When he once got a taste of the power and helpfulness which comes from the study of real life, when he saw how much more forceful and interesting actual life stories were as they were being lived than anything he could get out of any book except the Bible, he was never again satisfied without ill.u.s.trations fresh from the lives of the people he met every day.
Beecher believed a sermon a failure when it does not make a great ma.s.s of hearers go away with a new determination to make a little more of themselves, to do their work a little better, to be a little more conscientious, a little more helpful, a little more determined to do their share in the world.
This great observer was not only a student of human nature, but of all nature as well. I watched him, many a time, completely absorbed in drinking in the beauties of the marvelous landscape, gathering grandeur and sublimity from the great White Mountains, which he loved so well, and where he spent many summers.
He always preached on Sunday at the hotel where he stayed, and great crowds came from every direction to hear him. There was something in his sermons that appealed to the best in everyone who heard him. They were full of pictures of beautiful landscapes, seascapes, and entrancing sunsets. The clouds, the rain, the sunshine, and the storm were reflected in them. The flowers, the fields, the brooks, the record of creation imprinted in the rocks and the mountains were intermingled with the ferryboats, the steam-cars, orphans, calamities, accidents, all sorts of experiences and bits of life. Happiness and sunshine, birds and trees alternated with the direst poverty in the slums, people on sick beds and death beds, in hospitals and in funeral processions; life pictures of successes and failures, of the discouraged, the despondent, the cheerful, the optimist and the pessimist, pa.s.sed in quick succession and stamped themselves on the brains of his eager hearers.
Wherever he went, Beecher continued his study of life through observation. Nothing else was half so interesting. To him man was the greatest study in the world. To place the right values upon men, to emphasize the right thing in them, to be able to discriminate between the genuine and the false, to be able to pierce their masks and read the real man or woman behind them, he regarded as one of a clergyman"s greatest accomplishments.
Like Professor Aga.s.siz, who could see wonders in the scale of a fish or a grain of sand, Beecher had an eye like the gla.s.s of a microscope, which reveals marvels of beauty in common things. He could see beauty and harmony where others saw only ugliness and discord, because he read the hidden meaning in things. Like Ruskin, he could see the marvelous philosophy, the Divine plan, in the lowliest object. He could feel the Divine presence in all created things.
"An exhaustive observation," says Herbert Spencer, "is an element of all great success." There is no position in life where a trained eye can not be made a great success a.s.set.
"Let"s leave it to Osler," said the physicians at a consultation where a precious life hung by a thread. Then the great Johns Hopkins professor examined the patient. He did not ask questions. His experienced eye drew a conclusion from the slightest evidence. He watched the patient closely; his manner of breathing, the appearance of the eye,--everything was a telltale of the patient"s condition, which he read as an open book. He saw symptoms which others could not see.
He recommended a certain operation, which was performed, and the patient recovered. The majority of those present disagreed with him, but such was their confidence in his power to diagnose a case through symptoms and indications which escape most physicians, that they were willing to leave the whole decision to him. Professor Osler was called a living X-ray machine, with additional eyes in finger tips so familiar with the anatomy that they could detect a growth or displacement so small that it would escape ordinary notice.
The power which inheres in a trained faculty of observation is priceless. The education which Beecher got through observation, by keeping his eyes, his ears, and his mind open, meant a great deal more to him and to the world than his college education. He was not a great scholar; he did not stand nearly as high in college as some of his cla.s.smates whom he far outstripped in life, but his mind penetrated to the heart of things.
Lincoln was another remarkable example of the possibilities of an education through reflection upon what he observed. His mind stopped and questioned, and extracted the meaning of everything that came within its range. Wherever he went, there was a great interrogation point before him. Everything he saw must give up its secret before he would let it go. He had a pa.s.sion for knowledge; he yearned to know the meaning of things, the philosophy underlying the common, everyday occurrences.
Ruskin says: "Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think; but thousands can think for one who can see."
I once traveled abroad with two young men, one of whom was all eyes,--nothing seemed to escape him,--and the other never saw anything.
The day after leaving a city, the latter could scarcely recall anything of interest, while the former had a genius for absorbing knowledge of every kind through the eye. Things so trivial that his companion did not notice them at all, meant a great deal to him. He was a poor student, but he brought home rich treasures from over the sea. The other young man was comparatively rich, and brought home almost nothing of value.
While visiting Luther Burbank, the wizard horticulturist, in his famous garden, recently, I was much impressed by his marvelous power of seeing things. He has observed the habits of fruits and flowers to such purpose that he has performed miracles in the fields of floriculture and horticulture. Stunted and ugly flowers and fruits, under the eye of this miracle worker, become marvels of beauty.
George W. Cortelyou was a stenographer not long ago. Many people thought he would remain a stenographer, but he always kept his eyes open. He was after an opportunity. Promotion was always staring him in the face. He was always looking for the next step above him. He was a shrewd observer. But for this power of seeing things quickly, of absorbing knowledge, he would never have advanced.
The youth who would get on must keep his eyes open, his ears open, his mind open. He must be quick, alert, ready.
I know a young Turk, who has been in this country only a year, yet he speaks our language fluently. He has studied the map of our country.
