MISCELLANEA.

Energy and force of character are among the first requisites essential to success in business. A man may possess a high degree of refinement, large stores of knowledge, and even a well-disciplined mind; but if he is destitute of this one principle, which may be termed resolution of soul, he is like a watch without a mainspring—beautiful, but inefficient, and unfit for service.

Never do too much at a time, is a good practical maxim. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton gives the following history of his literary habits: Many persons, seeing me so much engaged in active life, and as much about the world as if I had never been a student, have said to me, “When do you get time to write all your books? How on earth do you contrive to do so much work?” I shall surprise you by the answer I make. The answer is this: “I contrive to do so much by never doing too much at a time. A man, to get through work well, must not overwork himself; or, if he do too much to-day, the reaction of fatigue will come, and he will be obliged to do too little to-morrow. Now, since I began really and earnestly to study, which was not till I had left college, and was actually in the world, I may perhaps say I have gone through as large a course of general reading as most men of my time. I have travelled much, and I have seen much; I have mixed much in politics, and the various business of life; and, in addition to all this, I have published somewhere about sixty volumes, some upon subjects requiring much research. And what time, do you think, as a general rule, I have devoted to study—to reading and writing? Not more than three hours a day; and when Parliament is sitting, not always that. But then, during those hours, I have given my whole attention to what I was about.”

Sir Benjamin Brodie says that “humility leads to the highest distinction, because it leads to self-improvement.” He adds—and the advice cannot be too often repeated—”study your own characters; endeavour to learn and supply your own deficiencies; never assume to yourself qualities which you do not possess; combine all this with energy and activity, and you cannot predicate of yourselves, nor can others predicate of you, at what point you may arrive at last.”

Among the empiric arts of gaining notoriety, that by engraved portraits has led to some curious results. When the late John Harrison Curtis, the aurist, came to town to seek his fortune, he had his portrait engraved in large handsome style, and offered the same to a printseller to publish. He demurred, as the original was unknown; but recommended Curtis to leave his prints at the different printshops “on sale, or return.” The sudden appearance in the shop-windows of a large portrait of the great unknown led to the question, “Who is this Mr. Curtis?” The repeated inquiries laid the foundation of his fortune, and led to his living in good style for many years in Soho-square, and numbering royalty and nobility among his patients; but he outlived his professional reputation, and died in reduced circumstances.

Silence, says Boyle, discovers Wisdom and conceals Ignorance; and ’tis a property that is so much belonging to Wise Men, that even a Fool, when he holdeth his peace, may pass for one of that sort.

It is one thing to see that a line is crooked, and another thing to be able to draw a straight one. It is not quite so easy to do a good thing as those imagine who never try.

One of Sir Thomas Wyat’s common sayings was, that there were three things which should always be strictly observed: “Never to play with any man’s unhappiness or deformity, for that is inhuman; nor on superiors, for that is saucy and undutiful; nor on holy matters, for that is irreligious.”

A little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious, and low.^[127]

One very common error misleads the opinion of mankind,—that, universally, authority is pleasant, submission painful. In the general course of human affairs, the very reverse of this is nearer the truth. Command is anxiety; obedience, ease.^[128]

Lamartine has well observed: “Travelling is summing up a long life in a few years; it is one of the strongest exercises a man can give his heart and his mind. The philosopher, the politician, the poet, should all have travelled much. Changing the moral horizon is to change thought.”

“Begin at the Beginning” is an excellent maxim. The laborious pursuit of first principles brings its own reward. To begin at the beginning in the sciences, as well as in matters of fact, is the nearest and safest road to the end. Even sensible men are too commonly satisfied with tracing their thoughts a little way backwards, and they are, of course, soon perplexed by a profounder adversary. In this respect, most people’s minds are too like a child’s garden, where the flowers are planted without their roots. It may be said of morals and of literature, as truly as of sculpture and painting, that, to understand the outside of human nature, we should be well acquainted with the inside.

Such is the Waywardness of Fate, that one man sucks an orange, and is choked by a pip; another swallows a penknife, and lives: one runs a thorn into his hand, and no skill can save him (a fact of recent date); another has a shaft of a gig passed completely through his body, and recovers: one is overturned on a smooth common, and breaks his neck; another is tossed out of a gig over Brighton cliff, and survives: one walks on a windy day, and meets death by a brickbat; another is blown up into the air, like Lord Hatton, in Guernsey Castle, and comes down uninjured. The escape of this nobleman was indeed a miracle. An explosion of gunpowder, which killed his mother, wife, some of his children, and many other persons, and blew up the whole fabric of the castle, lodged him and his bed on a wall overhanging a tremendous precipice. Perceiving a mighty disorder (as he might expect), he was going to step out of his bed to know what was the matter, which, if he had done, he would have been irrecoverably lost; but, in the instant of this moving, a flash of lightning came and showed him the precipice, whereupon he lay still till people came and took him down.^[129]

There is an almost prophetic meaning in the following passage from Berkeley’s “Essay towards Preventing the Ruin of Great Britain,” written soon after the affair of the South-Sea Scheme: “All projects for growing rich by sudden extraordinary methods, as they operate violently on the passions of men, and encourage them to despise the slow moderate gains that are to be made by an honest industry, must be ruinous to the public; and even the winners themselves will at length be involved in the public ruin.”

