How to Succeed

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It is the close observation of little things which is the
secret of success in business, in art, in science, and in every
pursuit of life.
--SMILES.

"Only!--But then the onlys
Make up the mighty all."

"My rule of conduct has been that whatever is worth doing at all is
worth doing well," said Nicolas Poussin, the great French painter. When
asked the reason why he had become so eminent in a land of famous
artists he replied, "Because I have neglected nothing."

"Do little things now," says a Persian proverb; "so shall big things
come to thee by and by asking to be done." God will take care of the
great things if we do not neglect the little ones.

A gentleman advertised for a boy to assist him in his office, and nearly
fifty applicants presented themselves to him. Out of the whole number he
in a short time selected one and dismissed the rest. "I should like to
know," said a friend, "on what ground you selected that boy, who had not
a single recommendation?" "You are mistaken," said the gentleman, "he
had a great many. He wiped his feet when he came in, and closed the door
after him, showing that he was careful. He gave up his seat instantly to
that lame old man, showing that he was kind and thoughtful. He took off
his cap when he came in, and answered my questions promptly and
respectfully, showing that he was polite and gentlemanly. He picked up
the book which I had purposely laid upon the floor, and replaced it on
the table, while all the rest stepped over it, or shoved it aside; and
he waited quietly for his turn, instead of pushing and crowding, showing
that he was honest and orderly. When I talked to him, I noticed that
his clothes were carefully brushed, his hair in nice order, and his
teeth as white as milk; and when he wrote his name, I noticed that his
finger-nails were clean, instead of being tipped with jet, like that
handsome little fellow's, in the blue jacket. Don't you call those
letters of recommendation? I do; and I would give more for what I can
tell about a boy by using my eyes ten minutes, than for all the fine
letters he can bring me."

"Least of all seeds, greatest of all harvests," seems to be one of the
great laws of nature. All life comes from microscopic beginnings. In
nature there is nothing small. The microscope reveals as great a world
below as the telescope above. All of nature's laws govern the smallest
atoms, and a single drop of water is a miniature ocean.

"I cannot see that you have made any progress since my last visit," said
a gentleman to Michael Angelo. "But," said the sculptor, "I have
retouched this part, polished that, softened that feature, brought out
that muscle, given some expression to this lip, more energy to that
limb, etc." "But they are trifles!" exclaimed the visitor. "It may be
so," replied the great artist, "but trifles make perfection, and
perfection is no trifle." That infinite patience which made Michael
Angelo spend a week in bringing out a muscle in a statue with more
vital fidelity to truth, or Gerhard Dow a day in giving the right effect
to a dewdrop on a cabbage leaf, makes all the difference between success
and failure.

"Of what use is it?" people asked with a sneer, when Franklin told of
his discovery that lightning and electricity are identical. "What is the
use of a child?" replied Franklin; "it may become a man."

In the earliest days of cotton spinning, the small fibres would stick to
the bobbins, and make it necessary to stop and clear the machinery.
Although this loss of time reduced the earnings of the operatives, the
father of Robert Peel noticed that one of his spinners always drew full
pay, as his machine never stopped. "How is this, Dick?" asked Mr. Peel
one day; "the on-looker tells me your bobbins are always clean." "Ay,
that they be," replied Dick Ferguson. "How do you manage it, Dick?"
"Why, you see, Meester Peel," said the workman, "it is sort o' secret!
If I tow'd ye, yo'd be as wise as I am." "That's so," said Mr. Peel,
smiling; "but I'd give you something to know. Could you make all the
looms work as smoothly as yours?" "Ivery one of 'em, meester," replied
Dick. "Well, what shall I give you for your secret?" asked Mr. Peel, and
Dick replied, "Gi' me a quart of ale every day as I'm in the mills, and
I'll tell thee all about it." "Agreed," said Mr. Peel, and Dick
whispered very cautiously in his ear, "Chalk your bobbins!" That was the
whole secret, and Mr. Peel soon shot ahead of all his competitors, for
he made machines that would chalk their own bobbins. Dick was handsomely
rewarded with money instead of beer. His little idea has saved the world
millions of dollars.

The totality of a life at any moment is the product mainly of little
things. Trifling choices, insignificant exercises of the will,
unimportant acts often repeated,--things seemingly of small
account,--these are the thousand tiny sculptors that are carving away
constantly at the rude block of our life, giving it shape and feature.
Indeed the formation of character is much like the work of an artist in
stone. The sculptor takes a rough, unshapen mass of marble, and with
strong, rapid strokes of mallet and chisel quickly brings into view the
rude outline of his design; but after the outline appears then come
hours, days, perhaps even years, of patient, minute labor. A novice
might see no change in the statue from one day to another; for though
the chisel touches the stone a thousand times, it touches as lightly as
the fall of a rain-drop, but each touch leaves a mark.