He knows its geography, and a great deal of our history, and much about our resources and opportunities. He said that when he landed in New York it seemed to him that he saw more opportunities in walking every block of our streets than he had ever seen in the whole of Turkey. And he could not understand the lethargy, the lack of ambition, the indifference of our young men to our marvelous possibilities.
The efficient man is always growing. He is always acc.u.mulating knowledge of every kind. He does not merely look with his eyes. He sees with them. He keeps his ears open. He keeps his mind open to all that is new and fresh and helpful.
The majority of people do not _see_ things; they just _look_ at them.
The power of keen observation is indicative of a superior mentality; for it is the mind, not the optic nerve, that really sees.
Most people are too lazy, mentally, to see things carefully. Close observation is a powerful mental process. The mind is all the time working over the material which the eye brings it, considering, forming opinions, estimating, weighing, balancing, calculating.
Careless, indifferent observation does not go back of the eye. If the mind is not focused, the image is not clean-cut, and is not carried with force and distinctness enough to the brain to enable it to get at the truth and draw accurate conclusions.
The observing faculty is particularly susceptible to culture, and is capable of becoming a mighty power. Few people realize what a tremendous success and happiness is possible through the medium of the eye.
The telegraph, the sewing machine, the telephone, the telescope, the miracles of electricity, in fact, every great invention of the past or present, every triumph of modern labor-saving machinery, every discovery in science and art, is due to the trained power of seeing things.
The whole secret of a richly stored mind is alertness, sharp, keen attention, and thoughtfulness. Indifference, apathy, mental la.s.situde and laziness are fatal to all effective observation.
It does not take long to develop a habit of attention that seizes the salient points of things.
It is a splendid drill for children to send them out on the street, or out of doors anywhere, just for the purpose of finding out how many things they can see in a certain given time, and how closely they can observe them. Just the effort to try to see how much they can remember and bring back is a splendid drill. Children often become pa.s.sionately fond of this exercise, and it becomes of inestimable value in their lives.
Other things equal, it is the keen observer who gets ahead. Go into a place of business with the eye of an eagle. Let nothing escape you.
Ask yourself why it is that the proprietor at fifty or sixty years of age is conducting a business which a boy of eighteen or twenty ought to be able to handle better. Study his employees; a.n.a.lyze the situation.
You will find perhaps that he never knew the value of good manners in clerks. He thought a boy, if honest, would make a good salesman; but, perhaps, by gruff, uncouth manners, he is driving out of the door customers the proprietor is trying to bring in by advertis.e.m.e.nts. You will see by his show windows, perhaps, before you go into his store, that there is no business insight, no detection of the wants of possible buyers. If you keep your eyes open, you can, in a little while, find out why this man is not a greater success. You can see that a little more knowledge of human nature would have revolutionized his whole business, multiplied the receipts tenfold in a few years.
You will see that this man has not studied men. He does not know them.
No matter where you go, study the situation. Think why the man does not do better if he is not doing well, why he remains in mediocrity all his life. If he is making a remarkable success, try to find out why.
Keep your eyes open, your ears open. Make deductions from what you see and hear. Trace difficulties; look up evidences of success or failure everywhere. It will be one of the greatest factors in your own success.
CHAPTER x.x.x
SELF-HELP
I learned that no man in G.o.d"s wide earth is either willing or able to help any other man.--PESTALOZZI.
What I am I have made myself.--HUMPHRY DAVY.
Be sure, my son, and remember that the best men always make themselves.--PATRICK HENRY.
Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?
BYRON.
Who waits to have his task marked out, Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled.
LOWELL.
"Colonel Crockett makes room for himself!" exclaimed a backwoods congressman in answer to the exclamation of the White House usher to "Make room for Colonel Crockett!" This remarkable man was not afraid to oppose the head of a great nation. He preferred being right to being president. Though rough, uncultured, and uncouth, Crockett was a man of great courage and determination.
"Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify," said James A. Garfield; "but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim for himself. In all my acquaintance I have never known a man to be drowned who was worth the saving."
Garfield was the youngest member of the House of Representatives when he entered, but he had not been in his seat sixty days before his ability was recognized and his place conceded. He stepped to the front with the confidence of one who belonged there. He succeeded because all the world in concert could not have kept him in the background, and because when once in the front he played his part with an intrepidity and a commanding ease that were but the outward evidences of the immense reserves of energy on which it was in his power to draw.
"Take the place and att.i.tude which belong to you," says Emerson, "and all men acquiesce. The world must be just. It leaves every man with profound unconcern to set his own rate."
"A person under the firm persuasion that he can command resources virtually has them," says Livy.
Richard Arkwright, the thirteenth child, in a hovel, with no education, no chance, gave his spinning model to the world, and put a scepter in England"s right hand such as the queen never wielded.
Solario, a wandering gypsy tinker, fell deeply in love with the daughter of the painter Coll" Antonio del Fiore, but was told that no one but a painter as good as the father should wed the maiden. "Will you give me ten years to learn to paint, and so ent.i.tle myself to the hand of your daughter?" Consent was given, Coll" Antonio thinking that he would never be troubled further by the gypsy.
About the time that the ten years were to end the king"s sister showed Coll" Antonio a Madonna and Child, which the painter extolled in terms of the highest praise. Judge of his surprise on learning that Solario was the artist. His great determination gained him his bride.
Louis Philippe said he was the only sovereign in Europe fit to govern, for he could black his own boots.