It has been said that a few pebbles from a brook in the sling of a David who knows how to send them to the mark are more effective than a Goliath's spear and a Goliath's strength with a Goliath's clumsiness.

"Get ready for the redskins!" shouted an excited man as he galloped up to the log-cabin of the Moore family in Ohio many years ago; "and give me a fresh horse as soon as you can. They killed a family down the river last night, and nobody knows where they'll turn up next!"

"What shall we do?" asked Mrs. Moore, with a pale face. "My husband went away yesterday to buy our winter supplies, and will not be back until morning."

"Husband away? Whew! that's bad! Well, shut up as tight as you can. Cover up your fire, and don't strike a light to-night." Then springing upon the horse the boys had brought, he galloped away to warn other settlers.

Mrs. Moore carried the younger children to the loft of the cabin, and left Obed and Joe to watch, reluctantly yielding the post of danger to them at their urgent request. "They're coming, Joe!" whispered Obed early in the evening, as he saw several shadows moving across the fields. "Stand by that window with the axe, while I get the rifle pointed at this one." Opening the bullet-pouch, he took out a ball, but nearly fainted as he found it was too large for the rifle. His father had taken the wrong pouch. Obed felt around to see if there were any smaller balls in the cupboard, and almost stumbled over a very large pumpkin, one of the two which he and Joe had been using to make Jack-o'-lanterns when the messenger alarmed them. Pulling off his coat, he flung it over the vegetable lantern, made to imitate a gigantic grinning face, with open eyes, nose, and mouth, and with a live coal from the ashes he lighted the candle inside. "They'll sound the war-whoop in a minute, if I give them time," he whispered, as he raised the covered lantern to the window. "Now for it!" he added, pulling the coat away. An unearthly yell greeted the appearance of the grinning monster, and the Indians fled wildly to the woods. "Quick, Joe! Light up the other one! Don't you see that's what scar't 'em so?" demanded Obed; and at the appearance of the second fiery face the savages gave a final yell and vanished in the forest. Mr. Moore and daylight came together, but the Indians did not return.

Thurlow Weed earned his first quarter by carrying a trunk on his back from a sloop in New York harbor to a Broad Street hotel. He had very few chances such as are now open to the humblest boy, but he had tact and intuition. He could read men as an open book, and mold them to his will. He was unselfish. By three presidents whom his tact and shrewdness had helped to elect he was offered the English mission and scores of other important positions, but he invariably declined.

Lincoln selected Weed to attempt the reconciliation of the "New York Herald," which had a large circulation in Europe, and was creating a dangerous public sentiment abroad and at home by its articles in sympathy with the Confederacy. Though Weed and Bennett had not spoken to each other before for thirty years, the very next day after their interview the "Herald" became a strong Union paper. Weed was then sent to Europe to counteract the pernicious influence of secession agents. The emperor of France favored the South. He was very indignant because Charleston harbor had been blockaded, thus shutting off French manufacturers from large supplies of cotton. But Weed's rare tact modified his views, and induced him to change to friendliness the tone of a hostile speech prepared for delivery to the National Assembly. England was working night and day preparing for war when Weed arrived upon the scene, and soon changed largely the current of public sentiment. On his return to America the city of New York extended public thanks to him for his inestimable services. He was equally successful in business, and acquired a fortune of a million dollars.

"Tell me the breadth of this stream," said Napoleon to his chief engineer, as they came to a bridgeless river which the army had to cross. "Sire, I cannot. My scientific instruments are with the army, and we are ten miles ahead of it."

"Measure the width of this stream instantly."—"Sire, be reasonable!"—"Ascertain at once the width of this river, or you shall be deposed."

The engineer drew the cap-piece of his helmet down until the edge seemed just in line between his eye and the opposite bank; then, holding himself carefully erect, he turned on his heel and noticed where the edge seemed to touch the bank on which he stood, which was on the same level as the other. He paced the distance to the point last noted, and said: "This is the approximate width of the stream." He was promoted.

"Mr. Webster," said the mayor of a Western city, when it was learned that the great statesman, although weary with travel, would be delayed for an hour by a failure to make close connections, "allow me to introduce you to Mr. James, one of our most distinguished citizens." "How do you do, Mr. James?" asked Webster mechanically, as he glanced at a thousand people waiting to take his hand. "The truth is, Mr. Webster," replied Mr. James in a most lugubrious tone, "I am not very well." "I hope nothing serious is the matter," thundered the godlike Daniel, in a tone of anxious concern. "Well, I don't know that, Mr. Webster. I think it's rheumatiz, but my wife——" "Mr. Webster, this is Mr. Smith," broke in the mayor, leaving poor Mr. James to enjoy his bad health in the pitiless solitude of a crowd. His total want of tact had made him ridiculous.

"Address yourself to the jury, sir," said a judge to a witness who insisted upon imparting his testimony in a confidential tone to the court direct. The man did not understand and continued as before. "Speak to the jury, sir, the men sitting behind you on the raised benches." Turning, the witness bowed low in awkward suavity, and said, "Good-morning, gentlemen."

"What are these?" asked Napoleon, pointing to twelve silver statues in a cathedral. "The twelve Apostles," was the reply. "Take them down," said Napoleon, "melt them, coin them into money, and let them go about doing good, as their Master did."

"I don't think the Proverbs of Solomon show very great wisdom," said a student at Brown University; "I could make as good ones myself." "Very well," replied President Wayland, "bring in two to-morrow morning." He did not bring them.

"Will you lecture for us for fame?" was the telegram young Henry Ward Beecher received from a Young Men's Christian Association in the West. "Yes, F. A. M. E. Fifty and my expenses," was the answer the shrewd young preacher sent back.

Montaigne tells of a monarch who, on the sudden death of an only child, showed his resentment against Providence by abolishing the Christian religion throughout his dominions for a fortnight.

The triumphs of tact, or common sense, over talent and genius, are seen everywhere. Walpole was an ignorant man, and Charlemagne could hardly write his name so that it could be deciphered; but these giants knew men and things, and possessed that practical wisdom and tact which have ever moved the world.

Tact, like Alexander, cuts the knots it cannot untie, and leads its forces to glorious victory. A practical man not only sees, but seizes the opportunity. There is a certain getting-on quality difficult to describe, but which is the great winner of the prizes of life. Napoleon could do anything in the art of war with his own hands, even to the making of gunpowder. Paul was all things to all men, that he might save some. The palm is among the hardest and least yielding of all woods, yet rather than be deprived of the rays of the life-giving sun in the dense forests of South America, it is said to turn into a creeper, and climb the nearest trunk to the light.

A farmer who could not get a living sold one half of his farm to a young man who made enough money on the half to pay for it and buy the rest. "You have not tact," was his reply, when the old man asked how one could succeed so well where the other had failed.

According to an old custom a Cape Cod minister was called upon in April to make a prayer over a piece of land. "No," said he, when shown the land, "this does not need a prayer; it needs manure."

To see a man as he is you must turn him round and round until you get him at the right angle. Place him in a good light, as you would a picture. The excellences and defects will appear if you get the right angle. How our old schoolmates have changed places in the ranking of actual life! The boy who led his class and was the envy of all has been distanced by the poor dunce who was called slow and stupid, but who had a sort of dull energy in him which enabled him to get on in the world. The class leader had only a theoretical knowledge, and could not cope with the stern realities of the age. Even genius, however rapid its flight, must not omit a single essential detail, and must be willing to work like a horse.

Shakespeare had marvelous tact; he worked everything into his plays. He ground up the king and his vassal, the fool and the fop, the prince and the peasant, the black and the white, the pure and the impure, the simple and the profound, passions and characters, honor and dishonor,—everything within the sweep of his vision he ground up into paint and spread it upon his mighty canvas.

Some people show want of tact in resenting every slight or petty insult, however unworthy their notice. Others make Don Quixote's mistake of fighting a windmill by engaging in controversies with public speakers and editors, who are sure to have the advantage of the final word. One of the greatest elements of strength in the character of Washington was found in his forbearance when unjustly attacked or ridiculed.

Artemus Ward touches this bubble with a pretty sharp-pointed pen.

