There has been much counseling of the young man respecting the world. But what of counseling the world respecting the young man? Do not men and women riper in years and richer in experience need to have their attention called to the young man and the potentialities of him. He faces the world with vigor, courage, and faith—this stout-hearted, hopeful young fellow with To-morrow and all its possibilities coiled up in his brain and heart.
The young man is the future incarnate. His soul is the abiding-place of uplifting ideals, and the world—that vast collective individuality to which you and I belong—too often dispels those sensitive enthusiasms by its neglect or disapproval. Do we not find in our daily speech a certain cynicism toward youth? Does not our skeptic wisdom paste the label "illusions" over the word "ideals" written on the young man's brow? Is there not a refusal torecognize young manhood's force until it compels recognition by sheer mastery?
If so, it is a fault that the world should remedy. Not that the young man should not prove himself before the world accepts him; not that he should not win his spurs before he is knighted. No one insists that he shall "make good" more than I do. But in the testing of him, let us give him the help of our kindly attention. Let us lend him the encouragement of our applause as he rides into the lists.
Countless young men have been needlessly discouraged by the indifference of the occupied and the sneers of the calloused. Let us not be so chary of our sympathy. Faith in most young men is a much safer hazard than infidelity. For all things strong and pure and helpful to the worldmaybe possible of those young fellows who must, in any event, very soon possess the earth.
So let not the frost of the world's unconcern fall upon young manhood's unfolding powers. Let us beware how we extinguish the feeblest of youth's idealisms. Let us check not the onset of his knight-errantry. And the world does these things—not purposely, not even knowingly, but thoughtlessly. Many ayoung man has had his life's work kept back and the ardor of it chilled by rebuff at the beginning.
Many another has had his faith in God and humanity and the effectiveness of the eternal verities in the world's work enfeebled and even shattered by what he felt was the world's disbelief in them. No statistician can collect and classify the instances of young lives impaired by the heedlessness and insensibility of the mature to the beatitudes which glorify all youth.
This attitude of the world toward young men is not caused by any distrust of them or by any undervaluing of the high qualities of the true, the beautiful, and the good which the young man brings to it. Let no young man get the idea that the world of society and affairs is "down on him," to borrow the phrasing of the people again. Let him never for a moment feel that this world of experience and present power does not believe in him.
For the world does believe in you, young man. It is not "down on" you. It is busy, that is all. It is engaged with the numberless and pressing concerns of its from-day-to-day existence. It is forgetful, no doubt, but its apathy does not go deeper than that.
With this caution to the young man that he may not misunderstand what is here written, I appeal to men and women, in whose faces the years have etched the lines and wrinkles of knowledge and understanding, to give more attention to young men; to encourage the nobilities of them; to reach down a helping hand from your secure station on the heights to him who struggles upward toward you.
It will not hurt you, sir or madam, to closely watch for signs of developing power in the young men of your acquaintance and to cultivate that growing strength by your active and aggressive faith in the young giant whom you have thus discovered.
Men and women there are who search minutely for unknown powers in plant-life, and by infinite pains in the use of that power, when found, evolve newer, higher, and better types of fruit and flower. And this is a good work. Men and women there are who sweep the infinitudes of the skies that they may find a star hitherto unseen, or steal unawares upon a hidden planet or a flying comet swiftly, yet stealthily, emerging upon the field of the telescope's vision.
And that is a good work, too—yet fruitless, for the immensities of the universe will neverbe measured, nor the mysteries of the skies be solved, nor the stars give up their secrets. Most of us are on some quest which requires the very infinitesimalities of patience, quests that are grand and quests that are foolish, searchings that are useful and explorations that are frivolous.
But the noblest of all prospecting is for strength and high purpose and thoroughbred quality among the young manhood of our Nation. For any one who helps some young man to make his life righteously successful has enriched humanity more than he who reveals a Klondike to the uses and the greed of the clans of trade.
Yes; and he or she who, in the search for strong minds and pure hearts among young men, discovers to the world agreatman has in that achievement wrought immortality for himself and herself, while rendering to mankind a service like that of a Columbus or a Pasteur. For Columbus discovered a new continent; but what of the man or woman who while looking through all the immaturities of his youth "discovers" a Columbus.
