How to Get on in the World: A Ladder to Practical Success

by A. R. Calhoun

CHAPTER XXV

UNSELFISHNESS AND HELPFULNESS.

It must never be forgotten that the position a man occupies at the close of his life is not an infallible criterion of whether he has got on in the world. There are some places in the world's history so illustrious that to occupy them it would be worth dying in poverty and misery. Ambition might well choose to be remembered with gratitude by succeeding generations and to have an immortal name, even if to attain it everything were sacrificed that is counted desirable in life. Who would not surrender wealth and ease and luxury, if in exchange for them he could leave such a name as Columbus, Washington, Lincoln, John Brown, Livingstone or Howard? Posthumous glory counts for something in the reckoning. And this is often attained by self-sacrifice. Revile the world as we may, it does not forget the men who have done it service. The men who have forgotten themselves, who have not striven after their own advantage, but have devoted their lives to the good of humanity, achieve immortality. They get on in the world in the sense of receiving a crown that cannot fade and a glory outshining that of kings and millionaires. The hero has a reward all his own and he may well renounce the lower rewards of riches and ease to gain it. But his qualities must be heroic or he will make his sacrifices to no purpose. He must be true to himself at all cost. Washington was a brilliant example of this fidelity to his ideal. Sparks tells us that when he clearly saw his duty before him, he did it at all hazards, and with inflexible integrity. He did not do it for effect; nor did he think of glory, or of fame and its rewards; but of the right thing to be done, and the best way of doing it.

Yet Washington had a most modest opinion of himself; and when offered the chief command of the American patriot army he hesitated to accept it until it was pressed upon him. When acknowledging in Congress the honor which had been done him in selecting him to so important a trust, on the execution of which the future of his country in a great measure depended, Washington said: "I beg it may be remembered, lest some unlucky event should happen unfavorable to my reputation, that I this day declare, with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with."

And in his letter to his wife, communicating to her his appointment as commander-in-chief, he said: "I have used very endeavor in my power to avoid it, not only from my unwillingness to part with you and the family, but from a consciousness of its being a trust too great for my capacity; and that I should enjoy more real happiness in one month with you at home than I have the most distant prospect of finding abroad, if my stay were to be seven times seven years. But, as it has been a kind of destiny that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that my undertaking is designed for some good purpose. It was utterly out of my power to refuse the appointment, without exposing my character to such censures as would have reflected dishonor upon myself, and given pain to my friends. This, I am sure, could not, and ought not, to be pleasing to you, and must have lessened me considerably in my own esteem."

Washington pursued his upright course through life, first as commander-in-chief, and afterward as President, never faltering in the path of duty. He had no regard for popularity, but held to his purpose through good and through evil report, often at the risk of his power and influence. Thus, on one occasion, when the ratification of a treaty, arranged by Mr. Jay with Great Britain, was in question, Washington was urged to reject it. But his honor, and the honor of his country, was committed, and he refused to do so. A great outcry was raised against the treaty, and for a time Washington was so unpopular that he is said to have been actually stoned by the mob. But he, nevertheless, held it to be his duty to ratify the treaty; and it was carried out in despite of petitions and remonstrances from all quarters. "While I fell," he said, in answer to the remonstrants, "the most lively gratitude for the many instances of approbation from my country, I can no otherwise deserve it than by obeying the dictates of my conscience."

When the Oregon, coming along the Atlantic coast, was struck in the middle of the night by that coaster, and a great wound was made in her side, through which the water was pouring, Captain Murray stood on the bridge as calm, apparently, as a May morning, and waited until every passenger was off, and every officer was off, and every man on the crew was off, and the last man to step from the sinking ship was the captain himself; and ten minutes after he stepped off, the steamer gave a quiver, as of apprehension, and then plunged to the bottom of the ocean. The steamer was his, and the men were his, and the boats were his, and the passengers were his, all for this: that he might save them in time of peril; and he would go down to the bottom of the ocean rather than that, by his recreancy, one of those entrusted to him should perish. This was the true hero, the man who would die rather than be false to duty.

One of the most striking instances that could be given of the character of the dutiful, truthful, laborious man, who works on bravely in spite of difficulty and physical suffering, is presented in the life of the late George Wilson, Professor of Technology in the University of Edinburgh. Wilson's life was, indeed, a marvel of cheerful laboriousness; exhibiting the power of the soul to triumph over the body, and almost to set it at defiance. It might be taken as an illustration of the saying of the whaling-captain to Dr. Kane, as to the power of moral force over physical: "Bless you, sir, the soul will any day lift the body out of its boots!"

A fragile but bright and lively boy, he had scarcely entered manhood ere his constitution began to exhibit signs of disease. As early, indeed, as his seventeenth year, he began to complain of melancholy and sleeplessness, supposed to be the effects of bile. "I don't think I shall live long," he then said to a friend; "my mind will—must work itself out, and the body will soon follow it." A strange confession for a boy to make! But he gave his physical health no fair chance. His life was all brain work, study, and competition. When he took exercise it was in sudden bursts, which did him more harm than good. Long walks in the Highlands jaded and exhausted him; and he returned to his brain-work unrested and unrefreshed.

It was during one of his forced walks of some twenty-four miles, in the neighborhood of Stirling, that he injured one of his feet, and he returned home seriously ill. The result was an abscess, disease of the ankle-joint, and a long agony, which ended in the amputation of the right foot. But he never relaxed in his labors. He was now writing, lecturing and teaching chemistry. Rheumatism and acute inflammation of the eye next attacked him, and were treated by cupping, blistering, and colchicum. Unable himself to write, he went on preparing his lectures, which he dictated to his sister. Pain haunted him day and night, and sleep was only forced by morphia. While in this state of general prostration symptoms of pulmonary disease began to show themselves. Yet he continued to give the weekly lectures to which he stood committed to the Edinburgh School of Arts. Not one was shirked, though their delivery, before a large audience, was a most exhausting duty. "Well, there's another nail put into my coffin," was the remark made on throwing off his top-coat on returning home; and a sleepless night almost invariably followed.