"It was in a surtin town in Virginny, the Muther of Presidents and things, that I was shaimfully aboozed by a editer in human form. He set my Show up steep, and kalled me the urbane and gentlemunly manager, but when I, fur the purpuss of showin' fair play all round, went to anuther offiss to get my handbills printed, what duz this pussillanermus editer do but change his toon and abooze me like a injun. He sed my wax-wurks was a humbug, and called me a horey-heded itinerent vagabone. I thort at fust Ide pollish him orf ar-lar Beneki Boy, but on reflectin' that he cood pollish me much wuss in his paper, I giv it up; and I wood here take occashun to advise people when they run agin, as they sumtimes will, these miserable papers, to not pay no attenshun to um. Abuv all, don't assault a editer of this kind. It only gives him a notorosity, which is jist what he wants, and don't do you no more good than it would to jump into enny other mudpuddle. Editors are generally fine men, but there must be black sheep in every flock."

John Jacob Astor had practical talent in a remarkable degree. During a storm at sea, on his voyage to America, the other passengers ran about the deck in despair, expecting every minute to go down; but young Astor went below and coolly put on his best suit of clothes, saying that if the ship should founder and he should happen to be rescued, he would at least save his best suit of clothes.

"Their trading talent is bringing the Jews to the front in America as well as in Europe," said a traveler to one of that race; "and it has gained for them an ascendency, at least in certain branches of trade, from which nothing will ever displace them."

"Dey are coming to de vront, most zairtainly," replied his companion; "but vy do you shpeak of deir drading dalent all de time?"

"But don't you regard it as a talent?"

"A dalent? No! It is chenius. I vill dell you what is de difference, in drade, between dalent and chenius. Ven one goes into a man's shtore and manaches to seel him vat he vonts, dat is dalent; but ven annoder man goes into dat man's shtore and sells him vot he don't vont, dat is chenius; and dat is de chenius vot my race has got."



CHAPTER XXI

ENAMORED OF ACCURACY

"Antonio Stradivari has an eye That winces at false work and loves the true."

Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty.—C. SIMMONS.

Genius is the infinite art of taking pains.—CARLYLE.

I hate a thing done by halves. If it be right, do it boldly; if it be wrong, leave it undone.—GILPIN.

If I were a cobbler, it would be my pride The best of all cobblers to be; If I were a tinker, no tinker beside Should mend an old kettle like me. OLD SONG.

If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse-trap than his neighbor, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.—EMERSON.

"Sir, it is a watch which I have made and regulated myself," said George Graham of London to a customer who asked how far he could depend upon its keeping correct time; "take it with you wherever you please. If after seven years you come back to see me, and can tell me there has been a difference of five minutes, I will return you your money." Seven years later the gentleman returned from India. "Sir," said he, "I bring you back your watch."

"I remember our conditions," said Graham. "Let me see the watch. Well, what do you complain of?" "Why," said the man, "I have had it seven years, and there is a difference of more than five minutes."

"Indeed! In that case I return you your money." "I would not part with my watch," said the man, "for ten times the sum I paid for it." "And I would not break my word for any consideration," replied Graham; so he paid the money and took the watch, which he used as a regulator.

He learned his trade of Tampion, the most exquisite mechanic in London, if not in the world, whose name on a timepiece was considered proof positive of its excellence. When a person once asked him to repair a watch upon which his name was fraudulently engraved, Tampion smashed it with a hammer, and handed the astonished customer one of his own master-pieces, saying, "Sir, here is a watch of my making."

Graham invented the "compensating mercury pendulum," the "dead escapement," and the "orrery," none of which have been much improved since. The clock which he made for Greenwich Observatory has been running one hundred and fifty years, yet it needs regulating but once in fifteen months. Tampion and Graham lie in Westminster Abbey, because of the accuracy of their work.

To insure safety, a navigator must know how far he is from the equator, north or south, and how far east or west of some known point, as Greenwich, Paris, or Washington. He could be sure of this knowledge when the sun is shining, if he could have an absolutely accurate timekeeper; but such a thing has not yet been made. In the sixteenth century Spain offered a prize of a thousand crowns for the discovery of an approximately correct method of determining longitude. About two hundred years later the English government offered 5,000 pounds for a chronometer by which a ship six months from home could get her longitude within sixty miles; 7,500 pounds if within forty miles; 10,000 pounds if within thirty miles; and in another clause 20,000 pounds for correctness within thirty miles, a careless repetition.

The watchmakers of the world contested for the prizes, but 1761 came, and they had not been awarded. In that year John Harrison asked for a test of his chronometer. In a trip of one hundred and forty-seven days from Portsmouth to Jamaica and back, it varied less than two minutes, and only four seconds on the outward voyage. In a round trip of one hundred and fifty-six days to Barbadoes, the variation was only fifteen seconds. The 20,000 pounds was paid to the man who had worked and experimented for forty years, and whose hand was as exquisitely delicate in its movement as the mechanism of his chronometer.

"Make me as good a hammer as you know how," said a carpenter to the blacksmith in a New York village before the first railroad was built; "six of us have come to work on the new church, and I've left mine at home." "As good a one as I know how?" asked David Maydole, doubtfully, "but perhaps you don't want to pay for as good a one as I know how to make." "Yes, I do," said the carpenter, "I want a good hammer."

It was indeed a good hammer that he received, the best, probably, that had ever been made. By means of a longer hole than usual, David had wedged the handle in its place so that the head could not fly off, a wonderful improvement in the eyes of the carpenter, who boasted of his prize to his companions. They all came to the shop next day, and each ordered just such a hammer. When the contractor saw the tools, he ordered two for himself, asking that they be made a little better than those of his men. "I can't make any better ones," said Maydole; "when I make a thing, I make it as well as I can, no matter whom it is for."

The storekeeper soon ordered two dozen, a supply unheard of in his previous business career. A New York dealer in tools came to the village to sell his wares, and bought all the storekeeper had, and left a standing order for all the blacksmith could make. David might have grown very wealthy by making goods of the standard already attained; but throughout his long and successful life he never ceased to study still further to perfect his hammers in the minutest detail. They were usually sold without any warrant of excellence, the word "Maydole" stamped on the head being universally considered a guaranty of the best article the world could produce.

Character is power, and is the best advertisement in the world.

"We have no secret," said the manager of an iron works employing thousands of men. "We always try to beat our last batch of rails. That is all the secret we've got, and we don't care who knows it."

"I don't try to see how cheap a machine I can produce, but how good a machine," said the late John C. Whitin, of Northbridge, Mass., to a customer who complained of the high price of some cotton machinery. Business men soon learned what this meant; and when there was occasion to advertise any machinery for sale, New England cotton manufacturers were accustomed to state the number of years it had been in use and add, as an all-sufficient guaranty of Northbridge products, "Whitin make."

"Madam," said the sculptor H. K. Brown, as he admired a statue in alabaster made by a youth in his teens, "this boy has something in him." It was the figure of an Irishman who worked for the Ward family in Brooklyn years ago, and gave with minutest fidelity not merely the man's features and expression, but even the patches in his trousers, the rent in his coat, and the creases in his narrow-brimmed stove-pipe hat. Mr. Brown saw the statue at the house of a lady living at Newburgh-on-the-Hudson. Six years later he invited her brother, J. Q. A. Ward, to become a pupil in his studio. To-day the name of Ward is that of the most prosperous of all Americans sculptors.

"Paint me just as I am, warts and all," said Oliver Cromwell to the artist who, thinking to please the great man, had omitted a mole.

"I can remember when you blacked my father's shoes," said one member of the House of Commons to another in the heat of debate. "True enough," was the prompt reply, "but did I not black them well?"

"It is easy to tell good indigo," said an old lady. "Just take a lump and put it into water, and if it is good, it will either sink or swim, I am not sure which; but never mind, you can try it for yourself."

John B. Gough told of a colored preacher who, wishing his congregation to fresco the recess back of the pulpit, suddenly closed his Bible and said, "There, my bredren, de Gospel will not be dispensed with any more from dis pulpit till de collection am sufficient to fricassee dis abscess."

When troubled with deafness, Wellington consulted a celebrated physician, who put strong caustic into his ear, causing an inflammation which threatened his life. The doctor apologized, expressed great regrets, and said that the blunder would ruin him. "No," said Wellington, "I will never mention it." "But you will allow me to attend you, so that people will not withdraw their confidence?" "No," said the Iron Duke, "that would be lying."

