Pushing to the Front
Pushing to the FrontForewordChapter 1. The Man And The OpportunityChapter 2. Wanted—A ManChapter 3. Boys With No ChanceChapter 4. The Country BoyChapter 5. Opportunities Where You AreChapter 6. Possibilities In Spare MomentsChapter 7. How Poor Boys And Girls Go To CollegeChapter 8. Your Opportunity Confronts You—What Will You Do With It?Chapter 9. Round Boys In Square HolesChapter 10. What Career?Chapter 11. Choosing A VocationChapter 12. Concentrated EnergyChapter 13. The Triumphs Of EnthusiasmChapter 14. "On Time," Or The Triumph Of PromptnessChapter 15. What A Good Appearance Will DoChapter 16. Personality As A Success AssetChapter 17. If You Can Talk WellChapter 18. A Fortune In Good MannersChapter 19. Self-Consciousness And Timidity Foes To SuccessChapter 20. Tact Or Common SenseChapter 21. Enamored Of AccuracyChapter 22. Do It To A FinishChapter 23. The Reward Of PersistenceChapter 24. Nerve—Grip, PluckChapter 25. Clear GritChapter 26. Success Under DifficultiesChapter 27. Uses Of ObstaclesChapter 28. DecisionChapter 29. Observation As A Success FactorChapter 30. Self-HelpChapter 31. The Self-Improvement HabitChapter 32. Raising Of ValuesChapter 33. Self-Improvement Through Public SpeakingChapter 34. The Triumphs Of The Common VirtuesChapter 35. Getting ArousedChapter 36. The Man With An IdeaChapter 37. DareChapter 38. The Will And The WayChapter 39. One Unwavering AimChapter 40. Work And WaitChapter 41. The Might Of Little ThingsChapter 42. The Salary You Do Not Find In Your Pay EnvelopeChapter 43. Expect Great Things Of YourselfChapter 44. The Next Time You Think You Are A FailureChapter 45. Stand For SomethingChapter 46. Nature's Little BillChapter 47. Habit—The Servant,—The MasterChapter 48. The CigaretteChapter 49. The Power Of PurityChapter 50. The Habit Of HappinessChapter 51. Put Beauty Into Your LifeChapter 52. Education By AbsorptionChapter 53. The Power Of SuggestionChapter 54. The Curse Of WorryChapter 55. Take A Pleasant Thought To Bed With YouChapter 56. The Conquest Of PovertyChapter 57. A New Way Of Bringing Up ChildrenChapter 58. The Home As A School Of Good MannersChapter 59. MotherChapter 60. Why So Many Married Women DeteriorateChapter 61. ThriftChapter 62. A College Education At HomeChapter 63. Discrimination In ReadingChapter 64. Reading A Spur To AmbitionChapter 65. Why Some Succeed And Others FailChapter 66. Rich Without MoneyCopyright
Pushing to the Front
Orison Swett Marden
Foreword
This revised and greatly enlarged edition of "Pushing to the Front"
is the outgrowth of an almost world-wide demand for an extension of
the idea which made the original small volume such an
ambition-arousing, energizing, inspiring force.
It is doubtful whether any other book, outside of the Bible, has
been the turning-point in more lives.
It has sent thousands of youths, with renewed determination, back
to school or college, back to all sorts of vocations which they had
abandoned in moments of discouragement. It has kept scores of
business men from failure after they had given up all hope.
It has helped multitudes of poor boys and girls to pay their way
through college who had never thought a liberal education
possible.
The author has received thousands of letters from people in nearly
all parts of the world telling how the book has aroused their
ambition, changed their ideals and aims, and has spurred them to
the successful undertaking of what they before had thought
impossible.
The book has been translated into many foreign languages. In Japan
and several other countries it is used extensively in the public
schools. Distinguished educators in many parts of the world have
recommended its use in schools as a civilization-builder.
Crowned heads, presidents of republics, distinguished members of
the British and other parliaments, members of the United States
Supreme Court, noted authors, scholars, and eminent people in many
parts of the world, have eulogized this book and have thanked the
author for giving it to the world.
This volume is full of the most fascinating romances of achievement
under difficulties, of obscure beginnings and triumphant endings,
of stirring stories of struggles and triumphs. It gives inspiring
stories of men and women who have brought great things to pass. It
gives numerous examples of the triumph of mediocrity, showing how
those of ordinary ability have succeeded by the use of ordinary
means. It shows how invalids and cripples even have triumphed by
perseverance and will over seemingly insuperable
difficulties.
The book tells how men and women have seized common occasions and
made them great; it tells of those of average ability who have
succeeded by the use of ordinary means, by dint of indomitable will
and inflexible purpose. It tells how poverty and hardship have
rocked the cradle of the giants of the race. The book points out
that most people do not utilize a large part of their effort
because their mental attitude does not correspond with their
endeavor, so that although working for one thing, they are really
expecting something else; and it is what we expect that we tend to
get.
No man can become prosperous while he really expects or half
expects to remain poor, for holding the poverty thought, keeping in
touch with poverty-producing conditions, discourages
prosperity.
Before a man can lift himself he must lift his thoughts. When we
shall have learned to master our thought habits, to keep our minds
open to the great divine inflow of life force, we shall have
learned the truths of human endowment, human possibility.
The book points out the fact that what is called success may be
failure; that when men love money so much that they sacrifice their
friendships, their families, their home life, sacrifice position,
honor, health, everything for the dollar, their life is a failure,
although they may have accumulated money. It shows how men have
become rich at the price of their ideals, their character, at the
cost of everything noblest, best, and truest in life. It preaches
the larger doctrine of equality; the equality of will and purpose
which paves a clear path even to the Presidential chair for a
Lincoln or a Garfield, for any one who will pay the price of study
and struggle. Men who feel themselves badly handicapped, crippled
by their lack of early education, will find in these pages great
encouragement to broaden their horizon, and will get a practical,
helpful, sensible education in their odd moments and
half-holidays.
