Part 28

The present writer entertains some different ideas respecting original humility of circumstances from what are generally prevalent. The common notion is, that humble circumstances are a great obstruction at the outset of life, and that the more difference between a man’s origin and his eventual condition, the greater is the wonder, and the greater his merit. Since it appears, however, that so large a proportion of distinguished men were poor at the beginning, a question may naturally arise, are not men just the more apt, on that account, to become eminent? Although we are all familiar as possible with instances of fortunes made from nothing, it will be found, on recollection, that cases are comparatively rare of men who began with fortunes having ended by greatly increasing them. Many a poor boy has made twenty thousand pounds before he was forty years of age; but few who had ten thousand at the age of majority are found to double it with their years. Here—here is a reason for hope. The fact is, large sums are not to be acquired without an appreciation and an understanding of the meanest financial details. To make pounds, we must know the value of shillings; we must have felt before how much good could sometimes be done, how much evil could sometimes be avoided, _by the possession of a single penny_! For want of this knowledge, the opulent youth squanders or otherwise loses more, perhaps, than he gains. But he who has risen from the ranks knows the value and powers of every sum, from the lowest upwards, and, _as saving is the better part of the art of acquiring money_, he never goes back a step—his whole march is ONWARD. At the very worst, it is only a question of time. Say one man begins at twenty with a good capital, and another at the same age with none. For want of experience, and through other causes above mentioned, it is not likely that the former person has made much advance within the first ten years. Now, ten years is an immense space to the individual who only commenced with good resolutions. In that time, if he has not accumulated actual money, he may quite well have secured good reputation and credit, which, prudently managed, is just money of another kind. And so, while still a young man, he is pretty much upon a par with him who seemed to start with such superior advantages. In fact, fortune, or original good circumstances, appear to the present writer as requisites of a very unimportant character, compared with talent, power of application, self-denial, and honourable intentions. The _fortunate_—to use the erroneous language of common life—are selected from those who have possessed the latter indispensable qualifications in their best combinations: and as it is obvious that young men of fortune (necessarily the smaller class) have only a chance, according to their numbers, of possessing them, it follows, as a clear induction, that the great mass of the prosperous were originally poor.

TALENT.—It is a common cry that those who succeed best in life are the dullest people, and that talent is too fine a quality for common pursuits. There cannot be a greater fallacy than this. It may be true that some decidedly stupid people succeed through the force of a dogged resolution, which hardly any man of superior genius could have submitted to. But I am disposed to dispute, in a great measure, the existence of talent, where I do not find it at once productive of superior address in ordinary affairs, and attended by a magnanimity which elevates the possessor above all paltry and vicious actions. The genius which only misleads its possessor from the paths of prudence, or renders him a ridiculous and intolerable member of society, is too much allied to Bedlam to be taken into account; and in reality, there is nowhere so much of what is called genius as in the madhouses.[6] The imputation of dulness to a man who has prospered in life, will be found by impartial inquirers, in nine cases out of ten, to be a mere consolatory appliance to the self-love of one who has neither had the talent nor the morality to prosper in life himself. Let every man, then, who possesses this gift, rejoice in it with all his heart, and seek by every means to give it proper guidance and direction.

APPLICATION is another of the indispensable requisites. Detached efforts, though they may individually be great, can never tell so well in the aggregate as a regular and constant exertion, where the doings of one day fortify and improve the doings of the preceding, and lead on with certainty to the better doings of the next. It is not economical to work by fits and starts; more exertion is required, by that system, for a certain end, than what is necessary in the case of a continuous effort, and thus the irregular man is apt to fall far behind his rivals. Men of ability are apt to despise application as a mean and grubbing qualification—which is only a piece of overweening self-love on their part, and likely to be the very means of frustrating all the proper results of their ability. On the other hand, the industrious man is apt to despair for want of ability—not seeing that the clever fellows are liable to the weakness we describe, which causes them to be constantly giving way in the race to mere plodders. Besides, while few faults are more common than an over-estimation of one’s self, it is equally obvious that many men only discover their abilities by chance, and that all of us possess latent powers, which might be turned to good account, if we only knew and had confidence in them. No man, therefore, should be too easily dashed on the subject of his abilities. He should try, and, with the aid of a persevering industry, he may do wonders such as he never dreamt of.

