Self Help; with Illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance

by Samuel Smiles

Sir Charles Napier was another Indian leader of extraordinary courage and determination. He once said of the difficulties with which he was surrounded in one of his campaigns, “They only make my feet go deeper into the ground.” His battle of Meeanee was one of the most extraordinary feats in history. With 2000 men, of whom only 400 were Europeans, he encountered an army of 35,000 hardy and well-armed Beloochees. It was an act, apparently, of the most daring temerity, but the general had faith in himself and in his men. He charged the Belooch centre up a high bank which formed their rampart in front, and for three mortal hours the battle raged. Each man of that small force, inspired by the chief, became for the time a hero. The Beloochees, though twenty to one, were driven back, but with their faces to the foe. It is this sort of pluck, tenacity, and determined perseverance which wins soldiers’ battles, and, indeed, every battle. It is the one neck nearer that wins the race and shows the blood; it is the one march more that wins the campaign; the five minutes’ more persistent courage that wins the fight. Though your force be less than another’s, you equal and outmaster your opponent if you continue it longer and concentrate it more. The reply of the Spartan father, who said to his son, when complaining that his sword was too short, “Add a step to it,” is applicable to everything in life.

Napier took the right method of inspiring his men with his own heroic spirit. He worked as hard as any private in the ranks. “The great art of commanding,” he said, “is to take a fair share of the work. The man who leads an army cannot succeed unless his whole mind is thrown into his work. The more trouble, the more labour must be given; the more danger, the more pluck must be shown, till all is overpowered.” A young officer who accompanied him in his campaign in the Cutchee Hills, once said, “When I see that old man incessantly on his horse, how can I be idle who am young and strong? I would go into a loaded cannon’s mouth if he ordered me.” This remark, when repeated to Napier, he said was ample reward for his toils. The anecdote of his interview with the Indian juggler strikingly illustrates his cool courage as well as his remarkable simplicity and honesty of character. On one occasion, after the Indian battles, a famous juggler visited the camp and performed his feats before the General, his family, and staff. Among other performances, this man cut in two with a stroke of his sword a lime or lemon placed in the hand of his assistant. Napier thought there was some collusion between the juggler and his retainer. To divide by a sweep of the sword on a man’s hand so small an object without touching the flesh he believed to be impossible, though a similar incident is related by Scott in his romance of the ‘Talisman.’ To determine the point, the General offered his own hand for the experiment, and he stretched out his right arm. The juggler looked attentively at the hand, and said he would not make the trial. “I thought I would find you out!” exclaimed Napier. “But stop,” added the other, “let me see your left hand.” The left hand was submitted, and the man then said firmly, “If you will hold your arm steady I will perform the feat.” “But why the left hand and not the right?” “Because the right hand is hollow in the centre, and there is a risk of cutting off the thumb; the left is high, and the danger will be less.” Napier was startled. “I got frightened,” he said; “I saw it was an actual feat of delicate swordsmanship, and if I had not abused the man as I did before my staff, and challenged him to the trial, I honestly acknowledge I would have retired from the encounter. However, I put the lime on my hand, and held out my arm steadily. The juggler balanced himself, and, with a swift stroke cut the lime in two pieces. I felt the edge of the sword on my hand as if a cold thread had been drawn across it. So much (he added) for the brave swordsmen of India, whom our fine fellows defeated at Meeanee.”

The recent terrible struggle in India has served to bring out, perhaps more prominently than any previous event in our history, the determined energy and self-reliance of the national character. Although English officialism may often drift stupidly into gigantic blunders, the men of the nation generally contrive to work their way out of them with a heroism almost approaching the sublime. In May, 1857, when the revolt burst upon India like a thunder-clap, the British forces had been allowed to dwindle to their extreme minimum, and were scattered over a wide extent of country, many of them in remote cantonments. The Bengal regiments, one after another, rose against their officers, broke away, and rushed to Delhi. Province after province was lapped in mutiny and rebellion; and the cry for help rose from east to west. Everywhere the English stood at bay in small detachments, beleaguered and surrounded, apparently incapable of resistance. Their discomfiture seemed so complete, and the utter ruin of the British cause in India so certain, that it might be said of them then, as it had been said before, “These English never know when they are beaten.” According to rule, they ought then and there to have succumbed to inevitable fate.