Dr. Marden, in "Pushing to the Front," shows that the average of
the leaders are not above the average of ability. They are ordinary
people, but of extraordinary persistence and perseverance. It is a
storehouse of noble incentive, a treasury of precious sayings.
There is inspiration and encouragement and helpfulness on every
page. It teaches the doctrine that no limits can be placed on one's
career if he has once learned the alphabet and has push; that there
are no barriers that can say to aspiring talent, "Thus far, and no
farther." Encouragement is its keynote; it aims to arouse to
honorable exertion those who are drifting without aim, to awaken
dormant ambitions in those who have grown discouraged in the
struggle for success.
Chapter 1. The Man And The Opportunity
No man is born into this world whose work is not born with
him.—LOWELL.
Things don't turn up in this world until somebody turns them
up.—GARFIELD.
Vigilance in watching opportunity; tact and daring in seizing upon
opportunity; force and persistence in crowding opportunity to its
utmost of possible achievement—these are the martial virtues which
must command success.—AUSTIN PHELPS.
"I will find a way or make one."
There never was a day that did not bring its own opportunity for
doing good that never could have been done before, and never can be
again.—W. H. BURLEIGH.
"Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute;
What you can do, or dream you can, begin it."
"If we succeed, what will the world say?" asked Captain Berry in
delight, when Nelson had explained his carefully formed plan before
the battle of the Nile.
"There is no if in the case," replied Nelson. "That we shall
succeed is certain. Who may live to tell the tale is a very
different question." Then, as his captains rose from the council to
go to their respective ships, he added: "Before this time to-morrow
I shall have gained a peerage or Westminster Abbey." His quick eye
and daring spirit saw an opportunity of glorious victory where
others saw only probable defeat.
"Is it POSSIBLE to cross the path?" asked Napoleon of the engineers
who had been sent to explore the dreaded pass of St. Bernard.
"Perhaps," was the hesitating reply, "it is within the limits of
possibility."
"FORWARD THEN," said the Little Corporal, without heeding their
account of apparently insurmountable difficulties. England and
Austria laughed in scorn at the idea of transporting across the
Alps, where "no wheel had ever rolled, or by any possibility could
roll," an army of sixty thousand men, with ponderous artillery,
tons of cannon balls and baggage, and all the bulky munitions of
war. But the besieged Massena was starving in Genoa, and the
victorious Austrians thundered at the gates of Nice, and Napoleon
was not the man to fail his former comrades in their hour of
peril.
When this "impossible" deed was accomplished, some saw that it
might have been done long before. Others excused themselves from
encountering such gigantic obstacles by calling them insuperable.
Many a commander had possessed the necessary supplies, tools, and
rugged soldiers, but lacked the grit and resolution of Bonaparte,
who did not shrink from mere difficulties, however great, but out
of his very need made and mastered his opportunity.
Grant at New Orleans had just been seriously injured by a fall from
his horse, when he received orders to take command at Chattanooga,
so sorely beset by the Confederates that its surrender seemed only
a question of a few days; for the hills around were all aglow by
night with the camp-fires of the enemy, and supplies had been cut
off. Though in great pain, he immediately gave directions for his
removal to the new scene of action.
On transports up the Mississippi, the Ohio, and one of its
tributaries; on a litter borne by horses for many miles through the
wilderness; and into the city at last on the shoulders of four men,
he was taken to Chattanooga. Things assumed a different aspect
immediately. A master had arrived who was equal to the
situation. The army felt the grip of his power. Before he could
mount his horse he ordered an advance, and although the enemy
contested the ground inch by inch, the surrounding hills were soon
held by Union soldiers.
Were these things the result of chance, or were they compelled by
the indominable determination of the injured General?
Did things adjust themselves when Horatius with two
companions held ninety thousand Tuscans at bay until the bridge
across the Tiber had been destroyed?—when Leonidas at Thermopylae
checked the mighty march of Xerxes?—when Themistocles, off the
coast of Greece, shattered the Persian's Armada?—when Caesar,
finding his army hard pressed, seized spear and buckler, fought
while he reorganized his men, and snatched victory from
defeat?—when Winkelried gathered to his heart a sheaf of Austrian
spears, thus opening a path through which his comrades pressed to
freedom?—when for years Napoleon did not lose a single battle in
which he was personally engaged?—when Wellington fought in many
climes without ever being conquered?—when Ney, on a hundred fields,
changed apparent disaster into brilliant triumph?—when Perry left
the disabled Lawrence, rowed to the Niagara, and
silenced the British guns?—when Sheridan arrived from Winchester
just as the Union retreat was becoming a rout, and turned the tide
by riding along the line?—when Sherman, though sorely pressed,
signaled his men to hold the fort, and they, knowing that their
leader was coming, held it?
History furnishes thousands of examples of men who have seized
occasions to accomplish results deemed impossible by those less
resolute. Prompt decision and whole-souled action sweep the world
before them.
True, there has been but one Napoleon; but, on the other hand, the
Alps that oppose the progress of the average American youth are not
as high or dangerous as the summits crossed by the great
Corsican.
Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common
occasions and make them great.
On the morning of September 6, 1838, a young woman in the Longstone
Lighthouse, between England and Scotland, was awakened by shrieks
of agony rising above the roar of wind and wave. A storm of
unwonted fury was raging, and her parents could not hear the cries;
but a telescope showed nine human beings clinging to the windlass
of a wrecked vessel whose bow was hanging on the rocks half a mile
away. "We can do nothing," said William Darling, the light-keeper.
"Ah, yes, we must go to the rescue," exclaimed his daughter,
pleading tearfully with both father and mother, until the former
replied: "Very well, Grace, I will let you persuade me, though it
is against my better judgment." Like a feather in a whirlwind the
little boat was tossed on the tumultuous sea, but, borne on the
blast that swept the cruel surge, the shrieks of those shipwrecked
sailors seemed to change her weak sinews into cords of steel.
