CHAPTER XVIIBe Cautious of Baneful Amusements

Henry H. Hadley

It is related that during the reign of the bluff King Hal, there lived a knight named Sir John Giffard, of Chillington, who possessed a beautiful leopard. One day the animal escaped from its cage, and Sir John and his son at once gave chase, for they knew that the leopard would spare no human being it might meet. At the top of a hill, a mile from his house, the worthy knight saw the animal about to attack a woman and child. Sir John was armed with a bow and arrow, and rather breathless through running; his son, fearing his shot might be too weak, shouted, “Take aim, draw strong!” Never was surer aim taken, for Sir John pierced the leopard’s heart, and saved the woman and her babe. In consideration of this brave and skilful deed, the Giffards of Chillington adopted as their crest a leopard’s head and an archer with a bent bow, with the motto, “Take aim, draw strong.”

This is what many good and great men have done in regard to some amusements, the influences of which have proved destructive to character. To enjoy oneself is a divine right, provided such enjoyment does not injure health, weaken morals or lead others to place a false estimate on living.

Amusement is not an end, but a means of refreshing the mind and replenishing the strength of the body,that the work of life may be easier and better done. When it begins to be the principal thing for which one lives, or when in pursuing it, the mental powers are enfeebled, and health impaired, it then falls under just condemnation.

Amusements that consume the hours of the night which were intended for rest and sleep, thus making one nervous, besides increasing one’s love for romance and adventure, are wrong. Amusements which call one away from study or duty are pernicious, just to the extent they cause negligence or unfaithfulness. Amusements that rouse or stimulate morbid appetites, suggest wrong things, cause one to be discontented, lead into bad company or expenditure beyond one’s means, should always be avoided, for their tendency is downward rather than upward.

Care must be taken in choosing amusements. Those should be chosen which have some advantage beyond merely supplying a pleasant pastime, and those avoided which lead to bad company, drinking, horse racing, gambling or any place where so many are allured to destruction. Multitudes of boys have gone down morally, socially, financially and spiritually under their blasting influences, never to rise again. There are few amusements so harmless, but what they may be carried into low association and made an instrument of evil, hence every boy should look to himself that no dishonesty, betting or over-exertion be allowed.

Don’t play cards. “Is it possible there is harm in cards?” you ask. “Is it wrong to shuffle a few pieces of pictured and spotted papers in the parlor?” No, my boy. But it is the harm which comes from them, with no known excuse to palliate its pernicious consequences. Card playing has a fascination connected withit. It seems as innocent a game as swinging the mallet on a croquet lawn, but it is as dangerous as a revolver in the hands of a child. It has dealt out death and destruction by the wholesale. “It has made,” as Dr. Withrow said, “so many noble lives base, upright people dishonest, rich people poor, poor people painfully impoverished, and altogether it has a dark indictment against it in the court of heaven.”

On one of the railroads leading out of Chicago, four men, high in position, one of them a judge, another a lawyer, sat passing the time away with a game of euchre. An old lady across the aisle grew restless and at last, standing and breaking in upon their somewhat selfish hilarity, said: “Excuse me, but is not this Judge ——?” “Yes, ma’am,” the man of the bench replied, a little startled and ashamed to acknowledge it under the circumstances. The old lady continued, “I thought so, and, Judge, it was you who sentenced my boy at Oshkosh, to State’s prison for ten years, and it was that other man there that pleaded against him, and he died last year, Judge, in the penitentiary, and it was cards that led him to it. He was a good boy until he took to playing cards and going down to the village grocery, and at last I could do nothing with him. I know I ought not to be talking this way to you, but, Judge, if such as you only knew how much the young people are influenced by what they see you do, I don’t think you would be handling those cards as you and these gentlemen are doing. They cost me my son.” So they have cost thousands of parents their boys, and boys their manliness. They have been the turnkey which has opened the prison gate, the trap-door of the gallows, the instrument of many a suicide, and the decoy which has led many to eternal ruin. Therefore don’t play cards.

THE THEATRE.

Don’t go to the theatre. “What? Is there anything wrong in going to a theatre, and will it injure me?” Yes. It is a pleasure so dangerous in its tendencies, that good men for ages have denounced it. Long ago, Aristotle the philosopher opposed it, saying, “The seeing of comedians ought to be forbidden to young people, until age and discipline have made them proof against debauchery.” Theodore L. Cuyler said, “It fascinates as the wine-cup fascinates, to draw young men into impure associations, and to destroy everything like healthy spiritual life.” Edwin Booth, who was one of the greatest tragedians, remarked, “I would not be willing for my wife and daughter to attend a play unless I knew beforehand the character of the play and the actors.” And, where a lady cannot go, is it fit for a young gentleman? General Grant believed this, for he said, “I never go where I cannot take ladies. I don’t care to go where ladies cannot go.”