Thus would I direct the divining keenness of our men of affairs, so swift and sure to detect advantages in business, to the youngmen who wait at their outer gates for recognition and service. I would invite the world, whose hearing is so sensitive to the material things of commerce, to the exalted and eternal subject of human characters and human destinies as they are developing daily, hourly, all about us. In a word, I ask the ear of the world for its young men.
I read in some sermon—I think it was by Myron Reed—that the most pathetic thing in life is that a man of either thought or action must spend two-thirds of his time getting a hearing. "During this time," said the preacher, "the man of thought speaks his immortal word; the man of action does his immortal deed; all the time the World is refusing to listen or to heed; but finally, when the fires of genius have burned low, when the great thoughts have been uttered and the great works wrought, then it is willing to give ear and eye to the necessarily feebler acts and thoughts of the great man's later days."
It refuses to come near the fire when in full glow; it comes and puts its hands into the ashes after the flame has died out and the ashes themselves are growing cold. Do we not find ourselves worshiping echoes and ghosts in the persons of men whooncewroughtsplendidly, and denying the real forces of the present hour until they compel recognition by their overwhelmingness; and then, having exhausted themselves, become in their turn ghosts and echoes.
It is all right to honor those who have done big things and are "living on their reputations"; but it is all wrong to deny to those young men who are doing and will do big things, now and in the future, full and glad recognition of their power and possibilities.
The first thing that the world should remember about the young man who is confronting it, asking his daily bread of it, is the inestimable value of the qualities of freshness, of innocence, of faith, of confidence, of high honesty, of Don Quixote courage which the young man brings to it. These are qualities which in human character are worth all the wisdom of the market-place many million times multiplied. They are the qualities which, in spite of itself, keep the world young and tolerable.
The young man comes to the world fresh from his mother's knee. The Lord's Prayer is still in his mind; his mother taught it to him. The glorious fable of Washington and the cherry-tree is still in his heart; his mothertaught it to him. A beautiful honor that makes him very foolish on the stock exchange and causes the shrewd ones to say, "He will know more after a while"—the splendid honor that makes him throw over what the world calls "advantages"—still glorifies his soul; his mother taught him that honor. The confidence that God is just, and that success is surely his if he will but do right, still beautifies him like the rose-tinted clouds of morning; it is the influence of his mother's teaching.
Let the world understand that these qualities with which the mother labors to endow her child, from the time the blessing of maternity is hers to the time the bright-eyed young fellow steps out from the old home, are more valuable to the world itself than all its gold-mines, all its scientific discoveries, all its electric railroads, all its games of politics, all its commerce. "Il mondo va da sé," said a cynical Italian statesman—"the world goes by itself." But it does not.
If the world were not each year renewed, refreshed, glorified by the magnificent honor and fine expectancies of its young men, it would soon become simply fiendish in its sordidness, selfishness, and baseness. Let the world, then, preserve these fine qualities at which ittoo often idly sneers; not for the young man's sake—no, that is not to be expected—but for its own sake.
Let the world turn to the Master and think of what he said: "Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." I am pleading for the tolerance of what, by a certain class of men, are called impracticable business defects in youthful character, which in reality are the vital blood by which the world is kept morally alive.
The first attitude that the world ought really to take toward the young man is charity. How parrot-like one is! Charity! "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." I defy any man who talks about the practical affairs of this life to get away from the Bible.
Let the world then have charity for the young man. Let it realize that for the particular moment there is nothing conceivable so helpless as he. He is just as helpless as, in time, he will become irresistible. I have already earnestly advised every young man, as a practical matter, to do at least one thing each day not only free from any selfish motive, but from which no possible material benefit could come to himself.
And now this is the reverse side of that shield. Let the world give to the young man a little start, a little help, a little foothold, a little encouragement. And I repeat that by the world I mean the great mass of men who have ceased to be young men, or who, still young in years, have achieved places of power—those who hold the reins of affairs and business, of industrial and social conditions.
I heard of a banker once who saw to it that at least once each week he hunted up some young man, bravely struggling, bravely fighting, and gave him some little assistance—a piece of business, an opportunity, needful and kindly counsel—something that moistened his parched lips, dry and hot from running the hard race that all youth must run for success. I said to myself: "There is something in reincarnation; the soul of Abou-ben-Adhem is dwelling in that banker's heart."
