Full text of "Architects of fate : or, Steps to success and power : a book designed to inspire youth to character building, self-culture and noble achievement"

mmM

oY OMfyi) jk> oAicceM ari^J/omtAj

< nAr^ACTFR-BUlLDlNG SERIES

Uii 'i' i' i rLSDIPTTPiii'i'i'iiiT rri'i' i'i'dLliLi I'l'i' i'i ' i'i'i'i'iTI

3L.1BR,>VI«,Y

StoiTrA|nciil]iiral Collep.

Vol . .G. fe L'^

'lass

V ('

'Late . . .:,%'.'. iS 'J (,.

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 , 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 , 'iiiijii-'-iiL'-tiiiiii.' L'jiiJiiiiiiiiiLiiLiiii iiiiinii

^^^i

3.S I 9.

BOOK 170.M33 c. 1

MARDFri #

STEPS ro succ

ARCHITECTS OF

ESS AND POWER

FATE OR

3 ^153 000t,?5^i fl

I ^-x?

COLUMBUS

{After jxiintin'i hi Royttl Arsenal, Madrid)

" Sail on, sail on, sail on, and on."

ARCHITECTS OF FATE

OR, STEPS TO SUCCESS AND POWER

A BOOK DESIGNED TO INSPIRE YOUTH TO

CHARACTER BUILDING, SELF-CULTURE

AND NOBLE ACHIEVEMENT

ORISON SWETT MARDEN

AUTHOR OF " PUSHING TO THE FRONT
OR, SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES "

ILLUSTRATED WITH THIRTY-TWO FINE
PORTRAITS OF EMINENT PERSONS

"All are architects of fate
Working in these walls of time."

" Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build."

'' Let thy great deed be thy prayer to thy God.'

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

<^z JSilier?ibe j^res?, Camliriti0C

1895

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 3Iass., U. S. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co.

PEEFACE.

The demand for more than a dozen editions of
" Pushing to the Front " during its first year and its
universally favorable reception, both at home and abroad,
have encouraged the author to publish this companion
volume of somewhat similar scope and purpose. The
two books were prepared simultaneously ; and the story
of the first, given in its preface, applies equally well to
this.

Inspiration to character-building and worthy achieve-
ment is the keynote of the present volume ; its object,
to arouse to honorable exertion youth who are drifting
without aim, to awaken dormant ambitions in those
who have grown discouraged in the struggle for success,
to encourage and stimulate to higher resolve those who
are getting out to make their own way, with perhaps
neither friendship nor capital other than a determina-
tion to get on in the world.

Nothing is so fascinating to a youth with high pur-
pose, life, and energy throbbing in his young blood as
stories of men and women who have brought great
things to pass. Though these themes are as old as the
human race, yet they are ever new, and more interest-
ing to the young than any fiction, ^he cry of youth is
for life ! more life ! No didactic or dogmatic teaching,
however brilliant, will capture a twentieth-century boy,
keyed up to the highest pitch by the pressure of an
intense civilization. The romance of achievement under
difficulties, of obscure beginnings and triumphant ends ;
the story of how great men started, their struggles, their
long waitings, amid want and woe, the obstacles over-
come, the final triumphs ; examples, which explode ex-
cuses, of men who have seized common situations and
made them great ; of those of average capacity who have
succeeded by the use of ordinary means, by dint of
indomitable will and inflexible purpose : these will most

iv PREFACE.

inspire the ambitious youth. The author teaches that
there are bread and success for every youth under the
American flag who has the grit to seize his chance and
work his w^ay to his own loaf ; that the barriers are not
yet erected w^hich declare to aspiring talent, " Thus far
and no farther " ; that the most forbidding circumstances
cannot repress a longing for knowledge, a yearning for
growth ; that poverty, humble birth, loss of limbs or
even eyesight, have not been able to bar the progress
of men with grit ; that poverty has rocked the cradle
of the giants who have wrung civilization from barbar-
ism, and have led the world up from savagery to the
Gladstones, the Lincolns, and the Grants.

The book shows that it is the man with one unwaver-
ing aim who cuts his way through opposition and forges
to the front ; that in this electric age, wdiere everything
is pusher or pushed, he who w^ould succeed must hold
his ground and push hard; that what are stumbling-
blocks and defeats to the w^eak and vacillating, are but
stepping-stones and victories to the strong and deter-
mined. The author teaches that every germ of goodness
will at last struggle into bloom and fruitage, and that
true success follows every right step. He has tried to
touch the higher springs of the youth's aspiration ; to
lead him to high ideals ; to teach him that there is some-
thing nobler in an occupation than merely living-getting
or money-getting ; that a man may make millions and
be a failure still ; to caution youth not t© allow the
maxims of a low prudence, dinned daily into his ears
in this money-getting age, to repress the longings for
a higher life ; that the hand can never safely reach
higher than does the heart.

The author's aim has been largely through concrete
illustrations which have pith, point, and purpose, to
be more suggestive than dogmatic, in a style more prac-
tical than elegant, more helpful than ornate, more per-
tinent than novel.

The author wishes to acknowledge valuable assistance
from Mr. Arthur W. Brown, of W. Kingston, K. I.

O. S. M.
43 BowDOiN St., Boston, Mass.
December 2, 1895.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Wanted — A Man 1

God isafter amon. Wealth is nothing, fame is nothing. Man-
hood is everything.

II. Dare 10

Dare to live thy creed. Conquer your place in the world. All
things serve a brave soul.

III. The Will and the Way 38

Find a way or make one. Everything is either pusher or
pushed. The world always listens to a man with a will in him.

IV. Success under Difficulties 60

There is scarcely a great truth or doctrine but has had to fight
its way to recognition through detraction, calumny, and persecu-
tion.

V. Uses of Obstacles 86

The Great Sculptor cares little for the human block as such ;
it is the statue He* is after ; and He will blast, hammer, and chisel
with poverty, hardships, anything to get out the man.

VI. One Unwavering Aim 107

Find your purpose and fling your life out to it. Try to be
somebody with all your might.

VII. Sowing and Reaping 125

What is put into the first of life is put into the whole of life.
Start right.

VIII. Self-Help 145

Self-made or never made. The greatest men have risen from
the ranks.

IX. Work and Wait 167

Don't risk a life's superstructure upon a day's foundation.

X. Clear Grit % 186

The goddess of fame or of fortune has been won by many a
poor boy who had no friends, no backing, or anything but pure
grit and invincible purpose to commend him.

XI. The Grandest Thing in the World 202

Manhood is above all riches and overtops all titles ; character
is greater than any career.

XII. Wealth in Economy 227

" Hunger, rags, cold, hard work, contempt, suspicion, unjust
reproach, are disagreeable ; but debt is infinitely worse than all."

vi CONTENTS.

XIII. Rich without Money 239

To have nothing is not poverty. Whoever viplifts civilization is
rich though he die penniless, and future generations will erect
his monument.

XIV. Opportunities where You Are 256

" How speaks the present hour ? Act.'''' Don't wait for great
opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great.

XV. The Might of Little Things 268

There is notliing small in a world where a mud-crack swells to
an Amazon, and the stealing of a penny may end on the scaffold.

XVI. Self-Mastery 288

Guard your weak point. Be lord over yourself.

XVII. Nature's Little Bill 306

Many a man pays for his success with a slice of his constitution.
Most of us carry our creeds in our bile-ducts. K they are healthy,
we are optimists ; if diseased, pessimists.

XVIII. Vocations, Good and Bad 327

Half the world is out of place and tortured with the conscious-
ness of unfulfilled destiny. Civilization will mark its highest tide
when every man finds his place and fills it.

XIX. The Man with an Idea 343

The man with an idea has ever changed the face of the world.

XX. Decision 358

To dally with your purpose, to half will, to hang forever in the
balance, is to lose your grip on life,

XXI. Power of the Mind over the Body 370

The mind has power to keep the bodv strong and healthy, to
renew life, and to preserve it from decay to a far greater extent
than we are apt to think.

XXII. The Charities 390

When everybody else denounces and curses a man. Charity
says, " Wait : there is a god in that man somewhere."

XXIII. The Curse of Idleness 410

A lazy man is of no more use than a dead man, and he takes
up more room.

XXIV. Our Schools and Schoolmasters 421

Poverty and hardship have ever been the great schoolmasters
of the race, and have forced into prominence many a man who
would otherwise have remained unknown.

XXV. Books 430

Perhaps no other things have such power to lift the poor out of
poverty, the wretched out of misery, to make the burden-bearer
forget his burden, the sick his suffering, as books.

XXVI. Every Man his own Paradise 448

Paradise is not lost except to those who have blinded their eyes
to its beauties, stopped their ears to its harmonies, and blunted
their sensibilities to its sweet experiences.

LIST OF PORTRAITS.

CHAP. PAGE

Columbus Frontispiece

I. Phillips Brooks To face 1

II. Oliver Hazard Perry 10

III. Walter Scott 38

IV. William Hickling Prescott 60

V. John Bunyan 86

VI. Bernard Palissy 106

VI. Richard Arkwright 112

VII. Victor Hugo 124

VIII. James A. Garfield 144

VIII. Michael Faraday 152

IX. Thomas Alva Edison 166

X. Andrew Jackson 186

XL John Greenleaf Whittier 202

XI. Lafayette 216

XII. Alexander Hamilton 226

XIII. Ralph Waldo Emerson 238

XIV. Thomas Jefferson. . . • 256

XV. Louis Agassiz 268

XVI. James Russell Lowell 288

XVII. James G. Blaine 306

XVIII. Charles Sumner 326

XIX. George Stephenson 342

XIX. Robert Fulton 3.52

XX. Patrick Henry 358

XXI. Alexander H. Stephens 370

XXII. Washington Irving 390

XXII. Florence Nightingale 400

XXIV. Henry Clay 420

XXV. George Eliot 430

XXV. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 440

XXVI. John Ruskin 448

'<i^

PHILLIPS BROOKS
" The best-loved man in New England."
" The ideal life, the life full of completion, haunts us all. We feel the thing w^e
ought to be beating beneath the thing we are."
'■^ First, be a man.''^

ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

CHAPTER I.

WANTED — A MAN.

"Wanted; men:

Not systems fit and wise,

Not faiths with rigid eyes,

Not wealth in mountain piles,

Not power with gracious smiles.

Not even the potent pen :

Wanted; men."
Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and
know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man. — Jere-
miah.

All the world cries, Where is the man who will save us ? We want a
man ! Don't look so far for this man. You have him at hand. This man,
— it is you, it is I, it is each one of us ! . . . How to constitute one's self
a man ? Nothing harder, if one knows not how to will it; nothing easier,
if one wills it. — Alexandre Dumas.

"'Tis life, not death for which we pant:
'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant:
More life and fuller, that we want."

I do not wish in attempting to paint a man to describe an air-fed, un-
impassioned, impossible ghost. My eves and ears ai*e revolted by any
neglect of the physical facts, the limitations of man. — Emerson.

But nature, with a matchless hand, sends iorth her nobly born,
And laughs the paltry attributes of wealth and rank to scorn ;
She moulds with care a spirit rare, half human, half divine,
And cries exulting, " Who can make a gentleman like mine ? "

Eliza Cook.

"In a thousand cups of life," says Emerson, "only-
one is the right mixture. The fine adjustment of the
existing elements, where the well-mixed man is born

2 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

with eyes not too dull, nor too good, with fire enough
and earth enough, capable of receiving impressions
from all things, and not too susceptible, then no gift
need be bestowed on him. He brings his fortune with

him."

Diogenes sought with a lantern at noontide m ancient
Atheiis for a perfectly honest man, and sought in vain.
In the market place he once cried aloud, "Hear me,
men ; " and, when a crowd collected around him, he
said scornfully : " I called for men, not pygmies."

The world has a standing advertisement over the
door of every profession, every occupation ; every call-
ing : " Wanted — A Man."

AVanted, a man who will not lose his individuality m
a crowd, a man who has the courage of his convictions,
who is not afraid to say ''No," though all the world
say "Yes."

Wanted, a man who, though he is dominated by a
mighty purpose, will not permit one great faculty to
dwarf, cripple, warp, or mutilate his manhood ; who
will not allow the over-development of one faculty to
stunt or paralyze his other faculties.

Wanted, a man who is larger than his calling, who
considers it a low estimate of his occupation to value it
merely as a means of getting a living. Wanted, a man
who sees self-development, education and culture, disci-
pline and drill, character and manhood, in his occupa-
tion.

A thousand pulpits vacant in a single religious de-
nomination, a thousand preachers standing idle in the
market place, while a thousand church committees scour
the land for men to fill those same vacant pulpits, and
scour in vain, is a sufficient indication, in one direction
at least, of the largeness of the opportunities of the
age, and also of the crying need of good men.

Wanted, a man who is well balanced, who is not
cursed with some little defect or weakness which crip-

WANTED — A MAN, 3

pies Ms usefulness and neutralizes his powers. Wanted,
a man of courage, who is not a coward in any part of
his nature.

Wanted, a man who is symmetrical, and not one-
sided in his development, who has not sent all the
energies of his being into one narrow specialty, and
allowed all the other branches of his life to wither and
die. Wanted, a man who is broad, who does not take
half views of things. Wanted, a man who mixes com-
mon sense with his theories, who does not let a college
education spoil him for practical, every-day life ; a man
who prefers substance to show, who regards his good
name as a priceless treasure.

Wanted, a man " who, no stunted ascetic, is full of
life and fire, but whose passions are trained to heed a
strong will, the servant of a tender conscience ; who
has learned to love all beauty, whether of nature or of
art, to hate all vileness, and to resi>ect others as him-
self."

God calls a man to be upright and x^ure and gener-
ous, but he also calls him to be intelligent and skillful
and strong and brave.

The world wants a man who is educated all over;
whose nerves are brought to their acutest sensibility ;
whose brain is cultured, keen, incisive, penetrating,
broad, liberal, deep ; whose hands are deft ; whose eyes
are alert, sensitive, microscopic ; whose heart is tender,
broad, magnanimous, true.

The whole world is looking for such a man. Al-
though there are millions out of employment, yet it is
almost impossible to find just the. right man in almost
any department of life. Every profession and every
occupation has a standing advertisement all over the
world : " Wanted — A Man."

Eousseau, in his celebrated essay on education, says :
" According to the order of nature, men being equal,
their common vocation is the profession of humanity ;

4 AncHiTKcrs or fatk.

aiul wlioovor is woU oiluoatod to ilisi'hari^o tlu' iliitv o{
a man oannot bo badly pivpaivd to till any of thosi^
otlu'os that havo a volatiou to him. It luattors littlo to
luo whothor my |nipil bo tlosig-nod tor tho army, tho
pulpit, or tho bar. Naturo has ilosliiunl us to tho
otUoos ot human lito autoooilont to our dostinatiou oon-
oorniui;" sooioty. To livo is tho protossion 1 would
toaoh him. Wlion 1 havo ilouo with liim. it is trm^ lu^
will bo noithor a sohlior. a lawyor. nor a (liviiu\ l.c!
him jirst be a man : Fortuno may romovo him from (>no
rank to anothor as sho ploasos. ho will bo always I'ouml
in his plaoo."

A littlo, short ilootor of divinity in a lar>;o Uaptist
oonvontion stood on a stop and said ho thaid;od (Jod ho
was a Baptist. Tho audionoo oould not hoar and oallod
'• Loudor." "(lOt up hi^ihor," somo ono said. " I oan't,"
ho ropliod. " To bo a Baptist is as hii;h as ono oan
got." Hut thoro is sonu^thing hii;hor than biMUi;- a Ba|>-
tist, and that is boing a mnn.

As Kmorson says, Talloyrand's tpiostion is ovor tho
main ono: not. is ho rioh ? is ho oommittod ? is ho
woll-moaning- ? has ho this or that, faoulty '.' is hoof
tho movomont ? is ho o\' tho ostablishmont ? but is ho
anybody? doos ho stand for somothing ? llo must bo
good of his kind. That is all that Talloyrand, all that
Stato Stroot, all that tho oonunon sonsi^ of mankiml
asks.

Whon iiartiold was askod as a young boy, '•what ho
luoant to bo." ho answorod: ** First of all, I must mako
mysolf a man; if 1 do not suooood in that. I oan suc-
ceed in nothing."

^lontaigne says our work is not to train a soul by it-
self alono, nor a body by itself alone, but to train a man.

C)ne groat need of the world to-day is for men and
women who are good animals. To endure the strain
of our oonoontratod oivilization, tho ooming man and
woman must havo an oxooss of animal spirits. They

WANTED— A MAN. 5

muBt have a robustness of health. Mere aVjsence of
disease is not health. It is the overflowing fountain,
not the one half full, that gives life and beauty to the
valley below. Only he is healthy who exults in mere
aninial existence; whose veiy life is a luxury^; who
feels a Vjounding pulse throughout his body ; who feels
life in every limb, as dogs do when scouring over the
field, or as Vjoys do when gliding over fiehls of ice.

J-'ope, the jjoet, was with Sir Godfrey Kneller, the
artist, one day, when the lattei-^s nephew, a Guinea
slave-trader, came into the room. "]S'ephew," said Sir
Godfrey, " you have the honor of seeing the two great-
est men in the world.'' " I don't know how great men
you may be," said the Guinea man, '• but I don't like
your looks. I have often bought a much better man
than either of you, all muscles and bones, for ten
guineas."

Sydney Smith said, " I am convinced that digestion
is the great secret of life, and that character, virtue
and talents, and qualities are powerfully affected by
beef, mutton, pie crust, and rich soups. I have often
thought I could feed or starve men into . virtues or
vices, and affect them more jjowerfully with my instm-
ments of torture than Timotheus could do formerly
with his lyre."

What more glorious than a magnificent manhood,
animated with the bounding spirits of overflowing
health ?

It is a sad sight to see thousands of students gradu-
ated every year from our grand institutions, whose ob-
ject is to make stalwart, independent, self-supporting
men, turned out into the world saplings instead of stal-
wart oaks, " memory-glands " instead of brainy men,
helpless instead of self-supporting, sickly instead of ro-
bust, weak instead of strong, leaning instead of erect.
" So many promising youths, and never a finished
man ! "

6 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

The character sympathizes with and unconsciously
takes on the nature of the body. A peevish, snarling,
ailing man cannot develop the vigor and strength of
character which is possible to a healthy, robust, jolly
man. There is an inherent love in the human mind for
wholeness, a demand that man shall come up to the high-
est standard ; and there is an inherent protest or con-
tempt for preventable deficiency. Nature too demands
that man be ever at the top of his condition. The
giant's strength with the imbecile's brain will not be
characteristic of the coming man.

Man has been a dwarf of himself, but a higher type of
manhood stands at the door of this age knocking for
admission.

As we stand upon the seashore while the tide is com-
ing in, one wave reaches up the beach far higher than
any previous one, then recedes, and for some time none
that follows comes up to its mark, but after a while
the whole sea is there and beyond it ; so now and then
there comes a man head and shoulders above his fellow-
men, showing that Nature has not lost her ideal, and
after a while even the average man will overtop the
highest wave of manhood yet given to the world.

Apelles hunted over Greece for many years, studying
the fairest points of beautiful women, getting here an
eye, there a forehead and there a nose, here a grace and
there a turn of beauty, for his famous portrait of a per-
fect woman which enchanted the world. So the coming
man will be a composite, many in one. He will absorb
into himself not the weakness, not the follies, but the
strength and the virtues of other types of men. He will
be a man raised to the highest power. He will be self-
centred, equipoised, and ever master of himself. His
sensibility will not be deadened or blunted by viola-
tion of nature's laws. His whole character will be im-
pressible, and will respond to the most delicate touches
of nature.

WANTED — A MAN. 7

What a piece of work — this coming man ! " How
noble in reason. How infinite in faculties. In form
and motion how express and admirable, in action how
like an angel, in apprehension how like a god. The
beauty of the world. The paragon of animals."

The first requisite of all education and discipline
should be man-timber. Tough timber must come from
well grown, sturdy trees. Such wood can be turned into
a mast, can be fashioned into a piano or an exquisite
carving. But it must become timber first. Time and
patience develop the sapling into the tree. So through
discipline, education, experience, the sapling child is
developed into hardy mental, moral, physical timber.

What an aid to character building would be the de-
termination of the young man in starting out in life to
consider himself his own bank ; that his notes will be
accepted as good or bad, and will pass current every-
where or be worthless, according to his individual rep-
utation for honor and veracity ; that if he lets a note go
to protest, his bank of character will be suspected ; if
he lets two or three go to protest, public confidence will
be seriously shaken ; that if they continue to go to pro-
test, his reputation will be lost and confidence in him
ruined.

If the youth should start out with the fixed determi-
nation that every statement he makes shall be the exact
truth ; that every promise he makes shall be redeemed
to the letter ; that every appointment shall be kept with
the strictest faithfulness and with full regard for other
men's time ; if he should hold his reputation as a price-
less treasure, feel that the eyes of, the world are upon
him, that he must not deviate a hair's breadth from the
truth and right ; if he should take such a stand at the
outset, he would, like George Peabody, come to have al-
most unlimited credit and the confidence of all ; and
would have developed into noble man-timber.

What are palaces and equipages ; what though a man

8 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

could cover a continent with his title-deeds, or an
ocean with his commerce ; compared with conscious rec-
titude, with a face that never turns pale at the accuser's
voice, with a bosom that never throbs with the fear of ex-
posure, with a heart that might be turned inside out and
disclose no stain of dishonor ? To have done no man a
wrong ; to have put your signature to no paper to which
the purest angel in heaven might not have been an
attesting witness ; to walk and live, unseduced, within
arm's length of what is not your own, with nothing be-
tween your desire and its gratification but the invisible
law of rectitude ; — this is to he a man.

" He that of siich a height hath built his mind,
And reared the dwelling of his thought so strong
As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame
Of his resolved powers ; nor all the wind
Of vanit}' or malice pierce to Avrong
His settled peace, or to disturb the same;
What a fair seat hath he ; from whence he may
The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey."

[Lines found in one of the books of Beecher^s Library.']

A man is never so happy as when he is totus in se ;
as when he suffices to himself, and can walk without
crutches or a guide. Said Jean Paul Eichter : "I have
made as much out of myself as could be made of the
stuff, and no man should require more."

Man is the only great thing in the universe. All the
ages have been trying to produce a perfect model. Only
one complete man has yet been evolved. The best of
us are but prophecies of what is to come.

What constitutes a state?
Not high-raised battlement or labored mound,

Thick wall or moated gate;
Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned ;

Not bays and broad-armed ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;

Not starred and spangled courts,
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.

No: men, high-minded men,
With powers as far above dull brutes endued

WANTED — A MAN.

In forest, brake, or den,
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude, —

Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain,

Prevent the long-aimed blow,
And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain.

William Jones.
God give us men. A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands:
Men whom the lust of office does not kill ;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy ;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor — men who will not lie ;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And scorn his treacherous flatteries without winking;
Tall men sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty, and in pj-ivate thinking.

Anon.
Open thy bosom, set thy wishes wide.
And let in manhood —let in happiness;
Admit the boundless theatre of thought
From nothing up to God . . . which makes a man !

Young.
" The wisest man could ask no more of fate
Than to be simple, modest, manly, true."

In speech right gentle, yet so wise; princely of mien,
Yet softly mannered ; modest, deferent.
And tender-hearted, though of fearless blood.

Edwin Arnold.

CHAPTER II.

DARE.

The Spartans did not inquire how many the euemj' are, but where they
are. — Agis II.

What 's brave, what's noble, let's do it after the high Roman fashion,
and make death proud to take us. — Shakespeake.
Better, like Hector, in the field to die,
Than, like a perfumed Paris, turn and fly.

LONGFfiLLOW.

Let me die facing the enemy. — Bayard.

Who conquers me, shall find a stubborn foe. Byron.

Courage in danger is half the battle. Plautus.

No great deed is done
By falterers who ask for certainty.

George Eliot.

Fortune befriends the bold. — Dryden.

Tender handed stroke a nettle.
And it stings you for your pains ;

Grasp it like a man of mettle.
And it soft as silk remains.

Aaron Hill.

We make way for the man who boldly pushes past us. — Bovee.

Man should dare all things that he knows is right.
And fear to do nothing save what is wrong.

Phebe Gary.

Soft-heartedness, in times like these,
Shows softness in the upper story.

Lowell.
friend, never strike sail to fear. Come into port grandly, or sail with
God the seas, — Emerson.

To stand with a smile upon j-^our face against a stake from which you
cannot get away — that, no doubt, is heroic. But the true glory is resig-
nation to the inevitable. To stand unchained, with perfect liberty to go
away, held only by the higher claims of duty, and let the fire creep up to
the heart, —this is heroism. — F. W. Robertson.

" Steady, men ! Every man must die where he
stands!" said Colin Cami)bell to the Ninety -third

COMMODORE PERRY
We have met the enemy and tliey are ours.

" He eithei- fears his fate too much
Or his deserts too small,
That dares not put it to the touch,
To gain or lose it all."

DARE. 11

Highlanders at Balaklava, as an overwhelming force of
Russian cavalry came sweeping down. "Ay, ay, Sir
Colin ! we '11 do that ! " was the cordial response from
men many of whom had to keep their word by thus
obeying.

"Bring back the colors," shouted a captain at the
battle of the Alma, when an ensign maintained his
ground in front, although the men were retreating.
"No," cried the ensign, "bring up the men to the
colors." " To dare, and again to dare, and without end
to dare," was Danton's noble defiance to the enemies of
France.

" The Commons of Erance have resolved to deliber-
ate," said Mirabeau to De Breze, who brought an order
from the king for them to disperse, June 23, 1789.
"We have heard the intentions that have been attrib-
uted to the king; and you, sir, who cannot be recog-
nized as his organ in the National Assembly, — you,
who have neither place, voice, nor right to speak, —
you are not the person to bring to us a message of his.
Go, say to those who sent you that we are here by the
power of the people, and that we will not be driven
hence, save by the power of the bayonet."

When the assembled senate of Rome begged Eegulus
not to return to Carthage to fulfill an illegal promise,
he calmly replied : " Have you resolved to dishonor
me ? Torture and death are awaiting me, but what are
these to the shame of an infamous act, or the wounds
of a guilty mind ? Slave as I am to Carthage, I still
have the spirit of a Roman. I have sworn to return.
It is my duty. Let the gods take care of the rest."

The courage which Cranmer had shown since the
accession of Mary gave way the moment his final
doom was announced. The moral cowardice which had
displayed itself in his miserable compliance with the lust
and despotism of Henry displayed itself again in six
successive recantations by which he hoped to purchase

12 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

pardon. But pardon was impossible ; and Cranmer's
strangely mingled nature found a power in its very weak-
ness wlien he was brought into the church of St. Mary at
Oxford on the 21st of March, to repeat his recantation
on the way to the stake. " Now," ended his address to
the hushed congregation before him, — " now I come to
the great thing that troubleth my conscience more than
any other thing that ever I said or did in my life, and
that is the setting abroad of writings contrary to the
truth ; which here I now renounce and refuse as things
written by a hand contrary to the truth which I thought
in my heart, and written for fear of death to save my
life, if it might be. And, forasmuch as my hand of-
fended in writing contrary to my heart, my hand there-
fore shall be the first punished ; for if I come to the fire
it shall be the first burned." " This was the hand that
wrote it," he again exclaimed at the stake, '' therefore
it shall suffer first punishment ; " and holding it steadily
in the flame, " he never stirred nor cried till life was
gone."

" Oh, if I were only a man ! " exclaimed Rebecca
Bates, a girl of fourteen, as she looked from the win-
dow of a lighthouse at Scituate, Mass., during the War
of 1812, and saw a British warship) anchor in the har-
bor. " What could you do ? " asked Sarah Winsor, a
young visitor. "See what a lot of them the boats
contain, and look at their guns ! " and she pointed to
five large boats, filled with soldiers in scarlet uniforms,
who were coming to burn the vessels in the harbor
and destroy the town. " I don't care, I 'd fight," said
Rebecca. " I 'd use father's old shotgun — anything.
Think of uncle's new boat and the sloop ! And how
hard it is to sit here and see it all, and not lift a fiuger
to help. Father and uncle are in the village and will
do all they can. How still it is in the town ! There is
not a man to be seen." " Oh, they are hiding till the
soldiers get nearer," said Sarah ; '^ then we '11 hear the

DARE. 13

shots and the drum." ^' The drum ! " exclaimed Ke-
becca, "how can they use it? It is here. Father
brought it home last night to mend. See ! the first
boat has reached the sloop. Oh ! they are going to
burn her. AVhere is that drum ? I 've a great mind to
go down and beat it. We could hide behind the sand-
hills and bushes." As flames began to rise from the
sloop the ardor of the girls increased. They found the
drum and an old fife, and, slipping out of doors unno-
ticed by Mrs. Bates, soon stood behind a row of sand-
hills. " Eub-a-dub-dub, rub-a-dub-dub," went the drum,
and " squeak, squeak, squeak," went the fife. The
Americans in the town thought that help had come
from Boston, and rushed into boats to attack the red-
coats. The British paused in their work of destruc-
tion; and, when the fife began to play "Yankee
Doodle," they scrambled into their boats and rowed in
haste to the warship, which weighed anchor and sailed
away as fast as the wind would carry her.

A woman's piercing shriek suddenly startled a party
of surveyors at dinner in a forest of northern Virginia
on a calm, sunny day in 1750. The cries were repeated
in quick succession, and the men sprang through the
undergrowth to learn their cause. " Oh, sir," exclaimed
the woman as she caught sight of a j^outh of eighteen,
but a man in stature and bearing ; " you will surely do
something for me ! Make these friends release me.
My boy, — my poor boy is drowning, and they will not
let me go!" "It would be madness; she will jump
into the river," said one of the men who was holding
her; "and the rapids would dasli^her to pieces in a
moment ! " Throwing off his coat, the youth sprang to
the edge of the bank, scanned for a moment the rocks
and whirling currents, and then, at sight of part of the
boy's dress, plunged into the roaring rapids. " Thank
God, he will save my child ! " cried the mother, and all
rushed to the brink of the precipice ; " there he is ! Oh,
my boy, my darling boy ! How could I leave you ? "

14 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

But all eyes were bent upon tlie youth struggling
with strong heart and hope amid the dizzy sweep of the
whirling currents far below. Now it seemed as if he
would be dashed against a projecting rock, over which
the water flew in foam, and anon a whirlpool would
drag him in, from whose grasp escape would seem
impossible. Twice the boy went out of sight, but he
had reappeared the second time, although frightfully
near the most dangerous part of the river. The rush
of waters here was tremendous, and no one had ever
dared to approach it, even in a canoe, lest he should be
dashed to pieces. The youth redoubled his exertions.
Three times he was about to grasp the child, when
some stronger eddy would toss it from him. One final
effort he makes ; the child is held aloft by his strong
right arm ; but a cry of horror bursts from the lips of
every spectator as boy and man shoot over the falls and
vanish in the seething waters below.

" There they are ! " shouted the mother a moment
later, in a delirium of joy. " See ! they are safe ! Great
God, I thank Thee ! " And sure enough they emerged
unharmed from the boiling vortex, and in a few minutes
reached a low place in the bank and were drawn up
by their friends, the boy senseless, but still alive, and
the youth almost exhausted. "God will give you a
reward," solemnly spoke the grateful woman. "He
will do great things for you in return for this day's
work, and the blessings of thousands besides mine will
attend you."

The youth was George Washington.

"Your Grace has not the organ of animal courage
largely developed," said a phrenologist, who was exam-
ining Wellington's head. "You are right," replied the
Iron Duke, "and but for my sense of duty I should
have retreated in my first fight." That first fight, on
an Indian field, was one of the most terrible on record.

In the reverses which followed Napoleon, he met the

DARE. 15

allies at Arcis. A live shell having fallen in front of
one of his young battalions, which recoiled and wavered
in. expectation of an explosion, Napoleon, to reassure
them, spurred his charger toward the instrument of
destruction, made him smell the burning match, waited
unshaken for the explosion, and was blown up. Kolling
in the dust with his mutilated steed, and rising without
a wound amid the plaudits of his soldiers, he calmly
called for another horse, and continued to brave the
grape-shot, and to fly into the thickest of the battle.

When General Jackson was a judge and was holding
court in a small settlement, a border ruffian, a murderer
and desperado, came into the court-room with brutal
violence and interrupted the court. The judge ordered
him to be arrested. The officer did not dare to approach
him. '■^ Call a posse," said the judge, " and arrest him.''
But they also shrank in fear from the ruffian. " Call
me, then," said Jackson ; " this court is adjourned for
five minutes." He left the bench, walked straight up
to the man, and with his eagle eye actually cowed the
ruffian, who dropped his weapons, afterwards saying,
" There was something in his eye I could not resist."

One of the last official acts of the late President
Carnot, of France, was the sending of a medal of the
French Legion of Honor to a little American girl, who
lives in Indiana. While a train on the Pan Handle
Railroad, having on board several distinguished French-
men, was bound to Chicago and the World's Fair, Jennie
Carey, who was then ten years old, discovered that a
trestle was on fire, and that if the train, which was
nearly due, entered it a dreadful wreck would take
place. Thereupon she ran out upon the track to a place
where she could be seen from some little distance.
Then she took off her red flannel skirt and, when the
train came in view, waved it back and forth across the
track. It was seen, and the train stopped. On board
of it were seven hundred people, many of whom must

16 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

have suffered death but for Jennie's courage and pres-
ence of mind. When they returned to France, the
Frenchmen brought the occurrence to the notice of
President Carnot, and the result was the sending of the
medal of this famous French society, the purpose of
which is the honoring of bravery and merit, wherever
they may be found.

After the battle of Fort Donelson, the wounded were
hauled down the hill in rough board wagons, and most
of them died before they reached St. Louis. One blue-
eyed boy of nineteen, Avith both arms and both legs
shattered, had lain a long time and was neglected. He
said, " Why, you see they could n't stop to bother with
us because they had to take the fort. When they took
it we all forgot our sufferings and shouted for joy, even
to the dying."

Louis IX. of France was captured by the Turks at
the battle of Mansoora, during the Seventh Crusade,
and his wife Marguerite, with a babe at the breast,
was in Damietta, many miles away. The Infidels sur-
rounded the city, and pressed the garrison so hard that
it was decided to capitulate. The queen summoned
the knights, and told them that she at least would die
in armor upon the ramparts before the enemy should
become masters of Damietta.

" Before her words they thrilled like leaves
"When winds are in the wood ;
And a deepening murmur told of men
Roused to a loftier mood."

Grasping lance and shield, they vowed to defend
their queen and the cross to the last. Damietta was
saved.

Pyrrhus marched to Sparta to reinstate the deposed
Cleonymus, and quietly pitched his tents before Laco-
nia, not anticipating resistance. In consternation, the
Spartans in council decided to send their women to
Crete for safety. But the women met and asked Queen

DARE. 17

Archidamia to remonstrate. She went to the council,
sword in hand, and told the men that their wives did
not care to live after Sparta was destroyed.

" We are brave men's mothers, and brave men's wives;
We are ready to do and dare ;
We are ready to man your walls with our lives,
And string your bows with our hair."

They hurried to the walls and worked all night, aid-
ing the men in digging trenches. When Pyrrhus
attacked the city next day, his repulse was so emphatic
that he withdrew from Laconia.

Charles V. of Spain passed through Thuringia in
1547, on his return to Swabia after the battle of Muehl-
burg. He wrote to Catherine, Countess Dowager of
Schwartzburg, promising that her subjects should not be
molested in their persons or property if they would
supply the Spanish soldiers with provisions at a reason-
able price. On approaching Eudolstadt, General Alva
and Prince Henry of Brunswick, with his sons, invited
themselves, by a messenger sent forward, to breakfast
with the Countess, who had no choice but to ratify so
delicate a request from the commander of an army.
Just as the guests were seated at a generous repast, the
Countess was called from the hall and told that the
Spaniards were using violence and driving away the
cattle of the peasants.

Quietly arming all her retinue, she bolted and barred
all the gates and doors of the castle, and returned to
the banquet to complain of the breach of faith. Gen-
eral Alva told her that such was the custom of war,
adding that such trifling disorders were not to be
heeded. "That we shall presently see," said Catha-
rine ; " my poor subjects must have their own again,
or, as God lives, prince's blood for oxen's blood ! " The
doors were opened, and armed men took the places of
the waiters behind the chairs of the guests. Henry
changed color; then, as the best way out of a bad

18 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

scrape, laughed loudly, and ended by praising the
splendid acting of his hostess, and promising that Alva
should order the cattle restored at once. Not until a
courier returned, saying that the order had been obeyed,
and all damages settled satisfactorily, did the armed
waiters leave. The Countess then thanked her guests
for the honor they had done her castle, and they retired
with protestations of their distinguished consideration.

It was the heroic devotion of an Indian girl that
saved the life of Captain John Smith, when the power-
ful King Powhatan had decreed his death. Ill could
the struggling colony spare him at that time.

When the consul shouted that the bridge was totter-
ing, Lartius and Herminius sought safety in flight. But
Horatius strode still nearer the foe, the single champion
of his country and liberty, and dared the ninety thou-
sand to come on. Dead stillness fell upon the Tuscans,
so astonished were they at the audacity of the Eoman.
He first broke the awful silence, so deep that his clear,
strong voice could be heard by thousands in both
armies, between which rolled the Tiber, as he denounced
the baseness and perfidy of the invaders. Not until
his words were drowned by the loud crash of fiercely
disrupturing timbers, and the sullen splash of the dark
river, did his enemies hurl their showers of arrows and
javelins. Then, dexterously warding off the missiles
with his shield, he plunged into the Tiber. Although
stabbed in the hip by a Tuscan spear which lamed him
for life, he swam in safety to Kome.

"It is a bad omen," said Eric the Eed, when his
horse slipped and fell on the way to his ship, moored
on the coast of Greenland, in readiness for a voyage of
discovery. ''Ill-fortune would be mine should I dare
venture now upon the sea." So he returned to his
house ; but his young son Leif decided to go, and, with
a crew of thirty-five men, sailed southward in search
of the unknown shore upon which Captain Biarni had

DARE. 19

been driven by a starm, while sailing in another Viking
ship two or three years before. The first land that
they saw was probably Labrador, a barren, rugged
plain. Leif called this country Heluland, or the land
of fiat stones. Sailing onward many days, he came to a
low, level coast thickly covered with woods, on account
of which he called the country Markland, probably the
modern Nova Scotia. , Sailing onward, they came to an
island which they named Vinland on account of the
abundance of delicious wild grapes in the woods. This
was in the year 1000. Here where the city of Newport,
R. I., stands, they spent many months, and then re-
turned to Greenland with their vessel loaded with
grapes and strange kinds of wood. The voyage was
successful, and no doubt Eric was sorry he had been
frightened by the bad omen.

May 10, 1796, Napoleon carried the bridge at Lodi,
in the face of the Austrian batteries. Fourteen cannon
— some accounts say thirty — were trained upon the
French end of the structure. Behind them were six
thousand troops. Napoleon massed four thousand gren-
adiers at the head of the bridge, with a battalion of
three hundred carbineers in front. At the tap of the
drum the foremost assailants wheeled from the cover of
the street wall under a terrible hail of grape and canis-
ter, and attempted to pass the gateway to the bridge.
The front ranks went down like stalks of grain before
a reaper; the column staggered and reeled backward,
and the valiant grenadiers were appalled by the task
before them. Without a word or a look of reproach,
Napoleon placed himself at their head, and his aids
and generals rushed to his side. Forward again, this
time over heaps of dead that choked the passage, and
a quick run, counted by seconds only, carried the col-
umn across two hundred yards of clear space, scarcely
a shot from the Austrians taking effect beyond the
point where the platoons wheeled for the first leap.

20 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

So sudden and so miraculous was it all that the Aus-
trian artillerists abandoned their guns instantly, and
their supports fled in a panic instead of rushing to the
front and meeting the French onslaught. This Napo-
leon had counted on in making the bold attack. The
contrast between Napoleon's slight figure and the mas-
sive grenadiers suggested the nickname "Little Cor-
poral."

The great secret of the success of Joan of Arc was
the boldness of her attacks.

When Stephen of Colonna fell into the hands of base
assailants, and they asked him in derision, "Where is
now your fortress ? " " Here," was his bold reply,
placing his hand upon his heart.

It was after the Mexican War when General Mc-
Clellan was employed as a topographical engineer in
surveying the Pacific coast. From his headquarters at
Vancouver he had gone south to the Columbia River
with two companions, a soldier and a servant. One
evening he received word that the chiefs of the
Columbia River tribes desired to confer with him.
From the messenger's manner he suspected that the
Indians meant mischief. He Avarned his companions
that they must be ready to leave camp at a moment's
notice. Mounting his horse, he rode boldly into the
Indian village. About thirty chiefs were holding coun-
cil. McClellan was led into the circle, and placed at
the right hand of Saltese. He was familiar with the
Chinook jargon, and could understand every word
spoken in the council. Saltese made known the griev-
ance of the tribes. Two Indians had been captured by
a party of white pioneers and hanged for theft. Retal-
iation for this outrage seemed indispensable. The
chiefs pondered long, but had little to say. McClellan
had been on friendly terms with them, and was not
responsible for the forest executions. Still, he was a
white man, and the chiefs had vowed vengeance against

DARE. 21

the race. The council was prolonged for hours before
sentence was passed, and then Saltese, in the name of
the head men of the tribes, decreed that McClellan
should immediately be put to death in retaliation for
the hanging of the two Indian thieves.

McClellan had said nothing. He had known that
argument and pleas for justice or mercy would be of
no avail. He had sat motionless, apparently indiffer-
ent to his fate. By his listlessness he had thrown his
captors off their guard. When the sentence was passed
he acted like a flash. Flinging his left arm around the
neck of Saltese, he whipped out his revolver and held
it close to the chief's temple. " Revoke that sentence,
or I shall kill you this instant ! " he cried, with his
fingers clicking the trigger. " I revoke it ! " exclaimed
Saltese, fairly livid from fear. "I must have your
word that I can leave this council in safety." " You
have the word of Saltese," was the quick response.
McClellan knew how sacred was the pledge which he
had received. The revolver was lowered. Saltese was
released from the embrace of the strong arm. McClel-
lan strode out of the tent with his revolver in his hand.
Not a hand was raised against him. He mounted his
horse and rode to his camp, where his two followers
were ready to spring into the saddle and to escape from
the villages. He owed his life to his quickness of per-
ception, and to his accurate knowledge of Indian char-
acter.

In 1856, Rufus Choate spoke to an audience of
nearly five thousand in Lowell in favor of the candi-
dacy of James Buchanan for the presidency. The
floor of the great hall began to sink, settling more and
more as he proceeded with his address, until a sound
of cracking timber below would have precipitated a
stampede with fatal results but for the coolness of B.
F. Butler, who presided. Telling the people to remain
quiet, he said that he would see if there were any

22 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

cause for alarm. He found the supports of the floor in
so bad a condition that the slightest applause would be
likely to bury the audience in the ruins of the building.
Eeturning rather leisurely to the platform, he whis-
pered to Ohoate as he passed, " We shall all be in

in five minutes;" then he told the crowd that there
^vas no immediate danger if they would slowly dis-
perse, although he thought it prudent to adjourn to a
place where there would be no risk whatever. The
post of danger, he added, was on the platform, which
was most w^eakly supported, therefore he and those
with him would be the last to leave. No doubt many
lives were saved by his coolness.

Many distinguished foreign and American statesmen
were present at a fashionable dinner party where wine
was freely poured, but Schuyler Colfax, then vice-
president of the United States, declined to drink from
a proffered cup. " Colfax dares not drink," sneered a
Senator who had already taken too much. "You are
rie-ht." said the Vice-President, '' I dare not."

When Grant was in Houston several years ago, he
was given a rousing reception. Naturally hospitable,
and naturally inclined to like a man of Grant's
make-up, the Houstonites determined to go beyond
any other Southern city in the way of a banquet and
other manifestations of their good-will and hospitality.
They made great preparations for the dinner, the com-
mittee taking great pains to have the finest wines that
could be procured for the table that night. When the
time came to serve the wine, the head-waiter went first
to Grant. Without a word the general quietly turned
down all the glasses at his plate. This movement was
a great surprise to the Texans, but they were equal to
the occasion. Without a single word being spoken,
every man along the line of the long tables turned his
glasses down, and there was not a drop of wine taken
that night.

DARE. 23

A deep sewer at Noyon, France, had been opened for
repairs, and carelessly left at night without covering
or liglits to warn people of danger. Late at night four
men stumbled in, and lay some time before their sit-
uation was known in the town. No one dared go to
the aid of the men, then unconscious from breathing
noxious gases, except Catherine Vassen, a servant girl
of eighteen. She insisted on being lowered at once.
Fastening a rope around two of the men, she aided in
raising them and restoring them to consciousness.
Descending again, she had just tied a rope around a
third man, when she felt her breath failing. Tying
another rope to her long, curly hair, she swooned, but
was drawn up with the man, to be quickly revived by
fresh air and stimulants. The fourth man was dead
when his body was pulled up, on account of the delay
from the fainting of Catherine.

Two French officers at Waterloo were advancing to
charge a greatly superior force. One, observing that
the other showed signs of fear, said, " Sir, I believe
you are frightened." " Yes, I am," was the reply,
"and if you were half as much frightened, you would
run away."

"That's a brave man," said Wellington, when he
saw a soldier turn pale as he marched against a bat-
tery ; " he knows his danger, and faces it."

" There are many cardinals and bishops at Worms,"
said a friend to Luther, " and they will burn your body
to ashes as they did that of John Huss." Luther
replied : " Although they should make a fire that should
reach from Worms to Wittenberg, and that should
flame up to heaven, in the Lord's name I would pass
through it and appear before them." He said to
another : " I would enter AVorms though there were as
many devils there as there are tiles upon the roofs of
the houses." Another said : " Duke George will surely
arrest you." He replied: "It is my duty to go, and

24 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

I will go, though it rain Duke Georges for nine days
together."

'' Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, God help me,"
exclaimed Luther at the Diet of Worms, facing his foes.

A Western paper recently invited the surviving
Union and Confederate officers to give an account of
the bravest act observed by each during the Civil War.
Colonel Thomas AV. Higginson said that at a dinner at
Beaufort, S. C, where wine flowed freely and ribald
jests were bandied. Dr. Miner, a slight, boyish fellow
who did not drink, was told that he could not go until
he had drunk a toast, told a story, or sung a song. He
replied : " I cannot sing, but I will give a toast, al-
though I must drink it in water. It is ' Our Mothers.' "
The men Avere so affected and ashamed that some took
him by the hand and thanked him for displaying cour-
age greater than that required to walk up to the mouth
of a cannon.

It took great courage for the commercial Quaker,
John Bright, to espouse a cause which called down
upon his head the derision and scorn and hatred of the
Parliament. For years he rested under a cloud of
obloquy, but Bright was made of stern stuff. It was
only his strength of character and masterly eloquence,
which saved him from political annihilation. To a
man who boasted that his ancestors came over with the
Conquerors, he replied, " I never heard that they did
anything else." A Tory lordling said, when Bright
was ill, that Providence had inflicted upon Bright,
for the measure of his talents, disease of the brain.
When Bright went back into the Commons he replied :
" This may be so, but it will be some consolation to the
friends and family of the noble lord to know that that
disease is one which even Providence cannot inflict
upon him."

''When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great
bully, the World, and takes him boldly by the beard,"

DARE. 25

says Holmes, " he is often surprised to find it come off
in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away
timid adventurers."

It takes courage for a young man to stand firmly
erect while others are bowing and fawning for praise
and power. It takes courage to wear threadbare
clothes while your comrades dress in broadcloth. It
takes courage to remain in honest poverty when others
grow rich by fraud. It takes courage to say " No '^
squarely when those around you say " Yes." It takes
courage to do your duty in silence and obscurity while
others prosper and grow famous although neglecting
sacred obligations. It takes courage to unmask your
true self, to show your blemishes to a condemning
world, and to pass for what you really are.

It takes courage and pluck to be outvoted, beaten,
laughed at, scoffed, ridiculed, derided, misunderstood,
misjudged, to stand alone with all the world against
you, but

" They are slaves who dare not be
111 the right with two or three."

" There is never wanting a dog to bark at you."
" An honest man is not the worse because a dog barks
at him."

"Let any man show the world that he feels
Afraid of its bark, and 'twill fly at his heels.
Let him fearlessly face it, 'twill leave him alone,
And 't will fawn at his feet if he fling it a bone."

We live ridiculously for fear of being thought ridicu-
lous.

*"T is he is the coward who proves false to his vows,
To his manhood, his honor, for a laugh or a sneer:
'Tis he is the hero who stands firm, though alone,
For the truth and the right without flinching or fear."

The youth who starts out by being afraid to speak
what he thinks will usually end by being afraid to
think what he wishes.

26 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

How we shrink from an act of our own. We live as
others live. Custom or fashion dictates, or your
doctor or minister, and they in turn dare not dej^art
from their schools. Dress, living, servants, carriages,
everything must conform, or be ostracized. Who dares
conduct his household or business affairs in his own
way, and snap his fingers at Dame Grundy ?

Many a man has marched up to the cannon's mouth
in battle who dared not face public opinion or oppose
Mrs. Grundy.

It takes courage for a public man to bend the knee
to popular prejudice. It takes courage to refuse to
follow custom when it is injurious to his health and
morals. To espouse an unpopular cause in Congress
requires more courage than to lead a charge in battle.
How much easier for a politician to prevaricate and
dodge an issue than to stand squarely on his feet like a
man.

As a rule, eccentricity is a badge of power, but how
many women would not rather strangle their individ-
uality than be tabooed by Mrs. Grundy ? Yet fear is
really the only thing to fear.

" Whoever you may be," said Sainte-Beuve, " great
genius, distinguished talent, artist honorable or ami-
able, the qualities for which you deserve to be praised
will all be turned against you. Were you a Virgil, the
pious and sensible singer par excellence, there are
people who will call you an effeminate poet. Were
you a Horace, there are people who will reproach you
with the very purity and delicacy of your taste. If you
were a Shakespeare, some one will call you a drunken
savage. If you were a Goethe, more than one Pharisee
will proclaim you the most selfish of egotists."

As the strongest man has a weakness somewhere, so
the greatest hero is a coward somewhere. Peter was
courageous enough to draw his sword to defend his
master, but he could not stand the ridicule and the

DARE. 27

finger of scorn of the maidens in the high priest's hall,
and he actually denied even the acquaintance of the
master he had declared he would die for.

" I will take the responsibility/' said Andrew Jack-
son, on a memorable occasion, and his words have
become proverbial. Not even Congress dared to oppose
the edicts of John Quincy Adams.

If a man would accomplish anything in this world,
he must not be afraid of assuming responsibilities.
Of course it takes courage to run the risk of failure, to
be subjected to criticism for an unpopular cause, to
expose one's self to the shafts of everybody's ridicule,
but the man who is not true to himself, who cannot
carry out the sealed orders placed in his hands at his
birth, regardless of the world's yes or no, of its approval
or disapproval, the man who has not the courage to
trace the pattern of his own destiny, which no other
soul knows but his own, can never rise to the true
dignity of manhood. All the world loves courage ;
youth craves it ; they want to hear about it, they want
to read about it. The fascination of the "blood and
thunder '^ novels and of the cheap story papers for youth
are based upon this idea of courage. If the boys cannot
get the real article, they will take a counterfeit.