Strength hitherto unsuspected came from somewhere, and the heroic
girl pulled one oar in even time with her father. At length the
nine were safely on board. "God bless you; but ye're a bonny
English lass," said one poor fellow, as he looked wonderingly upon
this marvelous girl, who that day had done a deed which added more
to England's glory than the exploits of many of her monarchs.
"If you will let me try, I think I can make something that will
do," said a boy who had been employed as a scullion at the mansion
of Signer Faliero, as the story is told by George Cary Eggleston. A
large company had been invited to a banquet, and just before the
hour the confectioner, who had been making a large ornament for the
table, sent word that he had spoiled the piece. "You!" exclaimed
the head servant, in astonishment; "and who are you?" "I am Antonio
Canova, the grandson of Pisano, the stone-cutter," replied the
pale-faced little fellow.
"And pray, what can you do?" asked the major-domo. "I can make you
something that will do for the middle of the table, if you'll let
me try." The servant was at his wits' end, so he told Antonio to go
ahead and see what he could do. Calling for some butter, the
scullion quickly molded a large crouching lion, which the admiring
major-domo placed upon the table.
Dinner was announced, and many of the most noted merchants,
princes, and noblemen of Venice were ushered into the dining-room.
Among them were skilled critics of art work. When their eyes fell
upon the butter lion, they forgot the purpose for which they had
come in their wonder at such a work of genius. They looked at the
lion long and carefully, and asked Signer Faliero what great
sculptor had been persuaded to waste his skill upon such a
temporary material. Faliero could not tell; so he asked the head
servant, who brought Antonio before the company.
When the distinguished guests learned that the lion had been made
in a short time by a scullion, the dinner was turned into a feast
in his honor. The rich host declared that he would pay the boy's
expenses under the best masters, and he kept his word. Antonio was
not spoiled by his good fortune, but remained at heart the same
simple, earnest, faithful boy who had tried so hard to become a
good stone-cutter in the shop of Pisano. Some may not have heard
how the boy Antonio took advantage of this first great opportunity;
but all know of Canova, one of the greatest sculptors of all
time.Weak men wait for opportunities, strong men make them.
"The best men," says E. H. Chapin, "are not those who have waited
for chances but who have taken them; besieged the chance; conquered
the chance; and made chance the servitor."
There may not be one chance in a million that you will ever receive
unusual aid; but opportunities are often presented which you can
improve to good advantage, if you will only act.
The lack of opportunity is ever the excuse of a weak, vacillating
mind. Opportunities! Every life is full of them. Every lesson in
school or college is an opportunity. Every examination is a chance
in life. Every patient is an opportunity. Every newspaper article
is an opportunity. Every client is an opportunity. Every sermon is
an opportunity. Every business transaction is an opportunity,—an
opportunity to be polite,—an opportunity to be manly,—an
opportunity to be honest,—an opportunity to make friends. Every
proof of confidence in you is a great opportunity. Every
responsibility thrust upon your strength and your honor is
priceless. Existence is the privilege of effort, and when that
privilege is met like a man, opportunities to succeed along the
line of your aptitude will come faster than you can use them. If a
slave like Fred Douglass, who did not even own his body, can
elevate himself into an orator, editor, statesman, what ought the
poorest white boy to do, who is rich in opportunities compared with
Douglass?
It is the idle man, not the great worker, who is always complaining
that he has no time or opportunity. Some young men will make more
out of the odds and ends of opportunities which many carelessly
throw away than other will get out of a whole life-time. Like bees,
they extract honey from every flower. Every person they meet, every
circumstance of the day, adds something to their store of useful
knowledge or personal power.
"There is nobody whom Fortune does not visit once in his life,"
says a cardinal; "but when she finds he is not ready to receive
her, she goes in at the door and out at the window."
Cornelius Vanderbilt saw his opportunity in the steamboat, and
determined to identify himself with steam navigation. To the
surprise of all his friends, he abandoned his prosperous business
and took command of one of the first steamboats launched, at a
salary of one thousand dollars a year. Livingston and Fulton had
acquired the sole right to navigate New York waters by steam, but
Vanderbilt thought the law unconstitutional, and defied it until it
was repealed. He soon became a steamboat owner. When the government
was paying a large subsidy for carrying the European mails, he
offered to carry them free and give better service. His offer was
accepted, and in this way he soon built up an enormous freight and
passenger traffic.
Foreseeing the great future of railroads in a country like ours, he
plunged into railroad enterprises with all his might, laying the
foundation for the vast Vanderbilt system of to-day.
Young Philip Armour joined the long caravan of Forty-Niners, and
crossed the "Great American Desert" with all his possessions in a
prairie schooner drawn by mules. Hard work and steady gains
carefully saved in the mines enabled him to start, six years later,
in the grain and warehouse business in Milwaukee. In nine years he
made five hundred thousand dollars. But he saw his great
opportunity in Grant's order, "On to Richmond." One morning in 1864
he knocked at the door of Plankinton, partner in his venture as a
pork packer. "I am going to take the next train to New York," said
he, "to sell pork 'short.' Grant and Sherman have the rebellion by
the throat, and pork will go down to twelve dollars a barrel." This
was his opportunity. He went to New York and offered pork in large
quantities at forty dollars per barrel. It was eagerly taken. The
shrewd Wall Street speculators laughed at the young Westerner, and
told him pork would go to sixty dollars, for the war was not nearly
over. Mr. Armour, however, kept on selling, Grant continued to
advance. Richmond fell, pork fell with it to twelve dollars a
barrel, and Mr. Armour cleared two millions of dollars.
John D. Rockefeller saw his opportunity in petroleum. He could see
a large population in this country with very poor lights. Petroleum
was plentiful, but the refining process was so crude that the
product was inferior, and not wholly safe. Here was Rockefeller's
chance. Taking into partnership Samuel Andrews, the porter in a
machine shop where both men had worked, he started a single barrel
"still" in 1870, using an improved process discovered by his
partner. They made a superior grade of oil and prospered rapidly.