“Oh! that theatre!” said an agonized mother of a felon son, “he was a virtuous, kind youth till the theatre proved his ruin.” Professor Knowles states that at a juvenile prison, it was ascertained that a large proportion of the boys began their careers in vice by stealing money to buy theatre tickets. A keeper of another juvenile prison in Boston gave testimony that of twenty young men confined for crime, seventeen confessed that they were first tempted to steal by a desire to purchase tickets to visit the theatre. Of fifteen young men from the country, employed in a publishing house in New York, thirteen within a few years were led to destruction by the play-houses.

O, my boy, do as Bishop Vincent said when asked by a friend if he should go to such a place of amusement,“Better not. Better not, because of its fascination which hinders rather than helps; better not, because vice is often made to look like virtue; better not, because of its many degraded actors and patrons, whose company one cannot afford to keep; better not, because of the hours it consumes which could be more profitably utilized; better not, because of vulgar expressions frequently used; better not, better not.”

Don’t go to the dance. “Why, the Bible itself defends this amusement,” is frequently said. “Did not the Hebrews dance when they emerged from the Red Sea? Did not David dance before the ark? Was not Socrates taught it by Aspasia, and was it not held in veneration by Plato and other philosophers?” Yes, but dancing, my boy, was much different in Bible times than it is to-day. It was because of deliverances from or a victory over an enemy. No case but one is found in the Bible where promiscuous dancing was indulged in, and that is called “the wicked dance.” Ever since the daughter of Herodias danced off the head of John the Baptist, it has degenerated; and as Cicero addressed a grave reproach to consul Gabinus for having danced, so would the writer sound the danger trumpet with the words: “Beware! Beware!”

When Moscow was burning, the historian tells us, a party was dancing in the palace right over a gunpowder magazine of which they were ignorant. The flames came on, and Carnot said, “Let us have one dance more,” and they shouted all through the palace, “One dance more!” The music played, the feet bounded, the laughter rang. But suddenly, through the smoke and fire and thunder of the explosion, death and eternity broke in. “One dance more” has been the ruin of many a young man, the deathblow of many a goodreputation, the cause of many a jealousy which ended in crime and the murderer of many a virtue which bid fair to distinguish the noble youth.

O, my boy, be careful of your amusements. If there is a tendency to injure the morals, shun them as a plague. Orange trees cannot live and bear fruit in Labrador, neither can piety thrive amidst frivolities and liberties which attack modesty of person and honesty of purpose. Shun amusements if they are indulged in for mere killing of time.

“Time is eternity,Pregnant with all eternity can give,Pregnant with all that makes archangels smile.Who murders time, he crushes in the birthA power ethereal, only not adorned!”

“Time is eternity,

Pregnant with all eternity can give,

Pregnant with all that makes archangels smile.

Who murders time, he crushes in the birth

A power ethereal, only not adorned!”

Murillo, a Spanish painter, left a wonderful painting which represents a monk in his cell writing. He had been engaged in writing his life, but before he had completed it, death summoned him to the eternal world. He pleaded to return, and the legend says that he was permitted a certain period to complete his autobiography. The famous Spanish artist seized the moment when the monk, seated at the table, resumes his toil. The intensity of feeling thrown into the wan, ghastly face, and into the lips which had talked with death, and into the eyes that had looked in on eternity, and the tremendous energy with which he writes, all portray to us the knowledge and the value of time: time limited by the all-powerful command. And, as Schiller truthfully puts it:

“The moments we foregoEternity itself cannot retrieve.”

“The moments we forego

Eternity itself cannot retrieve.”

Shun amusements if they have a tendency to injure health. Health is the greatest fortune one can possess. Without it, all joy, all comfort, all pomp is but mockery. “Riches are useless, honor and attendants are cumbersome, and crowns themselves are a burden,” “for life is not to live, but to be well.” To take care of one’s health is one of the first requirements of nature. This cannot be accomplished by staying up late at night, by intemperate eating and drinking, by being out in all kinds of weather, by wilful neglect of proper clothing, which various amusements incur.

