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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/6911-h.zip b/6911-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0915691 --- /dev/null +++ b/6911-h.zip diff --git a/6911-h/6911-h.htm b/6911-h/6911-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..765cfa4 --- /dev/null +++ b/6911-h/6911-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1588 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + +<head> + +<title>Project Gutenberg's The Majesty of Calmness, by William George Jordan </title> +<style type="text/css"> +<!-- + h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 { text-align: center; font-variant: small-caps; font-weight: bold } + h1, h2 { margin-top: 2em } + h3, h4 { margin-top: 1.5em } + h5, h6 { margin-top: 1.25em } + + li { font-variant: small-caps } + + p.verse { margin-left: 25px } + + div.index { margin-left: 50px } + div.index p { text-indent: -15px } +--> +</style> +</head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The Majesty of Calmness, by William George Jordan + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + +Title: The Majesty of Calmness + Individual Problems and Possibilities... + +Author: William George Jordan + +Release Date: January 5, 2015 [EBook #6911] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAJESTY OF CALMNESS *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis A. Weyant, Charles Franks, and the +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>The Majesty of Calmness</h1> + +<h2>Individual Problems and Possibilities...</h2> + +<p style="text-align: center">by</p> + +<h2>William George Jordan</h2> + +<h3>Author of "The Kingship of Self-Control"</h3> + + + +<h1>Contents</h1> + +<ol style="list-style-type: upper-roman"> + <li><a href="#chap1">The Majesty of Calmness</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap2">Hurry, the Scourge of America</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap3">The Power of Personal Influence</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap4">The Dignity of Self-Reliance</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap5">Failure as a Success</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap6">Doing Our Best at All Times</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap7">The Royal Road to Happiness</a></li> +</ol> + + + +<h1>I<br /> +The Majesty of Calmness</h1> + + + +<p>Calmness is the rarest quality in human life. It is the poise of a +great nature, in harmony with itself and its ideals. It is the moral +atmosphere of a life self-centred, self-reliant, and self-controlled. +Calmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and conscious +power,--ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crisis.</p> + +<p>The Sphinx is not a true type of calmness,--petrifaction is not +calmness; it is death, the silencing of all the energies; while no one +lives his life more fully, more intensely and more consciously than the +man who is calm.</p> + +<p>The Fatalist is not calm. He is the coward slave of his environment, +hopelessly surrendering to his present condition, recklessly +indifferent to his future. He accepts his life as a rudderless ship, +drifting on the ocean of time. He has no compass, no chart, no known +port to which he is sailing. His self-confessed inferiority to all +nature is shown in his existence of constant surrender. It is not,--calmness.</p> + +<p>The man who is calm has his course in life clearly marked on his chart. +His hand is ever on the helm. Storm, fog, night, tempest, danger, +hidden reefs,--he is ever prepared and ready for them. He is made calm +and serene by the realization that in these crises of his voyage he +needs a clear mind and a cool head; that he has naught to do but to do +each day the best he can by the light he has; that he will never flinch +nor falter for a moment; that, though he may have to tack and leave his +course for a time, he will never drift, he will get back into the true +channel, he will keep ever headed toward his harbor. <i>When</i> he +will reach it, <i>how</i> he will reach it, matters not to him. He +rests in calmness, knowing he has done his best. If his best seem to be +overthrown or overruled, then he must still bow his head,--in calmness. +To no man is permitted to know the future of his life, the finality. +God commits to man ever only new beginnings, new wisdom, and new days +to use the best of his knowledge.</p> + +<p>Calmness comes ever from within. It is the peace and restfulness of the +depths of our nature. The fury of storm and of wind agitate only the +surface of the sea; they can penetrate only two or three hundred feet,--below that is the calm, unruffled deep. To be ready for the great +crises of life we must learn serenity in our daily living. Calmness is +the crown of self-control.</p> + +<p>When the worries and cares of the day fret you, and begin to wear upon +you, and you chafe under the friction,--be calm. Stop, rest for a +moment, and let calmness and peace assert themselves. If you let these +irritating outside influences get the better of you, you are confessing +your inferiority to them, by permitting them to dominate you. Study the +disturbing elements, each by itself, bring all the will power of your +nature to bear upon them, and you will find that they will, one by one, +melt into nothingness, like vapors fading before the sun. The glow of +calmness that will then pervade your mind, the tingling sensation of an +inflow of new strength, may be to you the beginning of the revelation +of the supreme calmness that is possible for you. Then, in some great +hour of your life, when you stand face to face with some awful trial, +when the structure of your ambition and life-work crumbles in a moment, +you will be brave. You can then fold your arms calmly, look out +undismayed and undaunted upon the ashes of your hope, upon the wreck of +what you have faithfully built, and with brave heart and unfaltering +voice you may say: "So let it be,--I will build again."</p> + +<p>When the tongue of malice and slander, the persecution of inferiority, +tempts you for just a moment to retaliate, when for an instant you +forget yourself so far as to hunger for revenge,--be calm. When the +grey heron is pursued by its enemy, the eagle, it does not run to +escape; it remains calm, takes a dignified stand, and waits quietly, +facing the enemy unmoved. With the terrific force with which the eagle +makes its attack, the boasted king of birds is often impaled and run +through on the quiet, lance-like bill of the heron. The means that man +takes to kill another's character becomes suicide of his own.</p> + +<p>No man in the world ever attempted to wrong another without being +injured in return,--someway, somehow, sometime. The only weapon of +offence that Nature seems to recognize is the boomerang. Nature keeps +her books admirably; she puts down every item, she closes all accounts +finally, but she does not always balance them at the end of the month. +To the man who is calm, revenge is so far beneath him that he cannot +reach it,--even by stooping. When injured, he does not retaliate; he +wraps around him the royal robes of Calmness, and he goes quietly on +his way.</p> + +<p>When the hand of Death touches the one we hold dearest, paralyzes our +energy, and eclipses the sun of our life, the calmness that has been +accumulating in long years becomes in a moment our refuge, our reserve +strength.</p> + +<p>The most subtle of all temptations is the <i>seeming</i> success of the +wicked. It requires moral courage to see, without flinching, material +prosperity coming to men who are dishonest; to see politicians rise +into prominence, power and wealth by trickery and corruption; to see +virtue in rags and vice in velvets; to see ignorance at a premium, and +knowledge at a discount. To the man who is really calm these puzzles of +life do not appeal. He is living his life as best he can; he is not +worrying about the problems of justice, whose solution must be left to +Omniscience to solve.</p> + +<p>When man has developed the spirit of Calmness until it becomes so +absolutely part of him that his very presence radiates it, he has made +great progress in life. Calmness cannot be acquired of itself and by +itself; it must come as the culmination of a series of virtues. What +the world needs and what individuals need is a higher standard of +living, a great realizing sense of the privilege and dignity of life, a +higher and nobler conception of individuality.</p> + +<p>With this great sense of calmness permeating an individual, man becomes +able to retire more into himself, away from the noise, the confusion +and strife of the world, which come to his ears only as faint, far-off +rumblings, or as the tumult of the life of a city heard only as a +buzzing hum by the man in a balloon.</p> + +<p>The man who is calm does not selfishly isolate himself from the world, +for he is intensely interested in all that concerns the welfare of +humanity. His calmness is but a Holy of Holies into which he can retire +<i>from</i> the world to get strength to live <i>in</i> the world. He +realizes that the full glory of individuality, the crowning of his +self-control is,--the majesty of calmness.</p> + + +<h1>II<br /> +Hurry, the Scourge of America</h1> + + +<p>The first sermon in the world was preached at the Creation. It was a +Divine protest against Hurry. It was a Divine object lesson of perfect +law, perfect plan, perfect order, perfect method. Six days of work +carefully planned, scheduled and completed were followed by,--rest. +Whether we accept the story as literal or as figurative, as the account +of successive days or of ages comprising millions of years, matters +little if we but learn the lesson.</p> + +<p>Nature is very un-American. Nature never hurries. Every phase of her +working shows plan, calmness, reliability, and the absence of hurry. +Hurry always implies lack of definite method, confusion, impatience of +slow growth. The Tower of Babel, the world's first skyscraper, was a +failure because of hurry. The workers mistook their arrogant ambition +for inspiration. They had too many builders,--and no architect. They +thought to make up the lack of a head by a superfluity of hands. This +is a characteristic of Hurry. It seeks ever to make energy a substitute +for a clearly defined plan,--the result is ever as hopeless as trying +to transform a hobby-horse into a real steed by brisk riding.</p> + +<p>Hurry is a counterfeit of haste. Haste has an ideal, a distinct aim to +be realized by the quickest, direct methods. Haste has a single compass +upon which it relies for direction and in harmony with which its course +is determined. Hurry says: "I must move faster. I will get three +compasses; I will have them different; I will be guided by all of them. +One of them will probably be right." Hurry never realizes that slow, +careful foundation work is the quickest in the end.</p> + +<p>Hurry has ruined more Americans than has any other word in the +vocabulary of life. It is the scourge of America; and is both a cause +and a result of our high-pressure civilization. Hurry adroitly assumes +so many masquerades of disguise that its identity is not always +recognized.</p> + +<p>Hurry always pays the highest price for everything, and, usually the +goods are not delivered. In the race for wealth men often sacrifice +time, energy, health, home, happiness and honor,--everything that money +cannot buy, the very things that money can never bring back. Hurry is a +phantom of paradoxes. Business men, in their desire to provide for the +future happiness of their family, often sacrifice the present happiness +of wife and children on the altar of Hurry. They forget that their +place in the home should be something greater than being merely "the +man that pays the bills;" they expect consideration and thoughtfulness +that they are not giving.</p> + +<p>We hear too much of a wife's duties to a husband and too little of the +other side of the question. "The wife," they tell us, "should meet her +husband with a smile and a kiss, should tactfully watch his moods and +be ever sweetness and sunshine." Why this continual swinging of the +censer of devotion to the man of business? Why should a woman have to +look up with timid glance at the face of her husband, to "size up his +mood"? Has not her day, too, been one of care, and responsibility, and +watchfulness? Has not mother-love been working over perplexing problems +and worries of home and of the training of the children that wifely +love may make her seek to solve in secret? Is man, then, the weaker sex +that he must be pampered and treated as tenderly as a boil trying to +keep from contact with the world?</p> + +<p>In their hurry to attain some ambition, to gratify the dream of a life, +men often throw honor, truth, and generosity to the winds. Politicians +dare to stand by and see a city poisoned with foul water until they +"see where they come in" on a water-works appropriation. If it be +necessary to poison an army,--that, too, is but an incident in the +hurry for wealth.</p> + +<p>This is the Age of the Hothouse. The element of natural growth is +pushed to one side and the hothouse and the force-pump are substituted. +Nature looks on tolerantly as she says: "So far you may go, but no +farther, my foolish children."</p> + +<p>The educational system of to-day is a monumental institution dedicated +to Hurry. The children are forced to go through a series of studies +that sweep the circle of all human wisdom. They are given everything +that the ambitious ignorance of the age can force into their minds; +they are taught everything but the essentials,--how to use their senses +and how to think. Their minds become congested by a great mass of +undigested facts, and still the cruel, barbarous forcing goes on. You +watch it until it seems you cannot stand it a moment longer, and you +instinctively put out your hand and say: "Stop! This modern slaughter +of the Innocents must <i>not</i> go on!" Education smiles suavely, +waves her hand complacently toward her thousands of knowledge-prisons +over the country, and says: "Who are you that dares speak a word +against our sacred, school system?" Education is in a hurry. Because +she fails in fifteen years to do what half the time should accomplish +by better methods, she should not be too boastful. Incompetence is not +always a reason for pride. And they hurry the children into a hundred +textbooks, then into ill-health, then into the colleges, then into a +diploma, then into life,--with a dazed mind, untrained and unfitted for +the real duties of living.</p> + +<p>Hurry is the deathblow to calmness, to dignity, to poise. The old-time +courtesy went out when the new-time hurry came in. Hurry is the father +of dyspepsia. In the rush of our national life, the bolting of food has +become a national vice. The words "Quick Lunches" might properly be +placed on thousands of headstones in our cemeteries. Man forgets that +he is the only animal that dines; the others merely feed. Why does he +abrogate his right to dine and go to the end of the line with the mere +feeders? His self-respecting stomach rebels, and expresses its +indignation by indigestion. Then man has to go through life with a +little bottle of pepsin tablets in his vest-pocket. He is but another +victim to this craze for speed. Hurry means the breakdown of the +nerves. It is the royal road to nervous prostration.</p> + +<p>Everything that is great in life is the product of slow growth; the +newer, and greater, and higher, and nobler the work, the slower is its +growth, the surer is its lasting success. Mushrooms attain their full +power in a night; oaks require decades. A fad lives its life in a few +weeks; a philosophy lives through generations and centuries. If you are +sure you are right, do not let the voice of the world, or of friends, +or of family swerve you for a moment from your purpose. Accept slow +growth if it must be slow, and know the results <i>must</i> come, as +you would accept the long, lonely hours of the night,--with absolute +assurance that the heavy-leaded moments <i>must</i> bring the morning.</p> + +<p>Let us as individuals banish the word "Hurry" from our lives. Let us +care for nothing so much that we would pay honor and self-respect as +the price of hurrying it. Let us cultivate calmness, restfulness, +poise, sweetness,--doing our best, bearing all things as bravely as we +can; living our life undisturbed by the prosperity of the wicked or the +malice of the envious. Let us not be impatient, chafing at delay, +fretting over failure, wearying over results, and weakening under +opposition. Let us ever turn our face toward the future with confidence +and trust, with the calmness of a life in harmony with itself, true to +its ideals, and slowly and constantly progressing toward their +realization.</p> + +<p>Let us see that cowardly word Hurry in all its most degenerating +phases, let us see that it ever kills truth, loyalty, thoroughness; and +let us determine that, day by day, we will seek more and more to +substitute for it the calmness and repose of a true life, nobly lived.</p> + + +<h1>III<br /> +The Power of Personal Influence</h1> + + +<p>The only responsibility that a man cannot evade in this life is the one +he thinks of least,--his personal influence. Man's conscious influence, +when he is on dress-parade, when he is posing to impress those around +him,--is woefully small. But his unconscious influence, the silent, +subtle radiation of his personality, the effect of his words and acts, +the trifles he never considers,--is tremendous. Every moment of life he +is changing to a degree the life of the whole world. Every man has an +atmosphere which is affecting every other. So silent and unconsciously +is this influence working, that man may forget that it exists.</p> + +<p>All the forces of Nature,--heat, light, electricity and gravitation,--are silent and invisible. We never <i>see</i> them; we only know that +they exist by seeing the effects they produce. In all Nature the +wonders of the "seen" are dwarfed into insignificance when compared +with the majesty and glory of the "unseen." The great sun itself does +not supply enough heat and light to sustain animal and vegetable life +on the earth. We are dependent for nearly half of our light and heat +upon the stars, and the greater part of this supply of life-giving +energy comes from <i>invisible</i> stars, millions of miles from the +earth. In a thousand ways Nature constantly seeks to lead men to a +keener and deeper realization of the power and the wonder of the +invisible.</p> + +<p>Into the hands of every individual is given a marvellous power for good +or for evil,--the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. +This is simply the constant radiation of what a man really <i>is</i>, +not what he pretends to be. Every man, by his mere living, is radiating +sympathy, or sorrow, or morbidness, or cynicism, or happiness, or hope, +or any of a hundred other qualities. Life is a state of constant +radiation and absorption; to exist is to radiate; to exist is to be the +recipient of radiations.</p> + +<p>There are men and women whose presence seems to radiate sunshine, cheer +and optimism. You feel calmed and rested and restored in a moment to a +new and stronger faith in humanity. There are others who focus in an +instant all your latent distrust, morbidness and rebellion against +life. Without knowing why, you chafe and fret in their presence. You +lose your bearings on life and its problems. Your moral compass is +disturbed and unsatisfactory. It is made untrue in an instant, as the +magnetic needle of a ship is deflected when it passes near great +mountains of iron ore.</p> + +<p>There are men who float down the stream of life like icebergs,--cold, +reserved, unapproachable and self-contained. In their presence you +involuntarily draw your wraps closer around you, as you wonder who left +the door open. These refrigerated human beings have a most depressing +influence on all those who fall under the spell of their radiated +chilliness. But there are other natures, warm, helpful, genial, who are +like the Gulf Stream, following their own course, flowing undaunted and +undismayed in the ocean of colder waters. Their presence brings warmth +and life and the glow of sunshine, the joyous, stimulating breath of +spring. There are men who are like malarious swamps,--poisonous, +depressing and weakening by their very presence. They make heavy, +oppressive and gloomy the atmosphere of their own homes; the sound of +the children's play is stilled, the ripples of laughter are frozen by +their presence. They go through life as if each day were a new big +funeral, and they were always chief mourners. There are other men who +seem like the ocean; they are constantly bracing, stimulating, giving +new draughts of tonic life and strength by their very presence.</p> + +<p>There are men who are insincere in heart, and that insincerity is +radiated by their presence. They have a wondrous interest in your +welfare,--when they need you. They put on a "property" smile so +suddenly, when it serves their purpose, that it seems the smile must be +connected with some electric button concealed in their clothes. Their +voice has a simulated cordiality that long training may have made +almost natural. But they never play their part absolutely true, the +mask <i>will</i> slip down sometimes; their cleverness cannot teach +their eyes the look of sterling honesty; they may deceive some people, +but they cannot deceive all. There is a subtle power of revelation +which makes us say: "Well, I cannot explain how it is, but I know that +man is not honest."</p> + +<p>Man cannot escape for one moment from this radiation of his character, +this constantly weakening or strengthening of others. He cannot evade +the responsibility by saying it is an unconscious influence. He can +<i>select</i> the qualities that he will permit to be radiated. He can +cultivate sweetness, calmness, trust, generosity, truth, justice, +loyalty, nobility,--make them vitally active in his character,--and by +these qualities he will constantly affect the world.</p> + +<p>Discouragement often comes to honest souls trying to live the best they +can, in the thought that they are doing so little good in the world. +Trifles unnoted by us may be links in the chain of some great purpose. +In 1797, William Godwin wrote The Inquirer, a collection of +revolutionary essays on morals and politics. This book influenced +Thomas Malthus to write his Essay on Population, published in 1798. +Malthus' book suggested to Charles Darwin a point of view upon which he +devoted many years of his life, resulting, in 1859, in the publication +of The Origin of Species,--the most influential book of the nineteenth +century, a book that has revolutionized all science. These were but +three links of influence extending over sixty years. It might be +possible to trace this genealogy of influence back from Godwin, through +generation and generation, to the word or act of some shepherd in early +Britain, watching his flock upon the hills, living his quiet life, and +dying with the thought that he had done nothing to help the world.</p> + +<p>Men and women have duties to others,--and duties to themselves. In +justice to ourselves we should refuse to live in an atmosphere that +keeps us from living our best. If the fault be in us, we should master +it. If it be the personal influence of others that, like a noxious +vapor, kills our best impulses, we should remove from that influence,--if we can <i>possibly</i> move without forsaking duties. If it be wrong +to move, then we should take strong doses of moral quinine to counteract +the malaria of influence. It is not what those around us <i>do</i> for +us that counts,--it is what they <i>are</i> to us. We carry our house-plants from one window to another to give them the proper heat, light, +air and moisture. Should we not be at least as careful of ourselves?</p> + +<p>To make our influence felt we must live our faith, we must practice +what we believe. A magnet does not attract iron, as iron. It must first +convert the iron into another magnet before it can attract it. It is +useless for a parent to try to teach gentleness to her children when +she herself is cross and irritable. The child who is told to be +truthful and who hears a parent lie cleverly to escape some little +social unpleasantness is not going to cling very zealously to truth. +The parent's words say "don't lie," the influence of the parent's life +says "do lie." + +No man can ever isolate himself to evade this constant power of +influence, as no single corpuscle can rebel and escape from the general +course of the blood. No individual is so insignificant as to be without +influence. The changes in our varying moods are all recorded in the +delicate barometers of the lives of others. We should ever let our +influence filter through human love and sympathy. We should not be +merely an influence,--we should be an inspiration. By our very presence +we should be a tower of strength to the hungering human souls around +us.</p> + + +<h1>IV<br /> +The Dignity of Self-Reliance</h1> + + +<p>Self-confidence, without self-reliance, is as useless as a cooking +recipe,--without food. Self-confidence sees the possibilities of the +individual; self-reliance realizes them. Self-confidence sees the angel +in the unhewn block of marble; self-reliance carves it out for himself.</p> + +<p>The man who is self-reliant says ever: "No one can realize my +possibilities for me, but me; no one can make me good or evil but +myself." He works out his own salvation,--financially, socially, +mentally, physically, and morally. Life is an individual problem that +man must solve for himself. Nature accepts no vicarious sacrifice, no +vicarious service. Nature never recognizes a proxy vote. She has +nothing to do with middle-men,--she deals only with the individual. +Nature is constantly seeking to show man that he is his own best +friend, or his own worst enemy. Nature gives man the option on which he +will be to himself.</p> + +<p>All the athletic exercises in the world are of no value to the +individual unless he compel those bars and dumb-bells to yield to him, +in strength and muscle, the power for which he, himself, pays in time +and effort. He can never develop his muscles by sending his valet to a +gymnasium.</p> + +<p>The medicine-chests of the world are powerless, in all the united +efforts, to help the individual until he reach out and take for himself +what is needed for his individual weakness.</p> + +<p>All the religions of the world are but speculations in morals, mere +theories of salvation, until the individual realize that he must save +himself by relying on the law of truth, as he sees it, and living his +life in harmony with it, as fully as he can. But religion is not a +Pullman car, with soft-cushioned seats, where he has but to pay for his +ticket,--and some one else does all the rest. In religion, as in all +other great things, he is ever thrown back on his self-reliance. He +should accept all helps, but,--he must live his own life. He should not +feel that he is a mere passenger; he is the engineer, and the train is +his life. We must rely on ourselves, live our own lives, or we merely +drift through existence,--losing all that is best, all that is +greatest, all that is divine.</p> + +<p>All that others can do for us is to give us opportunity. We must ever +be prepared for the opportunity when it comes, and to go after it and +find it when it does not come, or that opportunity is to us,--nothing. +Life is but a succession of opportunities. They are for good or evil,--as we make them.</p> + +<p>Many of the alchemists of old felt that they lacked but one element; if +they could obtain that one, they believed they could transmute the +baser metals into pure gold. It is so in character. There are +individuals with rare mental gifts, and delicate spiritual discernment +who fail utterly in life because they lack the one element,--self-reliance. This would unite all their energies, and focus them into +strength and power.</p> + +<p>The man who is not self-reliant is weak, hesitating and doubting in all +he does. He fears to take a decisive step, because he dreads failure, +because he is waiting for some one to advise him or because he dare not +act in accordance with his own best judgment. In his cowardice and his +conceit he sees all his non-success due to others. He is "not +appreciated," "not recognized," he is "kept down." He feels that in +some subtle way "society is conspiring against him." He grows almost +vain as he thinks that no one has had such poverty, such sorrow, such +affliction, such failure as have come to him.</p> + +<p>The man who is self-reliant seeks ever to discover and conquer the +weakness within him that keeps him from the attainment of what he holds +dearest; he seeks within himself the power to battle against all +outside influences. He realizes that all the greatest men in history, +in every phase of human effort, have been those who have had to fight +against the odds of sickness, suffering, sorrow. To him, defeat is no +more than passing through a tunnel is to a traveller,--he knows he must +emerge again into the sunlight.</p> + +<p>The nation that is strongest is the one that is most self-reliant, the +one that contains within its boundaries all that its people need. If, +with its ports all blockaded it has not within itself the necessities +of life and the elements of its continual progress then,--it is weak, +held by the enemy, and it is but a question of time till it must +surrender. Its independence is in proportion to its self-reliance, to +its power to sustain itself from within. What is true of nations is +true of individuals. The history of nations is but the biography of +individuals magnified, intensified, multiplied, and projected on the +screen of the past. History is the biography of a nation; biography is +the history of an individual. So it must be that the individual who is +most strong in any trial, sorrow or need is he who can live from his +inherent strength, who needs no scaffolding of commonplace sympathy to +uphold him. He must ever be self-reliant.</p> + +<p>The wealth and prosperity of ancient Rome, relying on her slaves to do +the real work of the nation, proved the nation's downfall. The constant +dependence on the captives of war to do the thousand details of life +for them, killed self-reliance in the nation and in the individual. +Then, through weakened self-reliance and the increased opportunity for +idle, luxurious ease that came with it, Rome, a nation of fighters, +became,--a nation of men more effeminate than women. As we depend on +others to do those things we should do for ourselves, our self-reliance +weakens and our powers and our control of them becomes continuously +less.</p> + +<p>Man to be great must be self-reliant. Though he may not be so in all +things, he must be self-reliant in the one in which he would be great. +This self-reliance is not the self-sufficiency of conceit. It is daring +to stand alone. Be an oak, not a vine. Be ready to give support, but do +not crave it; do not be dependent on it. To develop your true self-reliance, you must see from the very beginning that life is a battle +you must fight for yourself,--you must be your own soldier. You cannot +buy a substitute, you cannot win a reprieve, you can never be placed on +the retired list. The retired list of life is,--death. The world is +busy with its own cares, sorrows and joys, and pays little heed to you. +There is but one great password to success,--self-reliance.</p> + +<p>If you would learn to converse, put yourself into positions where you +<i>must</i> speak. If you would conquer your morbidness, mingle with +the bright people around you, no matter how difficult it may be. If you +desire the power that some one else possesses, do not envy his +strength, and dissipate your energy by weakly wishing his force were +yours. Emulate the process by which it became his, depend on your self-reliance, pay the price for it, and equal power may be yours. The +individual must look upon himself as an investment, of untold +possibilities if rightly developed,--a mine whose resources can never +be known but by going down into it and bringing out what is hidden.</p> + +<p>Man can develop his self-reliance by seeking constantly to surpass +himself. We try too much to surpass others. If we seek ever to surpass +ourselves, we are moving on a uniform line of progress, that gives a +harmonious unifying to our growth in all its parts. Daniel Morrell, at +one time President of the Cambria Rail Works, that employed 7,000 men +and made a rail famed throughout the world, was asked the secret of the +great success of the works. "We have no secret," he said, "but this,--we always try to beat our last batch of rails." Competition is good, +but it has its danger side. There is a tendency to sacrifice real worth +to mere appearance, to have seeming rather than reality. But the true +competition is the competition of the individual with himself,--his +present seeking to excel his past. This means real growth from within. +Self-reliance develops it, and it develops self-reliance. Let the +individual feel thus as to his own progress and possibilities, and he +can almost create his life as he will. Let him never fall down in +despair at dangers and sorrows at a distance; they may be harmless, +like Bunyan's stone lions, when he nears them.