SELF-DENIAL.—Perhaps among all the qualifications which, in a combined form, lead to fortune, none is more absolutely indispensable than this. A man may have talent, may have application, both in abundance; but if he cannot resist vulgar temptations, all is in vain. The Scotch, as a nation, are characterised immensely by self-denial, and it is the main ground of their prosperity both at home and abroad. It is one of the noblest of the virtues, if not, indeed, the sole virtue which creates all the rest. If we are obliged at every moment to abandon some sacred principle in order to gratify a paltry appetite; if the extensive future is perpetually to be sacrificed for the sake of the momentary present; if we are to lead a life of Esau-like bargains from the first to the last—then we are totally unfit for any purpose above the meanest. Self-indulgence makes brutes out of gods; self-denial is the tangent line by which human nature trenches upon the divine. Now, self-indulgence is not inherent except in very few natures; it is almost invariably the result of “evil communications” in youth, and generally becomes a mere use or habit. The most of error arises from the contagion of example. A youth at first debauches himself because he sees others do it; he feels, all the time, as if he were sacrificing merely to the glory of bravado; and there is far more of martyrdom in it than is generally supposed. But though a person at first smokes in order to show how much disgust he can endure, he soon comes to have a real liking for tobacco. And thus, for the paltriest indulgences, which only are so from vicious habit, and perhaps, after all, involve as much dissatisfaction as pleasure, we daily see the most glorious and ennobling objects cast, as it were, into hell-fire.

We are by no means hostile to all amusement. The mass of men require a certain quantity of amusement almost as regularly as their daily food. But amusement may be noxious or innocent, moderate or immoderate. The amusements which can be enjoyed in the domestic circle, or without company at all, are the safest; there is great danger in all which require an association of individuals to carry them into effect. Upon the whole, a multitude of bosom friends is the most pernicious evil that ever besets a man in the world. Each becomes a slave to the depraved appetites of the rest, and is at last ulcerated all over with their various evil practices. At the very best, he is retarded to the general pace, and never finds it possible to get a single vantage hour, in order to steal a march upon his kind.

HONOURABLE INTENTIONS are also indispensably necessary. The reverse is simply want of sense and understanding; for it is obvious to every one who has seen the least of human life, that infinitely more is lost in reputation and _means and opportunities of well-doing_, by an attempt to gain an undue advantage, than what can in general cases be gained. If we had to live only for a short time certain, trickery might be the most expedient course, so far as this world is concerned; but if a man contemplates a life above a single twelvemonth, he will endeavour, by the guarded correctness of his actions, to acquire the good character which tends so much to eventual prosperity. The dishonest man, in one sense, may be termed the most monstrous of all self-flatterers; he thinks he can cheat the whole of the remaining part of mankind—which certainly is no trifling compliment. He soon finds, however, that he was seen through all the time by those whom he thought mere children, and his blindness and silly arrogance receive their deserved punishment. Even where the depravity may be of a very slight kind, it is alike in vain. In ordinary transactions, the one party deals with the other exactly according to his character; if the one be in general disposed to overreach, the other is just proportionably on his guard; so that there is no result but trouble, and a bad name. One thing should be strongly impressed upon such persons: they are far more generally understood and watched than they are aware of; for the world, so long as it can simply take care of itself without much difficulty, is not disposed to adopt the dangerous task of a monitor. The police-officer knows of many rogues whom he passes every day on the street; he never lays hold of any, unless for some particular offence.

Such are the principal qualities necessary for advancement in life, though any one of them, without much or any of the other, will, if not counteracted by negative properties, be sure to command a certain degree of success. He who is about to start in the race would do well to ponder upon the difficulties he has to encounter, and make up a manful resolution to meet them with a full exertion of all his powers. To revert to the general question—what is it that enables one man to get in advance of his fellows? The answer is obvious: it can only be his _doing_ more than the generality of them, or his _enduring more privation_ than they are generally inclined to do [that is, self-denial], in order that he may acquire _increased power of doing_. The fault of most unsuccessful persons is their want of an adequate idea of what is to be _done_, and what is to be _endured_. They enter business as into a game or a sport, and they are surprised, after a time, to find that there is a principle in the affair they never before took into account—namely, the tremendous competition of other men. Without being able to do and suffer as much as the _best_ men of business, the _first_ place is not to be gained; without being able to do and suffer as much as the second order of men of business, the _second_ place is not to be gained; and so on. New candidates should therefore endeavour to make an estimate of the duties necessary for attaining a certain point, and not permit themselves to be thrown out in the race for want of a proper performance of those duties. They should either be pretty certain of possessing the requisite powers of exertion and endurance, or aim at a lower point, to which their powers may seem certainly adequate.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] This remark is borrowed from the conversation of a medical friend.