Don't be like Uriah Heep, begging everybody's
pardon for taking the liberty of being in the world.
There is nothing attractive in timidity, nothing lovable
in fear. Both are deformities and are repulsive.
Manly courage is dignified and graceful. The worst
manners in the world are those of persons conscious " of
being beneath their position, and trying to conceal it
or make up for it by style."

Bruno, condemned to be burned alive in Kome, said
to his judge : " You are more afraid to pronounce my
sentence than I am to receive it." Anne Askew, racked
until her bones were dislocated, never flinched, but
looked her tormentor calmly in the face and refused to
abjure her faith.

28 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

" We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of
death, and afraid of each other." " Half a man's wisdom
goes with his courage," said Emerson. Physicians
used to teach that courage depends on the circulation
of the blood in the arteries, and that during passion,
anger, trials of strength, wrestling or fighting, a large
amount of blood is collected in the arteries, and does
not pass to the veins. A strong pulse is a fortune in
itself.

"Eage," said Shaftesbury, "can make a coward
forget himself and light."

" I should have thought fear would have kept you
from going so far," said a relative who found the little
boy Nelson wandering a long distance from home.
" Fear ? " said the future admiral, " I don't know him."

"Doubt indulged becomes doubt realized." To de-
termine to do anything is half the battle. " To think a
thing is impossible is to make it so." Courage is vic-
tor ij, timiditf/ is defeat.

That simple shepherd-lad, David, fresh from his
flocks, marching unattended and unarmed, save with
his shepherd's staff and sling, to confront the colossal
Goliath with his massive armor, is the sublimest auda-
city the world has ever seen.

" Dent, I wish you would get down, and see what is
the matter with that leg there," said Grant, when he
and Colonel Dent were riding through the thickest of
a fire that had become so concentrated and murderous
that his troops had all been driven back. "I guess
looking after your horse's legs can wait," said Dent ;
" it is simply murder for us to sit here." " All right,"
said Grant ; " if you don't want to see to it, I will."
He dismounted, untwisted a piece of telegraph wire
which had begun to cut the horse's leg, examined it
deliberately, and climbed into his saddle. " Dent," said
he, " when you 've got a horse that you think a great
deal of, you should never take any chances with him.

DARE. 29

If that wire had been left there for a little time longer
he would have gone dead lame, and would perhaps have
been ruined for life."

Wellington said that at Waterloo the hottest of the
battle raged round a farmhouse, with an orchard sur-
rounded by a thick hedge, which was so important a
point in the British position that orders were given to
hold it at any hazard or sacrifice. At last the powder and
ball ran short and the hedges took fire, surrounding the
orchard with a wall of flame. A messenger had been
sent for ammunition, and soon two loaded wagons came
galloping toward the farmhouse. " The driver of the
first wagon, with the reckless daring of an English boy,
spurred his struggling and terrified horses through the
burning heap ; but the flames rose fiercety round, and
caught the powder, which exploded in an instant, send-
ing wagon, horses, and rider in fragments into the air.
For an instant the driver of the second wagon paused,
appalled by his comrade's fate ; the next, observing
that the flames, beaten back for the moment by the
explosion, afforded him one desperate chance, sent his
horses at the smouldering breach and, amid the deaf-
ening cheers of the garrison, landed his terrible cargo
safely within. Behind him the flames closed up, and
raged more fiercely than ever."

At the battle of Friedland a cannon-ball came over
the heads of the French soldiers, and a young soldier
instinctively dodged. Napoleon looked at him and
smilingly said : " My friend, if that ball were destined
for you, though you were to burrow a hundred feet
under ground it would be sure to .find you there."

When the mine in front of Petersburg was finished,
the fuse was lighted, and the Union troops were drawn
up ready to charge the enemy's works as soon as the
explosion should make a breach. But seconds, min-
utes, and tens of minutes passed, without a sound from
the mine, and the suspense became painful. Lieuten-

30 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

ant Doughty and Sergeant Rees volunteered to examine
the fuse. Through the long subterranean galleries
they hurried in silence, not knowing but they were
advancing to a horrible death. They found the defect,
fired the train anew, and soon a terrible upheaval of
earth gave the signal to march to victory.

At the battle of Copenhagen, as Nelson walked the
deck slippery with blood and covered with the dead,
he said : " This is warm work, and tliis day may be the
last to any of us in a moment. But, mark me, I would
not be elsewhere for thousands. '^ At the battle of
Trafalgar, when Nelson was shot and was being carried
below, he covered his face, that those fighting might not
know their chief had fallen.

In a skirmish at Salamanca, while the enemy's guns
were pouring shot into his regiment. Sir William
Napier's men became disobedient. He at once ordered
a halt, and flogged four of the ringleaders under fire.
The men yielded at ODce, and then marched three miles
under a heavy cannonade as coolly as if it were a re-
view.

Execute your resolutions immediately. Thoughts
are but dreams till their effects be tried. Does compe-
tition trouble you ? work away ; what is your competi-
tor but a man ? Conquer your place in the world, for
all things serve a brave soul. Combat difficulty man-
fully ; sustain misfortune bravely ; endure poverty
nobly ; encounter disappointment courageously. The
influence of the brave man is a magnetism which
creates an epidemic of noble zeal in all about him.
Every day sends to the grave obscure men, who have
only remained in obscurity because their timidity has
prevented them from making a first effort ; and who, if
they could have been induced to begin, would, in all
probability, have gone great lengths in the career of
usefulness and fame. "No great deed is done," says
George Eliot, "by falterers who ask for certainty."

DARE. 31

The brave, cheerful man will survive his blighted hopes
and disappointments, take them for just what they are,
lessons and perhaps blessings in disguise, and will
march boldly and cheerfully forward in the battle of
life. Or, if necessary, he will bear his ills with a
patience and calm endurance deeper than ever plummet
sounded. He is the true hero.

Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is prosperous to be just:
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside.
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucitied.

Lowell.
Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt.

Shakespeare.

After the great inward struggle was over, and he had
determined to remain loyal to his principles, Thomas
More walked cheerfully to the block. His wife called
him a fool for staying in a dark, damp, filthy prison
when he might have his liberty by merely renouncing
his doctrines, as some of the bishops had done. But
he preferred death to dishonor. His daughter showed
the power of love to drive away fear. She remained
true to her father when all others, even her mother, had
forsaken him. After his head had been cut off and
exhibited on a pole on London Bridge, the poor girl
begged it of the authorities, and requested that it be
buried in the coffin with her. Her request was granted,
for her death occurred soon.

When Sir Walter Kaleigh came to the scaffold he
was very faint, and began his spaech to the crowd by
saying that during the last two days he had been visited
by two ague fits. "If, therefore, you perceive any
weakness in me, I beseech you ascribe it to my sick-
ness rather than to myself." He took the axe and
kissed the blade, and said to the sheriff : " 'T is a sharp
medicine, but a sound cure for all diseases."

32 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

Don't waste time dreaming of obstacles you may
never encounter, or in crossing bridges you have not
reached. Don't fool with a nettle ! Grasp with firm-
ness if you would rob it of its sting. To half will and
to hang forever in the balance is to lose your grip on
life.

Abraham Lincoln's boyhood was one long struggle
with poverty, with little education, and no influential
friends. When at last he had begun the practice of
law, it required no little daring to cast his fortune with
the weaker side in politics, and thus imperil what small
reputation he had gained. Only the most sublime
moral courage could have sustained him as President to
hold his ground against hostile criticism and a long
train of disaster ; to issue the Emancipation Proclama-
tion ; to support Grant and Stanton against the clamor
of the politicians and the press ; and through it all to
do the right as God gave him to see the right.

Lincoln never shrank from espousing an unpopular
cause when he believed it to be right. At the time
when it almost cost a young lawyer his bread and
butter to defend the fugitive slave, and when other
lawyers had refused, Lincoln would always plead the
cause of the unfortunate whenever an opportunity pre-
sented. "Go to Lincoln," people would say, when
these hounded fugitives were seeking protection ;
" he 's not afraid of any cause, if it 's right."

As Salmon P. Chase left the court room after making
an impassioned plea for the runaway slave girl Matilda,
a man looked at him in surprise and said : '■' There goes
a fine young fellow who has just ruined himself." But
in thus ruining himself Chase had taken the first im-
portant step in a career in which he became Governor
of Ohio, United States Senator from Ohio, Secretary of
the United States Treasury, and Chief Justice of the
United States Supreme Court.

At the trial of William Penn for having spoken at a

DARE. 33

Quaker meeting, the recorder, not satisfied with the first
verdict, said to the jury : " We will have a verdict by
the help of God, or you shall starve for it." " You are
Englishmen," said Penn ; " mind your privileges, give
not away your right." At last the jury, after two days
and two nights without food, returned a verdict of
''Not guilty." The recorder fined them forty marks
apiece for their independence.

What cared Christ for the jeers of the crowd ? The
palsied hand moved, the blind saw, the leper was made
whole, the dead spake, despite the ridicule and scoffs
of the spectators.

What cared Wendell Phillips for rotten eggs, deri-
sive scorn, and hisses ? In him " at last the scornful
world had met its match." Were Beecher and Gough
to be silenced by the rude English mobs that came
to extinguish them ? Xo ! they held their ground and
compelled unwilling thousands to hear and to heed.
Did Anna Dickinson leave the platform when the
pistol bullets of the Molly Maguires flew about her
head ? She silenced those pistols by her courage and
her arguments.

What the world wants is a Knox, who dares to
preach on with a musket leveled at his head, a Garri-
son, who is not afraid of a jail, or a mob, or a scaffold
erected in front of his door.

" Storms may howl aroundthee,
Foes may hunt and hound thee:
Shall they overpower thee ?
Never, never, never."

When General Butler was sent with nine thousand
men to quell the New York riots, he arrived in advance
of his troops, and found the streets thronged with an
angry mob, which had already hanged more than one
man to lamp-posts. Without waiting for his men,
Butler went to the place where the crowd was most
dense, overturned an ash barrel, stood upon it, and be-

84 AiicniTKcrs OF iwTh:,

gan : •' IVloi^atos from I'ivo Toints, tuMuls from holl,
you luivo murdorod your superiors," aud tho blood-
stained onnvd quailed before the eourageous words of a
siui^le man in a eity whieh Mayor Fernando Wood
could not restrain with the aid of polieo and militia.

"Our enen\ies are before ns." exelaimed the Spartans
at Thermopyhr. •' Aiul we are l^etore them." was the
eool reply of Leonidas. •• IVliver your arms," eame tho
message from Xerxes. "Come and take them," was
the answer Leonidas sent baek. A Persian soldier said:
"You will not be able to see the sun tor tlying javelins
and arrows." "Then we will tight in the shade," re-
plied a T.aeedemonian. What wonder that a handful of
such men cheeked the march of the greatest host that
ever trod the earth.

" It is impossible," said a statT ofticer. when Xapoleon
gave directions t\^r a daring plan. "Impossible!"
thundered the great commander, " hnpostsiblc is the ad-
jective of fools ! " Napoleon went to the edge of his
possibility.

Grant never knew when lie was beaten. AVhen told
that he was surrounded by the enemy at In^lmont, he
quietly replied : " Well, then we must cut our way out."

The conrageouj? man is an example to the intrepid.
His influence is magnetic. He creates an epidemic of
nobleness. Men follow him, even to the death.

The spirit of courage will transform the whole tem-
per of your life. "The wise and active comiuer ditli-
cnlties by daring to attempt them. Sloth and folly
shiver and sicken at the sight of trial and hazard, and
make the impossibility they fear."

"The hero," says Kmerson, "is the man who is im-
movably centred."

Emin Pasha, the explorer of Africa, was left behind
by his exploring party under circumstances that were
thought certainly fatal, and his death was reported with
gi'eat assurance. Early the next winter, as his troop

DARE. 35

was on its toilsomo but exciting way through Central
Africa, it cainr; ii[)Oii a most wrctf;hcd siglit. A [jarty of
natives had been ki(]riaj>ped by the slave-hunters, and
dragged in cliains thus \:iv toward the hxnd of bondage.
But sinall-pfjx \\-aA s<;t in, ;uid tli(; miserable eonii>any
had been abandoned to thf^ir late. Kniin sent his men
ahead, and stayed b(*hind in this camp of death to act
as physician and inirse. How many lives he savfjfj is
not knr)wn, thougli it is known tli;i,t lif, nearly lost his
own. 'J'lie ;i,M(', oT chivali-y is not r^onr; by. 'I'his is as
knightly a iUtcA as [Kjet ever chroniclerl.

A mousf; that dwfilt near the abode of a great magi-
cian was k(;])t in such constant distress by its fear of
a cat, that tin; magician, taking pity on it, turned it
into a cat itself. Immediately it began to suffer from
its ffjar of a dog, so the m;i,gieian turned it into a dog.
Th(;n it began to sufler from fear of a tiger. The magi-
cian therefoi-f! turned it into a tiger. Then it began to
fiuffcu- from f(!ar of hunters, and the magician said in dis-
gust : " lie a mouse again. As you liave only the heart
of a mouse, it is imi)ossible to help you by giving you
the body of a nobler animal.'^

Men who have dared have moved the world, often be-
fore reaching the prime of life. It is astonishing what
daring to })egin and perseverance have enabled even
youths to achieve. Alexander, who ascended the throne
at twenty, had conquered the known world before dying
at thirty-three. Julius Ca;sar captured eight hundred
cities, conquered three hundred nations, and defeated
three million men, l)ec.'un(; a great orator and one of the
greatest statesmen known, and still was a young man.
Washington was <'i[)f)ointed adjutant-general at nineteen,
was sent at tw(uity-on(! as an ambassador to treat with the
French, and won his first battle as a colonel at twenty-
two. Lafayc^tte was made general of the whole French
army at twenty, (jharlemagne was master of France
and Germany at thirty. Conde was only twenty -two

36 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

when he conquered at Rocroi. Galileo was but eighteen
when he saw the principle of the pendulum in the
swinging lamp in the cathedral at Pisa. Peel was in
Parliament at twenty-one. Gladstone was in Parlia-
ment before he was twenty-two, and at twenty-four he
was Lord of the Treasury. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
was proficient in Greek and Latin at twelve ; De Quincey
at eleven. Eobert Browning wrote at eleven poetry of
no mean order. Cowley, who sleeps in Westminster
Abbey, published a volume of poems at fifteen. N. P.
Willis won lasting fame as a poet before leaving col-
lege. Macaulay was a celebrated author before he was
twenty-three. Luther was but twenty-nine when he
nailed his famous thesis to the door of the bishop and
defied the pope. Nelson was a lieutenant in the Brit-
ish Navy before he was twenty. He was but forty-
seven when he received his death wound at Trafalgar.
Charles the Twelfth was only nineteen when he gained
the battle of Narva ; at thirty-six, Cortez was the con-
queror of Mexico ; at thirty-two, Clive had established
the British power in India. Hannibal, the greatest of
military commanders, was only thirty when, at Cannse,
he dealt an almost annihilating blow at the republic of
Rome ; and Napoleon was only twenty-seven when, on
the plains of Italy, he outgeneraled and defeated, one
after another, the veteran marshals of Austria.

Equal courage and resolution are often shown by men
who have passed the allotted limit of life. Victor Hugo
and Wellington were both in their prime after they had
reached the age of threescore years and ten. George
Bancroft wrote some of his best historical work when
he was eighty-five. Gladstone ruled England with a
strong hand at eighty-four, and was a marvel of literary
and scholarly ability.

" Not every vessel that sails from Tarshish will bring
back the gold of Ophir. But shall it therefore rot in
the harbor ? No ! Give its sails to the wind ! "

DARE. 37

Shakespeare says : " He is not worthy of the honey-
comb that shuns the hive because the bees have stings."

"The brave man is not he who feels no fear,

For that were stupid and irrational ;

But he whose noble soul its fear subdues

And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from."

The inscription on the gates of Busyrane : " Be
bold." On the second gate : " Be bold, be bold, and
ever more be bold ; " the third gate : "Be not too bold."

Many a bright youth has accomplished nothing of
worth simply because he did not dare to commence.

Begin ! Begin ! ! Begin ! ! !

Whatever people may think of you, do that which you believe to be
right. Be alike indifferent to censure or praise. — Pythagokas.

Fear makes man a slave to others. This is the tyrant's chain. Anxiety
is a form of cowardice embittering life. — Chanmimg.

Courage is generosity of the highest order, for the brave are prodigal of
the most precious things. Our blood is nearer and dearer to us than our
money, and our life than our estate. Women are more taken with cour-
age than with generosity. — Colton.

Who chooses me must give and hazard all he hath.

Merchant of Venice, Inscription on Leaden Casket.
I dare to do all that may become a man :
Who dares do more is none.

Shakespeare.
For man's great actions are performed in minor struggles. There are
obstinate and unknown braves who defend themselves inch by inch in the
shadows against the fatal invasion of want and turpitude. There are
noble and mysterious triumphs which no eye sees, no renown rewards,
and no flourish of trumpets salutes. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandon-
ment, and poverty are battlefields which have their heroes. — Victor
Hugo.

Who waits until the wind shall silent keep,

Who never finds the ready hour to sow.
Who watcheth clouds, will have no time to reap.

Hklen Hunt Jackson.
Quit yourseU-es like men. — 1 Samuel iv. 9.

CHAPTER III.

THE WILL AND THE WAY.

" The 'way' will be found by a resolute will."

*' I will find a way or make one."

Nothing is impossible to the man who can will. — Mirabeau.

A politician weakly and amiably in the right is no match for a politi-
cian tenaciously and pugnaciously in the wrong. — E. P. Whipple.

The iron will of one stout heart shall make a thousand quail :
A feeble dwarf, dauntlessly resolved, will turn the tide of battle,
And rally to a nobler strife the giants that had fled.

TUPPER.

" Man alone can perform the impossible.

They can who think they can. Character is a perfectly educated will."

The education of the will is the object of our existence. For the resolute
and determined there is time and opportunity. — Emekson.

Invincible determination, and a right nature, are the levers that move
the world.— President Porter.

In the lexicon of youth which fate reserves for a bright manhood there
is no such word as fail. — Bulwer.

Perpetual pushing and assurance put a difficulty out of countenance and
make a seeming difficulty give way. — Jeremy Collier.

When a firm and decisive spirit is recognized, it is curious to see how
the space clears around a man and leaves him room and freedom.

John Foster.

The star of the unconquered will,
He rises in my breast,
Serene, and resolute and still,
And calm and self-possessed.

Longfellow.

"As well can the Prince of Orange pluck the stars
from the sky, as bring the ocean to the wall of Leyden
for your relief," was the derisive shout of the Span-

WALTER SCOTT
" The Wizard of the North."

So nigh is grandeur to our dust,

So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, ' Thou must,'

Tlie youtli replies, '1 can.' "

THE WILL AND THE WAY. 39

isli soldiers when told that the Dutch fleet would raise
that terrible four months' siege of 1574. But from the
parched lips of William, tossing on his bed of fever at
Rotterdam, had issued the command : " Break down the
dikes : give Holland hack to ocean : " and the people
had replied : " Better a drowned land than a lost land."
They began to demolish dike after dike of the strong
lines, ranged one within another for fifteen miles to
their city of the interior. It was an enormous task ;
the garrison was starving; and the besiegers laughed
in scorn at the slow progress of the puny insects who
sought to rule the waves of the sea. But ever, as of
old, heaven aids those who help themselves. On the
first and second of October a violent equinoctial gale
rolled the ocean inland, and swept the fleet on the ris-
ing waters almost to the camp of the Spaniards. The
next morning the garrison sallied out to attack their
enemies, but the besiegers had fled in terror under
cover of the darkness. The next day the wind changed,
and a counter tempest brushed the water, with the
fleet upon it, from the surface of Holland. The outer
dikes were replaced at once, leaving the Korth Sea
within its old bounds. When the flowers bloomed the
following spring, a joyous procession marched through
the streets to found the University of Leyden, in com-
memoration of the wonderful deliverance of the city.

At a dinner party given in 1837, at the residence of
Chancellor Kent, in New York city, some of the most
distinguished men in the country were invited, and
among them was a young and rather melancholy and
reticent Frenchman. Professor ^Morse was one of the
guests, and during the evening he drew the attention
of Mr. Gallatin, then a prominent statesman, to the
stranger, observing that his forehead indicated great
intellect. " Yes," replied Mr. Gallatin, touching his
own forehead with his finger, " there is a great deal in
that head of his : but he has a strange fancy. Can you

40 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

believe it ? He has the idea that he will one day be
the Emperor of France. Can you conceive anything
more absurd ? "

It did seem absurd, for this reserved Frenchman was
then a poor adventurer, an exile from his country, with-
out fortune or powerful connections, and yet, fourteen
years later, his idea became a fact, — his dream of be-
coming iSTapoleon III. was realized. True, before he
accomplished his purpose there were long dreary years
of imprisonment, exile, disaster, and patient labor and
hope, but he gained his ambition at last. He was not
scrupulous as to the means employed to accomplish his
ends, yet he is a remarkable example of what pluck and
energy can do.

When it was proposed to unite England and America
by steam. Dr. Lardner delivered a lecture before the
Eoyal Society "proving" that steamers could never
cross the Atlantic, because they could not carry coal
enough to produce steam during the whole voyage.
The passage of the steamship Sirius, which crossed in
nineteen days, was fatal to Lardner's theory. When it
was proposed to build a vessel of iron, many persons
said : " Iron sinks — only wood can float : " but experi-
ments proved that the miracle of the prophet in mak-
ing iron " swim " could be repeated, and now not only
ships of war, but merchant vessels, are built of iron or
steel. A will found a way to make iron float.

Mr. Ingram, publisher of the "London Illustrated
News," who lost his life on Lake Michigan, walked ten
miles to deliver a single paper rather than disappoint a
customer, when he began life as a newsdealer at Not-
tingham, England. Does any one wonder that such a
youth succeeded ? Once he rose at two o'clock in the
morning and walked to London to get some papers be-
cause there was no post to bring them. He determined
that his customers should not be disappointed. This is
the kind of will that finds a way.

THE WILL AND THE WAY. 41

There is scarcely anytMng in all biography grander
than the saying of young Henry Fawcett, Gladstone's
last Postmaster-General, to his grief-stricken father,
who had put out both his eyes by bird-shot during a
game hunt : " Never mind, father, blindness shall not
interfere with my success in life." One of the most
pathetic sights in London streets, long afterward, was
Henry Fawcett, M. P., led everywhere by a faithful
daughter, who acted as amanuensis as well as guide to
her plucky father. Think of a young man, scarcely
on the threshold of active life, suddenly losing the sight
of both eyes and yet, by mere pluck and almost incom-
prehensible tenacity of purpose, lifting himself iiito
eminence, in any direction, to say nothing of becoming
one of the foremost men in a country noted for its
great men. Most youth would have succumbed to such
a misfortune, and would never have been heard from
again. But fortunately for the world, there are yet
left many Fawcetts, many Prescotts, Parkmans, Cava-
naghs.

The courageous daughter who was eyes to her father
was herself a marvelous example of pluck and deter-
mination. For the first time in the history of Oxford
College, which reaches back centuries, she succeeded in
winning the post which had only been gained before
by great men, such as Gladstone, — the post of senior
wrangler. This achievement had had no parallel in
history up to that date, and attracted the attention of
the whole civilized world. Not only had no woman
ever held this position before, but with few exceptions
it had only been held by men who in after life became
highly distinguished. Who can deny that where there
is a will, as a rule, there 's a way ?

When Grant was a boy he could not find " can't " in
the dictionary. It is the men who have no " can't " in
their dictionaries that make things move.

" Circumstances," says Milton, " have rarely favored

42 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

famous men. They have fought their way to triumph
through all sorts of opposing obstacles."

The true way to conquer circumstances is to be a
greater circumstance yourself.

Yet, while desiring to impress in the most forcible
manner possible the fact that will-power is necessary to
success, and that, other things being equal, the greater
the will-power, the grander and more complete the suc-
cess, we cannot indorse the preposterous theory that
there is nothing in circumstances or environments, or
that any man, simply because he has an indomitable
will, may become a Bonaparte, a Pitt, a Webster, a
Beecher, a Lincoln. We must temper determination
with discretion, and support it with knowledge and
common sense, or it will only lead us to run our heads
against posts. We must not expect to overcome a stub-
born fact by a stubborn will. We merely have the
right to assume that we can do anything within the
limit of our utmost faculty, strength, and endurance.
Obstacles permanently insurmountable bar our progress
in some directions, but in any direction we may reason-
ably hope and attempt to go, we shall find that the ob-
stacles, as a rule, are either not insurmountable or else
not permanent. The strong-willed, intelligent, persis-
tent man will find or make a way where, in the nature
of things, a way can be found or made.

Every schoolboy knows that circumstances do give
clients to lawyers and patients to physicians ; place or-
dinary clergymen in extraordinary pulpits ; place sons
of the rich at the head of immense corporations and
large houses, when they have very ordinary ability and
scarcely any experience, while poor young men with ex-
traordinary abilities, good education, good character,
and large experience, often have to fight their way for
years to obtain even very ordinary situations. Every
one knows that there are thousands of young men, both
in the city and in the country, of superior ability, who

THE WILL AND THE WAY. 43

seem to be compelled by circumstances to remain in
very ordinary positions for small pay, when others about
them are raised by money or family influence into de-
sirable places. In other words, we all know that the
best men do not always get the best places : circum-
stances do have a great deal to do with our position,
our salaries, and our station in life.

Many young men who are nature's noblemen, who are
natural leaders, are working under superintendents,
foremen, and managers infinitely their inferiors, but
whom circumstances have placed above them and will
keep there, unless some emergency makes merit indis-
pensable. No, the race is not always to the swift.

Every one knows that there is not always a way
where there is a will ; that labor does not always con-
quer all things ; that there are things impossible even
to him that wills, however strongly ; that one cannot al-
ways make anything of himself he chooses ; that there
are limitations in our very natures which no amount of
will-power or industry can overcome ; that no amount
of sun-staring can ever make an eagle out of a crow.

The simple truth is that a will strong enough to keep
a man continually striving for things not wholly beyond
his powers will carry him in time very far toward his
chosen goal.

The greatest thing a man can do in this world is to
make the most possible out of the stuff that has been
given to him. This is success, and there is no other.

While it is true that our circumstances or environ-
ments do affect us, in most things they do not pre-
vent our growth. The corn that is now ripe, whence
comes it, and what is it ? Is it not large or small,
stunted wild maize or well-developed ears, according to
the conditions under which it has grown ? Yet its en-
vironments cannot make wheat of it. Nor can our cir-
cumstances alter our nature. It is part of our nature,
and wholly within our power, greatly to change and to

44 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

take advantage of our circumstances, so that, unlike the
corn, we can rise much superior to our natural surround-
ings simply because we can thus vary and improve the
surroundings. In other words, man can usually build
the very road on which he is to run his race.

It is not a question of what some one else can do or
become, which every youth should ask himself, but
what can I do ? How can I develop myself into the
grandest possible manhood ?

So far, then, from the power of circumstances being
a hindrance to men in trying to build for themselves
an imperial highway to fortune, these circumstances
constitute the very quarry out of which they are to get
paving-stones for the road.

While it is true that the will-power cannot perform
miracles, yet that it is almost omnipotent, that it can
perform wonders, all history goes to prove. As Shake-
speare says : —

"Men at some time are masters of their fates :
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."

"There is nobody," says a Eoman Cardinal, "whom
Fortune does not visit once in his life : but when she
finds he is not ready to receive her, she goes in at the
door, and out through the window." Opportunity is
coy. The careless, the slow, the unobservant, the lazy
fail to see it, or clutch at it when it has gone. The
sharp fellows detect it instantly, and catch it when on
the wing.

Show me a man who is, according to popular preju-
dice, a victim of bad luck, and I will show you one who
has some unfortunate crooked twist of temperament
that invites disaster. He is ill-tempered, or conceited,
or trifling ; lacks character, enthusiasm, or some other
requisite for success.

Disraeli says that man is not the creature of circum-
stances, but that circumstances are the creatures of men.

THE WILL AND THE WAY. 45

What has chance ever done in the world ? Has it
built any cities ? Has it invented any telephones, any
telegraphs ? Has it built any steamships, established
any universities, any asylums, any hospitals ? Was
there any chance in Caesar's crossing the Rubicon ?
What had chance to do with Napoleon's career, with
Wellington's, or Grant's, or Von Moltke's ? Every bat-
tle was won before it was begun. What had luck to do
with Thermopylae, Trafalgar, Gettysburg? Our suc-
cesses we ascribe to ourselves ; our failures to destiny.

Man is not a helpless atom in this vast creation, with
a fixed position, and naught to do but obey his own
polarity.

Believe in the power of will, which annihilates the
sickly, sentimental doctrine of fatalism, — you must
but can't, you ought but it is impossible.

Give me the man

" Who breaks his birth's invidious bar,
And grasps the skirts of happy chance,
And breasts the blows of circumstance,
And grapples with his evil star."

It is only the ignorant and superficial who believe in
fate. " The first step into thought lifts this mountain
of necessity." " Fate is unpenetrated causes." " They
may well fear fate who have any infirmity of habit or
aim : but he who rests on what he is has a destiny
beyond destiny, and can make mouths at fortune."

The indomitable will, the inflexible purpose, will find
a way or make one. There is always room for a man of
force.

" He who has a firm will," says .Goethe, " moulds the
world to himself.'^ "People do not lack strength," says
Victor Hugo, "they lack will."

" He who resolves upon any great end, by that very
resolution has scaled the great barriers to it, and he
who seizes the grand idea of self-cultivation, and sol-
emnly resolves upon it, will find that idea, that resolu-

46 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

tion, burning like fire within him, and ever putting hira
upon his own improvement. He will find it removing
difficulties, searching out, or making means ; giving
courage for despondency, and strength for weakness."

Nearly all great men, those who have towered high
above their fellows, have been remarkable above all
things else for their energy of will. Of Julius Caesar it
was said by a contemporary that it was his activity
and giant determination, rather than his military skill,
that won his victories. The youth who starts out in
life determined to make the most of his eyes and let
nothing escape him which he can possibly use for his
own advancement ; who keeps his ears open for every
sound that can help him on his way, who keeps his
hands open that he may clutch every opportunity, who
is ever on the alert for everything which can help him
to get on in the world, who seizes every experience in
life and grinds it up into paint for his great life's pic-
ture, who keeps his heart open that he may catch every
noble impulse, and everything which may inspire him,
— that youth will be sure to make his life successful ;
there are no " if s " or " ands " about it. If he has his
health, nothing can keep him from final success.

No tyranny of circumstances can permanently im-
prison a determined will.

The world always stands aside for the determined
man. Will makes a way, even through seeming impos-
sibilities. " It is the half a neck nearer that shows the
blood and wins the race : the one march more that wins
the campaign : the five minutes more of unyielding cour-
age that wins the fight." Again and again had the irre-
pressible Carter Harrison been consigned to oblivion by
the educated and moral element of Chicago. Nothing
could keep him down. He was invincible. A son of
Chicago, he had partaken of that nineteenth century
miracle, that phoenix-like nature of the city which,
though she was burned, caused her to rise from her

THE WILL AND THE WAY. 47

ashes and become a greater and a grander Chicago, a
wonder of the world. Carter Harrison would not down.
He entered the Democratic Convention and, with an
audacity rarely equaled, in spite of their protest, boldly
declared himself their candidate. Every newspaper in
Chicago, save the " Times," his own paper, bitterly op-
posed his election : but notwithstanding all opposition,
he was elected by twenty thousand majority. The aris-
tocrats hated him, the moral element feared him, but
the poor people believed in him : he pandered to them,
flattered them, till they elected him. While we would
not by any means hold Carter Harrison up to youth as
a model, yet there is a great lesson in his will-power
and wonderful tenacity of purpose.

" The general of a large army may be defeated," said
Confucius, " but you cannot defeat the determined mind
of a peasant."

The poor, deaf pauper, Kitto, who made shoes in the
almshouse, and who became the greatest of Biblical
scholars, wrote in his journal, on the threshold of man-
hood : " I am not myself a believer in impossibilities : I
think that all the fine stories about natural ability, etc.,
are mere rigmarole, and that every man may, accord-
ing to his opportunities and industry, render himself
almost anything he wishes to become."

Years ago, a young mechanic took a bath in the river
Clyde. While swimming from shore to shore he dis-
cerned a beautiful bank, uncultivated, and he then
and there resolved to be the owner of it, and to adorn
it, and to build upon it the finest mansion in all the
borough, and name it in honor of the maiden to whom
he was espoused. " Last summer," says a well-known
American, " I had the pleasure of dining in that princely
mansion, and receiving this fact from the lips of the great
shipbuilder of the Clyde." That one purpose was made
the ruling passion of his life, and all the energies of his
soul were put in requisition for its accomplishment.

48 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

Lincoln is probably the most remarkable example on
the pages of history, showing the possibilities of our
country. From the poverty in which he was born,
through the rowdyism of a frontier town, the rudeness
of frontier society, the discouragement of early bank-
ruptcy, and the fluctuations of popular politics, he rose
to the championship of union and freedom.

Lincoln's will made his way. When his friends nom-
inated him as a candidate for the legislature, his
enemies made fun of him. When making his campaign
speeches he wore a mixed jean coat so short that he
could not sit down on it, flax and tow-linen trousers,
straw hat, and pot-metal boots. He had nothing in the
world but character and friends.

W^heu his friends suggested law to him, he laughed at
the idea of his being a lawyer. He said he hadn't
brains enough. He read law barefoot under the trees,
his neighbors said, and he sometimes slept on the
counter in the store where he worked. He had to
borrow money to buy a suit of clothes to make a
respectable appearance in the legislature, and walked
to take his seat at Vandalia, — one hundred miles.
While he was in the legislature, John F. Stuart, an
eminent lawyer of Springfield, told him how Clay
had even inferior chances to his, had got all of the
education he had in a log schoolhouse without windows
or doors ; and finally induced Lincoln to study law.

See Thurlow Weed, defying poverty and wading
through the snow two miles, with rags for shoes, to
borrow a book to read before the sap-bush fire. See
Locke, living on bread and water in a Dutch garret.
See Heyne, sleeping many a night on a barn floor with
only a book for his pillow. See Samuel Drew, tighten-
ing his apron strings " in lieu of a dinner." See young
Lord Eldon, before daylight copying Coke on Littleton
over and over again. History is full of such examples.
He who will pay the price for victory needs never

THE WILL AND THE WAY. 49

fear final defeat. Why were the Roman legionaries
victorious ?

" For Romans, in Rome's quarrels,
Spared neither land nor gold,
Nor son, nor wife, nor limb nor life,
In the brave days of old."

Powell Buxton, writing to one of his sons, says : " I
am sure that a young man may be very much what lie
pleases."

Dr. Mathews has well said that "there is hardly a
word in the whole human vocabulary which is more
cruelly abused than the word ' luck.' To all the faults
and failures of men, their positive sins and their less
culpable shortcomings, it is made to stand a godfather
and sponsor. Go talk with the bankrupt man of busi-
ness, who has swamped his fortune by wild speculation,
extravagance of living, or lack of energy, and you will
find that he vindicates his wonderful self-love by con-
founding the steps which he took indiscreetly with
those to which he was forced by ' circumstances,' and
complacently regarding himself as the victim of ill-luck.
Go visit the incarcerated criminal, who has imbued his
hands in the blood of his fellow-man, or Avho is guilty
of less heinous crimes, and you will find that, joining
the temptations which were easy to avoid with those
which were comparatively irresistible, he has hurriedly
patched up a treaty with conscience, and stifles its
compunctious visitings by persuading himself that,
from first to last, he was the victim of circumstances.
Go talk with the mediocre in talents and attainments,
the weak-spirited man who, from-^ lack of energy and
application, has made but little headway in the world,
being outstripped in the race of life by those whom he
had despised as his inferiors, and you will find that he,
too, acknowledges the all-potent power of luck, and
soothes his humbled pride by deeming himself the victim
of ill-fortune. In short, from the most venial offense

50 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

to the most flagrant, there is hardly any wrong act or
neglect to which this too fatally convenient word is not
applied as a palliation."

Paris was in the hands of a mob, the authorities were
panic-stricken, for they did not dare to trust their un-
derlings. In came a man who said, " I know a young
officer who has the courage and ability to quell this
mob." " Send for him ; send for him ; send for him,"
said they. Napoleon was sent for, came, subjugated
the mob, subjugated the authorities, ruled France, then
conquered Europe.

What a lesson is Napoleon's life for the sickly, wishy-
washy, dwarfed, sentimental " dudes," hanging about
our cities, country, and universities, complaining of
their hard lot, dreaming of success, and wondering why
they are left in the rear in the great race of life.

Success in life is dependent largely upon the will-
power, and whatever weakens or impairs it diminishes
success. The will can be educated. That which most
easily becomes a habit in us is the will. Learn, then, to
will decisively and strongly ; 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. '' It is
not talent that men lack, it is the will to labor ; it is
the purpose, not the power to produce."

It was this insatiable thirst for knowledge which
held to his task, through poverty and discouragement,
John Leyden, a Scotch shepherd's son. Barefoot and
alone, he walked six or eight miles daily to learn to
read, which was all the schooling he had. His desire
for an education defied the extremest poverty, and no
obstacle could turn him from his purpose. He was rich
when he discovered a little bookstore, and his thirsty
soul would drink in the precious treasures from its
priceless volumes for hours, perfectly oblivious of the
scanty meal of bread and water which awaited him at
his lowly lodging. Nothing could discourage him from

THE WILL AND THE WAY. 51

trying to improve himself by study. It seemed to him
that an opportunity to get at books and lectures was all
that any man could need. Before he was nineteen, this
poor shepherd boy with no chance had astonished the
professors of Edinburgh by his knowledge of Greek and
Latin.

Hearing that a surgeon's assistant in the Civil Ser-
vice was wanted, although he knew nothing whatever
of medicine, he determined to apply for it. There were
only six months before the place was to be filled, but
nothing could daunt him, and in six months' time he
actually took his degree with honor. Waiter Scott,
who thought this one of the most remarkable illustra-
tions of perseverance, helped to fit him out, and he sailed
for India.

Webster was very poor even after he entered Dart-
mouth College. A friend sent him a recipe for greas-
ing his boots. Webster wrote and thanked him, and
added : "But my boots need other doctoring, for they
not only admit water, but even peas and gravel-stones."
Yet he became one of the greatest men in the world.
Sydney Smith said : " Webster was a living lie, because
no man on earth could be as great as he looked."
Carlyle said of him : " One would incline at sight to
back him against the world."

What seemed to be luck followed Stephen Girard all
his life. No matter what he did, it always seemed to
others to turn to his account. His coming to Philadel-
phia seemed a lucky accident. A sloop was seen one
morning off the mouth of Delaware Bay floating the
flag of France and a signal of distress. Young Girard
was captain of this sloop, and was on his way to a
Canadian port with freight from j^ew Orleans. An
American skipper, seeing his distress, went to his aid,
but told him the American war had broken out, and
that the British cruisers were all along the American
coast, and would seize his vessel. He told him his only

52 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

chance was to make a push for Philadeli)hia. Giraid
did not know the way, and had no money. The skipper
loaned him five dollars to get the service of a pilot who
demanded his money in advance.

His sloop passed into the Delaware just in time to
avoid capture by a British war vessel. He sold the
sloop and cargo in Philadelphia, and began business on
the capital. Being a foreigner, unable to speak English,
short, stout, and with a repulsive face, blind in one eye,
it was hard for him to get a start. But he was not the
man to give up. He had begun as a cabin boy at
thirteen, and for nine years sailed between Bordeaux
and the French West Indies. He improved every
leisure minute at sea, mastering the art of navigation.

At the age of eight he first discovered that he was
blind in one eye. His father, evidently thinking that
he would never amount to anything, would not help
him to an education beyond that of mere reading and
writing, but sent his younger brothers to college. The
discovery of his blindness, the neglect of his father, and
the chagrin of his brothers' advancement, soured his
whole life.

When he began business for himself in Philadelphia,
there seemed to be nothing he would not do for money.
He bought and sold anything, from groceries to old
junk. He bottled wine and cider, from which he made
a good profit. Everything he touched prospered. In
1780, he resumed the New Orleans and St. Domingo
trade, in which he had been engaged at the breaking
out of the Kevolution. Here great success again
attended him. He had two vessels lying in one of the
St. Domingo ports when the great insurrection on that
island broke out. A number of the rich planters fled
to his vessels with their valuables, which they left for
safe keeping while they went back to their estates to
secure more. They probably fell victims to the cruel
negroes, for they never returned, and Grirard was the

THE WILL AND THE WAY. 53

lucky possessor of $50,000 which the goods brought
in Philadephia.

Everybody, especially his jealous brother merchants,
attributed his great success to his luck. While un-
doubtedly he was fortunate in happening to be at the
right place at the right time, yet he was precision,
method, accuracy, energy itself. He left nothing to
chance. His plans and schemes were worked out with
mathematical care. His letters, written to his captains
in foreign ports, laying out their routes and giving de-
tailed instruction from which they were never allowed
to deviate under any circumstances, are models of fore-
sight and systematic planning. He never left anything
of importance to others. He was rigidly accurate in
his instructions, and would not allow the slightest de-
parture from them. He used to say that while his
captains might save him money by deviating from
instructions once, yet they would cause loss in ninety-
nine other cases. Once, when a captain returned and
had saved him several thousand dollars by buying his
cargo of cheese in another port than that in which he
had been instructed to buy, Girard was so enraged, al-
though he was several thousand dollars richer, that he
discharged the captain on the spot, notwithstanding the
latter had been faithful in his service for many years,
and thought he was saving his employer a great deal of
money by deviating from his instructions.

Girard lived in a dingy little house, poorer than that
occupied by many of his employees. He married a
servant girl of great beauty, but she proved totally
unfitted for him, and died at last In the insane asylum.

Girard never lost a ship, and many times what brought
financial ruin to many others, as the War of 1812, only
increased his wealth. What seemed luck with him was
only good judgment and promptness in seizing opportu-
nities, and the greatest care and zeal in improving them
to their utmost possibilities.

54 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

Luck is not God's price for success : that is alto-
gether too cheap, nor does he dicker with men.

The mathematician tells you that if you throw the
dice, there are thirty chances to one against your turn-
ing up a particular number, and a hundred to one
against your repeating the same throw three times in
succession : and so on in an augmenting ratio. What
is luck ? Is it, as has been suggested, a blind man's
buff among the laws ? a ruse among the elements ? a
trick of Dame Nature ? Has any scholar defined luck ?
any philosopher explained its nature ? any chemist
shown its composition ? Is luck that strange, nonde-
script fairy, that does all things among men that they
cannot account for ? If so, why does not luck make
a fool speak words of wisdom ; an ignoramus utter lec-
tures on philosophy ?

Many a young man who has read the story of John
Wanamaker's romantic career has gained very little in-
spiration or help from it toward his own elevation and
advancement, for he looks upon it as the result of good
luck, chance, or fate. " What a lucky fellow," he says
to himself as he reads ; " what a bonanza he fell into."
But a careful analysis of Wanamaker's life only en-
forces the same lesson taught by the analysis of most
great lives, namely, that a good mother, a good consti-
tution, the habit of hard work, indomitable energy, a de-
termination which knows no defeat, a decision which
never wavers, a concentration which never scatters its
forces, courage which never falters, a self-mastery
which can say No, and stick to it, an " ignominious
love of detail," strict integrity and downright honesty,
a cheerful disposition, unbounded enthusiasm in one's
calling, and a high aim and noble purpose insure a very
large measure of success.

Youth should be taught that there is something in
circumstances ; that there is such a thing as a poor
pedestrian happening to find no obstruction in his way,

THE WILL AND THE WAY. ^b

and reaching the goal when a better walker finds the
drawbridge up, the street blockaded, and so fails to win
the race ; that wealth often does place unworthy sons in
high positions ; that family influence does gain a law-
yer clients, a physician patients, an ordinary scholar
a good professorship ; but that, on the other hand, po-
sition, clients, patients, professorships, manager's and
superintendent's positions do not necessarily constitute
success. He should be taught that in the long run, as
a rule, the best man does ivin the best i^ace, and that per-
sistent merit does succeed:

There is about as much chance of idleness and inca-
pacity winning real success, or a high position in life,
as there would be in producing a Paradise Lost by shak-
ing up promiscuously the separate words of Webster's
Dictionary, and letting them fall at random on the floor.
Fortune smiles upon those who roll up their sleeves and
put their shoulders to the wheel ; upon men who are not
afraid of dreary, dry, irksome drudgery, men of nerve
and grit who do not turn aside for dirt and detail.

The youth should be taught that "he alone is great,
who, by a life heroic, conquers fate ; " that " diligence is
the mother of good luck ; " that, nine times out of ten,
w^hat we call luck or fate is but a mere bugbear of the
indolent, the languid, the purposeless, the careless, the
indifferent ; that the man who fails, as a rule, does not
see or seize his opportunity. Opportunity is coy, is
swift, is gone, before the slow, the unobservant, the
indolent, or the careless can seize her : —

"In idle wishes fools supinel\' stay:
Be there a will and wisdom -finds a way."

It has been well said that the very reputation of
being strong willed, plucky, and indefatigable is of
priceless value. It often cows enemies and dispels at
the start opposition to one's undertakings which would
otherwise be formidable.

" If Eric 's in robust health, and has slept well, and

56 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

is at the top of his condition, and thirty years old at
his departure from Greenland," says Emerson, ''he will
steer west and his ships will reach Newfoundland.
But take Eric out and put in a stronger and bolder
man, and the shij^s will sail six hundred, one thousand,
fifteen hundred miles further, and reach Labrador and
New England. There is no chance in results." Obsta-
cles tower before the living man like mountain chains,
stopping his path and hindering his progress. He sur-
mounts them by his energy. He makes a new i3ath
over them. He climbs upon them to mountain heights.
They cannot stop him. They do not much delay him.
He transmutes difficulties into power, and makes tem-
porary failures into stepping-stones to ultimate success.

How many might have been giants who are only
dwarfs. How many a one has died " with all his music
in him."

It is astonishing what men who have come to their
senses late in life have accomplished by a sudden reso-
lution.

Arkwright was fifty years of age when he began to
learn English grammar and improve his writing and
spelling. Benjamin Eranklin was past fifty before he
began the study of science and philosophy. Milton, in
his blindness, was past the age of fifty when he sat
down to complete his world-known epic, and Scott at
fifty-five took up his pen to redeem an enormous liabil-
ity. " Yet I am learning," said Michael Angelo, when
threescore years and ten were past, and he had long
attained the highest triumphs of his art.

Even brains are second in importance to will. The
vacillating man is always pushed aside in the race of
life. It is only the weak and vacillating who halt be-
fore adverse circumstances and obstacles. A man with
an iron will, with a determination that nothing shall
check his career, if he has perseverance and grit, is
sure to succeed. We may not find time for what we

THE WILL AND THE WAY. 57

would like, but what we long for and strive for with all
our strength, we usually approximate if we do not fully
reach. Hunger breaks through stone walls ; stern
necessity will find a way or make one.

Success is also a great physical as well as mental
tonic, and tends to strengthen the will-power. Dr.
Johnson says : " Resolutions and success reciprocally
produce each other." Strong-willed men, as a rule, are
successful men, and great success is almost impossible
without it.

A man who can resolve vigorously upon a course of
action, and turns neither to the right nor the left,
though a paradise tempt him, who keeps his eyes upon
the goal, whatever distracts him, is sure of success.
We could almost classify successes and failures by
their various degrees of will-power. Men like Sir
James Mackintosh, Coleridge, La Harpe, and many
others who have dazzled the world with their bril-
liancy, but who never accomplished a tithe of what
they attempted ; who were always raising our expecta-
tions that they were about to perform wonderful deeds,
but who accomplished nothing worthy of their abilities,
have been deficient in will-power. One talent with a
will behind it will accomplish more than ten without
it. The great linguist of Bologna mastered a hundred
languages by taking them singly, as the lion fought the
bulls.

I wish it were possible to show the youth of America
the great part that the will might play in their success
in "life and in their happiness also. The achievements
of will-power are simply beyond computation. Scarcely
anything in reason seems impossible to the man who
can will strong enough and long enough.

How often we see this illustrated in the case of a
young woman who suddenly becomes conscious that
she is plain and unattractive ; who, by prodigious ex-
ercise of her will and untiring industry, resolves to

58 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

redeem herself from obscurity and commonness ; and
who not only makes up for her deficiencies, but elevates
herself into a prominence and importance which mere
personal attractions could never have given her. Char-
lotte Cushman, without a charm of form or face,
climbed to the very top of her profession. How many
young men, stung by consciousness of physical de-
formity or mental deficiencies, have, by a strong persis-
tent exercise of will-power, raised themselves from
mediocrity and placed themselves high above those
who scorned them.

History is full of examples of men and women who
have redeemed themselves from disgrace, poverty, and
misfortune, by the firm resolution of an iron will. The
consciousness of being looked upon as inferior, as in-
capable of accomplishing what others accomplish ; the
sensitiveness at being considered a dunce in school, has
stung many a youth into a determination which has
elevated him far above those who laughed at him, as in
the case of Newton, of Adam Clark, of Sheridan, Wel-
lington, Goldsmith, Dr. Chalmers, Curran, Disraeli, and
hundreds of others. " Whatever you wish, that jow.
are ; for such is the force of the human will, joined to
the Divine, that whatever we wish to be seriously, and
with a true intention, that we become." While this is
not strictly true, yet there is a deal of truth in it.

It is men like Mirabeau, who " trample upon impossi-
bilities ; " like Napoleon, who do not wait for opportuni-
ties, but make them ; like Grant, who has only " uncon-
ditional surrender" for the enemy, who change the
very front of the world. " We have but what we make,
and every good is locked by nature in a granite hand,
sheer labor must unclench."

What cares Henry L. Bulwer for the suffocating
cough, even though he can scarcely speak above a whis-
per ? In the House of Commons he makes his immor-
tal speech on the Irish Church just the same.

THE WILL AND THE WAY. 59

" I can'tj it is impossible," said a foiled lieutenant, to
Alexander. " Be gone," shouted the conquering Mace-
donian, " there is nothing impossible to him who will
try."

Were I called upon to express in a word the secret of
so many failures among those who started out in life
with high hopes, I should say unhesitatingly, they
lacked will-power. They could not half will. What is
a man without a will ? He is like an engine without
steam, a mere sport of chance, to be tossed about hither
and thither, always at the mercy of those who have
wills. I should call the strength of will the test of a
young man's possibilities. Can he will strong enough,
and hold whatever he undertakes with an iron grip ?
It is the iron grip that takes the strong hold on life.
What chance is there in this crowding, pushing, selfish,
greedy world, where everything is pusher or pushed,
for a young man with no will, no grip on life ? " The
truest wisdom," said Napoleon, "is a resolute determi-
nation." An iron will without principle might produce
a Napoleon ; but with character it would make a Wel-
lington or a Grant, untarnished by ambition or avarice.

