“And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also; knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope.”
The conjunction of these last words is happy. Verily in experience lies our hope. In learning what to do and what not to do, in stumbling, falling to rise again and faring ever upward and onward. Yes, in and through experience lies our hope, but not, O brother, a wisdom gained vicariously,—not yours for me nor mine for you,—nor from enduring books, charm they never so wisely,—but every one of us, old and young, for himself.
Literature is rich in advice that is utterly worthless. Life’s “Book of Don’ts” is only read for the footnotes that explain why particular “don’ts” failed,—it has become in reality the “Book of Don’ts that Did.” It is pleasant to remember that the gentle Autocrat, a man of science as well as of letters, did not allow professional courtesy to stand in the way of a characteristic fling at Doctor Experience. He goes, in his contempt, to the stupid creatures of the barnyard, and points in high disdain to “that solemn fowl, Experience, who, according to my observation, cackles oftener than she drops real live eggs.”
If the old doctor were to be taken at his own valuation and we should be disposed to profit by his teachings, our lives would be a dreary round; and youth, particularly, would find the ginger savorless in the jar and the ale stale in the pot. I saw my venerable friend walking abroad the other day in the flowered dressing-gown which he so much affects, wearing his familiar classroom smile. I heard him warning a boy, who was hammering a boat together out of wretchedly flimsy material, that his argosy would never float; but the next day I saw the young Columbus faring forth, with his coat for sail, and saw him turn the bend in the creek safely and steer beyond “the gray Azores” of his dreams.
The young admiral cannot escape the perils of the deep, and like St. Paul he will know shipwreck before his marine career is ended; but why discourage him? Not the doctor’s hapless adventures, but the lad’s own are going to make a man of him. I know a town where, thirty years ago, an afternoon newspaper failed about once every six months. There was, so the wiseacres affirmed, no manner of use in trying it again. But a tow-headed boy put his small patrimony into a venture, reinforced it with vigorous independence and integrity, and made it a source of profit to himself and a valued agent in the community. In twenty years the property sold for a million dollars. Greatness, I assure Septimus, consists in achieving the impossible.
“Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
And marching single in an endless file,
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
To each they offer gifts after his will,