</p> + +<p>The man who is self-reliant does not live in the shadow of some one +else's greatness; he thinks for himself, depends on himself, and acts +for himself. In throwing the individual thus back upon himself it is +not shutting his eyes to the stimulus and light and new life that come +with the warm pressure of the hand, the kindly word and the sincere +expressions of true friendship. But true friendship is rare; its great +value is in a crisis,--like a lifeboat. Many a boasted friend has +proved a leaking, worthless "lifeboat" when the storm of adversity +might make him useful. In these great crises of life, man is strong +only as he is strong from within, and the more he depends on himself +the stronger will he become, and the more able will he be to help +others in the hour of their need. His very life will be a constant help +and a strength to others, as he becomes to them a living lesson of the +dignity of self-reliance.</p> + + +<h1>V<br /> +Failure as a Success</h1> + + +<p>It ofttimes requires heroic courage to face fruitless effort, to take +up the broken strands of a life-work, to look bravely toward the +future, and proceed undaunted on our way. But what, to our eyes, may +seem hopeless failure is often but the dawning of a greater success. It +may contain in its débris the foundation material of a mighty purpose, +or the revelation of new and higher possibilities.</p> + +<p>Some years ago, it was proposed to send logs from Canada to New York, +by a new method. The ingenious plan of Mr. Joggins was to bind great +logs together by cables and iron girders and to tow the cargo as a +raft. When the novel craft neared New York and success seemed assured, +a terrible storm arose. In the fury of the tempest, the iron bands +snapped like icicles and the angry waters scattered the logs far and +wide. The chief of the Hydrographic Department at Washington heard of +the failure of the experiment, and at once sent word to shipmasters the +world over, urging them to watch carefully for these logs which he +described; and to note the precise location of each in latitude and +longitude and the time the observation was made.</p> + +<p>Hundreds of captains, sailing over the waters of the earth, noted the +logs, in the Atlantic Ocean, in the Mediterranean, in the South Seas--for into all waters did these venturesome ones travel. Hundreds of +reports were made, covering a period of weeks and months. These +observations were then carefully collated, systematized and tabulated, +and discoveries were made as to the course of ocean currents that +otherwise would have been impossible. The loss of the Joggins raft was +not a real failure, for it led to one of the great discoveries in +modern marine geography and navigation.</p> + +<p>In our superior knowledge we are disposed to speak in a patronizing +tone of the follies of the alchemists of old. But their failure to +transmute the baser metals into gold resulted in the birth of +chemistry. They did not succeed in what they attempted, but they +brought into vogue the natural processes of sublimation, filtration, +distillation, and crystallization; they invented the alembic, the +retort, the sand-bath, the water-bath and other valuable instruments. +To them is due the discovery of antimony, sulphuric ether and +phosphorus, the cupellation of gold and silver, the determining of the +properties of saltpetre and its use in gunpowder, and the discovery of +the distillation of essential oils. This was the success of failure, a +wondrous process of Nature for the highest growth,--a mighty lesson of +comfort, strength, and encouragement if man would only realize and +accept it.</p> + +<p>Many of our failures sweep us to greater heights of success, than we +ever hoped for in our wildest dreams. Life is a successive unfolding of +success from failure. In discovering America Columbus failed +absolutely. His ingenious reasoning and experiment led him to believe +that by sailing westward he would reach India. Every redman in America +carries in his name "Indian," the perpetuation of the memory of the +failure of Columbus. The Genoese navigator did not reach India; the +cargo of "souvenirs" he took back to Spain to show to Ferdinand and +Isabella as proofs of his success, really attested his failure. But the +discovery of America was a greater success than was any finding of a +"back-door" to India.</p> + +<p>When David Livingstone had supplemented his theological education by a +medical course, he was ready to enter the missionary field. For over +three years he had studied tirelessly, with all energies concentrated +on one aim,--to spread the gospel in China. The hour came when he was +ready to start out with noble enthusiasm for his chosen work, to +consecrate himself and his life to his unselfish ambition. Then word +came from China that the "opium war" would make it folly to attempt to +enter the country. Disappointment and failure did not long daunt him; +he offered himself as missionary to Africa,--and he was accepted. His +glorious failure to reach China opened a whole continent to light and +truth. His study proved an ideal preparation for his labors as +physician, explorer, teacher and evangel in the wilds of Africa.</p> + +<p>Business reverses and the failure of his partner threw upon the broad +shoulders and the still broader honor and honesty of Sir Walter Scott a +burden of responsibility that forced him to write. The failure spurred +him to almost super-human effort. The masterpieces of Scotch historic +fiction that have thrilled, entertained and uplifted millions of his +fellow-men are a glorious monument on the field of a seeming failure.</p> + +<p>When Millet, the painter of the "Angelus" worked on his almost divine +canvas, in which the very air seems pulsing with the regenerating +essence of spiritual reverence, he was painting against time, he was +antidoting sorrow, he was racing against death. His brush strokes, put +on in the early morning hours before going to his menial duties as a +railway porter, in the dusk like that perpetuated on his canvas,--meant +strength, food and medicine for the dying wife he adored. The art +failure that cast him into the depths of poverty unified with +marvellous intensity all the finer elements of his nature. This rare +spiritual unity, this purging of all the dross of triviality as he +passed through the furnace of poverty, trial, and sorrow gave eloquence +to his brush and enabled him to paint as never before,--as no +prosperity would have made possible.</p> + +<p>Failure is often the turning-point, the pivot of circumstance that +swings us to higher levels. It may not be financial success, it may not +be fame; it may be new draughts of spiritual, moral or mental +inspiration that will change us for all the later years of our life. +Life is not really what comes to us, but what we get from it.</p> + +<p>Whether man has had wealth or poverty, failure or success, counts for +little when it is past. There is but one question for him to answer, to +face boldly and honestly as an individual alone with his conscience and +his destiny:</p> + +<p>"How will I let that poverty or wealth affect me? If that trial or +deprivation has left me better, truer, nobler, then,--poverty has been +riches, failure has been a success. If wealth has come to me and has +made me vain, arrogant, contemptuous, uncharitable, cynical, closing +from me all the tenderness of life, all the channels of higher +development, of possible good to my fellow-man, making me the mere +custodian of a money-bag, then,--wealth has lied to me, it has been +failure, not success; it has not been riches, it has been dark, +treacherous poverty that stole from me even Myself." All things become +for us then what we take from them.</p> + +<p>Failure is one of God's educators. It is experience leading man to +higher things; it is the revelation of a way, a path hitherto unknown +to us. The best men in the world, those who have made the greatest real +successes look back with serene happiness on their failures. The +turning of the face of Time shows all things in a wondrously +illuminated and satisfying perspective.</p> + +<p>Many a man is thankful to-day that some petty success for which he once +struggled, melted into thin air as his hand sought to clutch it. +Failure is often the rock-bottom foundation of real success. If man, in +a few instances of his life can say, "Those failures were the best +things in the world that could have happened to me," should he not face +new failures with undaunted courage and trust that the miraculous +ministry of Nature may transform these new stumbling-blocks into new +stepping-stones?</p> + +<p>Our highest hopes, are often destroyed to prepare us for better things. +The failure of the caterpillar is the birth of the butterfly; the +passing of the bud is the becoming of the rose; the death or +destruction of the seed is the prelude to its resurrection as wheat. It +is at night, in the darkest hours, those preceding dawn, that plants +grow best, that they most increase in size. May this not be one of +Nature's gentle showings to man of the times when he grows best, of the +darkness of failure that is evolving into the sunlight of success. Let +us fear only the failure of not living the right as we see it, leaving +the results to the guardianship of the Infinite.</p> + +<p>If we think of any supreme moment of our lives, any great success, any +one who is dear to us, and then consider how we reached that moment, +that success, that friend, we will be surprised and strengthened by the +revelation. As we trace each one, back, step by step, through the +genealogy of circumstances, we will see how logical has been the course +of our joy and success, from sorrow and failure, and that what gives us +most happiness to-day is inextricably connected with what once caused +us sorrow. Many of the rivers of our greatest prosperity and growth +have had their source and their trickling increase into volume among +the dark, gloomy recesses of our failure.</p> + +<p>There is no honest and true work, carried along with constant and +sincere purpose that ever really fails. If it sometime seem to be +wasted effort, it will prove to us a new lesson of "how" to walk; the +secret of our failures will prove to us the inspiration of possible +successes. Man living with the highest aims, ever as best he can, in +continuous harmony with them, is a success, no matter what statistics +of failure a near-sighted and half-blind world of critics and +commentators may lay at his door.</p> + +<p>High ideals, noble efforts will make seeming failures but trifles, they +need not dishearten us; they should prove sources of new strength. The +rocky way may prove safer than the slippery path of smoothness. Birds +cannot fly best with the wind but against it; ships do not progress in +calm, when the sails flap idly against the unstrained masts.</p> + +<p>The alchemy of Nature, superior to that of the Paracelsians, constantly +transmutes the baser metals of failure into the later pure gold of +higher success, if the mind of the worker be kept true, constant and +untiring in the service, and he have that sublime courage that defies +fate to its worst while he does his best.</p> + + +<h1>VI<br /> +Doing Our Best at All Times</h1> + + +<p>Life is a wondrously complex problem for the individual, until, some +day, in a moment of illumination, he awakens to the great realization +that he can make it simple,--never quite simple, but always simpler. +There are a thousand mysteries of right and wrong that have baffled the +wise men of the ages. There are depths in the great fundamental +questions of the human race that no plummet of philosophy has ever +sounded. There are wild cries of honest hunger for truth that seek to +pierce the silence beyond the grave, but to them ever echo back,--only +a repetition of their unanswered cries.</p> + +<p>To us all, comes, at times, the great note of questioning despair that +darkens our horizon and paralyzes our effort: "If there really be a +God, if eternal justice really rule the world," we say, "why should +life be as it is? Why do some men starve while others feast; why does +virtue often languish in the shadow while vice triumphs in the +sunshine; why does failure so often dog the footsteps of honest effort, +while the success that comes from trickery and dishonor is greeted with +the world's applause? How is it that the loving father of one family is +taken by death, while the worthless incumbrance of another is spared? +Why is there so much unnecessary pain, sorrowing and suffering in the +world--why, indeed, should there be any?"</p> + +<p>Neither philosophy nor religion can give any final satisfactory answer +that is capable of logical demonstration, of absolute proof. There is +ever, even after the best explanations, a residuum of the unexplained. +We must then fall back in the eternal arms of faith, and be wise enough +to say, "I will not be disconcerted by these problems of life, I will +not permit them to plunge me into doubt, and to cloud my life with +vagueness and uncertainty. Man arrogates much to himself when he +demands from the Infinite the full solution of all His mysteries. I +will found my life on the impregnable rock of a simple fundamental +truth:--'This glorious creation with its millions of wondrous phenomena +pulsing ever in harmony with eternal law must have a Creator, that +Creator must be omniscient and omnipotent. But that Creator Himself +cannot, in justice, demand of any creature more than the best that that +individual can give.' I will do each day, in every moment, the best I +can by the light I have; I will ever seek more light, more perfect +illumination of truth, and ever live as best I can in harmony with the +truth as I see it. If failure come I will meet it bravely; if my +pathway then lie in the shadow of trial, sorrow and suffering, I shall +have the restful peace and the calm strength of one who has done his +best, who can look back upon the past with no pang of regret, and who +has heroic courage in facing the results, whatever they be, knowing +that he could not make them different."</p> + +<p>Upon this life-plan, this foundation, man may erect any superstructure +of religion or philosophy that he conscientiously can erect; he should +add to his equipment for living every shred of strength and +inspiration, moral, mental or spiritual that is in his power to secure. +This simple working faith is opposed to no creed, is a substitute for +none; it is but a primary belief, a citadel, a refuge where the +individual can retire for strength when the battle of life grows hard.</p> + +<p>A mere theory of life, that remains but a theory, is about as useful to +a man, as a gilt-edged menu is to a starving sailor on a raft in mid-ocean. It is irritating but not stimulating. No rule for higher living +will help a man in the slightest, until he reach out and appropriate it +for himself, until he make it practical in his daily life, until that +seed of theory in his mind blossom into a thousand flowers of thought +and word and act.</p> + +<p>If a man honestly seeks to live his best at all times, that +determination is visible in every moment of his living, no trifle in +his life can be too insignificant to reflect his principle of living. +The sun illuminates and beautifies a fallen leaf by the roadside as +impartially as a towering mountain peak in the Alps. Every drop of +water in the ocean is an epitome of the chemistry of the whole ocean; +every drop is subject to precisely the same laws as dominate the united +infinity of billions of drops that make that miracle of Nature, men +call the Sea. No matter how humble the calling of the individual, how +uninteresting and dull the round of his duties, he should do his best. +He should dignify what he is doing by the mind he puts into it, he +should vitalize what little he has of power or energy or ability or +opportunity, in order to prepare himself to be equal to higher +privileges when they come. This will never lead man to that weak +content that is satisfied with whatever falls to his lot. It will +rather fill his mind with that divine discontent that cheerfully +accepts the best,--merely as a temporary substitute for something +better.</p> + +<p>The man who is seeking ever to do his best is the man who is keen, +active, wide-awake, and aggressive. He is ever watchful of himself in +trifles; his standard is not "What will the world say?" but "Is it +worthy of me?"</p> + +<p>Edwin Booth, one of the greatest actors on the American stage, would +never permit himself to assume an ungraceful attitude, even in his +hours of privacy. In this simple thing, he ever lived his best. On the +stage every move was one of unconscious grace. Those of his company who +were conscious of their motions were the awkward ones, who were seeking +in public to undo or to conceal the carelessness of the gestures and +motions of their private life. The man who is slipshod and thoughtless +in his daily speech, whose vocabulary is a collection of anæmic +commonplaces, whose repetitions of phrases and extravagance of +interjections act but as feeble disguises to his lack of ideas, will +never be brilliant on an occasion when he longs to outshine the stars. +Living at one's best is constant preparation for instant use. It can +never make one over-precise, self-conscious, affected, or priggish. +Education, in its highest sense, is <i>conscious</i> training of mind +or body to act <i>unconsciously</i>. It is conscious formation of +mental habits, not mere acquisition of information.</p> + +<p>One of the many ways in which the individual unwisely eclipses himself, +is in his worship of the fetich of luck. He feels that all others are +lucky, and that whatever he attempts, fails. He does not realize the +untiring energy, the unremitting concentration, the heroic courage, the +sublime patience that is the secret of some men's success. Their "luck" +was that they had prepared themselves to be equal to their opportunity +when it came and were awake to recognize it and receive it. His own +opportunity came and departed unnoted, it would not waken him from his +dreams of some untold wealth that would fall into his lap. So he grows +discouraged and envies those whom he should emulate, and he bandages +his arm and chloroforms his energies, and performs his duties in a +perfunctory way, or he passes through life, just ever "sampling" lines +of activity.</p> + +<p>The honest, faithful struggler should always realize that failure is +but an episode in a true man's life,--never the whole story. It is +never easy to meet, and no philosophy can make it so, but the steadfast +courage to master conditions, instead of complaining of them, will help +him on his way; it will ever enable him to get the best out of what he +has. He never knows the long series of vanquished failures that give +solidity to some one else's success; he does not realize the price that +some rich man, the innocent football of political malcontents and +demagogues, has heroicly paid for wealth and position.</p> + +<p>The man who has a pessimist's doubt of all things; who demands a +certified guarantee of his future; who ever fears his work will not be +recognized or appreciated; or that after all, it is really not worth +while, will never live his best. He is dulling his capacity for real +progress by his hypnotic course of excuses for inactivity, instead of a +strong tonic of reasons for action.</p> + +<p>One of the most weakening elements in the individual make-up is the +surrender to the oncoming of years. Man's self-confidence dims and dies +in the fear of age. "This new thought," he says of some suggestion +tending to higher development, "is good; it is what we need. I am glad +to have it for my children; I would have been happy to have had some +such help when I was at school, but it is too late for me. I am a man +advanced in years."</p> + +<p>This is but blind closing of life to wondrous possibilities. The knell +of lost opportunity is never tolled in this life. It is never too late +to recognize truth and to live by it. It requires only greater effort, +closer attention, deeper consecration; but the impossible does not +exist for the man who is self-confident and is willing to pay the price +in time and struggle for his success or development. Later in life, the +assessments are heavier in progress, as in life insurance, but that +matters not to that mighty self-confidence that <i>will</i> not grow +old while knowledge can keep it young.</p> + +<p>Socrates, when his hair whitened with the snow of age, learned to play +on instruments of music. Cato, at fourscore, began his study of Greek, +and the same age saw Plutarch beginning, with the enthusiasm of a boy, +his first lessons in Latin. The Character of Man, Theophrastus' +greatest work, was begun on his ninetieth birthday. Chaucer's +Canterbury Tales was the work of the poet's declining years. Ronsard, +the father of French poetry, whose sonnets even translation cannot +destroy, did not develop his poetic faculty until nearly fifty. +Benjamin Franklin at this age had just taken his really first steps of +importance in philosophic pursuits. Arnauld, the theologian and sage, +translated Josephus in his eightieth year. Winckelmann, one of the most +famous writers on classic antiquities, was the son of a shoemaker, and +lived in obscurity and ignorance until the prime of life. Hobbes, the +English philosopher, published his version of the Odyssey in his +eighty-seventh year, and his Iliad one year later. Chevreul, the great +French scientist, whose untiring labors in the realm of color have so +enriched the world, was busy, keen and active when Death called him, at +the age of 103.</p> + +<p>These men did not fear age; these few names from the great muster-roll +of the famous ones who defied the years, should be voices of hope and +heartening to every individual whose courage and confidence is weak. +The path of truth, higher living, truer development in every phase of +life, is never shut from the individual--until he closes it himself. +Let man feel this, believe it and make this faith a real and living +factor in his life and there are no limits to his progress. He has but +to live his best at all times, and rest calm and untroubled no matter +what results come to his efforts. The constant looking backward to what +might have been, instead of forward to what may be, is a great weakener +of self-confidence. This worry for the old past, this wasted energy, +for that which no power in the world can restore, ever lessens the +individual's faith in himself, weakens his efforts to develop himself +for the future to the perfection of his possibilities.</p> + +<p>Nature in her beautiful love and tenderness, says to man, weakened and +worn and weary with the struggle, "Do in the best way you can the +trifle that is under your hand at this moment; do it in the best spirit +of preparation for the future your thought suggests; bring all the +light of knowledge from all the past to aid you. Do this and you have +done your best. The past is forever closed to you. It is closed forever +to you. No worry, no struggle, no suffering, no agony of despair can +alter it. It is as much beyond your power as if it were a million years +of eternity behind you. Turn all that past, with its sad hours, +weakness and sin, its wasted opportunities as light; in confidence and +hope, upon the future. Turn it all in fuller truth and light so as to +make each trifle of this present a new past it will be joy to look back +to; each trifle a grander, nobler, and more perfect preparation for the +future. The present and the future you can make from it, is yours; the +past has gone back, with all its messages, all its history, all its +records to the God who loaned you the golden moments to use in +obedience to His law."</p> + + +<h1>VII<br /> +The Royal Road to Happiness</h1> + + +<p>"During my whole life I have not had twenty-four hours of happiness." So +said Prince Bismarck, one of the greatest statesmen of the nineteenth +century. Eighty-three years of wealth, fame, honors, power, influence, +prosperity and triumph, – years when he held an empire in his fingers, – but not one day of happiness!</p> + +<p>Happiness is the greatest paradox in Nature. It can grow in any soil, +live under any conditions. It defies environment. It comes from within; +it is the revelation of the depths of the inner life as light and heat +proclaim the sun from which they radiate. Happiness consists not of +having, but of being; not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is the +warm glow of a heart at peace with itself. A martyr at the stake may +have happiness that a king on his throne might envy. Man is the creator +of his own happiness; it is the aroma of a life lived in harmony with +high ideals. For what a man <i>has</i>, he may be dependent on others; +what he <i>is</i>, rests with him alone. What he <i>ob</i>tains in life +is but acquisition; what he <i>at</i>tains, is growth. Happiness is the +soul's joy in the possession of the intangible. Absolute, perfect, +continuous happiness in life, is impossible for the human. It would +mean the consummation of attainments, the individual consciousness of a +perfectly fulfilled destiny. Happiness is paradoxic because it may +coexist with trial, sorrow and poverty. It is the gladness of the +heart, – rising superior to all conditions.</p> + +<p>Happiness has a number of under-studies, – gratification, satisfaction, +content, and pleasure, – clever imitators that simulate its appearance +rather than emulate its method. Gratification is a harmony between our +desires and our possessions. It is ever incomplete, it is the thankful +acceptance of part. It is a mental pleasure in the quality of what one +receives, an unsatisfiedness as to the quantity. It may be an element +in happiness, but, in itself, – it is not happiness.</p> + +<p>Satisfaction is perfect identity of our desires and our possessions. It +exists only so long as this perfect union and unity can be preserved. +But every realized ideal gives birth to new ideals, every step in +advance reveals large domains of the unattained; every feeding +stimulates new appetites, – then the desires and possessions are no +longer identical, no longer equal; new cravings call forth new +activities, the equipoise is destroyed, and dissatisfaction reënters. +Man might possess everything tangible in the world and yet not be +happy, for happiness is the satisfying of the soul, not of the mind or +the body. Dissatisfaction, in its highest sense, is the keynote of all +advance, the evidence of new aspirations, the guarantee of the +progressive revelation of new possibilities.</p> + +<p>Content is a greatly overrated virtue. It is a kind of diluted despair; +it is the feeling with which we continue to accept substitutes, without +striving for the realities. Content makes the trained individual +swallow vinegar and try to smack his lips as if it were wine. Content +enables one to warm his hands at the fire of a past joy that exists +only in memory. Content is a mental and moral chloroform that deadens +the activities of the individual to rise to higher planes of life and +growth. Man should never be contented with anything less than the best +efforts of his nature can possibly secure for him. Content makes the +world more comfortable for the individual, but it is the death-knell of +progress. Man should be content with each step of progress merely as a +station, discontented with it as a destination; contented with it as a +step; discontented with it as a finality. There are times when a man +should be content with what he <i>has</i>, but never with what he +<i>is</i>.</p> + +<p>But content is not happiness; neither is pleasure. Pleasure is +temporary, happiness is continuous; pleasure is a note, happiness is a +symphony; pleasure may exist when conscience utters protests; +happiness, – never. Pleasure may have its dregs and its lees; but none +can be found in the cup of happiness.</p> + +<p>Man is the only animal that can be really happy. To the rest of the +creation belong only weak imitations of the understudies. Happiness +represents a peaceful attunement of a life with a standard of living. +It can never be made by the individual, by himself, for himself. It is +one of the incidental by-products of an unselfish life. No man can make +his own happiness the one object of his life and attain it, any more +than he can jump on the far end of his shadow. If you would hit the +bull's-eye of happiness on the target of life, aim above it. Place +other things higher than your own happiness and it will surely come to +you. You can buy pleasure, you can acquire content, you can become +satisfied, – but Nature never put real happiness on the bargain-counter. +It is the undetachable accompaniment of true living. It is calm and +peaceful; it never lives in an atmosphere of worry or of hopeless +struggle.</p> + +<p>The basis of happiness is the love of something outside self. Search +every instance of happiness in the world, and you will find, when all +the incidental features are eliminated, there is always the constant, +unchangeable element of love, – love of parent for child; love of man +and woman for each other; love of humanity in some form, or a great +life work into which the individual throws all his energies.</p> + +<p>Happiness is the voice of optimism, of faith, of simple, steadfast +love. No cynic or pessimist can be really happy. A cynic is a man who +is morally near-sighted, – and brags about it. He sees the evil in his +own heart, and thinks he sees the world. He lets a mote in his eye +eclipse the sun. An incurable cynic is an individual who should long +for death, – for life cannot bring him happiness, death might. The +keynote of Bismarck's lack of happiness was his profound distrust of +human nature.</p> + +<p>There is a royal road to happiness; it lies in Consecration, +Concentration, Conquest and Conscience.</p> + +<p>Consecration is dedicating the individual life to the service of +others, to some noble mission, to realizing some unselfish ideal. Life +is not something to be lived <i>through</i>; it is something to be +lived <i>up to</i>. It is a privilege, not a penal servitude of so many +decades on earth. Consecration places the object of life above the mere +acquisition of money, as a finality. The man who is unselfish, kind, +loving, tender, helpful, ready to lighten the burden of those around +him, to hearten the struggling ones, to forget himself sometimes in +remembering others, – is on the right road to happiness. Consecration is +ever active, bold and aggressive, fearing naught but possible +disloyalty to high ideals.</p> + +<p>Concentration makes the individual life simpler and deeper. It cuts +away the shams and pretences of modern living and limits life to its +truest essentials. Worry, fear, useless regret, – all the great wastes +that sap mental, moral or physical energy must be sacrificed, or the +individual needlessly destroys half the possibilities of living. A +great purpose in life, something that unifies the strands and threads +of each day's thinking, something that takes the sting from the petty +trials, sorrows, sufferings and blunders of life, is a great aid to +Concentration. Soldiers in battle may forget their wounds, or even be +unconscious of them, in the inspiration of battling for what they +believe is right. Concentration dignifies an humble life; it makes a +great life, – sublime. In morals it is a short-cut to simplicity. It +leads to right for right's sake, without thought of policy or of +reward. It brings calm and rest to the individual, – a serenity that is +but the sunlight of happiness.</p> + +<p>Conquest is the overcoming of an evil habit, the rising superior to +opposition and attack, the spiritual exaltation that comes from +resisting the invasion of the grovelling material side of life. +Sometimes when you are worn and weak with the struggle; when it seems +that justice is a dream, that honesty and loyalty and truth count for +nothing, that the devil is the only good paymaster; when hope grows dim +and flickers, then is the time when you must tower in the great sublime +faith that Right must prevail, then must you throttle these imps of +doubt and despair, you must master yourself to master the world around +you. This is Conquest; this is what counts. Even a log can float with +the current, it takes a man to fight sturdily against an opposing tide +that would sweep his craft out of its course. When the jealousies, the +petty intrigues and the meannesses and the misunderstandings in life +assail you, – rise above them. Be like a lighthouse that illumines and +beautifies the snarling, swashing waves of the storm that threaten it, +that seek to undermine it and seek to wash over it. This is Conquest. +When the chance to win fame, wealth, success or the attainment of your +heart's desire, by sacrifice of honor or principle, comes to you and it +does not affect you long enough even to seem a temptation, you have +been the victor. That too is Conquest. And Conquest is part of the +royal road to Happiness.</p> + +<p>Conscience, as the mentor, the guide and compass of every act, leads +ever to Happiness. When the individual can stay alone with his +conscience and get its approval, without using force or specious logic, +then he begins to know what real Happiness is. But the individual must +be careful that he is not appealing to a conscience perverted or +deadened by the wrongdoing and subsequent deafness of its owner. The +man who is honestly seeking to live his life in Consecration, +Concentration and Conquest, living from day to day as best he can, by +the light he has, may rely explicitly on his Conscience. He can shut +his ears to "what the world says" and find in the approval of his own +conscience the highest earthly tribune, – the voice of the Infinite +communing with the Individual.</p> + +<p>Unhappiness is the hunger to get; Happiness is the hunger to give. True +happiness must ever have the tinge of sorrow outlived, the sense of +pain softened by the mellowing years, the chastening of loss that in +the wondrous mystery of time transmutes our suffering into love and +sympathy with others.