The smallest thing becomes respectable when regarded as the commencement
of what has advanced or is advancing into magnificence. The crude
settlement of Romulus would have remained an insignificant circumstance
and might have justly sunk into oblivion, if Rome had not at length
commanded the world.

Beecher says that men, in their property, are afraid of conflagrations
and lightning strokes; but if they were building a wharf in Panama, a
million madrepores, so small that only the microscope could detect them,
would begin to bore the piles down under the water. There would be
neither noise nor foam; but in a little while, if a child did but touch
the post, over it would fall as if a saw had cut it through.

Men think, with regard to their conduct, that, if they were to lift
themselves up gigantically and commit some crashing sin, they should
never be able to hold up their heads; but they will harbor in their
souls little sins, which are piercing and eating them away to inevitable
ruin.

Lichens, of themselves of little value, prepare the way for important
vegetation. They deposit, in dying, an acid which wears away the rock
and prepares the mould necessary for the nourishment of superior plants.

It was but a tiny rivulet trickling down the embankment that started the
terrible Johnstown flood and swept thousands into eternity. One noble
heroic act has elevated a nation. Franklin's whole career was changed
by a torn copy of Cotton Mather's Essays to Do Good. Taking up a stone
to throw at a turtle was the turning point in Theodore Parker's life. As
he raised the stone something within him said, "Don't do it," and he
didn't. He went home and asked his mother what it was in him that said
"don't." She told him it was conscience. Small things become great when
a great soul sees them. A child, when asked why a certain tree grew
crooked, answered, "Somebody trod upon it when it was a little fellow."

By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation. A little boy
in Holland saw water trickling from a small hole near the bottom of a
dike. He realized that the leak would rapidly become larger if the water
was not checked, so he held his hand over the hole for hours on a dark
and dismal night until he could attract the attention of passers-by. His
name is still held in grateful remembrance in Holland.

We may tell which way the wind blew before the Deluge by marking the
ripple and cupping of the rain in the petrified sand now preserved
forever. We tell the very path by which gigantic creatures, whom man
never saw, walked to the river's edge to find their food.

The tears of Virgilia and Volumnia saved Rome from the Volscians when
nothing else could move the vengeful heart of Coriolanus.

Not even Helen of Troy, it is said, was beautiful enough to spare the
tip of her nose; and if Cleopatra's had been an inch shorter Mark Antony
would never have become infatuated with her wonderful charms, and the
blemish would have changed the history of the world. Anne Boleyn's
fascinating smile split the great Church of Rome in twain, and gave a
nation an altered destiny. Napoleon, who feared not to attack the
proudest monarchs in their capitals, shrank from the political influence
of one independent woman in private life, Madame de Stael.

It was a little thing for a cow to kick over a lantern left in a shanty,
but it laid Chicago in ashes, and rendered homeless a hundred thousand
people.

The discovery of glass was due to a mere accident--the building of a
fire on the sand; and the bayonet, first made at Bayonne, in France,
owes its existence to the fact that a Basque regiment, being hard
pressed by the enemy, one of the soldiers suggested that, as their
ammunition was exhausted, they should fix their long knives into the
barrels of their muskets, which was done, and the first bayonet-charge
was made.

A jest led to a war between two great nations. The presence of a comma
in a deed, lost to the owner of an estate five thousand dollars a month
for eight months. The battle of Corunna was fought and Sir John Moore's
life sacrificed, in 1809, through a dragoon stopping to drink while
bearing despatches.

"You do no work," said the scissors to the rivet. "Where would your work
be," said the rivet to the scissors, "if I didn't keep you together?"

Every day is a little life; and our whole life but a day repeated. Those
that dare lose a day are dangerously prodigal; those that dare misspend
it, desperate. What is the happiness of your life made up of? Little
courtesies, little kindnesses, pleasant words, genial smiles, a friendly
letter, good wishes, and good deeds. One in a million--once in a
lifetime--may do a heroic action.

We call the large majority of human lives _obscure_. Presumptuous that
we are! How know we what lives a single thought retained from the dust
of nameless graves may have lighted to renown?

CHAPTER XIV.

COURAGE.

Quit yourselves like men.
--1 SAMUEL iv. 9.

Cowards have no luck.
--ELIZABETH KULMAN.