They admitted a third partner, Mr. Flagler, but Andrews soon became
dissatisfied. "What will you take for your interest?" asked
Rockefeller. Andrews wrote carelessly on a piece of paper, "One
million dollars." Within twenty-four hours Mr. Rockefeller handed
him the amount, saying, "Cheaper at one million than ten." In
twenty years the business of the little refinery, scarcely worth
one thousand dollars for building and apparatus, had grown into the
Standard Oil Trust, capitalized at ninety millions of dollars, with
stock quoted at 170, giving a market value of one hundred and fifty
millions.
These are illustrations of seizing opportunity for the purpose of
making money. But fortunately there is a new generation of
electricians, of engineers, of scholars, of artists, of authors,
and of poets, who find opportunities, thick as thistles, for doing
something nobler than merely amassing riches. Wealth is not
an end to strive for, but an opportunity; not the climax of a man's
career, but an incident.
Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, a Quaker lady, saw her opportunity in the
prisons of England. From three hundred to four hundred half-naked
women, as late as 1813, would often be huddled in a single ward of
Newgate, London, awaiting trial. They had neither beds nor bedding,
but women, old and young, and little girls, slept in filth and rags
on the floor. No one seemed to care for them, and the Government
merely furnished food to keep them alive. Mrs. Fry visited Newgate,
calmed the howling mob, and told them she wished to establish a
school for the young women and the girls, and asked them to select
a schoolmistress from their own number. They were amazed, but chose
a young woman who had been committed for stealing a watch. In three
months these "wild beasts," as they were sometimes called, became
harmless and kind. The reform spread until the Government legalized
the system, and good women throughout Great Britain became
interested in the work of educating and clothing these outcasts.
Fourscore years have passed, and her plan has been adopted
throughout the civilized world.
A boy in England had been run over by a car, and the bright blood
spurted from a severed artery. No one seemed to know what to do
until another boy, Astley Cooper, took his handkerchief and stopped
the bleeding by pressure above the wound. The praise which he
received for thus saving the boy's life encouraging him to become a
surgeon, the foremost of his day.
"The time comes to the young surgeon," says Arnold, "when, after
long waiting, and patient study and experiment, he is suddenly
confronted with his first critical operation. The great surgeon is
away. Time is pressing. Life and death hang in the balance. Is he
equal to the emergency? Can he fill the great surgeon's place, and
do his work? If he can, he is the one of all others who is wanted.
His opportunity confronts him. He and it are face to face.
Shall he confess his ignorance and inability, or step into fame and
fortune? It is for him to say."
Are you prepared for a great opportunity?
"Hawthorne dined one day with Longfellow," said James T. Fields,
"and brought a friend, with him from Salem. After dinner the friend
said, 'I have been trying to persuade Hawthorne to write a story
based upon a legend of Acadia, and still current there,—the legend
of a girl who, in the dispersion of the Acadians, was separated
from her lover, and passed her life in waiting and seeking for him,
and only found him dying in a hospital when both were old.'
Longfellow wondered that the legend did not strike the fancy of
Hawthorne, and he said to him, 'If you have really made up your
mind not to use it for a story, will you let me have it for a
poem?' To this Hawthorne consented, and promised, moreover, not to
treat the subject in prose till Longfellow had seen what he could
do with it in verse. Longfellow seized his opportunity and gave to
the world 'Evangeline, or the Exile of the Acadians.'"
Open eyes will discover opportunities everywhere; open ears will
never fail to detect the cries of those who are perishing for
assistance; open hearts will never want for worthy objects upon
which to bestow their gifts; open hands will never lack for noble
work to do.
Everybody had noticed the overflow when a solid is immersed in a
vessel filled with water, although no one had made use of his
knowledge that the body displaces its exact bulk of liquid; but
when Archimedes observed the fact, he perceived therein an easy
method of finding the cubical contents of objects, however
irregular in shape.
Everybody knew how steadily a suspended weight, when moved, sways
back and forth until friction and the resistance of the air bring
it to rest, yet no one considered this information of the slightest
practical importance; but the boy Galileo, as he watched a lamp
left swinging by accident in the cathedral at Pisa, saw in the
regularity of those oscillations the useful principle of the
pendulum. Even the iron doors of a prison were not enough to shut
him out from research. He experimented with the straw of his cell,
and learned valuable lessons about the relative strength of tubes
and rods of equal diameters.
For ages astronomers had been familiar with the rings of Saturn,
and regarded them merely as curious exceptions to the supposed law
of planetary formation; but Laplace saw that, instead of being
exceptions, they are the sole remaining visible evidences of
certain stages in the invariable process of star manufacture, and
from their mute testimony he added a valuable chapter to the
scientific history of Creation.
There was not a sailor in Europe who had not wondered what might
lie beyond the Western Ocean, but it remained for Columbus to steer
boldly out into an unknown sea and discover a new world.
Innumerable apples had fallen from trees, often hitting heedless
men on the head as if to set them thinking, but Newton was the
first to realize that they fall to the earth by the same law which
holds the planets in their courses and prevents the momentum of all
the atoms in the universe from hurling them wildly back to
chaos.
Lightning had dazzled the eyes, and thunder had jarred the ears of
men since the days of Adam, in the vain attempt to call their
attention to the all-pervading and tremendous energy of
electricity; but the discharges of Heaven's artillery were seen and
heard only by the eye and ear of terror until Franklin, by a simple
experiment, proved that lightning is but one manifestation of a
resistless yet controllable force, abundant as air and water.
Like many others, these men are considered great, simply because
they improved opportunities common to the whole human race. Read
the story of any successful man and mark its moral, told thousands
of years ago by Solomon: "Seest thou a man diligent in his
business? he shall stand before kings." This proverb is well
illustrated by the career of the industrious Franklin, for he stood
before five kings and dined with two.
He who improves an opportunity sows a seed which will yield fruit
in opportunity for himself and others. Every one who has labored
honestly in the past has aided to place knowledge and comfort
within the reach of a constantly increasing number.