</p> + +<p>If the individual should set out for a single day to give Happiness, to +make life happier, brighter and sweeter, not for himself, but for +others, he would find a wondrous revelation of what Happiness really +is. The greatest of the world's heroes could not by any series of acts +of heroism do as much real good as any individual living his whole life +in seeking, from day to day, to make others happy.</p> + +<p>Each day there should be fresh resolution, new strength, and renewed +enthusiasm. "Just for Today" might be the daily motto of thousands of +societies throughout the country, composed of members bound together to +make the world better through constant simple acts of kindness, +constant deeds of sweetness and love. And Happiness would come to them, +in its highest and best form, not because they would seek to +<i>absorb</i> it, but, – because they seek to <i>radiate</i> it.</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Majesty of Calmness, by William George Jordan + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAJESTY OF CALMNESS *** + +***** This file should be named 6911-h.htm or 6911-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/9/1/6911/ + +Produced by Curtis A. Weyant, Charles Franks, and the +Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + +Title: The Majesty of Calmness + Individual Problems and Possibilities... + +Author: William George Jordan + +Posting Date: January 5, 2015 [EBook #6911] +Release Date: November, 2004 +First Posted: February 10, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAJESTY OF CALMNESS *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis A. Weyant, Charles Franks, and the +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + + + +The Majesty of Calmness + +Individual Problems +and Possibilities... + +by + +William George Jordan + +Author of "The Kingship of Self-Control" + + + + +CONTENTS + + +I. THE MAJESTY OF CALMNESS +II. HURRY, THE SCOURGE OF AMERICA +III. THE POWER OF PERSONAL INFLUENCE +IV. THE DIGNITY OF SELF-RELIANCE +V. FAILURE AS A SUCCESS +VI. DOING OUR BEST AT ALL TIMES +VII. THE ROYAL ROAD TO HAPPINESS + + + + +I + +The Majesty of Calmness + + + +Calmness is the rarest quality in human life. It is the poise of a +great nature, in harmony with itself and its ideals. It is the moral +atmosphere of a life self-centred, self-reliant, and self-controlled. +Calmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and conscious +power,--ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crisis. + +The Sphinx is not a true type of calmness,--petrifaction is not +calmness; it is death, the silencing of all the energies; while no one +lives his life more fully, more intensely and more consciously than the +man who is calm. + +The Fatalist is not calm. He is the coward slave of his environment, +hopelessly surrendering to his present condition, recklessly +indifferent to his future. He accepts his life as a rudderless ship, +drifting on the ocean of time. He has no compass, no chart, no known +port to which he is sailing. His self-confessed inferiority to all +nature is shown in his existence of constant surrender. It is +not,--calmness. + +The man who is calm has his course in life clearly marked on his chart. +His hand is ever on the helm. Storm, fog, night, tempest, danger, +hidden reefs,--he is ever prepared and ready for them. He is made calm +and serene by the realization that in these crises of his voyage he +needs a clear mind and a cool head; that he has naught to do but to do +each day the best he can by the light he has; that he will never flinch +nor falter for a moment; that, though he may have to tack and leave his +course for a time, he will never drift, he will get back into the true +channel, he will keep ever headed toward his harbor. _When_ he +will reach it, _how_ he will reach it, matters not to him. He +rests in calmness, knowing he has done his best. If his best seem to be +overthrown or overruled, then he must still bow his head,--in calmness. +To no man is permitted to know the future of his life, the finality. +God commits to man ever only new beginnings, new wisdom, and new days +to use the best of his knowledge. + +Calmness comes ever from within. It is the peace and restfulness of the +depths of our nature. The fury of storm and of wind agitate only the +surface of the sea; they can penetrate only two or three hundred +feet,--below that is the calm, unruffled deep. To be ready for the great +crises of life we must learn serenity in our daily living. Calmness is +the crown of self-control. + +When the worries and cares of the day fret you, and begin to wear upon +you, and you chafe under the friction,--be calm. Stop, rest for a +moment, and let calmness and peace assert themselves. If you let these +irritating outside influences get the better of you, you are confessing +your inferiority to them, by permitting them to dominate you. Study the +disturbing elements, each by itself, bring all the will power of your +nature to bear upon them, and you will find that they will, one by one, +melt into nothingness, like vapors fading before the sun. The glow of +calmness that will then pervade your mind, the tingling sensation of an +inflow of new strength, may be to you the beginning of the revelation +of the supreme calmness that is possible for you. Then, in some great +hour of your life, when you stand face to face with some awful trial, +when the structure of your ambition and life-work crumbles in a moment, +you will be brave. You can then fold your arms calmly, look out +undismayed and undaunted upon the ashes of your hope, upon the wreck of +what you have faithfully built, and with brave heart and unfaltering +voice you may say: "So let it be,--I will build again." + +When the tongue of malice and slander, the persecution of inferiority, +tempts you for just a moment to retaliate, when for an instant you +forget yourself so far as to hunger for revenge,--be calm. When the +grey heron is pursued by its enemy, the eagle, it does not run to +escape; it remains calm, takes a dignified stand, and waits quietly, +facing the enemy unmoved. With the terrific force with which the eagle +makes its attack, the boasted king of birds is often impaled and run +through on the quiet, lance-like bill of the heron. The means that man +takes to kill another's character becomes suicide of his own. + +No man in the world ever attempted to wrong another without being +injured in return,--someway, somehow, sometime. The only weapon of +offence that Nature seems to recognize is the boomerang. Nature keeps +her books admirably; she puts down every item, she closes all accounts +finally, but she does not always balance them at the end of the month. +To the man who is calm, revenge is so far beneath him that he cannot +reach it,--even by stooping. When injured, he does not retaliate; he +wraps around him the royal robes of Calmness, and he goes quietly on +his way. + +When the hand of Death touches the one we hold dearest, paralyzes our +energy, and eclipses the sun of our life, the calmness that has been +accumulating in long years becomes in a moment our refuge, our reserve +strength. + +The most subtle of all temptations is the _seeming_ success of the +wicked. It requires moral courage to see, without flinching, material +prosperity coming to men who are dishonest; to see politicians rise +into prominence, power and wealth by trickery and corruption; to see +virtue in rags and vice in velvets; to see ignorance at a premium, and +knowledge at a discount. To the man who is really calm these puzzles of +life do not appeal. He is living his life as best he can; he is not +worrying about the problems of justice, whose solution must be left to +Omniscience to solve. + +When man has developed the spirit of Calmness until it becomes so +absolutely part of him that his very presence radiates it, he has made +great progress in life. Calmness cannot be acquired of itself and by +itself; it must come as the culmination of a series of virtues. What +the world needs and what individuals need is a higher standard of +living, a great realizing sense of the privilege and dignity of life, a +higher and nobler conception of individuality. + +With this great sense of calmness permeating an individual, man becomes +able to retire more into himself, away from the noise, the confusion +and strife of the world, which come to his ears only as faint, far-off +rumblings, or as the tumult of the life of a city heard only as a +buzzing hum by the man in a balloon. + +The man who is calm does not selfishly isolate himself from the world, +for he is intensely interested in all that concerns the welfare of +humanity. His calmness is but a Holy of Holies into which he can retire +_from_ the world to get strength to live _in_ the world. He +realizes that the full glory of individuality, the crowning of his +self-control is,--the majesty of calmness. + + + + +II + +Hurry, the Scourge of America + + + +The first sermon in the world was preached at the Creation. It was a +Divine protest against Hurry. It was a Divine object lesson of perfect +law, perfect plan, perfect order, perfect method. Six days of work +carefully planned, scheduled and completed were followed by,--rest. +Whether we accept the story as literal or as figurative, as the account +of successive days or of ages comprising millions of years, matters +little if we but learn the lesson. + +Nature is very un-American. Nature never hurries. Every phase of her +working shows plan, calmness, reliability, and the absence of hurry. +Hurry always implies lack of definite method, confusion, impatience of +slow growth. The Tower of Babel, the world's first skyscraper, was a +failure because of hurry. The workers mistook their arrogant ambition +for inspiration. They had too many builders,--and no architect. They +thought to make up the lack of a head by a superfluity of hands. This +is a characteristic of Hurry. It seeks ever to make energy a substitute +for a clearly defined plan,--the result is ever as hopeless as trying +to transform a hobby-horse into a real steed by brisk riding. + +Hurry is a counterfeit of haste. Haste has an ideal, a distinct aim to +be realized by the quickest, direct methods. Haste has a single compass +upon which it relies for direction and in harmony with which its course +is determined. Hurry says: "I must move faster. I will get three +compasses; I will have them different; I will be guided by all of them. +One of them will probably be right." Hurry never realizes that slow, +careful foundation work is the quickest in the end. + +Hurry has ruined more Americans than has any other word in the +vocabulary of life. It is the scourge of America; and is both a cause +and a result of our high-pressure civilization. Hurry adroitly assumes +so many masquerades of disguise that its identity is not always +recognized. + +Hurry always pays the highest price for everything, and, usually the +goods are not delivered. In the race for wealth men often sacrifice +time, energy, health, home, happiness and honor,--everything that money +cannot buy, the very things that money can never bring back. Hurry is a +phantom of paradoxes. Business men, in their desire to provide for the +future happiness of their family, often sacrifice the present happiness +of wife and children on the altar of Hurry. They forget that their +place in the home should be something greater than being merely "the +man that pays the bills;" they expect consideration and thoughtfulness +that they are not giving. + +We hear too much of a wife's duties to a husband and too little of the +other side of the question. "The wife," they tell us, "should meet her +husband with a smile and a kiss, should tactfully watch his moods and +be ever sweetness and sunshine." Why this continual swinging of the +censer of devotion to the man of business? Why should a woman have to +look up with timid glance at the face of her husband, to "size up his +mood"? Has not her day, too, been one of care, and responsibility, and +watchfulness? Has not mother-love been working over perplexing problems +and worries of home and of the training of the children that wifely +love may make her seek to solve in secret? Is man, then, the weaker sex +that he must be pampered and treated as tenderly as a boil trying to +keep from contact with the world? + +In their hurry to attain some ambition, to gratify the dream of a life, +men often throw honor, truth, and generosity to the winds. Politicians +dare to stand by and see a city poisoned with foul water until they +"see where they come in" on a water-works appropriation. If it be +necessary to poison an army,--that, too, is but an incident in the +hurry for wealth. + +This is the Age of the Hothouse. The element of natural growth is +pushed to one side and the hothouse and the force-pump are substituted. +Nature looks on tolerantly as she says: "So far you may go, but no +farther, my foolish children." + +The educational system of to-day is a monumental institution dedicated +to Hurry. The children are forced to go through a series of studies +that sweep the circle of all human wisdom. They are given everything +that the ambitious ignorance of the age can force into their minds; +they are taught everything but the essentials,--how to use their senses +and how to think. Their minds become congested by a great mass of +undigested facts, and still the cruel, barbarous forcing goes on. You +watch it until it seems you cannot stand it a moment longer, and you +instinctively put out your hand and say: "Stop! This modern slaughter +of the Innocents must _not_ go on!" Education smiles suavely, +waves her hand complacently toward her thousands of knowledge-prisons +over the country, and says: "Who are you that dares speak a word +against our sacred, school system?" Education is in a hurry. Because +she fails in fifteen years to do what half the time should accomplish +by better methods, she should not be too boastful. Incompetence is not +always a reason for pride. And they hurry the children into a hundred +textbooks, then into ill-health, then into the colleges, then into a +diploma, then into life,--with a dazed mind, untrained and unfitted for +the real duties of living. + +Hurry is the deathblow to calmness, to dignity, to poise. The old-time +courtesy went out when the new-time hurry came in. Hurry is the father +of dyspepsia. In the rush of our national life, the bolting of food has +become a national vice. The words "Quick Lunches" might properly be +placed on thousands of headstones in our cemeteries. Man forgets that +he is the only animal that dines; the others merely feed. Why does he +abrogate his right to dine and go to the end of the line with the mere +feeders? His self-respecting stomach rebels, and expresses its +indignation by indigestion. Then man has to go through life with a +little bottle of pepsin tablets in his vest-pocket. He is but another +victim to this craze for speed. Hurry means the breakdown of the +nerves. It is the royal road to nervous prostration. + +Everything that is great in life is the product of slow growth; the +newer, and greater, and higher, and nobler the work, the slower is its +growth, the surer is its lasting success. Mushrooms attain their full +power in a night; oaks require decades. A fad lives its life in a few +weeks; a philosophy lives through generations and centuries. If you are +sure you are right, do not let the voice of the world, or of friends, +or of family swerve you for a moment from your purpose. Accept slow +growth if it must be slow, and know the results _must_ come, as +you would accept the long, lonely hours of the night,--with absolute +assurance that the heavy-leaded moments _must_ bring the morning. + +Let us as individuals banish the word "Hurry" from our lives. Let us +care for nothing so much that we would pay honor and self-respect as +the price of hurrying it. Let us cultivate calmness, restfulness, +poise, sweetness,--doing our best, bearing all things as bravely as we +can; living our life undisturbed by the prosperity of the wicked or the +malice of the envious. Let us not be impatient, chafing at delay, +fretting over failure, wearying over results, and weakening under +opposition. Let us ever turn our face toward the future with confidence +and trust, with the calmness of a life in harmony with itself, true to +its ideals, and slowly and constantly progressing toward their +realization. + +Let us see that cowardly word Hurry in all its most degenerating +phases, let us see that it ever kills truth, loyalty, thoroughness; and +let us determine that, day by day, we will seek more and more to +substitute for it the calmness and repose of a true life, nobly lived. + + + + +III + +The Power of Personal Influence + + + +The only responsibility that a man cannot evade in this life is the one +he thinks of least,--his personal influence. Man's conscious influence, +when he is on dress-parade, when he is posing to impress those around +him,--is woefully small. But his unconscious influence, the silent, +subtle radiation of his personality, the effect of his words and acts, +the trifles he never considers,--is tremendous. Every moment of life he +is changing to a degree the life of the whole world. Every man has an +atmosphere which is affecting every other. So silent and unconsciously +is this influence working, that man may forget that it exists. + +All the forces of Nature,--heat, light, electricity and +gravitation,--are silent and invisible. We never _see_ them; we only +know that they exist by seeing the effects they produce. In all Nature +the wonders of the "seen" are dwarfed into insignificance when compared +with the majesty and glory of the "unseen." The great sun itself does +not supply enough heat and light to sustain animal and vegetable life +on the earth. We are dependent for nearly half of our light and heat +upon the stars, and the greater part of this supply of life-giving +energy comes from _invisible_ stars, millions of miles from the +earth. In a thousand ways Nature constantly seeks to lead men to a +keener and deeper realization of the power and the wonder of the +invisible. + +Into the hands of every individual is given a marvellous power for good +or for evil,--the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. +This is simply the constant radiation of what a man really _is_, +not what he pretends to be. Every man, by his mere living, is radiating +sympathy, or sorrow, or morbidness, or cynicism, or happiness, or hope, +or any of a hundred other qualities. Life is a state of constant +radiation and absorption; to exist is to radiate; to exist is to be the +recipient of radiations. + +There are men and women whose presence seems to radiate sunshine, cheer +and optimism. You feel calmed and rested and restored in a moment to a +new and stronger faith in humanity. There are others who focus in an +instant all your latent distrust, morbidness and rebellion against +life. Without knowing why, you chafe and fret in their presence. You +lose your bearings on life and its problems. Your moral compass is +disturbed and unsatisfactory. It is made untrue in an instant, as the +magnetic needle of a ship is deflected when it passes near great +mountains of iron ore. + +There are men who float down the stream of life like icebergs,--cold, +reserved, unapproachable and self-contained. In their presence you +involuntarily draw your wraps closer around you, as you wonder who left +the door open. These refrigerated human beings have a most depressing +influence on all those who fall under the spell of their radiated +chilliness. But there are other natures, warm, helpful, genial, who are +like the Gulf Stream, following their own course, flowing undaunted and +undismayed in the ocean of colder waters. Their presence brings warmth +and life and the glow of sunshine, the joyous, stimulating breath of +spring. There are men who are like malarious swamps,--poisonous, +depressing and weakening by their very presence. They make heavy, +oppressive and gloomy the atmosphere of their own homes; the sound of +the children's play is stilled, the ripples of laughter are frozen by +their presence. They go through life as if each day were a new big +funeral, and they were always chief mourners. There are other men who +seem like the ocean; they are constantly bracing, stimulating, giving +new draughts of tonic life and strength by their very presence. + +There are men who are insincere in heart, and that insincerity is +radiated by their presence. They have a wondrous interest in your +welfare,--when they need you. They put on a "property" smile so +suddenly, when it serves their purpose, that it seems the smile must be +connected with some electric button concealed in their clothes. Their +voice has a simulated cordiality that long training may have made +almost natural. But they never play their part absolutely true, the +mask _will_ slip down sometimes; their cleverness cannot teach +their eyes the look of sterling honesty; they may deceive some people, +but they cannot deceive all. There is a subtle power of revelation +which makes us say: "Well, I cannot explain how it is, but I know that +man is not honest." + +Man cannot escape for one moment from this radiation of his character, +this constantly weakening or strengthening of others. He cannot evade +the responsibility by saying it is an unconscious influence. He can +_select_ the qualities that he will permit to be radiated. He can +cultivate sweetness, calmness, trust, generosity, truth, justice, +loyalty, nobility,--make them vitally active in his character,--and by +these qualities he will constantly affect the world. + +Discouragement often comes to honest souls trying to live the best they +can, in the thought that they are doing so little good in the world. +Trifles unnoted by us may be links in the chain of some great purpose. +In 1797, William Godwin wrote The Inquirer, a collection of +revolutionary essays on morals and politics. This book influenced +Thomas Malthus to write his Essay on Population, published in 1798. +Malthus' book suggested to Charles Darwin a point of view upon which he +devoted many years of his life, resulting, in 1859, in the publication +of The Origin of Species,--the most influential book of the nineteenth +century, a book that has revolutionized all science. These were but +three links of influence extending over sixty years. It might be +possible to trace this genealogy of influence back from Godwin, through +generation and generation, to the word or act of some shepherd in early +Britain, watching his flock upon the hills, living his quiet life, and +dying with the thought that he had done nothing to help the world. + +Men and women have duties to others,--and duties to themselves. In +justice to ourselves we should refuse to live in an atmosphere that +keeps us from living our best. If the fault be in us, we should master +it. If it be the personal influence of others that, like a noxious +vapor, kills our best impulses, we should remove from that influence,--if +we can _possibly_ move without forsaking duties. If it be wrong +to move, then we should take strong doses of moral quinine to counteract +the malaria of influence. It is not what those around us _do_ for +us that counts,--it is what they _are_ to us. We carry our house-plants +from one window to another to give them the proper heat, light, +air and moisture. Should we not be at least as careful of ourselves? + +To make our influence felt we must live our faith, we must practice +what we believe. A magnet does not attract iron, as iron. It must first +convert the iron into another magnet before it can attract it. It is +useless for a parent to try to teach gentleness to her children when +she herself is cross and irritable. The child who is told to be +truthful and who hears a parent lie cleverly to escape some little +social unpleasantness is not going to cling very zealously to truth. +The parent's words say "don't lie," the influence of the parent's life +says "do lie." + +No man can ever isolate himself to evade this constant power of +influence, as no single corpuscle can rebel and escape from the general +course of the blood. No individual is so insignificant as to be without +influence. The changes in our varying moods are all recorded in the +delicate barometers of the lives of others. We should ever let our +influence filter through human love and sympathy. We should not be +merely an influence,--we should be an inspiration. By our very presence +we should be a tower of strength to the hungering human souls around +us. + + + + +IV + +The Dignity of Self-Reliance + + + +Self-confidence, without self-reliance, is as useless as a cooking +recipe,--without food. Self-confidence sees the possibilities of the +individual; self-reliance realizes them. Self-confidence sees the angel +in the unhewn block of marble; self-reliance carves it out for himself. + +The man who is self-reliant says ever: "No one can realize my +possibilities for me, but me; no one can make me good or evil but +myself." He works out his own salvation,--financially, socially, +mentally, physically, and morally. Life is an individual problem that +man must solve for himself. Nature accepts no vicarious sacrifice, no +vicarious service. Nature never recognizes a proxy vote. She has +nothing to do with middle-men,--she deals only with the individual. +Nature is constantly seeking to show man that he is his own best +friend, or his own worst enemy. Nature gives man the option on which he +will be to himself. + +All the athletic exercises in the world are of no value to the +individual unless he compel those bars and dumb-bells to yield to him, +in strength and muscle, the power for which he, himself, pays in time +and effort. He can never develop his muscles by sending his valet to a +gymnasium. + +The medicine-chests of the world are powerless, in all the united +efforts, to help the individual until he reach out and take for himself +what is needed for his individual weakness. + +All the religions of the world are but speculations in morals, mere +theories of salvation, until the individual realize that he must save +himself by relying on the law of truth, as he sees it, and living his +life in harmony with it, as fully as he can. But religion is not a +Pullman car, with soft-cushioned seats, where he has but to pay for his +ticket,--and some one else does all the rest. In religion, as in all +other great things, he is ever thrown back on his self-reliance. He +should accept all helps, but,--he must live his own life. He should not +feel that he is a mere passenger; he is the engineer, and the train is +his life. We must rely on ourselves, live our own lives, or we merely +drift through existence,--losing all that is best, all that is +greatest, all that is divine. + +All that others can do for us is to give us opportunity. We must ever +be prepared for the opportunity when it comes, and to go after it and +find it when it does not come, or that opportunity is to us,--nothing. +Life is but a succession of opportunities. They are for good or +evil,--as we make them. + +Many of the alchemists of old felt that they lacked but one element; if +they could obtain that one, they believed they could transmute the +baser metals into pure gold. It is so in character. There are +individuals with rare mental gifts, and delicate spiritual discernment +who fail utterly in life because they lack the one +element,--self-reliance. This would unite all their energies, and focus +them into strength and power. + +The man who is not self-reliant is weak, hesitating and doubting in all +he does. He fears to take a decisive step, because he dreads failure, +because he is waiting for some one to advise him or because he dare not +act in accordance with his own best judgment. In his cowardice and his +conceit he sees all his non-success due to others. He is "not +appreciated," "not recognized," he is "kept down." He feels that in +some subtle way "society is conspiring against him." He grows almost +vain as he thinks that no one has had such poverty, such sorrow, such +affliction, such failure as have come to him. + +The man who is self-reliant seeks ever to discover and conquer the +weakness within him that keeps him from the attainment of what he holds +dearest; he seeks within himself the power to battle against all +outside influences. He realizes that all the greatest men in history, +in every phase of human effort, have been those who have had to fight +against the odds of sickness, suffering, sorrow. To him, defeat is no +more than passing through a tunnel is to a traveller,--he knows he must +emerge again into the sunlight. + +The nation that is strongest is the one that is most self-reliant, the +one that contains within its boundaries all that its people need. If, +with its ports all blockaded it has not within itself the necessities +of life and the elements of its continual progress then,--it is weak, +held by the enemy, and it is but a question of time till it must +surrender. Its independence is in proportion to its self-reliance, to +its power to sustain itself from within. What is true of nations is +true of individuals. The history of nations is but the biography of +individuals magnified, intensified, multiplied, and projected on the +screen of the past. History is the biography of a nation; biography is +the history of an individual. So it must be that the individual who is +most strong in any trial, sorrow or need is he who can live from his +inherent strength, who needs no scaffolding of commonplace sympathy to +uphold him. He must ever be self-reliant. + +The wealth and prosperity of ancient Rome, relying on her slaves to do +the real work of the nation, proved the nation's downfall. The constant +dependence on the captives of war to do the thousand details of life +for them, killed self-reliance in the nation and in the individual. +Then, through weakened self-reliance and the increased opportunity for +idle, luxurious ease that came with it, Rome, a nation of fighters, +became,--a nation of men more effeminate than women. As we depend on +others to do those things we should do for ourselves, our self-reliance +weakens and our powers and our control of them becomes continuously +less. + +Man to be great must be self-reliant. Though he may not be so in all +things, he must be self-reliant in the one in which he would be great. +This self-reliance is not the self-sufficiency of conceit. It is daring +to stand alone. Be an oak, not a vine. Be ready to give support, but do +not crave it; do not be dependent on it. To develop your true +self-reliance, you must see from the very beginning that life is a battle +you must fight for yourself,--you must be your own soldier. You cannot +buy a substitute, you cannot win a reprieve, you can never be placed on +the retired list. The retired list of life is,--death. The world is +busy with its own cares, sorrows and joys, and pays little heed to you. +There is but one great password to success,--self-reliance. + +If you would learn to converse, put yourself into positions where you +_must_ speak. If you would conquer your morbidness, mingle with +the bright people around you, no matter how difficult it may be. If you +desire the power that some one else possesses, do not envy his +strength, and dissipate your energy by weakly wishing his force were +yours. Emulate the process by which it became his, depend on your +self-reliance, pay the price for it, and equal power may be yours. The +individual must look upon himself as an investment, of untold +possibilities if rightly developed,--a mine whose resources can never +be known but by going down into it and bringing out what is hidden. + +Man can develop his self-reliance by seeking constantly to surpass +himself. We try too much to surpass others. If we seek ever to surpass +ourselves, we are moving on a uniform line of progress, that gives a +harmonious unifying to our growth in all its parts. Daniel Morrell, at +one time President of the Cambria Rail Works, that employed 7,000 men +and made a rail famed throughout the world, was asked the secret of the +great success of the works. "We have no secret," he said, "but this,--we +always try to beat our last batch of rails." Competition is good, +but it has its danger side. There is a tendency to sacrifice real worth +to mere appearance, to have seeming rather than reality. But the true +competition is the competition of the individual with himself,--his +present seeking to excel his past. This means real growth from within. +Self-reliance develops it, and it develops self-reliance. Let the +individual feel thus as to his own progress and possibilities, and he +can almost create his life as he will. Let him never fall down in +despair at dangers and sorrows at a distance; they may be harmless, +like Bunyan's stone lions, when he nears them. + +The man who is self-reliant does not live in the shadow of some one +else's greatness; he thinks for himself, depends on himself, and acts +for himself. In throwing the individual thus back upon himself it is +not shutting his eyes to the stimulus and light and new life that come +with the warm pressure of the hand, the kindly word and the sincere +expressions of true friendship. But true friendship is rare; its great +value is in a crisis,--like a lifeboat. Many a boasted friend has +proved a leaking, worthless "lifeboat" when the storm of adversity +might make him useful. In these great crises of life, man is strong +only as he is strong from within, and the more he depends on himself +the stronger will he become, and the more able will he be to help +others in the hour of their need. His very life will be a constant help +and a strength to others, as he becomes to them a living lesson of the +dignity of self-reliance. + + + + +V + +Failure as a Success + + + +It ofttimes requires heroic courage to face fruitless effort, to take +up the broken strands of a