For years the greatest pleasure of my life has been that young boys have come to me from all over my State to talk about how they should proceed in life's battle. You, too, may have the pleasure of helping young men. But beware how you do this, saying in your heart, "I will help this young man, and when he succeeds I will reap my reward." Such aselfish thought will utterly poison your advice, deflect your moral vision, distort your intellectual perceptions.
That man who advises a young man with the thought that some day he will be able to harvest personal advantage from that young man's success, has probably by that very thought been rendered incapable of giving sound advice or profitable help. Help the young man for his sake, for the sake of the great humanity of which he is a fresh and beautiful part, for the sake of that abstract good which, after all, is the only reward in this life worthy the consideration of a serious man.
I heard not long ago of a brilliant and crafty young politician who was and is an earnest champion and helper of a very successful and highly practical man in public life. He had acquired some unfortunate traits. He was suspicious, distrustful. He feared betrayal here, a Judas there. The caution increased his cunning but was impairing his character. The man to whose fortunes he was attached called him in, in the midst of a great political battle on which the fortunes of that man depended, and said to his young lieutenant:
"Success in this fight is important to me, but it is not so important as the impairing of your character which I see going on. You are becoming permanently distrustful, suspicious. You think one friend will fail us here, that that friend is untrue, that the other one may be influenced improperly. Very soon you will begin to suspect me, then you will suspect yourself, and then—then, you are utterly lost. Stop it. I would rather lose the fight than see your character become negative."
That man was right, and the attitude he took in his advice to the young man was right. Let the world quit encouraging young men to think that guile succeeds. Let it encourage the faith that nothing but the noble and the good really succeed in the end. Let every one point out to the young man confronting the world that it is not so great a thing after all to be "smart," not so great a thing after all to be capable with the little tricks of life, but that it is everything to be good and trustful and fearless and constructive.
It will not do for the world to reply that it does, in words, encourage these fine qualities of youth. It does not, except in formal and meaningless utterances—preachments that have not the vitality of individuality in them.Words are very little, almost less than nothing; but attitude and action are everything. The young man would not feel that he had to be "slick," or crafty, or cunning, if the world's attitude did not invite him to such a conclusion. It is the nature of young men the world over, and particularly of young Americans, to be open in life, direct in method, lofty in purpose, and fearless in action.
A very successful lawyer once told me the following—it illustrates my point: "I remember," said he, "that when I was a law student one of the most brilliant young men I ever met—one of the most brilliant young or old men I ever met—one day received a client of the firm with a luxury of attention and a sumptuousness of courtesy that deeply aroused my ignorant and rural admiration.
"When the consultation had been finished and the rich client had left the office, this young lawyer, who had bowed him out with a deft compliment which made the client feel that he was the point about which the universe was revolving, turned and said, as he went to his desk, 'There goes the shallowest fool and most stupid rascal in the state.'
"When asked how he could say such a thing after having treated the client with suchdistinction, he turned with a wink of his eye, and said: 'That is the way to work them. You don't know the world yet. Wait till you get on in the world; it will teach you how to handle them.'
"That young man had become thoroughly saturated with the opinion that Ferrers, in "Ernest Maltravers," is the type to be imitated—a character of crafty cunning, playing on the weaknesses of men. He had gotten his opinion from the apparent success of the tricks and sharp practises of the law. He had not seen the broader horizon above which only those who are as good as they are capable ever rise.
"It was a fatal method forhim. He finally failed. It was a fatal method for at least two young students upon whom his ideals and influences fell with determining power."
Of course; and it is a fatal view of life for any young man to get. The young man who comes out from the ennobling influence of the American mother will not take this view if the world does not compel him to do so. The world, then, should not applaud any feat of smartness or cunning on the part of the young man. It should not wink its eye and pat him on the shoulder and say, "That was very'smooth,' very 'smooth' indeed; I congratulate you."
The young man confronts the world with mingled courage and timidity. It is so vast. It seems so unconquerable. And yet he has been taught to believe that if he meets it with a high fearlessness he will conquer. That is what his mother taught him. Out of this thought and his nervous timidity combined comes what appears to the world to be a senseless courage, a foolish daring. He is very much afraid; he wants to make the world think he is not afraid; he has been told to put up a bold front—and men think him rash and adventurous. He is not—he is only trying to keep you from seeing how scared he is.
