Stephen Girard was precision itself. He did not allow those in his employ to deviate in the slightest degree from his iron-clad orders. He believed that no great success is possible without the most rigid accuracy in everything. He did not vary from a promise in the slightest degree. People knew that his word was not "pretty good," but absolutely good. He left nothing to chance. Every detail of business was calculated and planned to a nicety. He was as exact and precise even in the smallest trifles as Napoleon; yet his brother merchants attributed his superior success to good luck.
In 1805 Napoleon broke up the great camp he had formed on the shores of the English Channel, and gave orders for his mighty host to defile toward the Danube. Vast and various as were the projects fermenting in his brain, however, he did not content himself with giving the order, and leaving the elaboration of its details to his lieutenants. To details and minutiae which inferior captains would have deemed too microscopic for their notice, he gave such exhaustive attention that before the bugle had sounded for the march he had planned the exact route which every regiment was to follow, the exact day and hour it was to leave that station, and the precise moment when it was to reach its destination. These details, so thoroughly premeditated, were carried out to the letter, and the result of that memorable march was the victory of Austerlitz, which sealed the fate of Europe for ten years.
When a noted French preacher speaks in Notre Dame, the scholars of Paris throng the cathedral to hear his fascinating, eloquent, polished discourses. This brilliant finish is the result of most patient work, as he delivers but five or six sermons a year.
When Sir Walter Scott visited a ruined castle about which he wished to write, he wrote in a notebook the separate names of grasses and wild flowers growing near, saying that only by such means can a writer be natural.
The historian, Macaulay, never allowed a sentence to stand until it was as good as he could make it.
Besides his scrapbooks, Garfield had a large case of some fifty pigeonholes, labeled "Anecdotes," "Electoral Laws and Commissions," "French Spoliation," "General Politics," "Geneva Award," "Parliamentary Decisions," "Public Men," "State Politics," "Tariff," "The Press," "United States History," etc.; every valuable hint he could get being preserved in the cold exactness of black and white. When he chose to make careful preparation on a subject, no other speaker could command so great an array of facts. Accurate people are methodical people, and method means character.
"Am offered 10,000 bushels wheat on your account at $1.00. Shall I buy, or is it too high?" telegraphed a San Francisco merchant to one in Sacramento. "No price too high," came back over the wire instead of "No. Price too high," as was intended. The omission of a period cost the Sacramento dealer $1,000. How many thousands have lost their wealth or lives, and how many frightful accidents have occurred through carelessness in sending messages!
"The accurate boy is always the favored one," said President Tuttle. "Those who employ men do not wish to be on the constant lookout, as though they were rogues or fools. If a carpenter must stand at his journeyman's elbow to be sure his work is right, or if a cashier must run over his bookkeeper's columns, he might as well do the work himself as employ another to do it in that way; and it is very certain that the employer will get rid of such a blunderer as soon as he can."
"If you make a good pin," said a successful manufacturer, "you will earn more than if you make a bad steam-engine."
"There are women," said Fields, "whose stitches always come out, and the buttons they sew on fly off on the mildest provocation; there are other women who use the same needle and thread, and you may tug away at their work on your coat, or waistcoat, and you can't start a button in a generation."