Avenues greater in number, wider in extent, easier of access than
ever before existed, stand open to the sober, frugal, energetic and
able mechanic, to the educated youth, to the office boy and to the
clerk—avenues through which they can reap greater successes than
ever before within the reach of these classes in the history of the
world. A little while ago there were only three or four
professions—now there are fifty. And of trades, where there was
one, there are a hundred now.
"What is its name?" asked a visitor in a studio, when shown, among
many gods, one whose face was concealed by hair, and which had
wings on its feet. "Opportunity," replied the sculptor. "Why is its
face hidden?" "Because men seldom know him when he comes to them."
"Why has he wings on his feet?" "Because he is soon gone, and once
gone, cannot be overtaken."
"Opportunity has hair in front," says a Latin author; "behind she
is bald; if you seize her by the forelock, you may hold her, but,
if suffered to escape, not Jupiter himself can catch her
again."
But what is the best opportunity to him who cannot or will not use
it?
"It was my lot," said a shipmaster, "to fall in with the ill-fated
steamer Central America. The night was closing in, the sea
rolling high; but I hailed the crippled steamer and asked if they
needed help. 'I am in a sinking condition,' cried Captain Herndon.
'Had you not better send your passengers on board directly?' I
asked. 'Will you not lay by me until morning?' replied Captain
Herndon. 'I will try,' I answered 'but had you not better send your
passengers on board now?' 'Lay by me till morning,' again
shouted Captain Herndon.
"I tried to lay by him, but at night, such was the heavy roll of
the sea, I could not keep my position, and I never saw the steamer
again. In an hour and a half after he said, 'Lay by me till
morning,' his vessel, with its living freight, went down. The
captain and crew and most of the passengers found a grave in the
deep."
Captain Herndon appreciated the value of the opportunity he had
neglected when it was beyond his reach, but of what avail was the
bitterness of his self-reproach when his last moments came? How
many lives were sacrificed to his unintelligent hopefulness and
indecision! Like him the feeble, the sluggish, and the purposeless
too often see no meaning in the happiest occasions, until too late
they learn the old lesson that the mill can never grind with the
water which has passed.
Such people are always a little too late or a little too early in
everything they attempt. "They have three hands apiece," said John
B. Gough; "a right hand, a left hand, and a little behindhand." As
boys, they were late for school, and unpunctual in their home
duties. That is the way the habit is acquired; and now, when
responsibility claims them, they think that if they had only gone
yesterday they would have obtained the situation, or they can
probably get one to-morrow. They remember plenty of chances to make
money, or know how to make it some other time than now; they see
how to improve themselves or help others in the future, but
perceive no opportunity in the present. They cannot seize their
opportunity.
Joe Stoker, rear brakeman on the —— accommodation train, was
exceedingly popular with all the railroad men. The passengers liked
him, too, for he was eager to please and always ready to answer
questions. But he did not realize the full responsibility of his
position. He "took the world easy," and occasionally tippled; and
if any one remonstrated, he would give one of his brightest smiles,
and reply, in such a good-natured way that the friend would think
he had over-estimated the danger: "Thank you. I'm all right. Don't
you worry."
One evening there was a heavy snowstorm, and his train was delayed.
Joe complained of extra duties because of the storm, and slyly
sipped occasional draughts from a flat bottle. Soon he became quite
jolly; but the conductor and engineer of the train were both
vigilant and anxious.
Between two stations the train came to a quick halt. The engine had
blown out its cylinder head, and an express was due in a few
minutes upon the same track. The conductor hurried to the rear car,
and ordered Joe back with a red light. The brakeman laughed and
said:
"There's no hurry. Wait till I get my overcoat."
The conductor answered gravely, "Don't stop a minute, Joe. The
express is due."
"All right," said Joe, smilingly. The conductor then hurried
forward to the engine.
But the brakeman did not go at once. He stopped to put on his
overcoat. Then he took another sip from the flat bottle to keep the
cold out. Then he slowly grasped the lantern and, whistling, moved
leisurely down the track.
He had not gone ten paces before he heard the puffing of the
express. Then he ran for the curve, but it was too late. In a
horrible minute the engine of the express had telescoped the
standing train, and the shrieks of the mangled passengers mingled
with the hissing escape of steam.
Later on, when they asked for Joe, he had disappeared; but the next
day he was found in a barn, delirious, swinging an empty lantern in
front of an imaginary train, and crying, "Oh, that I had!"
He was taken home, and afterwards to an asylum, and there is no
sadder sound in that sad place than the unceasing moan, "Oh, that I
had! Oh, that I had!" of the unfortunate brakeman, whose criminal
indulgence brought disaster to many lives.
"Oh, that I had!" or "Oh, that I had not!" is the silent cry of
many a man who would give life itself for the opportunity to go
back and retrieve some long-past error.
"There are moments," says Dean Alford, "which are worth more than
years. We cannot help it. There is no proportion between spaces of
time in importance nor in value. A stray, unthought-of five minutes
may contain the event of a life. And this all-important moment—who
can tell when it will be upon us?"
"What we call a turning-point," says Arnold, "is simply an occasion
which sums up and brings to a result previous training. Accidental
circumstances are nothing except to men who have been trained to
take advantage of them."
The trouble with us is that we are ever looking for a princely
chance of acquiring riches, or fame, or worth. We are dazzled by
what Emerson calls the "shallow Americanism" of the day. We are
expecting mastery without apprenticeship, knowledge without study,
and riches by credit.
Young men and women, why stand ye here all the day idle? Was the
land all occupied before you were born? Has the earth ceased to
yield its increase? Are the seats all taken? the positions all
filled? the chances all gone? Are the resources of your country
fully developed? Are the secrets of nature all mastered? Is there
no way in which you can utilize these passing moments to improve
yourself or benefit others? Is the competition of modern existence
so fierce that you must be content simply to gain an honest living?