CONTROLLERS-GENERAL.

It is a prevailing notion, that people are all so exclusively engrossed with their own concerns in this world, as to have no time or opportunity to take the least interest in those of their neighbours. No idea could be more mistaken. The truth is, a great many people—perhaps a _third_ of the population of large towns, and _three-fourths_ of those in small ones—are far more anxious about the concerns of their neighbours than about their own. In fact, society in this respect resembles the ape department in a menagerie, where, it is said, every individual chatterer neglects his own pan of meat (opposite his cage), and stretches with all his might to reach the mess of some distant companion in captivity, who, on his part, tries, with equal straining and exertion, to rob some other friend. The case, however, differs immensely as to intention. The monkeys, as we seriously believe, act thus from a wish to eat all the neighbouring pans of meat in the first place, after which they think it will be time enough to attend coolly to their own. But human beings look after each other’s morals and worldly prosperity through the most generous impulses. They think it selfish to be always attending to their own affairs, and that it would be an utter defiance of the greatest law of nature, if they were only to look after themselves. Our own business requires, perhaps, the first attention, but common justice to our race demands that all our _spare_ time, at least, should be devoted to a supervision of the concerns of other people, and a surveillance of their moral conduct. We are to love our neighbours as ourselves, and, in order to testify that we love them, we are to do as we do with children, castigate them properly whenever they misbehave.

It is lamentable to think how negligent some large classes of society are respecting the affairs of their neighbours. In large cities, the more actively engaged citizens go on from year to year in the pursuit of their own advantage, never casting a single thought upon their next-door neighbours, unless, perhaps, to make a transient inquiry into the state of their credit. Is it not fortunate, that, while the men are thus apt to get wrapped up in their own sordid interests, the fairer and more generous part of the race are still in general sufficiently at leisure to see after their neighbours? What _would_ society do without these amiable controllers-general?—or what would society do, if these amiable controllers were to get so much engaged too, as to have no time for the affairs of their friends? It is dreadful even to think of such a calamity. How many poor improvident wretches would, in such an event, be left to sink or swim as chance directed! How naughty the world at large would become!

Let us contemplate the delightful picture of one of these friends of society. She is generally a person very much at leisure; for without leisure, that natural preference of our own concerns to those of others precludes all exertion of the faculty: she is also, in general, placed in a tolerably secure position in the world, whence she may survey, with compassionate and patronising eyes, the poor strugglers beneath her. Virtuous she is, as virtuous can be; that is to say, she is altogether beyond temptation. Herself and all her own immediate friends have been fortunate; therefore she has a kind of prescriptive title to speak freely of the misfortunes of others. It is incredible what exertions this amiable person will make to procure data for her remarks, or, to speak more properly, grounds whereon she may proceed in her benevolent exertions. Charity being an excuse for every thing, she will even descend so far from her dignity as to institute inquiries, through servants and children, into the concerns of those persons whom she has taken under her patronage. Her own Betty, having the same turn with herself, takes frequent opportunities of visiting the kitchens of her friends; and all the remarks that the girl has been able to make upon the external state of things there, and all the prattle she has been able to pick up from the servants in that house, is brought home and faithfully detailed to her mistress, who accidentally, for that purpose, opens a conversation with her. Nor is this all. Through the impulse of her benevolent wishes, the good lady will often take information from her servant, which _she_ has learned from another servant, respecting the concerns of a family in which that other servant has perhaps a sister or a friend; her sincere desire of doing good being so strong as to reconcile her to every possibility of misrepresentation, which a story may be supposed to undergo in its progress through so many mouths. It is also to be observed, that she is not exclusively attentive to the concerns of those whom she actually knows. The acquaintances of her acquaintances, and their acquaintances again, even to the third generation, she will inquire about with equal solicitude; and if she knows any thing disagreeable connected with your friends, or any thing that might be thought to unfit them for your acquaintance, she always very kindly lets you hear of it, so that you may be _quite upon your guard_.