In the campaign of 1898 a young man with all of these qualities, and gifted with considerable oratorical power, was seeking an opportunity to get a little hearing. He had just graduated from college, had opened a law office, had never had the shadow or substance of a client, but he had that fresh confidence and the ability back of it which the world neglects until, finally, it is forced to accept it.
I secured for him an invitation to make some speeches in a neighboring State. He was delighted. He went, but returned woundedin spirit by the heedlessness of the State Committee and the indifference of the men of prominence who had refused to notice him. And yet the fine courage that dared take part in the great struggle just beginning was a quality which was more valuable to his party and to the world and to humanity, than all of the schemes of the men who rejected him.
It is this courage constantly injected into the veins of the world which, little by little, is lifting mankind up to a more and still more endurable estate. I shall never be able to perform a higher service than to light again, as I did, the fires of his confidence and young daring.
Let the world not suppose that by encouraging these great qualities of youth which it now heedlessly represses, and only too often kills, it will spoil the young man. The intrinsic difficulties of life are great enough to keep him within bounds, no matter how much encouragement he receives. The very nature of things, and the constitution of society as he comes to examine it in its concrete manifestations, will chasten his illusions.
The rarity of the air as he mounts upward in life will weight his wings at last. The limitations of Nature and of affairs will inthemselves be all the chastisement he needs to correct abnormal hope, courage, faith, or honor—yes, even more than enough. Let the world, then—the men and women who have won their places in life—let them nourish the enthusiasms and the elemental "illusions" of youth wherever they see them.
After all, they are not illusions; they are the only true things in this universe. The houses that men construct will in time decay. The remorseless elements will rot the noblest trees down to the earth from which they grew. The laws that men make will lose their force and be succeeded by other statutes, equally temporary and futile. Reputations men build will vanish almost before they are made. Civilizations they erect will pass from their flowering into the seeds of future civilizations and be forgotten, too.
But the "illusions" with which the young man confronts the world at the beginning of his career are as everlasting as God's word: "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one little shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." The "illusions" of the young man—of the young American particularly—are the manifestations of that law, the eternal law of the eternal verities.
"The lyrical dream of the boy is the kingly truth.The world is a vapor and only the Vision is real—Yea, nothing can hold against hell but the Winged Ideal."
"The lyrical dream of the boy is the kingly truth.The world is a vapor and only the Vision is real—Yea, nothing can hold against hell but the Winged Ideal."
Let the world look to it, then, that the exalted qualities of youth which make it indiscreet, audacious, exhilarant—yes, and spotless, too—be not discouraged, repressed, destroyed; for these qualities are "the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men."
Speaking to the world of business and of society, I therefore plead for tolerance of all the fresh, clean, high, and splendid—absurd, if you will—"illusions" of the young man seeking his seat at the table where all men eat, and where all, at the end, must drink the same hemlock cup.
For if these "illusions" are destroyed and replaced with the wisdom of the serpent, Tennyson's "Locksley Hall" will, sure enough and in sad reality, be replaced by the "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After." Take the young man, then, by the hand, take him to your heart, and, instead of destroying, catch, if you can,some of the glory, the faith, the freshness, the "illusions" of his youth; remembering that Wordsworth uttered an ultimate note when he said:
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;The soul that rises with us, our life's star,Hath had elsewhere its setting,And cometh from afar.Not in entire forgetfulness,And not in utter nakedness,But trailing clouds of glory, do we comeFrom God, who is our home."
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;The soul that rises with us, our life's star,Hath had elsewhere its setting,And cometh from afar.Not in entire forgetfulness,And not in utter nakedness,But trailing clouds of glory, do we comeFrom God, who is our home."
And it is these clouds of glory that still surround the young man when he stands brave and sweet and full of faith, and with his mother's precious precepts and counsels ringing in his ears, before the great old world, wrinkled by its infinite centuries.
But you, young man, you for whom I am asking the world's helpful regard—when you read this do not go to pitying yourself. That is fatal. Do not get the notion that the world is not giving you your just due. If you have such an idea, thrust it instantly from you. If you think the world has downed you, up and at it again. If, a second time, it knocks you out, still up and at it again. And keepsmiling. Never whine—you deserve defeat if you do that.
