Great achievements, massive structures, successful inventions are composed of little things. The steam engine is a wonderful machine, but it consists of more than six thousand pieces of metal. The huge “chalk cliffs of Albion” were built by insects so small as to be only seen with the help of the microscope. The book we admire is made up of individual letters. The river is formed of many rivulets, and life consists not in great but numerous little things. A great man once wore a coat of arms which told the secret of his success. It was a mountain at whose base was a workman with coat off and a pickaxe in his hand, with which he was picking at the mountain. His motto was: “Little by little.” The importance of little things is the only criterion of admission to larger ones. Webster’s famous reply to Hayne was made up largely of little reserves which he had picked up here and there in his reading, from studying men, and from observation. “Great, without small, makes a bad wall,” says a Greek proverb. Ammi the Arabian said to his son, “Bring me the fruit of that tree.” Then he said, “Break it open: what do you see?” “Some seeds,” the boy replied. “Break one open; what do you see?” “Nothing,” he answered. “Where you see nothing,” said his father, “there dwells a mighty tree.” It’s the little things that make up character and prepare one’s destiny.
NEGLECT OF LITTLE THINGS.
“Neglect of little things,” said Samuel Smiles, “has ruined many fortunes and marred the best of enterprises.” What may be of “little consequence” may prove to be disastrous. The ship which bore homeward the merchant’s treasure was lost because it was allowed to leave the port from which it sailed with a very little hole in the bottom. “For want of a nail, the shoe of the aide-de-camp’s horse was lost; for want of the shoe, the horse was lost; for want of the horse, the aide-de-camp was lost; for the enemy took and killed him; and for the want of the aide-de-camp’s intelligence, the army of his general was lost; all because a little nail had not been properly fixed in the horse’s shoe!”
When Conova was about to commence his famous statue of the great Napoleon he detected a tiny red line running through the upper portion of the splendid block that at great cost had been brought from Paros. What did he do? Work on it? No, he refused to lay a chisel upon it. In the early struggles of the elder Herschel, while working out the problem of gigantic telescopic specula, he made scores upon scores before he got one to satisfy him. On that one he found a scratch like a spider thread which caused him to reject it, although he had spent weeks of toil upon it.
LITTLE THINGS.
Moments are little things, yet upon them much of the future depends. Important affairs, well laid plans, fortunes and comforts are frequently sacrificed by negligence of the moments. Lord Chesterfield, writing to his son, said, “Every moment you now lose, is so much character and advantage lost, as on the other hand, every moment you now employ usefully, is so much time wisely laid out, at prodigious interest.” Henry Martyn won the honorable distinction of “the man who never wasted an hour;” while the famous remark of Horace Mann, was, “Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward offered, for they are gone forever.”
A condemned man was being led to execution. He had taken the life of another under circumstances of the greatest provocation, and public sympathy was active in his behalf. Thousands had signed petitions for a reprieve, a favorable answer had been expected the night before, and though it had not come, even the sheriff felt confident that it would arrive in season. Thus the morning passed without the appearance of the messenger. The last moment was up. The prisoner took his place on the drop, the cap was drawn over his eyes, the bolt was drawn, and a lifeless body swung revolving in the wind. Just at that moment a horseman came into sight, galloping down hill, his steed covered with foam. He carried a packet in his right hand, which he waved frantically to the crowd. He was the express rider with the reprieve. But he had come too late. A comparatively innocent man had died an ignominious death because a watch had been five minutes too slow, making its bearer behind time.
LITTLE WORDS.
The alphabet is composed of letters. Letters constitute words, and words framed into sentences constitute books. Because a word is small it does not follow it is not important. Several of the smallest in the English language are the most important. Should a lawyer in making a deed omit some little words he might involve his client in litigation and perhaps subject him to the loss of his property. Two smaller, yet greater, words are not used than “yes” and “no.” They are decisive and conclusive, and as such every boy should learn to use them correctly. They are the words of courage, moral and physical; they are chivalric, knightly words. On occasions of supreme moment, when destiny awaits decision, they expand to sublime proportions. “Yes” to the right, “no” to the wrong.
Of all words hard to say, doubtless “no” is the hardest. Of William McKinley, Henry B. F. Macfarland wrote, “He could say no, as positively as he could say it pleasantly.” Some one wrote of a boy who had stamina enough to say “no” when necessary: