CHAPTER VI
Be Industrious
“The best thing I remember,” said Chauncey Depew to a company of young men in New York, “was my graduation from Yale. I made up my mind that day that I would lead a life of scholastic ease. I thought I would read a little, write a little, take it easy and have a good time. I had a hard-headed father of sturdy Dutch ancestry. He had enough money to take care of me, and I knew it, and when he discovered that I knew it and intended to act accordingly, it was a cold day for me. Said he, ‘You will never get a dollar from me except through my will. From this time forth you have to make your own way.’ Well, I found I had a hard lot of it—nobody had a harder one—and my father stood by and watched me tussle and fight it out. I bless him for that to-night with all the heart and gratitude I have. If he had taken the other course, what should I have done? I should have been up in Peekskill to-night nursing a stove, complaining of the men who have succeeded in the world, and wondering by what exceptional luck they had got on; but having my way to dig alone, I got beyond everything my father dreamed of, but it was done by fourteen, or sixteen, or eighteen hours’ work a day, if necessary.”
The path to any notable achievement, whether business or professional, is not easy. “No pains, no gains,” is an old English proverb, which is akin to the well-known one, “No sweat, no sweet.” Few are the royal roads to fame. Every house Beautiful is situated on a hill Difficulty, the pathway to which is lion-guarded. He who has not the hardihood to climb the one and face the other, will never cross the threshold of the palace. Former Chief Justice Chase used to say that when he came to Washington, a poor boy, an uncle of his was a member of the Cabinet. He went to him and said, “I want to get a place under the government.” His uncle answered, “Salmon, if you want money to buy a pickaxe and shovel to go to work out here on the street, I will furnish you with the money; but you shall never have a position, under the government, with my consent.” To that act of his uncle Chief Justice Chase said he owed his successful career. “Your royal highness,” said Paderewski when told that he was surely inspired, “will be surprised when I tell you that I remember the day when I was quite an indifferent player. I was determined, however, to be what the world calls a genius, and to be a genius I well knew that I must first be a drudge, for genius and drudgery always go hand in hand. Genius”—and Paderewski spoke excitedly—“is three-quarters drudgery—that’s what genius is. I at one time practiced day after day, year after year, till I became almost insensible to sound—became a machine, as it were. Now, ‘Paderewski is a genius,’ says the world! Yes, but Paderewski was a drudge before he was a genius!”
Just as the acorn goes slowly toward the oak, so does the babe journey toward the sage. Haydn and Handel were years before they presented the world with perfect music. Some of the pages of Tennyson’s manuscript have as many as fifty corrections. Only by filling barrels with manuscripts and steadily refusing to publish, Robert Louis Stevenson attained his exquisite style. Millet described his career as ten years of daubing, ten years of despair, and ten years of liberty and success. Of the late Professor Joseph H. Thayer of Harvard Divinity School, it was said, “His greatness was the result, not of native ability alone, but of life-long tireless industry.” Addressing his students he once asked, “Do you wish to become great? Remember it means more hours at your desk. The greater you desire to become, the more hours you must work.” Genius is not only the capacity for keeping at it, but taking pains in its accomplishments. Wellington’s military genius was said to have been perfected by encounters with difficulties of apparently the most overwhelming character, yet such trained him to self-reliance, courage and the highest discipline.
A boy once wrote to Henry Ward Beecher soliciting his aid in securing an easy place wherein he might make his mark. Mr. Beecher replied, “You cannot be an editor; do not try the law; do not think of the ministry; let alone all ships, shops and merchandise; abhor politics, don’t practice medicine; be not a farmer nor a mechanic, neither be a soldier nor a sailor; don’t work, don’t study, don’t think. None of these are easy. My son, you have come into a hard world. I know of only one easy place in this world, and that is the grave.”
INDOLENT BOYS.
Indolence is a characteristic of some boys. Some one wrote:
“A boy will hunt and a boy will fish,
Or play baseball all day;