"Father," said a boy, "I saw an immense number of dogs—five hundred, I am sure—in our street, last night." "Surely not so many," said the father. "Well, there were one hundred, I'm quite sure." "It could not be," said the father; "I don't think there are a hundred dogs in our village." "Well, sir, it could not be less than ten: this I am quite certain of." "I will not believe you saw ten even," said the father; "for you spoke as confidently of seeing five hundred as of seeing this smaller number. You have contradicted yourself twice already, and now I cannot believe you." "Well, sir," said the disconcerted boy, "I saw at least our Dash and another one."

We condemn the boy for exaggerating in order to tell a wonderful story; but how much more truthful are they who "never saw it rain so before," or who call day after day the hottest of the summer or the coldest of the winter?

There is nothing which all mankind venerate and admire so much as simple truth, exempt from artifice, duplicity, and design. It exhibits at once a strength of character and integrity of purpose in which all are willing to confide.

To say nice things merely to avoid giving offense; to keep silent rather than speak the truth; to equivocate, to evade, to dodge, to say what is expedient rather than what is truthful; to shirk the truth; to face both ways; to exaggerate; to seem to concur with another's opinions when you do not; to deceive by a glance of the eye, a nod of the head, a smile, a gesture; to lack sincerity; to assume to know or think or feel what you do not—all these are but various manifestations of hollowness and falsehood resulting from want of accuracy.

We find no lying, no inaccuracy, no slipshod business in nature. Roses blossom and crystals form with the same precision of tint and angle to-day as in Eden on the morning of creation. The rose in the queen's garden is not more beautiful, more fragrant, more exquisitely perfect, than that which blooms and blushes unheeded amid the fern-decked brush by the roadside, or in some far-off glen where no human eye ever sees it. The crystal found deep in the earth is constructed with the same fidelity as that formed above ground. Even the tiny snowflake whose destiny is to become an apparently insignificant and a wholly unnoticed part of an enormous bank, assumes its shape of ethereal beauty as faithfully as though preparing for some grand exhibition. Planets rush with dizzy sweep through almost limitless courses, yet return to equinox or solstice at the appointed second, their very movement being "the uniform manifestation of the will of God."

The marvelous resources and growth of America have developed an unfortunate tendency to overstate, overdraw, and exaggerate. It seems strange that there should be so strong a temptation to exaggerate in a country where the truth is more wonderful than fiction. The positive is stronger than the superlative, but we ignore this fact in our speech. Indeed, it is really difficult to ascertain the exact truth in America. How many American fortunes are built on misrepresentation that is needless, for nothing else is half so strong as truth.

"Does the devil lie?" was asked of Sir Thomas Browne. "No, for then even he could not exist." Truth is necessary to permanency.

In Siberia a traveler found men who could see the satellites of Jupiter with the naked eye. These men have made little advance in civilization, yet they are far superior to us in their accuracy of vision. It is a curious fact that not a single astronomical discovery of importance has been made through a large telescope, the men who have advanced our knowledge of that science the most working with ordinary instruments backed by most accurately trained minds and eyes.

A double convex lens three feet in diameter is worth $60,000. Its adjustment is so delicate that the human hand is the only instrument thus far known suitable for giving the final polish, and one sweep of the hand more than is needed, Alvan Clark says, would impair the correctness of the glass. During the test of the great glass which he made for Russia, the workmen turned it a little with their hands. "Wait, boys, let it cool before making another trial," said Clark; "the poise is so delicate that the heat from your hands affects it."

Mr. Clark's love of accuracy has made his name a synonym of exactness the world over.

"No, I can't do it, it is impossible," said Webster, when urged to speak on a question soon to come up, toward the close of a Congressional session. "I am so pressed with other duties that I haven't time to prepare myself to speak upon that theme." "Ah, but, Mr. Webster, you always speak well upon any subject. You never fail." "But that's the very reason," said the orator, "because I never allow myself to speak upon any subject without first making that subject thoroughly my own. I haven't time to do that in this instance. Hence I must refuse."

Rufus Choate would plead before a shoemaker justice of the peace in a petty case with all the fervor and careful attention to detail with which he addressed the United States Supreme Court.

"Whatever is right to do," said an eminent writer, "should be done with our best care, strength, and faithfulness of purpose; we have no scales by which we can weigh our faithfulness to duties, or determine their relative importance in God's eyes. That which seems a trifle to us may be the secret spring which shall move the issues of life and death."

"There goes a man that has been in hell," the Florentines would say when Dante passed, so realistic seemed to them his description of the nether world.

"There is only one real failure in life possible," said Canon Farrar; "and that is, not to be true to the best one knows."

"It is quite astonishing," Grove said of Beethoven, "to find the length of time during which some of the best known instrumental melodies remained in his thoughts till they were finally used, or the crude, vague, commonplace shape in which they were first written down. The more they are elaborated, the more fresh and spontaneous they become."

Leonardo da Vinci would walk across Milan to change a single tint or the slightest detail in his famous picture of the Last Supper. "Every line was then written twice over by Pope," said his publisher Dodsley, of manuscript brought to be copied. Gibbon wrote his memoir nine times, and the first chapters of his history eighteen times. Of one of his works Montesquieu said to a friend: "You will read it in a few hours, but I assure you it has cost me so much labor that it has whitened my hair." He had made it his study by day and his dream by night, the alpha and omega of his aims and objects. "He who does not write as well as he can on every occasion," said George Ripley, "will soon form the habit of not writing well on any occasion."

An accomplished entomologist thought he would perfect his knowledge by a few lessons under Professor Agassiz. The latter handed him a dead fish and told him to use his eyes. Two hours later he examined his new pupil, but soon remarked, "You haven't really looked at the fish yet. You'll have to try again." After a second examination he shook his head, saying, "You do not show that you can use your eyes." This roused the pupil to earnest effort, and he became so interested in things he had never noticed before that he did not see Agassiz when he came for the third examination. "That will do," said the great scientist. "I now see that you can use your eyes."

Reynolds said he could go on retouching a picture forever.

The captain of a Nantucket whaler told the man at the wheel to steer by the North Star, but was awakened towards morning by a request for another star to steer by, as they had "sailed by the other."

Stephen Girard was precision itself. He did not allow those in his employ to deviate in the slightest degree from his iron-clad orders. He believed that no great success is possible without the most rigid accuracy in everything. He did not vary from a promise in the slightest degree. People knew that his word was not "pretty good," but absolutely good. He left nothing to chance. Every detail of business was calculated and planned to a nicety. He was as exact and precise even in the smallest trifles as Napoleon; yet his brother merchants attributed his superior success to good luck.

In 1805 Napoleon broke up the great camp he had formed on the shores of the English Channel, and gave orders for his mighty host to defile toward the Danube. Vast and various as were the projects fermenting in his brain, however, he did not content himself with giving the order, and leaving the elaboration of its details to his lieutenants. To details and minutiae which inferior captains would have deemed too microscopic for their notice, he gave such exhaustive attention that before the bugle had sounded for the march he had planned the exact route which every regiment was to follow, the exact day and hour it was to leave that station, and the precise moment when it was to reach its destination. These details, so thoroughly premeditated, were carried out to the letter, and the result of that memorable march was the victory of Austerlitz, which sealed the fate of Europe for ten years.

When a noted French preacher speaks in Notre Dame, the scholars of Paris throng the cathedral to hear his fascinating, eloquent, polished discourses. This brilliant finish is the result of most patient work, as he delivers but five or six sermons a year.

When Sir Walter Scott visited a ruined castle about which he wished to write, he wrote in a notebook the separate names of grasses and wild flowers growing near, saying that only by such means can a writer be natural.

The historian, Macaulay, never allowed a sentence to stand until it was as good as he could make it.

Besides his scrapbooks, Garfield had a large case of some fifty pigeonholes, labeled "Anecdotes," "Electoral Laws and Commissions," "French Spoliation," "General Politics," "Geneva Award," "Parliamentary Decisions," "Public Men," "State Politics," "Tariff," "The Press," "United States History," etc.; every valuable hint he could get being preserved in the cold exactness of black and white. When he chose to make careful preparation on a subject, no other speaker could command so great an array of facts. Accurate people are methodical people, and method means character.