" The undivided will
'T is that compels the elements and wrings
A human music from the indifferent air."

CHAPTER IV.

SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

Victories that are easy are cheap. Those only are worth having which
come as the result of hard fighting. — Beecher.

Man owes his growth chiefly to that active striving of the will, that en-
counter with difficulty, which we call effort; and it is astonishing to tind
how often results that seemed impracticable are thus made possible. —
Epes Sahgent.

I know no such unquestionable badge and ensign of a sovereign mind
as that tenacity of purpose which, through all change of companions, or
parties, or fortunes, changes never, bates no jot of heart or hope, but
wearies out opposition and arrives at its port. — Emehson.

Yes, to this thought I hold with firm persistence ;
The last result of wisdom stamps it true ;
He only earns his freedom and existence
Who daily conquers them anew.

Goethe.
Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds
rise above them. —Washington Irving.

" I HAVE here three teams that I want to get over to
Staten Island," said a boy of twelve one day in 1806 to
the innkeeper at South Amboy, N. J. " If you will put
us across, I '11 leave with you one of my horses in pawn,
and if I don't send you back six dollars within forty-
eight hours you may keep the horse."

The innkeeper asked the reason for this novel propo-
sition, and learned that the lad's father had contracted
to get the cargo of a vessel stranded near Sandy Hook,
and take it to New York in lighters. The boy had
been sent with three wagons, six horses, and three men,
to carry the cargo across a sand-spit to the lighters.
The work accomplished, he had started with only six
dollars to travel a long distance home over the Jersey

WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
How can you keep a determined man from success,? Place stumbling-blocks in
his way, and he uses them for stepping-stones. Imprison him, and he produces
the "Pilgrim's Progress." Deprive him of eyesight, and he writes the "Con-
quest of Mexico."

SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 61

sands, and reached South Am boy penniless. " I '11 do
it," said the innkeeper, as he looked into the bright
honest eyes of the boy. The horse was soon redeemed.

" My son," said this same boy's mother, on the first
of May, 1810, when he asked her to lend him one hun-
dred dollars to buy a boat, having imbibed a strong
liking for the sea ; " on the twenty-seventh of this
month you will be sixteen years old. If, by that time,
you will plow, harrow, and plant with corn the eight-
acre lot, I will advance you the money." The field
was rough and stony, but the work was done in time,
and well done. From this small beginning Cornelius
Vanderbilt laid the foundation of a colossal fortune.
He would often work all night ; and, as he was never
absent from his post by day, he soon had the best busi-
ness in New York harbor.

In 1813, when it was expected that New York would
be attacked by British ships, all the boatmen except
Cornelius put in bids to convey provisions to the mili-
tary posts around New York, naming extremely low
rates, as the contractor would be exempted from mili-
tary duty. " Why don't you send in a bid ? " asked his
father. " Of what use ? " replied young Vanderbilt ;
"they are offering to do the work at half price. It
can't be done at such rates." " Well," said his father,
"it can do no harm to try for it." So, to please his
father, but with no hope of success, Cornelius made an
offer fair to both sides, but did not go to hear the
award. When his companions had all returned with
long faces, he went to the commissary's office and
asked if the contract had been given. " Oh, yes," was
the reply ; " that business is settled. Cornelius Van-
derbilt is the man. What ? " he asked, seeing that the
youth was apparently thunderstruck, " is it you ? "
" My name is Cornelius Vanderbilt," said the boatman.
" Well," said the commissary, " dcn't you know why
we have given the contract to you ? " " No." " Why,

62 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

it is because we want this business done, and we know
you '11 do it." Character gives confidence.

In 1818 he owned two or three of the finest coasting
schooners in New York harbor, and had a capital of
nine thousand dollars. Seeing that steam-vessels would
soon win supremacy over those carrying sails only, he
gave up his fine business to become the captain of a
steamboat at one thousand dollars a year. For twelve
years he ran between New York city and New Bruns-
wick, N. J. In 1829 he began business as a steamboat
owner, in the face of opposition so bitter that he lost
his last dollar. But the tide turned, and he prospered
so rapidly that he at length owned over one hundred
steamboats. He early identified himself with the grow-
ing railroad interests of the country, and became the
richest man of his day in America.

Barnum began the race of business life barefoot, for
at the age of fifteen he was obliged to buy on credit the
shoes he wore at his father's funeral. He was a re-
markable example of success under difficulties. There
was no keeping him down ; no opposition daunted him,
no obstacles were too great for him to overcome.
Think of a man being ruined at fifty years of age ; yes,
worse than ruined, for he was heavily in debt besides.
Yet on the very day of his downfall he begins to rise
again, wringing victory from defeat by his indomitable
persistence.

" Eloquence must have been born with you," said a
friend to J. P. Curran. "Indeed, my dear sir, it was
not," replied the orator ; " it was born some three and
twenty years and some months after me." Speaking
of his first attempt at a debating club, he said : " I stood
up, trembling through every fibre ; but remembering
that in this I was but imitating Tully, I took courage
and had actually proceeded almost as far as ' Mr. Chair-
man,' when, to my astonishment and terror, I perceived
that every eye was turned on me. There were only six

SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 63

or seven present, and the room could not have contained
as many more ; yet was it, to my panic-stricken imagi-
nation, as if I were the central object in nature, and
assembled millions were gazing upon me in breathless
expectation. I became dismayed and dumb. My friends
cried, ' Hear him ! ' but there was nothing to hear." He
was nicknamed " Orator Mum," and well did he deserve
the title until he ventured to stare in astonishment at a
'speaker who was "culminating chronology by the most
preposterous anachronisms." " I doubt not," said the
annoyed speaker, " that ' Orator Mum ' possesses won-
derful talents for eloquence, but I would recommend
him to show it in future by some more popular method
than his silence." Stung by the taunt, Curran rose and
gave the man a "piece of his mind," speaking quite
fluently in his anger. Encouraged by this success, he
took great pains to become a good speaker. He cor-
rected his habit of stuttering by reading favorite pas-
sages aloud every day slowly and distinctly, and spoke
at every opportunity.

Bunyan wrote his " Pilgrim's Progress " on the un-
twisted papers used to cork the bottles of milk brought
for his meals. Gifford wrote his first copy of a math-
ematical work, when a cobbler's apprentice, on small
scraps of leather; and Rittenhouse, the astronomer,
first calculated eclipses on his plow handle.

A poor Irish lad, so pitted by smallpox that boys
made sport of him, earned his living by writing little
ballads for street musicians. Eight cents a day was
often all he could earn. He traveled through France
and Italy, begging his way by singing and playing the
flute at the cottages of the peasantry. At twenty-eight
he was penniless in London, and lived in the beggars'
quarters in Axe Lane. In his poverty, he set up as a
doctor in the suburbs of London. He wore a second-
hand coat of rusty velvet, with a patch on the left
breast which he adroitly covered with his three-cor-

64 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

iiered hat during his visits ; and we have an amusing
anecdote of his contest of courtesy with a patient who
persisted in endeavoring to relieve him of his hat,
which only made him press it more devoutly to his
heart. He often had to jjawn his clothes to keep from
starving. He sold his " Life of Voltaire " for twenty
dollars. After great hardship he managed to publish
his " Polite Learning in Europe," and this brought him
to public notice. Next came "The Traveller," and the'
wretched man in a Fleet Street garret found himself
famous. His landlady once arrested him for rent, but
Dr. Johnson came to his relief, took from his desk the
manuscript of the " Vicar of Wakefield," and sold it for
three hundred dollars. He spent two years revising
"The Deserted Village" after it was first written.
Generous to a fault, vain and improvident, imposed on
by others, he was continually in debt ; although for his
" History of the Earth and Animated Nature " he re-
ceived four thousand dollars, and some of his works,
as, for instance, " She Stoops to Conquer," had a large
sale. But in spite of fortune's frown and his own
weakness, he won success and fame. The world, which
so often comes too late with its assistance and laurels,
gave to the weak, gentle, loving author of " The Vicar
of Wakefield" a monument in the Poets' Corner of
Westminster Abbey.

The poor, scrofulous, and almost blind boy, Samuel
Johnson, was taken by his mother to receive the touch
of Queen Anne, which was supposed to heal the
" King's Evil." He entered Oxford as a servant, copy-
ing lectures from a student's notebooks, while the boys
made sport of the bare feet showing through great
holes in his shoes. Some one left a pair of new shoes
at his door, but he was too proud to be helped, and
threw them out of the window. He was so poor that
he was obliged to leave college, and at twenty-six
married a widow of forty-eight. He started a private

SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 65

school with his wife's money ; but, getting only three
pupils, was obliged to close it. He went to London,
where he lived on nine cents a day. In his distress he
wrote a poem in which appeared in capital letters the
line, "Slow rises worth by poverty depressed," which
attracted wide attention. He suffered greatly in Lon-
don for thirteen years, being arrested once for a debt of
thirteen dollars. At forty he published " The Vanity
of Human Wishes," in which were these lines : —

" Then mark what ills the scholar's life assail;
Toil, envy, want, the patron and the jail."

When asked how he felt about his failures, he replied :
"Like a monument," — that is, steadfast, immovable.
He was an indefatigable worker. In the evenings of
a single week he wrote "Easselas," a beautiful little
story of the search for happiness, to get money to pay
the funeral expenses of his mother. With six assist-
ants he worked seven years on his Dictionary, which
made his fortune. His name was then in everybody's
mouth, and when he no longer needed help, assistance,
as usual, came from every quarter. The great universi-
ties hastened to bestow their degrees, and King George
invited him to the palace.

Lord Mansfield raised himself by indefatigable in-
dustry from oatmeal porridge and poverty to affluence
and the Lord Chief Justice's Bench.

Of five thousand articles sent every year to "Lip-
pincott's Magazine," only two hundred were accepted.
How much do you think Homer got for his Iliad ? or
Dante for his Paradise ? Only bitter bread and salt,
and going up and down other people's stairs. In
science, the man who discovered the telescope, and first
saw heaven, was paid with a dungeon : the man who
invented the microscope, and first saw earth, died from
starvation, driven from his home. It is very clear in-
deed that God means all good work and talk to be done
for nothing. Shakespeare's "Hamlet" was sold for

66 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

about twenty-five dollars ; but his autograph, has sold
for five thousand dollars.

During the ten years in Avhich he made his greatest
discoveries, Isaac Newton could hardly pay two shillings
a week to the Eoyal Society of which he was a member.
Some of his friends wanted to get him excused from
this payment, but he would not allow them to act.

There are no more interesting pages in biography than
those which record how Emerson, as a child, was unable
to read the second volume of a certain book, because his
widowed mother could not afford the amount (five
cents) necessary to obtain it from the circulating
library.

Linnaeus was so poor when getting his education, that
he had to mend his shoes with folded paper, and often
had to beg his meals of his friends.

Who in the days of the First Empire cared to recall
the fact that Napoleon, Emperor and King, was once
forced to borrow a louis from Talma, when he lived in a
garret on the Quai Conti ?

David Livingstone at ten years of age was put into a
cotton factory near Glasgow. Out of his first week's
wages he bought a Latin Grammar, and studied in the
night schools for years. He would sit up and study till
midnight unless his mother drove him to bed, notwith-
standing he had to be at the factory at six in the morn-
ing. He mastered Virgil and Horace in this way, and
read extensively, besides studying botany. So eager
and thirsty for knowledge was he, that he would place
his book before him on the spinning-jenny, and amid the
deafening roar of machinery would pore over its pages.

George Eliot said of the years of close work upon her
" Romola," " I began it a young woman, I finished it an
old woman." One of Emerson's biographers says, re-
ferring to his method of rewriting, revising, correcting,
and eliminating : " His apples were sorted over and over
again, until only the very rarest, the most perfect, were

SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 67

left. It did not matter that those thrown away were
very good and helped to make clear the possibilities of
the orchard, they were unmercifully cast aside." Car-
lyle's books were literally wrung out of him. The pains
he took to satisfy himself of a relatively insignificant
fact were incredible. Before writing his essay on Dide-
rot, he read twenty-five volumes at the rate of one per
day. He tells Edward Fitzgerald that for the twentieth
time he is going over the confused records of the battle
of ISTaseby, that he may be quite sure of the topog-
rapl]^.

"All the performances of human art, at which we
look with praise and wonder,'' says Johnson, " are in-
stances of the resistless force of perseverance : it is by
this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that dis-
tant countries are united with canals. If a man was to
compare the effect of a single stroke of the pickaxe, or
of one impression of the spade, with the general design
and last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense
of their disproportion ; yet those petty operations, in-
cessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest
difficulties, and mountains are leveled, and oceans
bounded, by the slender force of human beings."

The Eev. Eliphalet Nott, a pulpit orator, was es-
pecially noted for a sermon on the death of Alexander
Hamilton, the great statesman, who was shot in a duel
by Aaron Burr. Although Xott had managed in some
way to get his degree at Brown University, he was at one
time so poor after he entered the ministry that he could
not buy an overcoat. His wife sheared their only cos-
set sheep in January, wrapped it in^^urlap blankets to
keep it from freezing, carded and spun and wove the
wool, and made it into an overcoat for him.

Great men never wait for opportunities ; they make
them. Nor do they wait for facilities or favoring cir-
cumstances ; they seize upon whatever is at hand, work
out their problem, and master the situation. A young

68 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

man determined and willing will find a way or make
one. A Franklin does not require elaborate apparatus ;
he can bring electricity from the clouds with a common
kite. A Watt can make a model of the condensing
steam-engine out of an old syringe used to inject the
arteries of dead bodies previous to dissection. A Dr.
Black can discover latent heat with a pan of water and
two thermometers. A Newton can unfold the composi-
tion of light and the origin of colors with a prism,
a lens, and a piece of pasteboard. A Humphry Davy
can experiment with kitchen pots and x^ans, and a Fara-
day can experiment on electricity by means of old bot-
tles, in his spare minutes while a book-binder. When
science was in its cradle the Marquis of Worcester, an
English nobleman, imprisoned in the Tower of London,
was certainly not in a very good position to do anything
for the world, but would not waste his time. The
cover of a vessel of hot water blown off before his eyes
led to a series of observations, which he published later
in a book called " Century of Inventions." These obser-
vations were a sort of text-book on the power of steam,
which resulted in Newcomen's steam - engine, which
Watt afterward perfected. A Ferguson maps out the
heavenly bodies, lying on his back, by means of threads
with beads stretched between himself and the stars.

Not in his day of bodily strength and political power,
but blind, decrepit, and defeated with his party, Milton
composed " Paradise Lost."

Great men have found no royal road to their tri-
umph. It is always the old route, by way of industry
and perseverance.

The farmer boy, Elihu B. Washburn, taught school
at ten dollars per month, and early learned the lesson
that it takes one hundred cents to make a dollar. In
after years he fought "steals" in Congress, until he
was called the "Watchdog of the Treasury." From
his long membership he became known as the " Father

SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 69

of the House." He administered the oath to Schuyler
Colfax as Speaker three times. He recommended Grant
as colonel of a regiment of volunteers. The latter,
when President, appointed him Secretary of State, and,
later. Minister to France. During the reign of the
Commune, the representatives of nearly all other for-
eign nations fled in dismay, but Washburn remained
at his post. Shells exploded close to his office, and fell
all around it, but he did not leave even when Paris was
in flames. For a time he was really the minister of all
foreign countries, in Paris ; and represented Prussia for
almost a year. The Emperor William conferred upon
him the Order of the Red Eagle, and gave him a jeweled
star of great value.

How could the poor boy, Elihu Burritt, working
nearly all the daylight in a blacksmith's shop, get
an education ? He had but one book in his library,
and carried that in his hat. But this boy with no
chance became one of America's wonders.

When teaching school, Garfield was very poor. He
tore his only blue jean trousers, but concealed the rents
by pins until night, when he retired early that his
boarding mistress might mend his clothes. "When
you get to be a United States Senator," said she, " no
one will ask what kind of clothes you wore when
teaching school."

Although Michael Angelo made himself immortal in
three different occupations, his fame might well rest
upon his dome of St. Peter as an architect, upon his
" Moses " as a sculptor, and upon his " Last Judgment "
as a painter ; yet we find by his correspondence now in
the British Museum, that when he was at work on his
colossal bronze statue of Pope Julius II., he was so
poor that he could not have his younger brother come
to visit him at Bologna, because he had but one bed in
which he and three of his assistants slept together.

" I was always at the bottom of my purse," said

70 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

Zola, in describing the struggles of his early years of
authorship. " Very often I had not a sou left, and not
knowing, either, where to get one. I rose generally at
four in the morning, and began to study after a break-
fast consisting of one raw Qgg. But no matter, those
were good times. After taking a Avalk along the quays,
I entered my garret, and joyfully partaking of a din-
ner of three apples, I sat down to work. I wrote, and
I was happy. In winter I would allow myself no fire ;
wood was too expensive — only on fete days was I able
to afford it. But I had several pipes of tobacco and a
candle for three sous. A three-sous candle, only think
of it ! It meant a whole night of literature to me."

James Brooks, once the editor and proprietor of the
^' New York Daily Express," and later an eminent con-
gressman, began life as a clerk in a store in Maine, and
when twenty-one received for his pay a hogshead of
New England rum. He was so eager to go to college
that he started for Water ville with his trunk on his
back, and when he was graduated he was so poor and
plucky that he carried his trunk on his back to the
station when he went home.

When Elias Howe, harassed by want and woe, was
in London completing his first sewing-machine, he had
frequently to borrow money to live on. He bought
beans and cooked them himself. He also borrowed
money to send his wife back to America. He sold his
first machine for five pounds, although it was worth
fifty, and then he pawned his letters patent to pay his
expenses home.

The boy Arkwright begins barbering in a cellar, but
dies worth a million and a half. The world treated his
novelties just as it treats everybody's novelties — made
infinite objection, mustered all the impediments, but
he snapped his fingers at their objections, and lived to
become honored and wealthy.

There is scarcely a great truth or doctrine but has

SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 71

had to fight its way to public recognition in the face
of detraction, calumny, and persecution. "Every-
where," says Heine, "that a great soul gives utterance
to its thoughts, there also is a Golgotha."

Nearly every great discovery or invention that has
blessed mankind has had to fight its way to recognition,
even against the opposition of the most progressive men.

Even Sir Charles Napier fiercely opposed the intro-
duction of steam power into the Royal Navy. In the
House of Commons, he exclaimed, " Mr. Speaker, when
we enter Her Majesty's naval service and face the
chances of war, we go prepared to be hacked in pieces, to
be riddled by bullets, or to be blown to bits by shot and
shell ; but Mr. Speaker, we do not go prepared to be
boiled alive." He said this with tremendous emphasis.

"Will any one explain how there can be a light
without a wick ? " asked a member of Parliament,
when William Murdock, toward the close of the eigh-
teenth century, said that coal gas would give a good
light, and could be conveyed into buildings in pipes.
" Do you intend taking the dome of St. Paul's for a
gasometer ? " was the sneering question of even the
great scientist, Humphry Davy. Walter Scott ridi-
culed the idea of lighting London by " smoke," but he
soon used it at Abbotsford, and Davy achieved one of
his greatest triumphs by experimenting with gas until
he had invented his safety lamp.

Titian used to crush the flowers to get their color,
and painted the white walls of his father's cottage in
Tyrol with all sorts of pictures, at which the moun-
taineers gazed in wonder.

" That boy will beat me one day," said an old painter
as he watched a little fellow named Michael Angelo
making drawings of pot and brushes, easel and stool,
and other articles in the studio. The barefoot boy
did persevere until he had overcome every difficulty
and become a master of his art.

72 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

William H. Prescott was a remarkable example of
what a boy with " no chance " can do. While at col-
lege, he lost one eye by a hard piece of bread thrown
during a " biscuit battle," then so common after meals ;
and, from sympathy, the other eye became almost use-
less. But the boy had pluck and determination, and
would not lead a useless life. He set his heart upon
being a historian, and turned all his energies in that di-
rection. By the aid of others' eyes, he spent ten years
studying before he even decided upon a particular theme
for his first book. Then he spent ten years more, por-
ing over old archives and manuscripts, before he pub-
lished his '' Ferdinand and Isabella." What a lesson in
his life for young men ! What a rebuke to those who
have thrown away their opportunities and wasted their
lives !

"Galileo with an opera-glass," said Emerson, "dis-
covered a more splendid series of celestial phenomena
than any one since with the great telescopes. Colum-
bus found the new world in an undecked boat."

Surroundings which men call unfavorable cannot pre-
vent the unfolding of, your powers. From the plain
fields and lowlands of Avon came the Shakespearean
genius which has charmed the world. From among the
rock-ribbed hills of New Hampshire sprang the greatest
of American orators and statesmen, Daniel Webster.
From the crowded ranks of toil, and homes to which
luxury is a stranger, have often come the leaders and
benefactors of our race. Indeed, when Christ came
upon earth. His early abode was a place so poor and so
much despised that men thought He could not be the
Christ, asking, in utter astonishment, "Can any good
thing come out of Nazareth ? "

" I once knew a little colored boy," said Frederick
Douglass, " whose mother and father died when he was
but six years old. He was a slave, and had no one to
care for him. He slept on a dirt floor in a hovel, and

SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 73

in cold weather would crawl into a meal-bag head fore-
most, and leave his feet in the ashes to keep them warm.
Often he would roast an ear of corn and eat it to satisfy
his hunger, and many times has he crawled under the
barn or stable and secured eggs, which he would roast
in the fire and eat. That boy did not wear pantaloons,
as you do, but a tow-linen shirt. Schools were unknown
to him, and he learned to spell from an old Webster's
spelling-book, and to read and write from posters on
cellar and barn doors, while boys and men would help
him. He would then preach and speak, and soon be-
came well known. He became presidential elector.
United States marshal, United States recorder, United
States diplomat, and accumulated some wealth. He
wore broadcloth, and did n't have to divide crumbs with
the dogs under the table. That boy was Frederick
Douglass. What was possible for me is possible for
you. Don't think because you are colored you can't
accomplish anything. Strive earnestly to add to your
knowledge. So long as you remain in ignorance, so
long will you fail to command the respect of your fellow-
men."

Where shall we find an illustration more impressive
than in Abraham Lincoln, whose life, career, and death
might be chanted by a Greek chorus as at once the pre-
lude and the epilogue of the most imperial theme of
modern times ? Born as lowly as the Son of God, in a
hovel ; of what real parentage we know not ; reared in
penury, squalor, with no gleam of light, nor fair sur-
rounding ; a young manhood vexed by weird dreains and
visions ; with scarcely a natural grace ; singularly awk-
ward, ungainly even among the uncouth about him : it
was reserved for this remarkable character, late in life,
to be snatched from obscurity, raised to supreme com-
mand at a supreme moment, and intrusted with the
destiny of a nation. The great leaders of his party
were made to stand aside ; the most experienced and

74 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

accomplished men of the day, men like Seward, and
Chase, and Sumner, statesmen famous and trained, were
sent to the rear, while this strange figure was brought by-
unseen hands to the front, and given the reins of power.

The story is told of a man in London deprived of both
legs and arms, who managed to write with his mouth and
perform other things so remarkable as to enable him to
earn a fair living. He would lay certain sheets of pa-
per together, pinning them at the corner to make them
hold. Then he would take a pen and write some
verses ; after which he would proceed to embellish the
lines by many skillful flourishes. Dropping the pen
from his mouth, he would next take up a needle and
thread, also with his mouth, thread the needle, and
make several stitches. He also painted with a brush,
and was in many other ways a wonderful man. Instead
of being a burden to his family he was the most impor-
tant contributor to their welfare.

Arthur Cavanagh, M. P., was born without arms or
legs, yet it is said that he was a good shot, a skillful
fisherman and sailor, and one of the best cross country
riders in Ireland. He was a good conversationalist,
and an able member of Parliament. He ate with his
fork attached to his stump of an arm, and wrote holding
his pen in his teeth. In riding he held the bridle in
his mouth, his body being strapped to the saddle. He
once lost his means of support in India, but went to
work with his accustomed energy, and obtained em-
ployment as a carrier of dispatches.

People thought it strange that Gladstone should ap-
point blind Henry Fawcett Postmaster-G-eneral of Great
Britian ; but never before did any one fill the ofiice so
well.

John B. Herreshoff, of Bristol, R. I., altliough blind
since he was fifteen years old, is the founder and head
of one of the most noted shipbuilding establishments
in the world. He has superintended the construction

SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 75

of some of the swiftest torpedo boats and steam and sail-
ing yachts afloat. He frequently takes his turn at the
wheel in sailing his vessels on trial trips. He is aided
greatly by his younger brother Nathaniel, but can plan
vessels and conduct business without him. After exam-
ining a vessel's hull or a good model of it, he will gWe
detailed instructions for building another just like it,
and will make a more accurate duplicate than can most
boat-builders whose sight is j^erfect.

The Rev. William H. Milburn, who lost his sight
when a child, studied for the ministry, and was ordained
before he attained his majority. In ten years he trav-
eled about 200,000 miles in missionary work. He has
written half a dozen books, among them a very careful
history of the Mississippi Valley. He has long been
chaplain of the lower house of Congress.

Blind Fanny Crosby, of New York, was a teacher of
the blind for many years. She has written nearly three
thousand hymns, among which are "Pass Me not,
Gentle Saviour," "Rescue the Perishing," "Saviour
more than Life to Me," and "Jesus keep Me near the
Cross."

ISTor are these by any means the only examples of
blind people now doing their full share of the world's
work. In the United States alone there are engaged in
musical occupation one hundred and fifty blind piano
tuners, one hundred and fifty blind teachers of music in
schools for the blind, five hundred blind private teach-
ers, one hundred blind church organists, fifteen or more
blind composers and publishers of music, and several
blind dealers in musical instruments.

The7'e is no open door to the temple of success. Every
one who enters makes his own door, which closes be-
hind him to all others, not even permitting his own
children to pass.

Nearly forty years ago, on a rainy, dreary day in No-
vember, a young widow in Philadelphia sat wondering

76 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

how she could feed and clothe three little ones left
dependent by the death of her husband, a naval officer.
Happening to think of a box of which her husband had
spoken, she opened it, and found therein an envelope
containing directions for a code of colored light signals
to be used at night on the ocean. The system was not
complete, but she perfected it, went to Washington,
and induced the Secretary of the Navy to give it a trial.
An admiral soon wrote that the signals were good for
nothing, although the idea was valuable. For months
and years she worked, succeeding at last in producing
brilliant lights of different colors. She was ^Daid
$20,000 for the right to manufacture them in our navy.
]S'early all the blockade runners captured in the Civil
War were taken by the aid of the Coston signals, which
are also considered invaluable in the Life Saving Ser-
vice. Mrs. Coston introduced them into several Euro-
pean navies, and became wealthy.

A modern writer says that it is one of the mysteries
of our life that genius, that noblest gift of God to man,
is nourished by poverty. Its greatest works have been
achieved by the sorrowing ones of the world in tears
and despair. Not in the brilliant salon, not in the tap-
estried library, not in ease and competence, is genius
usually born and nurtured ; but often in adversity and
destitution, amidst the harassing cares of a straitened
household, in bare and lireless garrets, with the noise of
squalid children, in the turbulence of domestic conten-
tions, and in the deep gloom of uncheered despair.
This is its most frequent birthplace, and amid scenes
like these unpropitious, repulsive, wretched surround-
ings, have men labored, studied, and trained themselves,
until they have at last emanated from the gloom of
that obscurity the shining lights of their times ; have
become the companions of kings, the guides and teachers
of their kind, and exercised an influence upon the
thought of the world amounting to a species of intel-
lectual legislation.

SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 77

Chauncey Jerome's education was limited to three
months in the district school each year until he was ten,
when his father took him into his blacksmith shop at
Plymouth, Conn., to make nails. Money was a scarce
article with young Chauncey. He once chopped a load
of wood for one cent, and often chopped by moonlight
for neighbors at less than a dime a load. His father
died when he was eleven, and his mother was forced to
send Chauncey out, with tears in his eyes and a little
bundle of clothes in his hand, to earn a living on a
farm. His new employer kept him at work early and
late chopping down trees all day, his shoes sometimes
full of snow, for he had no boots until he was nearly
twenty-one. At fourteen he was apprenticed for seven
years to a carpenter, who gave him only board and
clothes. Several times during his apprenticeship he
carried his tools thirty miles on his back to his work
at different places. After he had learned his trade he
frequently walked thirty miles to a job with his kit
upon his back. One day he heard people talking of Eli
Terry, of Plymouth, who had undertaken to make two
hundred clocks in one lot. " He '11 never live long
enough to finish them," said one. " If he should," said
another, "he could not possibly sell so many. The
very idea is ridiculous." Chauncey pondered long over
this rumor, for it had long been his dream to become a
great clock-maker. He tried his hand at the first op-
portunity, and soon learned to make a wooden clock.
When he got an order to make twelve at twelve dollars
apiece he thought his fortune was made. One night he
happened to think that a cheap clack could be made of
brass as well as of wood, and would not shrink, swell,
or warp appreciably in any climate. He acted on the
idea, and became the first great manufacturer of brass
clocks. He made millions at the rate of six hundred a
day, exporting them to all parts of the globe.

" The History of the English People " was written

78 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

while J. E. Green was struggling against a mortal ill-
ness. He had collected a vast store of materials, and
had begun to write, when his disease made a sudden
and startling progress, and his physicians said they
could do nothing to arrest it. In the extremity of ruin
and defeat he applied himself with greater fidelity to
his work. The time that might still be left to him for
work must henceforth be wrested, day by day, from the
grasp of death. The writing occupied five months ;
while from hour to hour and day to day his life was
prolonged, his doctors said, by the sheer force of his
own will and his inflexible determination to finish the
<• Making of England." He lay, too weak to lift a book,
or to hold a pen, dictating every word, sometimes
through hours of intense suffering. Yet so conscien-
tious was he that, driven by death as he was, the greater
part of the book was rewritten five times. When it was
done he began the " Conquest of England," wrote it, re-
viewed it, and then, dissatisfied with it, rejected it all
and began again. As death laid its cold fingers on his
heart, he said : " I still have some work to do that I
know is good. I will try to win but one week more to
write it down." It was not until he was actually dying
that he said, " I can work no more."

"What does he know," said a sage, "who has not
suffered ? " Schiller produced his greatest tragedies in
the midst of physical suffering almost amounting to tor-
ture. Handel was never greater than when, warned by
palsy of the approach of death, and struggling with dis-
tress and suffering, he sat down to compose the great
works which have made his name immortal in music.
Mozart composed his great operas, and last of all his
" Requiem," when oppressed by debt and struggling
with a fatal disease. Beethoven produced his greatest
works amidst gloomy sorrow, when oppressed by almost
total deafness.

Perhaps no one ever battled harder to overcome ob-

SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 79

stacles which, would have disheartened most men than
Demosthenes. He had such a weak voice, and such an
impediment in his speech, and was so short of breath,
that he could scarcely get through a single sentence
without stopping to rest. All his first attempts were
nearly drowned by the hisses, jeers, and scoffs of his
audiences. His first effort that met with success was
against his guardian, who had defrauded him, and whom
he compelled to refund a part of his fortune. He was
so discouraged by his defeats that he determined to give
up forever all attempts at oratory. One of his auditors,
however, believed the young man had something in him,
and encouraged him to persevere. He accordingly ap-
peared again in public, but was hissed down as before.
As he withdrew, hanging his head in great confusion, a
noted actor, Satyrus, encouraged him still further to try
to overcome his impediment. He stammered so much
that he could not pronounce some of the letters at all,
and his breath would give out before he could get
through a sentence. Finally, he determined to be an
orator cost what it might. He went to the seashore
and practiced amid the roar of the breakers with small
pebbles in his mouth, in order to overcome his stammer-
ing, and at the same time accustom himself to the
hisses and tumults of his audience. He overcame his
short breath by practicing speaking while running up
steep and difficult places on the shore. His awkward
gestures were also corrected by long and determined
drill before a mirror.

Disheartened by the expense of removing the trouble-
some seeds, Southern planters were s,eriously considering
the abandonment of cotton culture. To clean a pound
of cotton required the labor of a slave for a day. Eli
Whitney, a young man from New England, teaching
school in Georgia, saw the state of affairs, and deter-
mined to invent a machine to do the work. He worked
in secret for many months in a cellar, and at last made

80 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

a machine which cleaned the cotton perfectly and rap-
idh\ Just as success crowned his long labor thieves
broke into the cellar and stole his model. He recovered
the model, but the principle was stolen, and other ma-
chines were made without his consent. In vain he tried
to protect his right in the courts, for Southern juries
would almost invariably decide against him. He had
started the South in a great industry, and added mil-
lions to her wealth, yet the courts united with the men
who had infringed his patents to rob him of the reward
of his ingenuity and industry. At last he abandoned
the whole thing in disgust, and turned his attention to
making improvements in firearms, and with such suc-
cess that he accumulated a fortune.

Robert Collyer, who brought his bride in the steerage
when he came to America at the age of twenty-seven,
worked at the anvil nine years in Pennsylvania, and
then became a preacher, soon winning national renown.

A shrewd observer says of John Chinaman: "No
sooner does he put his foot among strangers than he
begins to work. No office is too menial or too laborious
for him. He has come to make money, and he will
make it. His frugality requires but little : he barely
lives, but he saves what he gets ; commences trade in
the smallest possible way, and is continually adding to
his store. The native scorns such drudgery, and remains
poor ; the Chinaman toils patiently on, and grows rich.
A few years pass by, and he has warehouses ; becomes
a contractor for produce ; buys foreign goods by the
cargo ; and employs his newly imported countrymen,
who have come to seek their fortune as he did. He is
not particularly scrupulous in matters of opinion. He
never meddles with politics, for they are dangerous and
not profitable ; but he will adopt any creed, and carefully
follow any observances, if, by so doing, he can confirm
or improve his position. He thrives with the Spaniard,
and works while the latter sleeps. He is too quick for

SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES, 81

the Dutchman, and can smoke and bargain at the same
time. He has harder work with the Englishman, but
still he is too much for him, and succeeds. Climate has
no effect on him : it cannot stop his hands, unless it
kills him ; and if it does, he dies in harness, battling for
money till his last breath. Whoever he may be, and in
whatever position, whether in his own or a foreign
country, he is diligent, temperate, and uncomplaining.
He keeps the word he pledges, pays his debts, and is
capable of noble and generous actions. It has been
customary to speak lightly of him, and to judge a whole
people by a few vagabonds in a provincial seaport, whose
morals and manners have not been improved by foreign
society."

Columbus was dismissed as a fool from court after
court, but he pushed his suit against an incredulous
and ridiculing world. Kebuffed by kings, scorned by
queens, he did not swerve a hair's breadth from the
overmastering purpose which dominated his souL The
words " New World " were graven upon his heart ; and
reputation, ease, pleasure, position, life itself if need be,
must be sacrificed. Threats, ridicule, ostracism, storms,
leaky vessels, mutiny of sailors, could not shake his
mighty purpose.

You cannot keep a determined man from success.
Place stumbling-blocks in his way and he takes them
for stepping-stones, and on them will climb to great-
ness. Take away his money, and he makes spurs of
his poverty to urge him on. Cripple him, and he writes
the Waverley Novels. Lock him up in a dungeon, and
he composes the immortal " Pilgrim.'s Progress." Put
him in a cradle in a log cabin in the wilderness of
America, and in a few years you will find him in the
Capitol at the head of the greatest nation on the globe.

Would it were possible to convince the struggling
youth of to-day that all that is great and noble and true
in the history of die world is the result of infinite pains-

^Z\X

82 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

taking, perpetual plodding, of common every-day in-
dustry !

When Lavoisier the chemist asked that his execution
might be postponed for a few days in order to ascertain
the results of the experiments he was conducting in
prison, the communists refused to grant the request, say-
ing: "The Eepublic has no need of philosophers." Dr.
Priestley's house was burned and his chemical library
destroyed by a mob shouting : " No philosophers," and
he was forced to flee from his country. Bruno was
burned in Eome for revealing the heavens, and Versa-
lius was condemned for dissecting the human body ;
but their names shall live as long as time shall last.
Kossuth was two years in prison at Buda, but he kept
on working, undaunted. John Hunter said : "The few
things I have been enabled to do have been accom-
plished under the greatest difficulties, and have encoun-
tered the greatest opposition."

Eoger Bacon, one of the profoundest thinkers the
world has produced, was terribly persecuted for his
studies in natural philosophy, yet he persevered and
won success. He was accused of dealing in magic, his
books were burned in public, and he was kept in prison
for ten years. Even our own revered Washington was
mobbed in the streets because he would not pander to
the clamor of the people and reject the treaty which
Mr. Jay had arranged with Great Britain. But he re-
mained firm, and the people adopted his opinion. The
Duke of Wellington was mobbed in the streets of Lon-
don and his windows were broken while his wife lay
dead in the house ; but the " Iron Duke " never faltered
in his course, or swerved a hair's breadth from his
purpose.

William Phips, when a young man, heard some sailors
on the street, in Boston, talking about a Spanish ship,
wrecked off the Bahama Islands, which was supposed
to have money on board. Young Phips determined to

SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 83

find it. He set out at once, and, after many hardships,
discovered the lost treasure. He then heard of another
ship, wrecked off Port De La Plata many years before.
He set sail for England and importuned Charles II.
for aid. To his delight the king fitted up the ship
Rose Algier for him. He searched and searched for a
long time in vain. He had to return to England to
repair his vessel. James II. was then on the throne,
and he had to wait for four years before he could raise
money to return. His crew mutinied and threatened
to throw him overboard, but he turned the ship's guns
on them. One day an Indian diver went down for a
curious sea plant and saw several cannon lying on the
bottom. They proved to belong to the wreck for which
he was looking, sunk fifty years before. He had no-
thing but dim traditions to guide him, but he returned
to England with $1,500,000. The King made him High
Sheriff of New England, and he was afterward made
Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Ben Jonson, when following his trade of a mason,
worked on Lincoln's Inn in London with trowel in
hand and a book in his pocket. Joseph Hunter was a
carpenter in youth, Robert Burns a plowman, Keats a
druggist, Thomas Carlyle and Hugh Miller masons.
Dante and Descartes were soldiers. Andrew Johnson
was a tailor. Cardinal Wolsey, Defoe, and Kirke White
were butchers' sons. Faraday was the son of a black-
smith, and his teacher, Humphry Davy, was an appren-
tice to an apothecary. Kepler was a waiter boy in
a German hotel, Bunyan a tinker, Copernicus the son
of a Polish baker. The boy Herschel played the oboe
for his meals. Marshal Ney, the " bravest of the
brave," rose from the ranks. His great industry gained
for him the name of " The Indefatigable." Soult served
fourteen years before he was made a sergeant. When
made Foreign Minister of France he knew very little of
geography, even. Richard Cobden was a boy in a Lon-

84 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

don warehouse. His first speech in Parliament was a
complete failure ; but he was not afraid of defeat, and
soon became one of the greatest orators of his day.
Seven shoemakers sat in Congress during the first cen-
tury of our government : Koger Sherman, Henry Wil-
son, Gideon Lee, William Graham, John Halley, H. P.
Baldwin, and Daniel Sheffey.

A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring suc-
cess from inhospitable surroundings, is the price of all
great achievements.

The man who has not fought his way up to his own
loaf, and does not bear the scar of desperate conflict,
does not know the highest meaning of success.

The money acquired by those who have thus strug-
gled upward to success is not their only, or indeed their
chief reward. When, after years of toil, of opposition,
of ridicule, of repeated failure, Cyrus W. Field placed
his hand upon the telegraph instrument ticking a mes-
sage under the sea, think you that the electric thrill
passed no further than the tips of his fingers ? When
Thomas A. Edison demonstrated in Menlo Park that the
electric light had at last been developed into a com-
mercial success, do you suppose those bright rays failed
to illuminate the inmost recesses of his soul ? Edward
Everett said : " There are occasions in life in which a
great mind lives years of enjoyment in a single moment.
I can fancy the emotion of Galileo when, first raising
the newly constructed telescope to the heavens, he saw
fulfilled the grand prophecy of Copernicus, and beheld
the planet Venus crescent like the moon. It was such
another moment as that when the immortal printers of
Mentz and Strasburg received the first copy of the Bible
into their hands, the work of their divine art ; like that
when Columbus, through the gray dawn of the 12th of
October, 1492, beheld the shores of San Salvador ; like
that when the law of gravitation first revealed itself to
the intellect of Xewton ; like that when Franklin saw,

SUCCESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 85

by the stiffening fibres of the hemp cord of his kite, that
he held the lightning in his grasp ; like that when
Leverrier received back from Berlin the tidings that the
predicted planet was found."

" Observe yon tree in your neighbor's garden," says
Zanoni to Viola in Bulwer's novel. " Look how it
grows up, crooked and distorted. Some wind scattered
the germ, from which it sprung, in the clefts of the
rock. Choked up and walled round by crags and build-
ings, by nature and man, its life has been one struggle
for the light. You see how it has writhed and twisted,
— how, meeting the barrier in one spot, it has labored
and worked, stem and branch, towards the clear skies at
last. What has preserved it through each disfavor of
birth and circumstances — why are its leaves as green
and fair as those of the vine behind you, which, with
all its arms, can embrace the open sunshine ? My
child, because of the very instinct that impelled the
struggle, — because the labor for the light won to the
light at length. So with a gallant heart, through every
adverse accident of sorrow, and of fate, to turn to the
sun, to strive for the heaven ; this it is that gives know-
ledge to the strong and happiness to the weak."

"Each petty hand
Can steer a ship becalmed ; but he that will
Govern her and carry her to her ends, must know
His tides, his currents; how to shift his sails;
What she will bear in foul, what in fair weathers ;
What her springs are, her leaks, and how to stop them;
What strands, what shelves, what rocks to threaten her;
The forces and the natures of all winds,
Gusts, storms, and tempests; when her keel plows hell,
And deck knocks heaven ; then to manage her
Becomes the name and office of a pilot."

CHAPTER y.

USES OF OBSTACLES.

Nature, when she adds difficulties, adds brains. — Emerson.
Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficul-
ties. — Spurgeon.

The good are better made by ill,

As odors crushed are sweeter still.

Aromatic plants bestow
No spicy fragrance while they grow;
But crush'd or trodden to the ground,
Diffuse their balmv sweets around.

Rogers.

Goldsmith.

As night to stars, woe lustre gives to man. — Young.

There is no possible success without some opposition as a fulcrum: force
is always aggressive and crowds something. — Holmes.

The more difficulties one has to encounter, within and without, the more
significant and the higher in inspiration his life will be. — Horace Bush-

NELL.

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circum-
stances would have lain dormant. — Horace.

For gold is tried in the fire and acceptable men in the furnace of adver-
sity. — SiRACH.

Though losses and crosses be lessons right severe,

There 's wit there ye '11 get there, ye '11 find no other where.

Burns.

Possession pampers the mind ; privation trains and strengthens it. —
Hazlitt.

"Adversity'- is the prosperity of the great."

No man ever worked his way in a dead calm. — John Neal.

" Kites rise against, not with, the wind."

" Many and many a time since," said Harriet Marti-
neau, referring to her father's failure in business, " have
we said that, but for that loss of money, we might have
lived on in the ordinary provincial method of ladies

v;,;' 'HiVf ;\T»',\;.?

JOHN BUNYAN "
Sculptor of souls, I lift to Thee

Encumbered heart and hands :
Spare not tlie chisel, set nie free

However dear the bands."

USES OF OBSTACLES. 87

with small means, sewing and economizing and growing
narrower every year ; whereas, by being thrown, while
it was yet time, on our own resources, we have worked
hard and usefully, won friends, reputation, and inde-
pendence, seen the world abundantly, abroad and at
home ; in short, have truly lived instead of vegetating."

"I do believe God wanted a grand poem of that
man," said George Macdonald of Milton, "and so
blinded him that he might be able to write it."

Two of the three greatest epic poets of the world
were blind, — Homer and Milton; while the third,
Dante, was in his later years nearly, if not altogether,
blind. It almost seems as though some great charac-
ters had been physically crippled in certain respects
so that they would not dissipate their energy, but con-
centrate it all in one direction.

" I have been beaten, but not cast down," said Thiers,
after making a complete failure of his first speech in
the Chamber of Deputies. " I am making my first
essay in arms. In the tribune, as under fire, a defeat
is as useful as a victory."

A distinguished investigator in science said that
when he encountered an apparently insuperable ob-
stacle, he usually found himself upon the brink of some
discovery.

" Eeturned with thanks " has made many an author.
Failure often leads a man to success by arousing his
latent energy, by firing a dormant purpose, by awaken-
ing powers which were sleeping. Men of mettle turn
disappointments into helps as the oyster turns into
pearl the sand which annoys it.

" Let the adverse breath of criticism be to you only
what the blast of the storm wind is to the eagle, — a
force against him that lifts him higher."

A kite would not fly unless it had a string tying it
down. It is just so in life. The man who is tied down
by half a dozen blooming responsibilities and their

88 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

mother will make a higher and stronger flight than the
bachelor who, having nothing to keep him steady, is
always floundering in the mud. If you want to ascend
in the world tie yourself to somebody.

'' It was the severe preparation for the subsequent
harvest," said Pemberton Leigh, the eminent English
lawyer, speaking of his early poverty and hard work.
" I learned to consider indefatigable labor as the indis-
pensable condition of success, pecuniary independence
as essential alike to virtue and happiness, and no sacri-
fice too great to avoid the misery of debt."

When ISTapoleon's companions made sport of him on
account of his humble origin and poverty he devoted
himself entirely to books, and soon rising above them
in scholarship, commanded their respect. Soon he
was regarded as the brightest ornament of the class.

" To make his way at the bar," said an eniment ju-
rist, '' a young man must live like a hermit and work
like a horse. There is nothing that does a young law-
yer so much good as to be half starved."

Thousands of men of great native ability have been
lost to the world because they have not had to wrestle
with obstacles, and to struggle under difficulties suffi-
cient to stimulate into activity their dormant powers.
No effort is too dear which helps us along the line of
our proper career.

Poverty and obscurity of origin may impede our
progress, but it is only like the obstruction of ice or
debris in the river temporarily forcing the water into
eddies, where it accumulates strength and a mighty
reserve which ultimately sweeps the obstruction im-
petuously to the sea. Poverty and obscurity are not
insurmountable obstacles, but they often act as a stim-
ulus to the naturally indolent, and develop a firmer fibre
of mind, a stronger muscle and stamina of body.

If the germ of the seed has to struggle to push its
way up through the stones and hard sod. to fight its way

USES OF OBSTACLES. 89

up to sunlight and air, and then to wrestle with storm
and tempest, with snow and frost, the fibre of its tim-
ber will be all the tougher and stronger.

" Do you wish to live without a trial ? -' asks a mod-
ern teacher. " Then you wish to die but half a man.
Without trial you cannot guess at your own strength.
Men do not learn to swim on a table. They must go
into deep water and buffet the waves. Hardship is the
native soil of manhood and self-reliance. Trials are
rough teachers, but rugged schoolmasters make rugged
pupils. A man who goes through life prosperous, and
comes to his grave without a wrinkle, is not half a man.
Difficulties are God's errands. And when we are sent
upon them we should esteem it a proof of God's confi-
dence. We should reach after the highest good."

" If you wish to rise," said Talleyrand, " make ene-
mies."

There is good philosophy in the injunction to love
our enemies, for they are often our best friends in
disguise. They tell us the truth when friends flatter.
Their biting sarcasm and scathing rebuke are often
mirrors which reveal us to ourselves. These unkind
stings and thrusts are spurs which urge us on to
grander success and nobler endeavor. Friends cover
our faults and rarely rebuke ; enemies drag out to the
light all our weaknesses without mercy. We dread
these thrusts and exposures as we do the surgeon's
knife, but are the better for them. They reach depths
before untouched, and we are led to resolve to redeem
ourselves from scorn and inferiority.

We are the victors of our opponents. They have
developed in us the very power by which we overcome
them. Without their opposition we could never have
braced and anchored and fortified ourselves, as the oak
is braced and anchored for its thousand battles with
the tempests. Our trials, our sorrows, and our griefs
develop us in a similar way.

90 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

The man who has triumphed over difficulties bears
the signs of victory in his face. An air of triumph is
seen in every movement.

John Calvin, who made a theology for the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries, was tortured with dis-
ease for many years, and so was Eobert Hall. The
great men who have lifted the world to a higher level
were not developed in easy circumstances, but were
rocked in the cradle of difficulties and pillowed on
hardships.

"The gods look on no- grander sight than an honest
man struggling with adversity."

" Then I must learn to sing better," said Anaximan-
der, when told that the very boys laughed at his singing.

Strong characters, like the palm-tree, seem to thrive
best when most abused. Men who have stood up
bravely under great misfortune for years are often
unable to bear prosperity. Their good fortune takes
the spring out of their energy, as the torrid zone ener-
vates races accustomed to a vigorous climate. Some
people never come to themselves until baffled, rebuffed,
thwarted, defeated, crushed, in the opinion of those
around them. Trials unlock their virtues ; defeat is
the threshold of their victory.

It is defeat that turns bone to flint ; it is defeat that
turns gristle to muscle ; it is defeat that makes men
invincible ; it is defeat that has made those heroic na-
tures that are now in the ascendency, and that has
given the sweet law of liberty instead of the bitter law
of oppression.

Difficulties call out great qualities, and make great-
ness possible. How many centuries of peace would
have developed a Grant? Few knew Lincoln until
the great weight of the war showed his character. A
century of peace would never have produced a Bis-
marck. Perhaps Phillips and Garrison would never
have been known to history had it not been for slavery.

USES OF OBSTACLES. 91

"Will lie not make a great painter?" was asked in
regard to an artist fresh from his Italian tour. "No,
never," replied Northcote. "Why not?" "Because
he has an income of six thousand pounds a year." In
the sunshine of wealth a man is, as a rule, warped too
much to become an artist of high merit. A drenching
shower of adversity would straighten his fibres out
again. He should have some great thwarting difficulty
to struggle against.

The best tools receive their temper from fire, their
edge from grinding ; the noblest characters are devel-
oped in a similar way. The harder the diamond, the
more brilliant the lustre, and the greater the friction
necessary to bring it out. Only its own dust is hard
enough to make this most precious stone reveal its full
beauty.

The spark in the flint would sleep forever but for
friction ; the fire in man would never blaze but for an-
tagonism. The friction which retards a train upon the
track, robbing the engine of a fourth of its power, is the
very secret of locomotion. Oil the track, remove the
friction, and the train will not move an inch. The mo-
ment man is relieved of opposition or friction, and the
track of his life is oiled with inherited wealth or other
aids, that moment he often ceases to struggle and there-
fore ceases to grow.

"It is this scantiness of means, this continual defi-
ciency, this constant hitch, this perpetual struggle to keep
the head above water and the wolf from the door, that
keeps society from falling to pieces. Let every man
have a few more dollars than he wants, and anarchy
would follow."