life-work, to look bravely toward the +future, and proceed undaunted on our way. But what, to our eyes, may +seem hopeless failure is often but the dawning of a greater success. It +may contain in its debris the foundation material of a mighty purpose, +or the revelation of new and higher possibilities. + +Some years ago, it was proposed to send logs from Canada to New York, +by a new method. The ingenious plan of Mr. Joggins was to bind great +logs together by cables and iron girders and to tow the cargo as a +raft. When the novel craft neared New York and success seemed assured, +a terrible storm arose. In the fury of the tempest, the iron bands +snapped like icicles and the angry waters scattered the logs far and +wide. The chief of the Hydrographic Department at Washington heard of +the failure of the experiment, and at once sent word to shipmasters the +world over, urging them to watch carefully for these logs which he +described; and to note the precise location of each in latitude and +longitude and the time the observation was made. + +Hundreds of captains, sailing over the waters of the earth, noted the +logs, in the Atlantic Ocean, in the Mediterranean, in the South +Seas--for into all waters did these venturesome ones travel. Hundreds of +reports were made, covering a period of weeks and months. These +observations were then carefully collated, systematized and tabulated, +and discoveries were made as to the course of ocean currents that +otherwise would have been impossible. The loss of the Joggins raft was +not a real failure, for it led to one of the great discoveries in +modern marine geography and navigation. + +In our superior knowledge we are disposed to speak in a patronizing +tone of the follies of the alchemists of old. But their failure to +transmute the baser metals into gold resulted in the birth of +chemistry. They did not succeed in what they attempted, but they +brought into vogue the natural processes of sublimation, filtration, +distillation, and crystallization; they invented the alembic, the +retort, the sand-bath, the water-bath and other valuable instruments. +To them is due the discovery of antimony, sulphuric ether and +phosphorus, the cupellation of gold and silver, the determining of the +properties of saltpetre and its use in gunpowder, and the discovery of +the distillation of essential oils. This was the success of failure, a +wondrous process of Nature for the highest growth,--a mighty lesson of +comfort, strength, and encouragement if man would only realize and +accept it. + +Many of our failures sweep us to greater heights of success, than we +ever hoped for in our wildest dreams. Life is a successive unfolding of +success from failure. In discovering America Columbus failed +absolutely. His ingenious reasoning and experiment led him to believe +that by sailing westward he would reach India. Every redman in America +carries in his name "Indian," the perpetuation of the memory of the +failure of Columbus. The Genoese navigator did not reach India; the +cargo of "souvenirs" he took back to Spain to show to Ferdinand and +Isabella as proofs of his success, really attested his failure. But the +discovery of America was a greater success than was any finding of a +"back-door" to India. + +When David Livingstone had supplemented his theological education by a +medical course, he was ready to enter the missionary field. For over +three years he had studied tirelessly, with all energies concentrated +on one aim,--to spread the gospel in China. The hour came when he was +ready to start out with noble enthusiasm for his chosen work, to +consecrate himself and his life to his unselfish ambition. Then word +came from China that the "opium war" would make it folly to attempt to +enter the country. Disappointment and failure did not long daunt him; +he offered himself as missionary to Africa,--and he was accepted. His +glorious failure to reach China opened a whole continent to light and +truth. His study proved an ideal preparation for his labors as +physician, explorer, teacher and evangel in the wilds of Africa. + +Business reverses and the failure of his partner threw upon the broad +shoulders and the still broader honor and honesty of Sir Walter Scott a +burden of responsibility that forced him to write. The failure spurred +him to almost super-human effort. The masterpieces of Scotch historic +fiction that have thrilled, entertained and uplifted millions of his +fellow-men are a glorious monument on the field of a seeming failure. + +When Millet, the painter of the "Angelus" worked on his almost divine +canvas, in which the very air seems pulsing with the regenerating +essence of spiritual reverence, he was painting against time, he was +antidoting sorrow, he was racing against death. His brush strokes, put +on in the early morning hours before going to his menial duties as a +railway porter, in the dusk like that perpetuated on his canvas,--meant +strength, food and medicine for the dying wife he adored. The art +failure that cast him into the depths of poverty unified with +marvellous intensity all the finer elements of his nature. This rare +spiritual unity, this purging of all the dross of triviality as he +passed through the furnace of poverty, trial, and sorrow gave eloquence +to his brush and enabled him to paint as never before,--as no +prosperity would have made possible. + +Failure is often the turning-point, the pivot of circumstance that +swings us to higher levels. It may not be financial success, it may not +be fame; it may be new draughts of spiritual, moral or mental +inspiration that will change us for all the later years of our life. +Life is not really what comes to us, but what we get from it. + +Whether man has had wealth or poverty, failure or success, counts for +little when it is past. There is but one question for him to answer, to +face boldly and honestly as an individual alone with his conscience and +his destiny: + +"How will I let that poverty or wealth affect me? If that trial or +deprivation has left me better, truer, nobler, then,--poverty has been +riches, failure has been a success. If wealth has come to me and has +made me vain, arrogant, contemptuous, uncharitable, cynical, closing +from me all the tenderness of life, all the channels of higher +development, of possible good to my fellow-man, making me the mere +custodian of a money-bag, then,--wealth has lied to me, it has been +failure, not success; it has not been riches, it has been dark, +treacherous poverty that stole from me even Myself." All things become +for us then what we take from them. + +Failure is one of God's educators. It is experience leading man to +higher things; it is the revelation of a way, a path hitherto unknown +to us. The best men in the world, those who have made the greatest real +successes look back with serene happiness on their failures. The +turning of the face of Time shows all things in a wondrously +illuminated and satisfying perspective. + +Many a man is thankful to-day that some petty success for which he once +struggled, melted into thin air as his hand sought to clutch it. +Failure is often the rock-bottom foundation of real success. If man, in +a few instances of his life can say, "Those failures were the best +things in the world that could have happened to me," should he not face +new failures with undaunted courage and trust that the miraculous +ministry of Nature may transform these new stumbling-blocks into new +stepping-stones? + +Our highest hopes, are often destroyed to prepare us for better things. +The failure of the caterpillar is the birth of the butterfly; the +passing of the bud is the becoming of the rose; the death or +destruction of the seed is the prelude to its resurrection as wheat. It +is at night, in the darkest hours, those preceding dawn, that plants +grow best, that they most increase in size. May this not be one of +Nature's gentle showings to man of the times when he grows best, of the +darkness of failure that is evolving into the sunlight of success. Let +us fear only the failure of not living the right as we see it, leaving +the results to the guardianship of the Infinite. + +If we think of any supreme moment of our lives, any great success, any +one who is dear to us, and then consider how we reached that moment, +that success, that friend, we will be surprised and strengthened by the +revelation. As we trace each one, back, step by step, through the +genealogy of circumstances, we will see how logical has been the course +of our joy and success, from sorrow and failure, and that what gives us +most happiness to-day is inextricably connected with what once caused +us sorrow. Many of the rivers of our greatest prosperity and growth +have had their source and their trickling increase into volume among +the dark, gloomy recesses of our failure. + +There is no honest and true work, carried along with constant and +sincere purpose that ever really fails. If it sometime seem to be +wasted effort, it will prove to us a new lesson of "how" to walk; the +secret of our failures will prove to us the inspiration of possible +successes. Man living with the highest aims, ever as best he can, in +continuous harmony with them, is a success, no matter what statistics +of failure a near-sighted and half-blind world of critics and +commentators may lay at his door. + +High ideals, noble efforts will make seeming failures but trifles, they +need not dishearten us; they should prove sources of new strength. The +rocky way may prove safer than the slippery path of smoothness. Birds +cannot fly best with the wind but against it; ships do not progress in +calm, when the sails flap idly against the unstrained masts. + +The alchemy of Nature, superior to that of the Paracelsians, constantly +transmutes the baser metals of failure into the later pure gold of +higher success, if the mind of the worker be kept true, constant and +untiring in the service, and he have that sublime courage that defies +fate to its worst while he does his best. + + + + +VI + +Doing Our Best at All Times + + + +Life is a wondrously complex problem for the individual, until, some +day, in a moment of illumination, he awakens to the great realization +that he can make it simple,--never quite simple, but always simpler. +There are a thousand mysteries of right and wrong that have baffled the +wise men of the ages. There are depths in the great fundamental +questions of the human race that no plummet of philosophy has ever +sounded. There are wild cries of honest hunger for truth that seek to +pierce the silence beyond the grave, but to them ever echo back,--only +a repetition of their unanswered cries. + +To us all, comes, at times, the great note of questioning despair that +darkens our horizon and paralyzes our effort: "If there really be a +God, if eternal justice really rule the world," we say, "why should +life be as it is? Why do some men starve while others feast; why does +virtue often languish in the shadow while vice triumphs in the +sunshine; why does failure so often dog the footsteps of honest effort, +while the success that comes from trickery and dishonor is greeted with +the world's applause? How is it that the loving father of one family is +taken by death, while the worthless incumbrance of another is spared? +Why is there so much unnecessary pain, sorrowing and suffering in the +world--why, indeed, should there be any?" + +Neither philosophy nor religion can give any final satisfactory answer +that is capable of logical demonstration, of absolute proof. There is +ever, even after the best explanations, a residuum of the unexplained. +We must then fall back in the eternal arms of faith, and be wise enough +to say, "I will not be disconcerted by these problems of life, I will +not permit them to plunge me into doubt, and to cloud my life with +vagueness and uncertainty. Man arrogates much to himself when he +demands from the Infinite the full solution of all His mysteries. I +will found my life on the impregnable rock of a simple fundamental +truth:--'This glorious creation with its millions of wondrous phenomena +pulsing ever in harmony with eternal law must have a Creator, that +Creator must be omniscient and omnipotent. But that Creator Himself +cannot, in justice, demand of any creature more than the best that that +individual can give.' I will do each day, in every moment, the best I +can by the light I have; I will ever seek more light, more perfect +illumination of truth, and ever live as best I can in harmony with the +truth as I see it. If failure come I will meet it bravely; if my +pathway then lie in the shadow of trial, sorrow and suffering, I shall +have the restful peace and the calm strength of one who has done his +best, who can look back upon the past with no pang of regret, and who +has heroic courage in facing the results, whatever they be, knowing +that he could not make them different." + +Upon this life-plan, this foundation, man may erect any superstructure +of religion or philosophy that he conscientiously can erect; he should +add to his equipment for living every shred of strength and +inspiration, moral, mental or spiritual that is in his power to secure. +This simple working faith is opposed to no creed, is a substitute for +none; it is but a primary belief, a citadel, a refuge where the +individual can retire for strength when the battle of life grows hard. + +A mere theory of life, that remains but a theory, is about as useful to +a man, as a gilt-edged menu is to a starving sailor on a raft in +mid-ocean. It is irritating but not stimulating. No rule for higher living +will help a man in the slightest, until he reach out and appropriate it +for himself, until he make it practical in his daily life, until that +seed of theory in his mind blossom into a thousand flowers of thought +and word and act. + +If a man honestly seeks to live his best at all times, that +determination is visible in every moment of his living, no trifle in +his life can be too insignificant to reflect his principle of living. +The sun illuminates and beautifies a fallen leaf by the roadside as +impartially as a towering mountain peak in the Alps. Every drop of +water in the ocean is an epitome of the chemistry of the whole ocean; +every drop is subject to precisely the same laws as dominate the united +infinity of billions of drops that make that miracle of Nature, men +call the Sea. No matter how humble the calling of the individual, how +uninteresting and dull the round of his duties, he should do his best. +He should dignify what he is doing by the mind he puts into it, he +should vitalize what little he has of power or energy or ability or +opportunity, in order to prepare himself to be equal to higher +privileges when they come. This will never lead man to that weak +content that is satisfied with whatever falls to his lot. It will +rather fill his mind with that divine discontent that cheerfully +accepts the best,--merely as a temporary substitute for something +better. + +The man who is seeking ever to do his best is the man who is keen, +active, wide-awake, and aggressive. He is ever watchful of himself in +trifles; his standard is not "What will the world say?" but "Is it +worthy of me?" + +Edwin Booth, one of the greatest actors on the American stage, would +never permit himself to assume an ungraceful attitude, even in his +hours of privacy. In this simple thing, he ever lived his best. On the +stage every move was one of unconscious grace. Those of his company who +were conscious of their motions were the awkward ones, who were seeking +in public to undo or to conceal the carelessness of the gestures and +motions of their private life. The man who is slipshod and thoughtless +in his daily speech, whose vocabulary is a collection of anaemic +commonplaces, whose repetitions of phrases and extravagance of +interjections act but as feeble disguises to his lack of ideas, will +never be brilliant on an occasion when he longs to outshine the stars. +Living at one's best is constant preparation for instant use. It can +never make one over-precise, self-conscious, affected, or priggish. +Education, in its highest sense, is _conscious_ training of mind +or body to act _unconsciously_. It is conscious formation of +mental habits, not mere acquisition of information. + +One of the many ways in which the individual unwisely eclipses himself, +is in his worship of the fetich of luck. He feels that all others are +lucky, and that whatever he attempts, fails. He does not realize the +untiring energy, the unremitting concentration, the heroic courage, the +sublime patience that is the secret of some men's success. Their "luck" +was that they had prepared themselves to be equal to their opportunity +when it came and were awake to recognize it and receive it. His own +opportunity came and departed unnoted, it would not waken him from his +dreams of some untold wealth that would fall into his lap. So he grows +discouraged and envies those whom he should emulate, and he bandages +his arm and chloroforms his energies, and performs his duties in a +perfunctory way, or he passes through life, just ever "sampling" lines +of activity. + +The honest, faithful struggler should always realize that failure is +but an episode in a true man's life,--never the whole story. It is +never easy to meet, and no philosophy can make it so, but the steadfast +courage to master conditions, instead of complaining of them, will help +him on his way; it will ever enable him to get the best out of what he +has. He never knows the long series of vanquished failures that give +solidity to some one else's success; he does not realize the price that +some rich man, the innocent football of political malcontents and +demagogues, has heroicly paid for wealth and position. + +The man who has a pessimist's doubt of all things; who demands a +certified guarantee of his future; who ever fears his work will not be +recognized or appreciated; or that after all, it is really not worth +while, will never live his best. He is dulling his capacity for real +progress by his hypnotic course of excuses for inactivity, instead of a +strong tonic of reasons for action. + +One of the most weakening elements in the individual make-up is the +surrender to the oncoming of years. Man's self-confidence dims and dies +in the fear of age. "This new thought," he says of some suggestion +tending to higher development, "is good; it is what we need. I am glad +to have it for my children; I would have been happy to have had some +such help when I was at school, but it is too late for me. I am a man +advanced in years." + +This is but blind closing of life to wondrous possibilities. The knell +of lost opportunity is never tolled in this life. It is never too late +to recognize truth and to live by it. It requires only greater effort, +closer attention, deeper consecration; but the impossible does not +exist for the man who is self-confident and is willing to pay the price +in time and struggle for his success or development. Later in life, the +assessments are heavier in progress, as in life insurance, but that +matters not to that mighty self-confidence that _will_ not grow +old while knowledge can keep it young. + +Socrates, when his hair whitened with the snow of age, learned to play +on instruments of music. Cato, at fourscore, began his study of Greek, +and the same age saw Plutarch beginning, with the enthusiasm of a boy, +his first lessons in Latin. The Character of Man, Theophrastus' +greatest work, was begun on his ninetieth birthday. Chaucer's +Canterbury Tales was the work of the poet's declining years. Ronsard, +the father of French poetry, whose sonnets even translation cannot +destroy, did not develop his poetic faculty until nearly fifty. +Benjamin Franklin at this age had just taken his really first steps of +importance in philosophic pursuits. Arnauld, the theologian and sage, +translated Josephus in his eightieth year. Winckelmann, one of the most +famous writers on classic antiquities, was the son of a shoemaker, and +lived in obscurity and ignorance until the prime of life. Hobbes, the +English philosopher, published his version of the Odyssey in his +eighty-seventh year, and his Iliad one year later. Chevreul, the great +French scientist, whose untiring labors in the realm of color have so +enriched the world, was busy, keen and active when Death called him, at +the age of 103. + +These men did not fear age; these few names from the great muster-roll +of the famous ones who defied the years, should be voices of hope and +heartening to every individual whose courage and confidence is weak. +The path of truth, higher living, truer development in every phase of +life, is never shut from the individual--until he closes it himself. +Let man feel this, believe it and make this faith a real and living +factor in his life and there are no limits to his progress. He has but +to live his best at all times, and rest calm and untroubled no matter +what results come to his efforts. The constant looking backward to what +might have been, instead of forward to what may be, is a great weakener +of self-confidence. This worry for the old past, this wasted energy, +for that which no power in the world can restore, ever lessens the +individual's faith in himself, weakens his efforts to develop himself +for the future to the perfection of his possibilities. + +Nature in her beautiful love and tenderness, says to man, weakened and +worn and weary with the struggle, "Do in the best way you can the +trifle that is under your hand at this moment; do it in the best spirit +of preparation for the future your thought suggests; bring all the +light of knowledge from all the past to aid you. Do this and you have +done your best. The past is forever closed to you. It is closed forever +to you. No worry, no struggle, no suffering, no agony of despair can +alter it. It is as much beyond your power as if it were a million years +of eternity behind you. Turn all that past, with its sad hours, +weakness and sin, its wasted opportunities as light; in confidence and +hope, upon the future. Turn it all in fuller truth and light so as to +make each trifle of this present a new past it will be joy to look back +to; each trifle a grander, nobler, and more perfect preparation for the +future. The present and the future you can make from it, is yours; the +past has gone back, with all its messages, all its history, all its +records to the God who loaned you the golden moments to use in +obedience to His law." + + + + +VII + +The Royal Road to Happiness + + + +"During my whole life I have not had twenty-four hours of happiness." So +said Prince Bismarck, one of the greatest statesmen of the nineteenth +century. Eighty-three years of wealth, fame, honors, power, influence, +prosperity and triumph,--years when he held an empire in his +fingers,--but not one day of happiness! + +Happiness is the greatest paradox in Nature. It can grow in any soil, +live under any conditions. It defies environment. It comes from within; +it is the revelation of the depths of the inner life as light and heat +proclaim the sun from which they radiate. Happiness consists not of +having, but of being; not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is the +warm glow of a heart at peace with itself. A martyr at the stake may +have happiness that a king on his throne might envy. Man is the creator +of his own happiness; it is the aroma of a life lived in harmony with +high ideals. For what a man _has_, he may be dependent on others; +what he _is_, rests with him alone. What he _ob_tains in life +is but acquisition; what he _at_tains, is growth. Happiness is the +soul's joy in the possession of the intangible. Absolute, perfect, +continuous happiness in life, is impossible for the human. It would +mean the consummation of attainments, the individual consciousness of a +perfectly fulfilled destiny. Happiness is paradoxic because it may +coexist with trial, sorrow and poverty. It is the gladness of the +heart,--rising superior to all conditions. + +Happiness has a number of under-studies,--gratification, satisfaction, +content, and pleasure,--clever imitators that simulate its appearance +rather than emulate its method. Gratification is a harmony between our +desires and our possessions. It is ever incomplete, it is the thankful +acceptance of part. It is a mental pleasure in the quality of what one +receives, an unsatisfiedness as to the quantity. It may be an element +in happiness, but, in itself,--it is not happiness. + +Satisfaction is perfect identity of our desires and our possessions. It +exists only so long as this perfect union and unity can be preserved. +But every realized ideal gives birth to new ideals, every step in +advance reveals large domains of the unattained; every feeding +stimulates new appetites,--then the desires and possessions are no +longer identical, no longer equal; new cravings call forth new +activities, the equipoise is destroyed, and dissatisfaction reenters. +Man might possess everything tangible in the world and yet not be +happy, for happiness is the satisfying of the soul, not of the mind or +the body. Dissatisfaction, in its highest sense, is the keynote of all +advance, the evidence of new aspirations, the guarantee of the +progressive revelation of new possibilities. + +Content is a greatly overrated virtue. It is a kind of diluted despair; +it is the feeling with which we continue to accept substitutes, without +striving for the realities. Content makes the trained individual +swallow vinegar and try to smack his lips as if it were wine. Content +enables one to warm his hands at the fire of a past joy that exists +only in memory. Content is a mental and moral chloroform that deadens +the activities of the individual to rise to higher planes of life and +growth. Man should never be contented with anything less than the best +efforts of his nature can possibly secure for him. Content makes the +world more comfortable for the individual, but it is the death-knell of +progress. Man should be content with each step of progress merely as a +station, discontented with it as a destination; contented with it as a +step; discontented with it as a finality. There are times when a man +should be content with what he _has_, but never with what he +_is_. + +But content is not happiness; neither is pleasure. Pleasure is +temporary, happiness is continuous; pleasure is a note, happiness is a +symphony; pleasure may exist when conscience utters protests; +happiness,--never. Pleasure may have its dregs and its lees; but none +can be found in the cup of happiness. + +Man is the only animal that can be really happy. To the rest of the +creation belong only weak imitations of the understudies. Happiness +represents a peaceful attunement of a life with a standard of living. +It can never be made by the individual, by himself, for himself. It is +one of the incidental by-products of an unselfish life. No man can make +his own happiness the one object of his life and attain it, any more +than he can jump on the far end of his shadow. If you would hit the +bull's-eye of happiness on the target of life, aim above it. Place +other things higher than your own happiness and it will surely come to +you. You can buy pleasure, you can acquire content, you can become +satisfied,--but Nature never put real happiness on the bargain-counter. +It is the undetachable accompaniment of true living. It is calm and +peaceful; it never lives in an atmosphere of worry or of hopeless +struggle. + +The basis of happiness is the love of something outside self. Search +every instance of happiness in the world, and you will find, when all +the incidental features are eliminated, there is always the constant, +unchangeable element of love,--love of parent for child; love of man +and woman for each other; love of humanity in some form, or a great +life work into which the individual throws all his energies. + +Happiness is the voice of optimism, of faith, of simple, steadfast +love. No cynic or pessimist can be really happy. A cynic is a man who +is morally near-sighted,--and brags about it. He sees the evil in his +own heart, and thinks he sees the world. He lets a mote in his eye +eclipse the sun. An incurable cynic is an individual who should long +for death,--for life cannot bring him happiness, death might. The +keynote of Bismarck's lack of happiness was his profound distrust of +human nature. + +There is a royal road to happiness; it lies in Consecration, +Concentration, Conquest and Conscience. + +Consecration is dedicating the individual life to the service of +others, to some noble mission, to realizing some unselfish ideal. Life +is not something to be lived _through_; it is something to be +lived _up to_. It is a privilege, not a penal servitude of so many +decades on earth. Consecration places the object of life above the mere +acquisition of money, as a finality. The man who is unselfish, kind, +loving, tender, helpful, ready to lighten the burden of those around +him, to hearten the struggling ones, to forget himself sometimes in +remembering others,--is on the right road to happiness. Consecration is +ever active, bold and aggressive, fearing naught but possible +disloyalty to high ideals. + +Concentration makes the individual life simpler and deeper. It cuts +away the shams and pretences of modern living and limits life to its +truest essentials. Worry, fear, useless regret,--all the great wastes +that sap mental, moral or physical energy must be sacrificed, or the +individual needlessly destroys half the possibilities of living. A +great purpose in life, something that unifies the strands and threads +of each day's thinking, something that takes the sting from the petty +trials, sorrows, sufferings and blunders of life, is a great aid to +Concentration. Soldiers in battle may forget their wounds, or even be +unconscious of them, in the inspiration of battling for what they +believe is right. Concentration dignifies an humble life; it makes a +great life,--sublime. In morals it is a short-cut to simplicity. It +leads to right for right's sake, without thought of policy or of +reward. It brings calm and rest to the individual,--a serenity that is +but the sunlight of happiness. + +Conquest is the overcoming of an evil habit, the rising superior to +opposition and attack, the spiritual exaltation that comes from +resisting the invasion of the grovelling material side of life. +Sometimes when you are worn and weak with the struggle; when it seems +that justice is a dream, that honesty and loyalty and truth count for +nothing, that the devil is the only good paymaster; when hope grows dim +and flickers, then is the time when you must tower in the great sublime +faith that Right must prevail, then must you throttle these imps of +doubt and despair, you must master yourself to master the world around +you. This is Conquest; this is what counts. Even a log can float with +the current, it takes a man to fight sturdily against an opposing tide +that would sweep his craft out of its course. When the jealousies, the +petty intrigues and the meannesses and the misunderstandings in life +assail you,--rise above them. Be like a lighthouse that illumines and +beautifies the snarling, swashing waves of the storm that threaten it, +that seek to undermine it and seek to wash over it. This is Conquest. +When the chance to win fame, wealth, success or the attainment of your +heart's desire, by sacrifice of honor or principle, comes to you and it +does not affect you long enough even to seem a temptation, you have +been the victor. That too is Conquest. And Conquest is part of the +royal road to Happiness. + +Conscience, as the mentor, the guide and compass of every act, leads +ever to Happiness. When the individual can stay alone with his +conscience and get its approval, without using force or specious logic, +then he begins to know what real Happiness is. But the individual must +be careful that he is not appealing to a conscience perverted or +deadened by the wrongdoing and subsequent deafness of its owner. The +man who is honestly seeking to live his life in Consecration, +Concentration and Conquest, living from day to day as best he can, by +the light he has, may rely explicitly on his Conscience. He can shut +his ears to "what the world says" and find in the approval of his own +conscience the highest earthly tribune,--the voice of the Infinite +communing with the Individual. + +Unhappiness is the hunger to get; Happiness is the hunger to give. True +happiness must ever have the tinge of sorrow outlived, the sense of +pain softened by the mellowing years, the chastening of loss that in +the wondrous mystery of time transmutes our suffering into love and +sympathy with others. + +If the individual should set out for a single day to give Happiness, to +make life happier, brighter and sweeter, not for himself, but for +others, he would find a wondrous revelation of what Happiness really +is. The greatest of the world's heroes could not by any series of acts +of heroism do as much real good as any individual living his whole life +in seeking, from day to day, to make others happy. + +Each day there should be fresh resolution, new strength, and renewed +enthusiasm. "Just for Today" might be the daily motto of thousands of +societies throughout the country, composed of members bound together to +make the world better through constant simple acts of kindness, +constant deeds of sweetness and love. And Happiness would come to them, +in its highest and best form, not because they would seek to +_absorb_ it, but,--because they seek to _radiate_ it. + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Majesty of Calmness, by William George Jordan + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAJESTY OF CALMNESS *** + +***** This file should be named 6911.txt or 6911.