"Am offered 10,000 bushels wheat on your account at $1.00. Shall I buy, or is it too high?" telegraphed a San Francisco merchant to one in Sacramento. "No price too high," came back over the wire instead of "No. Price too high," as was intended. The omission of a period cost the Sacramento dealer $1,000. How many thousands have lost their wealth or lives, and how many frightful accidents have occurred through carelessness in sending messages!

"The accurate boy is always the favored one," said President Tuttle. "Those who employ men do not wish to be on the constant lookout, as though they were rogues or fools. If a carpenter must stand at his journeyman's elbow to be sure his work is right, or if a cashier must run over his bookkeeper's columns, he might as well do the work himself as employ another to do it in that way; and it is very certain that the employer will get rid of such a blunderer as soon as he can."

"If you make a good pin," said a successful manufacturer, "you will earn more than if you make a bad steam-engine."

"There are women," said Fields, "whose stitches always come out, and the buttons they sew on fly off on the mildest provocation; there are other women who use the same needle and thread, and you may tug away at their work on your coat, or waistcoat, and you can't start a button in a generation."

"Carelessness," "indifference," "slouchiness," "slipshod financiering," could truthfully be written over the graves of thousands who have failed in life. How many clerks, cashiers, clergymen, editors, and professors in colleges have lost position and prestige by carelessness and inaccuracy!

"You would be the greatest man of your age, Grattan," said Curran, "if you would buy a few yards of red tape and tie up your bills and papers." Curran realized that methodical people are accurate, and, as a rule, successful.

Bergh tells of a man beginning business who opened and shut his shop regularly at the same hour every day for weeks, without selling two cents' worth, yet whose application attracted attention and paved the way to fortune.

A. T. Stewart was extremely systematic and precise in all his transactions. Method ruled in every department of his store, and for every delinquency a penalty was rigidly enforced. His eye was upon his business in all its ramifications; he mastered every detail and worked hard.

From the time Jonas Chickering began to work for a piano-maker, he was noted for the pains and care with which he did everything. To him there were no trifles in the manufacturing of pianos. Neither time nor labor was of any account to him, compared with accuracy and knowledge. He soon made pianos in a factory of his own. He determined to make an instrument yielding the fullest and richest volume of melody with the least exertion to the player, withstanding atmospheric changes, and preserving its purity and truthfulness of tone. He resolved that each piano should be an improvement upon the one which preceded it; perfection was his aim. To the end of his life he gave the finishing touch to each of his instruments, and would trust it to no one else. He permitted no irregularity in workmanship or sales, and was characterized by simplicity, transparency, and straightforwardness.

He distanced all competitors. Chickering's name was such a power that one piano-maker had his name changed to Chickering by the Massachusetts legislature, and put it on his pianos; but Jonas Chickering sent a petition to the legislature, and the name was changed back. Character has a commercial as well as an ethical value.

Joseph M. W. Turner was intended by his father for a barber, but he showed such a taste for drawing that a reluctant permission was given for him to follow art as a profession. He soon became skilful, but as he lacked means he took anything to do that came in his way, frequently illustrating guide-books and almanacs. But although the pay was very small the work was never careless. His labor was worth several times what he received for it, but the price was increased and work of higher grade given him simply because men seek the services of those who are known to be faithful, and employ them in as lofty work as they seem able to do. And so he toiled upward until he began to employ himself, his work sure of a market at some price, and the price increasing as other men began to get glimpses of the transcendent art revealed in his paintings, an art not fully comprehended even in our day. He surpassed the acknowledged masters in various fields of landscape work, and left matchless studies of natural scenery in lines never before attempted. What Shakespeare is in literature, Turner is in his special field, the greatest name on record.

The demand for perfection in the nature of Wendell Phillips was wonderful. Every word must exactly express the shade of his thought; every phrase must be of due length and cadence; every sentence must be perfectly balanced before it left his lips. Exact precision characterized his style. He was easily the first forensic orator America has produced. The rhythmical fulness and poise of his periods are remarkable.

Alexandre Dumas prepared his manuscript with the greatest care. When consulted by a friend whose article had been rejected by several publishers, he advised him to have it handsomely copied by a professional penman, and then change the title. The advice was taken, and the article eagerly accepted by one of the very publishers who had refused it before. Many able essays have been rejected because of poor penmanship. We must strive after accuracy as we would after wisdom, or hidden treasure or anything we would attain. Determine to form exact business habits. Avoid slipshod financiering as you would the plague. Careless and indifferent habits would soon ruin a millionaire. Nearly every very successful man is accurate and painstaking. Accuracy means character, and character is power.



CHAPTER XXII

DO IT TO A FINISH

Years ago a relief lifeboat at New London sprung a leak, and while being repaired a hammer was found in the bottom that had been left there by the builders thirteen years before. From the constant motion of the boat the hammer had worn through the planking, clear down to the plating.

Not long since, it was discovered that a girl had served twenty years for a twenty months' sentence, in a southern prison, because of the mistake of a court clerk who wrote "years" instead of "months" in the record of the prisoner's sentence.

The history of the human race is full of the most horrible tragedies caused by carelessness and the inexcusable blunders of those who never formed the habit of accuracy, of thoroughness, of doing things to a finish.

Multitudes of people have lost an eye, a leg, or an arm, or are otherwise maimed, because dishonest workmen wrought deception into the articles they manufactured, slighted their work, covered up defects and weak places with paint and varnish.

How many have lost their lives because of dishonest work, carelessness, criminal blundering in railroad construction? Think of the tragedies caused by lies packed in car-wheels, locomotives, steamboat boilers, and engines; lies in defective rails, ties, or switches; lies in dishonest labor put into manufactured material by workmen who said it was good enough for the meager wages they got! Because people were not conscientious in their work there were flaws in the steel, which caused the rail or pillar to snap, the locomotive or other machinery to break. The steel shaft broke in mid-ocean, and the lives of a thousand passengers were jeopardized because of somebody's carelessness.

Even before they are completed, buildings often fall and bury the workmen under their ruins, because somebody was careless, dishonest—either employer or employee—and worked lies, deceptions, into the building.

The majority of railroad wrecks, of disasters on land and sea, which cause so much misery and cost so many lives, are the result of carelessness, thoughtlessness, or half-done, botched, blundering work. They are the evil fruit of the low ideals of slovenly, careless, indifferent workers.

Everywhere over this broad earth we see the tragic results of botched work. Wooden legs, armless sleeves, numberless graves, fatherless and motherless homes everywhere speak of somebody's carelessness, somebody's blunders, somebody's habit of inaccuracy. The worst crimes are not punishable by law. Carelessness, slipshodness, lack of thoroughness, are crimes against self, against humanity, that often do more harm than the crimes that make the perpetrator an outcast from society. Where a tiny flaw or the slightest defect may cost a precious life, carelessness is as much a crime as deliberate criminality.

If everybody put his conscience into his work, did it to a complete finish, it would not only reduce the loss of human life, the mangling and maiming of men and women, to a fraction of what it is at present, but it would also give us a higher quality of manhood and womanhood.

Most young people think too much of quantity, and too little of quality in their work. They try to do too much, and do not do it well. They do not realize that the education, the comfort, the satisfaction, the general improvement, and bracing up of the whole man that comes from doing one thing absolutely right, from putting the trade-mark of one's character on it, far outweighs the value that attaches to the doing of a thousand botched or slipshod jobs.

We are so constituted that the quality which we put into our life-work affects everything else in our lives, and tends to bring our whole conduct to the same level. The entire person takes on the characteristics of one's usual way of doing things. The habit of precision and accuracy strengthens the mentality, improves the whole character.

On the contrary, doing things in a loose-jointed, slipshod, careless manner deteriorates the whole mentality, demoralizes the mental processes, and pulls down the whole life.

Every half-done or slovenly job that goes out of your hands leaves its trace of demoralization behind. After slighting your work, after doing a poor job, you are not quite the same man you were before. You are not so likely to try to keep up the standard of your work, not so likely to regard your word as sacred as before.

The mental and moral effect of half doing, or carelessly doing things; its power to drag down, to demoralize, can hardly be estimated because the processes are so gradual, so subtle. No one can respect himself who habitually botches his work, and when self-respect drops, confidence goes with it; and when confidence and self-respect have gone, excellence is impossible.

It is astonishing how completely a slovenly habit will gradually, insidiously fasten itself upon the individual and so change his whole mental attitude as to thwart absolutely his life-purpose, even when he may think he is doing his best to carry it out.