Suddenly, with much jarring and jolting, an electric
car came to a standstill just in front of a heavy truck
that was headed in an opposite direction. The huge
truck wheels were sliding uselessly round on the car
tracks that were wet and slippery from rain. All the

92 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

urging of the teamster and the straining of the horses
were in vain, — until the motorman quietly tossed a
shovelful of sand on the track under the heavy wheels,
and then the truck lumbered on its way. "Friction
is a very good thing," remarked a passenger.

The philosopher Kant observes that a dove, inasmuch
as the only obstacle it has to overcome is the resistance
of the air, might suppose that if only the air were out
of the way it could fly with greater rapidity and ease.
Yet if the air were withdrawn, and the bird should try
to fly in a vacuum, it would fall instantly to the ground
unable to fly at all. The very element that offers the
opposition to flying is at the same time the condition of
any flight whatever.

Kough seas and storms make sailors. Emergencies
make giant men. But for our Civil War the names of
its grand heroes would not be written among the great-
est of our time.

The effort or struggle to climb to a higher place in
life has strength and dignity in it, and cannot fail to
leave us stronger for the struggle, even though we miss
the prize.

From an aimless, idle, and useless brain, emergencies
often call out powers and virtues before unknown and
unsuspected. How often we see a young man develop
astounding ability and energy after the death of a par-
ent, or the loss of a fortune, or after some other calamity
has knocked the props and crutches from under him.
The prison has roused the slumbering fire in many a
noble mind. " Robinson Crusoe " was written in prison.
The " Pilgrim's Progress " appeared in Bedford Jail.
The "Life and Times " of Baxter, Eliot's " Monarchia
of Man," and Penn's " No Cross, No Crown," were writ-
ten by prisoners. Sir Walter Raleigh wrote "The
History of the World" during his imprisonment of
thirteen years. Luther translated the Bible while
confined in the Castle of Wartburg. For twenty years

USES OF OBSTACLES. 93

Dante worked in exile, and even under sentence of
death. His works were burned in public after his
death ; but genius will not burn.

Take two acorns from the same tree, as nearly alike
as possible ; plant one on a hill by itself, and the other
in the dense forest, and watch them grow. The oak
standing alone is exposed to every storm. Its roots
reach out in every direction, clutching the rocks and
piercing deep into the earth. Every rootlet lends itself
to steady the growing giant, as if in anticipation of
fierce conflict with the elements. Sometimes its up-
ward growth seems checked for years, but all the while
it has been expending its energy in pushing a root
across a large rock to gain a firmer anchorage. Then it
shoots proudly aloft again, prepared to defy the hurri-
cane. The gales which sport so rudely with its wide
branches find more than their match, and only serve
still further to toughen every minutest fibre from pith
to bark.

The acorn planted in the deep forest shoots up a
weak, slender sapling. Shielded by its neighbors, it
feels no need of spreading its roots far and. wide for
support.

Take two boys, as nearly alike as possible. Place
one in the country away from the hothouse culture and
refinements of the city, with only the district school,
the Sunday-school, and a few books. Remove wealth
and props of every kind ; and, if he has the right kind
of material in him, he will thrive. Every obstacle
overcome lends him strength for the next conflict. If
he falls, he rises with more determination than before.
Like a rubber ball, the harder the obstacle he meets the
higher he rebounds. Obstacles and opposition are but
apparatus of the gymnasium in which the fibres of his
manhood are developed. He compels respect and rec-
ognition from those who have ridiculed his poverty.
Put the other boy in a Vanderbilt family. Give him

94 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

French and German nurses ; gratify every wish. Place
him under the tutelage of great masters and send him
to Harvard. Give him thousands a year for spending
money, and let him travel extensively.

The two meet. The city lad is ashamed of his country
brother. The plain, threadbare clothes, hard hands,
tawny face, and awkward manner of the country boy
make sorry contrast with the genteel appearance of the
other. The poor boy bemoans his hard lot, regrets that
he has "no chance in life,'' and envies the city youth.
He thinks that it is a cruel Providence that places such
a wide gulf between them. They meet again as men,
but how changed ! It is as easy to distinguish the
sturdy, self-made man from the one who has been
propped up all his life by wealth, position, and family
influence, as it is for the shipbuilder to tell the differ-
ence between the plank from the rugged mountain oak
and one from the sapling of the forest. If you think
there is no difference, place each plank in the bottom of
a ship, and test them in a hurricane at sea.

When God wants to educate a man, he does not send
him to school to the Graces, but to the Necessities.
Through the pit and the dungeon Joseph came to a
throne. We are not conscious of the mighty cravings
of our half divine humanity ; we are not aware of the
god within us until some chasm yawns which must be
filled, or till the rending asunder of our affections
forces us to become conscious of a need. Paul in his
Eoman cell ; John Huss led to the stake at Constance ;
Tyndale dying in his prison at Amsterdam ; Milton,
amid the incipient earthquake throes of revolution,
teaching two little boys in Aldgate Street ; David Liv-
ingstone, worn to a shadow, dying in a negro hut in
Central Africa, alone, — what failures they might all
to themselves have seemed to be, yet what mighty pur-
poses was God working out by their aj^parent humilia-
tions !

USES OF OBSTACLES. 95

Two highwaymen chancing once to pass a gibbet, one
of them exclaimed : " What a fine profession ours
would be if there were no gibbets ! " " Tut, you block-
head," replied the other, "gibbets are the making of
us ; for, if there were no gibbets, every one would be a
highwayman." Just so with every art, trade, or pur-
suit ; it is the difficulties that scare and keep out un-
worthy competitors.

" Success grows out of struggles to overcome difficul-
ties," says Smiles. " If there were no difficulties, there
would be no success. In this necessity for exertion we
find the chief source of human advancement, — the ad-
vancement of individuals as of nations. It has led to
most of the mechanical inventions and improvements
of the age,"

" Stick your claws into me," said Mendelssohn to
his critics when entering the Birmingham orchestra.
" Don't tell me what you like but what you don't like."

John Hunter said that the art of surgery would never
advance until professional men had the courage to pub-
lish their failures as well as their successes.

" Young men need to be taught not to expect a per-
fectly smooth and easy way to the objects of their en-
deavor or ambition," says Dr. Peabody. " Seldom does
one reach a position with which he has reason to be sat-
isfied without encountering difficulties and what might
seem discouragements. But if they are properly met,
they are not what they seem, and may prove to be helps,
not hindrances. There is no more helpful and profiting
exercise than surmounting obstacles."

It is said that but for the disappointments of Dante,
Florence would have had another prosperous Lord
Mayor ; and the ten dumb centuries continued voiceless,
and the ten other listening centuries (for there will be
ten of them, and more) would have had no " Divina
Commedia " to hear !

It was in the Madrid jail that Cervantes wrote " Don

96 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

Quixote." He was so poor that lie could not even get
paper during the last of his writing, and had to write on
scraps of leather. A rich Spaniard was asked to help
him, but the rich man replied : " Heaven forbid that
his necessities should be relieved; it is his poverty
that makes the world rich."

" A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring suc-
cess from inhospitable surroundings, is the price of all
great achievements."

" She sings well," said a great musician of a promis-
ing but passionless cantatrice, "but she wants some-
thing, and in that something, everything. If I were
single, I would court her ; I would marry her ; I would
maltreat her; I would break her heart; and in six
months she would be the greatest singer in Europe."

" He has the stuff in him to make a good musician,"
said Beethoven of Rossini, " if he had only been well
flogged when a boy ; but he is spoiled by the ease with
which he composes."

We do our best while fighting desperately to attain
what the heart covets. Martin Luther did his greatest
work, and built up his best character, while engaged in
sharp controversy with the Pope. Later in life his wife
asks, " Doctor, how is it that whilst subject to Papacy
we prayed so often and with such fervor, whilst now we
pray with the utmost coldness and very seldom ? "

When Lord Eldon was poor, Lord Thurlow withheld
a promised commissionership of bankruptcy, saying
that it was a favor not to give it then. "What he
meant was," said Eldon, " that he had learned I was by
nature very indolent, and it was only want that could
make me very industrious."

Waters says that the struggle to obtain knowledge
and to advance one's self in the world strengthens the
mind, disciplines the faculties, matures the judgment,
promotes self-reliance, and gives one independence of
thought and force of character.

USES OF OBSTACLES. 97

" The gods in bounty work up storms about us," says
Addison, '^tliat give mankind occasion to exert their
hidden strength, and throw out into practice virtues
that shun the day, and lie concealed in the smooth sea-
sons and the calms of life."

The hothouse plant may tempt a pampered appetite
or shed a languid odor, but the working world gets its
food from fields of grain and orchards waving in the sun
and free air, from cattle that wrestle on the plains,
from fishes that struggle with currents of river or ocean ;
its choicest perfumes from flowers that bloom unheeded,
and in wind-tossed forests finds its timber for temples
and for ships.

"I do not see," says Emerson, "how any man can
afford, for the sake of his nerves and his nap, to spare
any action in which he can partake. It is pearls and
rubies to his discourse. Drudgery, calamity, exaspera-
tion, want, are instructors in eloquence and wisdom.
The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action
passed by as a loss of power."

Kossuth called himself " a tempest-tossed soul, whose
eyes have been sharpened by affliction."

Benjamin Franklin ran away, and George Law was
turned out of doors. Thrown upon their own resources,
they early acquired the energy and skill to overcome
difficulties.

As soon as young eagles can fly the old birds tumble
them out and tear the down and feathers from their
nest. The rude and rough experience of the eaglet fits
him to become the bold king of birds, fierce and expert
in pursuing his prey.

Boys who are bound out, crowded out, kicked out,
usually " turn out," while those who do not have these
disadvantages frequently fail to " come out."

" It was not the victories but the defeats of my life
which have strengthened me," said the aged Sidenham
Poyntz.

98 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

Almost from the dawn of history, oppression has
been the lot of the Hebrews, yet they have given the
world its noblest songs, its wisest proverbs, its sweetest
music. With them persecution seems to bring pros-
perity. They thrive where others would starve. They
hold the purse-strings of many nations. To them hard-
ship has been " like spring mornings, frosty but kindly,
the cold of which will kill the vermin, but will let the
plant live."

In one of the battles of the Crimea a cannon-ball
struck inside the fort, crashing through a beautiful gar-
den. But from the ugly chasm there burst forth a
spring of water which ever afterward flowed a living
fountain. From the ugly gashes which misfortunes and
sorrows make in our hearts, perennial fountains of rich
experience and new joys often spring.

Don't lament and grieve over lost wealth. The Cre-
ator may see something grand and mighty which even He
cannot bring out as long as your wealth stands in the
way. You must throw away the crutches of riches and
stand upon your own feet, and develop the long unused
muscles of manhood. God may see a rough diamond
in you which only the hard hits of poverty can polish.

God knows where the richest melodies of our lives
are, and what drill and what discipline are necessary to
bring them out. The frost, the snows, the tempests, the
lightnings, are the rough teachers that bring the tiny
acorn to the sturdy oak. Fierce winters are as neces-
sary to it as long summers. It is its half-century's
struggle with the elements for existence, wrestling with
the storm, fighting for its life from the moment that it
leaves the acorn until it goes into the ship, that gives
it value. Without this struggle it would have been
character-less, stamina-less, nerve-less, and its grain
would have never been susceptible of high polish. The
most beautiful as well as the strongest woods are found
not in tropical climates, but in the severe climates,

USES OF OBSTACLES. 99

where they have to fight the frosts and the winter's
cold-
Many a man has never found himself until he has lost
his all. Adversity stripped him only to discover him.
Obstacles, hardships are the chisel and mallet which
shape the strong life into beauty. The rough ledge on
the hillside complains of the drill, of the blasting powder
which disturbs its peace of centuries : it is not pleasant
to be rent with powder, to be hammered and squared by
the quarryman. But look again : behold the magnifi-
cent statue, the monument, chiseled into grace and
beauty, telling its grand story of valor in the public
square for centuries.

The statue would have slept in the marble forever but
for the blasting, the chiseling, and the polishing. The
angel of our higher and nobler selves would remain for-
ever unknown in the rough quarries of our lives but for
the blastings of afiliction, the chiseling of obstacles, and
the sand-papering of a thousand annoyances.

Who has not observed the patience, the calm endur-
ance, the sweet loveliness chiseled out of some rough
life by the reversal of fortune or by some terrible
affliction.

How many business men have made their greatest
strides toward manhood, have developed their great-
est virtues, when the reverses of fortune have swept
away everything they had in the world ; when disease
had robbed them of all they held dear in life. Often
we cannot see the angel in the quarry of our lives, the
statue of manhood, until the blasts of misfortune have
rent the ledge, and difficulties and obstacles have squared
and chiseled the granite blocks into grace and beauty.

Many a man has been ruined into salvation. The
lightning which smote his dearest hopes opened up a
new rift in his dark life, and gave him glimpses of him-
self which, until then, he had never seen.

The grave buried his dearest hopes, but uncovered

100 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

possibilities in his nature of patience, endurance, and
hope which he never dreamed he possessed before.

'^ Adversity is a severe instructor," says Edmund
Burke, " set over us by one who knows us better than
we do ourselves, as he loves us better too. He that
wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens
our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. This conflict
with difficulty makes us acquainted with our object,
and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It
will not suffer us to be superficial."

Men who have the right kind of material in them
will assert their personality, and rise in spite of a thou-
sand adverse circumstances. You cannot keep them
down. Every obstacle seems only to add to their abil-
ity to get on.

" Under different circumstances," says Castelar, " Sa-
vonarola would undoubtedly have been a good husband,
a tender father, a man unknown to history, utterly
powerless to print upon the sands of time and upon
the human soul the deep trace Avhich he has left ; but
misfortune came to visit him, to crush his heart, and
to impart that marked melancholy which characterizes
a soul in grief, and the grief that circled his brows with
a crown of thorns was also that which wreathed them
with the splendor of immortality. His hopes were cen-
tred in the woman he loved, his life was set upon the
possession of her, and when her family finally rejected
him, partly on account of his profession, and partly on
account of his person, he believed that it was death
that had come upon him, when in truth it was immor-
tality."

The greatest men will ever be those who have risen
from the ranks. It is said that there are ten thousand
chances to one that genius, talent, and virtue shall issue
from a farmhouse rather than from a palace.

The youth Opie earned his bread by sawing wood,
but he reached a professorship in the Royal Academy.

USES OF OBSTACLES. 101

When but ten years old he showed the material he was
made of by a beautiful drawing on a shingle. Antonio
Canova was the son of a day laborer. Thorwaldsen's
parents were poor, but, like hundreds of others, they
did with their might what their hands found to do, and
ennobled their work. They rose by being greater than
their calling, as Arkwright rose above mere barbering,
Bunyan above tinkering, Wilson above shoemaking,
Lincoln above rail-splitting, and Grant above tanning.
By being first-class barbers, tinkers, shoemakers, rail-
splitters, tanners, they acquired the power Avhich en-
abled them to become great inventors, authors, states-
men, generals.

Adversity exasperates fools, dejects cowards, draws
out the faculties of the wise and industrious, puts the
modest to the necessity of trying their skill, awes the
opulent, and makes the idle industrious. Neither do
uninterrupted success and prosperity qualify men for
usefulness and happiness. The storms of adversity,
like those of the ocean, rouse the faculties, and excite
the invention, prudence, skill, and fortitude of the voy-
ager. The martyrs of ancient times, in bracing their
minds to outward calamities, acquired a loftiness of
purpose and a moral heroism worth a lifetime of soft-
ness and security. A man upon whom continuous sun-
shine falls is like the earth in August: he becomes
parched and dry and hard and close-grained. Men have
drawn from adversity the elements of greatness. If you
have the blues, go and see the poorest and sickest fami-
lies within your knowledge. The darker the setting,
the brighter the diamond. Don't .run about and tell
acquaintances that you have been unfortunate ; people
do not like to have unfortunate men for acquaintances.

Beethoven was almost totally deaf and burdened with
sorrow when he produced his greatest works. Schiller
wrote his best books in great bodily suffering. He was
not free from pain for fifteen years. Milton wrote his

102 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

leading productions when blind, poor, and sick. " Who
best can suffer," said he, " best can do." Bunyan said
that, if it were lawful, he could even pray for greater
trouble, for the greater comfort's sake.

" Do you know what God puts us on our backs for ? "
asked Dr. Payson, smiling, as he lay sick in bed.
" No," replied the visitor. " In order that we may look
upward." " I am not come to condole but to rejoice
with you," said the friend ; " for it seems to me that
this is no time for mourning." " Well, I am glad to
hear that," said Dr. Payson, " it is not often I am ad-
dressed in such a way. The fact is I never had less
need of condolence, and yet everybody persists in of-
fering it ; whereas, when I was prosperous and well,
and a successful preacher, and really needed condolence,
they flattered and congratulated me."

A German knight undertook to make an immense
^olian harp by stretching wires from tower to tower
of his castle. When he finished the harp it was silent ;
but when the breezes began to blow he heard faint
strains like the murmuring of distant music. At last
a tempest arose and swept with fury over his castle,
and then rich and grand music came from the wires.
Ordinary experiences do not seem to touch some lives
— to bring out any poetry, any higher manhood.

Not until the breath of the plague had blasted a hun-
dred thousand lives, and the great fire had licked up
cheap, shabby, wicked London, did she arise, phoenix-
like, from her ashes and ruin, a grand and mighty city.

True salamanders live best in the furnace of perse-
cution.

"Every man who makes a fortune has been more
than once a bankrupt, if the truth were known," said
Albion Tourgee. " Grant's failure as a subaltern made
him commander-in-chief, and for myself, my failure to
accomplish what I set out to do led me to what I never
had aspired to."

USES OF OBSTACLES. 103

The appeal for volunteers in the great battle of life,
in exterminating ignorance and error, and planting
high on an everlasting foundation the banner of intelli-
gence and right, is directed to i/ou. Burst the trammels
that impede your progress, and cling to hope. Place
high thy standard, and with a firm tread and fearless
eye press steadily onward.

Not ease, but effort, not facility, but difficulty, makes
men. Toilsome culture is the price of great success,
and the slow growth of a great character is one of its
special necessities. Many of our best poets

"Are cradled into poetry by wrong,
And learn in suffering what they teach in song."

Byron was stung into a determination to go to the
top by a scathing criticism of his first book, " Hours of
Idleness," published when he was but nineteen years
of age. Macaulay said, "There is scarce an instance
in history of so sudden a rise to so dizzy an eminence
as Byron reached." In a few years he stood by the
side of such men as Scott, Southey, and Campbell, and
died at thirty-seven, that age so fatal to genius. Many
an orator like "stuttering Jack Curran," or "Orator
Mum," as he was once called, has been spurred into
eloquence by ridicule and abuse.

This is the crutch age. " Helps " and " aids " are
advertised everywhere. We have institutes, colleges,
universities, teachers, books, libraries, newspapers, mag-
azines. Our thinking is done for us. Our problems
are all worked out in " explanations " and " keys." Our
boys are too often tutored through college with very
little study. "' Short roads " and. " abridged methods "
are characteristic of the century. Ingenious methods
are used everywhere to get the drudgery out of the col-
lege course. Newspapers give us our politics, and
preachers our religion. Self-help and self-reliance are
getting old fashioned. Nature, as if conscious of de-
layed blessings, has rushed to man's relief with her

104 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

wondrous forces, and undertakes to do the world's drud-
gery and emancipate him from Eden's curse.

But do not misinterpret her edict. She emancipates
from the lower only to call to the higher. She does
not bid the world go and play while she does the work.
She emancipates the muscles only to employ the brain
and heart.

The most beautiful as well as the strongest characters
are not developed in warm climates, where man finds
his bread ready made on trees, and where exertion is
a great effort, but rather in a trying climate and on a
stubborn soil. It is no chance that returns to the Hin-
doo ryot a penny and to the American laborer a dollar
for his daily toil ; that makes Mexico with its mineral
wealth poor, and New England with its granite and
ice rich. It is rugged necessity, it is the struggle to
obtain, it is poverty the priceless spur, that develops
the stamina of manhood, and calls the race out of bar-
barism. Labor found the world a wilderness and has
made it a garden.

As the sculptor thinks only of the angel imprisoned
in the marble block, so Nature cares only for the man
or woman shut up in the human being. The sculptor
cares nothing for the block as such ; Nature has little
regard for the mere lump of breathing clay. The sculp-
tor will chip off all unnecessary material to set free the
angel. Nature will chip and pound us remorselessly to
bring out our possibilities. She will strip us of wealth,
humble our pride, humiliate our ambition, let us down
from the ladder of fame, will discipline us in a thou-
sand ways, if she can develop a little character. Every-
thing must give way to that. Wealth is nothing, posi-
tion is nothing, fame is nothing, Tnanhood is everything.

Not ease, not pleasure, not happiness, but a man,
Nature is after. In every great painting of the masters
there is one idea or figure which stands out boldly be-
yond everything else. Every other idea or figure on

USES OF OBSTACLES. 105

the canvas is subordinate to it, but pointing to the cen-
tral idea, finds its true expression there. So in the
vast universe of God, every object of creation is but a
guideboard with an index-finger pointing to the central
figure of the created universe — Man. Nature writes
this thought upon every leaf, she thunders it in every
creation. It is exhaled from every flower ; it twinkles
in every star.

Oh, what price will Nature not pay for a man ! Ages
and seons were nothing for her to spend in preparing
for his coming, or to make his existence possible. She
has rifled the centuries for his development, and placed
the universe at his disposal. The world is but his
kindergarten, and every created thing but an object-
lesson from the unseen universe. Nature resorts to a
thousand expedients to develop a perfect type of her
grandest creation. To do this she must induce him to
fight his way up to his own loaf. She never allows
him once to lose sight of the fact that it is the struggle
to attain that develops the man. The moment we put
our hand upon that which looks so attractive at a dis-
tance, and which we struggled so hard to reach, Nature
robs it of its charm by holding up before us another
prize still more attractive.

" Life," says a philosopher, " refuses to be so ad-
justed as to eliminate from it all strife and conflict and
pain. There are a thousand tasks that, in larger in-
terests than ours, must be done, whether we want them
or no. The world refuses to walk upon tiptoe, so that
we may be able to sleep. It gets up very early and
stays up very late, and all the while there is the con-
flict of myriads of hammers and saws and axes with the
stubborn material that in no other way can be made to
serve its use and do its work for man. And then, too,
these hammers and axes are not wielded without strain
or pang, but swung by the millions of toilers who labor
with their cries and groans and tears. Nay, our tern-

106 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

pie-building, whether it be for God or man, exacts its
bitter toll, and fills life with cries and blows. The
thousand rivalries of our daily business, the fiercer ani-
mosities when we are beaten, the even fiercer exultation
when we have beaten, the crashing blows of disaster,
the piercing scream of defeat, — these things we have
not yet gotten rid of, nor in this life ever will. Why
should we wish to get rid of them ? We are here, my
brother, to be hewed and hammered and planed in God's
quarry and on God's anvil for a nobler life to come."
Only the muscle that is used is developed.

The constantly cheerful man, who survives his
blighted hopes and disappointments, who takes them
just for what they are, lessons, and perhaps blessings in
disguise, is the true hero.

There is a strength

Deep bedded in our hearts of which we reck
But little, till the shafts of heaven have pierced
Its fragile dwelling. Must not earth be rent
Before her gems are found?

Mrs. Hemans.

"If what shone afar so grand
Turns to ashes in the hand,
On again, the virtue lies
In the struggle, not the prize."

"The hero is not fed on sweets,
Dailj' his own heart he eats ;
Chambers of the great are jails,
And head-winds right for royal sails."

"So many great
Illustrious spirits have conversed with woe,
Have in her school been taught, as are enough
To consecrate distress, and make ambition
Even wish the frown beyond the smile of fortune."

Then welcome each rebuff,

That turns earth's smoothness rough,

Each sting, that bids not sit nor stand but go.

Browning.

BERNARD PALISSY
1 had no other books than heaven and earth."

" Who is it in the suburbs here

This Potter, working with sucli cheer,

This madman, as the people say,

Who breaks his tables and his chairs

To feed his furnace fires '. "

CHAPTER VI.

ONE UNWAVERING AIM.

Life is an arrow — therefore j'ou must know
What mark to aim at, how to use the bow —
Then draw it to the head and let it go.

Henry van Dyke.
The important thing in life is to have a great aim, and to possess the
aptitude and perseverance to attain it. — Goethk.
Concentration alone conquers. — C. Buxton.
" He who follows two hares is sure to catch neither."
"A double-minded man is unstable in all his waj's."
Let every one ascertain his special business and calling, and then stick
to it if he would be successful. — Franklin.

" Digression is as dangerous as stagnation in the career of a j'oung man
in business."

Every man who observes vigilantly and resolves steadfastly grows un-
consciously into genius. — Bulwer.
Genius is intensity. — Balzac.

" Why do you lead sucii a solitary life ? " asked a
friend of Michael Angelo. " Art is a jealous mistress,"
replied the artist ; " she requires the whole man." Dur-
ing his labors at the Sistine Chapel, according to Dis-
raeli, he refused to meet any one, even at his own house.

"That day we sailed westward, which was our
course," were the simple but grand words which Co-
lumbus wrote in his journal day after day. Hope
might rise and fall, terror and dismay might seize upon
the crew at the mysterious variations of the compass,
but Columbus, unappalled, pushed due west and nightly
added to his record the above words.

"Cut an inch deeper," said a member of the Old
Guard to the surgeon probing his wound, "and you
will find the Emperor," — meaning his heart. By the

108 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

marvelous power of concentrated purpose Napoleon had
left his name on the very stones of the capital, had
burned it indelibly into the heart of every Frenchman,
and had left it written in living letters all over Europe.
France to-day has not shaken off the spell of that name.
In the fair city on the Seine the mystic " N " confronts
you everywhere.

Oh, the power of a great purpose to work miracles !
It has changed the face of the world. Napoleon knew
that there were plenty of great men in France, but
they did not know the might of the unwavering aim
by which he was changing the destinies of Europe.
He saw that what was called the " balance of power "
was only an idle dream ; that, unless some master-mind
could be found which was a match for events, the mil-
lions would rule in anarchy. His iron will grasped the
situation ; and like William Pitt, he did not loiter
around balancing the probabilities of failure or success,
or dally with his purpose. There was no turning to
the right nor to the left ; no dreaming away time, nor
building air-castles ; but one look and purpose, forward,
upward and onward, straight to his goal. He always
hit the bulFs-eye. His great success in war was due
largely to his definiteness of aim. He was like a great
burning-glass, concentrating the rays of the sun upon a
single spot ; he burned a hole wherever he went. The
secret of his power lay in his ability to concentrate his
forces upon a single point. After finding the weak
place in the enemy's ranks, he would mass his men and
hurl them like an avalanche upon the critical point,
crowding volley upon volley, charge upon charge, till
he made a breach. What a lesson of the power of con-
centration there is in this man's life ! He was able to
focus all his faculties upon the smallest detail, as well
as upon an empire. But, alas ! Napoleon was himself
defeated by violation of his own tactics, — the con-
stantly repeated crushing force of heavy battalions
upon one point.

ONE UNWAVERING AIM. 109

To succeed to-day a man must concentrate all the
faculties of his mind upon one unwavering aim, and
have a tenacity of purpose which means death or vic-
tory. Every other inclination which tempts him from
his aim must be suppressed.

New Jersey has many ports, but they are so shallow
and narrow that the shipping of the entire state
amounts to but little. On the other hand, New York
has but one ocean port, and yet it is so broad, deep, and
grand, that it leads America in its enormous shipping
trade. She sends her vessels into every port of the
world, while the ships of her neighbor are restricted to
local voyages.

A man may starve on a dozen half-learned trades
or occupations ; he may grow rich and famous upon
one trade thoroughly mastered, even though it be the
humblest.

Even Gladstone, with his ponderous yet active brain,
says he cannot do two things at once ; he throws his
entire strength upon whatever he does. The intensest
energy characterizes everything he undertakes, even
his recreation. If such concentration of energy is
necessary for the success of a Gladstone, what can we
common mortals hope to accomplish by "scattera-
tion ? "

All great men have been noted for their power of
concentration which makes them oblivious of every-
thing outside their aim. Victor Hugo wrote his " No-
tre Dame" during the revolution of 1830, while the
bullets were whistling across his garden. He shut
himself up in one room, locking iiis clothes up, lest
they should tempt him to go out into the street, and
spent most of that winter wrapped in a big gray com-
forter, pouring his very life into his work.

Genius is intensity. Abraham Lincoln possessed
such power of concentration that he could repeat quite
correctly a sermon to which he had listened in his boy-

110 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

hood. Dr. 0. W. Holmes, when an Andover student,
riveted his eyes on the book he was studying as though
he were reading a will that made him heir to a million.

A New York sportsman, in answer to an advertise-
ment, sent twenty-five cents for a sure receipt to pre-
vent a shotgun from scattering, and received the fol-
lowing : " Dear Sir : To keep a gun from scattering
put in but a single shot."

It is the men who do one thing in this world who
come to the front. Who is the favorite actor ? It is
a Jefferson, who devotes a lifetime to a "Rip Van
Winkle," a Booth, an Irving, a Kean, who plays one
character until he can play it better than any other
man living, and not the shallow players who imperson-
ate all ]3arts. It is the man who never steps outside of
his specialty or dissipates his individuality. It is an
Edison, a Morse, a Bell, a Howe, a Stephenson, a Watt.
It is Adam Smith, spending ten years on the " Wealth
of Nations." It is Gibbon, giving twenty years to his
" Decline and Tall of the Roman Empire." It is a
Hume, writing thirteen hours a day on his " History of
England." It is a Webster, spending thirty-six years
on his dictionary. It is a Bancroft, working twenty-
six years on his " History of the United States." It is
a Field, crossing the ocean fifty times to lay a cable,
while the world ridicules. It is a Newton, writing his
" Chronology of Ancient Nations " sixteen times. It is
a Qrant, who proposes to " fight it out on this line if it
takes all summer." These are the men who have writ-
ten their names prominently in the history of the
world.

A one-talent man who decides upon a definite object
accomplishes more than the ten-talent man who scat-
ters his energies and never knows exactly what he will
do. The weakest living creature, by concentrating his
powers upon one thing, can accomplish something ; the
strongest, by dispersing his over many, may fail to ac-

ONE UNWAVERING AIM. Ill

complish anything. Drop after drop, continually fall-
ing, wears a passage through the hardest rock. The
hasty tempest, as Carlyle points out, rushes over it
with hideous uproar and leaves no trace behind.

A great purpose is cumulative ; and, like a great
magnet, it attracts all that is kindred along the stream
of life.

A Yankee can splice a rope in many different ways ;
an English sailor only knows one way, but that is the
best one. It is the one-sided man, the sharp-edged man,
the man of single and intense purpose, the man of
one idea, who turns neither to the right nor to the left,
though a paradise tempt him, who cuts his way through
obstacles and forges to the front. The time has gone
forever when a Bacon can span universal knowledge ;
or when, absorbing all the knowledge of the times, a
Dante can sustain arguments against fourteen dispu-
tants in the University of Paris, and conquer in them
all. The day when a man can successfully drive a
dozen callings abreast is a thing of the past. Concen-
tration is the keynote of the century.

Scientists estimate that there is energy enough in less
than fifty acres of sunshine to run all the machinery in
the world, if it could be concentrated. But the sun
might blaze out upon the earth forever without setting
anything on fire ; although these rays focused by a
burning-glass would melt solid granite, or even change
a diamond into vapor. There are plenty of men who
have ability enough ; the rays of their faculties, taken
separately, are all right, but they are powerless to col-
lect them, to bring them all to bear upon a single spot.
Versatile men, universal geniuses, are usually weak, be-
cause they have no power to concentrate their talents
upon one point, and this makes all the difference be-
tween success and failure.

Chiseled upon the tomb of a disappointed, heart-
broken king, Joseph II. of Austria, in the Eoyal Ceme-

112 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

teiy at Vienna, a traveler tells us, is this epitaph:
" Here lies a monarch who, with the best of intentions,
never carried out a single plan."

Sir James Mackintosh was a man of remarkable
ability. He excited in every one who knew him the
greatest expectations. Many watched his career with
much interest, expecting that he would dazzle the
world. But there was no purpose in his life. He had
intermittent attacks of enthusiasm for doing great
things, but his zeal all evaporated before he could de-
cide what to do. This fatal defect in his character
kept him balancing between conflicting motives ; and
his whole life was almost thrown away. He lacked
power to choose one object and persevere with a single
aim, sacrificing every interfering inclination. He vacil-
lated for weeks trying to determine whether to use
" usefulness " or " utility " in a composition.

One talent utilized in a single direction will do infi-
nitely more than ten talents scattered. A thimbleful
of powder behind a ball in a rifle will do more execu-
tion than a carload of powder unconfined. The rifle-
barrel is the purpose that gives direct aim to the pow-
der, which otherwise, no matter how good it might be,
would be powerless. The poorest scholar in school or
college often, in practical life, far outstrips the class
leader or senior wrangler, simply because what little
ability he has he employs for a definite object, while
the other, depending upon his general ability and bril-
liant prospects, never concentrates his powers.

'•A sublime self-confidence," says E. P. Whipple,
"springing not from self-conceit, but from an intense
identification of the man with his object, lifts him alto-
gether above the fear of danger and death, and commu-
nicates an almost superhuman audacity to his will."

It is fashionable to ridicule the man of one idea, but
the men who have changed the front of the world have
been men of a single aim. No man can make his mark

RICHARD ARKWRIGHT
What a sublime spectacle is tliat of a man going straight to his goal, cutting his
way through difficulties, and surmounting obstacles wliich dishearten others, as
though they were stepping-stones.

ONE UNWAVERING AIM. 113

on this age of specialties who is not a man of one idea,
one supreme aim, one master passion. The man who
would make himself felt on this bustling planet, who
would make a breach in the compact conservatism of
our civilization, must play all his guns on one point.
A wavering aim, a faltering purpose, has no place in
the nineteenth century. " Mental shiftlessness " is the
cause of many a failure. The world is full of unsuc-
cessful men who spend their lives letting empty
buckets down into empty wells.

" Mr. A. often laughs at me," said a young American
chemist, " because I have but one idea. He talks about
everything, aims to excel in many things; but I have
learned that, if I ever wish to make a breach, I must
play my guns continually upon one point." This great
chemist, when an obscure schoolmaster, used to study
by the light of a pine knot in a log cabin. Not many
years later he was performing experiments in electro-
magnetism before English earls, and subsequently he
was at the head of one of the largest scientific insti-
tutes of this country. This man was the late Professor
Henry, of the Smithsonian Institute, AVashington.

Douglas Jerrold once knew a man who was familiar
with twenty-four languages but could not express a
thought in one of them.

We should guard against a talent which we cannot
hope to practice in perfection, says Goethe. Improve
it as we may, we shall always, in the end, when the
merit of the matter has become apparent to us, pain-
fully lament the loss of time and strength devoted to
such botching. An old proverb says : " The master of
one trade will support a wife and seven children, and
the master of seven will not support himself."

It is the single aim that wins. Men with monopoliz-
ing ambitions rarely live in history. They do not
focus their powers long enough to burn their names
indelibly into the roll of honor. Edward Everett, even

114 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

with his magnificent powers, disappointed the expecta-
tions of his friends. He spread himself over the whole
field of knowledge and elegant culture ; but the men-
tion of the name of Everett does not call up any one
great achievement as does that of names like Garrison
and Phillips. Voltaire called the*Frenchman La Harpe
an oven which was always heating, but which never
cooked anything. Hartley Coleridge was splendidly
endowed with talent, like Sir James Mackintosh, but
there was one fatal lack in his character — he had no
definite purpose, and his life was a failure. Unstable
as water, he could not excel. Southey, his uncle, says :
" Coleridge has two left hands." He was so morbidly
shy from living alone in his dreamland that he could
not open a letter without trembling. He would often
rally from his purposeless life, and resolve to redeem
himself from the oblivion he saw staring him in the
face; but, like Mackintosh, he remained a man of
promise merely to the end of his life.

The world always makes way for the man with a
purpose in him, like Bismarck or Grant. Look at
Rufus Choate, concentrating all his attention first on
one juryman, then on another, going back over the
whole line again and again, until he has burned his
arguments into their souls ; until he has hypnotized
them with his purpose ; until they see with his eyes,
think his thoughts, feel his sensations. He never
stopped until he had projected his mind into theirs,
and permeated their lives with his individuality.
There was no escape from his concentration of purpose,
his persuasive rhetoric, his convincing logic. "Carry
the jury at all hazards/' he used to say to young law-
yers ; " move heaven and earth to carry the jury, and
then fight it out with the judge on the law questions
as best you can."

The man who succeeds has a programme. He fixes
his course and adheres to it. He lays his plans and

ONE UNWAVERING AIM. 115

executes them. He goes straight to his goal. He is
not pushed this way and that every time a difficulty
is thrown in his path ; if he can't get over it he goes
through it. Constant and steady use of the faculties
under a central purpose gives strength and power,
while the use of faculties without an aim or end only
weakens them. The mind must be focused on a defi-
nite end, or, like machinery without a balance-wheel, it
will rack itself to pieces.

This age of concentration calls, not for educated men
merely, not for talented men, not for geniuses, not for
jacks-of-all-trades, but for men who are trained to do
one thing as well as it can be done. Napoleon could
go through the drill of his soldiers better than any one
of his men.

Stick to your aim. The constant changing of one's
occupation is fatal to all success. After a young man
has spent five or six years in a dry goods store, he con-
cludes that he would rather sell groceries, thereby
throwing away five years of valuable experience which
will be of very little use to him in the grocery business ;
and so he spends a large part of his life drifting around
from one kind of employment to another, learning part
of each, but all of none, forgetting that experience is
worth more to him than money, and that the years
devoted to learning his trade or occupation are the
most valuable. Half-learned trades, no matter if a man
has twenty, will never give him a good living, much
less a competency, while wealth is absolutely out of the
question.

How many young men fail to reach the point of effi-
ciency in one line of work before they get discouraged
and venture into something else. How easy to see the
thorns in one's own profession or vocation, and only
the roses in that of another. A young man in business,
for instance, seeing a physician riding about town in
his carriage, visiting his patients, imagines that a doc-

116 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

tor must have an easy, ideal life, and wonders tliat he
himself should have embarked in an occupation so full
of disagreeable drudgery and hardships. He does not
know of the years of dry, tedious study which the phy-
sician has consumed, the months and perhaps years of
waiting for patients, the dry detail of anatomy, the end-
less names of drugs and technical terms.

Scientists tell us that there is nothing in nature so
ugly and disagreeable but intense light will make it
beautiful. The complete mastery of one profession will
render even the driest details interesting. The con-
sciousness of thorough knowledge, the habit of doing
everything to a finish, gives a feeling of strength, of
superiority, which takes the drudgery out of an occu-
pation. The more completely we master a vocation the
more thoroughly we enjoy it. In fact, the man who has
found his place and become master in it could scarcely
be induced, even though he be a farmer, or a carpenter,
or grocer, to exchange places with a governor or con-
gressman. To be successful is to find your sphere and
fill it, to get into your place and master it.

There is a sense of great power in a vocation after a
man has reached the point of efficiency in it, the point
of productiveness, the point where his skill begins to
tell and bring in returns. Up to this point of efficiency,
while he is learning his trade, the time seems to have
been almost thrown away. But he has been storing up
a vast reserve of knowledge of detail, laying founda-
tions, forming his acquaintances, gaining his reputation
for truthfulness, trustworthiness, and integrity, and in
establishing his credit. When he reaches this point of
efficiency, all the knowledge and skill, character, influ-
ence, and credit thus gained come to his aid, and he
soon finds that in what seemed almost thrown away
lies the secret of his i:)rosperity. The credit he estab-
lished as a clerk, the confidence, the integrity, the
friendships formed, he finds equal to a large capital

ONE UNWAVERING AIM. 117

when lie starts out for himself and takes the highway
to fortune; while the young man who half learned
several trades, and got discouraged and stopped just
short of the point of efficiency, just this side of suc-
cess, is a failure because he did n't go far enough ; he
did not press on to the point at which his acquisition
would have been profitable.

In spite of the fact that nearly all very successful
men have made a life work of one thing, we see on
every hand hundreds of young men and women flitting
about from occupation to occupation, trade to trade, in
one thing to-day and another to-morrow, — just as
though they could go from one thing to another by
turning a switch, as if they could run as well on another
track as on the one they have left, regardless of the
fact that no two careers have the same gauge, that
every man builds his own road upon which another's
engine cannot run either with speed or safety. This
fickleness, this disposition to shift about from one occu-
pation to another, seems to be peculiar to American life,
so much so that, when a young man meets a friend
whom he has not seen for some time, the commonest
question to ask is, "What are you doing now ? " show-
ing the improbability or uncertainty that he is doing
to-day what he was doing when they last met.

Some people think that if they " keep everlastingly
at it " they will succeed, but this is not so. Working
without a plan is as foolish as going to sea without a
compass. A ship which has broken its rudder in mid-
ocean may " keep everlastingly at it," may keep on a
full head of steam, driving about all the time, but it
never arrives anywhere, it never reaches any port
unless by accident; and if it does find a haven, its
cargo may not be suited to the people, the climate, or
conditions among which it has accidentally drifted. The
ship must be directed to a definite port, for which its
cargo is adapted, and where there is a demand for it,

118 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

and it must aim steadily for that port through sun-
shine and storm, through tempest and fog. So a man
who would succeed must not drift about rudderless on
the ocean of life. He must not only steer straight
toward his destined port when the ocean is smooth,
when the currents and winds serve, but he must keep
his course in the very teeth of the wind and the
tempest, and even when envelo]jed in the fogs of dis-
appointment and mists of opposition. The Cunarders
do not stop for fogs or storms ; they plow straight
through the rough seas with only one thing in view,
their destined port, and no matter what the weather
is, no matter what obstacles they encounter, their arri-
val in port can be predicted to within a few hours.
It is practically certain, too, that the ship destined for
Boston will not turn up at Fort Sumter or at Sandy
Hook.

On the prairies of South America there grows a
flower that always inclines in the same direction. If a
traveler loses his way and has neither compass nor
chart, by turning to this flower he will find a guide on
which he can implicitly rely ; for no matter how the
rains descend or the winds blow, its leaves point to the
north. So there are many men whose purposes are
so well known, whose aims are so constant, that no
matter what difficulties they may encounter, or what
opposition they may meet, you can tell almost to a
certainty where they will come out. They may be
delayed by head winds and counter currents, but they
will ahvays head for the port and will steer straight
towards the harbor. You know to a certainty that
whatever else they may lose, they will not lose their
compass or rudder.

Whatever may happen to a man of this stamp, even
though his sails may be swept away and his mast
stripped to the deck, though he may be wrecked by the
storms of life, the needle of his compass will still point

ONE UNWAVERING AIM. 119

to the North Star of his hope. Whatever comes, his
life will not be purposeless. Even a wreck that makes
its port is a greater success than a full-rigged ship with
all its sails flying, with every mast and rope intact,
which merely drifts into an accidental harbor.

To fix a wandering life and give it direction is not an
easy task, but a life which has no definite aim is sure
to be frittered away in empty and purposeless dreams.
" Listless triflers," " busy idlers," " purposeless busy-
bodies," are seen everywhere. A healthy, definite
purpose is a remedy for a thousand ills which attend
aimless lives. Discontent, dissatisfaction, flee before a
definite purpose. An aim takes the drudgery out of
life, scatters doubts to the winds, and clears up the
gloomiest creeds. What we do without a purpose
begrudgingly, with a purpose becomes a delight, and no
work is well done nor healthily done which is not
enthusiastically done. It is just that added element
which makes work immortal.

Mere energy is not enough ; it must be concentrated on
some steady, unwavering aim. What is more common
than "unsuccessful geniuses," or failures with "com-
manding talents " ? Indeed, " unrewarded- genius " has
become a proverb. Every town has unsuccessful edu-
cated and talented men. But education is of no value,
talent is worthless, unless it can do something, achieve
something. Men who can do something at everything,
and a very little at anything, are not wanted in this
age. In Paris, a certain Monsieur Kenard announced
himself as a " public scribe, who digests accounts, ex-
plains the language of flowers, and sells fried pota-
toes." Jacks-at-all-trades are at war with the genius
of the times.

What this age wants is young men and women who
can do one thing without losing their identity or indi-
viduality, or becoming narrow, cramped, or dwarfed.
Nothing can take the place of an all-absorbing purpose ;

120 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

education will not, genius will not, talent will not,
industry will not, will-j)ower will not. The purposeless
life must ever be a failure. What good are powers,
faculties, unless we can use them for a purpose ? What
good would a chest of tools do a carpenter unless he
could use them ? A college education, a head full of
knowledge, are worth little to the men who cannot use
them to some definite end.

The man without a purpose never leaves his mark
upon the world. He has no individuality ; he is ab-
sorbed in the mass, lost in the crowd, weak, wavering,
incompetent. His outlines of individuality and angles
of character have been worn off, planed down to suit
the common thought until he has, as a man, been lost
in the throng of humanity.

"He who would do some great thing in this short
life must apply himself to the work with such a con-
centration of his forces as, to idle spectators, who live
only to amuse themselves, looks like insanity."

What a great directness of purpose may be traced in
the career of Pitt, who lived — ay, and died — for the
sake of political supremacy. From a child, the idea
was drilled into him that he must accomplish a public
career worthy of his illustrious father. Even from boy-
hood he bent all his energy to this one great purpose.
He went straight from college to the House of Com-
mons. In one year he was Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer; two years later he was Prime Minister of
England, and reigned virtually king for a quarter of a
century. He was utterly oblivious of everything out-
side his aim ; insensible to the claims of love, art, liter-
ature, living and steadily working for the sole purpose
of wielding the governing power of the nation. His
whole soul was absorbed in the overmastering passion
for political power.

"Consider, my lord," said Rowland Hill to the Prime
Minister of England, " that a letter to Ireland and the

ONE UNWAVERING AIM. 121

answer back would cost thousands upon thousands of
my affectionate countrymen more than a fifth of their
week's wages. If you shut the post office to them,
which you do now, you shut out warm hearts and gen-
erous affections from home, kindred, and friends." The
lad learned that it cost to carry a letter from London to
Edinburgh, four hundred and four miles, one eighteenth
of a cent, while the government charged for a simple
folded sheet of paper twenty-eight cents, and twice as
much if there was the smallest inclosure. Against the
opposition and contempt of the post-office department
he at length carried his point, and on January 10,
1840, penny postage was established throughout Great
Britain. Mr. Hill was chosen to introduce the system,
at a salary of fifteen hundred pounds a year. His
success was most encouraging, but at the end of two
years a Tory minister dismissed him without paying for
his services, as agreed. The public was indignant, and
at once contributed sixty-five thousand dollars ; and, at
the request of Queen Victoria, Parliament voted him
one hundred thousand dollars and ten thousand dollars
a year for life.

Christ knew that one affection rules in man's life
when he said, " No man can serve two masters." One
affection, one object, will be supreme in us. Everything
else will be neglected and done with half a heart. One
may have subordinate plans, but he can have but one
supreme aim, and from this aim all others will take
their character.

It is a great purpose which gives meaning to life ; it
unifies all our powers, binds them together in one
cable ; makes strong and united what was weak, sepa-
rated, scattered.

"Painting is my wife and my works are my chil-
dren," replied Michael Angelo when asked why he did
not marry.

" Smatterers " are weak and superficial. Of what

122 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

use is a man who knows a little of everything and not
much of anything ? It is the momentum of constantly
repeated acts that tells the story. "Let thine eyes
look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet
and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the
right hand nor to the left." One great secret of St.
Paul's power lay in his strong purpose. Nothing could
daunt him, nothing intimidate. The Eoman Emperor
could not muzzle him, the dungeon could not aj^pall him,
no prison suppress him, obstacles could not discourage
him. " This one thing I do " was written all over his
work. The quenchless izeal of his mighty purpose
burned its way down through the centuries, and its con-
tagion will never cease to fire the hearts of men.

"Try and come home somebody," said the fond
mother to Gambetta as she sent him off to Paris to
school. Poverty pinched this lad hard in his little
garret study and his clothes were shabby, but what of
that ? He had made up his mind to get on in the
world. For years this youth was chained to his desk
and worked like a hero. At last his opportunity came.
Jules Favre was to plead a great cause on a certain
day ; but, being ill, he chose this young man, absolutely
unknown, rough and uncouth, to take his place. For
many years Gambetta had been preparing for such an
opportunity, and he was equal to it, for he made one of
the greatest speeches that up to that time had ever been
made in France. That night all the papers in Paris
were sounding the praises of this ragged, uncouth
Bohemian, and soon all France recognized him as the
Eepublican leader. This sudden rise was not due to
luck or accident. He had been steadfastly working
and fighting his way up against opposition and poverty
for just such an occasion. Had he not been equal to
it, it would only have made him ridiculous. What
a stride ; yesterday, poor and unknown, living in a
garret; to-day, deputy elect, in the city of Marseilles,

ONE UNWAVERING AIM, 123

and the great Eepublican leader ! The gossipers of
France had never heard his name before. He had been
expelled from the priest-making seminary as totally
unfit for a priest and an utterly undisciplinable charac-
ter. In two weeks, this ragged son of an Italian grocer
arose in the Chamber, and moved that the Napoleon
dynasty be disposed of and the Republic be declared
established.

When Louis Napoleon had been defeated at Sedan
and had delivered his sword to William of Prussia, and
when the Prussian army was marching on Paris, the
brave Gambetta went out of the besieged city in a
balloon barely grazed by the Prussian guns, landed in
Amiens, and by almost superhuman skill raised three
armies of 800,000 men, provided for their maintenance,
and directed their military operations. A German offi-
cer said, " This colossal energy is the most remark-
able event of modern history, and will carry down
Gambetta's name to remote posterity." This youth
who was poring over his books in an attic while other
youths were promenading the Champs Elysees, although
but thirty-two years old, was now virtually dictator of
France, and the greatest orator in the Republic. What
a striking example of the great reserve of personal
power, which, even in dissolute lives, is sometimes
called out by a great emergency or sudden sorrow, and
ever after leads the life to victory ! AVhen Gambetta
found that his first speech had electrified all France,
his great reserve rushed to the front, he was suddenly
weaned from dissipation, and resolved to make his
mark in the world. Nor did he lose his head in his
quick leap into fame. He still lived in the upper room
in the mnsty Latin quarter, and remained a poor man,
without stain of dishonor, though he might easily have
made himself a millionaire. When Gambetta died the
" Figaro " said, " The Republic has lost its greatest
man." American boys should study this great man, for

124 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

he loved our country, and made our Kepublic the pat-
tern for France.

There is no grander sight in the world than that of
a young man fired with a great purpose, dominated by
one unwavering aim. He is bound to win ; the world
stands one side and lets him pass ; it always makes
way for the man with a will in him. He does not have
one half the opposition to overcome that the undecided,
purposeless man has who, like driftwood, runs against
all sorts of snags to which he must yield, because he
has no momentum to force them out pf his way. What
a sublime spectacle it is to see a youth going straight
to his goal, cutting his way through difficulties, and sur-
mounting obstacles, which dishearten others, as though
they were but stepping-stones ! Defeat, like a gymna-
sium, only gives him new power; opposition only
doubles his exertions ; dangers only increase his cour-
age. No matter what comes to him, sickness, poverty,
disaster, he never turns his eye from his goal.
" Duos qui sequitur lepores, neutrum capit."