Have you received the gift of life in this progressive age, wherein
all the experience of the past is garnered for your inspiration,
merely that you may increase by one the sum total of purely animal
existence?
Born in an age and country in which knowledge and opportunity
abound as never before, how can you sit with folded hands, asking
God's aid in work for which He has already given you the necessary
faculties and strength? Even when the Chosen People supposed their
progress checked by the Red Sea, and their leader paused for Divine
help, the Lord said, "Wherefore criest thou unto me? Speak unto the
children of Israel, that they go forward."
With the world full of work that needs to be done; with human
nature so constituted that often a pleasant word or a trifling
assistance may stem the tide of disaster for some fellow man, or
clear his path to success; with our own faculties so arranged that
in honest, earnest, persistent endeavor we find our highest good;
and with countless noble examples to encourage us to dare and to
do, each moment brings us to the threshold of some new
opportunity.
Don't wait for your opportunity. Make it,—make it as
the shepherd-boy Ferguson made his when he calculated the distances
of the stars with a handful of glass beads on a string. Make it as
George Stephenson made his when he mastered the rules of
mathematics with a bit of chalk on the grimy sides of the coal
wagons in the mines. Make it, as Napoleon made his in a hundred
"impossible" situations. Make it, as all leaders of men, in
war and in peace, have made their chances of success. Golden
opportunities are nothing to laziness, but industry makes the
commonest chances golden.
"There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures."
"'Tis never offered twice; seize, then, the hour
When fortune smiles, and duty points the way;
Nor shrink aside to 'scape the specter fear,
Nor pause, though pleasure beckon from her bower;
But bravely bear thee onward to the goal."
Chapter 2. Wanted—A Man
"Wanted; men:
Not systems fit and wise,
Not faiths with rigid eyes,
Not wealth in mountain piles,
Not power with gracious smiles,
Not even the potent pen;
Wanted; men."
All the world cries, Where is the man who will save us? We want a
man! Don't look so far for this man. You have him at hand. This
man,—it is you, it is I, it is each one of us!… How to constitute
one's self a man? Nothing harder, if one knows not how to will it;
nothing easier, if one wills it.—ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
Diogenes sought with a lantern at noontide in ancient Athens for a
perfectly honest man, and sought in vain. In the market place he
once cried aloud, "Hear me, O men"; and, when a crowd collected
around him, he said scornfully: "I called for men, not pygmies."
Over the door of every profession, every occupation, every calling,
the world has a standing advertisement: "Wanted—A Man."
Wanted, a man who will not lose his individuality in a crowd, a man
who has the courage of his convictions, who is not afraid to say
"No," though all the world say "Yes."
Wanted, a man who, though he is dominated by a mighty purpose, will
not permit one great faculty to dwarf, cripple, warp, or mutilate
his manhood; who will not allow the over-development of one faculty
to stunt or paralyze his other faculties.
Wanted, a man who is larger than his calling, who considers it a
low estimate of his occupation to value it merely as a means of
getting a living. Wanted, a man who sees self-development,
education and culture, discipline and drill, character and manhood,
in his occupation.
A thousand pulpits vacant in a single religious denomination, a
thousand preachers standing idle in the market place, while a
thousand church committees scour the land for men to fill those
same vacant pulpits, and scour in vain, is a sufficient indication,
in one direction at least, of the largeness of the opportunities of
the age, and also of the crying need of good men.
Wanted, a man of courage who is not a coward in any part of his
nature.
Wanted, a man who is well balanced, who is not cursed with some
little defect of weakness which cripples his usefulness and
neutralizes his powers.
Wanted, a man who is symmetrical, and not one-sided in his
development, who has not sent all the energies of his being into
one narrow specialty and allowed all the other branches of his life
to wither and die. Wanted, a man who is broad, who does not take
half views of things; a man who mixes common sense with his
theories, who does not let a college education spoil him for
practical, every-day life; a man who prefers substance to show, and
one who regards his good name as a priceless treasure.
Wanted, a man "who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire,
but whose passions are trained to heed a strong will, the servant
of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether
of nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as
himself."
The world wants a man who is educated all over; whose nerves are
brought to their acutest sensibility; whose brain is cultured,
keen, incisive, broad; whose hands are deft; whose eyes are alert,
sensitive, microscopic; whose heart is tender, magnanimous, true.
The whole world is looking for such a man. Although there are
millions out of employment, yet it is almost impossible to find
just the right man in almost any department of life, and yet
everywhere we see the advertisement: "Wanted—A Man."
Rousseau, in his celebrated essay on education, says; "According to
the order of nature, men being equal, their common vocation is the
profession of humanity; and whoever is well educated to discharge
the duty of a man can not be badly prepared to fill any of those
offices that have a relation to him. It matters little to me
whether my pupil be designed for the army, the pulpit, or the bar.
Nature has destined us to the offices of human life antecedent to
our destination concerning society. To live is the profession I
would teach him. When I have done with him, it is true he will be
neither a soldier, a lawyer, nor a divine. Let him first be a
man; Fortune may remove him from one rank to another as she
pleases, he will be always found in his place."
A little, short doctor of divinity in a large Baptist convention
stood on a step and said he thanked God he was a Baptist. The
audience could not hear and called "Louder." "Get up higher," some
one said. "I can't," he replied. "To be a Baptist is as high as one
can get." But there is something higher than being a Baptist, and
that is being a man.
As Emerson says, Talleyrand's question is ever the main one; not,
is he rich? is he committed? is he well-meaning? has he this or
that faculty? is he of the movement? is he of the establishment?
but is he anybody? does he stand for something? He must be good of
his kind. That is all that Talleyrand, all that the common sense of
mankind asks.
When Garfield as a boy was asked what he meant to be he answered:
"First of all, I must make myself a man; if I do not succeed in
that, I can succeed in nothing."
Montaigne says our work is not to train a soul by itself alone, nor
a body by itself alone, but to train a man.
One great need for the world to-day is for men and women who are
good animals. To endure the strain of our concentrated
civilization, the coming man and woman must have good bodies and an
excess of animal spirits.
