Self Help by Samuel Smiles (desktop ebook reader txt) 📖

>highest rank in public estimation by the effect of their own worth

and of their personal services; finally, one of the rarest examples

of the solid qualities inherent in the English character.”

 

In all these cases, strenuous individual application was the price

paid for distinction; excellence of any sort being invariably

placed beyond the reach of indolence. It is the diligent hand and

head alone that maketh rich—in self-culture, growth in wisdom, and

in business. Even when men are born to wealth and high social

position, any solid reputation which they may individually achieve

can only be attained by energetic application; for though an

inheritance of acres may be bequeathed, an inheritance of knowledge

and wisdom cannot. The wealthy man may pay others for doing his

work for him, but it is impossible to get his thinking done for him

by another, or to purchase any kind of self-culture. Indeed, the

doctrine that excellence in any pursuit is only to be achieved by

laborious application, holds as true in the case of the man of

wealth as in that of Drew and Gifford, whose only school was a

cobbler’s stall, or Hugh Miller, whose only college was a Cromarty

stone quarry.

 

Riches and ease, it is perfectly clear, are not necessary for man’s

highest culture, else had not the world been so largely indebted in

all times to those who have sprung from the humbler ranks. An easy

and luxurious existence does not train men to effort or encounter

with difficulty; nor does it awaken that consciousness of power

which is so necessary for energetic and effective action in life.

Indeed, so far from poverty being a misfortune, it may, by vigorous

self-help, be converted even into a blessing; rousing a man to that

struggle with the world in which, though some may purchase ease by

degradation, the right-minded and true-hearted find strength,

confidence, and triumph. Bacon says, “Men seem neither to

understand their riches nor their strength: of the former they

believe greater things than they should; of the latter much less.

Self-reliance and self-denial will teach a man to drink out of his

own cistern, and eat his own sweet bread, and to learn and labour

truly to get his living, and carefully to expend the good things

committed to his trust.”

 

Riches are so great a temptation to ease and self-indulgence, to

which men are by nature prone, that the glory is all the greater of

those who, born to ample fortunes, nevertheless take an active part

in the work of their generation—who “scorn delights and live

laborious days.” It is to the honour of the wealthier ranks in

this country that they are not idlers; for they do their fair share

of the work of the state, and usually take more than their fair

share of its dangers. It was a fine thing said of a subaltern

officer in the Peninsular campaigns, observed trudging alone

through mud and mire by the side of his regiment, “There goes

15,000l. a year!” and in our own day, the bleak slopes of

Sebastopol and the burning soil of India have borne witness to the

like noble self-denial and devotion on the part of our gentler

classes; many a gallant and noble fellow, of rank and estate,

having risked his life, or lost it, in one or other of those fields

of action, in the service of his country.

 

Nor have the wealthier classes been undistinguished in the more

peaceful pursuits of philosophy and science. Take, for instance,

the great names of Bacon, the father of modern philosophy, and of

Worcester, Boyle, Cavendish, Talbot, and Rosse, in science. The

last named may be regarded as the great mechanic of the peerage; a

man who, if he had not been born a peer, would probably have taken

the highest rank as an inventor. So thorough is his knowledge of

smith-work that he is said to have been pressed on one occasion to

accept the foremanship of a large workshop, by a manufacturer to

whom his rank was unknown. The great Rosse telescope, of his own

fabrication, is certainly the most extraordinary instrument of the

kind that has yet been constructed.

 

But it is principally in the departments of politics and literature

that we find the most energetic labourers amongst our higher

classes. Success in these lines of action, as in all others, can

only be achieved through industry, practice, and study; and the

great Minister, or parliamentary leader, must necessarily be

amongst the very hardest of workers. Such was Palmerston; and such

are Derby and Russell, Disraeli and Gladstone. These men have had

the benefit of no Ten Hours Bill, but have often, during the busy

season of Parliament, worked “double shift,” almost day and night.

One of the most illustrious of such workers in modern times was

unquestionably the late Sir Robert Peel. He possessed in an

extraordinary degree the power of continuous intellectual labour,

nor did he spare himself. His career, indeed, presented a

remarkable example of how much a man of comparatively moderate

powers can accomplish by means of assiduous application and

indefatigable industry. During the forty years that he held a seat

in Parliament, his labours were prodigious. He was a most

conscientious man, and whatever he undertook to do, he did

thoroughly. All his speeches bear evidence of his careful study of

everything that had been spoken or written on the subject under

consideration. He was elaborate almost to excess; and spared no

pains to adapt himself to the various capacities of his audience.

Withal, he possessed much practical sagacity, great strength of

purpose, and power to direct the issues of action with steady hand

and eye. In one respect he surpassed most men: his principles

broadened and enlarged with time; and age, instead of contracting,

only served to mellow and ripen his nature. To the last he

continued open to the reception of new views, and, though many

thought him cautious to excess, he did not allow himself to fall

into that indiscriminating admiration of the past, which is the

palsy of many minds similarly educated, and renders the old age of

many nothing but a pity.

