ADVANCEMENT IN LIFE
It is very certain that all men are not born to be Franklins; and, likewise, that if any considerable number of such persons were to arise, their utility and their distinction would be diminished. There is a good old proverb, however—“aim at a silk gown, and you may get a sleeve of it;” which may be followed out, both to the advantage of individuals and to the benefit of the community.
First, there is one great maxim that no youth should ever want before his eyes, namely, that hardly any thing is beyond the attainment of real merit. Let a man set up almost any object before him on entering life, and, if his ambition be of that genuine kind which springs from talent, and isnot too much for his prudence, there is a strong chance in his favour that a keen and steady pursuit of the object will make him triumph at last. It is very common, when the proposal of a young man’s entry into life is discussed, to hear complaints as to the pre-occupation of every field of adventure by unemployed multitudes. There may occasionally be some cause for this; but the general truth is undeniable, that, in spite of every disadvantage, men are rising daily to distinction in every profession—the broadest shoulders, as usual, making their way best through the crowd. It is the slothful and the fearful that generally make such complaints; and they obviously do so in order to assure themselves that they are not altogether wrong in continuing to misspend their time. When we hear of the overcrowded state of any proposed profession, we are apt to overlook that an immense proportion of those engaged in it are destined, by the weakness of their character, and want of specific qualifications, to make no way for themselves, and must soon be the same, so far as rivalry is concerned, as if they had never entered it. If the entrant, then, has only a well-grounded confidence in his ownpowers of exertion and perseverance, he need hardly be afraid to enter any profession. With the serious desire of well-doing at heart, and some tolerable share of ability, he is sure very soon to get ahead of a great proportion of those already in the field. Only let him never despair—that is, tell himself it is all in vain, in order that he may become idle with a good conscience—and there is hardly any fear of him.
The present writer entertains some different ideas respecting original humility of circumstances from what are generally prevalent. The common notion is, that humble circumstances are a great obstruction at the outset of life, and that the more difference between a man’s origin and his eventual condition, the greater is the wonder, and the greater his merit. Since it appears, however, that so large a proportion of distinguished men were poor at the beginning, a question may naturally arise, are not men just the more apt, on that account, to become eminent? Although we are all familiar as possible with instances of fortunes made from nothing, it will be found, on recollection, that cases are comparatively rare of men who began with fortunes having ended by greatly increasing them. Many a poor boy has made twenty thousand pounds before he was forty years of age; but few who had ten thousand at the age of majority are found to double it with their years. Here—here is a reason for hope. The fact is, large sums are not to be acquired without an appreciation and an understanding of the meanest financial details. To make pounds, we must know the value of shillings; we must have felt before how much good could sometimes be done, how much evil could sometimes be avoided,by the possession of a single penny! For want of this knowledge, the opulent youth squanders or otherwise loses more, perhaps, than he gains. But he who has risen from the ranks knows the value and powers of every sum, from the lowest upwards, and,as saving is the better part of the art of acquiring money, he never goes back a step—his whole marchisONWARD. At the very worst, it is only a question of time. Say one man begins at twenty with a good capital, and another at the same age with none. For want of experience, and through other causes above mentioned, it is not likely that the former person has made much advance within the first ten years. Now, ten years is an immense space to the individual who only commenced with good resolutions. In that time, if he has not accumulated actual money, he may quite well have secured good reputation and credit, which, prudently managed, is just money of another kind. And so, while still a young man, he is pretty much upon a par with him who seemed to start with such superior advantages. In fact, fortune, or original good circumstances, appear to the present writer as requisites of a very unimportant character, compared with talent, power of application, self-denial, and honourable intentions. Thefortunate—to use the erroneous language of common life—are selected from those who have possessed the latter indispensable qualifications in their best combinations: and as it is obvious that young men of fortune (necessarily the smaller class) have only a chance, according to their numbers, of possessing them, it follows, as a clear induction, that the great mass of the prosperous were originally poor.
Talent.—It is a common cry that those who succeed best in life are the dullest people, and that talent is too fine a quality for common pursuits. There cannot be a greater fallacy than this. It may be true that some decidedly stupid people succeed through the force of a dogged resolution, which hardly any man of superior genius could have submitted to. But I am disposed to dispute, in a great measure, the existence of talent, where I do not find it at once productive of superior address in ordinary affairs, and attended by a magnanimity which elevates the possessor above all paltry and vicious actions. The genius which only misleads its possessor from the paths of prudence, or renders him a ridiculous and intolerable member of society, istoo much allied to Bedlam to be taken into account; and in reality, there is nowhere so much of what is called genius as in the madhouses.[6]The imputation of dulness to a man who has prospered in life, will be found by impartial inquirers, in nine cases out of ten, to be a mere consolatory appliance to the self-love of one who has neither had the talent nor the morality to prosper in life himself. Let every man, then, who possesses this gift, rejoice in it with all his heart, and seek by every means to give it proper guidance and direction.