What more glorious than a magnificent manhood, animated with the
bounding spirits of overflowing health?
It is a sad sight to see thousands of students graduated every year
from our grand institutions whose object is to make stalwart,
independent, self-supporting men, turned out into the world
saplings instead of stalwart oaks, "memory-glands" instead of
brainy men, helpless instead of self-supporting, sickly instead of
robust, weak instead of strong, leaning instead of erect. "So many
promising youths, and never a finished man!"
The character sympathizes with and unconsciously takes on the
nature of the body. A peevish, snarling, ailing man can not develop
the vigor and strength of character which is possible to a healthy,
robust, cheerful man. There is an inherent love in the human mind
for wholeness, a demand that man shall come up to the
highest standard; and there is an inherent protest or contempt for
preventable deficiency. Nature, too, demands that man be ever at
the top of his condition.
As we stand upon the seashore while the tide is coming in, one wave
reaches up the beach far higher than any previous one, then
recedes, and for some time none that follows comes up to its mark,
but after a while the whole sea is there and beyond it. So now and
then there comes a man head and shoulders above his fellow men,
showing that Nature has not lost her ideal, and after a while even
the average man will overtop the highest wave of manhood yet given
to the world.
Apelles hunted over Greece for many years, studying the fairest
points of beautiful women, getting here an eye, there a forehead
and there a nose, here a grace and there a turn of beauty, for his
famous portrait of a perfect woman which enchanted the world. So
the coming man will be a composite, many in one. He will absorb
into himself not the weakness, not the follies, but the strength
and the virtues of other types of men. He will be a man raised to
the highest power. He will be a self-centered, equipoised, and ever
master of himself. His sensibility will not be deadened or blunted
by violation of Nature's laws. His whole character will be
impressionable, and will respond to the most delicate touches of
Nature.
The first requisite of all education and discipline should be
man-timber. Tough timber must come from well grown, sturdy trees.
Such wood can be turned into a mast, can be fashioned into a piano
or an exquisite carving. But it must become timber first. Time and
patience develop the sapling into the tree. So through discipline,
education, experience, the sapling child is developed into hardy
mental, moral, physical man-timber.
If the youth should start out with the fixed determination that
every statement he makes shall be the exact truth; that every
promise he makes shall be redeemed to the letter; that every
appointment shall be kept with the strictest faithfulness and with
full regard for other men's time; if he should hold his reputation
as a priceless treasure, feel that the eyes of the world are upon
him that he must not deviate a hair's breadth from the truth and
right; if he should take such a stand at the outset, he would, like
George Peabody, come to have almost unlimited credit and the
confidence of everybody who knows him.
What are palaces and equipages; what though a man could cover a
continent with his title-deeds, or an ocean with his commerce;
compared with conscious rectitude, with a face that never turns
pale at the accuser's voice, with a bosom that never throbs with
fear of exposure, with a heart that might be turned inside out and
disclose no stain of dishonor? To have done no man a wrong; to have
put your signature to no paper to which the purest angel in heaven
might not have been an attesting witness; to walk and live,
unseduced, within arm's length of what is not your own, with
nothing between your desire and its gratification but the invisible
law of rectitude;— this is to be a man.
Man is the only great thing in the universe. All the ages have been
trying to produce a perfect model. Only one complete man has yet
evolved. The best of us are but prophesies of what is to come.
What constitutes a state?
Not high-raised battlement or labored mound,
Thick wall or moated gate;
Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned;
Not bays and broad-armed ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
Not starred and spangled courts,
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.
No: men, high-minded men,
With powers as far above dull brutes endued
In forest, brake, or den,
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude,—
Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain,
Prevent the long-aimed blow,
And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain.
WILLIAM JONES.
God give us men. A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands:
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor—men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And scorn his treacherous flatteries without winking;
Tall men sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty, and in private thinking.
ANON.
Chapter 3. Boys With No Chance
In the blackest soils grow the fairest flowers, and the loftiest
and strongest trees spring heavenward among the rocks.—J. G.
HOLLAND.
Poverty is very terrible, and sometimes kills the very soul within
us, but it is the north wind that lashes men into Vikings; it is
the soft, luscious south wind which lulls them to lotus
dreams.—OUIDA.
Poverty is the sixth sense.—GERMAN PROVERB.
It is not every calamity that is a curse, and early adversity is
often a blessing. Surmounted difficulties not only teach, but
hearten us in our future struggles.—SHARPE.
There can be no doubt that the captains of industry to-day, using
that term in its broadest sense, are men who began life as poor
boys.—SETH LOW.
'Tis a common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder!
SHAKESPEARE.
"I am a child of the court," said a pretty little girl at a
children's party in Denmark; " my father is Groom of the
Chambers, which is a very high office. And those whose names end
with 'sen,'" she added, "can never be anything at all. We must put
our arms akimbo, and make the elbows quite pointed, so as to keep
these 'sen' people at a great distance."
"But my papa can buy a hundred dollars' worth of bonbons, and give
them away to children," angrily exclaimed the daughter of the rich
merchant Peter sen. "Can your papa do that?"
"Yes," chimed in the daughter of an editor, "my papa can put your
papa and everybody's papa into the newspaper. All sorts of people
are afraid of him, my papa says, for he can do as he likes with the
paper."
"Oh, if I could be one of them!" thought a little boy peeping
through the crack of the door, by permission of the cook for whom
he had been turning the spit. But no, his parents had not
even a penny to spare, and his name ended in "sen."
Years afterwards when the children of the party had become men and
women, some of them went to see a splendid house, filled with all
kinds of beautiful and valuable objects. There they met the owner,
once the very boy who thought it so great a privilege to peep at
them through a crack in the door as they played. He had become the
great sculptor Thorwald sen.
This sketch is adapted from a story by a poor Danish cobbler's son,
another whose name did not keep him from becoming famous,—Hans
Christian Ander sen.
