When Rome was besieged by the Gauls in the time of the Republic, the Romans were so hard pressed that they consented to purchase immunity with gold. They were in the act of weighing it, a legend tells us, when Camillus appeared on the scene, threw his sword into the scales in place of the ransom, and declared that the Romans should not purchase peace, but would win it with the sword. This act of daring and prompt decision so roused the Romans that they triumphantly swept from the sacred soil the enemy of their peace.
In an emergency, the arrival of a prompt, decided, positive man, who will do something, although it may be wrong, changes the face of everything. Such a man comes upon the scene like a refreshing breeze blown down from the mountain top. He is a tonic to the hesitating, bewildered crowd.
When Antiochus Epiphanes invaded Egypt, which was then under the protection of Rome, the Romans sent an amba.s.sador who met Antiochus near Alexandria and commanded him to withdraw. The invader gave an evasive reply. The brave Roman swept a circle around the king with his sword, and forbade his crossing the line until he had given his answer.
By the prompt decision of the intrepid amba.s.sador the invader was led to withdraw, and war was prevented. The prompt decision of the Romans won them many a battle, and made them masters of the world. All the great achievements in the history of the world are the results of quick and steadfast decision.
Men who have left their mark upon their century have been men of great and prompt decision. An undecided man, a man who is ever balancing between two opinions, forever debating which of two courses he will pursue, proclaims by his indecision that he can not control himself, that he was meant to be possessed by others; he is not a man, only a satellite. The decided man, the prompt man, does not wait for favorable circ.u.mstances; he does not submit to events; events must submit to him.
The vacillating man is ever at the mercy of the opinion of the man who talked with him last. He may see the right, but he drifts toward the wrong. If he decides upon a course he only follows it until somebody opposes it.
When Julius Caesar came to the Rubicon, which formed the boundary of Italia,--"the sacred and inviolable,"--even his great decision wavered at the thought of invading a territory which no general was allowed to enter without the permission of the Senate. But his alternative was "destroy myself, or destroy my country," and his intrepid mind did not waver long. "The die is cast," he said, as he dashed into the stream at the head of his legions. The whole history of the world was changed by that moment"s decision. The man who said, "I came, I saw, I conquered," could not hesitate long. He, like Napoleon, had the power to choose one course, and sacrifice every conflicting plan on the instant. When he landed with his troops in Britain, the inhabitants resolved never to surrender. Caesar"s quick mind saw that he must commit his soldiers to victory or death. In order to cut off all hope of retreat, he burned all the ships which had borne them to the sh.o.r.es of Britain. There was no hope of return, it was victory or death.
This action was the key to the character and triumphs of this great warrior.
Satan"s sublime decision in "Paradise Lost," after his hopeless banishment from heaven, excites a feeling akin to admiration. After a few moments of terrible suspense he resumes his invincible spirit and expresses that sublime line: "What matter where, if I be still the same?"
That power to decide instantly the best course to pursue, and to sacrifice every opposing motive; and, when once sacrificed, to silence them forever and not allow them continually to plead their claims and distract us from our single decided course, is one of the most potent forces in winning success. To hesitate is sometimes to be lost. In fact, the man who is forever twisting and turning, backing and filling, hesitating and dawdling, shuffling and parleying, weighing and balancing, splitting hairs over non-essentials, listening to every new motive which presents itself, will never accomplish anything. There is not positiveness enough in him; negativeness never accomplishes anything. The negative man creates no confidence, he only invites distrust. But the positive man, the decided man, is a power in the world, and stands for something. You can measure him, gauge him. You can estimate the work that his energy will accomplish. It is related of Alexander the Great that, when asked how it was that he had conquered the world, he replied, "By not wavering."
When the packet ship _Stephen Whitney_ struck, at midnight, on an Irish cliff, and clung for a few moments to the cliff, all the pa.s.sengers who leaped instantly upon the rock were saved. The positive step landed them in safety. Those who lingered were swept off by the returning wave, and engulfed forever.
The vacillating man is never a prompt man, and without promptness no success is possible. Great opportunities not only come seldom into the most fortunate life, but also are often quickly gone.