Enjoy yourself, my boy. “To dry up the fountains of mirth that are within, to crush out the spontaneous impulses of merriment which are a part of our complete life, is a crime against nature. Life will have sorrows enough without making ourselves chronically cheerless. The right of enjoyment is a divine right, and should be lawfully used and enjoyed. Not only that, but it is invigorating.” “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Running is good exercise, the bat and ball strengthen the arm and gauge the eye, the oar and boat broaden the chest and make the liberated lungs beat with life, and not a few others, if not too greatly indulged, prove helpful rather than detrimental.

Counsel yourself when invited to join in some pleasure: “What will this amusement do for my physical development? Is there any gymnastic exercise connected with it? What will it do for my intellectual enlightenment? What will it do for the improvement of my morals? Will it make me purer, nobler, better? Will it increase piety, make me more useful to society, increase my happiness and benefit my associates?” If it will, then indulge in it, if not, discard it.

A story is told of two men who were mowing incompany. The one in advance thought he saw a hornet’s nest just ahead, and he cautiously paused. The other pooh-poohed his fears and mowed right on exclaiming, “The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion.” But pretty soon he struck the nest and was fighting the hornets that assailed him, whereupon the first, who also had a knack of quoting proverbs, exclaimed, “The prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself, but the simple pass on and are punished.” The prudent man had the best of it as he always does. Other gifts and attainments, however ample and varied, are negatived and neutralized without it, therefore in all pleasures be discreet.

“It is sadTo think how few our pleasures really are;And for the which we risk eternal good.”

“It is sad

To think how few our pleasures really are;

And for the which we risk eternal good.”

And, as Pope wrote,

“Pleasures, wrong or rightly understood,Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.”

“Pleasures, wrong or rightly understood,

Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.”

CHAPTER XVIIIBe Chary of Bad Books

INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER XVIII

By Anthony Comstock

In the heart of every boy is a “Chamber of Imagery.” Practically speaking, this is Memory’s storehouse, the “Commissary Department of thought,” “the Hall of Entertainment.” Bad books, foul pictures and criminal stories are used by the spirit of evil to decorate the walls of this Chamber of Imagery. When once there comes through the doors of this chamber (eye and ear) either one of these influences for evil, the looms of Imagination and Fancy (the reimaging and reproductive faculties of the mind) are started in motion and then the Chamber of Imagery becomes the Hall of Entertainment. Charmed by pictures created by Imagination and Fancy a boy soon becomes a day-dreamer and castle-builder. Led on by these debasing allurements he soon develops into a full-fledged criminal. Thoughts are the aliment upon which the mind feeds. If pure and holy, they are like fertilizing currents flowing through the soul, enriching, ennobling and beautifying character and life. If impure, sensational and sensual, they are equally degrading, demoralizing and deadly in their influence. It is as important that Imagination and Fancy have pure material to work with, as that a stream shall originate in a fountain free from deadly poison. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” The heart cannot be pure if the thoughts are defiled.

Anthony Comstock

CHAPTER XVIIIBe Chary of Bad Books

It is only about four hundred years since the first book was issued from the press. Between 1450 and 1455 Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press, succeeded in publishing the first copy of the Bible, but he was compelled to make the initial letters of the chapters with the pen. As the years passed, many improvements were made, until now, more than twenty-five thousand books are published annually.

Books are wonderful things. They are companions and teachers. For their authors they cost much thought, time and expense; for the reader they are cheap and helpful. They carry the mind fast and safe the world over. “In the twinkling of an eye one can be exploring with Livingstone in Africa, or campaigning with Napoleon or Grant. One can meditate with Socrates, conspire with Cataline, steal the Stratford deer with Will Shakespeare, swim the Hellespont with Byron, weigh the earth with Newton, and climb the heavens with Herschel.”

There being such an abundance of literary works, the question often arises, “What should a boy read? Would it be wise to read everything that comes into his hands?” By no means. To eat all kinds of food, suitable or otherwise, would be sure to create disease. There are the “scavengers” among animals, but there should not be such among readers. To read everythingwould be most injurious. Good judgment should be exercised in selecting the quality of books read and no less in the quantity perused. There are books, which, if read, would poison thought, corrupt morals and perchance blast the prospects of the future. On the other hand, there are books which stimulate the mind, strengthen the morals, comfort the heart and prepare the life for usefulness and success.