VICTOR HUGO "
" Every one is the son of his own works."
" Cast forth thy act, thy word, into the ever-living, ever-working universe : it is
a seed-grain that cannot die."'

CHAPTER VIT.

SOWING AND REAPING.

Be not deceived ; God is not mocked : for whatsoever a man soweth, that
shall he also reap. — Galatians.

Sow an act, and you reap a habit; sow a habit, and you reap a charac-
ter; sow a character, and you reap a destiny. — G. D. Boardman.

Just as the twig is bent the tree 's inclined. — Pope.

How use doth breed a habit in a man. — Shakespeare.

All habits gather, by unseen degrees,

As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas. Dryden.

Infinite good comes from good habits which must result from the com-
mon influence of example, intercourse, knowledge, and actual experience
— morality taught by good morals. — Plato.

The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt till they are too
strong to be broken. — Samuel Johnson.

Man is first startled by sin; then it becomes pleasing, then easy, then
delightful, then frequent, then habitual, then confirmed. Then man is
impenitent, then obstinate, then he is damned. — Jeremy Taylor.
*' Rogues differ little. Each began as a disobedient son."
In the great majority of things, habit is a greater plague than ever
afflicted Egypt. — John Foster.

You cannot in any given case, by any sudden and single effort, will to
be true if the habit of your life has been insincere. — F. W. Robertson.
The tissue of the life to be,

We weave with colors all our own;
And in the field of destiny,

We reap as we have sown. Whittier,

"Gentlemen of the jury, jon will now consider
your verdict," said the great lawyer. Lord Tenterden,
as he roused from his lethargy a moment, and then
closed his eyes forever. " Tete d'armee " (head of the
army), murmured Napoleon faintly ; and then, " on the
wings of a tempest that raged with unwonted fury, up
to the throne of the only power that controlled him

126 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

while he lived, went the fiery soul of that wonderful
warrior.'^ "Give Dayrolles a chair," said the dying
Chesterfield with his old-time courtesy, and the next
moment his spirit spread its wings. "Young man,
keep your record clean," thrilled from the lips of John
B. Gough as he sank to rise no more. What power
over the mind of man is exercised by the dominant
idea of his life "that parts not quite with parting
breath ! " It has shaped his purpose throughout his
earthly career, and he passes into the Great Unknown,
moving in the direction of his ideal; impelled still,
amid the utter retrocession of the vital force, by all
the momentum resulting from his weight of character
and singleness of aim.

"It is a beautiful arrangement in the mental and
moral economy of our nature, that that which is per-
formed as a duty may, by frequent repetitions, become
a habit, and the habit of stern virtue, so repulsive to
others, may hang around the neck like a wreath of
flowers."

Cholera appeared mysteriously in Toulon, and, after
a careful examination, the medical inspectors learned
that the first victims were two sailors on the Mon-
tebello, a government transport, long out of service,
anchored at the entrance to the port. For many years
the vessel had been used for storing old, disused mili-
tary equipments. Some of these had belonged to French
soldiers who had died before Sebastopol. The doctors
learned that the two poor sailors were seized, suddenly
and mortally, a few days after displacing a pile of
equipments stored deep in the hold of the Montebello.
The cholera of Toulon came in a direct line from the
hospital of Varna. It went to sleep, apparently gorged,
on a heap of the cast-off garments of its victims, to
awaken thirty years later to victorious and venomous
life.

Professor Bonelli, of Turin, punctured an animal

SOWING AND REAPING. 127

with the tooth of a rattlesnake. The head of this ser-
pent had lain in a dry state for sixteen years exposed
to the air and dust, and, moreover, had previously been
preserved more than thirty years in spirits of wine.
To his great astonishment an hour afterward the ani-
mal died. So habits, good or bad, that have been lost
sight of for years will s^^ring into a new life to aid or
injure us at some critical moment, as kernels of wheat
which had been clasped in a mummy's hand four thou-
sand years sprang into life when planted. They only
awaited moisture, heat, sunlight, and air to develop
them.

In Jefferson's play. Rip Van Winkle, after he had
" sworn off," at every invitation to drink said, " Well,
this time don't count." True, as Professor James says,
he may not have counted it, as thousands of others
have not counted it, and a kind heaven may not count
it, but it is being counted none the less. Down among
his nerve cells and fibres the molecules are counting it,
registering and storing it up to be used against him
when the next temptation comes. Nothing we ever do
is in strict scientific literalness wiped out. There is a
tendency in the nervous system to repeat the same
mode of action at regularly recurring intervals. Dr.
Combe says that all nervous diseases have a marked
tendency to observe regular periods. " If we repeat
any kind of mental effort at the same hour daily, we at
length find ourselves entering upon it without premedi-
tation when the time approaches."

"The great thing in all education is to make our
nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. It is
to fund and capitalize our acquisition, and live at ease
upon the interest of the fund. For this we must make
automatic and habitual, as soon as possible, as many
useful actions as we can, and guard against the growing
into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as
we would guard against the plague."

128 ARCHITECTS OF FATE,

The nervous system is a living phonograph, infinitely-
more marvelous than that of Edison. No sound, how-
ever feeble, however slight, can escape being recorded
in its wonderful mechanism. Although the molecules
of this living machine may all be entirely changed
many times during a lifetime, yet these impressions are
never erased or lost. They become forever fixed in the
character. Like Eip Van Winkle, the youth may say
to himself, I will do this just once "just to see what it
is like," no one will ever know it, and " I won't count
this time." The country youth says it when he goes
to the city. The young man says it when he drinks
" just to be social." Americans, who are good church
people at home, say it when in Paris and Vienna. Yes,
" just to see what it is like " has ruined many a noble
life. Many a man has lost his balance and fallen over
the precipice into the sink of iniquity while just
attempting " to see what it was like." " If you have
been pilot on these waters twenty-five years," said a
young man to the captain of a steamer, " you must
know every rock and sandbank in the river." " jSTo, I
don't, but I know where the deep water is."

Just one little lie to help me out of this difficulty ;
"I won't count this." Just one little embezzlement;
no one will know it, and I can return the money before
it will be needed. Just one little indulgence ; I won't
count it, and a good night's sleep will make me all
right again. Just one small part of my work slighted ;
it won't make any great difference, and, besides, I am
usually so careful that a little thing like this ought not
to be counted.

But, my young friend, it will be counted, whether
you will or not ; the deed has been recorded with an
iron pen, even to the smallest detail. The Eecording
Angel is no myth ; it is found in ourselves. Its name
is Memory, and it holds everything. We think we
have forgotten thousands of things until mortal danger,

SOWING AND REAPING. 129

fever, or some other great stimulus reproduces tliem to
the consciousness with all the fidelity of photographs.
Sometimes all one's past life will seem to pass before
him in an instant ; but at all times it is really, although
unconsciously, passing before him in the sentiments he
feels, in the thoughts he thinks, in the impulses that
move him apparently without cause.

*• Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still."

In a fable one of the Fates spun filaments so fine
that they were invisible, and she became a victim of
her cunning, for she was bound to the spot by these
very threads.

Father Schoenmaker, missionary to the Indians, tried
for years to implant civilization among the wild tribes.
After fifteen years' labor he induced a chief to lay aside
his blanket, the token of savagery ; but he goes on to
say, " It took fifteen years to get it off, and just fifteen
minutes to get it on him again."

Physiologists say that dark-colored stripes similar to
those on the zebra reappear, after a hundred or a thou-
sand generations, on the legs and shoulders of horses,
asses, and mules. Large birds on sea islands where
there are no beasts to molest them lose the power of
flight.

After a criminal's head had been cut off his breast
was irritated, and he raised his hands several times as if
to brush away the exciting cause. It was said that the
cheek of Charlotte Corday blushed on being struck by
a rude soldier after the head had been severed from the
body.

Humboldt found in South America a parrot which
was the only living creature that could speak a word of
the language of a lost tribe. The bird retained the
habit of speech after his teachers had died.

Caspar Hauser was confined, probably from birth, in
a dungeon where no light or sound from the outer

130 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

world could reach liim. At seventeen lie was still a
mental infant, crying and chattering without much
ajjparent intelligence. When released, the light was
disagreeable to his eyes ; and, after the babbling youth
had been taught to speak a few words, he begged to be
taken back to the dungeon. Only cold and dismal
silence seemed to satisfy him. All that gave pleasure
to others gave his perverted senses only pain. The
sweetest music was a source of anguish to him, and he
could eat only his black crust without violent vomiting.

Deep in the very nature of animate existence is that
principle of facility and inclination, acquired by repeti-
tion, which we call habit. Man becomes a slave to his
constantly repeated acts. In spite of the protests of his
weakened will the trained nerves continue to repeat the
acts even when the doer abhors them. What he at
first chooses, at last compels. Man is as irrevocably
chained to his deeds as the atoms are chained by gravi-
tation. You can as easily snatch a pebble from gravita-
tion's grasp as you can separate the minutest act of life
from its inevitable effect upon character and destiny.
" Children may be strangled," says George Eliot, " but
deeds never, they have an indestructible life." The
smirched youth becomes the tainted man.

Practically all the achievements of the human race
are but the accomplishments of habit. We speak of
the power of Gladstone to accomplish so much in a day
as something marvelous ; but when we analyze that
power we find it composed very largely of the results
of habit. His mighty momentum has been rendered
possible only by the law of the power of habit. He is
now a great bundle of habits, which all his life have
been forming. His habit of industry no doubt was irk-
some and tedious at first, but, practiced so conscien-
tiously and persistently, it has gained such momentum
as to astonish the world. His habit of thinking, close,
persistent, and strong, has made him a power. He

SOWING AND REAPING. 131

formed the habit of accurate, keen observation, allowing
nothing to escape his attention, until he could observe
more in half a day in London than a score of men who
have eyes but see not. Thus he has multiplied him-
self many times. By this habit of accuracy he has
avoided many a repetition; and so, during his life-
time, he has saved years of precious time, which many
others, who marvel at his achievements, have thrown
away.

Gladstone early formed the habit of cheerfulness, of
looking on the bright side of things, which, Sydney
Smith says, "is worth a thousand pounds a year."
This again has saved him enormous waste of energy, as
he tells us he has never yet been kept awake a single
hour by any debate or business in Parliament. This
loss of energy has wasted years of many a useful life,
which might have been saved by forming the economiz-
ing habit of cheerfulness.

The habit of happy thought would transform the
commonest life into harmony and beauty. The will
is almost omnipotent to determine habits which virtu-
ally are omnipotent. The habit of directing a firm
and steady will upon those things which tend to pro-
duce harmony of thought would produce happiness
and contentment even in the most lowly occupations.
The will, rightly drilled, can drive out all discordant
thoughts, and produce a reign of perpetual harmony.
Our trouble is that we do not half will. After a man's
habits are well set, about all he can do is to sit by and
observe which way he is going. Kegret it as he may,
how helpless is a weak man bound by the mighty cable
of habit, twisted from the tiny threads of single acts
which he thought were absolutely within his control !

Drop a stone down a precipice. By the law of gravita-
tion it sinks with rapidly increasing momentum. If it
falls sixteen feet the first second, it will fall forty-eight
feet the next second, and eighty feet the third second,

132 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

and one hundred and forty-four feet the fifth second,
and if it falls for ten seconds it will in the last second rush
through three hundred and four feet till earth stops it.
Habit is cumulative. After each act of our lives we are
not the same person as before, but quite another, better
or worse, but not the same. There has been something
added to, or deducted from, our weight of character.

" There is no fault nor folly of my life," said Euskin,
"that does not rise against me and take away my joy,
and shorten my power of possession, of sight, of under-
standing ; and every past effort of my life, every gleam
of righteousness or good in it, is with me now to help
me in my grasp of this hour and its vision."

" Many men of genius have written worse scrawls
than I do," said a boy at Rugby when his teacher re-
monstrated with him for his bad penmanship ; " it is not
worth while to worry about so trivial a fault." Ten
years later, when he had become an officer in the Crimea,
his illegible copy of an order caused the loss of many
brave men.

" Eesist beginning " was an ancient motto which is
needed in our day. The folly of the child becomes the
vice of the youth, and then the crime of the man.

In 1880 one hundred and forty-seven of the eight hun-
dred and ninety-seven inmates of Auburn State Prison
were there on a second visit. What brings the prisoner
back the second, third, or fourth time ? It is habit
which drives him on to commit the deed which his heart
abhors and which his very soul loathes. It is the mo-
mentum made up from a thousand deviations from the
truth and right, for there is a great difference between
going just right and a little wrong. It is the result of
that mysterious power which the repeated act has of
getting itself repeated again and again.

AVhen a woman was dying from the effects of her hus-
band's cruelty and debauchery from drink she asked
him to come to her bedside, and pleaded with him again

SOWIXG AND REAPING. 133

for the sake of their chiklren to drink no more. Grasp-
ing his hand with her thin, long fingers, she made him
promise her : " Mary, I will drink no more till I take it
out of this hand which I hold in mine." That very night
he poured out a tumbler of brandy, stole into the room
where she lay cold in her coffin, put the tumbler into
her withered hand, and then took it out and drained it
to the bottom. John B. Gough told this as a true story.
How powerless a man is in the presence of a mighty
habit, which has robbed him of will-power, of self-
respect, of everything manly, until he becomes its
slave !

Walpole tells of a gambler who fell at the table in a
fit of apoplexy, and his companions began to bet upon
his chances of recovery. When the physician came
they refused to let him bleed the man because they
said it would affect the bet. When President Garfield
was hanging between life and death men bet heavily
upon the issue, and even sold pools.

Xo disease causes greater horror or dread than chol-
era ; yet when it is once fastened upon a victim he is
perfectly indifferent, and wonders at the solicitude of
his friends. His tears are dried; he cannot weep if
he would. His body is cold and clammy and feels
like dead flesh, yet he tells you he is warm, and calls
for ice water. Have you never seen similar insensi-
bility to danger in those whose habits are already drag-
ging them to everlasting death ?

Etherized by the fascinations of pleasure, we are
often unconscious of pain while, the devil amputates
the fingers, the feet and hands, or even the arms and
legs of our character. But oh, the anguish that visits
the sad heart when the lethe passes away, and the soul
becomes conscious of virtue sacrificed, of manhood lost.

The leper is often the last to suspect his danger, for
the disease is painless in its early stages. A leading
lawyer and public official in the Sandwich Islands once

134 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

overturned a lighted lamp on his hand, and was sur-
prised to find that it caused no pain. At last it dawned
upon his mind that he was a leper. He resigned his
offices and went to the leper's island, where he died.
So sin in its early stages is not only painless but often
even pleasant.

The hardening, deadening power of depraving habits
and customs was strikingly illustrated by the Komans.

Under Nero, the taste of the people had become so
debauched and morbid that no mere representation of
tragedy would satisfy them. Their cold-blooded sel-
fishness, the hideous realism of " a refined, delicate, aes-
thetic age," demanded that the heroes should actually
be' killed on the stage. The debauched and sanguinary
Romans reckoned life worthless without the most thrill-
ing experiences of horror or delight. Tragedy must be
genuine bloodshed, comedy, actual shame. When " The
Conflagration" was represented on the stage they de-
manded that a house be actually burned and the furni-
ture plundered. When " Laureolus " Avas played they
demanded that the actor be really crucified and man-
gled by a bear, and he had to fling himself down and
deluge the stage with his own blood. Prometheus must
be really chained to his rock, and Dirce in very fact be
tossed and gored by the wild bull, and Orpheus be torn
to pieces by a real bear, and Icarus was compelled to
fly, even though it was known he Avould be dashed to
death. When the heroism of " Mucins Scsevola " was
represented, a real criminal was compelled to thrust
his hand into the flame without a murmur, and stand
motionless while it was being burned. Hercules was
compelled to ascend the funeral pyre, and there be
burned alive. The poor slaves and criminals were com-
pelled to play their parts heroically until the flames
enveloped them.

The pirate Gibbs, who Avas executed in New York,
said that when he robbed the first vessel his conscience

SOWING AND REAPING. 135

made a hell in liis bosom ; but after lie liad sailed for
years under the black flag, he could rob a vessel and
murder all the crew, and lie down and sleep soundly.
A man may so accustom himself to error as to be-
come its most devoted slave, and be led to commit the
most fearful crimes in order to defend it, or to prop-
agate it.

When Gordon, the celebrated California stage-driver,
was dying, he put his foot out of the bed and swung it
to and fro. When asked why he did so, he replied, " I
am on the down grade and cannot get my foot on the
brake."

In our great museums you see stone slabs with the
marks of rain that fell hundreds of years before Adam
lived, and the footprint of some wild bird that passed
across the beach in those olden times. The passing
shower and the light foot left their prints on the soft
sediment ; then ages went on, and the sediment hard-
ened into stone ; and there the prints remain, and will
remain forever. So the child, so soft, so susceptible to
all impressions, so joyous to receive new ideas, treas-
ures them all up, gathers them all into itself, and re-
tains them forever.

A tribe of Indians attacked a white settlement and
murdered the few inhabitants. A woman of the tribe,
however, carried away a very young infant, and reared
it as her own. The child grew up with the Indian
children, different in complexion, but like them in
everything else. To scalp the greatest possible number
of enemies was, in his view, the most glorious thing in
the world. While he was still a "youth he was seen by
some white traders, and by them conducted back to
civilized life. He showed great relish for his new life,
and especially a strong desire for knowledge and a
sense of reverence which took the direction of religion,
so that he desired to become a clergyman. He went
through his college course with credit, and was or-

136 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

dained. lie fullilled his function well, and appeared
happy and satisfied. After a few years he went to
serve in a settlement somewhere near the seat of war
which was then going on between Britain and the
United States, and before long there was fighting not
far off. He went forth in his usual dress — black coat
and neat white shirt and neckcloth. When he returned
he was met by a gentleman of his acquaintance, who
was immediately struck by an extraordinary change in
the expression of his face and the flush on his cheek,
and also by his unusually shy and hurried manner.
After asking news of the battle the gentleman observed,
" But you are wounded ? " " No." " Xot wounded !
Why, there is blood upon the bosom of your shirt ! "
The young man quickly crossed his hands firmly upon
his breast ; and his friend, supposing that he wished to
conceal a wound which ought to be looked to, pulled
open his shirt, and saw — what made the young man
let fall his hands in despair. From between his shirt
and his breast the friend took out — a bloody scalp !
"I could not help it," said the poor victim of early
habits, in an agonized voice. He turned and ran, too
swiftly to be overtaken, betook himself to the Indians,
and never more appeared among the whites.

An Indian once brought up a young lion, and finding
him weak and harmless, did not attempt to control
him. Every day the lion gained in strength and be-
came more unmanageable, until at last, when excited
by rage, he fell upon his master and tore him to pieces.
So what seemed to be an " innocent " sin has grown
until it strangled him who was once its easy master.

Beware of looking at sin, for at each view it is apt to
become better looking.

Habit is practically, for a middle-aged person, fate ;
for is it not practically certain that what I have done
for twenty years I shall repeat to-day ? What are the
chances for a man who has been lazy and indolent all

SOWING AND REAPING, 137

his life starting in to-morrow morning to be indns-
trious ; or a spendthrift, frugal ; a libertine, virtuous ;
a profane, foul-mouthed man, clean and chaste ?

A Grecian flute-player charged double fees for pu-
pils who had been taught by inferior masters, on the
ground that it was much harder to undo than to form
habits.

Habit tends to make us permanently what we are
for the moment. We cannot possibly hear, see, feel, or
experience anything which is not woven in the web of
character. What we are this minute and what we do
this minute, what we think this minute, will be read in
the future character as plainly as words spoken into
the phonograph can be reproduced in the future.

" The air itself," says Babbage, " is one vast library
on whose pages are written forever all that man has
ever said, whispered, or done." Every sin you ever
committed becomes your boon companion. It rushes
to your lips every time you speak, and drags its hideous
form into your imagination every time you think. It
throws its shadow across your path whichever way
you turn. Like Banquo's ghost, it will not down. You
are fastened to it for life, and it will cling to you in
the vast forever. Do you think yourself free ? You
are a slave to every sin you ever committed. They
follow your pen and work their own character into
every word you write.

Rectitude is only the confirmed habit of doing what
is right. Some men cannot tell a lie : the habit of
truth telling is fixed, it has become incorporated with
their nature. Their characters bear the indelible stamp
of veracity. You and I know men whose slightest
word is unimpeachable ; nothing could shake our confi-
dence in them. There are other men who cannot speak
the truth : their habitual insincerity has made a twist
in their characters, and this twist appears in their
speech.

138 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

"I never in my life committed more than one act of
folly," said Rulhiere one day in the presence of Talley-
rand. " But where will it end ? " inquired the latter.
It was lifelong. One mistake too many makes all the
difference between safety and destruction.

How many men would like to go to sleep beggars
and wake up Rothschilds or Astors ? How many would
fain go to bed dunces and wake up Solomons ? You
reap what you have sown. Those who have sown dunce-
seed, vice-seed, laziness-seed, always get a crop. They
that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind.

Habit, like a child, repeats whatever is done before
it. Oh, the power of a repeated act to get itself repeated
again and again ! But, like the wind, it is a power
which we can use to force our way in its very teeth as
does the ship, and thus multiply our strength, or we can
drift with it without exertion upon the rocks and shoals
of destruction.

AVhat a great thing it is to "start right" in life.
Every young man can see that the first steps lead to
the last, with all except his own. No, his little pre-
varications and dodgings will not make him a liar, but
he can see that they surely will in John Smithh case.
He can see that others are idle and on the road to ruin,
but cannot see it in his own case.

There is a wonderful relation between bad habits.
They all belong to the same family. If you take in
one, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem,
you will soon have the whole. A man who has formed
the habit of laziness or idleness will soon be late at
his engagements ; a man who does not meet his engage-
ments will dodge, apologize, prevaricate, and lie. I
have rarely known a perfectly truthful man who was
always behind time.

You have seen a ship out in the bay swinging with
the tide and the waves ; the sails are all up, and you
wonder why it does not move ; but it cannot, for down

SOWING AND REAPING. 139

beneath the water it is anchored. So we often see a
young man apparently well equipped, well educated,
and we wonder that he does not advance toward man-
hood and character. But, alas ! we find that he is an-
chored to some secret vice, and he can never advance
until he cuts loose.

" The first crime past compels us into more,
And guilt gxovi?, fate that was but choice before."

" Small habits, well pursued betimes.
May reach the dignity of crimes."

Thousands can sympathize with David when he cried,
" My sins have taken such hold upon me that I am
notable to look up; my heart faileth me." Like the
damned spot of blood on Lady Macbeth's hand, these
foul spots on the imagination will not out. What a
penalty nature exacts for physical sins. The gods are
just, and " of our pleasant vices make instruments to
plague us."

Plato wrote over his door, " Let no one ignorant of
geometry enter here." The greatest value of the study
of the classics and mathematics comes from the habits
of accurate and concise thought which it induces. The
habit-forming portion of life is the dangerous period,
and we need the discipline of close a]3plication to hold
us outside of our studies.

Washington at thirteen wrote one hundred and ten
maxims of civility and good behavior, and was most
careful in the formation of all habits. Franklin, too,
devised a plan of self-improvement and character build-
ing. No doubt the noble characters of these two men,
almost superhuman in their excellence, are the natural
result of their early care and earnest striving towards
perfection.

Fielding, describing a game of cards between Jona-
than Wild, of pilfering propensities, and a professional
gambler, says : " Such was the power of habit over the
minds of these illustrious persons, that Mr. Wild could

140 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

not keep his hands out of the counVs pockets, though
he knew they were empty ; nor could the count abstain
from palming a card, though he was well aware Mr.
Wild had no money to pay him."

"Habit," says Montaigne, " is a violent and treacher-
ous schoolmistress. She, by little and little, slyly and
unperceived, slips in the foot of her authority, but hav-
ing by this gentle and humble beginning, with the aid of
time, fixed and established it, she then unmasks a furi-
ous and tyrannic countenance against which we have no
more the courage nor the power so much as to lift up
our eyes." It led a New York man actually to cut off
his hand with a cleaver under a test of what he would
resort to, to get a glass of whiskey. It has led thou-
sands of nature's noblemen to drunkards' and libertines'
graves.

Gough's life is a startling illustration of the power of
habit, and of the ability of one apparently a hopeless
slave to break his fetters and walk a free man in the
sunlight of heaven. He came to America when nine
years old. Possessed of great powers of song, of mim-
icry, and of acting, and exceedingly social in his tastes,
a thousand temptations

"Widened and strewed with flowers the way
Down to eternal ruin."

" I would give this right hand to redeem those terri-
ble seven years of dissipation and death," he would
often say in after years when, with his soul still scarred
and battered from his conflict with blighting passion,
he tearfully urged young men to free themselves from
the chains of bestial habits.

In the laboratory of Faraday a workman one day
knocked into a jar of acid a silver cup ; it disappeared,
was eaten up by the acid, and could not be found. The
qviestion came up whether it could ever be found. The
great chemist came in and put certain chemicals into
the jar, and every particle of the silver was precipi-

SOWING AND REAPING. 141

tated to the bottom. The mass was then sent to a sil-
versmith, and the cup restored. So a precious youth
who has fallen into the sink of iniquity, lost, dissolved
in sin, can only be restored by the Great Chemist.

What is put into the first of life is put into the whole
of life. ''Out of a church of twenty-seven hundred
members, I have never had to exclude a single one who
was received while a child," said Spurgeon. It is the
earliest sin that exercises the most influence for evil.

Benedict Arnold was the only general in the Eevolu-
tion that disgraced his country. He had great military
talent, wonderful energy, and a courage equal to any
emergency. But Arnold did not start right. Even when
a boy he was despised for his cruelty and his selfish-
ness. He delighted in torturing insects and birds that
he might watch their sufferings. He scattered pieces
of glass and sharp tacks on the floor of the shop he was
tending, to cut the feet of the barefooted boys. Even
in the army, in spite of his bravery, the soldiers hated
him, and the officers dared not trust him.

Let no man trust the first false step
Of guilt; it hangs upon a precipice,
Whose steep descent in last perdition ends.

Young.

Years ago there was a district lying near Westmin-
ster Abbey, London, called the " Devil's Acre," — a
school for vicious habits, where depravity was univer-
sal ; where professional beggars were fitted with all the
appliances of imposture ; where there was an agency
for the hire of children to be cari^ied about by forlorn
widows and deserted wives, to move the compassion of
street-giving benevolence ; where young pickpockets
were trained in the art and mystery which was to con-
duct them in due course to an expensive voyage for the
good of their country to Botany Bay.

Victor Hugo describes a strange association of men in
the seventeenth century who bought children and dis-

142 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

torted and made monstrosities of them to amuse the
nobility with ; and in cultured Boston there is an asso-
ciation of so-called " respectable men," who have oj)ened
thousands of " places of business " for deforming men,
women, and children's souls. But we deform ourselves
with agencies so pleasant that we think we are having a
good time, until we become so changed and enslaved that
we scarcely recognize ourselves. Vice, the pleasant guest
which we first invited into our heart's parlor, becomes
vulgarly familiar, and intrenches herself deep in our very
being. We ask her to leave, but she simply laughs at
us from the hideous wrinkles she has made in our faces,
and refuses to go. Our secret sins defy us from the
hideous furrows they have cut in our cheeks. Each im-
pure thought has chiseled its autograph deep into the
forehead, too deep for erasure ; and the glassy, bleary
eye adds its testimony to our ruined character.

The devil does not apply his match to the hard coal ;
but he first lights the shavings of " innocent sins," and
the shavings the wood, and the wood the coal. Sin is
gradual. It does not break out on a man until it has
long circulated through his system. Murder, adultery,
theft, are not committed in deed until they have been
committed in thought again and again.

" Don't write there," said a man to a boy who was
writing with a diamond pin on a pane of glass in the
window of a hotel. " Why not ? " inquired the boy.
" Because you can't rub it out." Yet the glass might
have been broken and all trace of the writing lost, but
things written upon the human soul can never be re-
moved, for the tablet is immortal.

"In all the wide range of accepted British maxims,"
said Thomas Hughes, " there is none, take it all in all,
more thoroughly abominable than this one, as to the
sowing of wild oats. Look at it on what side you will,
and I defy you to make anything but a devil's maxim
of it. What man, be he young, old, or middle-aged,

SOWING AND REAPING. 143

sows, that, and nothing else, shall he reap. The only
thing to do with wild oats is to put them carefully into
the hottest part of the hre, and get them burnt to dust,
every seed of them. If you sow them, no matter in
what ground, up they will come with long, tough roots
and luxuriant stalks and leaves, as sure as there is a
sun in heave'n. The devil, too, whose special crop they
are, will see that they thrive, and you, and nobody else,
will have to reap them."

We scatter seeds with careless hand,

And dream we ne'er shall see them more;

But for a thousand years

Their fruit appears,

In weeds that mar the land.

John Keble.

Theodora boasted that she could draw Socrates' disci-
ples away from him. " That may be," said the philoso-
pher, " for you lead them down an easy descent whereas
I am forcing them to mount to virtue — an arduous as-
cent and unknown to most men."

" When I am told of a sickly student," said Daniel
Wise, " that he is ' studying himself to death,' or of a
feeble young mechanic, or clerk, that his hard work is
destroying him, I study his countenance, and there, too
often, read the real, melancholy truth in his dull, averted,
sunken eye, discolored skin, and timid manner. These
signs proclaim that the young man is in some way vio-
lating the laws of his physical nature. He is secretl}^
destroying himself. Yet, say his unconscious and ad-
miring friends, ^ He is falling a victim to his own dili-
gence ! ' Most lame and impotent"" conclusion ! He is
sapping the very source of life, and erelong will be a
mind in ruins or a heap of dust. Young man, beware of
his example ! ' Keep thyself pure ; ' observe the laws
of your x^hysical nature, and the most unrelaxing indus-
try will never rob you of a month's health, nor shorten
the thread of your life ; for industry and health are com-
panions, and long life is the heritage of diligence."

144 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

"How shall I a habit break V "
As you did that habit make.
As you gathered, you must lose ;
As you yielded, now refuse.
Thread by thread the strands we twist
Till they bind us neck and wrist.
Thread by thread the patient hand
Must untwine ere free we stand.
As we builded, stone by stone,
"We must toil, unhelped, alone.
Till the wall is overthrown.

But remember, as we try,
Lighter every test goes by;
Wading in, the stream grows deep
Toward the centre's downward sweep;
Backward turn, each step ashore
Shallower is than that before.

Ah, the precious years we waste
Leveling what we raised in haste ;
Doing what must be undone,
Ere content or love be won !
First across the gulf we cast
Kite-borne threads till lines are passed,
And habit builds the bridge at last.

John Boyle O'Reilly.

JAMES A. GARFIELD-,
'The weak, the leaning, the dependent, the vacillating
Know not, nor ever can, the generous pride
That glows in him, who on himself relies :
His joy is not tliat he has won the crown,
But that the power to win the crown is his."

CHAPTER VIII.

SELF-HELP.

I learned that no man in God'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 them-
selves. — Patrick Henry.

Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not

Who would be free themselves must strike the blow ? Byron.

God gives every bird its food, but he does not throw it into the nest. —
J. G. Holland.

Never forget that others will depend upon you, and that you cannot
depend upon them. — Dumas, Fils.

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to Heaven. —
Shakespeare.

The best education in the world is that got by struggling to obtain a liv-
ing. — W^endell Phillips.

Every person has two educations, one which he receives from others,
and one, more important, which he gives himself. — Gibbon.

What the superior man seeks is in himself: what the small man seeks is
in others. — Confucius.

Who waits to have his task marked out.
Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled. Lowell.

In battle or business, whatever the game,
In law, or in love, it 's ever the same :
In the struggle for power, or scramble for pelf,
Let this be your motto, "Rely on yourself." Saxe.

Let every eye negotiate for itself,
And trust no agent. Shakespeare.

^' Colonel Crockett makes room for himself ! " ex-
claimed 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 pre-

146 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

ferred being right to being president. Though rough,
uncultured, and uncouth, Crockett was a man of great
courage and determination.

Garfield was the youngest member of the House of
Eepresentatives 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 suc-
ceeded 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 attitude which belong to you,"
says Emerson, " and all men acquiesce. The world
must be just. It leaves every man with profound un-
concern to set his own rate."

Grant was no book soldier. Some of his victories
were contrary to all instructions in military works.
He did not dare to disclose his plan to invest Vicksburg,
and he even cut off all communication on the Missis-
sippi Eiver for seven days that no orders could reach
him from General Halleck, his superior officer ; for he
knew that Halleck went by books, and he was proceed-
ing contrary to all military theories. He was making a
greater military history than had ever been written up
to that time. He was greater than all books of tactics.
The consciousness of power is everything. That man
is strongest who owes most to himself.

" Man, it is within yourself," says Pestalozzi, " it is
in the inner sense of your power that resides nature's
instrument for your development."

Eichard Arkwright, the thirteenth child, in a hovel,
with no education, no chance, gave his spinning model
to the world, and put a sceptre in England's right hand
such as the queen never wielded.

SELF-HELP. 147

" A person under the firm persuasion that he can com-
mand resources virtually has them/' says Livy.

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
3''ears to learn to paint, and so entitle myself to the
hand of your daughter ? " Consent was given, Coll'
Antonio thinking that he would never be troubled fur-
ther 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 learn-
ing that Solario was the artist. But later, his son-in-
law surprised him even more by his rare skill.

Louis Philippe said he was the only sovereign in
Europe fit to govern, for he could black his own boots.

When asked to name his family coat-of-arms, a self-
made President of the United States replied, " A pair
of shirtsleeves."

"Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify," said
James A. G-arfield ; " 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."

It is not the men who have inherited most, except it
be in nobility of soul and purpose, who have risen high-
est ; but rather the men with no " start " who have won
fortunes, and have made adverse circumstances a spur
to goad them up the steep mount, where

" Fame's proud temple shines afar."

To such men, every possible goal is accessible, and hon-
est ambition has no height that genius or talent may
tread, which has not felt the impress of their feet.

You may leave your millions to your son, but have
you really given him anything ? You cannot transfer

148 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

the discipline, the experience, the power which the ac-
quisition has given you ; you cannot transfer the de-
light of achieving, the joy felt only in growth, the pride
of acquisition, the character which trained habits of
accuracy, method, promptness, patience, dispatch, hon-
esty of dealing, politeness of manner have developed.
You cannot transfer the skill, sagacity, prudence, fore-
sight, which lie concealed in your wealth. It meant a
great deal for you, but means nothing to your heir. In
climbing to your fortune, you developed the muscle,
stamina, and strength which enabled you to maintain
your lofty position, to keep your millions intact. You
had the power which comes only from experience, and
which alone enables you to stand firm on your dizzy
height. Your fortune was experience to you, joy,
growth, discipline, and character ; to him it will be a
temptation, an anxiety, which will probably dAvarf him.
It was wings to you, it will be a dead weight to him ;
it was education to you and expansion of your highest
powers ; to him it may mean inaction, lethargy, indo-
lence, weakness, ignorance. You have taken the price-
less spur — necessity — away from him, the spur which
has goaded man to nearly all the great achievements in
the history of the world.

You thought it a kindness to deprive yourself in order
that your son might begin where you left off. You
thought to spare him the drudgery, the hardships, the
deprivations, the lack of opportunities, the meagre edu-
cation, which you had on the old farm. But you have
put a crutch into his hand instead of a staff ; you have
taken away from him the incentive to self-development,
to self -elevation, to self -discipline and self-help, without
which no real success, no real happiness, no great char-
acter is ever possible. His enthusiasm will evaporate,
his energy will be dissipated, his ambition, not being
stimulated by the struggle for self-elevation, will grad-
ually die away. If you do everything for your son and

SELF-HELP. 149

fight his battles for him, you will have a weakling on
your hands at twenty -one.

*^ My life is a wreck/' said the dying Cyrus W. Field,
^^ my fortune gone, my home dishonored. Oh, I was so
unkind to Edward when I thought I was being kind.
If I had only had firmness enough to compel my boys
to earn their living, then they would have known the
meaning of money." His table was covered with med-
als and certificates of honor from many nations, in
recognition of his great work for civilization in mooring
two continents side by side in thought, of the fame he
had won and could never lose. But grief shook the
sands of life as he thought only of the son who had
brought disgrace upon a name before unsullied ; the
wounds were sharper than those of a serpent's tooth.

During the great financial crisis of 1857 Maria Mitch-
ell, who was visiting England, asked an English lady
what became of daughters when no property was left
them. " They live on their brothers," was the reply.
" But what becomes of the American daughters," asked
the English lady, "when there is no money left?"
" They earn it," was the reply.

Men who have been bolstered up all their lives are
seldom good for anything in a crisis. When misfortune
comes, they look around for somebody to lean upon.
If the prop is not there down they go. Once down, they
are as helpless as capsized turtles, or unhorsed men in
armor. Many a frontier boy has succeeded beyond all
his expectations simply because all props were knocked
out from under him and he was obliged to stand upon
his own feet.

" A man's best friends are his ten fingers," said Rob-
ert CoUyer, who brought his wife to America in the
steerage. Young men who are always looking for some-
thing to lean upon never amount to anything.

There is no manhood mill which takes in boys and
turns out men. What you call " no chance " may be

150 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

your " only chance." Don't wait for your place to be
made for 3^ou ; make it yourself. Don't wait for some-
body to give you a lift ; lift yourself. Henry Ward
Beecher did not wait for a call to a big church with a
large salary. He accepted the first pastorate offered
him, in a little town near Cincinnati. He became liter-
ally the light of the church, for he trimmed the lamps,
kindled the fires, swept the rooms, and rang the bell.
His salary was only about $200 a year, — but he knew
that a fine church and great salary cannot make a great
man. It was work and opportunity that he wanted.
,He felt that if there was anything in him work would
bring it out.

'' Physiologists tell us," says Waters, "that it takes
twenty-eight years for the brain to attain its full devel-
opment. If this is so, why should not one be able, by
his own efforts, to give this long-growing organ a par-
ticular bent, a peculiar character ? Why should the
will not be brought to bear upon the formation of the
brain as well as of the backbone ? " The will is merely
our steam power, and we may put it to any work we
please. It will do our bidding, whether it be building
up a character, or tearing it down. It may be applied
to building up a habit of truthfulness and honesty, or
of falsehood and dishonor. It will help build up a man
or a brute, a hero or a coward. It will brace up reso-
lution until one may almost perform miracles, or it may
be dissipated in irresolution and inaction until life is a
wreck. It will hold you to your task until you have
formed a powerful habit of industry and application,
until idleness and inaction are painful, or it will lead
you into indolence and listlessness until every effort
will be disagreeable and success impossible.

" The first thing I have to impress upon you is," says
J. T. Davidson, " that a good name must be the fruit of
one's own exertion. You cannot possess it by patri-
mony ; you cannot purchase it with money ; you will

SELF-HELP. 151

not light on it by chance ; it is independent of birth,
station, talents, and wealth ; it must be the outcome of
your own endeavor, and the reward of good principles
and honorable conduct. Of all the elements of success
in life none is more vital than self-reliance, — a deter-
mination to be, under God, the creator of your own
reputation and advancement. If difficulties stand in the
way, if exceptional disadvantages oppose you, all the
better, as long as you have pluck to fight through them;
I want each young man here (you will not misunder-
stand me) to have faith in himself and, scorning props
and buttresses, crutches and life-preservers, to take ear-
nest hold of life. Many a lad has good stuff in him that
never comes to anything because he slips too easily into
some groove of life ; it is commonly those who have a
tough battle to begin with that make their mark upon
their age."

When Beethoven was examining the work of Mosche-
les, he found written at the end " Finis, with God's help.'^
He wrote under it " Man, help yourself.'^

A young man stood listlessly watching some anglers
on a bridge. He was poor and dejected. At length,
approaching a basket filled with fish, he sighed, "If
now I had these I would be happy. I could sell them
and buy food and lodgings." " I will give you just as
many and just as good," said the owner, who chanced
to overhear his words, " if you will do me a trifling fa-
vor." " And what is that ? " asked the other. " Only
to tend this line till I come back ; I wish to go on a
short errand." The proposal was gladly accepted. The
old man was gone so long that the young man began to
get impatient. Meanwhile the fish snapped greedily at
the hook, and he lost all his depression in the excite-
ment of pulling them in. When the owner returned he
had caught a large number. Counting out from them
as many as were in the basket, and presenting them to
the youth, the old fisherman said, " I fulfill my prom-

152 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

ise from the fish you have caught, to teach you when-
ever you see others earning what you need to waste no
time in foolish wishing, but cast a line for yourself."

A white squall caught a party of tourists on a lake in
Scotland, and threatened to capsize the boat. When it
seemed that the crisis was really come the largest and
strongest man in the party, in a state of intense fear,
said, "Let us pray." "No, no, my man," shouted the
bluff old boatman ; " let the little mian pray. You take
an oar.^^ The greatest curse that can befall a young
man is to lean.

The grandest fortunes ever accumulated or possessed
on earth were and are the fruit of endeavor that had no
capital to begin with save energy, intellect, and the
will. From Croesus down to Eockefeller the story is
the same, not only in the getting of wealth, but also in
the acquirement of eminence ; those men have won most
who relied most upon themselves.

It has been said that one of the most disgusting
sights in this world is that of a young man with healthy
blood, broad shoulders, presentable calves, and a hun-
dred and fifty pounds, more or less, of good bone and
muscle, standing with his hands in his pockets longing
for help.

" The male inhabitants in the Township of Loafer-
dom, in the County of Hate work," says a printer's
squib, "found themselves laboring under great incon-
venience for wa,nt of an easily traveled road between
Poverty and Independence. They therefore petitioned
the Powers that be to levy a tax upon the property of
the entire county for the purpose of laying out a mac-
adamized highway, broad and smooth, and all the way
down hill to the latter place."

"It is interesting to notice how some minds seem
almost to create themselves," says Irving, "springing
up under every disadvantage, and working their solitary
but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles."

MICHAEL FARADAY
" King of two hands."
" The world is no longer clay, but rather iron in the hands of its workers, and
men must liammer out a place for themselves by steady and rugged blows."

SELF-HELP. 153

" Every one is the artificer of his own fortune/' says
Sallust.

Man is not merely the architect of his own fortune,
but he must lay the bricks himself. Bayard Taylor, at
twent}' -three, wrote : " I will become the sculptor of
my own mind's statue." His biography shows how
often the chisel and hammer were in his hands to shape
himself into his ideal. " I have seen none, known none,
of the celebrities of my time," said Samuel Cox. " All
my energy was directed upon one end, to improve my-
self."

" Man exists for culture," says Goethe ; " not for
what he can accomplish, but for what can be accom-
plished in him."

When young Professor Tyndall was in the govern-
ment service, he had no definite aim in life until one
day a government ofiicial asked him how he employed
his leisure time. " You have five hours a day at your
disposal," said he, ^'and this ought to be devoted to
systematic study. Had I at your age some one to ad-
vise me as I now advise you, instead of being in a sub-
ordinate position, I might have been at the head of my
department." The very next day young Tyndall began
a regular course of study, and went to the University
of Marburg, where he became noted for his indomitable
industry. He was so poor that he bought a cask, and cut
it open for a bathtub. He often rose before daylight
to study, while the world was slumbering about him.

Labor is the only legal tender in the world to true
success. The gods sell everything for that, nothing
without it. You will never find success " marked down."
The door to the temple of success is never left open.
Every one who enters makes his own door which closes
behind him to all others.

Circumstances have rarely favored great men. They
have fought their way to triumph over the road of diflB.-
culty and through all sorts of opposition. A lowly be-

154 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

ginning and a humble origin are no bar to a great career.
The farmers' boys fill many of the greatest places in
legislatures, in syndicates, at the bar, in pulpits, in
Congress, to-day. Boys of lowly origin have made
many of the greatest discoveries, are presidents of our
banks, of our colleges, of our universities. Our poor
boys and girls have written many of our greatest books,
and have filled the highest places as teachers and
journalists. Ask almost any great man in our large
cities where he was born, and he will tell you it was on
a farm or in a small country village. ^N'early all of the
great capitalists of the city came from the country.
" 'T is better to be lowly born."

The founder of Boston University left Cape Cod for
Boston to make his way with a capital of only four dol-
lars. Like Horace Greeley, he could find no opening
for a boy ; but what of that ? He made an opening.
He found a board, and made it into an oyster stand on
the street corner. He borrowed a wheelbarrow, and
went three miles to an oyster smack, bought three bush-
els of oysters, and wheeled them to his stand. Soon
his little savings amounted to ^130, and then he bought
a horse and cart. This poor boy with no chance kept
right on till he became the millionaire Isaac Eich.

Chauncey Jerome, the inventor of machine-made
clocks, started with two others on a tour through New
Jersey, they to sell the clocks, and he to make cases for
them. On his way to New York he went through New
Haven in a lumber wagon, eating bread and cheese.
He afterward lived in a fine mansion in New Haven.

Self-help has accomplished about all the great things
of the world. How many young men falter, faint, and
dally with their purpose because they have no capital
to start with, and wait and wait for some good luck to
give them a lift. But success is the child of drudgery
and perseverance. It cannot be coaxed or bribed ; pay
the price and it is yours. Where is the boy to-day who

SELF-HELP. 155

has less chance to rise in the workl than Elihu Burritt,
apprenticed to a blacksmith, in whose shop he had to
work at the forge all the daylight, and often by candle-
light ? Yet, he managed, by studying with a book be-
fore him at his meals, carrying it in his pocket that he
might utilize every spare moment, and studying nights
and holidays, to pick up an excellent education in the
odds and ends of time which most boys throw away.
While the rich boy and the idler were yawning and
stretching and getting their eyes open, young Burritt
had seized the opportunity and improved it. At thirty
years of age he was master of every important language
in Europe and was studying those of Asia.

What chance had such a boy for distinction ? Prob-
ably not a single youth will read this book who has not
a better opportunity for success. Yet he had a thirst
for knowledge, and a desire for self-improvement, which
overcame every obstacle in his pathway. A wealthy
gentleman offered to pay his expenses at Harvard ; but
no, he said he could get his education himself, even
though he had to work twelve or fourteen hours a day at
the forge. Here was a determined boy. He snatched
every spare moment at the anvil and forge as though it
were gold. He believed, with Gladstone, that thrift of
time would repay him in after years with usury, and that
waste of it would make him dwindle. Think of a boy
working nearly all the daylight in a blacksmith's shop,
and yet finding time to study seven languages in a sin-
gle year !

If the youth of America who are struggling against
cruel circumstances, to do something and be somebody in
*the world, could only understand that ninety per cent,
of what is called genius is merely the result of persist-
ent, determined industr}^, is in most cases downright
hard work, that it is the slavery to a single idea which
has given to many a mediocre talent the reputation of
being a genius, they would be inspired with new hope.

156 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

It is interesting to note that the men who talk most
about genius are the men who like to work the least.
The lazier the man, the more he will have to say about
great things being done by genius.

The greatest geniuses have been the greatest workers.
Sheridan was considered a genius, but it was found that
the " brilliants " and " off-hand sayings " with which he
used to dazzle the House of Commons were elaborated,
polished and repolished, and put down in his memoran-
dum book ready for any emergency.

Genius has been well defined as the infinite capacity
for taking pains. If men who have done great things
could only reveal to the struggling youth of to-day how
much of their reputations was due to downright hard
digging and plodding, what an uplift of inspiration and
encouragement they would give. How often I have
wished that the discouraged, struggling youth could
know of the heart-aches, the head-aches, the nerve-aches,
the disheartening trials, the discouraged hours, the fears
and despair involved in works which have gained the
admiration of the world, but which have taxed the ut-
most powers of their authors. You can read in a few
minutes or a few hours a poem or a book with only
pleasure and delight, but the days and months of weary
plodding over details and dreary drudgery often re-
quired to produce it would stagger belief.

The greatest works in literature have been elaborated
and elaborated, line by line, paragraph by paragraph,
often rcAvritten a dozen times. The drudgery which
literary men have put into the productions which have
stood the test of time is almost incredible. Lucretius
worked nearly a lifetime on one poem. It completely
absorbed his life. It is said that Bryant rewrote
" Thanatopsis " a hundred times, and even then was
not satisfied with it. John Foster would sometimes
linger a week over a single sentence. He would hack,
split, prune, pull up by the roots, or practice any other

SELF-HELP. 157

severity on whatever he wrote, till it gained his consent
to exist. Chalmers was once asked what Foster was
about in London. " Hard at it/' he replied, " at the
rate of a line a week." Dickens, one of the greatest
writers of modern fiction, was so worn down by hard
work that he looked as "haggard as a murderer."
Even Lord Bacon, one of the greatest geniuses that
ever lived, left large numbers of MSS. filled with
" sudden thoughts set down for use." Hume toiled thir-
teen hours a day on his " History of England." Lord
Eldon astonished the world with his great legal learn-
ing, but when he was a student too poor to buy books,
he had actually borrowed and copied many hundreds of
pages of large law books, such as Coke upon Littleton,
thus saturating his mind with legal principles which
afterward blossomed out into what the world called
remarkable genius. Matthew Hale for years studied
law sixteen hours a day. Speaking of Fox, some one
declared that he wrote " drop by drop." Eousseau says
of the labor involved in his smooth and lively style :
"My manuscripts, blotted, scratched, interlined, and
scarcely legible, attest the trouble they cost me. There
is not one of them which I have not been obliged to
transcribe four or five times before it went to press.
. . . Some of my periods I have turned or returned in
my head for five or six nights before they were fit to
be put to paper."

It is said that Waller spent a whole summer over ten
lines in one of his poems. Beethoven probably sur-
passed all other musicians in his painstaking fidelity
and persistent application. There is scarcely a bar in
his music that was not written and rewritten at least
a dozen times. His favorite maxim was, " The barriers
are not yet erected which can say to aspiring talent and
industry ' thus far and no further.' " Gibbon wrote
his autobiography nine times, and was in his study
every morning, summer and winter, at six o'clock ;

158 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

and yet youth who waste their evenings wonder at
the genius which can produce " The Decline and Fall
of the Koman Empire/' upon which Gibbon worked
twenty years. Even Plato, one of the greatest writers
that ever lived, wrote the first sentence in his " Kepub-
lic" nine different ways before he was satisfied with
it. Burke's famous " Letter to a Noble Lord," one of
the finest things in the English language, was so com-
pletely blotted over with alterations when the proof
was returned to the printing-oliice that the compositors
refused to correct it as it was, and entirely reset it.
Burke wrote the conclusion of his speech at the trial
of Hastings sixteen times, and Butler wrote his famous
" Analogy " twenty times. It took Virgil seven years
to write his Georgics, and twelve years to write the
uEneid. He was so displeased with the latter that he
attempted to rise from his deathbed to commit it to
the flames.