Be a "thoroughbred," as the expression of the hour has it. After "you conquer and prevail," you will find that the world has a kindly and even a loving heart. All you have to do is to keep in condition and keep fighting. And that ought to be pleasant to any male creature—what more can he want? Just go right ahead with faith in God, believing in all the virtues and keeping up your nerve. But if you get to pitying yourself, you are lost, and ought to be.
Furthermore, do not succumb to the fiction that there are fewer "chances" for young men now than there used to be. Never was there a period when there were so many opportunities as there are this very day—high-gradeopportunities. They are for high-grade men—and that is what you are, is it not? If not, why not? The calls for men of fine equipment daily rise from every business, and are never satisfied.
And these calls are for young men, too. Indeed, it is not the young man, but the old and middle-aged man who has the right to complain. The exactions of modern business are discriminating in favor of the man underforty. There are calls for all kinds of men. But the fiercest demand is for first-class men. You have only to be afirst-class manin order to be sought for by scores of firms and corporations—and on your own terms. No! it is not the fact that there are no chances for young men to-day. The chances are all around you.
Life has three tragedies: loss of honor, loss of health, and the black conclusion of men past middle life who think they have failed—played the game and lost. The young man starting out in life has my heart; but the man past fifty who feels that he has failed has my heart absolutely and with emphasis. Apparently he has so much to contend against—the onsweep of the world, the pitying attitude of those of his own age who have succeeded, and, over all, his secret feeling of despair. But the last is the only fatal element in his problem.
As a matter of fact, the man past middle life who has not achieved distinct success very possibly has only been "finding himself," to use Mr. Kipling's expression. Perhaps he has only been growing. Certainly he has been accumulating experience, knowledge, and the effective wisdom which only these can give.And if his failure has not been because he is a fraud, and because people found it out—if he has been, and is, genuine—it may be that he has been unconsciously preparing for continuous, enduring, and possibly great success, if he only will.
I should say that the very first thing for this man to do is to see that he does not get soured. That attitude of character is an acid which will destroy all success. Keep yourself sweet, no matter how snail-like your progress has been, no matter how paltry your apparent achievements. If you are already soured on men and the world, change that condition by a persistent habit of optimism. All death shows an acid reaction. Hopefulness is the alkaline in character.
Make "looking on the bright side" a habit. It can be done. Mingle with people as much as possible—especially with the young and buoyant and beautifully hopeful. Be a part of passing events. Read the daily newspapers. Form the habit of picking out the brighter aspects of occurrences. There is an astonishing tonic in the daily newspaper. When you read it, the blood of the world's great vitality is pouring through you.
I know a man who is now a millionaire, butwho at the age of forty was without a dollar. He is now not over fifty-five. He had spent all those forty years watching for his opportunity—aye, getting ready for it. When it came, his beak was sharpened, his talons keen as needles and strong as steel, and he swooped down upon that opportunity like a bird of prey.
"No," said he, "I did not get discouraged. I was living, and my wife and children were living; and Vanderbilt was not doing any more than that, after all. I felt all the time that I was getting ready. I worked a good deal harder than I have since I achieved my fortune. Somehow, up to the time it came I had not felt equal to my chance; for I knew that my opportunity would be a large one when it came, and I knew that it would come. It did come."
Business men said for the first two or three years, "What a change of luck Mr. —— has had! But he is not equal to it. He has never accomplished anything heretofore."
Yes, but he had been getting ready. He had been saving vitality, building up character, indexing and pigeonholing experiences, accumulating and systematizing a long-continued series of observations and all thepotentialities of intellect and personality out of which, when applied to proper conditions, success alone is forged.
And so he gathered to himself great riches, and the poor man of a few years ago is now—of course, of course, and alas! if you like—a member of one of the most powerful trusts in the country.
Get yourself into the current of Circumstance—"in the swim," as the colloquialism has it. A man of large experience and important achievement said to me not long ago: "I am afraid I am getting to be a back number." That was a distinct note of degeneration. If he thought so that thought was the best evidence of the fact.
Do not get it into your head that you are out of step with the times. That in itself will paralyze both intellect and will. It is an admission of permanent failure. No matter whether you think the changed conditions and methods of business, society, and affairs, which almost each day brings, are inferior or superior to the old conditions and methods or not, you must keep abreast of them; take in the spirit of them.