Good books are a blessing to everyone. The principles they inculcate, the lessons they exhibit, the ideals of life and character they portray, stamp themselves indelibly upon the mind and habits of the reader. “Give a man a taste for good books and the means of gratifying it,” said Sir John Herschel, “and you can hardly fail of making him a happy man. You place him in contact with the best society in every period of history, with the wisest, the wittiest, the tenderest, the bravest and the purest characters who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages.” “A good book,” said Milton, “is the precious life-blood of a master spirit embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.” “In the best books,” said Dr. Channing, “great men talk to us, with us, and give us their most precious thoughts. Books are the voices of the distant and the dead. Books are the true leaders, they give to all who will faithfully use them, the society and the presence of the best and the greatest of our race. No matter how poor I am, no matter though the prosperity of my own time will not enter my obscure dwelling, if learned men and poets will enter and take up their abode under my roof, if Milton will cross my threshold to sing to me of Paradise, and Shakespeare open to me the world of imagination and the workings of the human heart, andFranklin enrich me with his practical wisdom, I shall not pine for want of intellectual companionship, and I may become a cultivated man, though excluded from what is called the best society in the place where I live.”

It was through reading Cotton Mather’s “Essays to Do Good” that Benjamin Franklin when a boy was influenced to be good and do good. Said he, “If I have been a useful citizen the public owes all the advantage of it to this little book.” William Carey was induced to become a missionary to India by reading “Cook’s Voyage Around the World.” Adoniram Judson became a missionary to the East Indies by reading Buchanan’s “Star in the East.” Richard Baxter became a Christian and minister by reading a book called “The Bruised Reed,” given him by a man who was staying at his father’s home. Baxter wrote “A Call to the Unconverted,” which influenced the life of Philip Doddridge. Doddridge wrote, “The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul,” which was the means of the conversion of Wilberforce. Wilberforce in return secured the abolition of slavery in the West Indies, and wrote “A Practical View of Christianity,” which did much to commend spiritual religion to the higher classes of his countrymen, and which led not only Dr. Chalmers into the truth, but Leigh Richmond to Christ. Richmond wrote “The Dairyman’s Daughter,” which has been published in a hundred languages and of which over five million copies have been sold. All this resulted from “The Bruised Reed,” written by an unknown Puritan minister named Sibbs.

Foreign readers of Lincoln’s Gettysburg speech and his second inaugural address, asked, “Whence got this man his style, seeing he knows nothing of literature?” In his boyhood Lincoln had access to four books, the Bible, “Pilgrim’s Progress,” Burns’ Poems, and Weems’ “Life of Washington.” He so memorized many of thechapters of the Bible that subsequently he seldom made a speech at the bar or on the “stump” in which he did not quote from it. The secret of his literary beauty and ability was his knowledge of the English Bible and Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” two books which represent the rhythm, the idiom, the majesty, and the power of the English language.

“All Sorts and Conditions of Men,” written by Sir Walter Besant, was the means of the erection of a “People’s Palace” in East London. The subtitle of the book was “An Impossible Story.” It presents the hard life of the people of the crowded East End of London, and tells, in the form of a novel, of the ideals and ambitions of a young mechanic who has had a better education than his fellows, and used it for their advantage. Through his efforts, as related in the book, a great central building, a “People’s Palace,” is erected in the East End, where the social life of the people can express itself; where they can study and read, see fine paintings, hear good music, have their games and athletic sports, and, in general, meet life on a higher plane than is possible in their own unattractive homes. To-day that “Palace” stands as an evidence of the dreamer’s dream in which and through which, the public gain knowledge and recreation. Surely the influence of one good book is marvellous.

Bad books are numerous. They force themselves upon us everywhere, tempting by their cheapness, alluring by their colored illustrations, and injuring by their teaching. Possibly, few agencies are working more mental and moral havoc among boys than corrupt books. Once allow the mind to be absorbed by their evil influence and the feelings and passions are driven to and fro by the whirlwind of a purposeless life.

On one occasion a gentleman in India went into his library and took down a book. As he did so, he felt a slight pain in one of his fingers. He thought a pin had been stuck by some careless person in the cover of his book. But soon the finger began to swell, then his arm and then his whole body, and in a few days he died. On investigation it was found that a small serpent had hidden itself among the books. If there is one thing more than another that will poison the mind with the venom of evil, it is impure literature, against which every boy should set his heart like flint, whether it comes in the form of a daily newspaper, a pictorial periodical or a book. It is as deadly as a serpent.