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/9/1/6911/ + +Produced by Curtis A. Weyant, Charles Franks, and the +Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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Weyant, Charles Franks, +and the Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +The Majesty of Calmness + +Individual Problems +and Possibilities... + +by + +William George Jordan + +Author of "The Kingship of Self-Control" + + + + +CONTENTS + + +I. THE MAJESTY OF CALMNESS +II. HURRY, THE SCOURGE OF AMERICA +III. THE POWER OF PERSONAL INFLUENCE +IV. THE DIGNITY OF SELF-RELIANCE +V. FAILURE AS A SUCCESS +VI. DOING OUR BEST AT ALL TIMES +VII. THE ROYAL ROAD TO HAPPINESS + + + + +I + +The Majesty of Calmness + + + +Calmness is the rarest quality in human life. It is the poise of a +great nature, in harmony with itself and its ideals. It is the moral +atmosphere of a life self-centred, self-reliant, and self-controlled. +Calmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and conscious +power,--ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crisis. + +The Sphinx is not a true type of calmness,--petrifaction is not +calmness; it is death, the silencing of all the energies; while no one +lives his life more fully, more intensely and more consciously than the +man who is calm. + +The Fatalist is not calm. He is the coward slave of his environment, +hopelessly surrendering to his present condition, recklessly +indifferent to his future. He accepts his life as a rudderless ship, +drifting on the ocean of time. He has no compass, no chart, no known +port to which he is sailing. His self-confessed inferiority to all +nature is shown in his existence of constant surrender. It is not,-- +calmness. + +The man who is calm has his course in life clearly marked on his chart. +His hand is ever on the helm. Storm, fog, night, tempest, danger, +hidden reefs,--he is ever prepared and ready for them. He is made calm +and serene by the realization that in these crises of his voyage he +needs a clear mind and a cool head; that he has naught to do but to do +each day the best he can by the light he has; that he will never flinch +nor falter for a moment; that, though he may have to tack and leave his +course for a time, he will never drift, he will get back into the true +channel, he will keep ever headed toward his harbor. _When_ he +will reach it, _how_ he will reach it, matters not to him. He +rests in calmness, knowing he has done his best. If his best seem to be +overthrown or overruled, then he must still bow his head,--in calmness. +To no man is permitted to know the future of his life, the finality. +God commits to man ever only new beginnings, new wisdom, and new days +to use the best of his knowledge. + +Calmness comes ever from within. It is the peace and restfulness of the +depths of our nature. The fury of storm and of wind agitate only the +surface of the sea; they can penetrate only two or three hundred feet,-- +below that is the calm, unruffled deep. To be ready for the great +crises of life we must learn serenity in our daily living. Calmness is +the crown of self-control. + +When the worries and cares of the day fret you, and begin to wear upon +you, and you chafe under the friction,--be calm. Stop, rest for a +moment, and let calmness and peace assert themselves. If you let these +irritating outside influences get the better of you, you are confessing +your inferiority to them, by permitting them to dominate you. Study the +disturbing elements, each by itself, bring all the will power of your +nature to bear upon them, and you will find that they will, one by one, +melt into nothingness, like vapors fading before the sun. The glow of +calmness that will then pervade your mind, the tingling sensation of an +inflow of new strength, may be to you the beginning of the revelation +of the supreme calmness that is possible for you. Then, in some great +hour of your life, when you stand face to face with some awful trial, +when the structure of your ambition and life-work crumbles in a moment, +you will be brave. You can then fold your arms calmly, look out +undismayed and undaunted upon the ashes of your hope, upon the wreck of +what you have faithfully built, and with brave heart and unfaltering +voice you may say: "So let it be,--I will build again." + +When the tongue of malice and slander, the persecution of inferiority, +tempts you for just a moment to retaliate, when for an instant you +forget yourself so far as to hunger for revenge,--be calm. When the +grey heron is pursued by its enemy, the eagle, it does not run to +escape; it remains calm, takes a dignified stand, and waits quietly, +facing the enemy unmoved. With the terrific force with which the eagle +makes its attack, the boasted king of birds is often impaled and run +through on the quiet, lance-like bill of the heron. The means that man +takes to kill another's character becomes suicide of his own. + +No man in the world ever attempted to wrong another without being +injured in return,--someway, somehow, sometime. The only weapon of +offence that Nature seems to recognize is the boomerang. Nature keeps +her books admirably; she puts down every item, she closes all accounts +finally, but she does not always balance them at the end of the month. +To the man who is calm, revenge is so far beneath him that he cannot +reach it,--even by stooping. When injured, he does not retaliate; he +wraps around him the royal robes of Calmness, and he goes quietly on +his way. + +When the hand of Death touches the one we hold dearest, paralyzes our +energy, and eclipses the sun of our life, the calmness that has been +accumulating in long years becomes in a moment our refuge, our reserve +strength. + +The most subtle of all temptations is the _seeming_ success of the +wicked. It requires moral courage to see, without flinching, material +prosperity coming to men who are dishonest; to see politicians rise +into prominence, power and wealth by trickery and corruption; to see +virtue in rags and vice in velvets; to see ignorance at a premium, and +knowledge at a discount. To the man who is really calm these puzzles of +life do not appeal. He is living his life as best he can; he is not +worrying about the problems of justice, whose solution must be left to +Omniscience to solve. + +When man has developed the spirit of Calmness until it becomes so +absolutely part of him that his very presence radiates it, he has made +great progress in lite. Calmness cannot be acquired of itself and by +itself; it must come as the culmination of a series of virtues. What +the world needs and what individuals need is a higher standard of +living, a great realizing sense of the privilege and dignity of life, a +higher and nobler conception of individuality. + +With this great sense of calmness permeating an individual, man becomes +able to retire more into himself, away from the noise, the confusion +and strife of the world, which come to his ears only as faint, far-off +rumblings, or as the tumult of the life of a city heard only as a +buzzing hum by the man in a balloon. + +The man who is calm does not selfishly isolate himself from the world, +for he is intensely interested in all that concerns the welfare of +humanity. His calmness is but a Holy of Holies into which he can retire +_from_ the world to get strength to live _in_ the world. He +realizes that the full glory of individuality, the crowning of his +self-control is,--the majesty of calmness. + + + + +II + +Hurry, the Scourge of America + + + +The first sermon in the world was preached at the Creation. It was a +Divine protest against Hurry. It was a Divine object lesson of perfect +law, perfect plan, perfect order, perfect method. Six days of work +carefully planned, scheduled and completed were followed by,--rest. +Whether we accept the story as literal or as figurative, as the account +of successive days or of ages comprising millions of years, matters +little if we but learn the lesson. + +Nature is very un-American. Nature never hurries. Every phase of her +working shows plan, calmness, reliability, and the absence of hurry. +Hurry always implies lack of definite method, confusion, impatience of +slow growth. The Tower of Babel, the world's first skyscraper, was a +failure because of hurry. The workers mistook their arrogant ambition +for inspiration. They had too many builders,--and no architect. They +thought to make up the lack of a head by a superfluity of hands. This +is a characteristic of Hurry. It seeks ever to make energy a substitute +for a clearly defined plan,--the result is ever as hopeless as trying +to transform a hobby-horse into a real steed by brisk riding. + +Hurry is a counterfeit of haste. Haste has an ideal, a distinct aim to +be realized by the quickest, direct methods. Haste has a single compass +upon which it relies for direction and in harmony with which its course +is determined. Hurry says: "I must move faster. I will get three +compasses; I will have them different; I will be guided by all of them. +One of them will probably be right." Hurry never realizes that slow, +careful foundation work is the quickest in the end. + +Hurry has ruined more Americans than has any other word in the +vocabulary of life. It is the scourge of America; and is both a cause +and a result of our high-pressure civilization. Hurry adroitly assumes +so many masquerades of disguise that its identity is not always +recognized. + +Hurry always pays the highest price for everything, and, usually the +goods are not delivered. In the race for wealth men often sacrifice +time, energy, health, home, happiness and honor,--everything that money +cannot buy, the very things that money can never bring back. Hurry is a +phantom of paradoxes. Business men, in their desire to provide for the +future happiness of their family, often sacrifice the present happiness +of wife and children on the altar of Hurry. They forget that their +place in the home should be something greater than being merely "the +man that pays the bills;" they expect consideration and thoughtfulness +that they are not giving. + +We hear too much of a wife's duties to a husband and too little of the +other side of the question. "The wife," they tell us, "should meet her +husband with a smile and a kiss, should tactfully watch his moods and +be ever sweetness and sunshine." Why this continual swinging of the +censer of devotion to the man of business? Why should a woman have to +look up with timid glance at the face of her husband, to "size up his +mood"? Has not her day, too, been one of care, and responsibility, and +watchfulness? Has not mother-love been working over perplexing problems +and worries of home and of the training of the children that wifely +love may make her seek to solve in secret? Is man, then, the weaker sex +that he must be pampered and treated as tenderly as a boil trying to +keep from contact with the world? + +In their hurry to attain some ambition, to gratify the dream of a life, +men often throw honor, truth, and generosity to the winds. Politicians +dare to stand by and see a city poisoned with foul water until they +"see where they come in" on a water-works appropriation. If it be +necessary to poison an army,--that, too, is but an incident in the +hurry for wealth. + +This is the Age of the Hothouse. The element of natural growth is +pushed to one side and the hothouse and the force-pump are substituted. +Nature looks on tolerantly as she says: "So far you may go, but no +farther, my foolish children." + +The educational system of to-day is a monumental institution dedicated +to Hurry. The children are forced to go through a series of studies +that sweep the circle of all human wisdom. They are given everything +that the ambitious ignorance of the age can force into their minds; +they are taught everything but the essentials,--how to use their senses +and how to think. Their minds become congested by a great mass of +undigested facts, and still the cruel, barbarous forcing goes on. You +watch it until it seems you cannot stand it a moment longer, and you +instinctively put out your hand and say: "Stop! This modern slaughter +of the Innocents must _not_ go on!" Education smiles suavely, +waves her hand complacently toward her thousands of knowledge-prisons +over the country, and says: "Who are you that dares speak a word +against our sacred, school system?" Education is in a hurry. Because +she fails in fifteen years to do what half the time should accomplish +by better methods, she should not be too boastful. Incompetence is not +always a reason for pride. And they hurry the children into a hundred +textbooks, then into ill-health, then into the colleges, then into a +diploma, then into life,--with a dazed mind, untrained and unfitted for +the real duties of living. + +Hurry is the deathblow to calmness, to dignity, to poise. The old-time +courtesy went out when the new-time hurry came in. Hurry is the father +of dyspepsia. In the rush of our national life, the bolting of food has +become a national vice. The words "Quick Lunches" might properly be +placed on thousands of headstones in our cemeteries. Man forgets that +he is the only animal that dines; the others merely feed. Why does he +abrogate his right to dine and go to the end of the line with the mere +feeders? His self-respecting stomach rebels, and expresses its +indignation by indigestion. Then man has to go through life with a +little bottle of pepsin tablets in his vest-pocket. He is but another +victim to this craze for speed. Hurry means the breakdown of the +nerves. It is the royal road to nervous prostration. + +Everything that is great in life is the product of slow growth; the +newer, and greater, and higher, and nobler the work, the slower is its +growth, the surer is its lasting success. Mushrooms attain their full +power in a night; oaks require decades. A fad lives its life in a few +weeks; a philosophy lives through generations and centuries. If you are +sure you are right, do not let the voice of the world, or of friends, +or of family swerve you for a moment from your purpose. Accept slow +growth if it must be slow, and know the results _must_ come, as +you would accept the long, lonely hours of the night,--with absolute +assurance that the heavy-leaded moments _must_ bring the morning. + +Let us as individuals banish the word "Hurry" from our lives. Let us +care for nothing so much that we would pay honor and self-respect as +the price of hurrying it. Let us cultivate calmness, restfulness, +poise, sweetness,--doing our best, bearing all things as bravely as we +can; living our life undisturbed by the prosperity of the wicked or the +malice of the envious. Let us not be impatient, chafing at delay, +fretting over failure, wearying over results, and weakening under +opposition. Let us ever turn our face toward the future with confidence +and trust, with the calmness of a life in harmony with itself, true to +its ideals, and slowly and constantly progressing toward their +realization. + +Let us see that cowardly word Hurry in all its most degenerating +phases, let us see that it ever kills truth, loyalty, thoroughness; and +let us determine that, day by day, we will seek more and more to +substitute for it the calmness and repose of a true life, nobly lived. + + + + +III + +The Power of Personal Influence + + + +The only responsibility that a man cannot evade in this life is the one +he thinks of least,--his personal influence. Man's conscious influence, +when he is on dress-parade, when he is posing to impress those around +him,--is woefully small. But his unconscious influence, the silent, +subtle radiation of his personality, the effect of his words and acts, +the trifles he never considers,--is tremendous. Every moment of life he +is changing to a degree the life of the whole world. Every man has an +atmosphere which is affecting every other. So silent and unconsciously +is this influence working, that man may forget that it exists. + +All the forces of Nature,--heat, light, electricity and gravitation,-- +are silent and invisible. We never _see_ them; we only know that +they exist by seeing the effects they produce. In all Nature the +wonders of the "seen" are dwarfed into insignificance when compared +with the majesty and glory of the "unseen." The great sun itself does +not supply enough heat and light to sustain animal and vegetable life +on the earth. We are dependent for nearly half of our light and heat +upon the stars, and the greater part of this supply of life-giving +energy comes from _invisible_ stars, millions of miles from the +earth. In a thousand ways Nature constantly seeks to lead men to a +keener and deeper realization of the power and the wonder of the +invisible. + +Into the hands of every individual is given a marvellous power for good +or for evil,--the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. +This is simply the constant radiation of what a man really _is_, +not what he pretends to be. Every man, by his mere living, is radiating +sympathy, or sorrow, or morbidness, or cynicism, or happiness, or hope, +or any of a hundred other qualities. Life is a state of constant +radiation and absorption; to exist is to radiate; to exist is to be the +recipient of radiations. + +There are men and women whose presence seems to radiate sunshine, cheer +and optimism. You feel calmed and rested and restored in a moment to a +new and stronger faith in humanity. There are others who focus in an +instant all your latent distrust, morbidness and rebellion against +life. Without knowing why, you chafe and fret in their presence. You +lose your bearings on life and its problems. Your moral compass is +disturbed and unsatisfactory. It is made untrue in an instant, as the +magnetic needle of a ship is deflected when it passes near great +mountains of iron ore. + +There are men who float down the stream of life like icebergs,--cold, +reserved, unapproachable and self-contained. In their presence you +involuntarily draw your wraps closer around you, as you wonder who left +the door open. These refrigerated human beings have a most depressing +influence on all those who fall under the spell of their radiated +chilliness. But there are other natures, warm, helpful, genial, who are +like the Gulf Stream, following their own course, flowing undaunted and +undismayed in the ocean of colder waters. Their presence brings warmth +and life and the glow of sunshine, the joyous, stimulating breath of +spring. There are men who are like malarious swamps,--poisonous, +depressing and weakening by their very presence. They make heavy, +oppressive and gloomy the atmosphere of their own homes; the sound of +the children's play is stilled, the ripples of laughter are frozen by +their presence. They go through life as if each day were a new big +funeral, and they were always chief mourners. There are other men who +seem like the ocean; they are constantly bracing, stimulating, giving +new draughts of tonic life and strength by their very presence. + +There are men who are insincere in heart, and that insincerity is +radiated by their presence. They have a wondrous interest in your +welfare,--when they need you. They put on a "property" smile so +suddenly, when it serves their purpose, that it seems the smile must be +connected with some electric button concealed in their clothes. Their +voice has a simulated cordiality that long training may have made +almost natural. But they never play their part absolutely true, the +mask _will_ slip down sometimes; their cleverness cannot teach +their eyes the look of sterling honesty; they may deceive some people, +but they cannot deceive all. There is a subtle power of revelation +which makes us say: "Well, I cannot explain how it is, but I know that +man is not honest." + +Man cannot escape for one moment from this radiation of his character, +this constantly weakening or strengthening of others. He cannot evade +the responsibility by saying it is an unconscious influence. He can +_select_ the qualities that he will permit to be radiated. He can +cultivate sweetness, calmness, trust, generosity, truth, justice, +loyalty, nobility,--make them vitally active in his character,--and by +these qualities he will constantly affect the world. + +Discouragement often comes to honest souls trying to live the best they +can, in the thought that they are doing so little good in the world. +Trifles unnoted by us may be links in the chain of some great purpose. +In 1797, William Godwin wrote The Inquirer, a collection of +revolutionary essays on morals and politics. This book influenced +Thomas Malthus to write his Essay on Population, published in 1798. +Malthus' book suggested to Charles Darwin a point of view upon which he +devoted many years of his life, resulting, in 1859, in the publication +of The Origin of Species,--the most influential book of the nineteenth +century, a book that has revolutionized all science. These were but +three links of influence extending over sixty years. It might be +possible to trace this genealogy of influence back from Godwin, through +generation and generation, to the word or act of some shepherd in early +Britain, watching his flock upon the hills, living his quiet life, and +dying with the thought that he had done nothing to help the world. + +Men and women have duties to others,--and duties to themselves. In +justice to ourselves we should refuse to live in an atmosphere that +keeps us from living our best. If the fault be in us, we should master +it. If it be the personal influence of others that, like a noxious +vapor, kills our best impulses, we should remove from that influence,-- +if we can _possibly_ move without forsaking duties. If it be wrong +to move, then we should take strong doses of moral quinine to counteract +the malaria of influence. It is not what those around us _do_ for +us that counts,--it is what they _are_ to us. We carry our house- +plants from one window to another to give them the proper heat, light, +air and moisture. Should we not be at least as careful of ourselves? + +To make our influence felt we must live our faith, we must practice +what we believe. A magnet does not attract iron, as iron. It must first +convert the iron into another magnet before it can attract it. It is +useless for a parent to try to teach gentleness to her children when +she herself is cross and irritable. The child who is told to be +truthful and who hears a parent lie cleverly to escape some little +social unpleasantness is not going to cling very zealously to truth. +The parent's words say "don't lie," the influence of the parent's life +says "do lie." + +No man can ever isolate himself to evade this constant power of +influence, as no single corpuscle can rebel and escape from the general +course of the blood. No individual is so insignificant as to be without +influence. The changes in our varying moods are all recorded in the +delicate barometers of the lives of others. We should ever let our +influence filter through human love and sympathy. We should not be +merely an influence,--we should be an inspiration. By our very presence +we should be a tower of strength to the hungering human souls around +us. + + + + +IV + +The Dignity of Self-Reliance + + + +Self-confidence, without self-reliance, is as useless as a cooking +recipe,--without food. Self-confidence sees the possibilities of the +individual; self-reliance realizes them. Self-confidence sees the angel +in the unhewn block of marble; self-reliance carves it out for himself. + +The man who is self-reliant says ever: "No one can realize my +possibilities for me, but me; no one can make me good or evil but +myself." He works out his own salvation,--financially, socially, +mentally, physically, and morally. Life is an individual problem that +man must solve for himself. Nature accepts no vicarious sacrifice, no +vicarious service. Nature never recognizes a proxy vote. She has +nothing to do with middle-men,--she deals only with the individual. +Nature is constantly seeking to show man that he is his own best +friend, or his own worst enemy. Nature gives man the option on which he +will be to himself. + +All the athletic exercises in the world are of no value to the +individual unless he compel those bars and dumb-bells to yield to him, +in strength and muscle, the power for which he, himself, pays in time +and effort. He can never develop his muscles by sending his valet to a +gymnasium. + +The medicine-chests of the world are powerless, in all the united +efforts, to help the individual until he reach out and take for himself +what is needed for his individual weakness. + +All the religions of the world are but speculations in morals, mere +theories of salvation, until the individual realize that he must save +himself by relying on the law of truth, as he sees it, and living his +life in harmony with it, as fully as he can. But religion is not a +Pullman car, with soft-cushioned seats, where he has but to pay for his +ticket,--and some one else does all the rest. In religion, as in all +other great things, he is ever thrown back on his self-reliance. He +should accept all helps, but,--he must live his own life. He should not +feel that he is a mere passenger; he is the engineer, and the train is +his life. We must rely on ourselves, live our own lives, or we merely +drift through existence,--losing all that is best, all that is +greatest, all that is divine. + +All that others can do for us is to give us opportunity. We must ever +be prepared for the opportunity when it comes, and to go after it and +find it when it does not come, or that opportunity is to us,--nothing. +Life is but a succession of opportunities. They are for good or evil,-- +as we make them. + +Many of the alchemists of old felt that they lacked but one element; if +they could obtain that one, they believed they could transmute the +baser metals into pure gold. It is so in character. There are +individuals with rare mental gifts, and delicate spiritual discernment +who fail utterly in life because they lack the one element,--self- +reliance. This would unite all their energies, and focus them into +strength and power. + +The man who is not self-reliant is weak, hesitating and doubting in all +he does. He fears to take a decisive step, because he dreads failure, +because he is waiting for some one to advise him or because he dare not +act in accordance with his own best judgment. In his cowardice and his +conceit he sees all his non-success due to others. He is "not +appreciated," "not recognized," he is "kept down." He feels that in +some subtle way "society is conspiring against him." He grows almost +vain as he thinks that no one has had such poverty, such sorrow, such +affliction, such failure as have come to him. + +The man who is self-reliant seeks ever to discover and conquer the +weakness within him that keeps him from the attainment of what he holds +dearest; he seeks within himself the power to battle against all +outside influences. He realizes that all the greatest men in history, +in every phase of human effort, have been those who have had to fight +against the odds of sickness, suffering, sorrow. To him, defeat is no +more than passing through a tunnel is to a traveller,--he knows he must +emerge again into the sunlight. + +The nation that is strongest is the one that is most self-reliant, the +one that contains within its boundaries all that its people need. If, +with its ports all blockaded it has not within itself the necessities +of life and the elements of its continual progress then,--it is weak, +held by the enemy, and it is but a question of time till it must +surrender. Its independence is in proportion to its self-reliance, to +its power to sustain itself from within. What is true of nations is +true of individuals. The history of nations is but the biography of +individuals magnified, intensified, multiplied, and projected on the +screen of the past. History is the biography of a nation; biography is +the history of an individual. So it must be that the individual who is +most strong in any trial, sorrow or need is he who can live from his +inherent strength, who needs no scaffolding of commonplace sympathy to +uphold him. He must ever be self-reliant. + +The wealth and prosperity of ancient Rome, relying on her slaves to do +the real work of the nation, proved the nation's downfall. The constant +dependence on the captives of war to do the thousand details of life +for them, killed self-reliance in the nation and in the individual. +Then, through weakened self-reliance and the increased opportunity for +idle, luxurious ease that came with it, Rome, a nation of fighters, +became,--a nation of men more effeminate than women. As we depend on +others to do those things we should do for ourselves, our self-reliance +weakens and our powers and our control of them becomes continuously +less. + +Man to be great must be self-reliant. Though he may not be so in all +things, he must be self-reliant in the one in which he would be great. +This self-reliance is not the self-sufficiency of conceit. It is daring +to stand alone. Be an oak, not a vine. Be ready to give support, but do +not crave it; do not be dependent on it. To develop your true self- +reliance, you must see from the very beginning that life is a battle +you must fight for yourself,--you must be your own soldier. You cannot +buy a substitute, you cannot win a reprieve, you can never be placed on +the retired list. The retired list of life is,--death. The world is +busy with its own cares, sorrows and joys, and pays little heed to you. +There is but one great password to success,--self-reliance. + +If you would learn to converse, put yourself into positions where you +_must_ speak. If you would conquer your morbidness, mingle with +the bright people around you, no matter how difficult it may be. If you +desire the power that some one else possesses, do not envy his +strength, and dissipate your energy by weakly wishing his force were +yours. Emulate the process by which it became his, depend on your self- +reliance, pay the price for it, and equal power may be yours. The +individual must look upon himself as an investment, of untold +possibilities if rightly developed,--a mine whose resources can never +be known but by going down into it and bringing out what is hidden. + +Man can develop his self-reliance by seeking constantly to surpass +himself. We try too much to surpass others. If we seek ever to surpass +ourselves, we are moving on a uniform line of progress, that gives a +harmonious unifying to our growth in all its parts. Daniel Morrell, at +one time President of the Cambria Rail Works, that employed 7,000 men +and made a rail famed throughout the world, was asked the secret of the +great success of the works. "We have no secret," he said, "but this,-- +we always try to beat our last batch of rails." Competition is good, +but it has its danger side. There is a tendency to sacrifice real worth +to mere appearance, to have seeming rather than reality. But the true +competition is the competition of the individual with himself,--his +present seeking to excel his past. This means real growth from within. +Self-reliance develops it, and it develops self-reliance. Let the +individual feel thus as to his own progress and possibilities, and he +can almost create his life as he will. Let him never fall down in +despair at dangers and sorrows at a distance; they may be harmless, +like Bunyan's stone lions, when he nears them. + +The man who is self-reliant does not live in the shadow of some one +else's greatness; he thinks for himself, depends on himself, and acts +for himself. In throwing the individual thus back upon himself it is +not shutting his eyes to the stimulus and light and new life that come +with the warm pressure of the hand, the kindly word and the sincere +expressions of true friendship. But true friendship is rare; its great +value is in a crisis,--like a lifeboat. Many a boasted friend has +proved a leaking, worthless "lifeboat" when the storm of adversity +might make him useful. In these great crises of life, man is strong +only as he is strong from within, and the more he depends on himself +the stronger will he become, and the more able will he be to help +others in the hour of their need. His very life will be a constant help +and a strength to others, as he becomes to them a living lesson of the +dignity of self-reliance. + + + + +V + +Failure as a Success + + + +It ofttimes requires heroic courage to face fruitless effort, to take +up the broken strands of a life-work, to look bravely toward the +future, and proceed undaunted on our way. But what, to our eyes, may +seem hopeless failure is often but the dawning of a greater success. It +may contain in its debris the foundation material of a mighty purpose, +or the revelation of new and higher possibilities. + +Some years ago, it was proposed to send logs from Canada to New York, +by a new method. The ingenious plan of Mr. Joggins was to bind great +logs together by cables and iron girders and to tow the cargo as a +raft. When the novel craft neared New York and success seemed assured, +a terrible storm arose. In the fury of the tempest, the iron bands +snapped like icicles and the angry waters scattered the logs far and +wide. The chief of the Hydrographic Department at Washington heard of +the failure of the experiment, and at once sent word to shipmasters the +world over, urging them to watch carefully for these logs which he +described; and to note the precise location of each in latitude and +longitude and the time the observation was made. + +Hundreds of captains, sailing over the waters of the earth, noted the +logs, in the Atlantic Ocean, in the Mediterranean, in the South Seas-- +for into all waters did these venturesome ones travel. Hundreds of +reports were made, covering a period of weeks and months. These +observations were then carefully collated, systematized and tabulated, +and discoveries were made as to the course of ocean currents that +otherwise