"A man without decision," says John Foster, "can never be said to belong to himself; since if he dared to a.s.sert that he did, the puny force of some cause, about as powerful as a spider, may make a seizure of the unhappy boaster the very next minute, and contemptuously exhibit the futility of the determination by which he was to have proved the independence of his understanding and will. He belongs to whatever can make capture of him; and one thing after another vindicates its right to him by arresting him while he is trying to go on; as twigs and chips floating near the edge of a river are intercepted by every weed and whirled into every little eddy."
The decided man not only has the advantage of the time saved from dillydallying and procrastination, but he also saves the energy and vital force which is wasted by the perplexed man who takes up every argument on one side and then on the other, and weighs them until the two sides hang in equipoise, with no prepondering motive to enable him to decide. He is in stable equilibrium, and so does not move at all of his own volition, but moves very easily at the slightest volition of another.
Yet there is not a man living who might not be a prompt and decided man if he would only learn always to act quickly. The punctual man, the decided man, can do twice as much as the undecided and dawdling man who never quite knows what he wants. Prompt decision saved Napoleon and Grant and their armies many a time when delay would have been fatal.
Napoleon used to say that although a battle might last an entire day, yet it generally turned upon a few critical minutes, in which the fate of the engagement was decided. His will, which subdued nearly the whole of Europe, was as prompt and decisive in the minutest detail of command as in the greatest battle.
Decision of purpose and promptness of action enabled him to astonish the world with his marvelous successes. He seemed to be everywhere at once. What he could accomplish in a day surprised all who knew him.
He seemed to electrify everybody about him. His invincible energy thrilled the whole army. He could rouse to immediate and enthusiastic action the dullest troops, and inspire with courage the most stupid men. The "ifs and buts," he said, "are at present out of season; and above all it must be done with speed." He would sit up all night if necessary, after riding thirty or forty leagues, to attend to correspondence, dispatches and, details. What a lesson to dawdling, shiftless, half-hearted men!
"The doubt of Charles V.," says Motley, "changed the destinies of the civilized world."
So powerful were President Washington"s views in determining the actions of the people, that when Congress adjourned, Jefferson wrote to Monroe at Paris: "You will see by their proceedings the truth of what I always told you,--namely, that one man outweighs them all in influence, who supports his judgment against their own and that of their representatives. Republicanism resigns the vessel to the pilot."
There is no vocation or occupation which does not present many difficulties, at times almost overwhelming, and the young man who allows himself to waver every time he comes to a hard place in life will not succeed. Without decision there can be no concentration; and, to succeed, a man must concentrate.
The undecided man can not bring himself to a focus. He dissipates his energy, scatters his forces, and executes nothing. He can not hold to one thing long enough to bring success out of it. One vocation or occupation presents its rosy side to him, he feels sure it is the thing he wants to do, and, full of enthusiasm, adopts it as his life"s work.
But in a few days the thorns begin to appear, his enthusiasm evaporates, and he wonders why he is so foolish as to think himself fitted for that vocation. The one which his friend adopted is much better suited to him; he drops his own and adopts the other. So he vacillates through life, captured by any new occupation which happens to appeal to him as the most desirable at the time, never using his judgment or common sense, but governed by his impressions and his feelings at the moment. Such people are never led by principle. You never know where to find them; they are here to-day and there to-morrow, doing this thing and that thing, throwing away all the skill they had acquired in mastering the drudgery of the last occupation. In fact, they never go far enough in anything to get beyond the drudgery stage to the remunerative and agreeable stage, the skilful stage. They spend their lives at the beginning of occupations, which are always most agreeable. These people rarely reach the stage of competency, comfort, and contentment.
There is a legend of a powerful genius who promised a lovely maiden a gift of rare value if she would go through a field of corn, and, without pausing, going backward, or wandering hither and thither, select the largest and ripest ear. The value of the gift was to be in proportion to the size and perfection of the ear. She pa.s.sed by many magnificent ones, but was so eager to get the largest and most perfect that she kept on without plucking any until the ears she pa.s.sed were successively smaller and smaller and more stunted. Finally they became so small that she was ashamed to select one of them; and, not being allowed to go backward, she came out on the other side without any.