An attitude of protest against the progressive order of things may be heroic, butit is not practical or effective. These conditions and methods which make you feel like a "back number" may not be the best; if they are not, try to make them the best, if you will, but do not attempt to perfect them backward by returning to yesterday. The world is very impatient ofapparentretrogression; it hurts its egotism.
"What! Go back to old conditions?" says the World. "Never! never! Progress, alone, for me!"
But sometimes it means motion, not progress; for true progress might possibly be a return to old and superior methods. No matter, I am speaking ofyourpractical, personal, and material success now. I am not speaking to you as a reformer or as a teacher of the elemental truths.Youare a searcher, past fifty years of age, after the flesh-pots. Very well, then. Do not run amuck of the world. Join in its progress, even if that progress seems to you to be unreal.
At the risk of iteration, I again urge constant mingling with people. It is from them that you must draw your success, after all. A man over fifty who feels that his life is a failure is apt to emphasize the outward manners and inward habits of thought of his earlierdays, as he would, if he could, stick to the old styles and fashions of apparel of the days of his youth. To do the latter would be to call attention at once to his antiquity; but to retain his old mental attitude is antiquity indeed.
People are quick to see, feel, and know that you are in deed and in truth not of the present day. When they think that, you are discredited and at an unnecessary disadvantage. Therefore mingle with men. Don't withdraw into yourself. Don't be a turtle. Be an active and present part of society, not only that your whole mind and whole conscious being may be kept fresh and growing, but that people may not perceive the contrary.
Growing! Growth! It is only a question of that, after all. No man can ultimately fail who has kept himself alive, and therefore kept himself growing. If you find that you have ceased to grow, start up the process again. Make yourself take an interest in large and constructive things of the present moment in your city, county, state, and country, and in the world.
The mind and character of man are the two great exceptions to the entire constitution of the universe. Decay is the law that controlseverything else except these; but thought and character need never decay. They may be kept growing as long as life endures. Who shall deny that the philosophers of India are right, and that mind and character may continue to grow throughout illimitable series of existences?
Only two classes of men are hopeless: those who think to prevail by fraud and the contrivances of indirection, and those whose minds and characters have begun to disintegrate, or degenerate, if you like the latter word better. There is every reason why character should each day get a truer bearing, why the mind each day should become more luminous, elevated, and accurate.
The Stoics said that even temperament might be given steadiness and poise by an exercise of philosophy and will, and the lives of many of them seemed to prove it. And if all this is true, your fifty years have given you an arsenal of power that is a considerable advantage over younger men, if you will but use it; and it is to point out some of the methods for its use, and some of the mistakes which I have observed men in your condition make, that this paper is written.
A great and natural desire of men such asthose to whom this paper is addressed is to move from the places in which they have achieved no success to new locations, where, as they put it, they "can start life afresh." Do not do it. Such a course is, ordinarily, as fatal as it is alluring.
If you have been an upright man—and without this there can be no permanent success of any kind—your long residence in your community has put you to no disadvantage, but precisely the contrary. You have, during these years, secured the confidence of your community. They know you to be loyal, truthful, sober, steadfast, industrious. This popular faith in the elemental qualities of your character is the foundation of success, and usually it requires years to establish that.
You are at no disadvantage because the people do not have for you that admiration which the doing of things compels. The fact that your neighbors do not suspect your potentialities is really an advantage. If you have that righteous and permissible craft which every man should have, and if you take advantage of it, you can begin the work which will bring you success without that envy and competition, that friction of jealousy, which every man of acknowledged power arouses. But if you, aman of fifty or over, go into a new environment, you carry with you that heaviest of all burdens, the necessity of making explanations.
"Why have you come among us at your age?" the people ask. "What is the story of your past?" they very properly inquire. "It must be that you are not a man of integrity which commanded the respect and support of your old home," they will not unnaturally conclude; "either this, or else you were a failure there."
These are the two necessary and inevitable deductions, and either horn of that cruel dilemma of logic is enough to impale you. If you escape them, you do it because you do not attract notice, and this, in itself, is failure. And in any event, to gain the substantial confidence of the people you must spend several years of right living among them. And you have no time to waste in building up confidence at your period of life. That is an asset which your whole career of unsuccessful probity should have accumulated for you; and it is dissipated if you remove from among those in whose minds that belief in you exists.