Theodore Hook was one of the most experienced exponents of the Town Life of his day: in habits, a bachelor, notwithstanding his industry as a man of letters, he saw more of the outside world than the majority of idle men. He has left many of these experiences in his novels, which, as pictures of life, are valuable.

Thus, in Gilbert Gurney, he gives this admirable bit of club criticism: “People who are conscious of what is due to themselves never display irritability or impetuosity; their manners insure civility—their own civility secures respect: but the blockhead or the coxcomb, fully aware that something more than ordinary is necessary to produce an effect, is sure, whether in clubs or coffee-houses, to be the most fastidious and factious of the community, the most overbearing in his manners towards his inferiors, the most restless and irritable among his equals, the most cringing and subservient before his superiors.” No man could utter such criticism with more complete safety from being answered with a Tu quoque.

PREDICTIONS OF SUCCESS.

A few noteworthy incidents have occurred in the early lives of great men, which have singularly accorded with their success in after-life.

The first notice of Lord Chancellor Somers as a boy is exceedingly curious. In Cooksey’s Life and Character of Lord Somers, the following is stated to be well authenticated. It is to the effect that the boy was walking with one of his aunts, under whose care he was placed at the time, when “a beautiful roost-cock flew upon his curly head, and while perched there crowed three times very loudly.” The occurrence was instantly viewed as an omen of his future greatness.

Pope, writing to Lord Orrery, after first witnessing Garrick’s performance of Richard III., said, “That young man never had his equal as an actor, and will never have a rival.” As yet the prophecy is unshaken.

A few weeks before Lord Chatham died, Lord Camden paid him a visit. Chatham’s son, William Pitt, left the room on Lord Camden’s coming in. “You see that young man,” said the old lord; “what I now say, be assured, is not the fond partiality of a parent, but grounded on a very accurate examination. Rely upon it, that young man will be more distinguished in this country than ever his father was.” His prophecy was in part accomplished. At the age of twenty-four he was Chancellor of the Exchequer; and before he had attained his twenty-fifth year, had been offered, and refused, the place of First Minister.

When Horatio Nelson was a weakly child, he gave proofs of that resolute heart and nobleness of mind which, during his whole career of labour and of glory, so eminently distinguished him. When a mere boy, he strayed a bird’s-nesting from his grandmother’s house, in company with a cow-boy; the dinner-hour elapsed, he was absent, and could not be found; the alarm of the family then became very great, for they apprehended that he might have been carried off by gipsies. At length, after search had been made for him in various directions, he was discovered alone, sitting composedly by the side of a brook which he could not get over. “I wonder, child,” said the old lady when she saw him, “that hunger and fear did not drive you home.” “Fear! grandmamma,” replied the future hero; “I never saw fear—what is it?”

Arthur Wellesley, when at school at Chelsea, was a boy of indolent and careless manner, and rather than join in the amusements of the playground delighted to lean against a large tree, observing his schoolfellows when playing around him. If any boy played unfairly, Arthur quickly apprised those engaged in the game: on the delinquent being turned out, it was generally wished that he should supply his place; but nothing could induce him to do so: when beset by a party of five or six, he would fight with the utmost courage and determination until he freed himself from their grasp; he would then retire again to his tree, and look about him, as observant as before. Such was the love of fair play in the boy who became the great Duke of Wellington.

An incident in the life of Parry, the intrepid Arctic navigator, may also be related here. He left Bath, accompanied by an old and faithful servant of the family, with whom he travelled to Plymouth, and who did not leave him till he saw him finally settled in the Ville de Paris man-of-war. To Parry all was new. He had never before beheld the sea, and his experience of naval matters had been confined to the small craft on the river Avon. He seemed almost struck dumb with astonishment at his first sight of the ocean and of a line-of-battle ship; but, after a while recovering himself, he began eagerly to examine every thing around him, and to ask numberless questions of all who were inclined to listen. While so engaged, he saw one of the sailors descending the rigging from aloft; and in a moment, before the astonished servant knew what Parry was about, he sprang forward, and, with his wonted agility, clambered up to the mast-head, from which giddy elevation he waved his cap in triumph to those whom he had left below. When he regained the deck, the sailors, who had witnessed the feat, gathered round him and commended his spirit, telling him he was “a fine fellow, and a true sailor every inch of him.” We can well imagine with what gratification the various members of his family would receive the account of this and every other incident connected with his first entry on his new career, and how eagerly they would hail his conduct on this occasion as a happy omen of future success.^[130]