 

The indefatigable industry of Lord Brougham has become almost

proverbial. His public labours have extended over a period of

upwards of sixty years, during which he has ranged over many

fields—of law, literature, politics, and science,—and achieved

distinction in them all. How he contrived it, has been to many a

mystery. Once, when Sir Samuel Romilly was requested to undertake

some new work, he excused himself by saying that he had no time;

“but,” he added, “go with it to that fellow Brougham, he seems to

have time for everything.” The secret of it was, that he never

left a minute unemployed; withal he possessed a constitution of

iron. When arrived at an age at which most men would have retired

from the world to enjoy their hard-earned leisure, perhaps to doze

away their time in an easy chair, Lord Brougham commenced and

prosecuted a series of elaborate investigations as to the laws of

Light, and he submitted the results to the most scientific

audiences that Paris and London could muster. About the same time,

he was passing through the press his admirable sketches of the ‘Men

of Science and Literature of the Reign of George III.,’ and taking

his full share of the law business and the political discussions in

the House of Lords. Sydney Smith once recommended him to confine

himself to only the transaction of so much business as three strong

men could get through. But such was Brougham’s love of work—long

become a habit—that no amount of application seems to have been

too great for him; and such was his love of excellence, that it has

been said of him that if his station in life had been only that of

a shoe-black, he would never have rested satisfied until he had

become the best shoe-black in England.

 

Another hardworking man of the same class is Sir E. Bulwer Lytton.

Few writers have done more, or achieved higher distinction in

various walks—as a novelist, poet, dramatist, historian, essayist,

orator, and politician. He has worked his way step by step,

disdainful of ease, and animated throughout by the ardent desire to

excel. On the score of mere industry, there are few living English

writers who have written so much, and none that have produced so

much of high quality. The industry of Bulwer is entitled to all

the greater praise that it has been entirely self-imposed. To

hunt, and shoot, and live at ease,—to frequent the clubs and enjoy

the opera, with the variety of London visiting and sight-seeing

during the “season,” and then off to the country mansion, with its

well-stocked preserves, and its thousand delightful out-door

pleasures,—to travel abroad, to Paris, Vienna, or Rome,—all this

is excessively attractive to a lover of pleasure and a man of

fortune, and by no means calculated to make him voluntarily

undertake continuous labour of any kind. Yet these pleasures, all

within his reach, Bulwer must, as compared with men born to similar

estate, have denied himself in assuming the position and pursuing

the career of a literary man. Like Byron, his first effort was

poetical (‘Weeds and Wild Flowers’), and a failure. His second was

a novel (‘Falkland’), and it proved a failure too. A man of weaker

nerve would have dropped authorship; but Bulwer had pluck and

perseverance; and he worked on, determined to succeed. He was

incessantly industrious, read extensively, and from failure went

courageously onwards to success. ‘Pelham’ followed ‘Falkland’

within a year, and the remainder of Bulwer’s literary life, now

extending over a period of thirty years, has been a succession of

triumphs.

 

Mr. Disraeli affords a similar instance of the power of industry

and application in working out an eminent public career. His first

achievements were, like Bulwer’s, in literature; and he reached

success only through a succession of failures. His ‘Wondrous Tale

of Alroy’ and ‘Revolutionary Epic’ were laughed at, and regarded as

indications of literary lunacy. But he worked on in other

directions, and his ‘Coningsby,’ ‘Sybil,’ and ‘Tancred,’ proved the

sterling stuff of which he was made. As an orator too, his first

appearance in the House of Commons was a failure. It was spoken of

as “more screaming than an Adelphi farce.” Though composed in a

grand and ambitious strain, every sentence was hailed with “loud

laughter.” ‘Hamlet’ played as a comedy were nothing to it. But he

concluded with a sentence which embodied a prophecy. Writhing

under the laughter with which his studied eloquence had been

received, he exclaimed, “I have begun several times many things,

and have succeeded in them at last. I shall sit down now, but the

time will come when you will hear me.” The time did come; and how

Disraeli succeeded in at length commanding the attention of the

first assembly of gentlemen in the world, affords a striking

illustration of what energy and determination will do; for Disraeli

earned his position by dint of patient industry. He did not, as

many young men do, having once failed, retire dejected, to mope and

whine in a corner, but diligently set himself to work. He

carefully unlearnt his faults, studied the character of his

audience, practised sedulously the art of speech, and industriously

filled his mind with the elements of parliamentary knowledge. He

worked patiently for success; and it came, but slowly: then the

House laughed with him, instead of at him. The recollection of his

early failure was effaced, and by general consent he was at length

admitted to be one of the most finished and effective of

parliamentary speakers.

 

Although much may be accomplished by means of individual industry

and energy, as these and other instances set forth in the following

pages serve to illustrate, it must at the same time