Architects of Fate; Or, Steps to Success and Power

by Orison Swett Marden

Great men have found no royal road to their triumph. It is always the old route, by way of industry and perseverance.

The farmer boy, Elihu B. Washburn, taught school at ten dollars per month, and early learned the lesson that it takes one hundred cents to make a dollar. In after years he fought "steals" in Congress, until he was called the "Watchdog of the Treasury." From his long membership he became known as the "Father of the House." He administered the oath to Schuyler Colfax as Speaker three times. He recommended Grant as colonel of a regiment of volunteers. The latter, when President, appointed him Secretary of State, and, later, Minister to France. During the reign of the Commune, the representatives of nearly all other foreign nations fled in dismay, but Washburn remained at his post. Shells exploded close to his office, and fell all around it, but he did not leave even when Paris was in flames. For a time he was really the minister of all foreign countries, in Paris; and represented Prussia for almost a year. The Emperor William conferred upon him the Order of the Red Eagle, and gave him a jeweled star of great value.

How could the poor boy, Elihu Burritt, working nearly all the daylight in a blacksmith's shop, get an education? He had but one book in his library, and carried that in his hat. But this boy with no chance became one of America's wonders.

When teaching school, Garfield was very poor. He tore his only blue jean trousers, but concealed the rents by pins until night, when he retired early that his boarding mistress might mend his clothes. "When you get to be a United States Senator," said she, "no one will ask what kind of clothes you wore when teaching school."

Although Michael Angelo made himself immortal in three different occupations, his fame might well rest upon his dome of St. Peter as an architect, upon his "Moses" as a sculptor, and upon his "Last Judgment" as a painter; yet we find by his correspondence now in the British Museum, that when he was at work on his colossal bronze statue of Pope Julius II., he was so poor that he could not have his younger brother come to visit him at Bologna, because he had but one bed in which he and three of his assistants slept together.

"I was always at the bottom of my purse," said Zola, in describing the struggles of his early years of authorship. "Very often I had not a sou left, and not knowing, either, where to get one. I rose generally at four in the morning, and began to study after a breakfast consisting of one raw egg. But no matter, those were good times. After taking a walk along the quays, I entered my garret, and joyfully partaking of a dinner of three apples, I sat down to work. I wrote, and I was happy. In winter I would allow myself no fire; wood was too expensive—only on fête days was I able to afford it. But I had several pipes of tobacco and a candle for three sous. A three-sous candle, only think of it! It meant a whole night of literature to me."

James Brooks, once the editor and proprietor of the "New York Daily Express," and later an eminent congressman, began life as a clerk in a store in Maine, and when twenty-one received for his pay a hogshead of New England rum. He was so eager to go to college that he started for Waterville with his trunk on his back, and when he was graduated he was so poor and plucky that he carried his trunk on his back to the station when he went home.

When Elias Howe, harassed by want and woe, was in London completing his first sewing-machine, he had frequently to borrow money to live on. He bought beans and cooked them himself. He also borrowed money to send his wife back to America. He sold his first machine for five pounds, although it was worth fifty, and then he pawned his letters patent to pay his expenses home.

The boy Arkwright begins barbering in a cellar, but dies worth a million and a half. The world treated his novelties just as it treats everybody's novelties—made infinite objection, mustered all the impediments, but he snapped his fingers at their objections, and lived to become honored and wealthy.

There is scarcely a great truth or doctrine but has had to fight its way to public recognition in the face of detraction, calumny, and persecution. "Everywhere," says Heine, "that a great soul gives utterance to its thoughts, there also is a Golgotha."