I know a man who was extremely ambitious to do something very distinctive and who had the ability to do it. When he started on his career he was very exact and painstaking. He demanded the best of himself—would not accept his second-best in anything. The thought of slighting his work was painful to him, but his mental processes have so deteriorated, and he has become so demoralized by the habit which, after a while, grew upon him, of accepting his second-best, that he now slights his work without a protest, seemingly without being conscious of it. He is to-day doing quite ordinary things, without apparent mortification or sense of humiliation, and the tragedy of it all is, he does not know why he has failed!

One's ambition and ideals need constant watching and cultivation in order to keep up to the standards. Many people are so constituted that their ambition wanes and their ideals drop when they are alone, or with careless, indifferent people. They require the constant assistance, suggestion, prodding, or example of others to keep them up to standard.

How quickly a youth of high ideals, who has been well trained in thoroughness, often deteriorates when he leaves home and goes to work for an employer with inferior ideals and slipshod methods!

The introduction of inferiority into our work is like introducing subtle poison into the system. It paralyzes the normal functions. Inferiority is an infection which, like leaven, affects the entire system. It dulls ideals, palsies the aspiring faculty, stupefies the ambition, and causes deterioration all along the line.

The human mechanism is so constituted that whatever goes wrong in one part affects the whole structure. There is a very intimate relation between the quality of the work and the quality of the character. Did you ever notice the rapid decline in a young man's character when he began to slight his work, to shirk, to slip in rotten hours, rotten service?

If you should ask the inmates of our penitentiaries what had caused their ruin, many of them could trace the first signs of deterioration to shirking, clipping their hours, deceiving their employers—to indifferent, dishonest work.

We were made to be honest. Honesty is our normal expression, and any departure from it demoralizes and taints the whole character. Honesty means integrity in everything. It not only means reliability in your word, but also carefulness, accuracy, honesty in your work. It does not mean that if only you will not lie with your lips you may lie and defraud in the quality of your work. Honesty means wholeness, completeness; it means truth in everything—in deed and in word. Merely not to steal another's money or goods is not all there is to honesty. You must not steal another's time, you must not steal his goods or ruin his property by half finishing or botching your work, by blundering through carelessness or indifference. Your contract with your employer means that you will give him your best, and not your second-best.

"What a fool you are," said one workman to another, "to take so much pains with that job, when you don't get much pay for it. 'Get the most money for the least work,' is my rule, and I get twice as much money as you do."

"That may be," replied the other, "but I shall like myself better, I shall think more of myself, and that is more important to me than money."

You will like yourself better when you have the approval of your conscience. That will be worth more to you than any amount of money you can pocket through fraudulent, skimped, or botched work. Nothing else can give you the glow of satisfaction, the electric thrill and uplift which come from a superbly-done job. Perfect work harmonizes with the very principles of our being, because we were made for perfection. It fits our very natures.

Some one has said: "It is a race between negligence and ignorance as to which can make the more trouble."

Many a young man is being kept down by what probably seems a small thing to him—negligence, lack of accuracy. He never quite finishes anything he undertakes; he can not be depended upon to do anything quite right; his work always needs looking over by some one else. Hundreds of clerks and book-keepers are getting small salaries in poor positions today because they have never learned to do things absolutely right.

A prominent business man says that the carelessness, inaccuracy, and blundering of employees cost Chicago one million dollars a day. The manager of a large house in that city, says that he has to station pickets here and there throughout the establishment in order to neutralize the evils of inaccuracy and the blundering habit. One of John Wanamaker's partners says that unnecessary blunders and mistakes cost that firm twenty-five thousand dollars a year. The dead letter department of the Post Office in Washington received in one year seven million pieces of undelivered mail. Of these more than eighty thousand bore no address whatever. A great many of them were from business houses. Are the clerks who are responsible for this carelessness likely to win promotion?

Many an employee who would be shocked at the thought of telling his employer a lie with his lips is lying every day in the quality of his work, in his dishonest service, in the rotten hours he is slipping into it, in shirking, in his indifference to his employer's interests. It is just as dishonest to express deception in poor work, in shirking, as to express it with the lips, yet I have known office-boys, who could not be induced to tell their employer a direct lie, to steal his time when on an errand, to hide away during working hours to smoke a cigarette or take a nap, not realizing, perhaps, that lies can be acted as well as told and that acting a lie may be even worse than telling one.

The man who botches his work, who lies or cheats in the goods he sells or manufactures, is dishonest with himself as well as with his fellow men, and must pay the price in loss of self-respect, loss of character, of standing in his community.

Yet on every side we see all sorts of things selling for a song because the maker put no character, no thought into them. Articles of clothing that look stylish and attractive when first worn, very quickly get out of shape, and hang and look like old, much-worn garments. Buttons fly off, seams give way at the slightest strain, dropped stitches are everywhere in evidence, and often the entire article goes to pieces before it is worn half a dozen times.

Everywhere we see furniture which looks all right, but which in reality is full of blemishes and weaknesses, covered up with paint and varnish. Glue starts at joints, chairs and bedsteads break down at the slightest provocation, castors come off, handles pull out, many things "go to pieces" altogether, even while practically new.

"Made to sell, not for service," would be a good label for the great mass of manufactured articles in our markets to-day.

It is difficult to find anything that is well and honestly made, that has character, individuality and thoroughness wrought into it. Most things are just thrown together. This slipshod, dishonest manufacturing is so general that concerns which turn out products based upon honesty and truth often win for themselves a world-wide reputation and command the highest prices.

There is no other advertisement like a good reputation. Some of the world's greatest manufacturers have regarded their reputation as their most precious possession, and under no circumstances would they allow their names to be put on an imperfect article. Vast sums of money are often paid for the use of a name, because of its great reputation for integrity and square dealing.

There was a time when the names of Graham and Tampion on timepieces were guarantees of the most exquisite workmanship and of unquestioned integrity. Strangers from any part of the world could send their purchase money and order goods from those manufacturers without a doubt that they would be squarely dealt with.

Tampion and Graham lie in Westminster Abbey because of the accuracy of their work—because they refused to manufacture and sell lies.

When you finish a thing you ought to be able to say to yourself: "There, I am willing to stand for that piece of work. It is not pretty well done; it is done as well as I can do it; done to a complete finish. I will stand for that. I am willing to be judged by it."

Never be satisfied with "fairly good," "pretty good," "good enough." Accept nothing short of your best. Put such a quality into your work that anyone who comes across anything you have ever done will see character in it, individuality in it, your trade-mark of superiority upon it. Your reputation is at stake in everything you do, and your reputation is your capital. You cannot afford to do a poor job, to let botched work or anything that is inferior go out of your hands. Every bit of your work, no matter how unimportant or trivial it may seem, should bear your trade-mark of excellence; you should regard every task that goes through your hands, every piece of work you touch, as Tampion regarded every watch that went out of his shop. It must be the very best you can do, the best that human skill can produce.

It is just the little difference between the good and the best that makes the difference between the artist and the artisan. It is just the little touches after the average man would quit that make the master's fame.

Regard your work as Stradivarius regarded his violins, which he "made for eternity," and not one of which was ever known to come to pieces or break. Stradivarius did not need any patent on his violins, for no other violin maker would pay such a price for excellence as he paid; would take such pains to put his stamp of superiority upon his instrument. Every "Stradivarius" now in existence is worth from three to ten thousand dollars, or several times its weight in gold.

Think of the value such a reputation for thoroughness as that of Stradivarius or Tampion, such a passion to give quality to your work, would give you! There is nothing like being enamored of accuracy, being grounded in thoroughness as a life-principle, of always striving for excellence.

No other characteristic makes such a strong impression upon an employer as the habit of painstaking, carefulness, accuracy. He knows that if a youth puts his conscience into his work from principle, not from the standpoint of salary or what he can get for it, but because there is something in him which refuses to accept anything from himself but the best, that he is honest and made of good material.

I have known many instances where advancement hinged upon the little overplus of interest, of painstaking an employee put into his work, on his doing a little better than was expected of him. Employers do not say all they think, but they detect very quickly the earmarks of superiority. They keep their eye on the employee who has the stamp of excellence upon him, who takes pains with his work, who does it to a finish. They know he has a future.