Applicationis another of the indispensable requisites. Detached efforts, though they may individually be great, can never tell so well in the aggregate as a regular and constant exertion, where the doings of one day fortify and improve the doings of the preceding, and lead on with certainty to the better doings of the next. It is not economical to work by fits and starts; more exertion is required, by that system, for a certain end, than what is necessary in the case of a continuous effort, and thus the irregular man is apt to fall far behind his rivals. Men of ability are apt to despise application as a mean and grubbing qualification—which is only a piece of overweening self-love on their part, and likely to be the very means of frustrating all the proper results of their ability. On the other hand, the industrious man is apt to despair for want of ability—not seeing that the clever fellows are liable to the weakness we describe, which causes them to be constantly giving way in the race to mere plodders. Besides, while few faults are more common than an over-estimation of one’s self, it is equally obvious that many men only discover their abilities by chance, and that all of us possess latent powers, which might be turned to good account, if we only knew and had confidence in them. No man, therefore, should be too easily dashed on the subject of his abilities.He should try, and, with the aid of a persevering industry, he may do wonders such as he never dreamt of.
Self-Denial.—Perhaps among all the qualifications which, in a combined form, lead to fortune, none is more absolutely indispensable than this. A man may have talent, may have application, both in abundance; but if he cannot resist vulgar temptations, all is in vain. The Scotch, as a nation, are characterised immensely by self-denial, and it is the main ground of their prosperity both at home and abroad. It is one of the noblest of the virtues, if not, indeed, the sole virtue which creates all the rest. If we are obliged at every moment to abandon some sacred principle in order to gratify a paltry appetite; if the extensive future is perpetually to be sacrificed for the sake of the momentary present; if we are to lead a life of Esau-like bargains from the first to the last—then we are totally unfit for any purpose above the meanest. Self-indulgence makes brutes out of gods; self-denial is the tangent line by which human nature trenches upon the divine. Now, self-indulgence is not inherent except in very few natures; it is almost invariably the result of “evil communications” in youth, and generally becomes a mere use or habit. The most of error arises from the contagion of example. A youth at first debauches himself because he sees others do it; he feels, all the time, as if he were sacrificing merely to the glory of bravado; and there is far more of martyrdom in it than is generally supposed. But though a person at first smokes in order to show how much disgust he can endure, he soon comes to have a real liking for tobacco. And thus, for the paltriest indulgences, which only are so from vicious habit, and perhaps, after all, involve as much dissatisfaction as pleasure, we daily see the most glorious and ennobling objects cast, as it were, into hell-fire.
We are by no means hostile to all amusement. The mass of men require a certain quantity of amusement almost as regularly as their daily food. But amusement maybe noxious or innocent, moderate or immoderate. The amusements which can be enjoyed in the domestic circle, or without company at all, are the safest; there is great danger in all which require an association of individuals to carry them into effect. Upon the whole, a multitude of bosom friends is the most pernicious evil that ever besets a man in the world. Each becomes a slave to the depraved appetites of the rest, and is at last ulcerated all over with their various evil practices. At the very best, he is retarded to the general pace, and never finds it possible to get a single vantage hour, in order to steal a march upon his kind.
Honourable Intentionsare also indispensably necessary. The reverse is simply want of sense and understanding; for it is obvious to every one who has seen the least of human life, that infinitely more is lost in reputation andmeans and opportunities of well-doing, by an attempt to gain an undue advantage, than what can in general cases be gained. If we had to live only for a short time certain, trickery might be the most expedient course, so far as this world is concerned; but if a man contemplates a life above a single twelvemonth, he will endeavour, by the guarded correctness of his actions, to acquire the good character which tends so much to eventual prosperity. The dishonest man, in one sense, may be termed the most monstrous of all self-flatterers; he thinks he can cheat the whole of the remaining part of mankind—which certainly is no trifling compliment. He soon finds, however, that he was seen through all the time by those whom he thought mere children, and his blindness and silly arrogance receive their deserved punishment. Even where the depravity may be of a very slight kind, it is alike in vain. In ordinary transactions, the one party deals with the other exactly according to his character; if the one be in general disposed to overreach, the other is just proportionably on his guard; so that there is no result but trouble, and a bad name. One thing should be stronglyimpressed upon such persons: they are far more generally understood and watched than they are aware of; for the world, so long as it can simply take care of itself without much difficulty, is not disposed to adopt the dangerous task of a monitor. The police-officer knows of many rogues whom he passes every day on the street; he never lays hold of any, unless for some particular offence.
Such are the principal qualities necessary for advancement in life, though any one of them, without much or any of the other, will, if not counteracted by negative properties, be sure to command a certain degree of success. He who is about to start in the race would do well to ponder upon the difficulties he has to encounter, and make up a manful resolution to meet them with a full exertion of all his powers. To revert to the general question—what is it that enables one man to get in advance of his fellows? The answer is obvious: it can only be hisdoingmore than the generality of them, or hisenduring more privationthan they are generally inclined to do [that is, self-denial], in order that he may acquireincreased power of doing. The fault of most unsuccessful persons is their want of an adequate idea of what is to bedone, and what is to beendured. They enter business as into a game or a sport, and they are surprised, after a time, to find that there is a principle in the affair they never before took into account—namely, the tremendous competition of other men. Without being able to do and suffer as much as thebestmen of business, thefirstplace is not to be gained; without being able to do and suffer as much as the second order of men of business, thesecondplace is not to be gained; and so on. New candidates should therefore endeavour to make an estimate of the duties necessary for attaining a certain point, and not permit themselves to be thrown out in the race for want of a proper performance of those duties. They should either be pretty certain of possessing the requisite powers of exertion and endurance, or aim at a lower point, to which their powers may seem certainly adequate.
FOOTNOTES:[6]This remark is borrowed from the conversation of a medical friend.
[6]This remark is borrowed from the conversation of a medical friend.
[6]This remark is borrowed from the conversation of a medical friend.