Kitabı oku: «Boy Wanted», sayfa 6
Always say a kind word if you can, if only that it may come in, perhaps, with singular opportuneness, entering some mournful man’s darkened room like a beautiful firefly, whose happy convolutions he cannot but watch, forgetting his many troubles. – Arthur Helps.
Not in war, not in wealth, not in tyranny, is there any happiness to be found – only in kindly peace, fruitful and free. – Ruskin.
You must help your fellow-men; but the only way you can help them is by being the noblest and the best man that it is possible for you to be. – Phillips Brooks.
The humblest subscriber to a mechanics’ institute has easier access to sound learning than had either Solomon or Aristotle, yet both Solomon and Aristotle lived the intellectual life. – Hammerton.
Plenty of good, wholesome play and healthful recreation, every boy needs and must have if he means to round out a fine physical and moral development, but idleness and indifference, evils that creep into the hours that are given up to something that is neither work nor play, must never be tolerated. “The ruin of most men dates from some vacant hour,” says Hillard. “Occupation is the armor of the soul; and the train of Idleness is borne up by all the vices. I remember a satirical poem, in which the devil is represented as fishing for men and adapting his baits to the taste and temperament of his prey; but the idler, he said, pleased him most, because he bit the naked hook. To a young man away from home, friendless and forlorn in a great city, the hours of peril are those between sunset and bedtime; for the moon and stars see more of evil in a single hour than the sun in his whole day’s circuit. The poet’s visions of evening are all compact of tender and soothing images. They bring the wanderer to his home, the child to his mother’s arms, the ox to his stall, and the weary laborer to his rest. But to the gentle-hearted youth who is thrown upon the rocks of a pitiless city, ‘homeless amid a thousand homes,’ the approaching evening brings with it an aching sense of loneliness and desolation, which comes down upon the spirit like darkness upon the earth. In this mood his best impulses become a snare to him; and he is led astray because he is social, affectionate, sympathetic, and warm-hearted. If there be a young man thus circumstanced within the sound of my voice, let me say to him, that books are the friends of the friendless, and that a library is the home of the homeless. A taste for reading will always carry you into the best possible society, and enable you to converse with men who will instruct you by their wisdom, and charm you with their wit; who will soothe you when fretted, refresh you when weary, counsel you when perplexed, and sympathize with you at all times.”
The man who tries and succeeds is one degree less of a hero than the man who tries and fails and yet goes on trying. – Ellen Thornycroft Fowler.
Oh, do not pray for easy lives – pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, – pray for powers equal to your tasks. – Phillips Brooks.
To know how to grow old is the master-work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living. – Henri Frederic Amiel.
Books are the voices of the dumb,
The tongues of brush and pen;
The ever-living kernels from
The passing husks of men.
It is from good books as well as from living personages that boys will receive much of the good advice which they must follow in order that they may make the most of life. Life is too short for a boy to investigate everything for himself. There is much that he must accept as being true. He has not the time to follow every road to its end and ascertain if the sign-posts have all told the truth. Strive as we may we are still dependent for much of our information upon the hearsay of others. No one person can begin to know everything.
If instead of a gem or even a flower, we could cast the gift of a lovely thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give. – George MacDonald.
What must of necessity be done you can always find out, beyond question, how to do. – Ruskin.
When I hear people say that circumstances are against them, I always retort: “You mean that your will is not with you!” I believe in the will – I have faith in it. – Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Every thinking boy clearly understands that he knows much more to-day than he did a year ago. And he has good reason for thinking that if he shall remain among the living he will know many things a year from now that he does not know to-day. To live is to learn. Hence it is that youth should be modest in the presence of age, for silver hair and wisdom are more than likely to dwell together. No youth should think too lightly of his own mental endowments and his fund of information, neither should he permit his very lack of knowledge to lead him to think that he has acquired about all the secrets that nature and the great world have to divulge. Every boy should be cool-headed, clear-headed, long-headed, level-headed, but not big-headed. Should he become afflicted with a serious attack of “enlargement of the brain” it is more than likely that when he has reached the years of soberer manhood he will look back with a sense of good-humored humiliation to
MY BOYHOOD DREAMS
If you do not scale the mountain, you cannot view the plain. – Chinese.
I remember, I remember
When I was seventeen;
I was the cleverest young man
The world had ever seen.
The universe seemed simple then,
But now ’tis little joy
To know I don’t know lots of things
I did know when a boy.
There is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, sincere earnestness. – Dickens.
I remember, I remember
This old world seemed so slow;
I’d teach it how to conquer things
When once I got a show!
’Twas such a charming fairy tale!
But now ’tis sorry play
To find how hard I have to work
To get three meals a day.
To leave undone those things which we ought to do, to leave unspoken the word of recognition or appreciation that we should have said, is perhaps as positive a wrong as it is to do the thing we should not have done. – Lillian Whiting.