Haydn was very poor; his father was a coachman
and he, friendless and lonely, married a servant girl.
He was sent away from home to act as errand boy for
a music teacher. He absorbed a great deal of informar
tion, but he had a hard life of persecution until he be-
came a barber in Vienna. Here he blacked boots for
an influential man, who became a friend to him. In
1798 this poor boy's oratorio, "The Creation," came
upon the musical world like the rising of a new sun
which never set. He was courted by princes and dined
with kings and queens ; his reputation was made ; there
was no more barbering, no more poverty. But of his
eight hundred compositions, "The Creation" eclipsed
them all. He died while Napoleon's guns were bom-
barding Vienna, some of the shot falling in his gar-
den. The greatest creations of musicians were written
with an effort, to fill the " aching void " in the human
heart.

Frederick Douglass, America's most representative

SELF-HELP. 159

colored man, born a slave, was reared in bondage, liber-
ated by liis own exertions, educated and advanced by
sheer pluck and perseverance to distinguished posi-
tions in the service of his country, and to a high place
in the respect and esteem of the whole world.

When a man like Lord Cavanagh, without arms or
legs, manages to put himself into Parliament, when a
man like Francis Joseph Campbell, a blind man, be-
comes a distinguished mathematician, a musician, and a
great philanthropist, we get a hint as to what it means
to make the most possible out of ourselves and oppor-
tunities. Perhaps ninety-nine out of a hundred under
such unfortunate circumstances would be content to
remain helpless objects of charity for life. If it is your
call to acquire money power instead of brain power, to
acquire business power instead of professional power,
double your talent just the same, no matter what it may
be.

A glover's apprentice of Glasgow, Scotland, who was
too poor to afford even a candle or a fire, and who
studied by the light of the shop windows in the streets,
and when the shops were closed climbed the lamp-post,
holding his book in one hand, and clinging to the
lamp-post with the other, — this poor boy, with less
chance than almost any boy in America, became the
most eminent scholar of Scotland.

Francis Parkman, half blind, became one of Amer-
ica's greatest historians in spite of everything, because
he made himself such. Personal value is a coin of one's
own minting; one is taken at the worth he has put
into himself. Franklin was but a poor printer's boy,
whose highest luxury at one time was only a penny roll,
eaten in the streets of Philadelphia. Eichard Ark-
wright, a barber all his earlier life, as he rose from
poverty to wealth and fame, felt the need of correcting
the defects of his early education. After his fiftieth
year he devoted two hours a day, snatched from his

160 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

sleep, to improving himself in orthography, grammar,
and writing.

Michael Faraday was a poor boy, son of a black-
smith, who apprenticed him at the age of thirteen to a
bookbinder in London. Michael laid the foundations
of his future greatness by making himself familiar with
the contents of the books he bound. He remained at
night, after others had gone, to read and study the
precious volumes. Lord Tenterden was proud to point
out to his son the shop where his father had shaved
for a penny. A French doctor once taunted Flechier,
Bishop of Nismes, who had been a tallow-chandler in
his youth, with the meanness of his origin, to which he
replied, " If you had been born in the same condition
that I was, you would still have been but a maker of
candles."

The Duke of Argyle, walking in his garden, saw a
Latin copy of Newton's " Principia " on the grass, and
supposing that it had been taken from his library, called
for some one to carry it back. Edmund Stone, however,
the son of the duke's gardener, claimed it. " Yours ? "
asked the surprised nobleman. " Do you understand
geometry, Latin, and Newton ? " "I know a little of
them," replied Edmund. " But how," asked the duke,
" came you by the knowledge of all these things ? " "A
servant taught me to read ten years since," answered
Stone. " Does one need to know anything more than
the twenty-four letters, in order to learn everything
else that one wishes ? " The duke was astonished. " I
first learned to read," said the lad ; " the masons were
then at work upon your house. I approached them one
day and observed that the architect used a rule and com-
passes, and that he made calculations. I inquired what
might be the meaning and use of these things, and I
was informed that there was a science called arithmetic.
I purchased a book of arithmetic and learned it. I was
told that there was another science called geometrj^ ; I

SELF-HELP. 161

bought the necessary books and learned geometry. By
reading I found that there were good books on these
sciences in Latin, so I bought a dictionary and learned
Latin. I understood, also, that there were good books
of the same kind in French ; I bought a dictionary, and
learned French. This, my lord, is what I have done j
it seems to me that we may learn everytliing when we
know the twenty-four letters of the alphabet."

Edwin Chadwick, in his rex3ort to the British Parlia-
ment, stated that children, working on half time, that
is, studying three hours a day and working the rest of
their time out of doors, really made the greatest intel-
lectual progress during the year. Business men have
often accomplished wonders during the busiest lives by
simply devoting one, two, three, or four hours daily to
study or other literary work.

James Watt received only the rudiments of an educa-
tion at school, for his attendance was irregular on ac-
count of delicate health. He more than made up for
all deficiencies, however, by the diligence with which
he pursued his studies at home. Alexander V. was a
beggar ; he was "born mud, and died marble." William
Herschel, placed at the age of fourteen as a musician
in the band of the Hanoverian Guards, devoted all his
leisure to philosophical studies. He acquired a large
fund of general knowledge, and in astronomy, a science
in which he was wholly self-instructed, his discoveries
entitle him to rank with the greatest astronomers of
all time.

George Washington was the son of a widow, born
under the roof of a Westmoreland farmer ; almost from
infancy his lot had been the lot of an orphan. No
academy had welcomed him to its shade, no college
crowned him with its honors ; to read, to write, to ci-
pher, these had been his degrees in knowledge. Shake-
speare learned little more than reading and writing
at school, but by self-culture he made himself the great

162 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

master among literary men. Burns, too, enjoyed few
advantages of education, and his youth was passed in
almost abject poverty.

James Ferguson, the son of a half-starved peasant,
learned to read by listening to the recitations of one
of his elder brothers. While a mere boy he discovered
several mechanical j)rinciples, made models of mills and
spinning - wheels, and by means of beads on strings
worked out an excellent map of the heavens. Fergu-
son made remarkable things with a common penknife.
How many great men have mounted the hill of know-
ledge by out-of-the-way paths. Gifford worked his in-
tricate problems with a shoemaker's awl on a bit of
leather. Eittenhouse first calculated eclipses on his
plow-handle. A willfiiids a ivay.

Julius Caesar, who has been unduly honored for those
great military achievements in which he appears as the
scourge of his race, is far more deserving of respect
for those wonderful Commentaries, in which his mili-
tary exploits are recorded. He attained distinction by
his writings on astronomy, grammar, history, and sev-
eral other subjects. He was one of the most learned
men and one of the greatest orators of his time. Yet
his life was spent amid the turmoil of a camp or the
fierce struggle of politics. If he found abundant time
for study, who may not ? Frederick the Great, too,
was busy in camp the greater part of his life, yet
whenever a leisure moment came, it was sure to be de-
voted to study. He wrote to a friend, " I become every
day more covetous of my time ; I render an account
of it to myself, and I lose none of it but with great
regret."

Columbus, while leading the life of a sailor, managed
to become the most accomplished geographer and as-
tronomer of his time.

When Peter the Great, a boy of seventeen, beca^me
the absolute ruler of Russia, his subjects were little bet-

SELF-HELP. 163

ter than savages, and in himself, even, the passions and
propensities of barbarism were so strong that they were
frequently exhibited during his whole career. But he
determined to transform himself and the Russians into
civilized people. He instituted reforms with great en-
ergy, and at the age of twenty-six started on a visit to
the other countries of Europe for the purpose of learn-
ing about their arts and institutions. At Saardam,
Holland, he was so impressed with the sights of the
great East India dockyard, that he apprenticed himself
to a shipbuilder, and helped build the St. Peter, which
he promptly purchased. Continuing his travels, after
he had learned his trade, he worked in England in
paper-mills, saw-mills, rope-yards, watchmaker's shops,
and other manufactories, doing the work and receiving
the treatment of a common laborer.

While traveling, his constant habit was to obtain as
much information as he could beforehand with regard
to every place he was to visit, and he would demand,
" Let me see all." When setting out on his investiga-
tions, on such occasions, he carried his tablets in his
hand, and whatever he deemed worthy of remembrance
was carefully noted down. He would often leave his
carriage, if he saw the country people at work by the
wayside as he passed along, and not only enter into
conversation with them, on agricultural affairs, but ac-
company them to their houses, examine their furniture,
and take drawings of their implements of husbandry.
Thus he obtained much minute and correct knowledge,
which he would scarcely have acquired by other means,
and which he afterward turned to" admirable account in
the improvement of his own country.

The ancients said, " Know thyself ; " the nineteenth
century says, " Help thyself." Self-culture gives a sec-
ond birth to the soul. A liberal education is a true
regeneration. When a man is once liberally educated,
he will generally remain a man, not shrink to a manikin,

164 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

nor dwindle to a brute. But if he is not properly edu-
cated, if he has merely been crammed and stuffed
through college, if he has merely a broken-down mem-
ory from trying to hold crammed facts euough to pass
the examination, he will continue to shrink and shrivel
and dwindle, often below his original proportions, for
he will lose both his confidence and self-respect, as his
crammed facts, which never became a part of himself,
evaporate from his distended memory. Many a youth
has made his greatest effort in his graduating essay.
But, alas ! the beautiful flowers of rhetoric blossomed
only to exhaust the parent stock, which blossoms no
more forever.

In Strasburg geese are crammed with food several
times a day by opening their mouths and forcing the
pabulum down the throat with the finger. The geese
are shut up in boxes just large enough to hold them,
and are not allowed to take any exercise. This is done
in order to increase enormously the liver for pate de
fois gras. So are our youth sometimes stuffed with
education. AVhat are the chances for success of students
who "cut" recitations or lectures, and gad, lounge
about, and dissipate in the cities at night until the last
two or three weeks, sometimes the last few days, before
examination, when they employ tutors at exorbitant
prices with the money often earned by hard-working
parents, to stuff their idle brains with the pabulum of
knowledge ; not to increase their grasp or power of brain,
not to discipline it, not for assimilation into the mental
tissue to develop personal power, but to fatten the
memory, the liver of the brain ; to fatten it Avith
crammed facts until it is sufficiently expanded to insure
fifty per cent, in the examination.

True teaching will create a thirst for knowledge, and
the desire to quench this thirst will lead the eager
student to the Pierian spring. " Man might be so edu-
cated that all his prepossessions would be truth, and all
his feelings virtues."

SELF-HELP. 165

Every bit of education or culture is of great advantage
in the struggle for existence. The microscope does not
create anything new, but it reveals marvels. To educate
the eye adds to its magnifying power until it sees
beauty where before it saw only ugliness. It reveals a
world we never suspected, and finds the greatest beauty
even in the commonest things. The eye of an Agassiz
could see worlds which the uneducated eye never
dreamed of. The cultured hand can do a thousand
things the uneducated hand cannot do. It becomes
graceful, steady of nerve, strong, skillful, indeed it
almost seems to think, so animated is it with intelli-
gence. The cultured will can seize, grasp, and hold the
possessor, with irresistible power and nerve, to almost
superhuman effort. The educated touch can almost
perform miracles. The educated taste can achieve won-
ders almost past belief. What a contrast this, between
the cultured, logical, profound, masterly reason of a
Gladstone and that of the hod-carrier who has never
developed or educated his reason beyond what is neces-
sary to enable him to mix mortar and carry brick.

" Culture comes from the constant choice of the best
within our reach," says Bulwer. " Continue to cultivate
the mind, to sharpen by exercise the genius, to attempt
to delight or instruct your race ; and, even supposing
you fall short of every model you set before you, sup-
posing your name moulder with your dust, still you will
have passed life more nobly than the unlaborious herd.
Grant that you win not that glorious accident, ' a name
below,' how can you tell but that you may have fitted
yourself for high destiny and employ, not in the world
of men, but of spirits ? The powers of the mind cannot
be less immortal than the mere sense of identity ; their
acquisitions accompany us through the Eternal Prog-
ress, and we may obtain a lower or a higher grade
hereafter, in proportion as we are more or less fitted by
the exercise of our intellect to comprehend and execute
the solemn agencies of God."

166 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

But be careful to avoid that over-intellectual culture
which is purchased at the expense of moral vigor. An
observant professor of one of our colleges has remarked
that " the mind may be so rounded and polished by
education, so well balanced, as not to be energetic in
any one faculty. In other men not thus trained, the
sense of deficiency and of the sharp, jagged corners of
their knowledge leads to efforts to fill up the chasms,
rendering them at last far better educated men than the
polished, easy-going graduate who has just knowledge
enough to x^revent consciousness of his ignorance.
AVhile all the faculties of the mind should be culti-
vated, it is yet desirable that it should have two or
three rough-hewn features of massive strength. Young
men are too apt to forget the great end of life which is
to be and do, not to read and brood over what other
men have been and done."

In a gymnasium you tug, you expand your chest, you
push, pull, strike, run, in order to develop your physi-
cal self ; so you can develop your moral and intellec-
tual nature only by continued effort.

"I repeat that my object is not to give him know-
ledge but to teach him how to acquire it at need," said
Eousseau.

All learning is self-teaching. It is upon the working
of the pupil's own mind that his progress in knowledge
depends. The great business of the master is to teach
the pupil to teach himself.

" Thinking, not growth, makes manhood," says Isaac
Taylor. "Accustom yourself, therefore, to thinking.
Set yourself to understand whatever you see or read.
To join thinking with reading is one of the first maxims,
and one of the easiest operations."

*' How few think justly of the thinking few:
How many never think who think they do."

THOMAS ALVA EDISON
" The Wizard of Menlo Park."

" What tlie uorld wants is men who have the nerve and tlie grit to work and
wait, whether tlie world applaud or hiss."

CHAPTER IX.

WORK AND WAIT.

What we do upon some great occasion will probably depend on what we
already are ; and what we are will be the result of previous years of self-
discipline. —H. P. LiDDON.

In all matters, before beginning, a diligent preparation should be made.

— CiCKRO.

I consider a human soul without education like marble in a quarry,
which shows none of its inherent beauties until the skill of the polisher
sketches out the colors, makes the surface shine, and discovers every
ornamental cloud, spot, and vein that runs throughout the body of it. —
Addison.

Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thou-
sand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed. — Geokge Henry
Lewes.

Use your gifts faithfully, and they shall be enlarged ; practice what you
know, and you shall attain to higher knowledge. — Arnold.

All good abides with him who waiteth wisel^v. — Thoreau.

The more haste, ever the worse speed. — Churchill.

Haste trips up its own heels, fetters and stops itself. — Seneca..

" Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast."

How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had the seed-
time of character ? — Thoreau.

I call a complete and generous education that which fits a man to per-
form justly, skillfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both public and
private, of peace and war. — Milton.

The safe path to excellence and success, in every calling, is that of ap-
propriate preliminary education, diligent application to learn the art and
assiduity in practicing it. — Edward Everett.

The more you know, the more you can save 3'ourself and that which be-
longs to 3'ou, and do more work with less effort. — Charles Kingsley.

" I WAS a mere cipher in that vast sea of human en-
terprise," said Henry Bessemer, speaking of his arrival
in London in 1831. Although but eighteen years old,
and without an acquaintance in the city, he soon made
work for himself by inventing a process of copying bas-
reliefs on cardboard. His method was so simple that

168 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

one could learn in ten minutes liow to make a die from
an embossed stamp for a penny. Having ascertained
later that in this way the raised stamps on all official
papers in England could easily be forged, he set to
work and invented a perforated stamp which could not
be forged nor removed from a document. At the pub-
lic stamp office he was told by the chief that the
government was losing £100,000 a year through the
custom of removing stamps from old parchments and
using them again. The chief also appreciated the new
danger of easy counterfeiting. So he offered Bessemer
a definite sum for his process of perforation, or an office
for life at eight hundred pounds a year. Bessemer
chose the office, and hastened to tell the good news to a
young woman with whom he had agreed to share his
fortune. In explaining his invention, he told how it
would prevent any one from taking a valuable stamp
from a document a hundred years old and using it a
second time.

" Yes," said his betrothed, "I understand that ; but,
surely, if all stamps had a date put upon them they
could not at a future time be used without detection."

This was a very short speech, and of no sx^ecial im-
portance if we omit a single word of four letters ; but,
like the schoolboy's pins which saved the lives of thou-
sands of people annually by not getting swallowed, that
little word, by keeping out of the ponderous minds of
the British revenue officers, had for a long period saved
the government the burden of caring for an additional
income of £100,000 a year. And the same little word,
if published in its connection, would render Henry's
perforation device of far less value than a last year's
bird's nest. Henry felt proud of the young woman's
ingenuity, and suggested the improvement at the stamp
office. As a result his system of perforation was aban-
doned and he was deprived of his promised office, the
government coolly making use from that day to this,

WORK AND WAIT. 169

without compensation, of the idea conveyed by that
little insignificant word.

So Bessemer's financial prospects were not very en-
couraging ; but, realizing that the best capital a young
man can have is a capital wife, he at once entered into
a partnership which placed at his command the com-
bined ideas of two very level heads. The result, after
years of thought and experiment, was the Bessemer
process of making steel cheaply, which has revolution-
ized the iron industry throughout the world. His
method consists simply in forcing hot air from below
into several tons of melted pig-iron, so as to produce in-
tense combustion ; and then adding enough spiegel-eisen
(looking-glass iron), an ore rich in carbon, to change the
whole mass to steel. He discovered this simple process
only after trying in vain much more difficult and expen-
sive methods.

" All things come round to him who will but wait."

The great lack of the age is want of thoroughness.
How seldom you find a young man or woman who is
willing to take time to prepare for his life work. A
little education is all they want, a little smattering of
books, and then they are ready for business.

" Can't wait " is characteristic of the century, and is
written on everything ; on commerce, on schools, on
society, on churches. Can't wait for a high school, sem-
inary, or college. The boy can't wait to become a youth,
nor the youth a man. Youth rush into business with
no great reserve of education or drill ; of course they do
poor, feverish work, and break down in middle life, and
many die of old age in the forties. Everybody is in a
hurry. Buildings are rushed up so quickly that they
will not stand, and everything is made " to sell."

Not long ago a professor in one of our universities
had a letter from a young woman in the West, asking
him if he did not think she could teach elocution if she
could come to the university and take twelve lessons.

170 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

Our young people of to-day want something, and want it
quickly. They are not willing to lay broad, deep founda-
tions. The weary years in preparatory school and col-
lege dishearten them. They only want a " smattering "
of an education. But as Pope says, —

" A little learning is a dangerous thing ;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again."

The shifts to cover up ignorance, and "the constant
trembling lest some blunder should expose one's empti-
ness/' are pitiable. Short cuts and abridged methods
are the demand of the hour. But the way to shorten
the road to success is to take plenty of time to lay in
your reserve power. You can't stop to forage your
provender as the army advances ; if you do the enemy
will get there first. Hard work, a definite aim, and
faithfulness, will shorten the way. Don't risk a life's
superstructure upon a day's foundation.

Unless you have prepared yourself to profit by your
chance, the opportunity will only make you ridiculous.
A great occasion is valuable to you just in proportion as
you have educated yourself to make use of it. Beware
of that fatal facility of thoughtless speech and super-
ficial action which has misled many a young man into
the belief that he could make a glib tongue or a deft
hand take the place of deep study or hard work.

Patience is nature's motto. She works ages to bring
a flower to perfection. What will she not do for the
greatest of her creation ? Ages and aeons are nothing
to her, out of them she has been carving her great
statue, a perfect man.

Johnson said a man must turn over half a library to
write one book. When an authoress told Wordsworth
she had spent six hours on a poem, he replied that he
would have spent six weeks. Think of Bishop Hall
spending thirty years on one of his works. Owens

WORK AND WAIT. 171

was working on the " Commentary to the Epistle to the
Hebrews " for twenty years. Moore spent several weeks
on one of his musical stanzas which reads as if it were
a dash of genius. Carlyle wrote with the utmost diffi-
culty, and never executed a page of his great histories
till he had consulted every known authority, so that
every sentence is the quintessence of many books, the
product of many hours of drudging research in the great
libraries. To-day, " Sartor Resartus " is everywhere.
"You can get it for a mere trifle at almost any book-
seller's, and hundreds of thousands of copies are scat-
tered over the world. But when Carlyle brought it to
London in 1851, it was refused almost contemptuously
by three prominent publishers. At last he managed to
get it into " Eraser's Magazine," the editor of which con-
veyed to the author the pleasing information that his
work had been received with "unqualified disappro-
bation." Henry Ward Beecher sent a half dozen arti-
cles to the publisher of a religious paper to pay for his
subscription, but they were respectfully declined. The
publishers of the " Atlantic Monthly " returned Miss Al-
cott's manuscript, suggesting that she had better stick to
teaching. One of the leading magazines ridiculed Ten-
nyson's first poems, and consigned the young poet to
oblivion. Only one of Ralph Waldo Emerson's books
had a remunerative sale. Washington Irving was
nearly seventy years old before the income from his
books paid the expenses of his household.

In some respects it is very unfortunate that the old
system of binding boys out to a trade has been aban-
doned. To-day very few boys learn any trade. They
pick up what they know, as they go along, just as a
student crams for a particular examination, just to "get
through," without any effort to see how much he may
learn on any subject.

Think of an American youth spending twelve years
with Michael Angelo, studying anatomy that he might

172 ARCHITECTS OF FATE,

create the masterpiece of all art ; or with Da Yinci de-
voting ten years to the model of an equestrian statue
that he might master the anatomy of the horse. Most
young American artists would expect, in a quarter of
that time, to sculpture an Apollo Belvidere. While
Michael Angelo was painting the Sistine Chapel he
would not allow himself time for meals or to dress
or undress ; but he kept bread within reach that he
might eat when hunger impelled, and he slept in his
clothes.

A rich man asked Howard Burnett to do a little thing
for his album. Burnett complied and charged a thou-
sand francs. " But it took you only five minutes," ob-
jected the rich man. " Yes, but it took me thirty years
to learn how to do it in five minutes."

" I prepared that sermon," said a young sprig of di-
vinity, " in half an hour, and preached it at once, and
thought nothing of it." " In that," said an older min-
ister, " your hearers are at one with you, for they also
thought nothing of it."

What the age wants is men who have the nerve and
the grit to work and wait, whether the world applaud or
hiss. It wants a Bancroft, who can spend twenty-six
years on the " History of the United States ; " a Noah
Webster, Avho can devote thirty-six years to a dictionary ;
a Gibbon, who can plod for twenty years on the " Decline
and Fall of the Eoman Empire ; " a Mirabeau, who can
struggle on for forty years before he has a chance to
show his vast reserve, destined to shake an empire ; a
Farragut, a Yon Moltke, who have the persistence to
work and wait for half a century for their first great
opportunities ; a Garfield, burning his lamp fifteen min-
utes later than a rival student in his academy ; a Grant,
fighting on in heroic silence, when denounced by his
brother generals and politicians everywhere ; a Field's
untiring perseverance, spending years and a fortune lay-
ing a cable when all the world called him a fool ; a

WORK AND WAIT. 173

Michael Angelo, working seven long years decorating
the Sistine Chapel with his matchless ^' Creation " and
the " Last Judgment," refusing all remuneration there-
for, lest his pencil might catch the taint of avarice ; a
Titian, spending seven years on the " Last Supper ; "
a Stephenson, working fifteen years on a locomotive ; a
Watt, twenty years on a condensing engine ; a Lady
Franklin, working incessantly for twelve long years to
rescue her husband from the j^olar seas ; a Thurlow
Weed, walking two miles through the snow with rags
tied around his feet for shoes, to borrow the history of
the French Revolution, and eagerly devouring it before
the sap-bush fire ; a Milton,' elaborating " Paradise
Lost " in a world he could not see, and then selling it
for fifteen pounds ; a Thackeray, struggling on cheer-
fully after his " Vanity Fair " was refused by a dozen
publishers ; a Balzac, toiling and waiting in a lonely gar-
ret, whom neither poverty, debt, nor hunger could dis-
courage or intimidate ; not daunted by privations, not
hindered by discouragements. It wants men who can
work and wait.

When a young lawyer Daniel Webster once looked
in vain through all the law libraries near him, and
then ordered at an expense of fifty dollars the neces-
sary books, to obtain authorities and precedents in a
case in which his client was a poor blacksmith. He
won his cause, but, on account of the poverty of his
client, only charged fifteen dollars, thus losing heavily
on the books bought, to say nothing of his time.
Years after, as he was passing through New York
city, he was consulted by Aaron' Burr on an important
but puzzling case then pending before the Supreme
Court. He saw in a moment that it was just like the
blacksmith's case, an intricate question of title, which
he had solved so thoroughly that it was to him now as
simple as the multiplication table. Going back to the
time of Charles II. he gave the law and precedents in-

174 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

volved with such readiness and accuracy of sequence
that Burr asked in great surprise if he had been con-
sulted before in the case. "Most certainly not," he
replied, " I never heard of your case till this evening."
" Very well," said Burr, " proceed ; " and, when he
had finished, Webster received a fee that paid him lib-
erally for all the time and trouble he had spent for his
early client.

Albert Bierstadt first crossed the Rocky Mountains
with a band of pioneers in 1859, making sketches for the
paintings of western scenes for which he had become
famous. As he followed the trail to Pike's Peak, he
gazed in wonder upon the enormous herds of buffaloes
which dotted the j^lains as far as the eye could reach,
and thought of the time when they would have disap-
peared before the march of civilization. The thought
haunted him and found its final embodiment in "' The
Last of the Buffaloes " in 1890. To perfect this great
work he had spent twenty years.

Everything which endures, which will stand the test
of time, must have a deep, solid foundation. In Rome
the foundation is often the most expensive part of an
edifice, so deep must they dig to build on the living
rock.

Pifty feet of Bunker Hill Monument is under ground ;
unseen and unappreciated by those who tread about
that historic shaft, but it is this foundation, apparently
thrown away, which enables it to stand uj)right, true
to the plumb-line through all the tempests that lash its
granite sides. A large part of every successful life
must be spent in laying foundation stones under ground.
Success is the child of drudgery and perseverance and
depends upon " knowing how long it takes to succeed."
Havelock joined the army at twenty - eight, and for
thirty-four years worked and waited for his opportu-
nity ; conscious of his power, " fretting as a subaltern
while he saw drunkards and fools put above his head."

WORK AND WAIT. 175

But during all these years he was fitting himself to lead
that marvelous march to Lucknow.

It was many years of drudgery and reading a thou-
sand volumes that enabled George Eliot to get fifty
thousand dollars for "Daniel Deronda." How came
writers to be famous ? By writing for years without
any pay at all ; by writing hundreds of pages for mere
practice work ; by working like galley - slaves at lit-
erature for half a lifetime. It was working and wait-
ing many long and weary years that put one hundred
and twenty -five thousand dollars into " The Angelus."
Millet's first attempts were mere daubs, the later were
worth fortunes. Schiller "never could get done."
Dante sees himself " growing lean over his Divine
Comedy." It is working and waiting that gives per-
fection.

"I do not remember," said Beecher, "a book in all
the depths of learning, nor a scrap in literature, nor a
mark in all the schools of art, from which its author has
derived a permanent renown, that is not known to have
been long and patiently elaborated."

Endurance is a much better test of character than
any one act of heroism, however noble.

The pianist Thalberg said he never ventured to per-
form one of his celebrated pieces in public until he
had played it at least fifteen hundred times. He laid
no claim whatever to genius ; he said it was all a ques-
tion of hard work. The accomplishments of such in-
dustry, such perseverance, would put to shame many a
man who claims genius.

Before Edmund Kean would 'consent to appear in
that character which he acted with such consummate
skill. The Gentleman Villain, he practiced constantly
before a glass, studying expression for a year and a
half. When he appeared upon the stage, Byron, who
went to see him with Moore, said he never looked upon
so fearful and wicked a face. As the great actor went

176 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

on to delineate the terrible consequences of sin, Byron
fainted.

" For years I was in my place of business by sunrise,"
said a wealthy banker who had begun without a dollar ;
"and often I did not leave it for fifteen or eighteen
hours."

Festina lente — hasten slowly — is a good Latin
motto. - Patience, it is said, changes the mulberry leaf
to satin. The giant oak on the hillside was detained
months or years in its upward growth while its roots
took a great turn around some rock, in order to gain a
hold by which the tree was anchored to withstand the
storms of centuries. Da Vinci spent four years on the
head of Mona Lisa, perhaps the most beautiful ever
painted, but he left therein an artistic thought for all time.

Said Captain Bingham : " You can have no idea of
the wonderful machine that the German army is and
how well it is prepared for war. A chart is made out
which shows just what must be done in the case of
wars with the different nations. And every officer's
place in the scheme is laid out beforehand. There is a
schedule of trains which will supersede all other sched-
ules the moment war is declared, and this is so arranged
that the commander of the army here could telegraph
to any officer to take such a train and go to such a
place at a moment's notice. When the Franco-Prus-
sian war was declared. Von Moltke was awakened at
midnight and told of the fact. He said coolly to the

official who aroused him, ' Go to pigeonhole No. in

my safe and take a paper from it and telegraph as there
directed to the different troops of the empire.' He then
turned over and went to sleep and awoke at his usual
hour in the morning. Every one else in Berlin was
excited about the war, but Von Moltke took his morn-
ing walk as usual, and a friend who met him said,
'General, you seem to be taking it very easy. Are n't
you afraid of the situation ? I should think you would

WORK AND WAIT. Ill

be busy.' ' Ah/ replied Von Moltke, ' all of my work
for this time has been done long beforehand and every-
thing that can be done now has been done/ "

That is done soon enough which is done well. Soon
ripe, soon rotten. He that would enjoy the fruit must
not gather the flower. He who is impatient to become
his own master is more likely to become his own slave.
Better believe yourself a dunce and work away than a
genius and be idle. One year of trained thinking is
worth more than a whole college course of mental ab-
sorption of a vast series of undigested facts. The fa-
cility with which the world swallows up the ordinary
college graduate who thought he was going to dazzle
mankind should bid you pause and reflect. But just
as certainly as man was created not to crawl on all
fours in the depths of primeval forests, but to develop
his mental and moral faculties, just so certainly he
needs education, and only by means of it will he become
what he ought to become, — man, in the highest sense of
the word. Ignorance is not simply the negation of
knowledge, it is the misdirection of the mind. "One
step in knowledge," says Bulwer, "is one step from
sin ; one step from sin is one step nearer to Heaven."

A learned clergyman was thus accosted by an illit-
erate preacher who despised education : " Sir, you have
been to college, I presume ? " " Yes, sir," was the re-
ply. " I am thankful," said the former, " that the
Lord opened my mouth without any learning." "A
similar event," retorted the clergyman, " happened in
Balaam's time."

" If a cloth were drawn around the eyes of Praxiteles'
statue of Love," says Bulwer, "the face looked grave
and sad ; but as the bandage was removed, a beautiful
smile would overspread the countenance. Even so does
the removal of the veil of ignorance from the eyes of
the mind bring radiant happiness to the heart of man."

A young man just graduated told the President of

178 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

Trinity College that lie had completed his education,
and had come to say good-by. " Indeed," said the
President, " I have just begun my education."

Many an extraordinary man has been made out of a
very ordinary boy ; but in order to accomplish this we
must begin with him while he is young. It is simply
astonishing what training will do for a rough, uncouth,
and even dull lad, if he has good material in him, and
comes under the tutelage of a skilled educator before his
habits have become confirmed. Even a few weeks' or
months' drill of the rawest and roughest recruits in the
late Civil War so straightened and dignified stooping
and uncouth soldiers, and made them so manly, erect,
and courteous in their bearing, that their own friends
scarcely knew them. If this change is so marked in
the youth who has grown to maturity, what a miracle
is possible in the lad who is taken early and put under
a course of drill and systematic training, both physical,
mental, and moral. How many a man who is now in
the penitentiary, in the poorhouse, or among the tramps,
or living out a miserable existence in the slums of our
cities, bent over, uncouth, rough, slovenly, has possibil-
ities slumbering within the rags, which would have
developed him into a magnificent man, an ornament to
the human race instead of a foul blot and scar, had he
only been fortunate enough early in life to have come
under efficient and systematic training.

Laziness begins in cobwebs and ends in iron chains.
The more business a man has, the more he can do, for
he learns to economize his time.

The industry that acquired riches, according to a wise
teacher, the patience that is required in obtaining them,
the reserved self-control, the measuring of values, the
sympathy felt for fellow-toilers, the knowledge of what
a dollar costs to the average man, the memory of it
— all these things are preservative. But woe to the
young farmer who hates farming ; does not like sowing

WORK AND WAIT. 179

and reaping ; is impatient with tke dilatory and slow
path to a small though secure fortune in the neighbor-
hood where he was born, and comes to the city, hoping
to become suddenly rich, thinking that he can break
into the palace of wealth and rob it of its golden
treasures !

Edison described his repeated efforts to make the
phonograph reproduce an aspirated sound, and added :
" From eighteen to twenty hours a day for the last
seven months I have worked on this single word ' specia.'
I said into the phonograph ' specia, specia, specia,' but
the instrument responded ' pecia, pecia, pecia.' It was
enough to drive one mad. But I held firm, and I have
succeeded."

The road to distinction must be paved with years of
self-denial and hard work.

Horace Mann, the great author of the common school
system of Massachusetts, was a remarkable example of
that pluck and patience which can work and wait. His
only inheritance was poverty and hard work. But he
had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and a deter-
mination to get on in the world. He braided straw to
get money to buy books which his soul thirsted for.

To Jonas Chickering there were no trifles in the
manufacture of a piano. Others might work for sala-
ries, but he was working for fame and fortune. Neither
time nor pains were of any account to him compared
with accuracy and knowledge. He could afford to work
and wait, for quality, not quantity, was his aim. Fifty
years ago the piano was a miserable instrument com-
pared with the perfect mechanism of to-day. Chicker-
ing was determined to make a piano which would yield
the fullest, richest volume of melody with the least
exertion to the x^layer, and one which would withstand
atmospheric changes and preserve its purity and truth-
fulness of tone. And he strove patiently and persist-
ently till he succeeded.

180 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

" Thy life, wert thou the pitifullest of all the sons of
earth, is no idle dream, but a solemn reality," said
Carlyle. " It is thy own. It is all thou hast to com-
fort eternity with. Work then like a star, unhasting,
yet unresting.''

Gladstone was bound to win ; although he had sjoent
many years of preparation for his life work, in spite of
the consciousness of marvelous natural endowments
which would have been deemed sufficient by many young
men, and notwithstanding he had gained the coveted
prize of a seat in Parliament, yet he decided to make
himself master of the situation ; and amid all his public
and private duties, he not only spent eleven terms more
in the study of the law, but he studied Greek constantly
and read every well written book or paper he could ob-
tain, so determined was he that his life should be
rounded out to its fullest measure, and that his mind
should have broad and liberal culture.

Emperor William I. was not a genius, but the secret
of his power lay in tireless perseverance. A friend says
of him, "When I passed the palace at Berlin night
after night, however late, I always saw that grand im-
perial figure standing beside the green lamp, and I used
to say to myself, ' That is how the imperial crown of
Germany was won.' "

Ole Bull said, " If I practice one day, I can see the
result. If I practice two days my friends can see it ;
if I practice three days the great public can see it."

The habit of seizing every bit of knowledge, no mat-
ter how insignificant it may seem at the time, every
opportunity, every occasion, and grinding them all up
into experience, cannot be overestimated. You will
find use for all of it. Webster once repeated an an-
ecdote with effect which he heard fourteen years be-
fore, and which he had not thought of in the mean time.
It exactly fitted the occasion. " It is an ill mason that
rejects any stone."

WORK AND WAIT. 181

Webster was once urged to speak on a subject of great
importance, but refused, saying lie was very busy and
had no time to master the subject. " But," replied his
friend, " a very few words from you would do much to
awaken public attention to it." Webster replied, " If
there be so much weight in my words, it is because I do
not allow myself to speak on any subject until my mind
is imbued with it." On one occasion Webster made a
remarkable speech before the Phi Beta Kappa Society
at Harvard, when a book was presented to him ; but
after he had gone, his "impromptu" speech, carefully
written out, was found in the book which he had for-
gotten to take away.

Demosthenes was once urged to speak on a great and
sudden emergency, but replied, " I am not prepared."
In fact, it was thought by many that Demosthenes did
not possess any genius whatever, because he never
allowed himself to speak on any subject without thor-
ough preparation. In any meeting or assembly, when
called upon, he would never rise, even to make remarks,
it was said, without previously preparing himself.

Alexander Hamilton said, "Men give me credit for
genius. All the genius I have lies just in this : when
I have a subject in hand I study it profoundly. Day
and night it is before me. I explore it in all its bear-
ings. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the
effort which I make the people are pleased to call the
fruit of genius ; it is the fruit of labor and thought."
The law of labor is equally binding on genius and me-
diocrity.

Are the results so distant that you delay the prepa-
ration in the hope that fortuitous good luck may make it
unnecessary ? As well might the husbandman delay
sowing his seed until the spring and summer are past
and the ground hardened by the frosts of a rigorous
winter. As well might one who is desirous of enjoy-
ing firm health inoculate his system with the seeds of

182 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

disease, and expect at such time as he may see fit to
recover from its effects, and banish the malady. Nela-
ton, the great surgeon, said that if he had four minutes
in which to perform an operation on which a life de-
pended, he would take one minute to consider how best
to do it.

" Many men," says Longfellow, " do not allow their
princii)les to take root, but pull them up every now and
then, as children do flowers they have planted, to see if
they are growing." We must not only work, but wait.

" The spruce young spark," says Sizer, " who thinks
chiefly of his mustache and boots and shiny hat, of
getting along nicely and easily during the day, and talk-
ing about the theatre, the opera, or a fast horse, ridicul-
ing the faithful young fellow who came to learn the
business and make a man of himself, because he will
not join in wasting his time in dissipation, will see the
day, if his useless life is not earlier blasted by vicious
indulgences, when he will be glad to accept a situation
from his fellow-clerk whom he now ridicules and affects
to despise, when the latter shall stand in the firm, dis-
pensing benefits and acquiring fortune."

" I have been watching the careers of young men by
the thousand in this busy city of New York for over
thirty years," said Dr. Cuyler, " and I find that the chief
difference between the successful and the failures lies in
the single element of staying power. Permanent suc-
cess is oftener won by holding on than by sudden dash,
however brilliant. The easily discouraged, who are
pushed back by a straw, are all the time dropping to the
rear — to perish or to be carried along on the stretcher
of charity. They who understand and practice Abra-
ham Lincoln's homely maxim of * pegging away ' have
achieved the solidest success."

" When a man has done his work," says Euskin, " and
nothing can any way be materially altered in his fate,
let him forget his toil, and jest with his fate if he will ;

WORK AND WAIT. 183

but what excuse can you find for willfulness of thought
at the very cime when every crisis of fortune hangs on
your decisions ? A youth thoughtless, when all the
happiness of his home forever depends on the chances
or the passions of the hour ! A youth thoughtless,
when the career of all his days depends on the oppor-
tunity of a moment ! A youth thoughtless, when his
every action is a foundation-stone of future conduct,
and every imagination a foundation of life or death !
Be thoughtless in any after years, rather than now —
though, indeed, there is only one place where a man may
be nobly thoughtless, his deathbed. Nothing should
ever be left to be done there."

The Duke of Wellington became so discouraged be-
cause he did not advance in the army that he applied
for a much inferior position in the customs department,
but was refused. Napoleon had applied for every va-
cant position for seven years before he was recognized,
but meanwhile he studied with all his might, supple-
menting what was considered a thorough military edu-
cation by researches and reflections which in later years
enabled him easily to teach the art of war to veterans
who had never dreamed of his novel combinations.

Reserves which carry us through great emergencies
are the result of long working and long waiting. Coll-
yer declares that reserves mean to a man also achieve-
ment, — " the power to do the grandest thing possible
to your nature when you feel you must, or some pre-
cious thing will be lost, — to do well always, but best
in the crisis on which all things turn; to stand the
strain of a long fight, and still find you have something
left, and so to never know you are beaten, because you
never are beaten." Every defeat is a Waterloo to him
who has no reserves.

He only is independent in action who has been ear-
nest and thorough in preparation and self-culture. " Not
for school, but for life, we learn ; " and our habits — of

184 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

promptness, earnestness, and thoroughness, or of tardi-
ness, fickleness, and superficiality — are the things ac-
quired most readily and longest retained.

" One who reads the chronicles of discoveries is
struck with the prominent part that accident has played
in such annals. For some of the most useful processes
and machinery the world is indebted to apparently
chance occurrences. Inventors in search of one object
have failed in their quest, but have stumbled on some-
thing more valuable than that for which they were
looking. Saul is not the only man who has gone in
search of asses and found a kingdom. Astrologers
sought to read from the heavens the fate of men and
the fortune of nations, and they led to a knowledge of
astronomy. Alchemists were seeking for the philoso-
pher's stone, and from their efforts sprung the science
of chemistry. Men explored the heavens for something
to explain irregularities in the movements of the planets,
and discovered a star other than the one for which they
were looking. A careless glance at such facts might
encourage the delusion that aimless straying in bypaths
is quite as likely to be rewarded as is the steady press-
ing forward, with fixed purpose, towards some definite
goal.

" But it is to be remembered that the men who made
the accidental discoveries were men who were looking
for something. The unexpected achievement was but
the return for the toil after what was attained. Others
might have encountered the same facts, but only the
eye made eager by the strain of long watching would
be quick to note the meaning. If vain search for hid-
den treasure has no other recompense, it at least gives
ability to detect the first gleam of the true metal. Men
may wake at times surprised to find themselves famous,
but it was the work they did before going to sleep, and
not the slumber, that gave the eminence. When the
ledge has been drilled and loaded and the proper con-

WORK AND WAIT. 185

nections have been made, a child's touch on the electric
key may be enough to annihilate the obstacle, but with-
out the long preparation the pressure of a giant's hand
would be without effect.

" In the search for truth and the shaping of character
the principle remains the same as in science and litera-
ture. Trivial causes are followed by wonderful results,
but it is only the merchantman who is on the watch
for goodly pearls who is represented as finding the
pearl of great price."

To vary the language of another, the three great
essentials to success in mental and physical labor are
Practice, Patience, and Perseverance, but the greatest
of these is Perseverance.

Let us, then, be up and doing,

With a heart for any fate ;
Still achieving, still pursuing.

Learn to labor and to wait.

Longfellow.

CHAPTER X.

CLEAR GRIT.

I shall show the cinders of my spirits

Through the ashes of my chance.

Shakespeare.
What though ten thousand faint,

Desert, or yield, or in weak terror flee !
Heed not the panic of the multitude ;

Thine be the captain's watchword, — Victory !

HORATIUS BONAR.

Better to stem with heart and hand
The roaring tide of life, than lie,
Unmindful, on its flower}'- strand,
Of God's occasions drifting by!
Better with naked nerve to bear
The needles of this goading air.
Than in the lap of sensual ease forego
The godlike power to do, the godlike aim to know.

Whittier.
Let fortune empty her whole quiver on me,
I have a soul that, like an ample shield,
Can take in all, and verge enough for more.

Dryden.
There 's a brave fellow ! There 's a man of pluck !
A man who 's not afraid to say his say,
Though a whole town 's against him.

Longfellow.
Our greatest glor^'- is not in never falling, but in rising every time we
fall. — Confucius.

Attempt the end and never stand to doubt;
Nothing 's so hard but search will find it out.

Herrick.

The barriers are not yet erected which shall say to aspiring talent,
" Thus far and no farther." — Beethoven.

" Friends and comrades," said Pizarro, as he turned
toward the south, after tracing with his sword upon the
sand a line from east to west, " on that side are toil.

ANDREW JACKSON
"Old Hickory."

" Stick to your aim : tlie mongrel's hold will slip,
But only crowbars loose the bull-dog's grip."
" The nerve that never relaxes, the eye that never blenches, the thought that
never wanders, — these are the masters of victory."

CLEAR GRIT. 187

hunger, nakedness, the drenching storm, desertion, and
death ; on this side, ease and pleasure. There lies Peru
with its riches ; here, Panama and its poverty. Choose,
each man, what best becomes a brave Castilian. For
my part, I go to the south." So saying, he crossed the
line and was followed by thirteen Spaniards in armor.
Thus, on the little island of Gallo in the Pacific, when
his men were clamoring to return to Panama, did
Pizarro and his few volunteers resolve to stake their
lives upon the success of a desperate crusade against
the powerful empire of the Incas. At the time they
had not even a vessel to transport them to the country
they wished to conquer. Is it necessary to add that
all difficulties yielded at last to such resolute deter-
mination ?

" Perseverance is a Roman virtue,
That wins each godlike act, and plucks success
E'en from the spear-proof crest of rugged danger."

At a time when abolitionists were dangerously un-
popular, a crowd of brawny Cape Cod fishermen had
made such riotous demonstrations that all the speakers
announced, except Stephen Foster and Lucy Stone, had
fled from an open-air platform. " You had better run,
Stephen," said she ; " they are coming." " But who
will take care of you ? " asked Foster. " This gentle-
man will take care of me," she replied, calmly laying
her hand within the arm of a burly rioter with a club,
who had just sprung upon the platform. " Wh — what
did you say ? " stammered the astonished rowdy, as he
looked at the little woman ; " yes, I '11 take care of you,
and no one shall touch a hair of your head." With this
he forced a way for her through the crowd, and, at her
earnest request, placed her upon a stump and stood
guard with his club while she delivered an address so
effective that the audience offered no further violence,
and even took up a collection of twenty dollars to repay
Mr. Foster for the damage his clothes had received
when the riot was at its height.

188 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

"When you get into a tight place and everything
goes against you, till it seems as if you could not hold on
a minute longer," said Harriet Beecher Stowe, "never
give up then, for that's just the place and time that the
tide '11 turn."

Charles Sumner said, " Three things are necessary :
first, backbone ; second, backbone ; third, backbone."

While digging among the ruins of Pompeii, which
was buried by the dust and ashes from an eruption of
Vesuvius, A. D. 79, the workmen found the skeleton of
a Koman soldier in the sentry-box at one of the city's
gates. He might have found safety under sheltering
rocks close by ; but, in the face of certain death, he had
remained at his post, a mute witness to the thorough
discipline, the ceaseless vigilance and fidelity which
made the Eoman legionaries masters of the known
world. Bulwer, describing the flight of a party amid
the dust, and ashes, and streams of boiling water, and
huge hurtling fragments of scoria, and gusty winds,
and lurid lightnings, continues : " The air was now still
for a few minutes ; the lamp from the gate streamed
out far and clear ; the fugitives hurried on. They
gained the gate. They passed by the Roman sentry.
The lightning flashed over his livid face and polished
helmet, but his stern features were composed even in
their awe ! He remained erect and motionless at his
post. That hour itself had not animated the machine
of the ruthless majesty of Rome into the reasoning and
self-acting man. There he stood amidst the crashing
elements ; he had not received the permission to desert
his station and escape."

The world admires the man who never flinches from
unexpected difiiculties, who calmly, patiently, and cour-
ageously grapples with his fate ; who dies, if need be, at
his post.

" Clear grit " always commands respect. It is that
quality which achieves, and everybody admires achieve-

CLEAR GRIT. 189

ment. In the strife of parties and principles, backbone
without brains will carry against brains without back-
bone. " A politician weakly and amiably in the right
is no match for a politician tenaciously and pugna-
ciously in the wrong." You cannot, by tying an opinion
to a man's tongue, make him the representative of that
opinion ; at the close of any battle for principles, his
name will be found neither among the dead nor among
the wounded, but among the missing.

The " London Times " was an insignificant sheet pub-
lished by Mr. Walter and was steadily losing money.
John Walter, Jr., then only twenty-seven years old,
begged his father to give him full control of the paper.
After many misgivings, the father finally consented.
The young journalist began to remodel the establish-
ment and to introduce new ideas everywhere. The pa-
per had not attempted to mould public opinion, and had
no individuality or character of its own. The audacious
young editor boldly attacked every wrong, even the
government, when he thought it corrupt. Thereupon
the public customs, printing, and the government ad-
vertisements were withdrawn. The father was in utter
dismay. The son he was sure would ruin the paper and
himself. But no remonstrance could swerve him from
his purpose, to give the world a great journal which
should have weight, character, individuality, and inde-
pendence.

The public soon saw that a new power stood behind
the " Times " ; that its articles meant business ; that new
life and new blood and new ideas had been infused into
the insignificant sheet; that a man with brains and
push and tenacity of purpose stood at the helm, — a
man who could make a way when he could not find one.
Among other new features foreign dispatches were in-
troduced, and they appeared in the " Times " several days
before their appearance in the government organs. The
"leading article " also was introduced to stay. But the

190 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

aggressive editor antagonized tlie government, and his
foreign dispatches were all stopped at the ontpost,
while those of the ministerial jonrnalists were allowed
to proceed. But nothing could daunt this resolute
young spirit. At enormous expense he employed spe-
cial couriers. Every obstacle put in his way, and all
opposition from the government, only added to his de-
termination to succeed. Enterprise, push, grit were
behind the " Times," and nothing could stay its progress.
Walter was the soul of the paper, and his personality
pervaded every detail. In those days only three hun-
dred copies of the " Times " could be struck off in an hour
by the best presses, and Walter had duplicate and even
triplicate types set. Then he set his brain to work, and
finally the Walter Press, throwing off 17,000 copies, both
sides printed, per hour, was the result. It was the
29th of ISTovember, 1814, that the first steam printed pa-
per was given to the world. Walter's tenacity of pur-
pose was remarkable. He shrank from no undertaking,
and neglected no detail.

" Mean natures always feel a sort of terror before
great natures, and many a base thought has been unut-
tered, many a sneaking vote withheld, through the fea.r
inspired by the rebuking presence of one noble man."
As a rule, pure grit, character, has the right of way.
In the presence of men permeated with grit and sound
in character, meanness and baseness slink out of sight.
Mean men are uncomfortable, dishonesty trembles, hy-
pocrisy is uncertain.

Lincoln, being asked by an anxious visitor what he
would do after three or four years if the rebellion was
not subdued, replied : " Oh, there is no alternative but
to keep pegging away."

" It is in me and it shall come out," said Sheridan,
when told that he would never make an orator, as he
had failed in his first speech in Parliament. He became
known as one of the foremost orators of his day.

CLEAR GRIT. 191

When a boy Henry Clay was very bashful and diffi-
dent, and scarcely dared recite before his class at school,
but he determined to become an orator. So he com-
mitted speeches and recited them in the cornfields, or in
the barn with the horse and cows for an audience.

Look at Garrison reading this advertisement in a
Southern paper : " Five thousand dollars will be paid
for the head of W. L. Garrison by the Governor of
Georgia." Behold him again ; a broadcloth mob is lead-
ing him through the streets of Boston by a rope. He is
hurried to jail. See him return calmly and unflinch-
ingly to his work, beginning at the point at which he
was interrupted. Note this heading in the " Liberator,"
the type of which he set himself in an attic on State
Street, in Boston : " I am in earnest, I will not equivo-
cate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch,
and I will be heard." Was Garrison heard ? Ask a
race set free largely by his efforts. Even the gallows
erected in front of his own door did not daunt him. He
held the ear of an unwilling world with that burning
word "freedom," which was destined never to cease its
vibrations until it had breathed its sweet secret to the
last slave.