Alexander, his heart throbbing with a great purpose, conquers the world; Hannibal, impelled by his hatred to the Romans, even crosses the Alps to compa.s.s his design. While other men are bemoaning difficulties and shrinking from dangers and obstacles, and preparing expedients, the great soul, without fuss or noise, takes the step, and lo, the mountain has been leveled and the way lies open. Learn, then, to will strongly and decisively; thus fix your floating life and leave it no longer to be carried hither and thither, like a withered leaf, by every wind that blows. An undecided man is like the turnstile at a fair, which is in everybody"s way but stops no one.
"The secret of the whole matter was," replied Amos Lawrence, "we had formed the habit of prompt acting, thus taking the top of the tide; while the habit of some others was to delay till about half tide, thus getting on the flats."
Most of the young men and women who are lost in our cities are ruined because of their inability to say "No" to the thousand allurements and temptations which appeal to their weak pa.s.sions. If they would only show a little decision at first, one emphatic "No" might silence their solicitors forever. But they are weak, they are afraid of offending, they don"t like to say "No," and thus they throw down the gauntlet and are soon on the broad road to ruin. A little resolution early in life will soon conquer the right to mind one"s own business.
An old legend says that a fool and a wise man were journeying together, and came to a point where two ways opened before them,--one broad and beautiful, the other narrow and rough. The fool desired to take the pleasant way; the wise man knew that the difficult one was the shortest and safest, and so declared. But at last the urgency of the fool prevailed; they took the more inviting path, and were soon met by robbers, who seized their goods and made them captives. A little later both they and their captors were arrested by officers of the law and taken before the judge. Then the wise man pleaded that the fool was to blame because he desired to take the wrong way. The fool pleaded that he was only a fool, and no sensible man should have heeded his counsel.
The judge punished them both equally. "If sinners entice thee, consent thou not."
There is no habit that so grows on the soul as irresolution. Before a man knows what he has done, he has gambled his life away, and all because he has never made up his mind what he would do with it. On many of the tombstones of those who have failed in life could be read between the lines: "He Dawdled," "Behind Time," "Procrastination,"
"Listlessness," "Shiftlessness," "Nervelessness," "Always Behind." Oh, the wrecks strewn along the sh.o.r.es of life "just behind success," "just this side of happiness," above which the words of warning are flying!
Webster said of such an undecided man that "he is like the irresolution of the sea at the turn of tide. This man neither advances nor recedes; he simply hovers." Such a man is at the mercy of any chance occurrence that may overtake him. His "days are lost lamenting o"er lost days."
He has no power to seize the facts which confront him and compel them to serve him.
To indolent, shiftless, listless people life becomes a mere shuffle of expedients. They do not realize that the habit of putting everything off puts off their manhood, their capacity, their success; their contagion infects their whole neighborhood. Scott used to caution youth against the habit of dawdling, which creeps in at every crevice of unoccupied time and often ruins a bright life. "Your motto must be," he said, "_Hoc age_,"--do instantly. This is the only way to check the propensity to dawdling. How many hours have been wasted dawdling in bed, turning over and dreading to get up! Many a career has been crippled by it. Burton could not overcome this habit, and, convinced that it would ruin his success, made his servant promise before he went to bed to get him up at just such a time; the servant called, and called, and coaxed; but Burton would beg him to be left a little longer. The servant, knowing that he would lose his shilling if he did not get him up, then dashed cold water into the bed between the sheets, and Burton came out with a bound. When one asked a lazy young fellow what made him lie in bed so long, "I am employed," said he, "in hearing counsel every morning. _Industry_ advises me to get up; _Sloth_ to lie still; and they give me twenty reasons for and against.
It is my part, as an impartial judge, to hear all that can be said on both sides, and by the time the cause is over dinner is ready."
There is no doubt that, as a rule, great decision of character is usually accompanied by great const.i.tutional firmness. Men who have been noted for great firmness of character have usually been strong and robust. There is no quality of the mind which does not sympathize with bodily weakness, and especially is this true with the power of decision, which is usually impaired or weakened from physical suffering or any great physical debility. As a rule, it is the strong physical man who carries weight and conviction. Any bodily weakness, or la.s.situde, or lack of tone and vigor, is, perhaps, first felt in the weakened or debilitated power of decisions.
Nothing will give greater confidence, and bring a.s.sistance more quickly from the bank or from a friend, than the reputation of promptness. The world knows that the prompt man"s bills and notes will be paid on the day, and will trust him. "Let it be your first study to teach the world that you are not wood and straw; that there is some iron in you."
