After a stained-glass window had been constructed for a great European cathedral, an artist picked up the discarded fragments and made one of the most exquisite windows in Europe for another cathedral. So one boy will pick up a splendid education out of the odds and ends of time which others carelessly throw away, or he will gain a fortune by saving what others waste.
There is an English fable that is worthy of special attention. The story is as follows:
Some larks had a nest in a field of grain. One evening the old larks coming home found the young ones in great terror. "We must leave our nest at once," they cried. Then they related how they had heard the farmer say that he must get his neighbors to come the next day and help him reap his field. "Oh!" cried the old birds, "if that is all, we may rest quietly in our nest." The next evening the young birds were found again in a state of terror. The farmer, it seems, was very angry because his neighbors had not come, and had said that he should get his relatives to come the next day and help him. The old birds took the news easily, and said there was nothing to fear yet. The next evening the young birds were quite cheerful. "Have you heard nothing to-day?" asked the old ones. "Nothing important," answered the young. "It is only that the farmer was angry because his relatives also failed him, and he said to his sons, 'Since neither our neighbors nor our relations will help us, we must take hold to-morrow and do it ourselves!'" The old birds were excited this time. They said, "We must leave our nest to-night. When a man decides to do a thing for himself, and to do it at once, you may be pretty sure that it will be done."
If you have anything to do, do it yourself; for that is both the surest and the safest way to permanent success.
STEPHEN GIRAD.
We present by way of special illustration, a few incidents from thecareer of Stephen Girard.
A sloop was seen one morning off the mouth of Delaware Bay, floating the flag of France and a signal of distress. Girard, then quite a young man, was captain of this sloop, and was on his way to a Canadian port with freight from New Orleans. An American skipper, seeing his distress, went to his aid, but told him the American war had broken out, and that the British cruisers were all along the American coast, and would seize his vessel. He told him his only chance was to make a push for Philadelphia. Girard did not know the way, and was short of money. The skipper loaned him five dollars to get the service of a pilot who demanded his money in advance; and his sloop passed into the Delaware just in time to avoid capture by a British war vessel. He sold the sloop and cargo in Philadelphia, and began business on the capital. Being a foreigner, unable to speak English, with a repulsive face, and blind in one eye, it was hard for him to get a start. But he was not the man to give up.
There seemed to be nothing he would not do for money. He bought and sold anything, from groceries to old junk. Everything he touched prospered. In 1780, he resumed the New Orleans and San Domingo trade, in which he had been engaged at the breaking out of the War of the Revolution, and in one year cleared nearly fifty thousand dollars.
Everybody, especially his jealous brother merchants, attributed his great success to his luck. While, undoubtedly, he was fortunate in happening to be at the right place at the right time, yet he was precision, method, accuracy, energy itself. He left nothing to chance. His plans and schemes were worked out with mathematical care. His letters, written to his captains in foreign ports, laying out their routes and giving detailed instruction from which they were never allowed to deviate under any circumstances, are models of foresight and systematic planning.
Girard never lost a ship; and many times, what brought financial ruin to many others, as the War of 1812, only increased his wealth. What seemed luck with him was only good judgment and promptness in seizing opportunities, and the greatest care and zeal in personal attention to all the details of his business and the management of his own affairs.