While the issue of the mutiny still appeared uncertain, Holkar, one of the native princes, consulted his astrologer for information. The reply was, “If all the Europeans save one are slain, that one will remain to fight and reconquer.” In their very darkest moment—even where, as at Lucknow, a mere handful of British soldiers, civilians, and women, held out amidst a city and province in arms against them—there was no word of despair, no thought of surrender. Though cut off from all communication with their friends for months, and not knowing whether India was lost or held, they never ceased to have perfect faith in the courage and devotedness of their countrymen. They knew that while a body of men of English race held together in India, they would not be left unheeded to perish. They never dreamt of any other issue but retrieval of their misfortune and ultimate triumph; and if the worst came to the worst, they could but fall at their post, and die in the performance of their duty. Need we remind the reader of the names of Havelock, Inglis, Neill, and Outram—men of truly heroic mould—of each of whom it might with truth be said that he had the heart of a chevalier, the soul of a believer, and the temperament of a martyr. Montalembert has said of them that “they do honour to the human race.” But throughout that terrible trial almost all proved equally great—women, civilians and soldiers—from the general down through all grades to the private and bugleman. The men were not picked: they belonged to the same ordinary people whom we daily meet at home—in the streets, in workshops, in the fields, at clubs; yet when sudden disaster fell upon them, each and all displayed a wealth of personal resources and energy, and became as it were individually heroic. “Not one of them,” says Montalembert, “shrank or trembled—all, military and civilians, young and old, generals and soldiers, resisted, fought, and perished with a coolness and intrepidity which never faltered. It is in this circumstance that shines out the immense value of public education, which invites the Englishman from his youth to make use of his strength and his liberty, to associate, resist, fear nothing, to be astonished at nothing, and to save himself, by his own sole exertions, from every sore strait in life.”

It has been said that Delhi was taken and India saved by the personal character of Sir John Lawrence. The very name of “Lawrence” represented power in the North-West Provinces. His standard of duty, zeal, and personal effort, was of the highest; and every man who served under him seemed to be inspired by his spirit. It was declared of him that his character alone was worth an army. The same might be said of his brother Sir Henry, who organised the Punjaub force that took so prominent a part in the capture of Delhi. Both brothers inspired those who were about them with perfect love and confidence. Both possessed that quality of tenderness, which is one of the true elements of the heroic character. Both lived amongst the people, and powerfully influenced them for good. Above all as Col. Edwardes says, “they drew models on young fellows’ minds, which they went forth and copied in their several administrations: they sketched a faith, and begot a school, which are both living things at this day.” Sir John Lawrence had by his side such men as Montgomery, Nicholson, Cotton, and Edwardes, as prompt, decisive, and high-souled as himself. John Nicholson was one of the finest, manliest, and noblest of men—“every inch a hakim,” the natives said of him—“a tower of strength,” as he was characterised by Lord Dalhousie. In whatever capacity he acted he was great, because he acted with his whole strength and soul. A brotherhood of fakeers—borne away by their enthusiastic admiration of the man—even began the worship of Nikkil Seyn: he had some of them punished for their folly, but they continued their worship nevertheless. Of his sustained energy and persistency an illustration may be cited in his pursuit of the 55th Sepoy mutineers, when he was in the saddle for twenty consecutive hours, and travelled more than seventy miles. When the enemy set up their standard at Delhi, Lawrence and Montgomery, relying on the support of the people of the Punjaub, and compelling their admiration and confidence, strained every nerve to keep their own province in perfect order, whilst they hurled every available soldier, European and Sikh, against that city. Sir John wrote to the commander-in-chief to “hang on to the rebels’ noses before Delhi,” while the troops pressed on by forced marches under Nicholson, “the tramp of whose war-horse might be heard miles off,” as was afterwards said of him by a rough Sikh who wept over his grave.

The siege and storming of Delhi was the most illustrious event which occurred in the course of that gigantic struggle, although the leaguer of Lucknow, during which the merest skeleton of a British regiment—the 32nd—held out, under the heroic Inglis, for six months against two hundred thousand armed enemies, has perhaps excited more intense interest. At Delhi, too, the British were really the besieged, though ostensibly the besiegers; they were a mere handful of men “in the open”—not more than 3,700 bayonets, European and native—and they were assailed from day to day by an army of rebels numbering at one time as many as 75,000 men, trained to European discipline by English officers, and supplied with all but exhaustless munitions of war. The heroic little band sat down before the city under the burning rays of a tropical sun. Death, wounds, and fever failed to turn them from their purpose. Thirty times they were attacked by overwhelming numbers, and thirty times did they drive back the enemy behind their defences. As Captain Hodson—himself one of the bravest there—has said, “I venture to aver that no other nation in the world would have remained here, or avoided defeat if they had attempted to do so.” Never for an instant did these heroes falter at their work; with sublime endurance they held on, fought on, and never relaxed until, dashing through the “imminent deadly breach,” the place was won, and the British flag was again unfurled on the walls of Delhi. All were great—privates, officers, and generals. Common soldiers who had been inured to a life of hardship, and young officers who had been nursed in luxurious homes, alike proved their manhood, and emerged from that terrible trial with equal honour. The native strength and soundness of the English race, and of manly English training and discipline, were never more powerfully exhibited; and it was there emphatically proved that the Men of England are, after all, its greatest products. A terrible price was paid for this great chapter in our history, but if those who survive, and those who come after, profit by the lesson and example, it may not have been purchased at too great a cost.