He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day
surmount a fear.
--EMERSON.

To dare is better than to doubt,
For doubt is always grieving;
'Tis faith that finds the riddles out;
The prize is for believing.
--HENRY BURTON.

--Walk
Boldly and wisely in that light thou hast;
There is a hand above will help thee on.
--BAILEY'S FESTUS.

"Have hope! Though clouds environ now,
And gladness hides her face in scorn,
Put thou the shadow from thy brow--
No night but hath its morn."

"Our enemies are before us," exclaimed the Spartans at Thermopylae. "And
we are before them," was the cool reply of Leonidas. "Deliver your
arms," came the message from Xerxes. "Come and take them," was the
answer Leonidas sent back. A Persian soldier said: "You will not be able
to see the sun for flying javelins and arrows." "Then we will fight in
the shade," replied a Lacedemonian. What wonder that a handful of such
men checked the march of the greatest host that ever trod the earth.

"The hero," says Emerson, "is the man who is immovably centred."

Darius the Great sent ambassadors to the Athenians, to demand earth and
water, which denoted submission. The Athenians threw them into a ditch
and told them, there was earth and water enough.

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

Shakespeare says: "He is not worthy of the honeycomb that shuns the
hives because the bees have stings."

"It is a bad omen," said Eric the Red, when his horse slipped and fell
on the way to his ship, moored on the coast of Greenland, in readiness
for a voyage of discovery. "Ill-fortune would be mine should I dare
venture now upon the sea." So he returned to his house; but his young
son Leif decided to go, and with a crew of thirty-five men, sailed
southward in search of the unknown shore upon which Captain Biarni had
been driven by a storm, while sailing in another Viking ship two or
three years before. The first land that they saw was probably Labrador,
a barren, rugged plain. Leif called this country Heluland, or the land
of flat stones. Sailing onward many days, he came to a low, level coast
thickly covered with woods, on account of which he called the country
Markland, probably the modern Nova Scotia. Sailing onward, they came to
an island which they named Vinland, on account of the abundance of
delicious wild grapes in the woods. This was in the year 1000. Here
where the city of Newport, R. I., stands, they spent many months, and
then returned to Greenland with their vessel loaded with grapes and
strange kinds of wood. The voyage was successful, and no doubt Eric was
sorry he had been frightened by the bad omen.

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

Men who have dared have moved the world, often before reaching the prime
of life. It is astonishing what daring to begin and perseverance have
enabled even youths to achieve. Alexander, who ascended the throne at
twenty, had conquered the whole known world before dying at
thirty-three. Julius Caesar captured eight hundred cities, conquered
three hundred nations, and defeated three million men, became a great
orator and one of the greatest statesmen known, and still was a young
man. Washington was appointed adjutant-general at nineteen, was sent at
twenty-one as an ambassador to treat with the French, and won his first
battle as a colonel at twenty-two. Lafayette was made general of the
whole French army at twenty. Charlemagne was master of France and
Germany at thirty. Conde was only twenty-two when he conquered at
Rocroi. Galileo was but eighteen when he saw the principle of the
pendulum in the swinging lamp in the cathedral at Pisa. Peel was in
Parliament at twenty-one. Gladstone was in Parliament before he was
twenty-two, and at twenty-four he was a Lord of the Treasury. Elizabeth
Barrett Browning was proficient in Greek and Latin at twelve; De Quincey
at eleven. Robert Browning wrote at eleven poetry of no mean order.
Cowley, who sleeps in Westminster Abbey, published a volume of poems at
fifteen. N. P. Willis won lasting fame as a poet before leaving college.
Macaulay was a celebrated author before he was twenty-three. Luther was
but twenty-nine when he nailed his famous thesis to the door of the
bishop and defied the pope. Nelson was a lieutenant in the British navy
before he was twenty. He was but forty-seven when he received his death
wound at Trafalgar. Charles the Twelfth was only nineteen when he gained
the battle of Narva; at thirty-six Cortes was the conqueror of Mexico;
at thirty-two Clive had established the British power in India.
Hannibal, the greatest of military commanders, was only thirty when, at
Cannae, he dealt an almost annihilating blow at the Republic of Rome; and
Napoleon was only twenty-seven when, on the plains of Italy, he
out-generaled and defeated, one after another, the veteran marshals of
Austria.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Doubt indulged becomes doubt realized." To determine to do anything is
half the battle. "To think a thing is impossible is to make it so."
"Courage is victory, timidity is defeat."