Fichte, the noted German philosopher, was once reading a “blood-and-thunder” story, when, in the midst of it, he said: “Now this will never do. I get too excited over it. I can’t study so well after, so here goes,” and he flung the book into the river. That was a wise act. Talmage states that the assassin of Sir William Russell declared he got the inspiration of his crime by reading what was then a new and popular novel, “Jack Sheppard.” Alexis Piron, the French poet and satirist, sought for many years to obtain a seat among the Forty Immortals in the French Academy. He was recognized among the poets of his day, and was confident of his ultimate admission, when a vile ode, written when he was a boy, was brought to light, and he knew that the door of the Academy was forever closed in his face. “Twenty-five years ago,” said Rev. John James, “a lad loaned me an infamous book. He would loan it only for fifteen minutes and then I had to give it back, but that book has haunted me like a spectre ever since. I have in agony of soul, on my knees before God, prayed that He would obliterate the memory of it, but I shall carry the damage of it until the day of my death.” “I remember well when Iwas not more than twelve years of age,” said Dr. Leonard, “that I was shown a book—a vile book—by a German shoemaker. He came through the region of country where I lived, and the pictures that were in that book are now in my mind to-night as clearly as when I first looked upon them. Other pictures of beauty have faded, but somehow those have remained; I have said I will turn that picture away from my memory and won’t think of it again; yet, as often as I think of that German shoemaker, that vile book stands out again before my mind.”

Not long ago, a young man in Indiana committed suicide. He ascribed his downfall to the influence of “the vilest kind of novels. If good books had been furnished me,” he said, “and no bad ones, I should have read the good books with as great zest as I did the bad ones. Persuade all persons over whom you have an influence not to read novels.” Such was his parting message to his brother. “This is not self-murder. If thine eye offend thee pluck it out. If thy life offend thee, give it back to Him who gave it to thee. I ask that this cross be put on my breast in my grave. Bury me in this holy robe.” Such was the letter of Master Grosse, the nineteen-year-old son of an English clergyman, who committed suicide after reading Marie Corelli’s “Mighty Atom.” This was the second death by self-destruction caused by reading the book. In like manner not a few have destroyed themselves through the false teaching of infidel books. O the wretchedness, the misery, the sorrows that the reading of bad books brings. Spurn them, for they are deadly things.

“What shall I read?” may be a question asked in this connection. Emerson said: “Never read a book that is not a year old. Never read any but famedbooks. Read only what you like, or, in Shakespeare’s famous phrase:

‘No profit goes where is no pleasure ta’en;In brief, sir, study what you most affect.’”

‘No profit goes where is no pleasure ta’en;

In brief, sir, study what you most affect.’”

The value of a book consists not in what it will do for one’s amusement, but for one’s edification. Boys are generally more easily persuaded to read fictitious books because there is something captivating about them. Some had better not be read, while others which are amusing may be helpful. Abbot’s Histories, Scribner’s “Library of Wonder,” and “Library of Travel,” “Aesop’s Fables,” “Robinson Crusoe,” “Peasant and Prince,” “The Tale of Two Brothers,” “Paul and Virginia,” “The Vicar of Wakefield,” Scott’s “Tales of a Grandfather,” the Indian tales of Fenimore Cooper, the fascinating character stories of Dickens, and many others, are all suitable to read. They will stimulate the fancy, enlarge the sympathies and improve the taste.

There are biographies of great and noble men. They will arouse the spirit, instruct the mind and influence the life. “The good life,” says George Herbert, “is never out of season.” Every boy should read such lives as Washington, Lincoln, Grant, and the lives of great statesmen, lawyers, poets and ministers.

Nothing will give a clearer insight of the past with its events and characters, manners and law, trades and industries, modes of government and conditions of people than history. A few good histories like Thalheimer’s “Manual of Ancient History,” Macaulay’s “History of the World,” Gibbon’s magnificent drama of the “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” and Ridpath’s “History of the United States,” bring all the world with its pleasures and sufferings and everything inspired with living reality before us.

Then there is poetry. The world’s highest wisdom,its profoundest truths and its best philosophy appear in poetic language. Leigh Hunt said, “It is the breath of beauty, flowing around the spiritual world, as the winds that wake up the flowers do about the material.” Plato asserts that “poetry comes nearer the vital truth than history.” Scarcely do we find a volume of impure stanzas. “Only that is poetry which cleanses and mans me,” wrote Emerson. Milton is said to have regarded himself as inspired in the conception and production of “Paradise Lost” and “Paradise Regained.” The poet Cowper was a man with consecrated heart. His epitaph reads: “His virtues formed the magic of his song.” Wordsworth’s poems are medicine. Bryant interprets nature in her loftiest thoughts and feelings. Longfellow speaks for the holiest affections. Whittier sounds the bugle charges against every wrong, waking the memory of happy olden days with their attendant, familiar faces. Holmes bubbles over with humor and laughter. All these and many more become our best friends and teachers. There is also the philosophical, which every boy should grapple—Locke’s “Human Understanding,” Porter’s “Intellectual Science,” and Haven’s “Ancient and Modern Philosophy.” Grapple with scientific books, such as Hugh Miller’s Geology, Johnson’s “Chemistry of Common Life.” In fact, in the language of Tulloch, “Whether you read history or poetry, science or theology, or even fiction of a worthy kind, it will prove a mental discipline and bring increase of wisdom.”