would have been impossible. The loss of the Joggins raft was +not a real failure, for it led to one of the great discoveries in +modern marine geography and navigation. + +In our superior knowledge we are disposed to speak in a patronizing +tone of the follies of the alchemists of old. But their failure to +transmute the baser metals into gold resulted in the birth of +chemistry. They did not succeed in what they attempted, but they +brought into vogue the natural processes of sublimation, filtration, +distillation, and crystallization; they invented the alembic, the +retort, the sand-bath, the water-bath and other valuable instruments. +To them is due the discovery of antimony, sulphuric ether and +phosphorus, the cupellation of gold and silver, the determining of the +properties of saltpetre and its use in gunpowder, and the discovery of +the distillation of essential oils. This was the success of failure, a +wondrous process of Nature for the highest growth,--a mighty lesson of +comfort, strength, and encouragement if man would only realize and +accept it. + +Many of our failures sweep us to greater heights of success, than we +ever hoped for in our wildest dreams. Life is a successive unfolding of +success from failure. In discovering America Columbus failed +absolutely. His ingenious reasoning and experiment led him to believe +that by sailing westward he would reach India. Every redman in America +carries in his name "Indian," the perpetuation of the memory of the +failure of Columbus. The Genoese navigator did not reach India; the +cargo of "souvenirs" he took back to Spain to show to Ferdinand and +Isabella as proofs of his success, really attested his failure. But the +discovery of America was a greater success than was any finding of a +"back-door" to India. + +When David Livingstone had supplemented his theological education by a +medical course, he was ready to enter the missionary field. For over +three years he had studied tirelessly, with all energies concentrated +on one aim,--to spread the gospel in China. The hour came when he was +ready to start out with noble enthusiasm for his chosen work, to +consecrate himself and his life to his unselfish ambition. Then word +came from China that the "opium war" would make it folly to attempt to +enter the country. Disappointment and failure did not long daunt him; +he offered himself as missionary to Africa,--and he was accepted. His +glorious failure to reach China opened a whole continent to light and +truth. His study proved an ideal preparation for his labors as +physician, explorer, teacher and evangel in the wilds of Africa. + +Business reverses and the failure of his partner threw upon the broad +shoulders and the still broader honor and honesty of Sir Walter Scott a +burden of responsibility that forced him to write. The failure spurred +him to almost super-human effort. The masterpieces of Scotch historic +fiction that have thrilled, entertained and uplifted millions of his +fellow-men are a glorious monument on the field of a seeming failure. + +When Millet, the painter of the "Angelus" worked on his almost divine +canvas, in which the very air seems pulsing with the regenerating +essence of spiritual reverence, he was painting against time, he was +antidoting sorrow, he was racing against death. His brush strokes, put +on in the early morning hours before going to his menial duties as a +railway porter, in the dusk like that perpetuated on his canvas,--meant +strength, food and medicine for the dying wife he adored. The art +failure that cast him into the depths of poverty unified with +marvellous intensity all the finer elements of his nature. This rare +spiritual unity, this purging of all the dross of triviality as he +passed through the furnace of poverty, trial, and sorrow gave eloquence +to his brush and enabled him to paint as never before,--as no +prosperity would have made possible. + +Failure is often the turning-point, the pivot of circumstance that +swings us to higher levels. It may not be financial success, it may not +be fame; it may be new draughts of spiritual, moral or mental +inspiration that will change us for all the later years of our life. +Life is not really what comes to us, but what we get from it. + +Whether man has had wealth or poverty, failure or success, counts for +little when it is past. There is but one question for him to answer, to +face boldly and honestly as an individual alone with his conscience and +his destiny: + +"How will I let that poverty or wealth affect me? If that trial or +deprivation has left me better, truer, nobler, then,--poverty has been +riches, failure has been a success. If wealth has come to me and has +made me vain, arrogant, contemptuous, uncharitable, cynical, closing +from me all the tenderness of life, all the channels of higher +development, of possible good to my fellow-man, making me the mere +custodian of a money-bag, then,--wealth has lied to me, it has been +failure, not success; it has not been riches, it has been dark, +treacherous poverty that stole from me even Myself." All things become +for us then what we take from them. + +Failure is one of God's educators. It is experience leading man to +higher things; it is the revelation of a way, a path hitherto unknown +to us. The best men in the world, those who have made the greatest real +successes look back with serene happiness on their failures. The +turning of the face of Time shows all things in a wondrously +illuminated and satisfying perspective. + +Many a man is thankful to-day that some petty success for which he once +struggled, melted into thin air as his hand sought to clutch it. +Failure is often the rock-bottom foundation of real success. If man, in +a few instances of his life can say, "Those failures were the best +things in the world that could have happened to me," should he not face +new failures with undaunted courage and trust that the miraculous +ministry of Nature may transform these new stumbling-blocks into new +stepping-stones? + +Our highest hopes, are often destroyed to prepare us for better things. +The failure of the caterpillar is the birth of the butterfly; the +passing of the bud is the becoming of the rose; the death or +destruction of the seed is the prelude to its resurrection as wheat. It +is at night, in the darkest hours, those preceding dawn, that plants +grow best, that they most increase in size. May this not be one of +Nature's gentle showings to man of the times when he grows best, of the +darkness of failure that is evolving into the sunlight of success. Let +us fear only the failure of not living the right as we see it, leaving +the results to the guardianship of the Infinite. + +If we think of any supreme moment of our lives, any great success, any +one who is dear to us, and then consider how we reached that moment, +that success, that friend, we will be surprised and strengthened by the +revelation. As we trace each one, back, step by step, through the +genealogy of circumstances, we will see how logical has been the course +of our joy and success, from sorrow and failure, and that what gives us +most happiness to-day is inextricably connected with what once caused +us sorrow. Many of the rivers of our greatest prosperity and growth +have had their source and their trickling increase into volume among +the dark, gloomy recesses of our failure. + +There is no honest and true work, carried along with constant and +sincere purpose that ever really fails. If it sometime seem to be +wasted effort, it will prove to us a new lesson of "how" to walk; the +secret of our failures will prove to us the inspiration of possible +successes. Man living with the highest aims, ever as best he can, in +continuous harmony with them, is a success, no matter what statistics +of failure a near-sighted and half-blind world of critics and +commentators may lay at his door. + +High ideals, noble efforts will make seeming failures but trifles, they +need not dishearten us; they should prove sources of new strength. The +rocky way may prove safer than the slippery path of smoothness. Birds +cannot fly best with the wind but against it; ships do not progress in +calm, when the sails flap idly against the unstrained masts. + +The alchemy of Nature, superior to that of the Paracelsians, constantly +transmutes the baser metals of failure into the later pure gold of +higher success, if the mind of the worker be kept true, constant and +untiring in the service, and he have that sublime courage that defies +fate to its worst while he does his best. + + + + +VI + +Doing Our Best at All Times + + + +Life is a wondrously complex problem for the individual, until, some +day, in a moment of illumination, he awakens to the great realization +that he can make it simple,--never quite simple, but always simpler. +There are a thousand mysteries of right and wrong that have baffled the +wise men of the ages. There are depths in the great fundamental +questions of the human race that no plummet of philosophy has ever +sounded. There are wild cries of honest hunger for truth that seek to +pierce the silence beyond the grave, but to them ever echo back,--only +a repetition of their unanswered cries. + +To us all, comes, at times, the great note of questioning despair that +darkens our horizon and paralyzes our effort: "If there really be a +God, if eternal justice really rule the world," we say, "why should +life be as it is? Why do some men starve while others feast; why does +virtue often languish in the shadow while vice triumphs in the +sunshine; why does failure so often dog the footsteps of honest effort, +while the success that comes from trickery and dishonor is greeted with +the world's applause? How is it that the loving father of one family is +taken by death, while the worthless incumbrance of another is spared? +Why is there so much unnecessary pain, sorrowing and suffering in the +world--why, indeed, should there be any?" + +Neither philosophy nor religion can give any final satisfactory answer +that is capable of logical demonstration, of absolute proof. There is +ever, even after the best explanations, a residuum of the unexplained. +We must then fall back in the eternal arms of faith, and be wise enough +to say, "I will not be disconcerted by these problems of life, I will +not permit them to plunge me into doubt, and to cloud my life with +vagueness and uncertainty. Man arrogates much to himself when he +demands from the Infinite the full solution of all His mysteries. I +will found my life on the impregnable rock of a simple fundamental +truth:--'This glorious creation with its millions of wondrous phenomena +pulsing ever in harmony with eternal law must have a Creator, that +Creator must be omniscient and omnipotent. But that Creator Himself +cannot, in justice, demand of any creature more than the best that that +individual can give.' I will do each day, in every moment, the best I +can by the light I have; I will ever seek more light, more perfect +illumination of truth, and ever live as best I can in harmony with the +truth as I see it. If failure come I will meet it bravely; if my +pathway then lie in the shadow of trial, sorrow and suffering, I shall +have the restful peace and the calm strength of one who has done his +best, who can look back upon the past with no pang of regret, and who +has heroic courage in facing the results, whatever they be, knowing +that he could not make them different." + +Upon this life-plan, this foundation, man may erect any superstructure +of religion or philosophy that he conscientiously can erect; he should +add to his equipment for living every shred of strength and +inspiration, moral, mental or spiritual that is in his power to secure. +This simple working faith is opposed to no creed, is a substitute for +none; it is but a primary belief, a citadel, a refuge where the +individual can retire for strength when the battle of life grows hard. + +A mere theory of life, that remains but a theory, is about as useful to +a man, as a gilt-edged menu is to a starving sailor on a raft in mid- +ocean. It is irritating but not stimulating. No rule for higher living +will help a man in the slightest, until he reach out and appropriate it +for himself, until he make it practical in his daily life, until that +seed of theory in his mind blossom into a thousand flowers of thought +and word and act. + +If a man honestly seeks to live his best at all times, that +determination is visible in every moment of his living, no trifle in +his life can be too insignificant to reflect his principle of living. +The sun illuminates and beautifies a fallen leaf by the roadside as +impartially as a towering mountain peak in the Alps. Every drop of +water in the ocean is an epitome of the chemistry of the whole ocean; +every drop is subject to precisely the same laws as dominate the united +infinity of billions of drops that make that miracle of Nature, men +call the Sea. No matter how humble the calling of the individual, how +uninteresting and dull the round of his duties, he should do his best. +He should dignify what he is doing by the mind he puts into it, he +should vitalize what little he has of power or energy or ability or +opportunity, in order to prepare himself to be equal to higher +privileges when they come. This will never lead man to that weak +content that is satisfied with whatever falls to his lot. It will +rather fill his mind with that divine discontent that cheerfully +accepts the best,--merely as a temporary substitute for something +better. + +The man who is seeking ever to do his best is the man who is keen, +active, wide-awake, and aggressive. He is ever watchful of himself in +trifles; his standard is not "What will the world say?" but "Is it +worthy of me?" + +Edwin Booth, one of the greatest actors on the American stage, would +never permit himself to assume an ungraceful attitude, even in his +hours of privacy. In this simple thing, he ever lived his best. On the +stage every move was one of unconscious grace. Those of his company who +were conscious of their motions were the awkward ones, who were seeking +in public to undo or to conceal the carelessness of the gestures and +motions of their private life. The man who is slipshod and thoughtless +in his daily speech, whose vocabulary is a collection of anaemic +commonplaces, whose repetitions of phrases and extravagance of +interjections act but as feeble disguises to his lack of ideas, will +never be brilliant on an occasion when he longs to outshine the stars. +Living at one's best is constant preparation for instant use. It can +never make one over-precise, self-conscious, affected, or priggish. +Education, in its highest sense, is _conscious_ training of mind +or body to act _unconsciously_. It is conscious formation of +mental habits, not mere acquisition of information. + +One of the many ways in which the individual unwisely eclipses himself, +is in his worship of the fetich of luck. He feels that all others are +lucky, and that whatever he attempts, fails. He does not realize the +untiring energy, the unremitting concentration, the heroic courage, the +sublime patience that is the secret of some men's success. Their "luck" +was that they had prepared themselves to be equal to their opportunity +when it came and were awake to recognize it and receive it. His own +opportunity came and departed unnoted, it would not waken him from his +dreams of some untold wealth that would fall into his lap. So he grows +discouraged and envies those whom he should emulate, and he bandages +his arm and chloroforms his energies, and performs his duties in a +perfunctory way, or he passes through life, just ever "sampling" lines +of activity. + +The honest, faithful struggler should always realize that failure is +but an episode in a true man's life,--never the whole story. It is +never easy to meet, and no philosophy can make it so, but the steadfast +courage to master conditions, instead of complaining of them, will help +him on his way; it will ever enable him to get the best out of what he +has. He never knows the long series of vanquished failures that give +solidity to some one else's success; he does not realize the price that +some rich man, the innocent football of political malcontents and +demagogues, has heroicly paid for wealth and position. + +The man who has a pessimist's doubt of all things; who demands a +certified guarantee of his future; who ever fears his work will not be +recognized or appreciated; or that after all, it is really not worth +while, will never live his best. He is dulling his capacity for real +progress by his hypnotic course of excuses for inactivity, instead of a +strong tonic of reasons for action. + +One of the most weakening elements in the individual make-up is the +surrender to the oncoming of years. Man's self-confidence dims and dies +in the fear of age. "This new thought," he says of some suggestion +tending to higher development, "is good; it is what we need. I am glad +to have it for my children; I would have been happy to have had some +such help when I was at school, but it is too late for me. I am a man +advanced in years." + +This is but blind closing of life to wondrous possibilities. The knell +of lost opportunity is never tolled in this life. It is never too late +to recognize truth and to live by it. It requires only greater effort, +closer attention, deeper consecration; but the impossible does not +exist for the man who is self-confident and is willing to pay the price +in time and struggle for his success or development. Later in life, the +assessments are heavier in progress, as in life insurance, but that +matters not to that mighty self-confidence that _will_ not grow +old while knowledge can keep it young. + +Socrates, when his hair whitened with the snow of age, learned to play +on instruments of music. Cato, at fourscore, began his study of Greek, +and the same age saw Plutarch beginning, with the enthusiasm of a boy, +his first lessons in Latin. The Character of Man, Theophrastus' +greatest work, was begun on his ninetieth birthday. Chaucer's +Canterbury Tales was the work of the poet's declining years. Ronsard, +the father of French poetry, whose sonnets even translation cannot +destroy, did not develop his poetic faculty until nearly fifty. +Benjamin Franklin at this age had just taken his really first steps of +importance in philosophic pursuits. Arnauld, the theologian and sage, +translated Josephus in his eightieth year. Winckelmann, one of the most +famous writers on classic antiquities, was the son of a shoemaker, and +lived in obscurity and ignorance until the prime of life. Hobbes, the +English philosopher, published his version of the Odyssey in his +eighty-seventh year, and his Iliad one year later. Chevreul, the great +French scientist, whose untiring labors in the realm of color have so +enriched the world, was busy, keen and active when Death called him, at +the age of 103. + +These men did not fear age; these few names from the great muster-roll +of the famous ones who defied the years, should be voices of hope and +heartening to every individual whose courage and confidence is weak. +The path of truth, higher living, truer development in every phase of +life, is never shut from the individual--until he closes it himself. +Let man feel this, believe it and make this faith a real and living +factor in his life and there are no limits to his progress. He has but +to live his best at all times, and rest calm and untroubled no matter +what results come to his efforts. The constant looking backward to what +might have been, instead of forward to what may be, is a great weakener +of self-confidence. This worry for the old past, this wasted energy, +for that which no power in the world can restore, ever lessens the +individual's faith in himself, weakens his efforts to develop himself +for the future to the perfection of his possibilities. + +Nature in her beautiful love and tenderness, says to man, weakened and +worn and weary with the struggle, "Do in the best way you can the +trifle that is under your hand at this moment; do it in the best spirit +of preparation for the future your thought suggests; bring all the +light of knowledge from all the past to aid you. Do this and you have +done your best. The past is forever closed to you. It is closed forever +to you. No worry, no struggle, no suffering, no agony of despair can +alter it. It is as much beyond your power as if it were a million years +of eternity behind you. Turn all that past, with its sad hours, +weakness and sin, its wasted opportunities as light; in confidence and +hope, upon the future. Turn it all in fuller truth and light so as to +make each trifle of this present a new past it will be joy to look back +to; each trifle a grander, nobler, and more perfect preparation for the +future. The present and the future you can make from it, is yours; the +past has gone back, with all its messages, all its history, all its +records to the God who loaned you the golden moments to use in +obedience to His law." + + + + +VII + +The Royal Road to Happiness + + + +"During my whole life I have not had twenty-four hours of happiness." So +said Prince Bismarck, one of the greatest statesmen of the nineteenth +century. Eighty-three years of wealth, fame, honors, power, influence, +prosperity and triumph,--years when he held an empire in his fingers,-- +but not one day of happiness! + +Happiness is the greatest paradox in Nature. It can grow in any soil, +live under any conditions. It defies environment. It comes from within; +it is the revelation of the depths of the inner life as light and heat +proclaim the sun from which they radiate. Happiness consists not of +having, but of being; not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is the +warm glow of a heart at peace with itself. A martyr at the stake may +have happiness that a king on his throne might envy. Man is the creator +of his own happiness; it is the aroma of a life lived in harmony with +high ideals. For what a man _has_, he may be dependent on others; +what he _is_, rests with him alone. What he _ob_tains in life +is but acquisition; what he _at_tains, is growth. Happiness is the +soul's joy in the possession of the intangible. Absolute, perfect, +continuous happiness in life, is impossible for the human. It would +mean the consummation of attainments, the individual consciousness of a +perfectly fulfilled destiny. Happiness is paradoxic because it may +coexist with trial, sorrow and poverty. It is the gladness of the +heart,--rising superior to all conditions. + +Happiness has a number of under-studies,--gratification, satisfaction, +content, and pleasure,--clever imitators that simulate its appearance +rather than emulate its method. Gratification is a harmony between our +desires and our possessions. It is ever incomplete, it is the thankful +acceptance of part. It is a mental pleasure in the quality of what one +receives, an unsatisfiedness as to the quantity. It may be an element +in happiness, but, in itself,--it is not happiness. + +Satisfaction is perfect identity of our desires and our possessions. It +exists only so long as this perfect union and unity can be preserved. +But every realized ideal gives birth to new ideals, every step in +advance reveals large domains of the unattained; every feeding +stimulates new appetites,--then the desires and possessions are no +longer identical, no longer equal; new cravings call forth new +activities, the equipoise is destroyed, and dissatisfaction reenters. +Man might possess everything tangible in the world and yet not be +happy, for happiness is the satisfying of the soul, not of the mind or +the body. Dissatisfaction, in its highest sense, is the keynote of all +advance, the evidence of new aspirations, the guarantee of the +progressive revelation of new possibilities. + +Content is a greatly overrated virtue. It is a kind of diluted despair; +it is the feeling with which we continue to accept substitutes, without +striving for the realities. Content makes the trained individual +swallow vinegar and try to smack his lips as if it were wine. Content +enables one to warm his hands at the fire of a past joy that exists +only in memory. Content is a mental and moral chloroform that deadens +the activities of the individual to rise to higher planes of life and +growth. Man should never be contented with anything less than the best +efforts of his nature can possibly secure for him. Content makes the +world more comfortable for the individual, but it is the death-knell of +progress. Man should be content with each step of progress merely as a +station, discontented with it as a destination; contented with it as a +step; discontented with it as a finality. There are times when a man +should be content with what he _has_, but never with what he +_is_. + +But content is not happiness; neither is pleasure. Pleasure is +temporary, happiness is continuous; pleasure is a note, happiness is a +symphony; pleasure may exist when conscience utters protests; +happiness,--never. Pleasure may have its dregs and its lees; but none +can be found in the cup of happiness. + +Man is the only animal that can be really happy. To the rest of the +creation belong only weak imitations of the understudies. Happiness +represents a peaceful attunement of a life with a standard of living. +It can never be made by the individual, by himself, for himself. It is +one of the incidental by-products of an unselfish life. No man can make +his own happiness the one object of his life and attain it, any more +than he can jump on the far end of his shadow. If you would hit the +bull's-eye of happiness on the target of life, aim above it. Place +other things higher than your own happiness and it will surely come to +you. You can buy pleasure, you can acquire content, you can become +satisfied,--but Nature never put real happiness on the bargain-counter. +It is the undetachable accompaniment of true living. It is calm and +peaceful; it never lives in an atmosphere of worry or of hopeless +struggle. + +The basis of happiness is the love of something outside self. Search +every instance of happiness in the world, and you will find, when all +the incidental features are eliminated, there is always the constant, +unchangeable element of love,--love of parent for child; love of man +and woman for each other; love of humanity in some form, or a great +life work into which the individual throws all his energies. + +Happiness is the voice of optimism, of faith, of simple, steadfast +love. No cynic or pessimist can be really happy. A cynic is a man who +is morally near-sighted,--and brags about it. He sees the evil in his +own heart, and thinks he sees the world. He lets a mote in his eye +eclipse the sun. An incurable cynic is an individual who should long +for death,--for life cannot bring him happiness, death might. The +keynote of Bismarck's lack of happiness was his profound distrust of +human nature. + +There is a royal road to happiness; it lies in Consecration, +Concentration, Conquest and Conscience. + +Consecration is dedicating the individual life to the service of +others, to some noble mission, to realizing some unselfish ideal. Life +is not something to be lived _through_; it is something to be +lived _up to_. It is a privilege, not a penal servitude of so many +decades on earth. Consecration places the object of life above the mere +acquisition of money, as a finality. The man who is unselfish, kind, +loving, tender, helpful, ready to lighten the burden of those around +him, to hearten the struggling ones, to forget himself sometimes in +remembering others,--is on the right road to happiness. Consecration is +ever active, bold and aggressive, fearing naught but possible +disloyalty to high ideals. + +Concentration makes the individual life simpler and deeper. It cuts +away the shams and pretences of modern living and limits life to its +truest essentials. Worry, fear, useless regret,--all the great wastes +that sap mental, moral or physical energy must be sacrificed, or the +individual needlessly destroys half the possibilities of living. A +great purpose in life, something that unifies the strands and threads +of each day's thinking, something that takes the sting from the petty +trials, sorrows, sufferings and blunders of life, is a great aid to +Concentration. Soldiers in battle may forget their wounds, or even be +unconscious of them, in the inspiration of battling for what they +believe is right. Concentration dignifies an humble life; it makes a +great life,--sublime. In morals it is a short-cut to simplicity. It +leads to right for right's sake, without thought of policy or of +reward. It brings calm and rest to the individual,--a serenity that is +but the sunlight of happiness. + +Conquest is the overcoming of an evil habit, the rising superior to +opposition and attack, the spiritual exaltation that comes from +resisting the invasion of the grovelling material side of life. +Sometimes when you are worn and weak with the struggle; when it seems +that justice is a dream, that honesty and loyalty and truth count for +nothing, that the devil is the only good paymaster; when hope grows dim +and flickers, then is the time when you must tower in the great sublime +faith that Right must prevail, then must you throttle these imps of +doubt and despair, you must master yourself to master the world around +you. This is Conquest; this is what counts. Even a log can float with +the current, it takes a man to fight sturdily against an opposing tide +that would sweep his craft out of its course. When the jealousies, the +petty intrigues and the meannesses and the misunderstandings in life +assail you,--rise above them. Be like a lighthouse that illumines and +beautifies the snarling, swashing waves of the storm that threaten it, +that seek to undermine it and seek to wash over it. This is Conquest. +When the chance to win fame, wealth, success or the attainment of your +heart's desire, by sacrifice of honor or principle, comes to you and it +does not affect you long enough even to seem a temptation, you have +been the victor. That too is Conquest. And Conquest is part of the +royal road to Happiness. + +Conscience, as the mentor, the guide and compass of every act, leads +ever to Happiness. When the individual can stay alone with his +conscience and get its approval, without using force or specious logic, +then he begins to know what real Happiness is. But the individual must +be careful that he is not appealing to a conscience perverted or +deadened by the wrongdoing and subsequent deafness of its owner. The +man who is honestly seeking to live his life in Consecration, +Concentration and Conquest, living from day to day as best he can, by +the light he has, may rely explicitly on his Conscience. He can shut +his ears to "what the world says" and find in the approval of his own +conscience the highest earthly tribune,--the voice of the Infinite +communing with the Individual. + +Unhappiness is the hunger to get; Happiness is the hunger to give. True +happiness must ever have the tinge of sorrow outlived, the sense of +pain softened by the mellowing years, the chastening of loss that in +the wondrous mystery of time transmutes our suffering into love and +sympathy with others. + +If the individual should set out for a single day to give Happiness, to +make life happier, brighter and sweeter, not for himself, but for +others, he would find a wondrous revelation of what Happiness really +is. The greatest of the world's heroes could not by any series of acts +of heroism do as much real good as any individual living his whole life +in seeking, from day to day, to make others happy. + +Each day there should be fresh resolution, new strength, and renewed +enthusiasm. "Just for Today" might be the daily motto of thousands of +societies throughout the country, composed of members bound together to +make the world better through constant simple acts of kindness, +constant deeds of sweetness and love. And Happiness would come to them, +in its highest and best form, not because they would seek to +_absorb_ it, but,--because they seek to _radiate_ it. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Majesty of Calmness, by William George Jordan + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAJESTY OF CALMNESS *** + +This file should be named mjcmn10.txt or mjcmn10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, mjcmn11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, mjcmn10a.txt + +Produced by Curtis A. Weyant, Charles Franks, +and the Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/mjcmn10.zip b/old/mjcmn10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..964659c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mjcmn10.zip diff --git a/old/mjcmn10h.htm b/old/mjcmn10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4654601 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mjcmn10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1559 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> +<html> + +<head> + +<title>Project Gutenberg's The Majesty of Calmness, by William George Jordan </title> +<style type="text/css"> +<!-- + h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 { text-align: center; font-variant: small-caps; font-weight: bold } + h1, h2 { margin-top: 2em } + h3, h4 { margin-top: 1.5em } + h5, h6 { margin-top: 1.25em } + + li { font-variant: small-caps } + + p.verse { margin-left: 25px } + + div.index { margin-left: 50px } + div.index p { text-indent: -15px }; +--> +</style> +</head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The Majesty of Calmness, by William George Jordan + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Majesty of Calmness + +Author: William George Jordan + +Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6911] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on February 10, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAJESTY OF CALMNESS *** + + + + +Produced by Curtis A. Weyant, Charles Franks, +and the Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>The Majesty of Calmness</h1> + +<h2>Individual Problems and Possibilities...