John D. Rockefeller, Jr., says that the "secret of success is to do the common duty uncommonly well." The majority of young people do not see that the steps which lead to the position above them are constructed, little by little, by the faithful performance of the common, humble, every-day duties of the position they are now filling. The thing which you are now doing will unlock or bar the door to promotion.

Many employees are looking for some great thing to happen that will give them an opportunity to show their mettle. "What can there be," they say to themselves, "in this dry routine, in doing these common, ordinary things, to help me along?" But it is the youth who sees a great opportunity hidden in just these simple services, who sees a very uncommon chance in a common situation, a humble position, who gets on in the world. It is doing things a little better than those about you do them; being a little neater, a little quicker, a little more accurate, a little more observant; it is ingenuity in finding new and more progressive ways of doing old things; it is being a little more polite, a little more obliging, a little more tactful, a little more cheerful, optimistic, a little more energetic, helpful, than those about you that attracts the attention of your employer and other employers also.

Many a boy is marked for a higher position by his employer long before he is aware of it himself. It may be months, or it may be a year before the opening comes, but when it does come the one who has appreciated the infinite difference between "good" and "better," between "fairly good" and "excellent," between what others call "good" and the best that can be done, will be likely to get the place.

If there is that in your nature which demands the best and will take nothing less; if you insist on keeping up your standards in everything you do, you will achieve distinction in some line provided you have the persistence and determination to follow your ideal.

But if you are satisfied with the cheap and shoddy, the botched and slovenly, if you are not particular about quality in your work, or in your environment, or in your personal habits, then you must expect to take second place, to fall back to the rear of the procession.

People who have accomplished work worth while have had a very high sense of the way to do things. They have not been content with mediocrity. They have not confined themselves to the beaten tracks; they have never been satisfied to do things just as others do them, but always a little better. They always pushed things that came to their hands a little higher up, a little farther on. It is this little higher up, this little farther on, that counts in the quality of life's work. It is the constant effort to be first-class in everything one attempts that conquers the heights of excellence.

It is said that Daniel Webster made the best chowder in his state on the principle that he would not be second-class in anything. This is a good resolution with which to start out in your career; never to be second-class in anything. No matter what you do, try to do it as well as it can be done. Have nothing to do with the inferior. Do your best in everything; deal with the best; choose the best; live up to your best.

Everywhere we see mediocre or second-class men—perpetual clerks who will never get away from the yardstick; mechanics who will never be anything but bunglers, all sorts of people who will never rise above mediocrity, who will always fill very ordinary positions because they do not take pains, do not put conscience into their work, do not try to be first-class.

Aside from the lack of desire or effort to be first-class, there are other things that help to make second-class men. Dissipation, bad habits, neglect of health, failure to get an education, all make second-class men. A man weakened by dissipation, whose understanding has been dulled, whose growth has been stunted by self-indulgences, is a second-class man, if, indeed, he is not third-class. A man who, through his amusements in his hours of leisure, exhausts his strength and vitality, vitiates his blood, wears his nerves till his limbs tremble like leaves in the wind, is only half a man, and could in no sense be called first-class.

Everybody knows the things that make for second-class characteristics. Boys imitate older boys and smoke cigarettes in order to be "smart." Then they keep on smoking because they have created an appetite as unnatural as it is harmful. Men get drunk for all sorts of reasons; but, whatever the reason, they cannot remain first-class men and drink. Dissipation in other forms is pursued because of pleasure to be derived, but the surest consequence is that of becoming second-class, below the standard of the best men for any purpose.

Every fault you allow to become a habit, to get control over you, helps to make you second-class, and puts you at a disadvantage in the race for honor, position, wealth, and happiness. Carelessness as to health fills the ranks of the inferior. The submerged classes that the economists talk about are those that are below the high-water mark of the best manhood and womanhood. Sometimes they are second-rate or third-rate people because those who are responsible for their being and their care during their minor years were so before them, but more and more is it becoming one's own fault if, all through life, he remains second-class. Education of some sort, and even a pretty good sort, is possible to practically everyone in our land. Failure to get the best education available, whether it be in books or in business training, is sure to relegate one to the ranks of the second-class.

There is no excuse for incompetence in this age of opportunity; no excuse for being second-class when it is possible to be first-class, and when first-class is in demand everywhere.

Second-class things are wanted only when first-class can't be had. You wear first-class clothes if you can pay for them, eat first-class butter, first-class meat, and first-class bread, or, if you don't, you wish you could. Second-class men are no more wanted than any other second-class commodity. They are taken and used when the better article is scarce or is too high-priced for the occasion. For work that really amounts to anything, first-class men are wanted. If you make yourself first-class in anything, no matter what your condition or circumstances, no matter what your race or color, you will be in demand. If you are a king in your calling, no matter how humble it may be, nothing can keep you from success.

The world does not demand that you be a physician, a lawyer, a farmer, or a merchant; but it does demand that whatever you do undertake, you will do it right, will do it with all your might and with all the ability you possess. It demands that you be a master in your line.

When Daniel Webster, who had the best brain of his time, was asked to make a speech on some question at the close of a Congressional session, he replied: "I never allow myself to speak on any subject until I have made it my own. I haven't time to do that in this case, hence, I must refuse to speak on the subject."

Dickens would never consent to read before an audience until he had thoroughly prepared his selection.

Balzac, the great French novelist, sometimes worked a week on a single page.

Macready, when playing before scant audiences in country theaters in England, Ireland, and Scotland, always played as if he were before the most brilliant audiences in the great metropolises of the world.

Thoroughness characterizes all successful men. Genius is the art of taking infinite pains. The trouble with many Americans is that they seem to think they can put any sort of poor, slipshod, half-done work into their careers and get first-class products. They do not realize that all great achievement has been characterized by extreme care, infinite painstaking, even to the minutest detail. No youth can ever hope to accomplish much who does not have thoroughness and accuracy indelibly fixed in his life-habit. Slipshodness, inaccuracy, the habit of half doing things, would ruin the career of a youth with a Napoleon's mind.

If we were to examine a list of the men who have left their mark on the world, we should find that, as a rule, it is not composed of those who were brilliant in youth, or who gave great promise at the outset of their careers, but rather of the plodding young men who, if they have not dazzled by their brilliancy, have had the power of a day's work in them, who could stay by a task until it was done, and well done; who have had grit, persistence, common sense, and honesty.

The thorough boys are the boys that are heard from, and usually from posts far higher up than those filled by the boys who were too "smart" to be thorough. One such boy is Elihu Root, now United States Senator. When he was a boy in the grammar school at Clinton, New York, he made up his mind that anything he had to study he would keep at until he mastered it. Although not considered one of the "bright" boys of the school, his teacher soon found that when Elihu professed to know anything he knew it through and through. He was fond of hard problems requiring application and patience. Sometimes the other boys called him a plodder, but Elihu would only smile pleasantly, for he knew what he was about. On winter evenings, while the other boys were out skating, Elihu frequently remained in his room with his arithmetic or algebra. Mr. Root recently said that if his close application to problems in his boyhood did nothing else for him, it made him careful about jumping at conclusions. To every problem there was only one answer, and patience was the price to be paid for it. Carrying the principle of "doing everything to a finish" into the law, he became one of the most noted members of the New York bar, intrusted with vast interests, and then a member of the President's cabinet.

William Ellery Channing, the great New England divine, who in his youth was hardly able to buy the clothes he needed, had a passion for self-improvement. "I wanted to make the most of myself," he says; "I was not satisfied with knowing things superficially and by halves, but tried to get comprehensive views of what I studied."

The quality which, more than any other, has helped to raise the German people to their present commanding position in the world, is their thoroughness. It is giving young Germans a great advantage over both English and American youths. Every employer is looking for thoroughness, and German employees, owing to their preeminence in this respect, the superiority of their training, and the completeness of their preparation for business, are in great demand to-day in England, especially in banks and large mercantile houses.

As a rule, a German who expects to engage in business takes a four years' course in some commercial school, and after graduation serves three years' apprenticeship without pay, to his chosen business.

Thoroughness and reliability, the German's characteristics, are increasing the power of Germany throughout the civilized world.

Our great lack is want of thoroughness. How seldom you find a young man or woman who is willing to prepare for his life-work! A little education is all they want, a little smattering of books, and then they are ready for business.