“What do you think?” the talk, perhaps, thus proceeds; “they say she is such a _fine lady_ that she never enters her kitchen: she never knows any day what is to be for dinner: all that kind of thing she leaves to her servants. And such quantities of company they keep! Hardly a night but what there are more or less visitors. A neighbour of ours, Mrs Blackwell, has an aunt who lives opposite them; and _she_ says that the racket is without end. I’m sure I was just saying to our goodman the other day, that if _we_ were to go on in such a way [be it marked, the speaker is reputed to be in infinitely better circumstances than the party commented on], we could not go on long. Puir young things! I’m greatly concerned about them—although, to be sure, it’s not _my_ business. I was at the school with her mother, and I would like to see them keep right, if it were possible. Young folk are often newfangled about things at first. They think every body that they see is their friend—and its ‘this one, come to your supper,’ and ‘that one, come to your dinner,’ as if they could not get past it. When they come to my time o’ life, they’ll not be sae flush.”

“They say she’s highly accomplished,” thus runs another strain of remarks; “plays on the piano-forte and harp—draws—speaks French and Italian. That would be all very well if _he_ had a fortune to keep it up; but a poor man’s wife! Commend me to a woman that can darn her husband’s stockings, and help to get ready his dinner. I think there’s naething like a gude plain education—reading, writing, and sewing—what mair does a woman need? The goodman and I were often advised to send our girls to learn music, but I never thought it their station. It just puts a parcel o’ nonsense into a girl’s head. Our lasses never learned ony thing but what they could mak a gude use o’; while, there’s Mary Foster does nothing but read novells from morning till night; she’s one o’ your fine misses. If our girls were to bring a novell into our house, I would put it at the back of the fire, though there was na another novell i’ the world.”

It is said that in nunneries, where there is neither vice, nor the possibility of it, the ladies, if unable to talk real scandal, make up for it by censorious remarks upon the most trifling foibles in their companions, or upon the most unimportant failures in the performance of the most unimportant duties. If a holy sister has been observed to smile at a wrong moment, if she has miscounted a bead, or tripped in her gown while walking in a procession, there is as much prattle about it as if she had committed a real offence. Just so, in a country town, every trivial incident becomes a subject of comment for those amiable people who make a point of attending to every body’s business but their own. The consequence is, that every person moves in a country town as if he were upon an ambuscading party: he sends by stratagem for every necessary of life which he requires: he takes all kinds of by-ways and back roads to escape observation, and cannot so much as cross the street without fearing he will be circumvented. Any thing like a good round thumping impropriety is hailed in such a place like rain in a drought. The most of the matters of remark are very small deer, hardly worth hunting down. When one of a more important character arises, it is quite a godsend. Suppose, for instance, the failure of some unfortunate merchant, who has been ruined by mere simplicity of character. The country people, somehow, have a most exaggerated idea of the mischiefs of bankruptcy. A bankrupt, in their eyes, is a person of distinguished criminality—almost enough to make him be regarded as a world’s wonder. In proportion, therefore, to their previous remarks for the edification of the unhappy man, is their wholesome severity afterwards. They are surprised to find that, after such an event, he still bears the ordinary shape of a human being—that he has not become signalised by some external transfiguration, of a kind sufficiently awful to indicate his offence. Another thing they are astonished at—that the family of a bankrupt should continue to have the usual appetites of human beings—that they should not, indeed, have altogether ceased to eat, drink, or sleep. The following is very nearly a conversation which really occurred, on such an occasion, in a somewhat humble rank of mercantile life.

“Weel, hae ye heard the news?”

“What news, woman?”

“Ou, hae ye no heard it?—James Sinclair’s shop’s no open this mornin’—that’s a’.”

“Aih, weel, has it come to that at last? I aye thought it. It was easy seeing _yon_ could na stand lang. Sic ongauns as they had for a while—sic dresses—sic parties! But every thing comes to its level at last. I wonder folk dinna think shame to gang on sae wi’ other folk’s siller. It’s a perfect black-burning disgrace. And _she’s_ just as muckle to blame as _him_. There was hersell, just last Sunday eight days, at the kirk wi’ a new pelisse and a bannet, and the laddies ilk ane o’ them wi’ new leather caps. I’se warrand there was nae bannocks ever seen in their house—naething but gude wheat bread. Whenever a bairn whinged for a piece, it buid to get a shave o’ the laiff. Atweel, her grandfather, auld George Morrison, was na sae ill to serve. Mony a claut o’ cauld parritch he gat frae my aunty Jess, and was thankfu’ to get them.”