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

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

A mouse that dwelt near the abode of a great magician was kept in such
constant distress by its fear of a cat that the magician, taking pity on
it, turned it into a cat itself. Immediately it began to suffer from its
fear of a dog, so the magician turned it into a dog. Then it began to
suffer from fear of a tiger, and the magician turned it into a tiger.
Then it began to suffer from its fear of huntsmen, and the magician, in
disgust, said, "Be a mouse again. As you have only the heart of a mouse
it is impossible to help you by giving you the body of a nobler animal."
And the poor creature again became a mouse.

Young Commodore Oliver H. Perry, not twenty-eight years old, was
intrusted with the plan to gain control of Lake Erie. With great energy
Perry directed the construction of nine ships, carrying fifty-four guns,
and conquered Commodore Barclay, a veteran of European navies, with six
vessels, carrying sixty-three guns. Perry had no experience in naval
battles before this.

To believe a business impossible is the way to make it so. Feasible
projects often miscarry through despondency, and are strangled at birth
by a cowardly imagination. A ship on a lee shore stands out to sea to
escape shipwreck. Shrink and you will be despised.

One of Napoleon's drummer boys won the battle of Arcola. Napoleon's
little army of fourteen thousand men had fought fifty thousand Austrians
for seventy-two hours; the Austrians' position enabled them to sweep the
bridge of Arcola, which the French had gained and which they must hold
to win the battle. The drummer boy, on the shoulders of his sergeant
(who swam across the river with him), beat the drum all the way across
the river, and when on the opposite end of the bridge he beat his drum
so vigorously that the Austrians, remembering the terrible French
onslaught of the day before, fled in terror, thinking the French army
was advancing upon them. Napoleon dated his great confidence in himself
from this drum. This boy's heroic act was represented in stone on the
front of the Pantheon of Paris.

Two days before the battle of Jena Napoleon said: "My lads, you must not
fear death: when soldiers brave death they drive him into the enemy's
ranks."

Arago says, in his autobiography, that when he was puzzled and
discouraged with difficulties he met with in his early studies in
mathematics some words he found on the waste leaf of his text-book
caught his attention and interested him. He found it to be a short
letter from D'Alembert to a young person, disheartened like himself, and
read: "Go on, sir, go on. The difficulties you meet with will resolve
themselves as you advance. Proceed and light will dawn and shine with
increasing clearness on your path." "That maxim," he said, "was my
greatest master in mathematics."

Overtaken near a rocky coast by a sudden storm of great violence, the
captain of a French brig gave orders to put out to sea; but in spite of
all the efforts of the crew they could not steer clear of the rocks, and
alter struggling for a whole day they felt a violent shock, accompanied
by a horrible crash. The boats were lowered, but only to be swept away
by the waves. As a last resort the captain proposed that some sailors
should swim ashore with a rope, but not a man would volunteer.

"Captain," said the little twelve-year-old cabin boy, Jacques, timidly,
"You don't wish to expose the lives of good sailors like these; it does
not matter what becomes of a little cabin boy. Give me a ball of strong
string, which will unroll as I go on; fasten one end around my body, and
I promise you that within an hour the rope shall be well fastened to the
shore or I will perish in the attempt."

Before anyone could stop him he leaped overboard. His head was soon seen
like a black point rising above the waves and then it disappeared in
the distance and mist, and but for the occasional pull upon the ball of
cord all would have thought him dead. At length it fell as if slackened
and the sailors looked at one another in silence, when a quick, violent
pull, followed by a second and a third, told that Jacques had reached
the shore. A strong rope was fastened to the cord and pulled to the
shore, and by its aid many of the sailors were rescued.

In 1833 Miss Prudence Crandall, a Quaker schoolmistress of Canterbury,
Conn., opened her school to negro children as well as to whites. The
whole place was thrown into uproar; town meetings were called to
denounce her; the most vindictive and inhuman measures were taken to
isolate the school from the support of the townspeople; stores and
churches were closed against teacher and pupils; public conveyances were
denied them; physicians would not attend them; Miss Crandall's own
friends dared not visit her; the house was assailed with rotten eggs and
stones and finally set on fire. Yet the cause was righteous and the
opposition proved vain and fruitless. Public opinion is often radically
wrong.

Staunch old Admiral Farragut--he of the true heart and the iron
will--said to another officer of the navy, "Dupont, do you know why you
didn't get into Charleston with your ironclads?" "Oh, it was because
the channel was so crooked." "No, Dupont, it was not that." "Well, the
rebel fire was perfectly horrible." "Yes, but it wasn't that." "What was
it, then?" "_It was because you didn't believe you could go in._"

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