I have seen this serious error made so many times, and nearly always with such destroying results, that I give it more space than itsrelative proportion deserves. I have in mind now two men who did precisely this thing. Their success in the two country towns where they had lived had been reasonable, but not considerable. It did not appear to be success at all to them, though.
They were quite sure that they were bigger than their opportunities—yes, that was what was the matter—they needed larger opportunities, "larger fields," more "scope" for their powers. Each man was about fifty years of age. Each was a man of far more than ordinary talent. Each removed to a city. And in the city which each chose, each miserably, utterly, hopelessly failed.
Had they remained where for years they had been planting the seeds of confidence, respect, and achievement, and had they awaited the slow processes of the harvest, each man would soon have become the leading man in his town, county, and district, and would have remained so until the end of his days; for the harvest was nearly theirs. They did not understand that while it takes a long time to prepare the soil and sow the seed, and let it grow to maturity, the ripening of the harvest comes in a few golden days.
It is true that there are exceptions to theabove rule—the rule of abiding, of standing fast. But the exception is justified only when you have made so many definite, tangible, and public failures in your old home that there is absolutely no possibility of further hope. Of course, if you are a man of lion heart and lion power, this is another matter. Any place on earth is a fit field for achievement by these savages of enterprise.
I know one of these who won a fortune, and lost it; won another, and again lost; and who, finally, with judgments and executions showering upon him, set his face to a new land and resolved again to conquer fortune or die. He conquered—of course he conquered—and is now worth many millions. But if you look into his kindly but deadly blue eye, and consider the tragic and premature whiteness of his hair, and take in the whole resistless and compelling personality of the man, you will see whyhesucceeded.
We are all familiar with the stirring history of a certain great American master of millions who is now about sixty-five years of age, and has amassed his wealth since he was fifty. He had failed, and failed often, before that time—failed once humiliatingly and irretrievably, so the ordinary man would say. Sothe ordinary man did say, and say hard and often.
The details of his early catastrophes are not worth while here. The point is that they did not affect him except to make him stronger. They were the Thor-like blows with which Fate forged the unconquerableness of this man. For unconquerable he has become.
He has carried through daring plans; he has brought great financial institutions that opposed him to their knees; from the throne of his audacity he has dictated terms to boards of trade, and made the princes of the houses of commercial royalty his servants.
But if you look at his brow of power, at the merciless and yet delicate and sensitive lips, you will become conscious of why he succeeded—why he must eventually have succeeded anywhere. But such a man is no example for you unless you are such a man yourself—and in that case, you need no examples of any kind. You are your own example.
I read with keen interest, the other day, a feature article in one of our great daily newspapers, giving incidents in the careers of fifteen American millionaires who made their fortunes after they were fifty. But all these had the luck of the never-say-die men. Theywere all of the class that Emerson describes as having an excess of arterial circulation.
Every failure to them was simply an access of information. They regarded each loss as another piece of instruction in the game. Fortune always gives the winnings to such as these at last. Fortune loves a daring player; and while she may rebuff him for a while, it is only to gild the refined gold of his ultimate achievings.
Another thing. Go you to church. Use clean linen. Wear good and well-fitting clothing. Take care of your shoes. Look after all the details of your personal grooming. In short, observe all the methods which human experience has devised to keep men from degenerating. There is an unalterable connection between the physical and mental and moral.
The old saying that "cleanliness is next to godliness" has beneath it all the philosophy of civilization.
It is an easy process that produces tramps. A few days' growth of beard, the tolerance of certain personal habits of indolence, and your tramp begins, vaguely, but none the less surely, to appear. This is accompanied by a falling off in clear-cut thought, a blurring of the moralities, and a cessation of definite andeffective energy. This is itself, of course, an interminable subject upon which several papers might be written; but perhaps I have said enough to make apparent to you its practical application.
The stages of degeneration are as easy as they are fatal, and since to resist them requires courage, force, and alertness, it is only too probable that the man past fifty, who feels that he has failed, is beginning to submit to them. Do not do it. Resort to every possible device to prevent it; for degeneration, in itself, is failure; more, it is death. It is exactly the same force which rots out the heart of the oak, manifesting itself in human character.