"Let men know that what you say you will do; that your decision, once made, is final,--no wavering; that, once resolved, you are not to be allured or intimidated."
Some minds are so constructed that they are bewildered and dazed whenever a responsibility is thrust upon them; they have a mortal dread of deciding anything. The very effort to come to immediate and unflinching decision starts up all sorts of doubts, difficulties, and fears, and they can not seem to get light enough to decide nor courage enough to attempt to remove the obstacle. They know that hesitation is fatal to enterprise, fatal to progress, fatal to success. Yet somehow they seem fated with a morbid introspection which ever holds them in suspense. They have just energy enough to weigh motives, but nothing left for the momentum of action. They a.n.a.lyze and a.n.a.lyze, deliberate, weigh, consider, ponder, but never act. How many a man can trace his downfall in life to the failure to seize his opportunity at the favorable moment, when it was within easy grasp, the nick of time, which often does not present itself but once!
It was said that Napoleon had an officer under him who understood the tactics of war better than his commander, but he lacked that power of rapid decision and powerful concentration which characterized the greatest military leaders perhaps of the world. There were several generals under Grant who were as well skilled in war tactics, knew the country as well, were better educated, but they lacked that power of decision which made unconditional surrender absolutely imperative wherever he met the foe. Grant"s decision was like inexorable fate.
There was no going behind it, no opening it up for reconsideration. It was his decision which voiced itself in those memorable words in the Wilderness, "I propose to fight it out on these lines if it takes all summer," and which sent back the words "unconditional surrender" to General Buckner, who asked him for conditions of capitulation, that gave the first confidence to the North that the rebellion was doomed.
At last Lincoln had a general who had the power of decision, and the North breathed easy for the first time.
The man who would forge to the front in this compet.i.tive age must be a man of prompt and determined decision; like Caesar, he must burn his ships behind him, and make retreat forever impossible. When he draws his sword he must throw the scabbard away, lest in a moment of discouragement and irresolution he be tempted to sheathe it. He must nail his colors to the mast as Nelson did in battle, determined to sink with his ship if he can not conquer. Prompt decision and sublime audacity have carried many a successful man over perilous crises where deliberation would have been ruin.
"_Hoc age_."
CHAPTER XXIX
OBSERVATION AS A SUCCESS FACTOR
Henry Ward Beecher was not so foolish as to think that he could get on without systematic study, and a thorough-going knowledge of the world of books. "When I first went to Brooklyn," he said, "men doubted whether I could sustain myself. I replied, "Give me uninterrupted time till nine o"clock every morning, and I do not care what comes after.""
He was a hard student during four hours every morning; those who saw him after that imagined that he picked up the material for his sermons on the street.
Yet having said so much, it is true that much that was most vital in his preaching he did pick up on the street.
"Where does Mr. Beecher get his sermons?" every ambitious young clergyman in the country was asking, and upon one occasion he answered: "I keep my eyes open and ask questions."
This is the secret of many a man"s success,--keeping his eyes open and asking questions. Although Beecher was an omnivorous reader he did not care much for the writings of the theologians; the Christ was his great model, and he knew that He did not search the writings of the Sanhedrin for His sermons, but picked them up as He walked along the banks of the Jordan and over the hills and through the meadows and villages of Galilee. He saw that the strength of this great Master"s sermons was in their utter simplicity, their naturalness.
Beecher"s sermons were very simple, healthy, and strong. They pulsated with life; they had the vigor of bright red blood in them, because, like Christ"s, they grew out of doors. He got them everywhere from life and nature. He picked them up in the marketplace, on Wall Street, in the stores. He got them from the brakeman, the mechanic, the blacksmith, the day laborer, the newsboy, the train conductor, the clerk, the lawyer, the physician, and the business man.
He did not watch the progress of the great human battle from his study, as many did. He went into the thick of the fight himself. He was in the smoke and din. Where the battle of life raged fiercest, there he was studying its great problems. Now it was the problem of slavery; again the problem of government, or commerce, or education,--whatever touched the lives of men. He kept his hand upon the pulse of events.
He was in the swim of things. The great, busy, ambitious world was everywhere throbbing for him.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Henry Ward Beecher]