“Read not,” says Bacon, “to contradict and confront, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.” Carlyle expressed the same thought when he said, “Pursue your studies in the way your conscience calls honest. More and more endeavor to do that.” Read with care, notwith a half-mechanical glancing over the pages as we would look over a map or listen to the instructor while the mind is playing hide-and-seek with floating daydreams. Read with regularity. Have a definite time if possible, when no one will be likely to obtrude. Select some line of knowledge both interesting and useful, and read with the intention of acquiring a thorough understanding of it. When finishing a chapter, take a mental review and if not able to give an outline of it, read it over again. By so doing, one cultivates a retentive memory. Should anything of importance present itself, underline it. Sir William Hamilton underscored. Cardinal Newman wrote in the margin of his books a statement of his own views upon the paragraph he read. Gladstone always read with pencil in hand, marking on the margin those passages he wished to remember, questioning those about which he was in doubt, and putting a cross opposite those he disputed. In reading, use a dictionary to aid in pronouncing and defining large or unknown words. If possible, read aloud. It aids enunciation and leads to a mastery of inflection. Above all, make it your business, my boy, to extract the honey from what you read. Read for mental sustenance. Read so as to know how to live, speak and act, or read not at all.

An old pilot was once asked if he knew where all the rocks were along the line of travel. There is a world of wisdom in his answer: “I do not need to know where all the rocks are; it is enough for me to know where the rocks are not, and keep in the free channel.” By reading good books one avoids those dangers to morals which lurk in so much of the literature of the day. By it, he becomes wiser, happier, nobler, esteeming the words and thoughts of those whose presence may never more be appreciated by mortal man. Though dead, they yet speak.

CHAPTER XIXBe Attentive to Details

INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER XIX

By Lyman J. Gage

It has often been said that, if a man conceives the idea of becoming eminent in learning, and cannot toil through the million little drudgeries necessary to carry him on, his learning will soon be told. Or, if he undertakes to become rich, but despises the small and gradual advances by which wealth is ordinarily accumulated, his expectations will, of course, be the sum of riches.

All successful men have been remarkable, not only for general scope and vigor, but for their minute attention to details. Attention to details has for its result a “hitting of the mark,” a realization of our aims. Hap-hazard methods result in confusion, disorder and defeat.

Truly Yours, Lyman J Gage

CHAPTER XIXBe Attentive to Details

To be successful a boy needs, as Arthur Helps said, “an almost ignominious love of detail.” To dream is not sufficient, he must learn to do, and in doing pay special attention to every part. A judge in Cincinnati wanted a rough fence built. When the carpenter came he said to him, “I want this fence mended. There are some unplaned boards, use them. It is out of sight from the house, so you need not take time to make a neat job. I can only pay you a dollar and a half.” On looking at it later the judge found the boards planed and the work finished with excellent neatness. The judge, thinking the young man had done it that he might claim more pay, said somewhat angrily, “I told you this fence was to be covered with vines. I do not care how it looks.” “I do,” said the carpenter. “How much do you charge?” asked the judge. “A dollar and a half,” said the man. “Why did you spend all that labor on it, if not for the money?” “For the job, sir.” “Nobody would have seen the poor work on it.” “But I should have known it was there, sir. No, I’ll only take the dollar and a half,” and he went his way. Ten years later this carpenter was the successful competitor for a great contract the judge had to give, successful among a crowd of others seeking it. “I knew,” said the judge, telling the story afterwards, “we should have only good, genuine work from him; I gave him the contract, and it made a rich man of him.”

WHAT YOU DO, DO WELL.