Your problem is not to give way to your weaknesses. That is the problem of all of us. "I see two men looking from your eyes," said the Norse seeress, "a young man and an old man. Do not let the old man in you conquer the young man in you." Very well! Barring the loss of health, you can always make the young man in you the victor.
Do not conclude that things are fixed, that conditions are permanent, and that, as there is no apparent place for you as circumstances now exist, there never will be. Fix in your mind this dreadful and glorious paradox, thateven the most permanent things are transient. Study the clouds, those visible emblems of human experience and institutions. A twist, a curve, a change in the shape and outline, and final disappearance into the universal blue—such is their destiny; and yet each instant they are permanent, apparently, so far as that instant is concerned.
"The rushing metamorphosisDissolving all that fixture is,Melts things that be to things that seemAnd solid Nature to a dream."
"The rushing metamorphosisDissolving all that fixture is,Melts things that be to things that seemAnd solid Nature to a dream."
It will be useful, also, to consider the political machine. There is nothing which, in its day, is apparently more permanent or powerful; yet it dissolves in obedience to the very laws on which it is built. So, my friend, there is never a time that you can truthfully say that there is not, and never will be, any place for you in the order of society and affairs.
No, indeed; things are not fixed. Recall the story of the Oriental monarch. His wise men with all their wisdom could not produce a single truth that stood the test of time. As the tale runs, the ruler, weary of the falsehoods of so-called learning, called his wise men together and said to them:
"I sicken of your daily sagacities which the next day prove to be follies. Tell me one truth—only one. I ask but a single sentence. But let it be a sentence that will be as true next year as this year—a sentence which always has been true and always will be true. I give you one year to formulate one such sentence. If at the end of that time you cannot state an absolute verity, your lives will be forfeited."
At the end of the year the wise men came to their dread lord and said that they had found one universal truth. "State it," said their sovereign. They answered: "Here is the only sentence our wisdom can construct which is absolutely true: 'And this, too, shall pass away.'" And so shall your misfortunes, my friend past fifty, pass away. "It is a long road that has no turning," declares the maxim of the people. Your road is no exception.
The historic instances of great success past fifty are numerous and inspiring. They begin with Moses, who was forty years of age when "he slew the Egyptian," and they come down to our present day; to Bismarck, who, while so brilliant as a young man that he attracted the attention of Europe, was not great till he was past forty-five; to Disraeli, who, though so dazzling in his youth and early prime thathe astounded Parliament and filled the press with comment, was not constructive or permanent in his success till comparatively late in life.
Think, too, of those historic successes of which there was not the faintest sign until far past middle life—they are not many, to be sure, but they are inspiring. Some of the great headlands that shoulder out into history—Washington, Lincoln, and the like—became visible to the world after forty-five.
Of course, it is true that the immense majority of the world's great achievers—generals, statesmen, poets, philosophers, inventors, builders—have been young men. But the noble exceptions contain sufficient encouragement for you if you still have the heart of purpose.
I like to think of a man fighting his best fight just at the end of life. There has always been something attractive to me about the expression of Western hardihood, "Dying with his boots on," and the attitude of character that it describes.
From my infancy the story of theBon Homme Richardhas been like wine to my blood. Be you like that ship, my dear friend past fifty! She had, apparently, failed, butshe kept in service. She had reached the age of decay, and her timbers scarcely held together; yet she did not go out of commission.
She attacked theSerapis, one of the youngest and stanchest and best equipped of the matchless navy of England. She was blown full of holes; still she fought. She was on fire; still she fought. The water poured into her hold and she was sinking; still she fought. Fought, fought, fought, and in the grim, the terrible, and the sublime end she won.
TheSerapiswas captured by theBon Homme Richard, and the victorious old ship's crew established themselves on the decks of the conquered Englishman. The gallant veteran of the waves was kept afloat that night, but at sunrise the next day they ran to her masthead her glorious, shot-torn battle-flag, and she went to her home in the abysses of the deep with that banner of battle and ultimate triumph flying as she sank beneath the waves.
Be that your end, my friend, and that of all brave hearts. Fight until the last, and let your noblest and most decisive victory be won with the final efforts of your expiring life.