</h2> + +<p style="text-align: center">by</p> + +<h2>William George Jordan</h2> + +<h3>Author of "The Kingship of Self-Control"</h3> + + + +<h1>Contents</h1> + +<ol style="list-style-type: upper-roman"> + <li><a href="#chap1">The Majesty of Calmness</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap2">Hurry, the Scourge of America</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap3">The Power of Personal Influence</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap4">The Dignity of Self-Reliance</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap5">Failure as a Success</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap6">Doing Our Best at All Times</a></li> + <li><a href="#chap7">The Royal Road to Happiness</a></li> +</ol> + + + +<h1>I<br /> +The Majesty of Calmness</h1> + + + +<p>Calmness is the rarest quality in human life. It is the poise of a +great nature, in harmony with itself and its ideals. It is the moral +atmosphere of a life self-centred, self-reliant, and self-controlled. +Calmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and conscious +power,--ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crisis.</p> + +<p>The Sphinx is not a true type of calmness,--petrifaction is not +calmness; it is death, the silencing of all the energies; while no one +lives his life more fully, more intensely and more consciously than the +man who is calm.</p> + +<p>The Fatalist is not calm. He is the coward slave of his environment, +hopelessly surrendering to his present condition, recklessly +indifferent to his future. He accepts his life as a rudderless ship, +drifting on the ocean of time. He has no compass, no chart, no known +port to which he is sailing. His self-confessed inferiority to all +nature is shown in his existence of constant surrender. It is not,--calmness.</p> + +<p>The man who is calm has his course in life clearly marked on his chart. +His hand is ever on the helm. Storm, fog, night, tempest, danger, +hidden reefs,--he is ever prepared and ready for them. He is made calm +and serene by the realization that in these crises of his voyage he +needs a clear mind and a cool head; that he has naught to do but to do +each day the best he can by the light he has; that he will never flinch +nor falter for a moment; that, though he may have to tack and leave his +course for a time, he will never drift, he will get back into the true +channel, he will keep ever headed toward his harbor. <i>When</i> he +will reach it, <i>how</i> he will reach it, matters not to him. He +rests in calmness, knowing he has done his best. If his best seem to be +overthrown or overruled, then he must still bow his head,--in calmness. +To no man is permitted to know the future of his life, the finality. +God commits to man ever only new beginnings, new wisdom, and new days +to use the best of his knowledge.</p> + +<p>Calmness comes ever from within. It is the peace and restfulness of the +depths of our nature. The fury of storm and of wind agitate only the +surface of the sea; they can penetrate only two or three hundred feet,--below that is the calm, unruffled deep. To be ready for the great +crises of life we must learn serenity in our daily living. Calmness is +the crown of self-control.</p> + +<p>When the worries and cares of the day fret you, and begin to wear upon +you, and you chafe under the friction,--be calm. Stop, rest for a +moment, and let calmness and peace assert themselves. If you let these +irritating outside influences get the better of you, you are confessing +your inferiority to them, by permitting them to dominate you. Study the +disturbing elements, each by itself, bring all the will power of your +nature to bear upon them, and you will find that they will, one by one, +melt into nothingness, like vapors fading before the sun. The glow of +calmness that will then pervade your mind, the tingling sensation of an +inflow of new strength, may be to you the beginning of the revelation +of the supreme calmness that is possible for you. Then, in some great +hour of your life, when you stand face to face with some awful trial, +when the structure of your ambition and life-work crumbles in a moment, +you will be brave. You can then fold your arms calmly, look out +undismayed and undaunted upon the ashes of your hope, upon the wreck of +what you have faithfully built, and with brave heart and unfaltering +voice you may say: "So let it be,--I will build again."</p> + +<p>When the tongue of malice and slander, the persecution of inferiority, +tempts you for just a moment to retaliate, when for an instant you +forget yourself so far as to hunger for revenge,--be calm. When the +grey heron is pursued by its enemy, the eagle, it does not run to +escape; it remains calm, takes a dignified stand, and waits quietly, +facing the enemy unmoved. With the terrific force with which the eagle +makes its attack, the boasted king of birds is often impaled and run +through on the quiet, lance-like bill of the heron. The means that man +takes to kill another's character becomes suicide of his own.</p> + +<p>No man in the world ever attempted to wrong another without being +injured in return,--someway, somehow, sometime. The only weapon of +offence that Nature seems to recognize is the boomerang. Nature keeps +her books admirably; she puts down every item, she closes all accounts +finally, but she does not always balance them at the end of the month. +To the man who is calm, revenge is so far beneath him that he cannot +reach it,--even by stooping. When injured, he does not retaliate; he +wraps around him the royal robes of Calmness, and he goes quietly on +his way.</p> + +<p>When the hand of Death touches the one we hold dearest, paralyzes our +energy, and eclipses the sun of our life, the calmness that has been +accumulating in long years becomes in a moment our refuge, our reserve +strength.</p> + +<p>The most subtle of all temptations is the <i>seeming</i> success of the +wicked. It requires moral courage to see, without flinching, material +prosperity coming to men who are dishonest; to see politicians rise +into prominence, power and wealth by trickery and corruption; to see +virtue in rags and vice in velvets; to see ignorance at a premium, and +knowledge at a discount. To the man who is really calm these puzzles of +life do not appeal. He is living his life as best he can; he is not +worrying about the problems of justice, whose solution must be left to +Omniscience to solve.</p> + +<p>When man has developed the spirit of Calmness until it becomes so +absolutely part of him that his very presence radiates it, he has made +great progress in lite. Calmness cannot be acquired of itself and by +itself; it must come as the culmination of a series of virtues. What +the world needs and what individuals need is a higher standard of +living, a great realizing sense of the privilege and dignity of life, a +higher and nobler conception of individuality.</p> + +<p>With this great sense of calmness permeating an individual, man becomes +able to retire more into himself, away from the noise, the confusion +and strife of the world, which come to his ears only as faint, far-off +rumblings, or as the tumult of the life of a city heard only as a +buzzing hum by the man in a balloon.</p> + +<p>The man who is calm does not selfishly isolate himself from the world, +for he is intensely interested in all that concerns the welfare of +humanity. His calmness is but a Holy of Holies into which he can retire +<i>from</i> the world to get strength to live <i>in</i> the world. He +realizes that the full glory of individuality, the crowning of his +self-control is,--the majesty of calmness.</p> + + +<h1>II<br /> +Hurry, the Scourge of America</h1> + + +<p>The first sermon in the world was preached at the Creation. It was a +Divine protest against Hurry. It was a Divine object lesson of perfect +law, perfect plan, perfect order, perfect method. Six days of work +carefully planned, scheduled and completed were followed by,--rest. +Whether we accept the story as literal or as figurative, as the account +of successive days or of ages comprising millions of years, matters +little if we but learn the lesson.</p> + +<p>Nature is very un-American. Nature never hurries. Every phase of her +working shows plan, calmness, reliability, and the absence of hurry. +Hurry always implies lack of definite method, confusion, impatience of +slow growth. The Tower of Babel, the world's first skyscraper, was a +failure because of hurry. The workers mistook their arrogant ambition +for inspiration. They had too many builders,--and no architect. They +thought to make up the lack of a head by a superfluity of hands. This +is a characteristic of Hurry. It seeks ever to make energy a substitute +for a clearly defined plan,--the result is ever as hopeless as trying +to transform a hobby-horse into a real steed by brisk riding.</p> + +<p>Hurry is a counterfeit of haste. Haste has an ideal, a distinct aim to +be realized by the quickest, direct methods. Haste has a single compass +upon which it relies for direction and in harmony with which its course +is determined. Hurry says: "I must move faster. I will get three +compasses; I will have them different; I will be guided by all of them. +One of them will probably be right." Hurry never realizes that slow, +careful foundation work is the quickest in the end.</p> + +<p>Hurry has ruined more Americans than has any other word in the +vocabulary of life. It is the scourge of America; and is both a cause +and a result of our high-pressure civilization. Hurry adroitly assumes +so many masquerades of disguise that its identity is not always +recognized.</p> + +<p>Hurry always pays the highest price for everything, and, usually the +goods are not delivered. In the race for wealth men often sacrifice +time, energy, health, home, happiness and honor,--everything that money +cannot buy, the very things that money can never bring back. Hurry is a +phantom of paradoxes. Business men, in their desire to provide for the +future happiness of their family, often sacrifice the present happiness +of wife and children on the altar of Hurry. They forget that their +place in the home should be something greater than being merely "the +man that pays the bills;" they expect consideration and thoughtfulness +that they are not giving.</p> + +<p>We hear too much of a wife's duties to a husband and too little of the +other side of the question. "The wife," they tell us, "should meet her +husband with a smile and a kiss, should tactfully watch his moods and +be ever sweetness and sunshine." Why this continual swinging of the +censer of devotion to the man of business? Why should a woman have to +look up with timid glance at the face of her husband, to "size up his +mood"? Has not her day, too, been one of care, and responsibility, and +watchfulness? Has not mother-love been working over perplexing problems +and worries of home and of the training of the children that wifely +love may make her seek to solve in secret? Is man, then, the weaker sex +that he must be pampered and treated as tenderly as a boil trying to +keep from contact with the world?</p> + +<p>In their hurry to attain some ambition, to gratify the dream of a life, +men often throw honor, truth, and generosity to the winds. Politicians +dare to stand by and see a city poisoned with foul water until they +"see where they come in" on a water-works appropriation. If it be +necessary to poison an army,--that, too, is but an incident in the +hurry for wealth.</p> + +<p>This is the Age of the Hothouse. The element of natural growth is +pushed to one side and the hothouse and the force-pump are substituted. +Nature looks on tolerantly as she says: "So far you may go, but no +farther, my foolish children."</p> + +<p>The educational system of to-day is a monumental institution dedicated +to Hurry. The children are forced to go through a series of studies +that sweep the circle of all human wisdom. They are given everything +that the ambitious ignorance of the age can force into their minds; +they are taught everything but the essentials,--how to use their senses +and how to think. Their minds become congested by a great mass of +undigested facts, and still the cruel, barbarous forcing goes on. You +watch it until it seems you cannot stand it a moment longer, and you +instinctively put out your hand and say: "Stop! This modern slaughter +of the Innocents must <i>not</i> go on!" Education smiles suavely, +waves her hand complacently toward her thousands of knowledge-prisons +over the country, and says: "Who are you that dares speak a word +against our sacred, school system?" Education is in a hurry. Because +she fails in fifteen years to do what half the time should accomplish +by better methods, she should not be too boastful. Incompetence is not +always a reason for pride. And they hurry the children into a hundred +textbooks, then into ill-health, then into the colleges, then into a +diploma, then into life,--with a dazed mind, untrained and unfitted for +the real duties of living.</p> + +<p>Hurry is the deathblow to calmness, to dignity, to poise. The old-time +courtesy went out when the new-time hurry came in. Hurry is the father +of dyspepsia. In the rush of our national life, the bolting of food has +become a national vice. The words "Quick Lunches" might properly be +placed on thousands of headstones in our cemeteries. Man forgets that +he is the only animal that dines; the others merely feed. Why does he +abrogate his right to dine and go to the end of the line with the mere +feeders? His self-respecting stomach rebels, and expresses its +indignation by indigestion. Then man has to go through life with a +little bottle of pepsin tablets in his vest-pocket. He is but another +victim to this craze for speed. Hurry means the breakdown of the +nerves. It is the royal road to nervous prostration.</p> + +<p>Everything that is great in life is the product of slow growth; the +newer, and greater, and higher, and nobler the work, the slower is its +growth, the surer is its lasting success. Mushrooms attain their full +power in a night; oaks require decades. A fad lives its life in a few +weeks; a philosophy lives through generations and centuries. If you are +sure you are right, do not let the voice of the world, or of friends, +or of family swerve you for a moment from your purpose. Accept slow +growth if it must be slow, and know the results <i>must</i> come, as +you would accept the long, lonely hours of the night,--with absolute +assurance that the heavy-leaded moments <i>must</i> bring the morning.</p> + +<p>Let us as individuals banish the word "Hurry" from our lives. Let us +care for nothing so much that we would pay honor and self-respect as +the price of hurrying it. Let us cultivate calmness, restfulness, +poise, sweetness,--doing our best, bearing all things as bravely as we +can; living our life undisturbed by the prosperity of the wicked or the +malice of the envious. Let us not be impatient, chafing at delay, +fretting over failure, wearying over results, and weakening under +opposition. Let us ever turn our face toward the future with confidence +and trust, with the calmness of a life in harmony with itself, true to +its ideals, and slowly and constantly progressing toward their +realization.</p> + +<p>Let us see that cowardly word Hurry in all its most degenerating +phases, let us see that it ever kills truth, loyalty, thoroughness; and +let us determine that, day by day, we will seek more and more to +substitute for it the calmness and repose of a true life, nobly lived.</p> + + +<h1>III<br /> +The Power of Personal Influence</h1> + + +<p>The only responsibility that a man cannot evade in this life is the one +he thinks of least,--his personal influence. Man's conscious influence, +when he is on dress-parade, when he is posing to impress those around +him,--is woefully small. But his unconscious influence, the silent, +subtle radiation of his personality, the effect of his words and acts, +the trifles he never considers,--is tremendous. Every moment of life he +is changing to a degree the life of the whole world. Every man has an +atmosphere which is affecting every other. So silent and unconsciously +is this influence working, that man may forget that it exists.</p> + +<p>All the forces of Nature,--heat, light, electricity and gravitation,--are silent and invisible. We never <i>see</i> them; we only know that +they exist by seeing the effects they produce. In all Nature the +wonders of the "seen" are dwarfed into insignificance when compared +with the majesty and glory of the "unseen." The great sun itself does +not supply enough heat and light to sustain animal and vegetable life +on the earth. We are dependent for nearly half of our light and heat +upon the stars, and the greater part of this supply of life-giving +energy comes from <i>invisible</i> stars, millions of miles from the +earth. In a thousand ways Nature constantly seeks to lead men to a +keener and deeper realization of the power and the wonder of the +invisible.</p> + +<p>Into the hands of every individual is given a marvellous power for good +or for evil,--the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. +This is simply the constant radiation of what a man really <i>is</i>, +not what he pretends to be. Every man, by his mere living, is radiating +sympathy, or sorrow, or morbidness, or cynicism, or happiness, or hope, +or any of a hundred other qualities. Life is a state of constant +radiation and absorption; to exist is to radiate; to exist is to be the +recipient of radiations.</p> + +<p>There are men and women whose presence seems to radiate sunshine, cheer +and optimism. You feel calmed and rested and restored in a moment to a +new and stronger faith in humanity. There are others who focus in an +instant all your latent distrust, morbidness and rebellion against +life. Without knowing why, you chafe and fret in their presence. You +lose your bearings on life and its problems. Your moral compass is +disturbed and unsatisfactory. It is made untrue in an instant, as the +magnetic needle of a ship is deflected when it passes near great +mountains of iron ore.</p> + +<p>There are men who float down the stream of life like icebergs,--cold, +reserved, unapproachable and self-contained. In their presence you +involuntarily draw your wraps closer around you, as you wonder who left +the door open. These refrigerated human beings have a most depressing +influence on all those who fall under the spell of their radiated +chilliness. But there are other natures, warm, helpful, genial, who are +like the Gulf Stream, following their own course, flowing undaunted and +undismayed in the ocean of colder waters. Their presence brings warmth +and life and the glow of sunshine, the joyous, stimulating breath of +spring. There are men who are like malarious swamps,--poisonous, +depressing and weakening by their very presence. They make heavy, +oppressive and gloomy the atmosphere of their own homes; the sound of +the children's play is stilled, the ripples of laughter are frozen by +their presence. They go through life as if each day were a new big +funeral, and they were always chief mourners. There are other men who +seem like the ocean; they are constantly bracing, stimulating, giving +new draughts of tonic life and strength by their very presence.</p> + +<p>There are men who are insincere in heart, and that insincerity is +radiated by their presence. They have a wondrous interest in your +welfare,--when they need you. They put on a "property" smile so +suddenly, when it serves their purpose, that it seems the smile must be +connected with some electric button concealed in their clothes. Their +voice has a simulated cordiality that long training may have made +almost natural. But they never play their part absolutely true, the +mask <i>will</i> slip down sometimes; their cleverness cannot teach +their eyes the look of sterling honesty; they may deceive some people, +but they cannot deceive all. There is a subtle power of revelation +which makes us say: "Well, I cannot explain how it is, but I know that +man is not honest."</p> + +<p>Man cannot escape for one moment from this radiation of his character, +this constantly weakening or strengthening of others. He cannot evade +the responsibility by saying it is an unconscious influence. He can +<i>select</i> the qualities that he will permit to be radiated. He can +cultivate sweetness, calmness, trust, generosity, truth, justice, +loyalty, nobility,--make them vitally active in his character,--and by +these qualities he will constantly affect the world.</p> + +<p>Discouragement often comes to honest souls trying to live the best they +can, in the thought that they are doing so little good in the world. +Trifles unnoted by us may be links in the chain of some great purpose. +In 1797, William Godwin wrote The Inquirer, a collection of +revolutionary essays on morals and politics. This book influenced +Thomas Malthus to write his Essay on Population, published in 1798. +Malthus' book suggested to Charles Darwin a point of view upon which he +devoted many years of his life, resulting, in 1859, in the publication +of The Origin of Species,--the most influential book of the nineteenth +century, a book that has revolutionized all science. These were but +three links of influence extending over sixty years. It might be +possible to trace this genealogy of influence back from Godwin, through +generation and generation, to the word or act of some shepherd in early +Britain, watching his flock upon the hills, living his quiet life, and +dying with the thought that he had done nothing to help the world.</p> + +<p>Men and women have duties to others,--and duties to themselves. In +justice to ourselves we should refuse to live in an atmosphere that +keeps us from living our best. If the fault be in us, we should master +it. If it be the personal influence of others that, like a noxious +vapor, kills our best impulses, we should remove from that influence,--if we can <i>possibly</i> move without forsaking duties. If it be wrong +to move, then we should take strong doses of moral quinine to counteract +the malaria of influence. It is not what those around us <i>do</i> for +us that counts,--it is what they <i>are</i> to us. We carry our house-plants from one window to another to give them the proper heat, light, +air and moisture. Should we not be at least as careful of ourselves?</p> + +<p>To make our influence felt we must live our faith, we must practice +what we believe. A magnet does not attract iron, as iron. It must first +convert the iron into another magnet before it can attract it. It is +useless for a parent to try to teach gentleness to her children when +she herself is cross and irritable. The child who is told to be +truthful and who hears a parent lie cleverly to escape some little +social unpleasantness is not going to cling very zealously to truth. +The parent's words say "don't lie," the influence of the parent's life +says "do lie." + +No man can ever isolate himself to evade this constant power of +influence, as no single corpuscle can rebel and escape from the general +course of the blood. No individual is so insignificant as to be without +influence. The changes in our varying moods are all recorded in the +delicate barometers of the lives of others. We should ever let our +influence filter through human love and sympathy. We should not be +merely an influence,--we should be an inspiration. By our very presence +we should be a tower of strength to the hungering human souls around +us.</p> + + +<h1>IV<br /> +The Dignity of Self-Reliance</h1> + + +<p>Self-confidence, without self-reliance, is as useless as a cooking +recipe,--without food. Self-confidence sees the possibilities of the +individual; self-reliance realizes them. Self-confidence sees the angel +in the unhewn block of marble; self-reliance carves it out for himself.</p> + +<p>The man who is self-reliant says ever: "No one can realize my +possibilities for me, but me; no one can make me good or evil but +myself." He works out his own salvation,--financially, socially, +mentally, physically, and morally. Life is an individual problem that +man must solve for himself. Nature accepts no vicarious sacrifice, no +vicarious service. Nature never recognizes a proxy vote. She has +nothing to do with middle-men,--she deals only with the individual. +Nature is constantly seeking to show man that he is his own best +friend, or his own worst enemy. Nature gives man the option on which he +will be to himself.</p> + +<p>All the athletic exercises in the world are of no value to the +individual unless he compel those bars and dumb-bells to yield to him, +in strength and muscle, the power for which he, himself, pays in time +and effort. He can never develop his muscles by sending his valet to a +gymnasium.</p> + +<p>The medicine-chests of the world are powerless, in all the united +efforts, to help the individual until he reach out and take for himself +what is needed for his individual weakness.</p> + +<p>All the religions of the world are but speculations in morals, mere +theories of salvation, until the individual realize that he must save +himself by relying on the law of truth, as he sees it, and living his +life in harmony with it, as fully as he can. But religion is not a +Pullman car, with soft-cushioned seats, where he has but to pay for his +ticket,--and some one else does all the rest. In religion, as in all +other great things, he is ever thrown back on his self-reliance. He +should accept all helps, but,--he must live his own life. He should not +feel that he is a mere passenger; he is the engineer, and the train is +his life. We must rely on ourselves, live our own lives, or we merely +drift through existence,--losing all that is best, all that is +greatest, all that is divine.</p> + +<p>All that others can do for us is to give us opportunity. We must ever +be prepared for the opportunity when it comes, and to go after it and +find it when it does not come, or that opportunity is to us,--nothing. +Life is but a succession of opportunities. They are for good or evil,--as we make them.</p> + +<p>Many of the alchemists of old felt that they lacked but one element; if +they could obtain that one, they believed they could transmute the +baser metals into pure gold. It is so in character. There are +individuals with rare mental gifts, and delicate spiritual discernment +who fail utterly in life because they lack the one element,--self-reliance. This would unite all their energies, and focus them into +strength and power.</p> + +<p>The man who is not self-reliant is weak, hesitating and doubting in all +he does. He fears to take a decisive step, because he dreads failure, +because he is waiting for some one to advise him or because he dare not +act in accordance with his own best judgment. In his cowardice and his +conceit he sees all his non-success due to others. He is "not +appreciated," "not recognized," he is "kept down." He feels that in +some subtle way "society is conspiring against him." He grows almost +vain as he thinks that no one has had such poverty, such sorrow, such +affliction, such failure as have come to him.</p> + +<p>The man who is self-reliant seeks ever to discover and conquer the +weakness within him that keeps him from the attainment of what he holds +dearest; he seeks within himself the power to battle against all +outside influences. He realizes that all the greatest men in history, +in every phase of human effort, have been those who have had to fight +against the odds of sickness, suffering, sorrow. To him, defeat is no +more than passing through a tunnel is to a traveller,--he knows he must +emerge again into the sunlight.</p> + +<p>The nation that is strongest is the one that is most self-reliant, the +one that contains within its boundaries all that its people need. If, +with its ports all blockaded it has not within itself the necessities +of life and the elements of its continual progress then,--it is weak, +held by the enemy, and it is but a question of time till it must +surrender. Its independence is in proportion to its self-reliance, to +its power to sustain itself from within. What is true of nations is +true of individuals. The history of nations is but the biography of +individuals magnified, intensified, multiplied, and projected on the +screen of the past. History is the biography of a nation; biography is +the history of an individual. So it must be that the individual who is +most strong in any trial, sorrow or need is he who can live from his +inherent strength, who needs no scaffolding of commonplace sympathy to +uphold him. He must ever be self-reliant.</p> + +<p>The wealth and prosperity of ancient Rome, relying on her slaves to do +the real work of the nation, proved the nation's downfall. The constant +dependence on the captives of war to do the thousand details of life +for them, killed self-reliance in the nation and in the individual. +Then, through weakened self-reliance and the increased opportunity for +idle, luxurious ease that came with it, Rome, a nation of fighters, +became,--a nation of men more effeminate than women. As we depend on +others to do those things we should do for ourselves, our self-reliance +weakens and our powers and our control of them becomes continuously +less.</p> + +<p>Man to be great must be self-reliant. Though he may not be so in all +things, he must be self-reliant in the one in which he would be great. +This self-reliance is not the self-sufficiency of conceit. It is daring +to stand alone. Be an oak, not a vine. Be ready to give support, but do +not crave it; do not be dependent on it. To develop your true self-reliance, you must see from the very beginning that life is a battle +you must fight for yourself,--you must be your own soldier. You cannot +buy a substitute, you cannot win a reprieve, you can never be placed on +the retired list. The retired list of life is,--death. The world is +busy with its own cares, sorrows and joys, and pays little heed to you. +There is but one great password to success,--self-reliance.</p> + +<p>If you would learn to converse, put yourself into positions where you +<i>must</i> speak. If you would conquer your morbidness, mingle with +the bright people around you, no matter how difficult it may be. If you +desire the power that some one else possesses, do not envy his +strength, and dissipate your energy by weakly wishing his force were +yours. Emulate the process by which it became his, depend on your self-reliance, pay the price for it, and equal power may be yours. The +individual must look upon himself as an investment, of untold +possibilities if rightly developed,--a mine whose resources can never +be known but by going down into it and bringing out what is hidden.</p> + +<p>Man can develop his self-reliance by seeking constantly to surpass +himself. We try too much to surpass others. If we seek ever to surpass +ourselves, we are moving on a uniform line of progress, that gives a +harmonious unifying to our growth in all its parts. Daniel Morrell, at +one time President of the Cambria Rail Works, that employed 7,000 men +and made a rail famed throughout the world, was asked the secret of the +great success of the works. "We have no secret," he said, "but this,--we always try to beat our last batch of rails." Competition is good, +but it has its danger side. There is a tendency to sacrifice real worth +to mere appearance, to have seeming rather than reality. But the true +competition is the competition of the individual with himself,--his +present seeking to excel his past. This means real growth from within. +Self-reliance develops it, and it develops self-reliance. Let the +individual feel thus as to his own progress and possibilities, and he +can almost create his life as he will. Let him never fall down in +despair at dangers and sorrows at a distance; they may be harmless, +like Bunyan's stone lions, when he nears them.</p> + +<p>The man who is self-reliant does not live in the shadow of some one +else's greatness; he thinks for himself, depends on himself, and acts +for himself. In throwing the individual thus back upon himself it is +not shutting his eyes to the stimulus and light and new life that come +with the warm pressure of the hand, the kindly word and the sincere +expressions of true friendship. But true friendship is rare; its great +value is in a crisis,--like a lifeboat. Many a boasted friend has +proved a leaking, worthless "lifeboat" when the storm of adversity +might make him useful. In these great crises of life, man is strong +only as he is strong from within, and the more he depends on himself +the stronger will he become, and the more able will he be to help +others in the hour of their need. His very life will be a constant help +and a strength to others, as he becomes to them a living lesson of the +dignity of self-reliance.</p> + + +<h1>V<br /> +Failure as a Success</h1> + + +<p>It ofttimes requires heroic courage to face fruitless effort, to take +up the broken strands of a life-work, to look bravely toward the +future, and proceed undaunted on our way. But what, to our eyes, may +seem hopeless failure is often but the dawning of a greater success. It +may contain in its débris the foundation material of a mighty purpose, +or the revelation of new and higher possibilities.