"Can't wait," "haven't time to be thorough," is characteristic of our country, and is written on everything—on commerce, on schools, on society, on churches. We can't wait for a high-school, seminary, or college education. The boy can't wait to become a youth, nor the youth to become a man. Young men rush into business with no great reserve of education or drill; of course, they do poor, feverish work, and break down in middle life, while many die of old age in the forties.

Perhaps there is no other country in the world where so much poor work is done as in America. Half-trained medical students perform bungling operations, and butcher their patients, because they are not willing to take time for thorough preparation. Half-trained lawyers stumble through their cases, and make their clients pay for experience which the law school should have given. Half-trained clergymen bungle away in the pulpit, and disgust their intelligent and cultured parishioners. Many an American youth is willing to stumble through life half prepared for his work, and then blame society because he is a failure.

A young man, armed with letters of introduction from prominent men, one day presented himself before Chief Engineer Parsons, of the Rapid Transit Commission of New York as a candidate for a position. "What can you do? Have you any specialty?" asked Mr. Parsons. "I can do almost anything," answered the young man. "Well," remarked the Chief Engineer, rising to end the interview, "I have no use for anyone who can 'almost' do anything. I prefer someone who can actually do one thing thoroughly."

There is a great crowd of human beings just outside the door of proficiency. They can half do a great many things, but can't do any one thing well, to a finish. They have acquisitions which remain permanently unavailable because they were not carried quite to the point of skill; they stopped just short of efficiency. How many people almost know a language or two, which they can neither write nor speak; a science or two, whose elements they have not fully mastered; an art or two, which they can not practise with satisfaction or profit!

The Patent Office at Washington contains hundreds,—yes, thousands,—of inventions which are useless simply because they are not quite practical, because the men who started them lacked the staying quality, the education, or the ability necessary to carry them to the point of practicability.

The world is full of half-finished work,—failures which require only a little more persistence, a little finer mechanical training, a little better education, to make them useful to civilization. Think what a loss it would be if such men as Edison and Bell had not come to the front and carried to a successful termination the half-finished work of others!

Make it a life-rule to give your best to whatever passes through your hands. Stamp it with your manhood. Let superiority be your trade-mark, let it characterize everything you touch. This is what every employer is looking for. It indicates the best kind of brain; it is the best substitute for genius; it is better capital than cash; it is a better promoter than friends, or "pulls" with the influential.

A successful manufacturer says: "If you make a good pin, you will earn more money than if you make a bad steam engine." "If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor," says Emerson, "though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a path to his door."

Never allow yourself to dwell too much upon what you are getting for your work. You have something of infinitely greater importance, greater value, at stake. Your honor, your whole career, your future success, will be affected by the way you do your work, by the conscience or lack of it which you put into your job. Character, manhood and womanhood are at stake, compared with which salary is nothing.

Everything you do is a part of your career. If any work that goes out of your hands is skimped, shirked, bungled, or botched, your character will suffer. If your work is badly done; if it goes to pieces; if there is shoddy or sham in it; if there is dishonesty in it, there is shoddy, sham, dishonesty in your character. We are all of a piece. We cannot have an honest character, a complete, untarnished career, when we are constantly slipping rotten hours, defective material and slipshod service into our work.

The man who has dealt in shams and inferiority, who has botched his work all his life, must be conscious that he has not been a real man; he can not help feeling that his career has been a botched one.

To spend a life buying and selling lies, dealing in cheap, shoddy shams, or botching one's work, is demoralizing to every element of nobility.

Beecher said he was never again quite the same man after reading Ruskin. You are never again quite the same man after doing a poor job, after botching your work. You cannot be just to yourself and unjust to the man you are working for in the quality of your work, for, if you slight your work, you not only strike a fatal blow at your efficiency, but also smirch your character. If you would be a full man, a complete man, a just man, you must be honest to the core in the quality of your work.

No one can be really happy who does not believe in his own honesty. We are so constituted that every departure from the right, from principle, causes loss of self-respect, and makes us unhappy.

Every time we obey the inward law of doing right we hear an inward approval, the amen of the soul, and every time we disobey it, a protest or condemnation.

There is everything in holding a high ideal of your work, for whatever model the mind holds, the life copies. Whatever your vocation, let quality be your life-slogan.

A famous artist said he would never allow himself to look at an inferior drawing or painting, to do anything that was low or demoralizing, lest familiarity with it should taint his own ideal and thus be communicated to his brush.

Many excuse poor, slipshod work on the plea of lack of time. But in the ordinary situations of life there is plenty of time to do everything as it ought to be done.

There is an indescribable superiority added to the character and fiber of the man who always and everywhere puts quality into his work. There is a sense of wholeness, of satisfaction, of happiness, in his life which is never felt by the man who does not do his level best every time. He is not haunted by the ghosts or tail ends of half-finished tasks, of skipped problems; is not kept awake by a troubled conscience.

When we are trying with all our might to do our level best, our whole nature improves. Everything looks down when we are going down hill. Aspiration lifts the life; groveling lowers it.

Don't think you will never hear from a half-finished job, a neglected or botched piece of work. It will never die. It will bob up farther along in your career at the most unexpected moments, in the most embarrassing situations. It will be sure to mortify you when you least expect it. Like Banquo's ghost, it will arise at the most unexpected moments to mar your happiness. A single broken thread in a web of cloth is traced back to the girl who neglected her work in the factory, and the amount of damage is deducted from her wages.

Thousands of people are held back all their lives and obliged to accept inferior positions because they cannot entirely overcome the handicap of slipshod habits formed early in life, habits of inaccuracy, of slovenliness, of skipping difficult problems in school, of slurring their work, shirking, or half doing it. "Oh, that's good enough, what's the use of being so awfully particular?" has been the beginning of a life-long handicap in many a career.

I was much impressed by this motto, which I saw recently in a great establishment, "WHERE ONLY THE BEST IS GOOD ENOUGH." What a life-motto this would be! How it would revolutionize civilization if everyone were to adopt it and use it; to resolve that, whatever they did only the best they could do would be good enough, would satisfy them!

Adopt this motto as yours. Hang it up in your bedroom, in your office or place of business, put it into your pocket-book, weave it into the texture of everything you do, and your life-work will be what every one's should be—A MASTERPIECE.



CHAPTER XXIII

THE REWARD OF PERSISTENCE

Every noble work is at first impossible.—CARLYLE.

Victory belongs to the most persevering.—NAPOLEON.

Success in most things depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.—MONTESQUIEU.

Perpetual pushing and assurance put a difficulty out of countenance, and make a seeming impossibility give way.—JEREMY COLLIER.

"Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel."

The nerve that never relaxes, the eye that never blanches, the thought that never wanders,—these are the masters of victory.—BURKE.

"The pit rose at me!" exclaimed Edmund Kean in a wild tumult of emotion, as he rushed home to his trembling wife. "Mary, you shall ride in your carriage yet, and Charles shall go to Eton!" He had been so terribly in earnest with the study of his profession that he had at length made a mark on his generation. He was a little dark man with a voice naturally harsh, but he determined, when young, to play the character of Sir Giles Overreach, in Massinger's drama, as no other man had ever played it. By a persistency that nothing seemed able to daunt, he so trained himself to play the character that his success, when it did come, was overwhelming, and all London was at his feet.

"I am sorry to say that I don't think this is in your line," said Woodfall the reporter, after Sheridan had made his first speech in Parliament. "You would better have stuck to your former pursuits." With head on his hand Sheridan mused for a time, then looked up and said, "It is in me, and it shall come out of me." From the same man came that harangue against Warren Hastings which the orator Fox called the best speech ever made in the House of Commons.

"I had no other books than heaven and earth, which are open to all," said Bernard Palissy, who left his home in the south of France in 1828, at the age of eighteen. Though only a glass-painter, he had the soul of an artist. The sight of an elegant Italian cup disturbed his whole existence and from that moment the determination to discover the enamel with which it was glazed possessed him like a passion. For months and years he tried all kinds of experiments to learn the materials of which the enamel was compounded. He built a furnace, which was a failure, and then a second, burning so much wood, spoiling so many drugs and pots of common earthenware, and losing so much time, that poverty stared him in the face, and he was forced, from lack of ability to buy fuel, to try his experiments in a common furnace. Flat failure was the result, but he decided on the spot to begin all over again, and soon had three hundred pieces baking, one of which came out covered with beautiful enamel.

