George R. came to us late one evening in a little town in Illinois. He was nervous, weak, and diffident.
"I am now," he said, "a salesman in a dry goods store. But I have only held the job three months and do not expect that I will be permitted to remain more than a week or so longer. I have been warned several times by the floor-walker that my errors will cost me my position. God knows, I do my best to succeed in the work, but it is like all the other positions I've held. Somehow or other I don't seem to be able to give satisfaction. While I am on my guard and as alert as I know how to be against one of the things I've been told not to do, I am just as sure as sunshine to go and do some other thing which is against the rules. If I don't do something against the rules, then I forget to do something I was told to do. If I don't forget to do something I've been told to do, then I am quite likely to make some outlandish mistake that no one ever thought of framing a rule to fit. The result of it all is that in about another week or, at the most, two, I'll be out of employment again. I have tried driving a delivery wagon. I've tried grocery stores. I've tried doing collections. I began once as clerk in a bank. Immediately after leaving college, I started in as newspaper reporter. I've been a newsboy on railroad trains. I sold candies and peanuts in a fair ground. I have been night clerk in a hotel. I've been steward on a steamboat. I've been a shipping clerk in a publishing house, and I have been fired from every job I have ever had. True enough, I've hated them all, but, nevertheless; I have tried to do my best in them. Why I cannot succeed with any of them, I don't know, and yet I have a feeling that somehow, somewhere, sometime, I will find something to do that I will love, and that I can do well."
"Music," we said, "unquestionably music."
"Do you think I could?" he said wistfully. "Music has been my passion all my life long. It has been my one joy, my one solace in all my wanderings and all my failures. But
I have always been afraid I would fail also in that, and, if I should, it would break my heart sure. But if you think I have the talent, then I shall give my whole time, my whole thought, my whole energy to music hereafter."
It was rather late in life for this young man to begin a musical career. While he had always been fond of music, he had been sent to college for a classical course by parents to whom a classical course meant everything that was desirable in an education. He had learned to play the piano, the violin, the guitar, the mandolin, and some other instruments, without education, because of his natural musical talent. He played them all as he had opportunity, for his own amusement, but, because of his ambition for commercial success, had never thought of music as a career. We wish we might tell you that this young man was now one of the foremost composers or conductors of his time. It would make an excellent story. Such, however, is not the case.
He devoted himself to securing a thorough musical education, supporting himself and paying his expenses in the mean-while by playing in churches, musicales, motion picture shows, and other places. He also received a few dollars nearly every week for playing the violin for dances and other functions in a semi-professional orchestra. Truly this was not "art for art's sake." Any critical musician could probably tell you that such use of his musical talent forever shut off any hopes of his becoming a true artist. On the other hand, it did fill his stomach and clothe him while he was securing a sufficient musical education to enable him to make a very fair living as teacher on various musical instruments and as a performer at popular concerts, recitals, etc. Best of all, he was happy in his work, felt himself growing in success and, while there were probably heights which he never could scale and to which he may have turned his longing eyes, he doubtless got a considerable amount of satisfaction out of the fact that he was no longer being kicked around from pillar to post in the commercial world.
VOCATIONS FOR THE IMPRACTICAL
Herbert Spencer felt that he was a complete and utter failure as a civil engineer, but he made a magnificent success as a scientist, essayist, and philosopher.
The number of great authors, scientists, philosophers, poets, actors, preachers, teachers, lecturers, and musicians who were ludicrously impractical is legion. Literature abounds in stories of their idiosyncrasies. These people deal with abstractions, ideas, with theories, and with emotions. They may be very successful in the spinning of theories, in the working out of clever ideas, and in their appeal to the emotions of their fellow-men. They may write poetry which is the product of genius; they may devise profound philosophy. This is their realm. Here is where they are supreme, and it is in this kind of work they find an expression for all of their talent.