I remember, I remember
The things I planned to do;
I meant to take this poor old earth
And make it over new.
It was a most delightful dream;
But now ’tis little cheer
To know the world when I am gone
Won’t know that I was here.
Those who can take the lead are given the lead. – Arthur T. Hadley.
When a family rises early in the morning, conclude the house to be well governed. – Chinese.
This somewhat overdrawn picture of human conceit and egotism holds a lesson for each and all of us. He who knows it all can learn no more, and he who can learn no more is likely to die ignorant. There are guide-posts all along our ways which if heeded will direct us toward the very destinations we should reach. And nothing else is so full of suggestion and inspiration as is a good book. In it we can enter the very heart of a man without being abashed by the author’s august presence.
Duty determines destiny. Destiny which results from duty performed may bring anxiety and perils, but never failure and dishonor. – William McKinley.
When quite young, the poet, Cowley, happened upon a copy of Spenser’s “Faerie Queen”, which chanced to be nearly the only book at hand, and becoming interested he read it carefully and often, until, enchanted thereby, he irrevocably determined to be a poet. The effect this same poem had upon the Earl of Southampton when he first read it is worth remembering. As soon as the book was finished Spenser took it to this noble patron of poets and sent it up to him. The earl read a few pages and said to a servant, “Take the writer twenty pounds.” Still he read on, and presently he cried in rapture, “Carry that man twenty pounds more.” Entranced he continued to read, but presently he shouted: “Go turn that fellow out of the house, for if I read further I shall be ruined!”
Laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him. – Franklin.
Dr. Franklin tells us that the chance perusal of De Foe’s “Essay on Projects” influenced the principal events and course of his life. The reading of the “Lives of the Saints” caused Ignatius Loyola to form the purpose of creating a new religious order, – which purpose eventuated in the powerful society of the Jesuits.
It is faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth looking at. – Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Dickens’s earliest and best literary work, the “Pickwick Papers,” was begun at the suggestion of a publisher of a magazine for whom Dickens was doing some job-work at the time. He was asked to write a serial story to fit some comic pictures which chanced to be in the publisher’s possession.
Blessed is he who has found his work. From the heart of the worker rises the celestial force, awakening him to all nobleness, to all knowledge. – Thomas Carlyle.
While yet a mere boy Scott chanced upon a copy of Percy’s “Reliques of Ancient Poetry,” which he read and re-read with great interest. He purchased a copy as soon as he could get the necessary sum of money and thus was early instilled into his soul a taste for poetry in the writing of which he was destined to attain such eminence. The translation of “Götz von Berlichingen” was Scott’s first literary effort and this work, Carlyle says, had a very large and lasting influence on the great novelist’s future career. In his opinion this translation was “the prime cause of ‘Marmion’ and the ‘Lady of the Lake,’ with all that has followed from the same creative hand. Truly a grain of seed that had lighted in the right soil. For if not firmer and fairer, it has grown to be taller and broader than any other tree; and all nations of the earth are still yearly gathering of its fruit.”
Nothing that is excellent can be wrought suddenly. – Jeremy Taylor.
Character is centrality, the impossibility of being displaced or overset. – Emerson.
A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. – Milton.
Thus we see how much there is in life for those who observe their surroundings, who read the directions on the guide-posts, who study the guidebooks and who are wise enough to receive and to utilize the advice and suggestions that are everywhere offered them, and which their reason tells them are good.
CHAPTER X
REAL SUCCESS
Resolve to cultivate a cheerful spirit, a smiling countenance, and a soothing voice. The sweet smile, the subdued speech, the hopeful mind, are earth’s most potent conquerors, and he who cultivates them becomes a very master among men. – Hubbard.
“Boy Wanted”
Are you the boy?
If you have carefully read and digested the foregoing chapters you have a pretty clear understanding of the sort of boy the world prefers for a life partner. You have learned that you must
Ask no favors of “luck,” – win your way like a man;
Be active and earnest and plucky;
Then your work will come out just about as you plan
And the world will exclaim, “Oh, how lucky!”
They also serve who only stand and wait. – Milton.
In studying the history of the lives of successful men we are constantly being impressed with the thought that they make the most out of their surroundings, whatever their surroundings may be. They do not wait for a good chance to succeed; they take such chances as they can get and make them good. We very soon learn that
Two things fill me with awe: the starry heavens above, and the moral sense within. – Kant.
The ones who shall win are the ones who will toil;
The future is all in our keeping;
Though fortune may give us the seed and the soil,
We must still do the sowing and reaping.
The realities of to-day surpass the ideals of yesterday. – Frothingham.
The person who considers everything will never decide on anything. – Italian.