If impossibilities ever exist, popularly speaking, they
ought to have been found somewhere between the birth
and the death of Kitto, that deaf pauper and master of
Oriental learning. But Kitto did not find them there.
In the presence of his decision and imperial energy they
melted away. Kitto begged his father to take him out
of the poorhouse, even if he had to subsist like the
Hottentots. He told him that h^e would sell his books
and pawn his handkerchief, by which he thought he
could raise about twelve shillings. He said he could
live upon blackberries, nuts, and field turnips, and was
willing to sleep on a hayrick. Here was real grit.
What were impossibilities to such a resolute will ? Pat-
rick Henry voiced that decision which characterized the

192 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

great men of the E-evolution when he said, " Is life so
dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price
of chains and slavery ? Forbid* it, Almighty God ! I
know not what course others may take ; but as for me,
give me liberty or give me death ! "

Grit is a permanent, solid quality, which enters into
the very structure, the very tissues of the constitu-
tion. A weak man, a wavering, irresolute man, may
be " spunky " upon occasion, he may be " plucky " in
an emergency ; but pure " grit " is a part of the very
character of strong men alone. Lord Erskine was a
plucky man ; he even had flashes of heroism, and when
he was with weaker men, he was thought to have nerve
and even grit ; but when he entered the House of Com-
mons, although a hero at the bar, the imperiousness,
the audacious scorn, and the intellectual supremacy of
Pitt disturbed his equanimity and exposed the weak
places in his armor. In Pitt's commanding presence
he lost his equilibrium. His individuality seemed off
its centre ; he felt fluttered, weak, and uneasy.

Many of our generals in the late war exhibited hero-
ism. They were " plucky," and often displayed great
determination, but Grant had pure " grit " in the most
concentrated form. He could not be moved from his
base ; he was self-centred, immovable. " If you try to
wheedle out of him his plans for a campaign, he stolidly
smokes ; if you call him an imbecile and a blunderer, he
blandly lights another cigar ; if you praise him as the
greatest general living, he placidly returns the puff from
his regalia ; and if you tell him he should run for the
presidency, it does not disturb the equanimity with
which he inhales and exhales the unsubstantial vapor
which typifies the politician's promises. While you are
wondering what kind of creature this man without a
tongue is, you are suddenly electrified with the news of
some splendid victory, proving that behind the cigar,
and behind the face discharged of all tell-tale expression.

CLEAR GRIT. 193

is the best brain to plan and the strongest heart to dare
among the generals of the Kepublic."

Demosthenes was a man who could rise to sublime
heights of heroism, but his bravery was not his normal
condition and depended upon his genius being arous^.

He had "pluck'' and "spunk" on occasions, but
Lincoln had pure " grit." When the illustrated papers
everywhere were caricaturing him, when no epithet
seemed too harsh to heap upon him, when his methods
were criticised by his own party, and the generals in the
war were denouncing his " foolish " confidence in Grant,
and delegations were waiting upon him to ask for that
general's removal, the great President sat with crossed
legs, and was reminded of a story.

Lincoln and Grant both had that rare nerve which
cares not for ridicule, is not swerved by public clamor,
can bear abuse and hatred. There is a mighty force in
truth and in the sublime conviction and supreme self-con-
fidence behind it, in the knowledge that truth is mighty
and the conviction and confidence that it will prevail.

Pure grit is that element of character which enables a
man to clutch his aim with an iron grip, and keep the
needle of his purpose pointing to the star of his hope.
Through sunshine and storm, through hurricane and
tempest, through sleet and rain, with a leaky ship, with
a crew in mutiny, it perseveres ; in fact, nothing but
death can subdue it, and it dies still struggling.

The man of grit carries in his very presence a power
which controls and commands. He is spared the neces-
sity of declaring himself, for his grit speaks in his every
act. It does not come by fits and starts, it is a part of
his very life. It inspires a sublime audacity and a he-
roic courage. Many of the failures of life are due to the
want of grit or business nerve. It is unfortunate for a
young man to start out in business life with a weak,
yielding disposition, with no resolution or backbone to
mark his own course and stick to it ; with no ability to

194 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

say " No " with an emphasis, obliging this man by in-
vesting in hopeless speculation, and rather than offend
a friend, indorsing a questionable note.

A little boy was asked how he learned to skate. " Oh,
by getting up every time I fell down," he replied.

Whipple tells a story of Massena which illustrates
the masterful purpose that plucks victory out of the
jaws of defeat. " After the defeat at Essling, the suc-
cess of Napoleon's attempt to withdraw his beaten army
depended on the character of Massena, to whom the
Emperor dispatched a messenger, telling him to keep
his position for two hours longer at Aspern. This
order, couched in the form of a request, required almost
an impossibility ; but Napoleon knew the indomitable
tenacity of the man to whom he gave it. The messen-
ger found Massena seated on a heap of rubbish, his eyes
bloodshot, his frame weakened by his unparalleled exer-
tions during a contest of forty hours, and his whole ap-
pearance indicating a physical state better befitting the
hospital than the field. But that steadfast soul seemed
altogether unaffected by bodily prostration ; half dead
as he was with fatigue, he rose painfully and said, ' Tell
the Emperor that I will hold out for two hours.' And
he kept his word."

" Often defeated in battle," said Macaulay of Alexan-
der the Great, "he was always successful in war." He
might have said the same of Washington, and, with ap-
propriate changes, of all who win great triumphs of any
kind.

In the battle of Marengo, the Austrians considered
the day won. The French army was inferior in num-
bers, and had given way. The Austrian army extended
its wings on the right and on the left, to follow up the
Erench. Then, though the Erench themselves thought
the battle lost, and the Austrians were confident it was
won, Napoleon gave the command to charge ; and, the
trumpet's blast being given, the Old Guard charged

CLEAR GRIT. 195

down into the weakened centre of the enemy, cut it in
two, rolled the two wings up on either side, and the
battle was won for France.

" ^ever despair," says Burke, '' but if you do, work
on in despair."

Once when Marshal ISTey was going into battle, look-
ing down at his knees which were smiting together, he
said, " You may well shake ; you would shake worse
yet if you knew where I am going to take you."

It is victory after victory with the soldier, lesson after
lesson with the scholar, blow after blow with the laborer,
crop after crop with the farmer, picture after picture
with the painter, and mile after mile with the traveler,
that secures what all so much desire — Success.

A promising Harvard student was stricken with paral-
ysis of both legs. Physicians said there was no hope
for him. The lad determined to continue his college
studies. The examiners heard him at his bedside, and
in four years he took his degree. He resolved to make
a critical study of Dante, to do which he had to learn
Italian and German. He persevered in spite of repeated
attacks of illness and partial loss of sight: He was
competing for the university prize. Think of the para-
lytic lad, helpless in bed, competing for a prize, fighting
death inch by inch. What a lesson ! Before his book
was published or the prize awarded, the brave student
died, but the book was successful. He meant that his
life should not be a burden or a failure, and he was not
only graduated from the best college in America, but
competed successfully for the university prize, and made
a valuable contribution to literature.

Professor L. T. Townsend, the famous author of
" Credo," is another triumph of grit over environment.
He had a hard struggle as a boy, but succeeded in
working his way through Amherst College, living on
forty -five cents a week.

Orange Judd was a remarkable example of success

196 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

through grit. He earned corn by working for farmers,
carried it on his back to mill, brought back the meal to
his room, cooked it himself, milked cows for his pint of
milk per da}^, and lived on mush and milk for months
together. He worked his way through Wesleyan Uni-
versity, and took a three years' post-graduate course at
Yale.

Congressman William W. Crapo, while working his
way through college, being too poor to buy a dictionary,
actually copied one, walking from his home in the vil-
lage of Dartmouth, Mass., 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 AVhite 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 be-
came 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 ai^d 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 step-
ping-stones out of his stumbling-blocks, and lift him-
self to success.

CLEAR GRIT. 197

At fifty, Barnum was a ruined man, owing tliousands
more than he possessed, yet he resolutely resumed busi-
ness 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 re-
peatedly from the ashes of his misfortune each time
more determined than before.

It was the last three days of the first voyage of Colum-
bus 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 bril-
liant 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 ap-
peared 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 perse-
cuted race ; without opportunity, pushing his way up
through the middle classes, up through the upper classes,
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 in-
terlopers. Imagine England's surprise when she awoke

198 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

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 mas-
ter 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 Min-
ister, 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, Lacor-
daire, failed again and again. Everybody said he would
never make a preacher, but he was determined to suc-
ceed, and in two years from his humiliating failures
he was preaching in Notre Dame to immense congrega-
tions.

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 fa-
ther 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 class, studied law, was

CLEAR GRIT. 199

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 hus-
band's obligations. She has fought her way success-
fully through nine lawsuits, and has paid the entire
debt. She manages her ten publications entirely her-
self, signs all checks and money-orders, makes all con-
tracts, 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 pos-
sessed.

Garfield said, " If the power to do hard work is not
talent, it is the best possible substitute 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 ele-
ment of decision. In a New England academy a pupil
who was engaged to assist the teacher was unable to
solve a problem in algebra. The class was approaching
the problem, and he was mortified because, after many
trials, he was obliged to take it to the teacher for solu-
tion. The teacher returned it unsolved. What could

200 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

lie do ? He would not confess to the class that he could
not solve it, so, after many futile attempts, he went to a
distant town to seek the assistance 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 un-
able to perform a problem in algebra, and shall I go
back to my class 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, Septem-
ber 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 con-
sideration the hindrances, the weights we have carried,
the disadvantages of education, of breeding, of training,
of surroundings, of circumstances. 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, ham-
pered 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 nobody believes in them, because nobody en-

CLEAR GRIT. 201

courages 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 constitution, by impaired eyesight or hearing ?

When the prizes of life shall be awarded by the Su-
preme 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 over-
come, 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 unrecog-
nized 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 '11 be

Patient in my necessity :

Laugh at my scraps of clothes, and shun

Me as a fear'd infection :

Yet scare-crow like I '11 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 titles."

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. — Emersox.

Hew the block off, and get out the man. — Pope.

Eternity alone will reveal to the human race its debt of gratitude to the
peerless and immortal name of Washington. —James A. Garfield.

Tennyson.

Better not be at all
Than not be noble.

Be noble ! and the nobleness 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 noblest, 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 conceal-

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
" Be noble : and the nobleness that lies
In other men, sleeping, but never dead.
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.

THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 203

ment from pursuers wlio sought liis life in revenge for
the killing of a Moorish gentleman. The Moor prom-
ised 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 punish-
ment. 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 God is just ; and I humbly thank Him that
my faith is unspotted, and that I have resigned judg-
ment to Him."

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.

" So when a great man dies,
For years beyond our ken,
The light he leaves behind him lies
Upon the paths of men."

The character of Socrates was mightier than the hem-
lock, and banished the fear and sting of death.

Who can estimate the power of a well-lived life ?
Character is power. Hang this motto in every school
in the land, in every home, in every youth's room.
Mothers, engrave it on every child's heart.

You cannot destroy one single atom of a Garrison,
even though he were hanged. The mighty force of mar-
tyrs to truth lives ; the candle burns more brilliantly
than before it was snuffed. '^ No varnish or veneer of

204 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

scholarship, no command of the tricks of logic or rhet-
oric, can ever make you a positive force in the world ; "
but your character can.

When the statue of George Peabody, erected in one
of the thoroughfares of London, was unveiled, the
sculptor Story was asked to speak. Twice he touched
the statue with his hand, and said, " That is my speech.
That is my speech." What could be more eloquent ?
Character needs no recommendation. It pleads its own
cause.

" Show me," said Omar the Caliph to Amru the war-
rior, " the sword with which you have fought so many
battles and slain so many infidels." "Ah!" replied
Amru, " the sword without the arm o-f the master is no
sharper nor heavier than the sword of Farezdak the
poet." So one hundred and fifty pounds of flesh and
blood without character is of no great value.

Napoleon was so much impressed with the courage
and resources of Marshal Ney, that he said, " I have
two hundred millions in my coffers, and I would give
them all for Ney."

In Agra, India, stands the Taj Mahal, the acme of
Oriental architecture, said to be the most beautiful
building in the world. It was i^lanned as a mausoleum
for the favorite wife of Shah Jehan. When the latter
was deposed by his son Aurungzebe, his daughter Ja-
hanara chose to share his captivity and poverty rather
than the guilty glory of her brother. On her tomb in
Delhi were cut her dying words : " Let no rich coverlet
adorn my grave ; this grass is the best covering for the
tomb of the poor in spirit, the humble, the transitory
Jahanara, the disciple of the holy men of Christ, the
daughter of the Emperor Shah Jehan." Travelers who
visit the magnificent Taj linger long by the grass-green
sarcophagus in Delhi, but give only passing notice to
the beautiful Jamma Mas j id, a mausoleum afterwards
erected in her honor.

THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 205

Some writer has well said that David of the throne
we cannot always recall with pleasure, but David of the
Psalms we never forget. The strong, sweet faith of the
latter streams like sunlight through even the closed
windows of the soul, long after the wearied eye has
turned with disgust from all the gilded pomp and pride
of the former.

Robertson says that when you have got to the lowest
depths of your heart, you will find there not the mere
desire of happiness, but a craving as natural to us as
the desire for food, — the craving for nobler, higher
life.

" Private Benjamin Owen, Eegiment, Vermont

Volunteers, was found asleep at his post while on
picket duty last night. The court-martial has sen-
tenced him to be shot in twenty-four hours, as the
offense occurred at a critical time." " I thought when
I gave Bennie to his country," said farmer Owen as he
read the above telegram with dimming eyes, " that no
other father in all this broad land made so precious a
gift. He only slept a minute, — just one little minute,
— at his post ; I know that was all, for Bennie never
dozed over a duty. How prompt and trustworthy he
was ! He was as tall as I, and only eighteen ! and now
they shoot him because he was found asleep when doing
sentinel duty ! " Just then Bennie's little sister Blos-
som answered a tap at the door, and returned with a
letter. " It is from him," was all she said.

Dear Father, — For sleeping on sentinel duty I am to
be shot. At first, it seemed awful tb me ; but I have thought
about it so much now that it has no terror. They say that they
will not bind me, nor blind me ; but that I may meet my death
like a man. I thought, father, that it might have been on the
battlefield, for my country, and that, when I fell, it would be
fighting gloriously ; but to be shot down like a dog for nearly
betraying it, — to die for neglect of duty ! Oh, father, I won-
der the very thought does not kill me ! But I shall not dis-

206 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

grace you. I am going to write you all about it ; and when I
am gone, you may tell my comrades ; I cannot now.

You know I promised Jemmie Carr's mother I would look
after her boy ; and, when he fell sick, I did all I could for him.
He was not strong when he was ordered back into the ranks,
and the day before that night I carried all his baggage, be-
sides my own, on our march. Toward night we went in on
double-quick, and the baggage began to feel very heavy.
Everybody was tired ; and as for Jemmie, if I had not lent
him an arm now and then, he would have dropped by the way.
I was all tired out when we came into camp ; and then it was
Jemmie's turn to be sentry, and I could take his place ; but I
was too tired, father. I could not have kept awake if a gun
had been pointed at my head ; but I did not know it until, —
well, until it was too late.

They tell me to-day that I have a short reprieve, — given
to me by circumstances, — " time to write to you," our good
colonel says. Forgive him, father, he only does his duty ; he
would gladly save me if he could ; and do not lay my death
up against Jemmie. The poor boy is broken-hearted, and does
nothing but beg and entreat them to let him die in my stead.
I can't bear to think of mother and Blossom. Comfort them,
father ! Tell them I die as a brave boy should, and that, M^hen
the war is over, they will not be ashamed of me, as they must
be now. God help me : it is very hard to bear ! Good-by,
father. To-night, in the early twilight, I shall see the cows
all coming home from pasture, and precious little Blossom
standing on the back stoop, waiting for me, — but I shall
never, never come ! God bless you all !

" God be thanked ! " said Mr. Owen reverently ; " I
knew Bennie was not the boy to sleep carelessly."

Late that night a little figure glided out of the house
and down the path. Two hours later the conductor of
the southward mail lifted her into a car at Mill Depot.
Next morning she was in New York, and the next she
was admitted to the White House at Washington.
" Well, my child," said the President in pleasant, cheer-
ful tones, " what do you want so bright and early this
morning ? " " Bennie's life, please, sir," faltered Bios-

THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 207

som. "Bennie ? Who is Bennie ?" asked Mr. Lincoln.
" My brother, sir. They are going to shoot him for sleejD-
ing at his post," said the little girl. " I remember,"
said the President ; '-it was a fatal sleep. You see,
child, it was a time of special danger. Thousands of
lives might have been lost through his culpable negli-
gence." " So my father said ; but poor Bennie was so
tired, sir, and Jemniie so weak. He did the work of
two, sir, and it was Jemmie's night, not his ; but Jem-
mie was too tired, and Bennie never thought about
himself, — that he was tired, too." " What is that
you say, child ? Come here ; I do not understand."
He read Bennie's letter to his father, which Blossom
held out, wrote a few lines, rang his bell, and said to
the messenger who appeared, " Send this dispatch at
once." Then, turning to Blossom, he continued : " Go
home, my child, and tell that father of yours, who could
approve his country's sentence, even when it took the
life of a child like that, that Abraham Lincoln thinks
the life far too precious to be lost. Go back, or — wait
until to-morrow ; Bennie will need a change after he has
so bravely faced death ; he shall go with you." " God
bless you, sir," said Blossom. Not all the queens are
crowned.

Two days later, when the young soldier came with his
sister to thank the President, Mr. Lincoln fastened the
strap of a lieutenant upon his shoulder, saying, '^ The
soldier that could carry a sick comrade's baggage, and
die for the act without complaining, deserves well of his
country."

When telegrams poured in announcing terrible car-
nage upon battlefields in our late war, and when Presi-
dent Lincoln's heart-strings were nearly broken over the
cruel treatment of our prisoners at JLudersonville, Belle
Isle, and Libby Prison, he never once departed from his
famous motto, " With malice toward none, with charity
for all." When it was reported that among those re-

208 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

turned at Baltimore from Southern prisons, not one in
ten could stand alone from hunger and neglect, and
many were so eaten and covered by vermin as to resem-
ble those pitted by smallpox, and so emaciated that they
were living skeletons, not even these reports could move
the great President to retaliate in kind upon the South-
ern prisoners.

Among the slain on the battlefield at Fredericksburg
was the body of a youth upon which was found next the
heart a photograph of Lincoln. Upon the back of it were
these words : " God bless President Lincoln." The
youth had been sentenced to death for sleeping at his
post, but had been pardoned by the President.

David Dudley Field said he considered Lincoln the
greatest man of his day. Webster, Clay, Calhoun, and
others were great, each in one way, but Lincoln was
great in many ways. There seemed to be hidden springs
of greatness in this man that would gush forth in the
most unexpected way. The men about him were at a
loss to name the order of his genius. Horace Greeley
was almost as many-sided, but was a wonderful combi-
nation of goodness and Aveakness, while Lincoln seemed
strong in every way. After Lincoln had signed the
Emancii)ation Proclamation he said, " The promise
must now be kept ; I shall never recall one word."

Bishop Hamilton, of Salisbury, bears the following
testimony to the influence for good which Gladstone,
when a school-fellow at Eton, exercised upon him. " I
was a thoroughly idle boy ; but I was saved from worse
things by getting to know Gladstone." At Oxford we
are told the effect of his example was so strong that men
who followed him there ten years later declare " that
undergraduates drank less in the forties because Glad-
stone had been so courageously abstemious in the
thirties."

The Eev. John Newton said, "I see in this world
two heaps of human happiness and misery ; now if I can

THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 209

take but the smallest bit from one heap and add it to
the other, I carry a point ; if as I go home a child has
dropped a half-penny, and by giving it another I can
wipe away its tears, I feel I have done something."

A holy hermit, who had lived for six years in a cave
of the Thebaid, fasting, praying, and performing severe
penances, spending his whole life in trying to make
himself of some account with God, that he might be
sure of a seat in Paradise, prayed to be shown some
saint greater than himself, in order that he might pat-
tern after him to reach still greater heights of holiness.
The same night an angel came to him and said, " If thou
wouldst excel all others in virtue and sanctity, strive
to imitate a certain minstrel who goes begging and sing-
ing from door to door." The hermit, much chagrined,
sought the minstrel and asked him how he had managed
to make himself so acceptable to God. The minstrel
hung down his head and replied, "Do not mock me,
holy father ; I have performed no good works, and I am
not worthy to pray. I only go from door to door to
amuse people with my viol and my flute." The hermit
insisted that he must have done some good deeds. The
minstrel replied, " Nay, I know of nothing good that I
have done." " But how hast thou become a beggar ?
Hast thou spent thy substance in riotous living ? "
" Nay, not so," replied the minstrel. " I met a poor
woman running hither and thither, distracted, because
her husband and children had been sold into slavery to
pay a debt. I took her home and protected her from
certain sons of Belial, for she was very beautiful. I
gave her all I possessed to redeem her family and re-
turned her to her husband and children. Is there any
man who would not have done the same ? " The hermit
shed tears, and said in all his life he had not done as
much as the poor minstrel.

" A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches,
and loving favor than silver or gold."

210 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

A gentleman, traveling through West Virginia, went
teahouse, and procured food for himself and companion
and their horses. He wanted to make payment, but the
woman was ashamed to take pay for a mere act of kind-
ness. He pressed the money upon her. Finally she
said, ^^If you don't think I'm mean, I'll take one
quarter of a dollar from you, so as to look at it now and
then, for there has been no money in this house for a
year."

Do not take the world's estimate of success. The real
height of the Washington Monument is not measured
between the capstone and the earth, but includes the fifty
feet of solid masonry below. Many of the most suc-
cessful lives are like the rivers of India which run un-
der ground, unseen and unheard by the millions who
tread above them. But have these rivers therefore no
influence ? Ask the rich harvest fields if they feel the
flowing water beneath. The greatest worth is never
measured. It is only the nearest stars whose distances
we compute. That life whose influence can be meas-
ured by the world's tape-line of dollars and corn is not
worth the measuring.

All the forces in nature that are the most powerful
are the quietest. We speak of the rolling thunder as
powerful ; but gravitation, which makes no noise, yet
keeps orbs in their orbits, and the whole system in har-
mony, binding every atom in each planet to the great
centre of all attraction, is ten thousand times ten thou-
sand times more powerful. We say the bright light-
ning is mighty ; so it is when it rends the gnarled oak
into splinters, or splits solid battlements into frag-
ments ; but it is not half so powerful as the gentle
light that comes so softly from the skies that we do
not feel it, that travels at an inconceivable speed, strikes
and yet is not felt, but exercises an influence so great
that the earth is clothed with verdure through its influ-
ence, and all nature beautified and blessed by its cease-

THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 211

less action. The things that make no noise, make no
pretension, may be really the strongest. The most con-
clusive logic that a preacher uses in the pulpit will
never exercise the influence that the consistent piety of
character will exercise over all the earth.

The old Sicilian story relates how Pythias, condemned
to death through the hasty anger of Dionysius of Syra-
cuse, asked that he might go to his native Greece, and
arrange his affairs, promising to return before the time
appointed for his execution. The tyrant laughed his
request to scorn, saying that when he was once safe out
of Sicily no one would answer for his reappearance.
At this juncture, Damon, a friend of the doomed man,
offered to become surety for him, and to die in his stead
if he did not come back in time. Dionysius was sur-
prised, but accepted the proposition. When the fatal
day came, Pythias had not reached Syracuse, but Damon
remained firm in his faith that his friend would not fail
him. At the very last hour Pythias appeared and an-
nounced himself ready to die. But such touching loy-
alty moved even the iron heart of Dionysius ; accordingly
he ordered both to be spared, and asked to be allowed
to make a third partner in such a noble friendship.

It is a grander thing to be nobly remembered than to
be nobly born.

When Attila, flushed with conquest, appeared with
his barbarian horde before the gates of Eome in 452,
Pope Leo alone of all the people dared go forth and try
to turn his wrath aside. A single magistrate followed
him. The Huns were awed by the fearless majesty of
the unarmed old man, and led him before their chief,
whose respect was so great that he agreed not to enter
the city, provided a tribute should be X3aid to him.

Blackie thinks there is no kind of a sermon so effec-
tive as the example of a great man, where we see the
thing done before us, — actually done, — the thing of
which we were not even dreaming.

212 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

It was said that when Washington led the American
forces as commanding ofiELcer, it " doubled the strength
of the army."

When General Lee was in conversation with one of
his officers in regard to a movement of his army, a plain
farmer's boy overheard the general's remark that he
had decided to march upon Gettysburg instead of Har-
risburg. The boy telegraphed this fact to Governor
Curtin. A special engine was sent for the boy. " I
would give my right hand," said the governor, "to
know if this boy tells the truth." A corporal replied,
" Governor, I know that boy ; it is impossible for him
to lie ; there is not a drop of false blood in his veins."
In fifteen minutes the Union troops were marching to
Gettysburg, where they gained a victory. Character is
power. The great thing is to be a man, to have a high
purpose, a noble aim, to be dead in earnest, to yearn for
the good and the true.

"Your lordships," said Wellington in Parliament,
" must all feel the high and honorable character of the
late Sir Eobert Peel. I was long connected with him in
public life. We were both in the councils of our sov-
ereign together, and I had long the honor to enjoy his
private friendship. In all the course of my acquain-
tance with him, I never knew a man in whose truth and
justice I had greater confidence, or in whom I saw a
more invariable desire to promote the public service.
In the whole course of my communication with him, I
never knew an instance in which he did not show the
strongest attachment to truth ; and I never saw in the
whole course of my life the smallest reason for suspect-
ing that he stated anything which he did not firmly be-
lieve to be the fact."

"The Secretary stood alone," said Grattan of the
elder Pitt. " Modern degeneracy had not reached him.
Original and unaccommodating, the features of his char-
acter had the hardihood of antiquity. His august mind

THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 213

overawed majesty ; and one of his sovereigns thought
royalty so impaired in his presence, that he conspired
to remove him, in order to be relieved from his superi-
ority. No state chicanery, no narrow system of vicious
politics, sunk him to the level of the vulgar great ; but,
overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object
was England ; his ambition, fame. A character so ex-
alted, so unsullied, so various, so authoritative, astonished
a corrupt age, and the Treasury trembled at the name
of Pitt through all the classes of venality. Corruption
imagined, indeed, that she had found defects in this
statesman, and talked much of the inconsistency of his
policy, and much of the ruin of his victories ; but the
history of his country and the calamities of the enemy
answered and refuted her. Upon the whole, there was
in this man something that could create, subvert, or re-
form ; an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence to
summon mankind to united exertion, or to break the
bonds of slavery asunder, and to rule the wilderness of
free minds with unbounded authority ; something that
could establish or overwhelm an empire, and strike a
blow in the world that would resound through the uni-
verse."

Pitt was Paymaster-General for George II. When a
subsidy was voted a foreign office, it was customary for
the office to claim one half per cent, for honorarium.
Pitt astonished the King of Sardinia by sending him the
sum without any deduction, and further astonished him
by refusing a present as a compliment to his integrity.
He was a poor man.

Washington would take no pay as commander-in-
chief of the Continental armies. He would keep a strict
account of his expenses; and these, he doubted not,
would be discharged.

Eemember, the main business of life is not to do, but
to become ; an action itself has its finest and most
enduring fruit in character.

214 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

In 1837, after George Peabody moved to London,
there came a commercial crisis in tlie United States.
Many banks suspended specie payments. Many mer-
cantile houses went to the wall, and thousands more
were in great distress. Edward Everett said, "The
great sympathetic nerve of the commercial world, credit,
as far as the United States were concerned, was for the
time paralyzed." Probably not a half dozen men in
Europe would have been listened to for a moment in
the Bank of England upon the subject of American se-
curities, but George Peabody was one of them. His
name was already a tower of strength in the commercial
world. In those dark days his integrity stood four-
square in every business panic. Peabody retrieved the
credit of the State of Maryland, and, it might almost
be said, of the United States. His character was the
magic wand which in many a case changed almost worth-
less paper into gold. Merchants on both sides of the
Atlantic procured large advances from him, even before
the goods consigned to him had been sold.

Thackeray says, " Nature has written a letter of credit
upon some men's faces which is honored wherever pre-
sented. You cannot help trusting such men; their
very presence gives confidence. There is a ' promise to
pay' in their very faces which gives confidence, and
you prefer it to another man's indorsement." Charac-
ter is credit.

With most people, as with most nations, " things are
worth what they will sell for," and the dollar is might-
ier than the sword. As good as gold has become a
proverb — as though it were the highest standard of
comparison.

Themistocles, having conceived the design of transfer-
ring the government of Greece from the hands of the
Lacedaemonians into those of the Athenians, kept his
thoughts continually fixed on this great project. Being
at no time very nice or scrupulous in the choice of his

THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 215

measures, he thought anything which could tend to the
accomplishment of the end he had in view just and law-
ful. Accordingly in an assembly of the people one day,
he intimated that he had a very important design to pro-
pose ; but he could not communicate it to the public at
large, because the greatest secrecy was necessary to its
success, and he therefore desired that they would ap-
point a person to whom he might explain himself on the
subject. Aristides was unanimously selected by the
assembly, which deferred entirely to his opinion. The-
mistocles, taking him aside, told him that the design he
had conceived was to burn the fleet belonging to the
rest of the Grecian states, which then lay in a neigh-
boring port, when Athens would assuredly become mis-
tress of all Greece. Aristides returned to the assembly,
and declared to them that nothing could be more advan-
tageous to the commonwealth than the project of The-
mistocles, but that, at the same time, nothing in the world
could be more unfair. The assembly unanimously de-
clared that, since such was the case, Themistocles should
wholly abandon his project.

A tragedy by ^schylus was once represented before
the Athenians, in which it was said of one of the char-
acters, " that he cared not more to be just than to appear
so." At these words all eyes were instantly turned
upon Aristides as the man who, of all the Greeks, most
merited that distinguished reputation. Ever after he
received, by universal consent, the surname of the Just,
— a title, says Plutarch, truly royal, or rather truly di-
vine. This remarkable distinction roused envy, and
envy prevailed so far as to pfocure his banishment
for years, upon the unjust suspicion that his influence
with the people was dangerous to their freedom. When
the sentence was passed by his countrymen, Aristides
himself was present in the midst of them, and a stranger
who stood near, and could not write, applied to him to
write for him on his shell-ballot. " What name ? " asked

216 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

the philosopher. "Aristides," replied the stranger.
" Do you know him, then ? " said Aristides, ^' or has he
in any way injured you ? " " Neither/' said the other,
"but it is for this very thing I would he were con-
demned. I can go nowhere but I hear of Aristides the
Just." Aristides inquired no further, but took the
shell, and wrote his name on it as desired. The absence
of Aristides soon dissipated the apprehensions which
his countrymen had so idly indulged. He was in a short
time recalled, and for many years after took a leading
part in the affairs of the republic, without showing the
least resentment against his enemies, or seeking any
other gratification than that of serving his countrymen
with fidelity and honor. The virtues of Aristides did
not pass without reward. He had two daughters, who
were educated at the expense of the state, and to whom
portions were allotted from the public treasury.

The strongest proof, however, of the justice and in-
tegrity of Aristides is, that notwithstanding he had
possessed the highest employments in the republic, and
had the absolute disposal of its treasures, yet he died
so poor as not to leave money enough to defray the
expenses of his funeral.

Men of character are the conscience of the society to
which they belong ; they, and not the police, guarantee
the execution of the laws. Their influence is the bul-
wark of good government.

It was said of the first Emperor Alexander of Eussia,
that his personal character was equivalent to a constitu-
tion. Of Montaigne, it was said that his high reputa-
tion for integrity was a better protection for him than
a regiment of horse would have been, he being the only
man among the French gentry who, during the wars of
the Fronde, kept his castle gates unbarred. There are
men, fortunately for the world, who would rather he right
than he Pi^esident.

Fisher Ames, while in Congress, said of Roger Sher-

LAFAYETTE
"He believed that he was born, not for himself, but for the whole world."

THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 217

man, of Connecticut : " If I am absent during a discus-
sion of a subject, and consequently know not on which
side to vote, when I return I always look at Eoger
Sherman, for I am sure if I vote with him, I shall vote
right."

Character gravitates upward, as with a celestial gravi-
tation, while mere genius, without character, gravitates
downward. How often we see in school or college
young men, who are apparently dull and even stupid,
rise gradually and surely above others who are without
character, merely because the former have an upward
tendency in their lives, a reaching-up principle, which
gradually but surely unfolds, and elevates them to posi-
tions of honor and trust. There is something which
everybody admires in an aspiring soul, one whose ten-
dency is upward and onward, in spite of hindrances and
in defiance of obstacles.

We may try to stifle the voice of the mysterious an-
gel within, but it always says " yes " to right actions
and " no " to wrong ones. No matter whether we heed
it or not, no power can change its decision one iota.
Through health, through disease, through prosperity
and adversity, this faithful servant stands behind us in
the shadow of ourselves, never intruding, but weighing
every act we perform, every word we utter, pronouncing
the verdict " right " or "wrong."

Francis Horner, of England, was a man of whom
Sydney Smith said, that " the ten commandments were
stamped upon his forehead." The valuable and peculiar
light in which Horner's history is calculated to inspire
every right-minded youth is this : he died at the age
of thirty-eight, possessed of greater influence than any
other private man, and admired, beloved, trusted, and
deplored by all except the heartless and the base. No
greater homage was ever paid in Parliament to any de-
ceased member. How was this attained ? By rank ?
He was the son of an Edinburgh merchant. By wealth ?

218 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

Neither lie nor any of his relatives ever had a superflu-
ous sixpence. By office ? He held but one, and that
for only a few years, of no influence, and with very little
pay. By talents ? His were not splendid, and he had
no genius. Cautious and slow, his only ambition was
to be right. By eloquence ? He spoke in calm, good
taste, without any of the oratory that either terrifies or
seduces. By any fascination of manner ? His was
only correqt and agreeable. By what was it, then ?
Merely by sense, industry, good principles and a good
heart, qualities which no well constituted mind need
ever despair of attaining. It was the force of his char-
acter that raised him ; and this character Avas not im-
pressed on him by nature, but formed, out of no pecu-
liarly fine elements, by himself. There were many in
the House of Commons of far greater ability and elo-
quence. But no one surpassed him in the combination
of an adequate portion of these with moral worth.
Horner was born to show what moderate powers, unaided
by anything whatever except culture and goodness, may
achieve, even when these powers are displayed amidst
the competition and jealousies of public life.

^' When it was reported in Paris that the great Na-
poleon was dead, I passed the Palais Royal," says a
French writer, " where a public crier called, * Here 's
your account of the death of Bonaparte.' This cry
which once would have appalled all Europe fell perfectly
flat. I entered," he adds, ^'several cafes, and found
the same indifference, — coldness everywhere ; no one
seemed interested or troubled. This man, who had
conquered Europe and awed the world, had inspired
neither the love nor the admiration of even his own
countrymen. He had impressed the world with his
marvelousness, and had inspired astonishment but not
love."

Emerson says that Napoleon did all that in him lay
to live and thrive without moral principle. It was the

THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 219

nature of things, the eternal law of man and of the
world, which balked and ruined him ; and the result, in
a million attempts of this kind, will be the same. His
was an experiment, under the most favorable condi-
tions, to test the powers of intellect without conscience.
Never elsewhere was such a leader so endowed, and so
weaponed ; never has another leader found such aids
and followers. And what was the result of this vast
talent and power, of these immense armies, burned
cities, squandered treasures, immolated millions of men,
of this demoralized Europe ? He left France smaller,
poorer, feebler than he found her.

A hundred years hence what difference will it make
whether you were rich or poor, a peer or a peasant ?
But what difference may it not make whether you did
what was right or what was wrong ?

" The ^ Vicar of Wakefield,' " said George William
Curtis, " was sold, through Dr. Johnson's mediation, for
sixty pounds ; and ten years after, the author died.
With what love do we hang over its pages ! What
springs of feeling it has opened ! Goldsmith's books
are influences and friends forever, yet the five thou-
sandth copy was never announced, and Oliver Gold-
smith, M. D., often wanted a dinner ! Horace Walpole,
the coxcomb of literature, smiled at him contemptu-
ously from his gilded carriage. Goldsmith struggled
cheerfully with his adverse fate, and died. But then
sad mourners, whom he had aided in their affliction,
gathered around his bed, and a lady of distinction,
whom he had only dared to admire at a distance, came
and cut a lock of his hair for remembrance. When I
see Goldsmith, thus carrying his heart in his hand like
a palm branch, I look on him as a successful man,
whom adversity could not bring down from the level of
his lofty nature."

Dr. Maudsley tells us that the aims which chiefly
predominate — riches, position, power, applause of

220 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

men — are such as inevitably breed and foster many
bad passions in the eager competition to attain them.
Hence, in fact, come disappointed ambition, jealousy,
grief from loss of fortune, all the torments of wounded
self-love, and a thousand other mental sufferings, — the
commonly enumerated moral causes of insanity. They
are griefs of a kind to which a rightly developed nature
should not fall a prey. There need be no envy nor
jealousy, if a man were to consider that it mattered not
whether he did a great thing or some one else did it,
Nature's only concern being that it should be done ; no
grief from loss of fortune, if he were to estimate at its
true value that which fortune can bring him, and that
which fortune can never bring him ; no wounded self-
love, if he had learned well the eternal lesson of life, —
self-renunciation.

Soon after his establishment in Philadelphia Frank-
lin was offered a piece for publication in his newspaper.
Being very busy, he begged the gentleman would leave
it for consideration. The next day the author called
and asked his opinion of it. " Well, sir," replied Frank-
lin, " I am sorry to say I think it highly scurrilous and
defamatory. But being at a loss on account of my pov-
erty whether to reject it or not, I thought I would put
it to this issue : At night, when my work was done, I
bought a two-penny loaf, on which I supped heartily,
and then, wrapping myself in my great coat, slept very
soundly on the floor till morning, when another loaf
and mug of water afforded a pleasant breakfast. Now,
sir, since I can live very comfortably in this manner,
why should I prostitute my press to personal hatred or
party passion for a more luxurious living ? "

One cannot read this anecdote of our American sage
without thinking of Socrates' reply to King Arche-
laus, who had pressed him to give up preaching in the
dirty streets of Athens, and come and live with him in
his splendid courts: "Meal, please your Majesty, is a

THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 221

half-penny a peck at Athens, and water I get for no-
thing ! "

During Alexander's march into Africa he found a
people dwelling in peace, who knew neither war nor
conquest. While he was interviewing the chief two of
his subjects brought a case before him for judgment.
The dispute was this : the one had bought of the other
a pietje of ground, which, after the purchase, was found
to contain a treasure, for which he felt bound to pay.
The other refused to receive anything, stating that when
he sold the ground he sold it with all the advantages
apparent or concealed which it might be found to afford.
The king said, "One of you has a daughter and the
other a son ; let them be married and the treasure given
to them as a dowry." Alexander was surprised, and
said, ^^If this case had been in our country it would
have been dismissed, and the king would have kept the
treasure." The chief said, " Does the sun shine on your
country, and the rain fall, and the grass grow ? " Alex-
ander replied, " Certainly." The chief then asked,
" Are there any cattle ? " " Certainly," was. the reply.
The chief replied, " Then it is for these innocent cattle
that the Great Being permits the rain to fall and the
grass to grow."

A good character is a precious thing, above rubies,
gold, crowns, or kingdoms, and the work of making it is
the noblest labor on earth.

Professor Blackie of the University of Edinburgh
said to a class of young men : " Money is not needful ;
power is not needful ; liberty is not needful ; even health
is not the one thing needful ; but character alone is that
which can truly save us, and if we are not saved in this
sense, we certainly must be damned." It has been said
that " when poverty is your inheritance, virtue must be
your capital."

During the American Eevolution, while General Eeed
was President of Congress, the British Commissioners

222 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

offered him a bribe of ten thousand guineas to desert
the cause of his country. His reply was, " Gentlemen,
I am poor, very poor ; i)ut your king is not rich enough
to buy me."

" When Le Pere Bourdaloue preached at Eouen," said
Pere Arrius, ^' the tradesmen forsook their shops, law-
yers their clients, physicians their sick, and tavern-
keepers their bars ; but when I preached the following
year I set all things to rights, — every man minded his
own business.''

" I fear John Knox's prayers more than an army of
ten thousand men," said Mary, Queen of Scotland.

When Pope Paul IV. heard of the death of Calvin
he exclaimed with a sigh, "Ah, the strength of that
proud heretic lay in — riches ? No. Honors ? No. But
nothing could move him from his course. Holy Virgin !
With two such servants, our church would soon be mis-
tress of both worlds."

Garibaldi's power over his men amounted to fascina-
tion. Soldiers and officers were ready to die for him.
His will power seemed to enslave them. In Rome he
called for forty volunteers to go where half of them
would be sure to be killed and the others probably
wounded. The whole battalion rushed forward; and
they had to draw lots, so eager were all to obey.

What power of magic lies in a great name ! There
was not a throne in Europe that could stand against
Washington's character, and in comparison with it the
millions of the Croesuses would look ridiculous. What
are the works of avarice compared with the names of
Lincoln, Grant, or Garfield ? A few names have ever
been the leaven which has preserved many a nation
from premature decay.

"But strew his ashes to the wind

Whose sword or voice has served mankind —
And is he dead, whose glorious mind

Lifts thine on high ? —
To live in hearts we leave behind

Is not to die."

THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 223

Mr. Gladstone gave in Parliament, when announcing
the death of Princess Alice, a touching story of sick-
room ministration. The Princess' little boy was ill
with diphtheria ; the physician had cautioned her not
to inhale the poisoned breath ; the child was tossing in
the delirium of fever. The mother took the little one
in her lap and stroked his fevered brow ; the boy threw
his arms around her neck, and whispered, "Kiss me,
mamma ; " the mother's instinct was stronger than the
physician's caution ; she pressed her lips to the child's,
but lost her life.

At a large dinner-party given by Lord Stratford after
the Crimean War, it was proposed that every one should
write on a slip of paper the name which appeared most
likely to descend to posterity with renown. When the
papers were opened every one of them contained the
name of Plorence Nightingale.

Leckey says that the first hospital ever established was
opened by that noble Christian woman, Fabiola, in the
fourth century. The two foremost names in modern
philanthropy are those of John Howard and Florence
Nightingale. Not a general of the Crimean War on
either side can be named by one person in ten. The
one name that rises instantly, when that carnival of
pestilence and blood is suggested, is that of a young
woman just recovering from a serious illness, Florence
Nightingale. A soldier said, " Before she came there
was such cussin' and swearin' ; and after that it was as
holy as a church." She robbed war of half its terrors.
Since her time the hospital systems of all the nations
during war have been changed. No soldier was braver
and no patriot truer than Clara Barton, and wherever
that noble company of Protestant women known as the
Eed Cross Society, — the cross, I suppose, pointing to
Calvary, and the red to the blood of the Redeemer, —
wherever those consecrated workers seek to alleviate
the condition of those who suffer from plagues, cholera,

224 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

fevers, flood, famine, there this tireless angel moves on
her pathway of blessing. And of all heroes, what nobler
ones than these, whose names shine from the pages of
our missionary history ? I never read of Mrs. Judson,
Mrs. Snow, Miss Brittain, Miss West, without feeling
that the heroic age of our race has just begun, the age
which opens to woman the privilege of following her
benevolent inspirations wheresoever she will, without
thinking that our Christianity needs no other evidence.
" Duty is the cement without which all power, good-
ness, intellect, truth, happiness, and love itself can have
no permanence, but all the fabric of existence crumbles
away from under us and leaves us at last sitting in the
midst of a ruin, astonished at our own desolation." A
constant, abiding sense of duty is the last reason of cul-
ture.

" I slept and dreamed that life is beauty;
I woke and found that life is duty."

We have no more right to refuse to perform a duty
than to refuse to pay a debt. Moral insolvency is cer-
tain to him who neglects and disregards his duty to his
fellow-men. Nor can we hire another to perform our
duty. The mere accident of having money does not
release you from your duty to the world. Nay, it in-
creases it, for it enables you to do a larger and nobler
duty.

If your money is not clean, if there is a dirty dollar
in your millions, you have not succeeded. If there is
the blood of the poor and unfortunate, of orphans and
widows, on your bank account, you have not succeeded.
If your wealth has made others poorer, your life is a
failure. If you have gained it in an occupation that
kills, that shortens the lives of others, that poisons
their blood, or engenders disease, if you have taken a
day from a human life, if you have gained your money
by that which has debauched other lives, you have
failed.

THE GRANDEST THING IN THE WORLD. 225

Eemember that a question will be asked you some
time which you cannot evade, the right answer to
which will fix your destiny forever : " How did you get
that fortune ? " Are other men's lives in it ; are others'
hope and happiness buried in it ; are others' comforts
sacrificed to it ; are others' rights buried in it ; are
others' opportunities smothered in it ; others' chances
strangled by it ; has their growth been stunted by it ;
their characters stained by it; have others a smaller
loaf, a meaner home ? If so, you have failed ; all your
millions cannot save you from the curse, "thou hast
been weighed in the balance and found wanting."

When Walter Scott's publisher and printer failed and
^600,000 of debt stared them in the face, friends came
forward and offered to raise monej^ enough to allow him
to arrange with his creditors. " No," said he proudly,
" this right hand shall work it all off ; if we lose every-
thing else, we will at least keep our honor unblemished."
What a grand picture of manliness, of integrity in this
noble man, working like a dray-horse to cancel that great
debt, throwing off at white heat the " Life of Napoleon,"
"Woodstock," "The Tales of a Grandfather," articles
for the " Quarterly," and so on, all written in the midst of
great sorrow, pain, and ruin. " I could not have slept
soundly," he writes, " as I now can under the comfort-
able impression of receiving the thanks of m.j creditors,
and the conscious feeling of discharging my duty as a
man of honesty. I see before me a long, tedious, and
dark path, but it leads to stainless reputation. If I die
in the harness, as is very likely, I ^shall die with honor."

One of the last things he uttered was, " I have been,
perhaps, the most voluminous author of my day, and it
is a comfort to me to think that I have tried to unsettle
no man's faith, to corrupt no man's principles, and that
I have written nothing which, on my deathbed, I would
wish blotted out."

Although Agassiz refused to lecture even for a large

226 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

sum of money, yet he left a greater legacy to the world,
and left even more money to Harvard University
($300,000) than he would have left if he had taken the
time to lecture for money.

Faraday had to choose between a fortune of nearly a
million and a life of almost certain poverty if he pur-
sued science. He chose poverty and science, and earned
a name never to be erased from the book of fame.

Beecher says that we are all building a soul-house for
eternity ; yet with what differing architecture and what
various care !

What if a man should see his neighbor getting work-
men and building materials together, and should say to
him, '' What are you building ? " and he should answer,
'^ I don't exactly know. I am waiting to see what will
come of it." And so walls are reared, and room is added
to room, while the man looks idly on, and all the bystand-
ers exclaim, " What a fool he is ! " Yet this is the way
many men are building their characters for eternity,
adding room to room, without plan or aim, and thought-
lessly waiting to see what the effect will be. Such
builders will never dwell in "the house of God, not
made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

Some people build as cathedrals are built, the part
nearest the ground finished ; but that part which soars
towards heaven, the turrets and the spires, forever in-
complete.

Many men are mere warehouses full of merchandise —
the head and heart are stuffed with goods. Like those
houses in the lower streets of cities which were once
family dwellings, but are now used for commercial pur-
poses, there are apartments in their souls which were
once tenanted by taste, and love, and joy, and worship ;
but they are all deserted now, and the rooms are filled
with material things.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON
*' The Moses of Coloiiiar Finance."
" Poverty is a condition wliicli no man should accept, unless it is forced upon
him as an inexorable necessity or astlie alternative of dishonor."

" Comfort and independence abide with those who can postpone their desires."

CHAPTER XII.

WEALTH IN ECONOMY.

Economy is half the battle of life. — Spurgeon.

Economy is the parent of integrity, of liberty and ease, and the beaute-
ous sister of temperance, of cheerfulness and health. — Dr. Johnson.

Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants and to serve them
one's self?

As much wisdom can be expended on a private economy as on an em-
pire. — Emerson.

Riches amassed in haste will diminish; but those collected by hand and
little by little will multiply. — Goethe.

No gain is so certain as that which proceeds from the economical use of
what you have. — Latin Proverb.

Beware of little extravagances : a small leak will sink a big ship. —
Franklin.

Better go to bed supperless than rise with debts. — German Proverb.

Debt is like any other trap, easy enough to get into, but hard enough to
get out of. — H. W. Shaw.

Sense can support herself handsomely in most countries on some eighteen
pence a day; but for phantasy, planets and solar systems will not suffice.
— Macaulay.

Economy, the poor man's mint. — Tupper.

I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse ; borrowing only
lingers and lingers it out ; but the disease is incurable. — Shakespeare.

Whatever be your talents, whatever be your prospects, never speculate
away on the chance of a palace that which you may need as a provision
against the workhouse. — Bulwer.

Not for to hide it in a hedge.
Nor for a train attendant.
But for the glorious privilege
Of being independent.

Burns.

" We shan't get much here," whispered a lady to her
companion, as John Murray blew out one of the two
caudles by whose light he had been writing when they

228 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

asked him to contribute to some benevolent object. He
listened to their story and gave one hundred dollars.
" Mr. Murray, I am very agreeably surprised," said the
lady quoted ; " I did not expect to get a cent from you."
The old Quaker asked the reason for her opinion ; and,
when told, said, " That, ladies, is the reason I am able
to let you have the hundred dollars. It is by practi-
cing economy that I save up money with which to do
charitable actions. One candle is enough to talk by."

Emerson relates the following anecdote : " An opulent
merchant in Boston was called on by a friend in behalf
of a charity. At that time he was admonishing his
clerk for using whole wafers instead of halves ; his
friend thought the circumstance unprojoitious ; but to
his surprise, on listening to the appeal, the merchant
subscribed five hundred dollars. The applicant ex-
pressed his astonishment that any person who was so
particular about half a wafer should present five hun-
dred dollars to a charity ; but the merchant said, " It
is by saving half wafers, and attending to such little
things, that I have now something to give."

" How did you acquire your great fortune ? " asked a
friend of Lampis, the shipowner. " My great fortune,
easily," was the reply ; " my small one, by dint of ex-
ertion."

Four years from the time Marshall Field left the
rocky New England farm to seek his fortune in Chicago
he was admitted as a partner in the firm of Coaley,
Farwell & Co. The only reason the modest young man
gave, to explain his promotion when he had neither
backing, wealth, nor influence, was that he saved his
money.

If a man will begin at the age of twenty and lay by
twenty-six cents every working day, investing at seven
per cent, compound interest, he will have thirty-two
thousand dollars when he is seventy years old. Twenty
cents a day is no unusual expenditure for beer or cigars.