To perfect his invention he next built a glass-furnace, carrying the bricks on his back. At length the time came for a trial; but, though he kept the heat up six days, his enamel would not melt. His money was all gone, but he borrowed some, and bought more pots and wood, and tried to get a better flux. When next he lighted his fire, he attained no result until his fuel was gone. Tearing off the palings of his garden fence, he fed them to the flames, but in vain. His furniture followed to no purpose. The shelves of his pantry were then broken up and thrown into the furnace; and the great burst of heat melted the enamel. The grand secret was learned. Persistence had triumphed again.

"If you work hard two weeks without selling a book," wrote a publisher to an agent, "you will make a success of it."

"Know thy work and do it," said Carlyle; "and work at it like a Hercules."

"Whoever is resolved to excel in painting, or, indeed, in any other art," said Reynolds, "must bring all his mind to bear upon that one object from the moment that he rises till he goes to bed."

"I have no secret but hard work," said Turner, the painter.

"The man who is perpetually hesitating which of two things he will do first," said William Wirt, "will do neither. The man who resolves, but suffers his resolution to be changed by the first counter-suggestion of a friend—who fluctuates from opinion to opinion, from plan to plan, and veers like a weather-cock to every point of the compass, with every breath of caprice that blows,—can never accomplish anything great or useful. Instead of being progressive in anything, he will be at best stationary, and, more probably, retrograde in all."

Perseverance built the pyramids on Egypt's plains, erected the gorgeous temple at Jerusalem, inclosed in adamant the Chinese Empire, scaled the stormy, cloud-capped Alps, opened a highway through the watery wilderness of the Atlantic, leveled the forests of the new world, and reared in its stead a community of states and nations. Perseverance has wrought from the marble block the exquisite creations of genius, painted on canvas the gorgeous mimicry of nature, and engraved on a metallic surface the viewless substance of the shadow. Perseverance has put in motion millions of spindles, winged as many flying shuttles, harnessed thousands of iron steeds to as many freighted cars, and set them flying from town to town and nation to nation, tunneled mountains of granite, and annihilated space with the lightning's speed. It has whitened the waters of the world with the sails of a hundred nations, navigated every sea and explored every land. It has reduced nature in her thousand forms to as many sciences, taught her laws, prophesied her future movements, measured her untrodden spaces, counted her myriad hosts of worlds, and computed their distances, dimensions, and velocities.

The slow penny is surer than the quick dollar. The slow trotter will out-travel the fleet racer. Genius darts, flutters, and tires; but perseverance wears and wins. The all-day horse wins the race. The afternoon-man wears off the laurels. The last blow drives home the nail.

"Are your discoveries often brilliant intuitions?" asked a reporter of Thomas A. Edison. "Do they come to you while you are lying awake nights?"

"I never did anything worth doing by accident," was the reply, "nor did any of my inventions come indirectly through accident, except the phonograph. No, when I have fully decided that a result is worth getting I go ahead on it and make trial after trial until it comes. I have always kept strictly within the lines of commercially useful inventions. I have never had any time to put on electrical wonders, valuable simply as novelties to catch the popular fancy. I like it," continued the great inventor. "I don't know any other reason. Anything I have begun is always on my mind, and I am not easy while away from it until it is finished."



A man who thus gives himself wholly to his work is certain to accomplish something; and if he have ability and common sense, his success will be great.

How Bulwer wrestled with the fates to change his apparent destiny! His first novel was a failure; his early poems were failures; and his youthful speeches provoked the ridicule of his opponents. But he fought his way to eminence through ridicule and defeat.

Gibbon worked twenty years on his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Noah Webster spent thirty-six years on his dictionary. What a sublime patience he showed in devoting a life to the collection and definition of words! George Bancroft spent twenty-six years on his "History of the United States." Newton rewrote his "Chronology of Ancient Nations" fifteen times. Titian wrote to Charles V.: "I send your majesty the Last Supper, after working on it almost daily for seven years." He worked on his Pietro Martyn eight years. George Stephenson was fifteen years perfecting his locomotive; Watt, twenty years on his condensing engine. Harvey labored eight long years before he published his discovery of the circulation of the blood. He was then called a crack-brained impostor by his fellow physicians. Amid abuse and ridicule he waited twenty-five years before his great discovery was recognized by the profession.

Newton discovered the law of gravitation before he was twenty-one, but one slight error in a measurement of the earth's circumference interfered with a demonstration of the correctness of his theory. Twenty years later he corrected the error, and showed that the planets roll in their orbits as a result of the same law which brings an apple to the ground.

Sothern, the great actor, said that the early part of his theatrical career was spent in getting dismissed for incompetency.

"Never depend upon your genius," said John Ruskin, in the words of Joshua Reynolds; "if you have talent, industry will improve it; if you have none, industry will supply the deficiency."

Savages believe that when they conquer an enemy, his spirit enters into them, and fights for them ever afterwards. So the spirit of our conquests enters us, and helps us to win the next victory.

Bluecher may have been routed at Ligny yesterday, but to-day you hear the thunder of his guns at Waterloo hurling dismay and death among his former conquerors.

Opposing circumstances create strength. Opposition gives us greater power of resistance. To overcome one barrier gives us greater ability to overcome the next.

In February, 1492, a poor gray-haired man, his head bowed with discouragement almost to the back of his mule, rode slowly out through the beautiful gateway of the Alhambra. From boyhood he had been haunted with the idea that the earth is round. He believed that the piece of carved wood picked up four hundred miles at sea and the bodies of two men unlike any other human beings known, found on the shores of Portugal, had drifted from unknown lands in the west. But his last hope of obtaining aid for a voyage of discovery had failed. King John of Portugal, while pretending to think of helping him, had sent out secretly an expedition of his own.

He had begged bread, drawn maps and charts to keep from starving; he had lost his wife; his friends had called him crazy, and forsaken him. The council of wise men called by Ferdinand and Isabella ridiculed his theory of reaching the east by sailing west.

"But the sun and moon are round," said Columbus, "why not the earth?"

"If the earth is a ball, what holds it up?" asked the wise men.

"What holds the sun and moon up?" inquired Columbus.

"But how can men walk with their heads hanging down, and their feet up, like flies on a ceiling?" asked a learned doctor; "how can trees grow with their roots in the air?"

"The water would run out of the ponds and we should fall off," said another philosopher.

"This doctrine is contrary to the Bible, which says, 'The heavens are stretched out like a tent:'—of course it is flat; it is rank heresy to say it is round," said a priest.

Columbus left the Alhambra in despair, intending to offer his services to Charles VII., but he heard a voice calling his name. An old friend had told Isabella that it would add great renown to her reign at a trifling expense if what the sailor believed should prove true. "It shall be done," said Isabella, "I will pledge my jewels to raise the money. Call him back."

Columbus turned and with him turned the world. Not a sailor would go voluntarily; so the king and queen compelled them. Three days out, in his vessels scarcely larger than fishing-schooners, the Pinta floated a signal of distress for a broken rudder. Terror seized the sailors, but Columbus calmed their fears with pictures of gold and precious stones from India. Two hundred miles west of the Canaries, the compass ceased to point to the North Star. The sailors are ready to mutiny, but he tells them the North Star is not exactly north. Twenty-three hundred miles from home, though he tells them it is but seventeen hundred, a bush with berries floats by, land birds fly near, and they pick up a piece of wood curiously carved. On October 12, Columbus raised the banner of Castile over the western world.

"How hard I worked at that tremendous shorthand, and all improvement appertaining to it," said Dickens. "I will only add to what I have already written of my perseverance at this time of my life, and of a patient and continuous energy which then began to be matured."

Cyrus W. Field had retired from business with a large fortune when he became possessed with the idea that by means of a cable laid upon the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, telegraphic communication could be established between Europe and America. He plunged into the undertaking with all the force of his being. The preliminary work included the construction of a telegraph line one thousand miles long, from New York to St. John's, Newfoundland. Through four hundred miles of almost unbroken forest they had to build a road as well as a telegraph line across Newfoundland. Another stretch of one hundred and forty miles across the island of Cape Breton involved a great deal of labor, as did the laying of a cable across the St. Lawrence.