We learn, also, that one may achieve a full measure of success without accumulating much money, and may accumulate much money without achieving success. “Mere wealth is no more success than fools’ gold is real gold,” says one of our wise essayists. “Collaterals do not take the place of character. A man obtains thousands or millions of dollars by legal or illegal thieving, and society, instead of sending him to prison, receives him in its parlors. Men bow low when he passes, as in the fable the people bowed to the golden idols that were strapped on the back of a donkey, who was ass enough to swell with pride in the thought that all this reverence was for him. The man who puts his trust in gold and deposits his heart in the bank, and thinks money means success, is like the starving traveler in the desert, who, seeing a bag in the distance, found in it, instead of food which he sought, nothing but gold, and flung it from him in disappointment, and died for want of something that could save his life. The soul will starve if gold alone administers to its needs. Better to be a man than merely a millionaire. Better to have a head and heart than merely houses and lands.”
Nobody can carry three watermelons under one arm. – Spanish.
It is along such lines of thinking that I offer these thoughts
ON GETTING RICH
When men speak ill of thee, live so that nobody will believe them. – Plato.
Get riches, my boy! Grow as rich as you can;
’Tis the laudable aim of each diligent man
Of life’s many blessings his share to secure,
Nor go through this world ill-conditioned and poor.
Get riches, my boy! Ah, but hearken you, mind!
Get riches, but those of the genuine kind.
Get riches, – not dollars and acres unless
You thoughtfully use them to brighten and bless.
The great high-road of human welfare lies along the old highway of steadfast well-being and well-doing, and they who are the most persistent, and work in the truest spirit, will invariably be the most successful; success treads on the heels of every right effort. – Samuel Smiles.
Get riches, not such as with money are bought,
But those that with love and high thinking are wrought;
Get rubies of righteousness, jewels of grace,
Whose brightness Time’s passing shall never efface.
Get riches! Do not, as the foolish will do,
In getting your money let money get you
To steal life’s high purpose from heart and from head
And prison the soul in a pocket instead.
Get riches! Get gold that is pure and refined;
Get light from above; get the love of mankind;
Get gladness through all of life’s journey; and then
Get heaven, forever and ever. Amen.
He overcomes a stout enemy who overcomes his own anger. – Greek.
The wide-awake boy will see the advantage of carrying in his thought these words of Lavater: “He who sedulously attends, pointedly asks, calmly speaks, coolly answers, and ceases when he has no more to say is in possession of some of the best requisites of man.”
Stones and sticks are flung only at fruit-bearing trees. – Persian.
The man of words and not of thoughts
Is like a great long row of naughts.
“There is a gift beyond the reach of art, of being eloquently silent,” says Bovee, and Caroline Fox tells us that “the silence which precedes words is so much grander than the grandest words because in it are created those thoughts of which words are the mere outward clothing.” To speak to no purpose is as idle as the clanging of tinkling cymbals.
Let every man be occupied, and occupied in the highest employment of which his nature is capable, and die with the consciousness that he has done his best. – Sydney Smith.
A thoughtful man will never set
His tongue a-going and forget
To stop it when his brain has quit
A-thinking thoughts to offer it.
“If thou thinkest twice before thou speakest once,” says Penn, “thou wilt speak twice the better for it.”
It is this matter of thinking, of considering, of weighing one’s words and deeds that compels the moments, the days and the years to bring the success that some mistakenly think is only a matter of chance.
It is an uncontroverted truth that no man ever made an ill figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them. – Swift.
It is this habit of careful thinking that is going to make you remember that you owe it not only to yourself to make your life the truest success you can, but you owe it to your family, your friends, your enemies – if such you have – to the whole world with which you are in partnership, and to the stars above you.
The great successes of the world have been affairs of a second, a third, nay, a fiftieth trial. – John Morley.
But above all others there is one who, either in spirit or in her living presence, must ever and always be near to you, and for whose sake you will – God helping you! – stand up in your boots and be a man!
THE MOTHER’S DREAM
Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else, and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing. – Sydney Smith.
Boy, your mother’s dreaming; there’s a picture pure and bright
That gladdens all her gracious tasks at morning, noon and night;
A picture where is blended all the beauty born of hope,
A view that takes the whole of life within its loving scope.
Choose always the way that seems the best, however rough it may be. – Pythagoras.
She’s dreaming, fondly dreaming, of the happy future when
Her boy shall stand the equal of his grandest fellow men
Her boy, whose heart with goodness she has labored to imbue,
Shall be, in her declining years, her lover proud and true.
Courage consists, not in blindly overlooking danger, but in meeting it with the eyes open. – Jean Paul Richter.
She’s growing old; her cheeks have lost the blush and bloom of spring,
But oh! her heart is proud because her son shall be a king;
Shall be a king of noble deeds, with goodness crowned, and own
The hearts of all his fellow men, and she shall share his throne.
Boy, your mother’s dreaming; there’s a picture pure and bright
That gladdens all her gracious tasks at morning, noon and night;
A view that takes the whole of life within its loving scope;
O Boy, beware! you must not mar that mother’s dream and hope.