But not less energy and courage have been displayed in India and the East by men of various nations, in other lines of action more peaceful and beneficent than that of war. And while the heroes of the sword are remembered, the heroes of the gospel ought not to be forgotten. From Xavier to Martyn and Williams, there has been a succession of illustrious missionary labourers, working in a spirit of sublime self-sacrifice, without any thought of worldly honour, inspired solely by the hope of seeking out and rescuing the lost and fallen of their race. Borne up by invincible courage and never-failing patience, these men have endured privations, braved dangers, walked through pestilence, and borne all toils, fatigues, and sufferings, yet held on their way rejoicing, glorying even in martyrdom itself. Of these one of the first and most illustrious was Francis Xavier. Born of noble lineage, and with pleasure, power, and honour within his reach, he proved by his life that there are higher objects in the world than rank, and nobler aspirations than the accumulation of wealth. He was a true gentleman in manners and sentiment; brave, honourable, generous; easily led, yet capable of leading; easily persuaded, yet himself persuasive; a most patient, resolute and energetic man. At the age of twenty-two he was earning his living as a public teacher of philosophy at the University of Paris. There Xavier became the intimate friend and associate of Loyola, and shortly afterwards he conducted the pilgrimage of the first little band of proselytes to Rome.

When John III. of Portugal resolved to plant Christianity in the Indian territories subject to his influence, Bobadilla was first selected as his missionary; but being disabled by illness, it was found necessary to make another selection, and Xavier was chosen. Repairing his tattered cassock, and with no other baggage than his breviary, he at once started for Lisbon and embarked for the East. The ship in which he set sail for Goa had the Governor on board, with a reinforcement of a thousand men for the garrison of the place. Though a cabin was placed at his disposal, Xavier slept on deck throughout the voyage with his head on a coil of ropes, messing with the sailors. By ministering to their wants, inventing innocent sports for their amusement, and attending them in their sickness, he wholly won their hearts, and they regarded him with veneration.

Arrived at Goa, Xavier was shocked at the depravity of the people, settlers as well as natives; for the former had imported the vices without the restraints of civilization, and the latter had only been too apt to imitate their bad example. Passing along the streets of the city, sounding his handbell as he went, he implored the people to send him their children to be instructed. He shortly succeeded in collecting a large number of scholars, whom he carefully taught day by day, at the same time visiting the sick, the lepers, and the wretched of all classes, with the object of assuaging their miseries, and bringing them to the Truth. No cry of human suffering which reached him was disregarded. Hearing of the degradation and misery of the pearl fishers of Manaar, he set out to visit them, and his bell again rang out the invitation of mercy. He baptized and he taught, but the latter he could only do through interpreters. His most eloquent teaching was his ministration to the wants and the sufferings of the wretched.

On he went, his hand-bell sounding along the coast of Comorin, among the towns and villages, the temples and the bazaars, summoning the natives to gather about him and be instructed. He had translations made of the Catechism, the Apostles’ Creed, the Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and some of the devotional offices of the Church. Committing these to memory in their own tongue he recited them to the children, until they had them by heart; after which he sent them forth to teach the words to their parents and neighbours. At Cape Comorin, he appointed thirty teachers, who under himself presided over thirty Christian Churches, though the Churches were but humble, in most cases consisting only of a cottage surmounted by a cross. Thence he passed to Travancore, sounding his way from village to village, baptizing until his hands dropped with weariness, and repeating his formulas until his voice became almost inaudible. According to his own account, the success of his mission surpassed his highest expectations. His pure, earnest, and beautiful life, and the irresistible eloquence of his deeds, made converts wherever he went; and by sheer force of sympathy, those who saw him and listened to him insensibly caught a portion of his ardour.