. We often see this defect of incompleteness in a child, which increases in youth. All about the house, everywhere, there are half-finished things.
It is true that children often become tired of things which they begin with enthusiasm; but there is a great difference in children about finishing what they undertake. A boy, for instance, will start out in the morning with great enthusiasm to dig his garden over; but, after a few minutes, his enthusiasm has evaporated, and he wants to go fishing.
He soon becomes tired of this, and thinks he will make a boat. No sooner does he get a saw and knife and a few pieces of board about him than he makes up his mind that really what he wanted to do, after all, was to play ball, and this, in turn, must give way to something else.
One watch, set right, will do to set many by; but, on the other hand, one that goes wrong may be the means of misleading a whole neighborhood.
The same may be said of the example we individually set to those around us.
"Whatever I have tried to do in life," said d.i.c.kens, "I have tried with all my heart to do well. What I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely."
It is no disgrace to be a shoemaker, but it is a disgrace for a shoemaker to make bad shoes.
A traveler, recently returned from Jerusalem, found, in conversation with Humboldt, that the latter was as conversant with the streets and houses of Jerusalem as he was himself. On being asked how long it was since he had visited it, the aged philosopher replied: "I have never been there; but I expected to go sixty years since, and I prepared myself."
So noted for excellency was everything bearing the brand of George Washington, that a barrel of flour marked "George Washington, Mount Vernon," was exempted from the customary inspection in the West India ports.
Pascal, the most wonderful mathematical genius of his time, whose work on conic sections, at sixteen, Descartes refused to believe could be produced at that age, is considered to have fixed the French language, as Luther did the German, by his writings. None of his provincial letters, with the exception of the last three, was more than eight quarto pages in length, yet he devoted twenty days to the writing of a single letter, and one of them was written no less than thirteen times.