WEALTH IN ECONOMY. 229

yet ill lifty years it would easily amount to twenty thou-
sand dollars. Even a saving of one dollar a week from
the date of one's majority would give him one thousand
dollars for each of the last ten of the allotted years of
life. " What maintains one vice would bring up two
children."

Such rigid economy, such high courage, enables one
to surprise the world with gifts even if he is poor. In
fact, the poor and the middle classes give most in the
aggregate to missions and hospitals and to the poor.
Only frugality enables them to outdo the rich on their
own ground.

But miserliness or avariciousness is a different thing
from economy. The miserly is the miserable man, who
hoards money from a love of it. A miser who spends a
cent upon himself Avhere another would spend a quarter
does it from parsimony, which is a subordinate charac-
teristic of avarice. Of this the following is an illus-
tration : " True, I should like some soup, but I have
no appetite for the meat," said the dying Ostervalde ;
"what is to become of that ? It will be a sad waste."
And so the rich Paris banker would not let his servant
buy meat for broth.

A writer on political economy tells of the mishaps
resulting from a broken latch on a farmyard gate.
Every one going through would shut the gate, but as
the latch would not hold it, it would swing open with
every breeze. One day a pig ran out into the woods.
Every one on the farm went to help get him back. A
gardener jumped over a ditch -to stop the pig, and
sprained his ankle so badly as to be confined to his bed
for two weeks. When the cook returned, she found
that her linen, left to dry at the fire, was all badly
scorched. The dairymaid in her excitement left the
cows untied, and one of them broke the leg of a colt.
The gardener lost several hours of valuable time. Yet
a new latch would not have cost five cents.

230 ARCHITECTS OF FATE,

Guy, the London bookseller, and afterward tlie
founder of the great hospital, was a great miser,
living in the back i^art of his shop, eating upon an old
bench, and using his counter for a table, with a news-
paper for a cloth. He did not marry. One day he was
visited by "Vulture" Hopkins, another well-known
miser. " What is your business ? " asked Guy, lighting
a candle. " To discuss your methods of saving money,"
was the reply, alluding to the niggardly economy for
which Guy was famous. On learning Hopkins's busi-
ness he blew out the light, saying, " We can do that in
the dark." " Sir, you are my master in the art," said
the " Vulture ; " "I need ask no further. I see where
your secret lies."

Yet that kind of economy which verges on the nig-
gardly is better than the extravagance that laughs at it.
Either, when carried to excess, is not only apt to cause
misery, but to ruin the character.

" Lay by something for a rainy day," said a gentle-
man to an Irishman in his service. Not long afterwards
he asked Patrick how much he had added to his store.
" Faith, nothing at all," was the reply ; " I did as you
bid me, but it rained very hard yesterday, and it all
went — in drink."

"Wealth, a monster gorged
'Mid starving populations."

But nowhere and at no period were these contrasts
more startling than in Imperial Rome. There a
whole population might be trembling lest they should
be starved by the delay of an Alexandrian corn-ship,
while the upper classes were squandering fortunes at a
single banquet, drinking out of myrrhine and jeweled
vases worth hundreds of pounds, and feasting on the
brains of peacocks and the tongues of nightingales.
As a consequence, disease was rife, men were short-
lived. At this time the dress of Roman ladies dis-
played an unheard-of splendor. The elder Pliny tells

WEALTH IN ECONOMY. 231

us that he himself saw Lollia Paulina dressed for a be-
trothal feast in a robe entirely covered with pearls and
emeralds, which had cost 40,000,000 sesterces, and which
was known to be less costly than some of her other
dresses. Gluttony, caprice, extravagance, ostentation,
impurity, rioted in the heart of a society which knew of
no other means by which to break the monotony of its
weariness or alleviate the anguish of its despair.

The expense ridiculously bestowed on the Eoman
feasts passes all belief. Suetonius mentions a supper
given to Vitellius by his brother, in which, among other
articles, there were two thousand of the choicest fishes,
seven thousand of the most delicate birds, and one dish,
from its size and capacity, named the segis or shield of
Minerva. It was filled chiefly with the liver of the
scari, a delicate species of fish, the brains of pheasants
and peacocks, and the tongues of parrots, considered
desirable chiefly because of their great cost.

" I hope that there will not be another sale," ex-
claimed Horace Walpole, " for I have not an inch of
room nor a farthing left." A woman once bought an old
door-plate with " Thompson " on it because she thought
it might come in handy some time. The habit of buy-
ing what you don't need because it is cheap encourages
extravagance. " Many have been ruined by buying
good pennyworths."

"Where there is no prudence," said Dr. Johnson,
" there is no virtue."

The eccentric John Eandolph once sprang from his
seat in the House of Eepresentatives, and exclaimed
in his piercing voice, " Mr. Speaker, I have found it."
And then, in the stillness which followed this strange
outburst, he added, " I have found the Philosopher's
Stone : it is Pay as you f/o.^'

Many a young man seems to think that when he sees
his name on a sign he is on the highway to fortune,
and he begins to live on a scale as though there was no

232 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

possible chance of failure ; as though he were already
beyond the danger point. Unfortunately Congress can
pass no law that will remedy the vice of living beyond
one's means.

" The prosperity of fools shall destroy them." " How-
ever easy it may be to make money," said Barnum, " it
is the most difficult thing in the world to keep it."
Money often makes the mare — run away with you.

Very few men know how to use money properly.
They can earn it, lavish it, hoard it, waste it ; but to
deal with it wisely , as a means to an end, is an educa-
tion difficult of acquirement.

After a large stained -glass window had been con-
structed an artist picked up the discarded fragments
and made one of the most exquisite windows in Europe
for another cathedral. So one boy will pick up a splen-
did education out of the odds and ends of time which
others carelessly throw away, or gain a fortune by sav-
ing what others waste.

It has become a part of the new political economy to
argue that a debt on a church or a house or a firm is a
desirable thing to develop character. When the young
man starts out in life with the old-fashioned idea strong
in his mind that debt is bondage and a disgrace, that a
mortgage is to be shunned like the cholera, and that to
owe a dollar that you cannot pay, unless overtaken by
misfortune, is nothing more or less than stealing, then
he is bound in so much at least to succeed, and save his
old age from being a burden upon his friends or the
state.

To do your best you must own every bit of yourself.
If you are in debt, part of you belongs to your credi-
tors. Nothing but actual sin is so paralyzing to a
young man's energies as debt.

The " loose change " which many young men throw
away carelessly, or worse, would often form the basis of
a fortune and independence. The earnings of the peo-

WEALTH IN ECONOMY. 233

pie of the United States, rich and poor, old and young,
male and female, amount to an average of less than
fifty cents a day. But it is by economizing such sav-
ings that one must get his start in business. The man
without a penny is practically helpless, from a business
point of view, except so far as he can immediately util-
ize his powers of body and mind. Besides, when a man
or woman is driven to the wall, the chance of goodness
surviving self-respect and the loss of public esteem is
frightfully diminished.

" Money goes as it comes.'^ " A child and a fool
imagine that twenty years and twenty shillings can
never be spent."

Live between extravagance and meanness. Don't
save money and starve your mind. " The very secret
and essence of thrift consists in getting things into
higher values. Spend upAvard, that is, for the higher
faculties. Spend for the mind rather than for the body,
for culture rather than for amusement. Some young
men are too stingy to buy the daily papers, and are very
ignorant and narrow. " There is that withholdeth more
than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty." Don't squeeze
out of your life and comfort and family what you save."

Liberal, not lavish, is Nature's hand. Even God, it
is said, cannot afford to be extravagant. When He in-
creased the loaves and fishes, He commanded to gather
up the fragments, that nothing be lost.

" Nature uses a grinding economy," says Emerson,
" working up all that is wasted to-day into to-morrow's
creation ; not a superfluous grain- of sand for all the os-
tentation she makes of expense and public works. She
flung us out in her plenty, but we cannot shed a hair or
a paring of a nail but instantly she snatches at the
shred and appropriates it to her general stock." Last
summer's flowers and foliage decayed in autumn only to
enrich the earth this year for other forms of beauty.
Nature will not even wait for our friends to see us, un-

234 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

less we die at home. The moment the breath has left
the body she begins to take us to i)ieces, that the parts
may be used again for other creations.
Mark the following contrast : —

1772. 1822.

Man, to the plow; Man, tally-ho;

Wife, to the cow; Wife, piano;

Girl, to the sow; Miss, silk and satin ;

Boy, to the mow; B03', Greek and Latin;

And your rents will be netted. And you '11 all be gazetted.
Hone's Works. The Times.

More than a lifetime has elapsed since the above was
published, but instead of returning to the style of 1772,
our farmers have out-Heroded Herod in the direction of
the fashion of 1822, and many a farmhouse, like the
home of Artemas Ward, may be known by the cupola
and the mortgage with which it is decorated.

It is by the mysterious power of economy, it has been
said, that the loaf is multiplied, that using does not
waste, that little becomes much, that scattered frag-
ments grow to unity, and that out of nothing or next to
nothing comes the miracle of something. It is not
merely saving, still less, parsimony. It is foresight
and arrangement, insight and combination, causing
inert things to labor, useless things to serve our neces-
sities, perishing things to renew their vigor, and all
things to exert themselves for human comfort.

English working men and women work very hard,
seldom take a holiday, and though they get nearly
double the wages of the same classes in France, yet
save very little. The millions earned by them slip out
of their hands almost as soon as obtained to satisfy the
pleasures of the moment. In France every house-
keeper is taught the art of making much out of little.
"I am simply astonished," writes an American lady
stopping in France, "at the number of good wholesome
dishes which my friend here makes for her table from
things, which at home, I always throw away. Dainty

WEALTH IN ECONOMY. 235

little dishes from scraps of cold meat, from hard crusts
of bread, delicately prepared and seasoned, from almost
everything and nothing. And yet there is no feeling of
stinginess or want."

" I wish I could write all across the sky, in letters of
gold," says Kev. William Marsh, "the one word, sav-
ings-bank."

Boston savings-banks have $130,000,000 on deposit,
mostly saved in driblets. Josiah Quincy used to say
that the servant girls built most of the palaces on Bea-
con Street.

" So apportion your wants that your means may ex-
ceed them," says Bulwer. " With one hundred pounds
a year I jnay need no man's help ; I may at least have
< my crust of bread and liberty.' But with five thou-
sand pounds a year I may dread a ring at my bell ; I
may have my tyrannical master in servants whose
wages I cannot pay ; my exile may be at the fiat of the
first long-suffering man who enters a judgment against
me ; for the flesh that lies nearest my heart some Shy-
lock may be dusting his scales and whetting his knife.
Every man is needy who spends more than he has ; no
man is needy who spends less. I may so ill manage,
that with five thousand pounds a year I purchase the
worst evils of poverty, — terror and shame; I may so
well manage my money, that with one hundred pounds
a year I purchase the best blessings of wealth, — safety
and respect."

Edmund Burke, speaking on Economic Eeform,
quoted from Cicero : " Magnum vectigal est parsimo-
nia," accenting the second word on the first syllable.
Lord North whispered a correction, when Burke turned
the mistake to advantage. " The noble lord hints that
I have erred in the quantity of a principal word in my
quotation; I rejoice at it, sir, because it gives me an
opportunity of repeating the inestimable adage, —
* Magnum vectigal est parsimonia.' " The sentiment,

236 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

meaning " Thrift is a good income/' is well worthy of
emphatic repetition by us all.

Washington examined the minutest expenditures of
his family, even when President of the United States.
He understood that without economy none can be rich,
and with it none need be poor.

"I make a point of paying my own bills/' said Wel-
lington.

John Jacob Astor said that the first thousand dollars
cost him more effort than all of his millions. Boys
who are careless with their dimes and quarters, just be-
cause they have so few, never get this first thousand,
and without it no fortune is possible.

To find out uses for the persons or things which are
now wasted in life is to be the glorious work of the
men of the next generation, and that which will con-
tribute most to their enrichment.

Economizing " in spots " or by freaks is no economy
at all. It must be done by management.

Learn early in life to say ^' I can't afford it." It is
an indication of power and courage and manliness. Dr.
Franklin said, " It is not our own eyes, but other peo-
ple's, that ruin us." " Eashion wears out more apparel
than the man," says Shakespeare.

" Of what a hideous progeny of ill is debt the father,"
said Douglas Jerrold. "What meanness, what inva-
sions of self-respect, what cares, what double-dealing !
How in due season it will carve the frank, open face
into wrinkles ; how like a knife it will stab the honest
heart. And then its transformations, — how it has been
known to change a goodly face into a mask of brass ;
how with the evil custom of debt has the true man
become a callous trickster ! A freedom from debt, and
what nourishing sweetness may be found in cold water ;
what toothsomeness in a dry crust ; what ambrosial
nourishment in a hard eg^ ! Be sure of it, he who
dines out of debt, though his meal be a biscuit and an

WEALTH IN ECONOMY. 237

onion, dines in ' The Apollo.' And then, for raiment,
what warmth in a threadbare coat, if the tailor's receipt
be in your pocket ! What Tyrian purple in the faded
waistcoat, the vest not owed for ; how glossy the well-
worn hat, if it covers not the aching head of a debtor !
Next, the home sweets, the outdoor recreation of the
free man. The street door falls not a knell in his
heart ; the foot on the staircase, though he lives on the
third pair, sends no spasm through his anatomy ; at the
rap of his door he can crow ' come in,' and his pulse
still beats healthfully. See him abroad ! How he re-
turns look for look with any passenger. Poverty is a
bitter draught, yet may, and sometimes can with ad-
vantage, be gulped down. Though the drinker makes
wry faces, there may, after all, be a wholesome good-
ness in the cup. But debt, however courteously it may
be offered, is the Cup of Siren ; and the wine, spiced
and delicious though it be, is poison. My son, if poor,
see Hyson in the running spring ; see thy mouth water
at a last week's roll ; think a threadbare coat the only
wear ; and acknowledge a whitewashed garret the fittest
housing-place for a gentleman ; do this, and flee debt.
So shall thy heart be at rest, and the sheriff con-
founded."

" Whoever has sixpence is sovereign over all men to
the extent of that sixpence," says Carlyle ; " commands
cooks to feed him, philosophers to teach him, kings to
mount guard over him, — to the extent of that sixpence."

If a man owes you a dollar, he is almost sure to owe
you a grudge, too. If you owe another money, you
will be apt to regard him with uncharitable eyes. Why
not economize before getting into debt instead of pinch-
ing afterwards ?

Communities which live wholly from hand to mouth
never make much progress in the useful arts. Savings
mean power. Comfort and independence abide with
those who can postpone thei?^ desires.

238 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

"Hunger, rags, cold, hard work, contempt, suspicion,
unjust reproach, are disagreeable," says Horace Gree-
ley ; "but debt is infinitely worse than them all."

Many a ruined man dates his downfall from the day
when he began borrowing money. Debt demoralized
Daniel Webster, and Theodore Hook, and Sheridan,
and Fox, and Pitt. Mirabeau's life was made wretched
by duns.

" Annual income," says Micawber, " twenty pounds ;
annual expenditure, nineteen six, result — happiness.
Annual income, twenty pounds ; annual expenditure,
twenty pounds ought and six, result — misery."

"We are ruined," says Colton, "not by what we
really want, but by what we think we do. Therefore
never go abroad in search of your wants ; if they be
real wants, they will come home in search of you ; for
he that buys what he does not want will soon want
what he cannot buy."

The honorable course is to give every man his due.
It is better to starve than not to do this. It is better
to do a small business on a cash basis than a large one
on credit. Owe no man anything, wrote St. Paul. It
is a good motto to place in every purse, in every count-
ing-room, in every church, in every home.

Economy is of itself a great revenue. — Cicero.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON
"The Sage of Concord."
''■ I revere the person wlio is riches : so I cannot think of him as alone, or poor,
or exiled, or unhappy."

CHAPTER XIII.

RICH WITHOUT MONEY.

Let others plead for pensions; I can be rich without money, by endeav-
oring to be superior to everything poor. I would have my services to my
country unstained by any interested motive. — Lord Collingwood.
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.

Pope.

Pennilessness is not poverty, and ownership is not possession; to be
without is not always to lack, and to reach is not to attain ; sunlight is for
all eyes that look up, and color for those who choose. — Helen Hunt.

I ought not to allow an}' man, because he has broad lands, to feel that he
is rich in my presence. I ought to make him feel that I can do without
his riches, that I cannot be bought, — neither by comfort, neither by pride,
— and although I be utterly penniless, and receiving bread from him, that
he is the poor man beside me. — Emerson.

To be content with what we possess is the greatest and most secure of
riches. — Cicero.

There is no riches above a sound body and no joy above the joy of the
heart. — Ecclesiastes.

"Where, thy true treasure ? Gold says, "Not in me ; "
And " Not in me," the Diamond. Gold is poor ;
India 's insolvent: seek it in thyself.

Young.

He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of
nature. — Socrates.

A great heart in a little house is of all things here below that which has
ever touched me most. — Lacordaire.

My crown is in my heart, not on my head.
Nor decked with diamonds and Lidian stones,
Nor to be seen : my crown is called content;
A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy.

Shakespeare.

Many a man is rich without money. Thousands of
men with nothing in their pockets, and thousands with-
out even a pocket, are rich.

240 ARCHITECTS OF FATE,

A man born with a good, sound constitution, a good
stomach, a good heart and good limbs, and a pretty
good headpiece, is rich.

Good bones are better than gold, tough muscles than
silver, and nerves that carry energy to every function
are better than houses and land.

"Heart-life, soul-life, hope, joy, and love, are true
riches," said Beecher.

Why should I scramble and struggle to get posses-
sion of a little portion of this earth ? This is my world
now ; why should I envy others its mere legal posses-
sion ? It belongs to him who can see it, enjoy it. I
need not envy the so-called owners of estates in Boston
and New York. They are merely taking care of my
property and keeping it in excellent condition for me.
For a few pennies for railroad fare whenever I wish I
can see and possess the best of it all. It has cost me no
effort, it gives me no care ; yet the green grass, the
shrubbery, and the statues on the lawns, the finer
sculptures and the paintings within, are always ready
for me whenever I feel a desire to look upon them. I
do not wish to carry them home with me, for I could
not give them half the care they now receive ; besides,
it would take too much of my valuable time, and I
should be worrying continually lest they be spoiled or
stolen. I have much of the wealth of the world now.
It is all prepared for me without any pains on my part.
All around me are working hard to get things that will
please me, and competing to see who can give them the
cheapest. The little I pay for the use of libraries, rail-
roads, galleries, parks, is less than it would cost to care
for the least of all I use. Life and landscape are mine,
the stars and flowers, the sea and air, the birds and
trees. What more do I want ? All the ages have been
working for me ; all mankind are my servants. I am
only required to feed and clothe myself, an easy task in
this land of opportunity.

RICH WITHOUT MONEY. 241

A millionaire pays thousands of pounds for a gallery of
paintings, and some poor boy or girl comes in, with open
mind and poetic fancy, and carries away a treasure of
beauty which the owner never saw. A collector bought
at public auction in London, for one hundred and fifty-
seven guineas, an autograph of Shakespeare ; but for
nothing a schoolboy can read and absorb the riches of
" Hamlet."

Why should I waste my abilities pursuing this will-o'-
the-wisp " Enough," which is ever a little more than one
has, and which none of the panting millions ever yet
overtook in his mad chase ? Is there no desirable thing
left in this world but gold, luxury, and ease ?

" Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was
never large enough to cover." " A man may as soon fill
a chest with grace, or a vessel with virtue," says Phillips
Brooks, " as a heart with wealth."

Shall we seek happiness through the sense of taste
or of touch ? Shall we idolize our stomachs and our
backs ? Have we no higher missions, no nobler des-
tinies ? Shall we " disgrace the fair day by a pusillani-
mous preference of our bread to our freedom " ?

In the three great " Banquets " of Plato, Xenophon,
and Plutarch the food is not even mentioned.

What does your money say to you : what message does
it bring to you ? Does it say to you, " Eat, drink, and
be merry, for to-morrow we die " ? Does it bring a mes-
sage of comfort, of education, of culture, of travel, of
books, of an opportunity to help your fellow-man, or is
the message "More land, more thousands and millions" ?
What message does it bring you ? Clothes for the
naked, bread for the starving, schools for the ignorant,
hospitals for the sick, asylums for the orphans, or- of
more for yourself and none for others ? Is it a message
of generosity or of meanness, breadth or narrowness ?
Does it speak to you of character ? Does it mean a
broader manhood, a larger aim, a nobler ambition, or
does it cry " More, more, more " '/

242 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

Are you an animal loaded with ingots, or a man filled
with a purpose ? He is rich whose mind is rich, whose
thought enriches the intellect of the world. It is a sad
sight to see a soul which thirsts not for truth or beauty
or the good.

A sailor on a sinking vessel in the Caribbean Sea
eagerly filled his pockets with Spanish dollars from a
barrel on board while his companions, about to leave
in the only boat, begged him to seek safety with them.
But he could not leave the bright metal which he had
so longed for and idolized, and was prevented from
reaching shore by his very riches, when the vessel went
down.

" Who is the richest of men," asked Socrates ? '^ He
who is content with the least, for contentment is na-
ture's riches."

In More's ^'Utopia" gold was despised. Criminals
were forced to wear heavy chains of it, and to have
rings of it in their ears ; it was put to the vilest uses
to keep up the scorn of it. Bad characters were com-
pelled to wear gold head-bands. Diamonds and pearls
were used to decorate infants, so that the youth would
discard and despise them.

"Ah, if the rich were as rich as the poor fancy
riches ! " exclaims Emerson.

Many a rich man has died in the poorhouse.

In excavating Pompeii a skeleton was found with the
fingers clenched round a quantity of gold. A man of
business in the town of Hull, England, when dying,
pulled a bag of money from under his pillow, which he
held between his clenched fingers with a grasp so firm
as scarcely to relax under the agonies of death.

Oh ! blind and wanting wit to choose,
Who house the chaff and burn the grain ;
Who hug the wealth ye cannot use,
And lack the riches all may gain.

Wu>i.iAM Watson.

RICH WITHOUT MONEY. 243

Povert}^ is the want of much, avarice the want of
everything.

A poor man was met by a stranger while scoffing at
the wealthy for not enjoying themselves. The stranger
gave him a purse, in which he was always to find a
ducat. As fast as he took one out another was to drop
in, but he was not to begin to spend his fortune until
he had thrown away the purse. He takes ducat after
ducat out, but continually procrastinates and puts off
the hour of enjoyment until he has got " a little more,"
and dies at last counting his millions.

A beggar was once met by Fortune, who promised to
fill his wallet with gold, as much as he miglit please, on
condition that whatever touched the ground should turn
at once to dust. The beggar opens his wallet, asks for
more and yet more, until the bag bursts. The gold falls
to the ground, and all is lost.

When the steamer Central America was about to
sink, the stewardess, having collected all the gold she
could from the staterooms, and tied it in her apron,
jumped for the last boat leaving the steamer. She
missed her aim and fell into the water, the gold carry-
ing her down head first.

In the year 1843 a rich miser lived in Padua, who
was so mean and sordid that he would never give a cent
to any person or object, and he was so afraid of the
banks that he would not deposit with them, but would
sit up nights with sword and pistol by him to guard his
idol hoard. When his health gave way from anxiety
and watching he built an underground treasure-cham-
ber, so arranged that if any burglar ever entered, he
would step upon a spring which would precipitate him
into a subterranean river, where he could neither escape
nor be heard. One night the miser went to his chest
to see that all was right, when his foot touched the
spring of the trap, and he was hurled into the deep,
hidden stream.

244 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

" One would think/' said Boswell, " that the proprie-
tor of all this (Keddlestone, the seat of Lord Scarsfield)
must be happy." " Nay, sir," said Johnson, " all this
excludes but one evil, poverty."

John Duncan, the illegitimate child of a Scottish
weaver, was ignorant, near-sighted, bent, a miserable
apology for a human being, and at last a pauper. If he
went upon the street he would sometimes be stoned by
other boys. The farmer, for whom he watched cattle,
was cruel to him, and after a rainy day would send him
cold and wet to sleep on a miserable bed in a dark out-
house. Here he would empty the water from his shoes,
and wring out his wet clothes and sleep as best he
might. But the boy had a desire to learn to read, and
when, a little later, he was put to weaving, he ^ev-
suaded a schoolgirl, twelve years old, to teach him. He
was sixteen when he learned the alphabet, after which
his progress was quite rapid. He was very fond of
plants, and worked overtime for several months to earn
five shillings to buy a book on botany. He became a
good botanist, and such was his interest in the study
that at the age of eighty he walked twelve miles to
obtain a new specimen. A man whom he met became
interested at finding such a well-stored mind in such a
miserable body, poorly clad, and published an account
of his career. Many readers sent him money, but he
saved it, and left it in his will to found eight scholar-
ships and offer prizes for the encouragement of the
study of natural science by the poor. His small but
valuable library was left for a similar use.

Franklin said money never made a man happy yet ;
there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The
more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of filling a
vacuum, it makes one. A great bank account can never
make a man rich. It is the mind that makes the body
rich. No man is rich, however much money or land he
may possess, who has a poor heart. If that is poor, he is

RICH WITHOUT MONEY. 245

poor indeed, though he own and rule kingdoms. He is
rich or poor according to what he is, not according to
what he has.

Who would not choose to be" a millionaire of deeds
with a Lincoln, a Grant, a Florence Nightingale, a
Childs; a millionaire of ideas with Emerson, with
Lowell, with Shakespeare, with Wordsworth ; a million-
aire of statesmanship with a Gladstone, a Bright, a
Sumner, a Washington ?

Some men are rich in health, in constant cheerful-
ness, in a mercurial temperament which floats them over
troubles and trials enough to sink a shipload of ordi-
nary men. Others are rich in disposition, family, and
friends. There are some men so amiable that everybody
loves them ; some so cheerful that they carry an atmos-
phere of jollity about them. Some are rich in integrity
and character.

One of the first great lessons of life is to learn the
true estimate of values. As the youth starts out in his
career, all sorts of wares will be imposed upon him, and
all kinds of temptations will be used to induce him to
buy. His success will depend very largely upon his
ability to estimate properly, not the apparent but the
real value of everything presented to him. Vulgar
Wealth will flaunt her banner before his eyes, and claim
supremacy over everything else. A thousand different
schemes will be thrust into his face with their claims
for superiority. Every occupation and vocation will pre-
sent its charms in turn, and offer its inducements. The
youth Avho would succeed must not allow himself to be
deceived by appearances, but must place the emphasis
of life where it belongs.

No man, it is said, can read the works of John Euskin
without learning that his sources of pleasure are well-
nigh infinite. There is not a flower, nor a cloud, nor a
tree, nor a mountain, nor a star ; not a bird that fans
the air, nor a creature that walks the earth; not a

246 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

glimpse of sea or sky or meaclow-greeiiery ; not a work
of worthy art in the domains of painting, sculpture, poe-
try, and architecture ; not a thought of God as the
Great Spirit presiding over and informing all things,
that is not to him a source of the sweetest pleasure.
The whole world of matter and of spirit and the long
record of human art are open to him as the never-fail-
ing fountains of his delight. In these pure realms he
seeks his daily food and has his daily life.

There is now and then a man who sees beauty and
true riches everywhere, and " worships the splendor of
God which he sees bursting through each chink and
cranny."

Phillips Brooks, Thoreau, Garrison, Emerson, Beecher,
Agassiz, were rich without money. They saw the
splendor in the flower, the glory in the grass, books in
the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in
everything. They knew that the man who owns the
landscape is seldom the one who pays the taxes on it.
They sucked in power and wealth at first hands from
the meadows, fields, and flowers, birds, brooks, moun-
tains, and forest, as the bee sucks honey from the flow-
ers. Every natural object seemed to bring them a spe-
cial message from the great Author of the beautiful. To
these rare souls every natural object was touched with
power and beauty ; and their thirsty souls drank it in
as a traveler on a desert drinks in the god-sent water
of the oasis. To extract power and real wealth from
men and things seemed to be their mission, and to pour
it out again in refreshing showers upon a thirsty hu-
manity. They believed that man's most important food
does not enter by the mouth. They knew that man
could not live by estates, dollars, and bread alone, and
that if he could he would only be an animal. They be-
lieved that the higher life demands a higher food.
They believed in man's unlimited power of expansion,
and that this growth demands a more highly organized

RICH WITHOUT MONEY. 247

food product than that which merely sustains animal
life. They saw a finer nutriment in the landscape, in
the meadows, than could be ground into flour, and which
escaped the loaf. They felt a sentiment in natural ob-
jects which pointed upward, ever upward to the Author,
and which was capable of feeding and expanding the
higher life until it should grow into a finer sympathy
and fellowship with the Author of the beautiful. They
believed that the Creation thunders the ten command-
ments, and that all Nature is tugging at the terms of
every contract to make it just. They could feel this
finer sentiment, this soul lifter, this man inspirer, in
the growing grain, in the waving corn, in the golden
harvest. They saw it reflected in every brook, in every
star, in every flower, in every dewdrop. They believed
that Nature together with human nature were man's
great schoolmasters ; that if rightly used they Avould
carve his rough life into beauty and touch his rude man-
ner with grace.

"More servants wait on man than he '11 take notice
of." But if he would enjoy Nature he must come to it
from a higher level than the yardstick. He must
bring a spirit as grand and sublime as that by which
the thing itself exists.

We all live on far lower levels than we need to do.
We linger in the misty and oppressive valleys, when we
might be climbing the sunlit hills. God puts into our
hands the Book of Life, bright on every page with open
secrets, and we suffer it to drop out of our hands unread.
Emerson says, " We have come .into a world which is a
living poem. Everything is as I am." Nature provides
for us a perpetual festival ; she is bright to the bright,
comforting to those who will accept comfort. We can-
not conceive how a universe could possibly be created
which could devise more efficient methods or greater
opportunities for the delight, the happiness, and the
real wealth of human beings than the one we live in.

248 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

The human body is packed full of marvelous devices,
of wonderful contrivances, of infinite possibilities for
the happiness and riches of the individual. No physi-
ologist nor scientist has ever yet been able to point out
a single improvement, even in the minutest detail, in
the structure of the human body. No inventor has
ever yet been able to suggest an improvement in this
human mechanism. No chemist has ever been able to
suggest a superior combination in any one of the ele-
ments which make up the human structure. One of the
first things to do in life is to learn the natural wealth
of our surroundings, instead of bemoaning our lot, for,
no matter where we are placed, there is infinitely more
about us than we can ever understand, than we can ever
exhaust the meaning of.

" Thank Heaven there are still some Matthew Arnolds
who prefer the heavenly sweetness of light to the Eden
of riches." Arnold left only a few thousand dollars,
but yet was he not one of the richest of men ? What
the world wants is young men who will amass golden
thoughts, golden wisdom, golden deeds, not mere golden
dollars ; young men who prefer to have thought-capital,
character-capital, to cash-capital. He who estimates
his money the highest values himself the least. " I
revere the person," says Emerson, " who is riches ; so
that I cannot think of him as alone, or poor, or exiled,
or unhappy."

Eaphael was rich without money. All doors opened
to him, and he was more than welcome everywhere.
His sweet spirit radiated sunshine wherever he went.

Henry Wilson was rich without money. So scrupu-
lous had he been not to make his exalted position a
means of worldly gain, that when this Natick cobbler,
the sworn friend of the oppressed, whose one question
as to measures or acts was ever " Is it right ; will it do
good ? " came to be inaugurated as Vice-President of
the country, he was obliged to borrow of his fellow-

RICH WITHOUT MONEY. 249

senator, Charles Sumner, one hundred dollars to meet
the necessary expenses of the occasion.

Mozart, the great composer of the " Kequiem," left
barely enough money to bury him, but he has made the
world richer.

A rich mind and noble spirit will cast a radiance of
beauty over the humblest home, which the upholsterer
and decorator can never approach. Who would not pre-
fer to be a millionaire of character, of contentment,
rather than possess nothing but the vulgar coins of a
Croesus ? Whoever uplifts civilization is rich though
he die penniless, and future generations will erect his
monument.

Are we tender, loving, self-denying, and honest, trying
to fashion our frail life after that of the model man of
Nazareth ? Then, though our pockets are often empty,
we have an inheritance which is as overwhelmingly pre-
cious as it is eternally incorruptible.

An Asiatic traveler tells us that one day he found
the bodies of two men laid upon the desert sand beside
the carcass of a camel. They had evidently died from
thirst, and yet around the waist of each was a large
store of jewels of different kinds, which they had doubt-
less been crossing the desert to sell in the markets of
Persia.

The man who has no money is poor, but one who has
nothing but money is poorer than he. He only is rich
who can enjoy without owning ; he who is covetous is
poor though he have millions. There are riches of in-
tellect, and no man with an intellectual taste can be
called poor. He who has so little knowledge of human
nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but
his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless
efforts, and multiply the griefs which he purposes to
remove. He is rich as well as brave who can face pov-
erty and misfortune with cheerfulness and courage.

We can so educate the will power that it will focus

250 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

the thoughts upon the bright side of things, and upon
objects which elevate the soul, thus forming a habit of
hapj)iness and goodness which will make us rich. The
habit of making the best of everything and of always
looking on the bright side of everything is a fortune in
itself.

He is rich who values a good name above gold.
Among the ancient Greeks and Eomans honor was
more sought after than wealth. Eome was imperial
Rome no more when the imperial purple became an
article of traffic.

This is the evil of trade, as well as of partisan poli-
tics. As Emerson remarks, it would put everything
into market, — talent, beauty, virtue, and man himself.

Diogenes was captured by pirates and sold as a slave.
His purchaser released him, and gave him charge of his
household and of the education of his children. He
despised wealth and affectation, and lived in a tub.
" Do you want anything ? " asked Alexander the Great,
forcibly impressed by the abounding cheerfulness of the
philosopher under such circumstances. "Yes," replied
Diogenes, " I want you to stand out of my sunshine and
not to take from me what you cannot give me." " Were
I not Alexander," exclaimed the great conqueror, "I
would be Diogenes."

Brave and honest men do not work for gold. They
work for love, for honor, for character. When Socrates
suffered death rather than abandon his views of right
morality, when Las Casas endeavored to mitigate the
tortures of the poor Indians, they had no thought of
money or country. They worked for the elevation of
all that thought, and for the relief of all that suffered.

"I don't want such things," said Epictetus to the
rich Roman orator who was making light of his con-
tempt for money-wealth; "and besides," said the stoic,
"you are poorer than I am, after all. You have silver
vessels, but earthenware reasons, principles, appetites.

RICH WITHOUT MONEY. 251

My mind to me a kingdom is, and it furnishes me with
abundant and happy occupation in lieu of your restless
idleness. All your possessions seem small to you ; mine
seem great to me. Your desire is insatiate, mine is
satisfied."

" Do you know, sir," said a devotee of Mammon to
John Bright, " that I am worth a million sterling ? "
" Yes," said the irritated but calm-spirited respondent,
"I do ; and I know that it is all you are worth."

A bankrupt merchant, returning home one night, said
to his noble wife, " My dear, I am ruined ; everything
we have is in the hands of the sheriff." After a few
moments of silence the wife looked into his face and
asked, " Will the sheriff sell you ? " '' Oh, no." " Will
the sheriff sell me ? " " Oh, no." " Then do not say
v/e have lost everything. All that is most valuable re-
mains to us, — manhood, womanhood, childhood. We
have lost but the results of our skill and industry. We
can make another fortune if our hearts and hands are
left us."

What power can poverty have over a home where
loving hearts are beating with a consciousness of untold
riches of head and heart ?

Paul was never so great as when he occupied a prison
cell ; and Jesus Christ reached the height of his success
when, smitten, spat upon, tormented, and crucified, He
cried in agonj^, and yet with triumphant satisfaction,
" It is finished."

" Character before wealth," was the motto of Amos
Lawrence, who had inscribed- on his pocket-book,
" What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole
world and lose his own soul ? "

If you make a fortune let every dollar of it be clean.
You do not want to see in it drunkards reel, orphans
weep, widows moan. Your riches must not make others
poorer and more wretched.

Alexander the Great wandered to the gates of Parar

252 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

dise, and knocked for entrance. " Who knocks ? " de-
manded the guardian angel. " Alexander.'^ " Who is
Alexander ? " " Alexander, — the Alexander, — Alex-
ander the Great, — the conqueror of the world." "We
know him not," replied the angel ; " this is the Lord's
gate ; only the righteous enter here."

Don't start out in life with a false standard ; a truly
great man makes official position and money and houses
and estates look so tawdry, so mean and poor, that we
feel like sinking out of sight with our cheap laurels and
gold. Millions look triflinfj beside character.

A friend of Professor Agassiz, an eminent practical
man, once expressed his wonder that a man of such
abilities should remain contented with such a moderate
income as he received. " I have enough," was Agassiz's
reply. " I have no time to waste in making money.
Life is not sufficiently long to enable a man to get
rich and do his duty to his fellow -men at the same
time."

How were the thousands of business men who lost
every dollar they had in the Chicago fire enabled to
go into business at once, some into wholesale business,
without money ? Their record was their bank account.
The commercial agencies said they were square men ;
that they had always paid one hundred cents on a dol-
lar ; that they had paid promptly, and that they were
industrious and dealt honorably with all men. This
record was as good as a bank account. They drew on
their character. Character was the coin which enabled
penniless men to buy thousands of dollars' worth of
goods. Their integrity did not burn up with their
stores. The best part of them was beyond the reach of
fire and could not be burned.

What are the toil-sweated productions of wealth piled
up in vast profusion around a Girard, or a Eothschild,
when weighed against the stores of wisdom, the trea-
sures of knowledge, and the strength, beauty, and glory

RICH WITHOUT MONEY. 253

with which victorious virtue has enriched and adorned
a great multitude of minds during the march of a hun-
dred generations ?

" Lord, how many things are in the world of which
Diogenes hath no need ! " exclaimed the stoic, as he
wandered among the miscellaneous articles at a country
fair.

" There are treasures laid up in the heart — treasures
of charity, piety, temperance, and soberness. These
treasures a man takes with him beyond death when
he leaves this world." (Buddhist Scriptures.)

Is it any wonder that our children start out with
wrong ideals of life, with wrong ideas of what consti-
tutes success ? The child is " urged to get on," to " rise
in the world," to " make money." The youth is con-
stantly told that nothing succeeds like success. False
standards are everywhere set up for him, and then the
boy is blamed if he makes a failure.

It is all very well to urge youth on to success, but
the great mass of mankind can never reach or even ap-
proximate the goal constantly preached to them, nor
can we all be rich. One of the great lessons to teach in
this century of sharp competition and the survival of
the fittest is how to be rich without money, and to
learn how to do without success, according to the popu-
lar standard.

Gold cannot make the miser rich, nor can the want
of it make the beggar poor.

In the poem, " The Changed Cross," a weary woman
is represented as dreaming that .she was led to a place
where many crosses lay, crosses of divers shapes and
sizes. The most beautiful one was set in jewels of
gold. It was so tiny and exquisite that she changed
her own plain cross for it, thinking she was fortunate
in finding one so much lighter and lovelier. But soon
her back began to ache under the glittering burden, and
she changed it for another cross very beautiful and en-

254 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

twined with flowers. But she soon found that under-
neath the flowers were piercing thorns which tore her
flesh. At last she came to a very plain cross without
jewels, without carving, and with only the word,
'' Love," inscribed upon it. She took this one up and it
proved the easiest and best of all. She was amazed,
however, to find that it was her old cross which she had
discarded. It is easy to see the jewels and the flowers
in other people's crosses, but the thorns and heavy
weight are known only to the bearers. How easy
other people's burdens seem to us compared with our
own. We do not appreciate the secret burdens which
almost crush the heart, nor the years of weary wait-
ing for delayed success — the aching hearts longing for
sympathy, the hidden poverty, the suppressed emotion
in other lives.

William Pitt, the great Commoner, considered money
as dirt beneath his feet compared with the public in-
terest and public esteem. His hands were clean.

The object for which we strive tells the story of our
lives. Men and women should be judged by the happi-
ness they create in those around them. ISToble deeds
always enrich, but millions of mere money may impov-
erish. Character is perpetual wealth, and by the side
of him who possesses it the millionaire who has it not
seems a pauper. Compared with it, what are houses
and lands, stocks and bonds ? '' It is better that great
souls should live in small habitations than that abject
slaves should burrow in great houses.-' Plain living,
rich thought, and grand effort are real riches.

Invest in yourself, and you will never be poor.
Ploods cannot carry your wealth away, fire cannot burn
it, rust cannot consume it.

"If a man empties his purse into his head," says
Franklin, " no man can take it from him. An invest-
ment in knowledge always pays the best interest."

"There is a cunning juggle in riches. I observe,"

RICH WITHOUT MONEY. 255

says Emerson, " that they take somewhat for every-
thing they give. I look bigger, but I am less ; I have
more clothes, but am not so warm ; more armor, but less
courage ; more books, but less wit."

Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'Tis only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.

Tennyson.

CHAPTER XIV.

OPPORTUNITIES WHERE YOU ARE.

To each man's life there comes a time supreme;

One day, one night, one morning, or one noon,
One freighted hour, one moment opportune,
One rift through which sublime fulfillments gleam,
One space when fate goes tiding with the stream.

One Once, in balance 'twixt Too Late, Too Soon,
And ready for the passing instant's boon
To tip in favor the uncertain beam.
Ah, happy he who, knowing how to wait.

Knows also how to watch and work and stand
On Life's broad deck alert, and at the prow
To seize the passing moment, big with fate, "^

From opportunity's extended hand,
When the great clock of destiny strikes Now !

Mary A. Townsend.
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide.
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side.

Lowell.
What is opportunity to a man who can't use it ? An unfecundated egg,
which the waves of time wash away into nonentity. — George Eliot.
A thousand years a poor man watched

Before the gate of Paradise :
But while one little nap he snatched,
It oped and shut. Ah ! was he wise ?

W. R. Alger.

Our grand business is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to
do what lies clearly at hand. — Carlyle.

A man's best things are nearest him.
Lie close about his feet.

R. M. Milnes.
The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready /or his opportii-
nity when it comes. — Disraeli.

" There are no longer any good chances for young
men," complained a law student to Daniel Webster.

THOMAS JEFFERSOM,
■'The workl is all gates, all opportunities to liini who can use them."

" 'T is never offered twice, seize then the hour
When fortune smiles and dutj- points the way."

OPPORTUNITIES WHERE YOU ARE. 257

"There is always room at the top/' replied the great
lawyer.

No chance, no opportunities, in a land where many
poor boys become rich men, where newsboys go to Con-
gress, and where those born in the lowest stations at-
tain the highest positions ? The world is all gates, all
opportunities to him who will use them. But, like
Bunyan's Pilgrim in the dungeon of Giant Despair's
castle, who had the key of deliverance all the time with
him but had forgotten it, we fail to rely wholly upon
the ability to advance all that is good for us which has
been given to the weakest as well as the strongest.
We depend too much upon outside assistance.

" We look too high
For things close by."

A Baltimore lady lost a valuable diamond bracelet at
a ball, and supposed that it was stolen from the pocket
of her cloak. Years afterward she washed the steps of
the Peabody Institute, pondering how to get money to
buy food. She cut up an old, worn-out, ragged cloak to
make a hood, when lo ! in the lining of the cloak she
discovered the diamond bracelet. During all her pov-
erty she was worth $3500, but did not knoAV it.

Many of us who think we are poor are rich in oppor-
tunities, if we could only see them, in possibilities all
about us, in faculties worth more than diamond brace-
lets. In our large Eastern cities it has been found that
at least ninety-four out of every hundred found their
first fortune at home, or near at hand, and in meeting
common every-day wants. It is a sorry day for a
young man who cannot see any opportunities where he
is, but thinks he can do better somewhere else. Some
Brazilian shepherds organized a party to go to California
to dig gold, and took along a handful of translucent
pebbles to play checkers with on the voyage. After
arriving in San Francisco, and after they had thrown
most of the pebbles away, they discovered that they

258 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

were diamonds. They hastened back to Brazil, only to
find that the mines from which the pebbles had been
gathered had been taken up by others and sold to the
government.

The richest gold and silver mine in Nevada was sold
for $42 by the owner to get money to pay his passage
to other mines, where he thought he could get rich.
Professor Agassiz told the Harvard students of a
farmer who owned a farm of hundreds of acres of un-
profitable woods and rocks, and concluded to sell out
and get into a more profitable business. He decided to
go into the coal-oil business ; he studied coal measures
and coal-oil deposits, and experimented for a long time.
He sold his farm for $200, and engaged in his new busi-
ness two hundred miles away. Only a short time after
the man who bought his farm discovered upon it a
great flood of coal-oil, which the farmer had previously
ignorantly tried to drain off.

Hundreds of years ago there lived near the shore of
the river Indus a Persian by the name of Ali Hafed.
He lived in a cottage on the river bank, from which he
could get a grand view of the beautiful country stretch-
ing away to the sea. He had a wife and children ; an
extensive farm, fields of grain, gardens of flowers, or-
chards of fruit, and miles of forest. He had a plenty
of money and everything that heart could wish. He
was contented and happy. One evening a priest of
Buddha visited him, and, sitting before the fire, ex-
plained to him how the world was made, and how the
first beams of sunlight condensed on the earth's surface
into diamonds. The old priest told that a drop of sun-
light the size of his thumb was worth more than large
mines of copper, silver, or gold ; that with one of them
he could buy many farms like his ; that with a handful
he could buy a province, and with a mine of diamonds
he could purchase a kingdom. Ali Hafed listened, and
was no longer a rich man. He had been touched with

OPPORTUNITIES WHERE YOU ARE. 259

discontent, and with that all wealth vanishes. Early
the next morning he woke the priest who had been the
cause of his unhappiness, and anxiously asked him
where he could find a mine of diamonds. "What do
you want of diamonds ? " asked the astonished priest.
" I want to be rich and place my children on thrones.''
" All you have to do is to go and search until you find
them," said the priest. " But where shall I go ? "
asked the poor farmer. " Go anywhere, north, south,
east, or west.'' " How shall I know when I have found
the place ? " " When you find a river running over
white sands between high mountain ranges, in those
white sands you will find diamonds," answered the
priest.

The discontented man sold the farm for what he could
get, left his family with a neighbor, took the money he
had at interest, and went to search for the coveted
treasure. Over the mountains of Arabia, through Pal-
estine and Egypt, he wandered for years, but found no
diamonds. When his money was all gone and starva-
tion stared him in the face, ashamed of his folly and of
his rags, poor Ali Hafed threw himself into the tide
and was drowned. The man who bought his farm was
a contented man, who made the most of his surround-
ings, and did not believe in going away from home to
hunt for diamonds or success. While his camel was
drinking in the garden one day, he noticed a flash of
light from the white sands of the brook. He picked
up a pebble, and pleased with its brilliant hues took it
into the house, put it on the shelf near the fireplace, and
forgot all about it. The old priest "of Buddha who had
filled Ali Hafed with the fatal discontent called one
day upon the new owner of the farm. He had no
sooner entered the room than his eye caught that flash
of light from the stone. "Here 's a diamond ! here 's a
diamond ! " the old priest shouted in great excitement.
" Has Ali Hafed returned ? " said the priest. " No,"

260 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

said the farmer, " nor is that a diamond. That is but a
stone." They went into the garden and stirred up
the white sand with their fingers, and behold, other
diamonds more beautiful than the first gleamed out of
it. So the famous diamond beds of Golconda were dis-
covered. Had Ali Hafed been content to remain at
home, had he dug in his own garden, instead of going
abroad in search for wealth, and reaping poverty, hard-
ships, starvation, and death, he would have been one
of the richest men in the world, for the entire farm
abounded in the richest of gems.

You have your own special place and work. Find it,
fill it. Scarcely a boy or girl will read these lines but
has much better opportunity to win success than Gar-
field, Wilson, Franklin, Lincoln, Harriet Beecher Stowe,
Frances Willard, and thousands of others. But to suc-
ceed you must be prepared to seize and improve the op-
portunity when it comes. Eemember that four things
come not back : the spoken word, the sped arrow, the
past life, and the neglected opportunity.

It is one of the paradoxes of civilization that the
more opportunities are utilized, the more new ones are
thereby created. JSTew openings are as easy to fill as
ever to those who do their best ; although it is not so
easy as formerly to obtain distinction in the old lines,
because the standard has advanced so much and compe-
tition has so greatly increased. " The world is no
longer clay," said Emerson, "but rather iron in the
hands of its workers, and men have got to hammer out
a place for themselves by steady and rugged blows."

Thousands of men have made fortunes out of trifles
which others pass by. As the bee gets honey from the
same flower from which the spider gets poison, so some
men will get a fortune out of the commonest and mean-
est things, as scraps of leather, cotton waste, slag, iron
filings, from which others get only poverty and failure.
There is scarcely a thing which contributes to the wel-

OPPORTUNITIES WHERE YOU ARE. 261

fare and comfort of humanity, not an article of house-
hold furniture, a kitchen utensil, an article of clothing
or of food, that is not capable of an improvement in
which there may be a fortune.

Opportunities ? They are all around us. Edison found
them in a baggage car. Forces of nature plead to be
used in the service of man, as lightning for ages tried
to attract his attention to the great force of electricity,
which would do his drudgery and leave him to develop
the God-given powers within him. There is power
lying latent everywhere waiting for the observant eye
to discover it.

First find out what the world needs and then supply
that want. An invention to make smoke go the wrong
way in a chimney might be a very ingenious thing, but
it would be of no use to humanity. The patent office at
Washington is full of wonderful devices of ingenious
mechanism, but not one in hundreds is of use to the
inventor or to the world. And yet how many families
have been impoverished, and have struggled for years
amid want and woe, while the father has been. working on
useless inventions. A. T. Stewart, as a boy, lost eighty-
seven cents when his capital was one dollar and a half
in buying buttons and thread which shoppers did not
call for. After that he made it a rule never to buy any-
thing which the public did not want, and so prospered.

It is estimated that five out of every seven of the
millionaire manufacturers began by making with their
own hands the articles which made their fortunes. One
of the greatest hindrances to advancement in life is the
lack of observation and of the inclination to take pains.
An observing man, the eyelets of whose shoes pulled out,
but who could not afford to get another pair, said to
himself, "I will make a metallic lacing hook, which
can be riveted into the leather ; " he was so poor that he
had to borrow a sickle to cut the grass in front of his
hired tenement. Now he is a very rich man.

262 ARCHITECTS OF FATE.

All observing barber in Newark, N. J., thought he
could make an improvement in shears for cutting hair,
invented clippers, and became rich. A Maine man was
called in from the hayfield to wash clothes for his in-
valid wife. He had never realized what it was to wash
before. Finding the method slow and laborious, he in-
vented the washing-machine, and made a fortune. A
man who was suffering terribly with toothache said to
himself, there must be some way of filling teeth which
will prevent their aching. So he invented the prin-
ciple of gold filling for teeth.

The great things of the world have not been done by
men of large means. Ericsson began the construction
of the screw propellers in a bathroom. The cotton-gin
was first manufactured in a log cabin. John Harrison,
the great inventor of the marine chronometer, began his
career in the loft of an old barn. Parts of the first
steamboat ever run in America were set up in the