Whatever is worth engaging one’s interest and energies is worth doing well. Longworth remarked, “I have always had two things before me. Do what you undertake thoroughly. Be faithful in all accepted trusts.” William Grey, the celebrated Boston merchant, once censured a mechanic for some slovenly work, whereupon the latter, who had known Mr. Grey as a drummer in a regiment, slurred him for it. “And so I was,” replied Mr. Grey, “so I was. But, didn’t I drum well?” During a debate in Congress some years ago, a member of aristocratic birth replying to an opponent said, “When we were boys, he used to black my boots.” “And didn’t I black them well?” asked the other. “Yes, I must say in justice to the gentleman that he was called the best bootblack in town.” “Thank you, and let me add that is why I am here. I always tried to do as well as I could. If the member from ——, who taunts me with my lowly origin, had begun life as a bootblack, I fear that he would have been a bootblack still.”

It is said that the late Josiah Quincy was at one time conversing with Daniel Webster upon the importance of doing even the smallest things thoroughly and well, when the great man related an incident concerning a petty insurance case which was brought to him while a young lawyer. The fee promised was only twenty dollars, yet to do his client full justice, Webster found he must journey to Boston and consult the law library. This involved an expense of about the same amount as his fee; but after hesitating a little, he decided to go to Boston and consult the authorities, let the cost be what it might. He gained the case. Years after this, Webster was passing through the city of New York. An important insurance case was to be tried that day, and one of the counsel had been suddenly prostrated by illness. Money was no object, and Websterwas asked to name his terms and conduct the case. “It is preposterous,” he said, “to expect me to prepare a legal argument at a few hours’ notice.” But when they insisted that he should look at the papers he consented. It was his old, twenty-dollar case over again, and having a remarkable memory, he had all the authorities in his mind, and he took the case and won it. The court knew he had had no time for preparation, and was astonished at the skill with which he handled the case. “So, you see,” said Webster, as he concluded, “I was handsomely paid, both in fame and money, for that journey to Boston.”

To do well anything that is to be done is a test of power, a proof of efficiency, a criterion of character and a sure way to promotion. Just as the usefulness and value of a stamp depends on its ability to stick, so concentration of interest and effort is the boy’s only secret of success. A burning glass becomes powerful only when focalized on one object, and a boy becomes master of the situation only when he bends mind and body to each detail, never yielding to doubt or discouragement.

Great achievements, massive structures, successful inventions are composed of little things. The steam engine is a wonderful machine, but it consists of more than six thousand pieces of metal. The huge “chalk cliffs of Albion” were built by insects so small as to be only seen with the help of the microscope. The book we admire is made up of individual letters. The river is formed of many rivulets, and life consists not in great but numerous little things. A great man once wore a coat of arms which told the secret of his success. It was a mountain at whose base was a workman with coat off and a pickaxe in his hand, with whichhe was picking at the mountain. His motto was: “Little by little.” The importance of little things is the only criterion of admission to larger ones. Webster’s famous reply to Hayne was made up largely of little reserves which he had picked up here and there in his reading, from studying men, and from observation. “Great, without small, makes a bad wall,” says a Greek proverb. Ammi the Arabian said to his son, “Bring me the fruit of that tree.” Then he said, “Break it open: what do you see?” “Some seeds,” the boy replied. “Break one open; what do you see?” “Nothing,” he answered. “Where you see nothing,” said his father, “there dwells a mighty tree.” It’s the little things that make up character and prepare one’s destiny.

“Neglect of little things,” said Samuel Smiles, “has ruined many fortunes and marred the best of enterprises.” What may be of “little consequence” may prove to be disastrous. The ship which bore homeward the merchant’s treasure was lost because it was allowed to leave the port from which it sailed with a very little hole in the bottom. “For want of a nail, the shoe of the aide-de-camp’s horse was lost; for want of the shoe, the horse was lost; for want of the horse, the aide-de-camp was lost; for the enemy took and killed him; and for the want of the aide-de-camp’s intelligence, the army of his general was lost; all because a little nail had not been properly fixed in the horse’s shoe!”

When Conova was about to commence his famous statue of the great Napoleon he detected a tiny red line running through the upper portion of the splendid block that at great cost had been brought from Paros. What did he do? Work on it? No, he refused to laya chisel upon it. In the early struggles of the elder Herschel, while working out the problem of gigantic telescopic specula, he made scores upon scores before he got one to satisfy him. On that one he found a scratch like a spider thread which caused him to reject it, although he had spent weeks of toil upon it.

Moments are little things, yet upon them much of the future depends. Important affairs, well laid plans, fortunes and comforts are frequently sacrificed by negligence of the moments. Lord Chesterfield, writing to his son, said, “Every moment you now lose, is so much character and advantage lost, as on the other hand, every moment you now employ usefully, is so much time wisely laid out, at prodigious interest.” Henry Martyn won the honorable distinction of “the man who never wasted an hour;” while the famous remark of Horace Mann, was, “Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward offered, for they are gone forever.”