</p> + +<p>Some years ago, it was proposed to send logs from Canada to New York, +by a new method. The ingenious plan of Mr. Joggins was to bind great +logs together by cables and iron girders and to tow the cargo as a +raft. When the novel craft neared New York and success seemed assured, +a terrible storm arose. In the fury of the tempest, the iron bands +snapped like icicles and the angry waters scattered the logs far and +wide. The chief of the Hydrographic Department at Washington heard of +the failure of the experiment, and at once sent word to shipmasters the +world over, urging them to watch carefully for these logs which he +described; and to note the precise location of each in latitude and +longitude and the time the observation was made.</p> + +<p>Hundreds of captains, sailing over the waters of the earth, noted the +logs, in the Atlantic Ocean, in the Mediterranean, in the South Seas--for into all waters did these venturesome ones travel. Hundreds of +reports were made, covering a period of weeks and months. These +observations were then carefully collated, systematized and tabulated, +and discoveries were made as to the course of ocean currents that +otherwise would have been impossible. The loss of the Joggins raft was +not a real failure, for it led to one of the great discoveries in +modern marine geography and navigation.</p> + +<p>In our superior knowledge we are disposed to speak in a patronizing +tone of the follies of the alchemists of old. But their failure to +transmute the baser metals into gold resulted in the birth of +chemistry. They did not succeed in what they attempted, but they +brought into vogue the natural processes of sublimation, filtration, +distillation, and crystallization; they invented the alembic, the +retort, the sand-bath, the water-bath and other valuable instruments. +To them is due the discovery of antimony, sulphuric ether and +phosphorus, the cupellation of gold and silver, the determining of the +properties of saltpetre and its use in gunpowder, and the discovery of +the distillation of essential oils. This was the success of failure, a +wondrous process of Nature for the highest growth,--a mighty lesson of +comfort, strength, and encouragement if man would only realize and +accept it.</p> + +<p>Many of our failures sweep us to greater heights of success, than we +ever hoped for in our wildest dreams. Life is a successive unfolding of +success from failure. In discovering America Columbus failed +absolutely. His ingenious reasoning and experiment led him to believe +that by sailing westward he would reach India. Every redman in America +carries in his name "Indian," the perpetuation of the memory of the +failure of Columbus. The Genoese navigator did not reach India; the +cargo of "souvenirs" he took back to Spain to show to Ferdinand and +Isabella as proofs of his success, really attested his failure. But the +discovery of America was a greater success than was any finding of a +"back-door" to India.</p> + +<p>When David Livingstone had supplemented his theological education by a +medical course, he was ready to enter the missionary field. For over +three years he had studied tirelessly, with all energies concentrated +on one aim,--to spread the gospel in China. The hour came when he was +ready to start out with noble enthusiasm for his chosen work, to +consecrate himself and his life to his unselfish ambition. Then word +came from China that the "opium war" would make it folly to attempt to +enter the country. Disappointment and failure did not long daunt him; +he offered himself as missionary to Africa,--and he was accepted. His +glorious failure to reach China opened a whole continent to light and +truth. His study proved an ideal preparation for his labors as +physician, explorer, teacher and evangel in the wilds of Africa.</p> + +<p>Business reverses and the failure of his partner threw upon the broad +shoulders and the still broader honor and honesty of Sir Walter Scott a +burden of responsibility that forced him to write. The failure spurred +him to almost super-human effort. The masterpieces of Scotch historic +fiction that have thrilled, entertained and uplifted millions of his +fellow-men are a glorious monument on the field of a seeming failure.</p> + +<p>When Millet, the painter of the "Angelus" worked on his almost divine +canvas, in which the very air seems pulsing with the regenerating +essence of spiritual reverence, he was painting against time, he was +antidoting sorrow, he was racing against death. His brush strokes, put +on in the early morning hours before going to his menial duties as a +railway porter, in the dusk like that perpetuated on his canvas,--meant +strength, food and medicine for the dying wife he adored. The art +failure that cast him into the depths of poverty unified with +marvellous intensity all the finer elements of his nature. This rare +spiritual unity, this purging of all the dross of triviality as he +passed through the furnace of poverty, trial, and sorrow gave eloquence +to his brush and enabled him to paint as never before,--as no +prosperity would have made possible.</p> + +<p>Failure is often the turning-point, the pivot of circumstance that +swings us to higher levels. It may not be financial success, it may not +be fame; it may be new draughts of spiritual, moral or mental +inspiration that will change us for all the later years of our life. +Life is not really what comes to us, but what we get from it.</p> + +<p>Whether man has had wealth or poverty, failure or success, counts for +little when it is past. There is but one question for him to answer, to +face boldly and honestly as an individual alone with his conscience and +his destiny:</p> + +<p>"How will I let that poverty or wealth affect me? If that trial or +deprivation has left me better, truer, nobler, then,--poverty has been +riches, failure has been a success. If wealth has come to me and has +made me vain, arrogant, contemptuous, uncharitable, cynical, closing +from me all the tenderness of life, all the channels of higher +development, of possible good to my fellow-man, making me the mere +custodian of a money-bag, then,--wealth has lied to me, it has been +failure, not success; it has not been riches, it has been dark, +treacherous poverty that stole from me even Myself." All things become +for us then what we take from them.</p> + +<p>Failure is one of God's educators. It is experience leading man to +higher things; it is the revelation of a way, a path hitherto unknown +to us. The best men in the world, those who have made the greatest real +successes look back with serene happiness on their failures. The +turning of the face of Time shows all things in a wondrously +illuminated and satisfying perspective.</p> + +<p>Many a man is thankful to-day that some petty success for which he once +struggled, melted into thin air as his hand sought to clutch it. +Failure is often the rock-bottom foundation of real success. If man, in +a few instances of his life can say, "Those failures were the best +things in the world that could have happened to me," should he not face +new failures with undaunted courage and trust that the miraculous +ministry of Nature may transform these new stumbling-blocks into new +stepping-stones?</p> + +<p>Our highest hopes, are often destroyed to prepare us for better things. +The failure of the caterpillar is the birth of the butterfly; the +passing of the bud is the becoming of the rose; the death or +destruction of the seed is the prelude to its resurrection as wheat. It +is at night, in the darkest hours, those preceding dawn, that plants +grow best, that they most increase in size. May this not be one of +Nature's gentle showings to man of the times when he grows best, of the +darkness of failure that is evolving into the sunlight of success. Let +us fear only the failure of not living the right as we see it, leaving +the results to the guardianship of the Infinite.</p> + +<p>If we think of any supreme moment of our lives, any great success, any +one who is dear to us, and then consider how we reached that moment, +that success, that friend, we will be surprised and strengthened by the +revelation. As we trace each one, back, step by step, through the +genealogy of circumstances, we will see how logical has been the course +of our joy and success, from sorrow and failure, and that what gives us +most happiness to-day is inextricably connected with what once caused +us sorrow. Many of the rivers of our greatest prosperity and growth +have had their source and their trickling increase into volume among +the dark, gloomy recesses of our failure.</p> + +<p>There is no honest and true work, carried along with constant and +sincere purpose that ever really fails. If it sometime seem to be +wasted effort, it will prove to us a new lesson of "how" to walk; the +secret of our failures will prove to us the inspiration of possible +successes. Man living with the highest aims, ever as best he can, in +continuous harmony with them, is a success, no matter what statistics +of failure a near-sighted and half-blind world of critics and +commentators may lay at his door.</p> + +<p>High ideals, noble efforts will make seeming failures but trifles, they +need not dishearten us; they should prove sources of new strength. The +rocky way may prove safer than the slippery path of smoothness. Birds +cannot fly best with the wind but against it; ships do not progress in +calm, when the sails flap idly against the unstrained masts.</p> + +<p>The alchemy of Nature, superior to that of the Paracelsians, constantly +transmutes the baser metals of failure into the later pure gold of +higher success, if the mind of the worker be kept true, constant and +untiring in the service, and he have that sublime courage that defies +fate to its worst while he does his best.</p> + + +<h1>VI<br /> +Doing Our Best at All Times</h1> + + +<p>Life is a wondrously complex problem for the individual, until, some +day, in a moment of illumination, he awakens to the great realization +that he can make it simple,--never quite simple, but always simpler. +There are a thousand mysteries of right and wrong that have baffled the +wise men of the ages. There are depths in the great fundamental +questions of the human race that no plummet of philosophy has ever +sounded. There are wild cries of honest hunger for truth that seek to +pierce the silence beyond the grave, but to them ever echo back,--only +a repetition of their unanswered cries.</p> + +<p>To us all, comes, at times, the great note of questioning despair that +darkens our horizon and paralyzes our effort: "If there really be a +God, if eternal justice really rule the world," we say, "why should +life be as it is? Why do some men starve while others feast; why does +virtue often languish in the shadow while vice triumphs in the +sunshine; why does failure so often dog the footsteps of honest effort, +while the success that comes from trickery and dishonor is greeted with +the world's applause? How is it that the loving father of one family is +taken by death, while the worthless incumbrance of another is spared? +Why is there so much unnecessary pain, sorrowing and suffering in the +world--why, indeed, should there be any?"</p> + +<p>Neither philosophy nor religion can give any final satisfactory answer +that is capable of logical demonstration, of absolute proof. There is +ever, even after the best explanations, a residuum of the unexplained. +We must then fall back in the eternal arms of faith, and be wise enough +to say, "I will not be disconcerted by these problems of life, I will +not permit them to plunge me into doubt, and to cloud my life with +vagueness and uncertainty. Man arrogates much to himself when he +demands from the Infinite the full solution of all His mysteries. I +will found my life on the impregnable rock of a simple fundamental +truth:--'This glorious creation with its millions of wondrous phenomena +pulsing ever in harmony with eternal law must have a Creator, that +Creator must be omniscient and omnipotent. But that Creator Himself +cannot, in justice, demand of any creature more than the best that that +individual can give.' I will do each day, in every moment, the best I +can by the light I have; I will ever seek more light, more perfect +illumination of truth, and ever live as best I can in harmony with the +truth as I see it. If failure come I will meet it bravely; if my +pathway then lie in the shadow of trial, sorrow and suffering, I shall +have the restful peace and the calm strength of one who has done his +best, who can look back upon the past with no pang of regret, and who +has heroic courage in facing the results, whatever they be, knowing +that he could not make them different."</p> + +<p>Upon this life-plan, this foundation, man may erect any superstructure +of religion or philosophy that he conscientiously can erect; he should +add to his equipment for living every shred of strength and +inspiration, moral, mental or spiritual that is in his power to secure. +This simple working faith is opposed to no creed, is a substitute for +none; it is but a primary belief, a citadel, a refuge where the +individual can retire for strength when the battle of life grows hard.</p> + +<p>A mere theory of life, that remains but a theory, is about as useful to +a man, as a gilt-edged menu is to a starving sailor on a raft in mid-ocean. It is irritating but not stimulating. No rule for higher living +will help a man in the slightest, until he reach out and appropriate it +for himself, until he make it practical in his daily life, until that +seed of theory in his mind blossom into a thousand flowers of thought +and word and act.</p> + +<p>If a man honestly seeks to live his best at all times, that +determination is visible in every moment of his living, no trifle in +his life can be too insignificant to reflect his principle of living. +The sun illuminates and beautifies a fallen leaf by the roadside as +impartially as a towering mountain peak in the Alps. Every drop of +water in the ocean is an epitome of the chemistry of the whole ocean; +every drop is subject to precisely the same laws as dominate the united +infinity of billions of drops that make that miracle of Nature, men +call the Sea. No matter how humble the calling of the individual, how +uninteresting and dull the round of his duties, he should do his best. +He should dignify what he is doing by the mind he puts into it, he +should vitalize what little he has of power or energy or ability or +opportunity, in order to prepare himself to be equal to higher +privileges when they come. This will never lead man to that weak +content that is satisfied with whatever falls to his lot. It will +rather fill his mind with that divine discontent that cheerfully +accepts the best,--merely as a temporary substitute for something +better.</p> + +<p>The man who is seeking ever to do his best is the man who is keen, +active, wide-awake, and aggressive. He is ever watchful of himself in +trifles; his standard is not "What will the world say?" but "Is it +worthy of me?"</p> + +<p>Edwin Booth, one of the greatest actors on the American stage, would +never permit himself to assume an ungraceful attitude, even in his +hours of privacy. In this simple thing, he ever lived his best. On the +stage every move was one of unconscious grace. Those of his company who +were conscious of their motions were the awkward ones, who were seeking +in public to undo or to conceal the carelessness of the gestures and +motions of their private life. The man who is slipshod and thoughtless +in his daily speech, whose vocabulary is a collection of anæmic +commonplaces, whose repetitions of phrases and extravagance of +interjections act but as feeble disguises to his lack of ideas, will +never be brilliant on an occasion when he longs to outshine the stars. +Living at one's best is constant preparation for instant use. It can +never make one over-precise, self-conscious, affected, or priggish. +Education, in its highest sense, is <i>conscious</i> training of mind +or body to act <i>unconsciously</i>. It is conscious formation of +mental habits, not mere acquisition of information.</p> + +<p>One of the many ways in which the individual unwisely eclipses himself, +is in his worship of the fetich of luck. He feels that all others are +lucky, and that whatever he attempts, fails. He does not realize the +untiring energy, the unremitting concentration, the heroic courage, the +sublime patience that is the secret of some men's success. Their "luck" +was that they had prepared themselves to be equal to their opportunity +when it came and were awake to recognize it and receive it. His own +opportunity came and departed unnoted, it would not waken him from his +dreams of some untold wealth that would fall into his lap. So he grows +discouraged and envies those whom he should emulate, and he bandages +his arm and chloroforms his energies, and performs his duties in a +perfunctory way, or he passes through life, just ever "sampling" lines +of activity.</p> + +<p>The honest, faithful struggler should always realize that failure is +but an episode in a true man's life,--never the whole story. It is +never easy to meet, and no philosophy can make it so, but the steadfast +courage to master conditions, instead of complaining of them, will help +him on his way; it will ever enable him to get the best out of what he +has. He never knows the long series of vanquished failures that give +solidity to some one else's success; he does not realize the price that +some rich man, the innocent football of political malcontents and +demagogues, has heroicly paid for wealth and position.</p> + +<p>The man who has a pessimist's doubt of all things; who demands a +certified guarantee of his future; who ever fears his work will not be +recognized or appreciated; or that after all, it is really not worth +while, will never live his best. He is dulling his capacity for real +progress by his hypnotic course of excuses for inactivity, instead of a +strong tonic of reasons for action.</p> + +<p>One of the most weakening elements in the individual make-up is the +surrender to the oncoming of years. Man's self-confidence dims and dies +in the fear of age. "This new thought," he says of some suggestion +tending to higher development, "is good; it is what we need. I am glad +to have it for my children; I would have been happy to have had some +such help when I was at school, but it is too late for me. I am a man +advanced in years."</p> + +<p>This is but blind closing of life to wondrous possibilities. The knell +of lost opportunity is never tolled in this life. It is never too late +to recognize truth and to live by it. It requires only greater effort, +closer attention, deeper consecration; but the impossible does not +exist for the man who is self-confident and is willing to pay the price +in time and struggle for his success or development. Later in life, the +assessments are heavier in progress, as in life insurance, but that +matters not to that mighty self-confidence that <i>will</i> not grow +old while knowledge can keep it young.</p> + +<p>Socrates, when his hair whitened with the snow of age, learned to play +on instruments of music. Cato, at fourscore, began his study of Greek, +and the same age saw Plutarch beginning, with the enthusiasm of a boy, +his first lessons in Latin. The Character of Man, Theophrastus' +greatest work, was begun on his ninetieth birthday. Chaucer's +Canterbury Tales was the work of the poet's declining years. Ronsard, +the father of French poetry, whose sonnets even translation cannot +destroy, did not develop his poetic faculty until nearly fifty. +Benjamin Franklin at this age had just taken his really first steps of +importance in philosophic pursuits. Arnauld, the theologian and sage, +translated Josephus in his eightieth year. Winckelmann, one of the most +famous writers on classic antiquities, was the son of a shoemaker, and +lived in obscurity and ignorance until the prime of life. Hobbes, the +English philosopher, published his version of the Odyssey in his +eighty-seventh year, and his Iliad one year later. Chevreul, the great +French scientist, whose untiring labors in the realm of color have so +enriched the world, was busy, keen and active when Death called him, at +the age of 103.</p> + +<p>These men did not fear age; these few names from the great muster-roll +of the famous ones who defied the years, should be voices of hope and +heartening to every individual whose courage and confidence is weak. +The path of truth, higher living, truer development in every phase of +life, is never shut from the individual--until he closes it himself. +Let man feel this, believe it and make this faith a real and living +factor in his life and there are no limits to his progress. He has but +to live his best at all times, and rest calm and untroubled no matter +what results come to his efforts. The constant looking backward to what +might have been, instead of forward to what may be, is a great weakener +of self-confidence. This worry for the old past, this wasted energy, +for that which no power in the world can restore, ever lessens the +individual's faith in himself, weakens his efforts to develop himself +for the future to the perfection of his possibilities.</p> + +<p>Nature in her beautiful love and tenderness, says to man, weakened and +worn and weary with the struggle, "Do in the best way you can the +trifle that is under your hand at this moment; do it in the best spirit +of preparation for the future your thought suggests; bring all the +light of knowledge from all the past to aid you. Do this and you have +done your best. The past is forever closed to you. It is closed forever +to you. No worry, no struggle, no suffering, no agony of despair can +alter it. It is as much beyond your power as if it were a million years +of eternity behind you. Turn all that past, with its sad hours, +weakness and sin, its wasted opportunities as light; in confidence and +hope, upon the future. Turn it all in fuller truth and light so as to +make each trifle of this present a new past it will be joy to look back +to; each trifle a grander, nobler, and more perfect preparation for the +future. The present and the future you can make from it, is yours; the +past has gone back, with all its messages, all its history, all its +records to the God who loaned you the golden moments to use in +obedience to His law."</p> + + +<h1>VII<br /> +The Royal Road to Happiness</h1> + + +<p>"During my whole life I have not had twenty-four hours of happiness." So +said Prince Bismarck, one of the greatest statesmen of the nineteenth +century. Eighty-three years of wealth, fame, honors, power, influence, +prosperity and triumph, – years when he held an empire in his fingers, – but not one day of happiness!</p> + +<p>Happiness is the greatest paradox in Nature. It can grow in any soil, +live under any conditions. It defies environment. It comes from within; +it is the revelation of the depths of the inner life as light and heat +proclaim the sun from which they radiate. Happiness consists not of +having, but of being; not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is the +warm glow of a heart at peace with itself. A martyr at the stake may +have happiness that a king on his throne might envy. Man is the creator +of his own happiness; it is the aroma of a life lived in harmony with +high ideals. For what a man <i>has</i>, he may be dependent on others; +what he <i>is</i>, rests with him alone. What he <i>ob</i>tains in life +is but acquisition; what he <i>at</i>tains, is growth. Happiness is the +soul's joy in the possession of the intangible. Absolute, perfect, +continuous happiness in life, is impossible for the human. It would +mean the consummation of attainments, the individual consciousness of a +perfectly fulfilled destiny. Happiness is paradoxic because it may +coexist with trial, sorrow and poverty. It is the gladness of the +heart, – rising superior to all conditions.</p> + +<p>Happiness has a number of under-studies, – gratification, satisfaction, +content, and pleasure, – clever imitators that simulate its appearance +rather than emulate its method. Gratification is a harmony between our +desires and our possessions. It is ever incomplete, it is the thankful +acceptance of part. It is a mental pleasure in the quality of what one +receives, an unsatisfiedness as to the quantity. It may be an element +in happiness, but, in itself, – it is not happiness.</p> + +<p>Satisfaction is perfect identity of our desires and our possessions. It +exists only so long as this perfect union and unity can be preserved. +But every realized ideal gives birth to new ideals, every step in +advance reveals large domains of the unattained; every feeding +stimulates new appetites, – then the desires and possessions are no +longer identical, no longer equal; new cravings call forth new +activities, the equipoise is destroyed, and dissatisfaction reënters. +Man might possess everything tangible in the world and yet not be +happy, for happiness is the satisfying of the soul, not of the mind or +the body. Dissatisfaction, in its highest sense, is the keynote of all +advance, the evidence of new aspirations, the guarantee of the +progressive revelation of new possibilities.</p> + +<p>Content is a greatly overrated virtue. It is a kind of diluted despair; +it is the feeling with which we continue to accept substitutes, without +striving for the realities. Content makes the trained individual +swallow vinegar and try to smack his lips as if it were wine. Content +enables one to warm his hands at the fire of a past joy that exists +only in memory. Content is a mental and moral chloroform that deadens +the activities of the individual to rise to higher planes of life and +growth. Man should never be contented with anything less than the best +efforts of his nature can possibly secure for him. Content makes the +world more comfortable for the individual, but it is the death-knell of +progress. Man should be content with each step of progress merely as a +station, discontented with it as a destination; contented with it as a +step; discontented with it as a finality. There are times when a man +should be content with what he <i>has</i>, but never with what he +<i>is</i>.</p> + +<p>But content is not happiness; neither is pleasure. Pleasure is +temporary, happiness is continuous; pleasure is a note, happiness is a +symphony; pleasure may exist when conscience utters protests; +happiness, – never. Pleasure may have its dregs and its lees; but none +can be found in the cup of happiness.</p> + +<p>Man is the only animal that can be really happy. To the rest of the +creation belong only weak imitations of the understudies. Happiness +represents a peaceful attunement of a life with a standard of living. +It can never be made by the individual, by himself, for himself. It is +one of the incidental by-products of an unselfish life. No man can make +his own happiness the one object of his life and attain it, any more +than he can jump on the far end of his shadow. If you would hit the +bull's-eye of happiness on the target of life, aim above it. Place +other things higher than your own happiness and it will surely come to +you. You can buy pleasure, you can acquire content, you can become +satisfied, – but Nature never put real happiness on the bargain-counter. +It is the undetachable accompaniment of true living. It is calm and +peaceful; it never lives in an atmosphere of worry or of hopeless +struggle.</p> + +<p>The basis of happiness is the love of something outside self. Search +every instance of happiness in the world, and you will find, when all +the incidental features are eliminated, there is always the constant, +unchangeable element of love, – love of parent for child; love of man +and woman for each other; love of humanity in some form, or a great +life work into which the individual throws all his energies.</p> + +<p>Happiness is the voice of optimism, of faith, of simple, steadfast +love. No cynic or pessimist can be really happy. A cynic is a man who +is morally near-sighted, – and brags about it. He sees the evil in his +own heart, and thinks he sees the world. He lets a mote in his eye +eclipse the sun. An incurable cynic is an individual who should long +for death, – for life cannot bring him happiness, death might. The +keynote of Bismarck's lack of happiness was his profound distrust of +human nature.</p> + +<p>There is a royal road to happiness; it lies in Consecration, +Concentration, Conquest and Conscience.</p> + +<p>Consecration is dedicating the individual life to the service of +others, to some noble mission, to realizing some unselfish ideal. Life +is not something to be lived <i>through</i>; it is something to be +lived <i>up to</i>. It is a privilege, not a penal servitude of so many +decades on earth. Consecration places the object of life above the mere +acquisition of money, as a finality. The man who is unselfish, kind, +loving, tender, helpful, ready to lighten the burden of those around +him, to hearten the struggling ones, to forget himself sometimes in +remembering others, – is on the right road to happiness. Consecration is +ever active, bold and aggressive, fearing naught but possible +disloyalty to high ideals.</p> + +<p>Concentration makes the individual life simpler and deeper. It cuts +away the shams and pretences of modern living and limits life to its +truest essentials. Worry, fear, useless regret, – all the great wastes +that sap mental, moral or physical energy must be sacrificed, or the +individual needlessly destroys half the possibilities of living. A +great purpose in life, something that unifies the strands and threads +of each day's thinking, something that takes the sting from the petty +trials, sorrows, sufferings and blunders of life, is a great aid to +Concentration. Soldiers in battle may forget their wounds, or even be +unconscious of them, in the inspiration of battling for what they +believe is right. Concentration dignifies an humble life; it makes a +great life, – sublime. In morals it is a short-cut to simplicity. It +leads to right for right's sake, without thought of policy or of +reward. It brings calm and rest to the individual, – a serenity that is +but the sunlight of happiness.</p> + +<p>Conquest is the overcoming of an evil habit, the rising superior to +opposition and attack, the spiritual exaltation that comes from +resisting the invasion of the grovelling material side of life. +Sometimes when you are worn and weak with the struggle; when it seems +that justice is a dream, that honesty and loyalty and truth count for +nothing, that the devil is the only good paymaster; when hope grows dim +and flickers, then is the time when you must tower in the great sublime +faith that Right must prevail, then must you throttle these imps of +doubt and despair, you must master yourself to master the world around +you. This is Conquest; this is what counts. Even a log can float with +the current, it takes a man to fight sturdily against an opposing tide +that would sweep his craft out of its course. When the jealousies, the +petty intrigues and the meannesses and the misunderstandings in life +assail you, – rise above them. Be like a lighthouse that illumines and +beautifies the snarling, swashing waves of the storm that threaten it, +that seek to undermine it and seek to wash over it. This is Conquest. +When the chance to win fame, wealth, success or the attainment of your +heart's desire, by sacrifice of honor or principle, comes to you and it +does not affect you long enough even to seem a temptation, you have +been the victor. That too is Conquest. And Conquest is part of the +royal road to Happiness.</p> + +<p>Conscience, as the mentor, the guide and compass of every act, leads +ever to Happiness. When the individual can stay alone with his +conscience and get its approval, without using force or specious logic, +then he begins to know what real Happiness is. But the individual must +be careful that he is not appealing to a conscience perverted or +deadened by the wrongdoing and subsequent deafness of its owner. The +man who is honestly seeking to live his life in Consecration, +Concentration and Conquest, living from day to day as best he can, by +the light he has, may rely explicitly on his Conscience. He can shut +his ears to "what the world says" and find in the approval of his own +conscience the highest earthly tribune, – the voice of the Infinite +communing with the Individual.</p> + +<p>Unhappiness is the hunger to get; Happiness is the hunger to give. True +happiness must ever have the tinge of sorrow outlived, the sense of +pain softened by the mellowing years, the chastening of loss that in +the wondrous mystery of time transmutes our suffering into love and +sympathy with others.</p> + +<p>If the individual should set out for a single day to give Happiness, to +make life happier, brighter and sweeter, not for himself, but for +others, he would find a wondrous revelation of what Happiness really +is. The greatest of the world's heroes could not by any series of acts +of heroism do as much real good as any individual living his whole life +in seeking, from day to day, to make others happy.</p> + +<p>Each day there should be fresh resolution, new strength, and renewed +enthusiasm. "Just for Today" might be the daily motto of thousands of +societies throughout the country, composed of members bound together to +make the world better through constant simple acts of kindness, +constant deeds of sweetness and love. And Happiness would come to them, +in its highest and best form, not because they would seek to +<i>absorb</i> it, but, – because they seek to <i>radiate</i> it.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Majesty of Calmness, by William George Jordan + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAJESTY OF CALMNESS *** + +This file should be named mjcmn10h.htm or mjcmn10h.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, mjcmn11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, mjcmn10ah.htm + +Produced by Curtis A. Weyant, Charles Franks, +and the Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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