A condemned man was being led to execution. He had taken the life of another under circumstances of the greatest provocation, and public sympathy was active in his behalf. Thousands had signed petitions for a reprieve, a favorable answer had been expected the night before, and though it had not come, even the sheriff felt confident that it would arrive in season. Thus the morning passed without the appearance of the messenger. The last moment was up. The prisoner took his place on the drop, the cap was drawn over his eyes, the bolt was drawn, and a lifeless body swung revolving in the wind. Just at that moment a horseman came into sight, galloping down hill, his steed covered with foam. He carried a packet in his right hand,which he waved frantically to the crowd. He was the express rider with the reprieve. But he had come too late. A comparatively innocent man had died an ignominious death because a watch had been five minutes too slow, making its bearer behind time.

The alphabet is composed of letters. Letters constitute words, and words framed into sentences constitute books. Because a word is small it does not follow it is not important. Several of the smallest in the English language are the most important. Should a lawyer in making a deed omit some little words he might involve his client in litigation and perhaps subject him to the loss of his property. Two smaller, yet greater, words are not used than “yes” and “no.” They are decisive and conclusive, and as such every boy should learn to use them correctly. They are the words of courage, moral and physical; they are chivalric, knightly words. On occasions of supreme moment, when destiny awaits decision, they expand to sublime proportions. “Yes” to the right, “no” to the wrong.

Of all words hard to say, doubtless “no” is the hardest. Of William McKinley, Henry B. F. Macfarland wrote, “He could say no, as positively as he could say it pleasantly.” Some one wrote of a boy who had stamina enough to say “no” when necessary:

“Somebody asked me to take a drink.What did I tell him? What do you think?I told him, ‘No!’Somebody asked me one day to playA game of cards; and what did I say?I told him, ‘No!’Somebody laughs that I will not swearAnd lie and steal, but I do not care.I told him, ‘No!’Somebody asked me to take a sailOn the Sabbath day; ’twas of no avail.I told him, ‘No!’‘If sinners entice thee, consent thou not,’My Bible said; and so on the spotI told him, ‘No!’”

“Somebody asked me to take a drink.What did I tell him? What do you think?I told him, ‘No!’

“Somebody asked me to take a drink.

What did I tell him? What do you think?

I told him, ‘No!’

Somebody asked me one day to playA game of cards; and what did I say?I told him, ‘No!’

Somebody asked me one day to play

A game of cards; and what did I say?

I told him, ‘No!’

Somebody laughs that I will not swearAnd lie and steal, but I do not care.I told him, ‘No!’

Somebody laughs that I will not swear

And lie and steal, but I do not care.

I told him, ‘No!’

Somebody asked me to take a sailOn the Sabbath day; ’twas of no avail.I told him, ‘No!’

Somebody asked me to take a sail

On the Sabbath day; ’twas of no avail.

I told him, ‘No!’

‘If sinners entice thee, consent thou not,’My Bible said; and so on the spotI told him, ‘No!’”

‘If sinners entice thee, consent thou not,’

My Bible said; and so on the spot

I told him, ‘No!’”

A penny may not count for much, but one hundred make a dollar, and a dollar saved is a dollar made. Too many young men of the day imagine they cannot be manly without spending freely what they make. Careful saving and careful spending promote success, for “wilful waste makes woful want.” John Jacob Astor said that the saving of the first thousand dollars cost him the hardest struggle. “It is not,” wrote Philip Armour, “what a man earns but what he saves that makes him rich. I deem it of the highest importance to impress upon every young man the duty of beginning to save from the moment he commences to earn, be it ever so little. A habit so formed in early life will prove of incalculable benefit to him in after years, not only in the amount acquired, but through the exercise of economy in small affairs he will grow in knowledge and fitness for larger duties that may devolve upon him.” “My advice,” said Enoch Pratt, the Baltimore millionaire and founder of the Institute that bears his name, “to a young man just starting in life, is to take good care of your health, shun all bad habits, and save at least $1 out of every $5 you earn and immediately get that $1 out at interest. Few people have anyidea of the rapidity with which money at interest grows, and there is no better, safer way to get it out at interest than to buy some small piece of real estate that is improved and pays rent sufficient to yield a surplus that will pay the taxes; the interest on the mortgage you will have to give and something on the principal each year.”

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