"There is no fear of my starving, father," said the deaf boy,
Kitto, begging to be taken from the poorhouse and allowed to
struggle for an education; "we are in the midst of plenty, and I
know how to prevent hunger. The Hottentots subsist a long time on
nothing but a little gum; they also, when hungry, tie a ligature
around their bodies. Cannot I do so, too? The hedges furnish
blackberries and nuts, and the fields, turnips; a hayrick will make
an excellent bed."
The poor deaf boy with a drunken father, who was thought capable of
nothing better than making shoes as a pauper, became one of the
greatest Biblical scholars in the world. His first book was written
in the workhouse.
Creon was a Greek slave, as a writer tells the story in Kate
Field's "Washington," but he was also a slave of the Genius of Art.
Beauty was his god, and he worshiped it with rapt adoration. It was
after the repulse of the great Persian invader, and a law was in
force that under penalty of death no one should espouse art except
freemen. When the law was enacted he was engaged upon a group for
which he hoped some day to receive the commendation of Phidias, the
greatest sculptor living, and even the praise of Pericles.
What was to be done? Into the marble block before him Creon had put
his head, his heart, his soul, his life. On his knees, from day to
day, he had prayed for fresh inspiration, new skill. He believed,
gratefully and proudly, that Apollo, answering his prayers, had
directed his hand and had breathed into the figures the life that
seemed to animate them; but now,—now, all the gods seemed to have
deserted him.
Cleone, his devoted sister, felt the blow as deeply as her brother.
"O Aphrodite!" she prayed, "immortal Aphrodite, high enthroned
child of Zeus, my queen, my goddess, my patron, at whose shrine I
have daily laid my offerings, to be now my friend, the friend of my
brother!"
Then to her brother she said: "O Creon, go to the cellar beneath
our house. It is dark, but I will furnish light and food. Continue
your work; the gods will befriend us."
To the cellar Creon went, and guarded and attended by his sister,
day and night, he proceeded with his glorious but dangerous task.
About this time all Greece was invited to Athens to behold an
exhibit of works of art. The display took place in the Agora.
Pericles presided. At his side was Aspasia. Phidias, Socrates,
Sophocles, and other renowned men stood near him.
The works of the great masters were there. But one group, far more
beautiful than the rest,—a group that Apollo himself must have
chiseled,—challenged universal attention, exciting at the same time
no little envy among rival artists.
"Who is the sculptor of this group?" None could tell. Heralds
repeated the question, but there was no answer. "A mystery, then!
Can it be the work of a slave?" Amid great commotion a beautiful
maiden with disarranged dress, disheveled hair, a determined
expression in her eyes, and with closed lips, was dragged into the
Agora. "This woman," cried the officers, "this woman knows the
sculptor; we are sure of it; but she will not tell his name."
Cleone was questioned, but was silent. She was informed of the
penalty of her conduct, but her lips remained closed. "Then," said
Pericles, "the law is imperative, and I am the minister of the law.
Take the maid to the dungeon."
As he spoke a youth with flowing hair, emaciated, but with black
eyes that beamed with the flashing light of genius, rushed forward,
and flinging himself before him exclaimed: "O Pericles, forgive and
save the maid! She is my sister. I am the culprit. The group is the
work of my hands, the hands of a slave."
The indignant crowd interrupted him and cried, "To the dungeon, to
the dungeon with the slave." "As I live, no!" said Pericles,
rising. "Behold that group! Apollo decides by it that there is
something higher in Greece than an unjust law. The highest purpose
of law should be the development of the beautiful. If Athens lives
in the memory and affections of men, it is her devotion to art that
will immortalize her. Not to the dungeon, but to my side bring the
youth."
And there, in the presence of the assembled multitude, Aspasia
placed the crown of olives, which she held in her hands, on the
brow of Creon; and at the same time, amid universal plaudits, she
tenderly kissed Creon's affectionate and devoted sister.
The Athenians erected a statue to Aesop, who was born a slave, that
men might know that the way to honor is open to all. In Greece,
wealth and immortality were the sure reward of the man who could
distinguish himself in art, literature, or war. No other country
ever did so much to encourage and inspire struggling merit.
"I was born in poverty," said Vice-President Henry Wilson. "Want
sat by my cradle. I know what it is to ask a mother for bread when
she has none to give. I left my home at ten years of age, and
served an apprenticeship of eleven years, receiving a month's
schooling each year, and, at the end of eleven years of hard work,
a yoke of oxen and six sheep, which brought me eighty-four dollars.
I never spent the sum of one dollar for pleasure, counting every
penny from the time I was born till I was twenty-one years of age.
I know what it is to travel weary miles and ask my fellow men to
give me leave to toil.… In the first month after I was twenty-one
years of age, I went into the woods, drove a team, and cut
mill-logs. I rose in the morning before daylight and worked hard
till after dark, and received the magnificent sum of six dollars
for the month's work! Each of these dollars looked as large to me
as the moon looks to-night."
Mr. Wilson determined never to lose an opportunity for self-culture
or self-advancement. Few men knew so well the value of spare
moments. He seized them as though they were gold and would
not let one pass until he had wrung from it every possibility. He
managed to read a thousand good books before he was twenty-one—what
a lesson for boys on a farm! When he left the farm he started on
foot for Natick, Mass., over one hundred miles distant, to learn
the cobbler's trade. He went through Boston that he might see
Bunker Hill monument and other historical landmarks. The whole trip
cost him but one dollar and six cents. In a year he was the head of
a debating club at Natick. Before eight years had passed, he made
his great speech against slavery, in the Massachusetts Legislature.
Twelve years later he stood shoulder to shoulder with the polished
Sumner in Congress. With him, every occasion was a great
occasion. He ground every circumstance of his life into
material for success.
"Don't go about the town any longer in that outlandish rig. Let me
give you an order on the store. Dress up a little, Horace." Horace
Greeley looked down on his clothes as if he had never before
noticed how seedy they were, and replied: "You see Mr. Sterrett, my
father is on a new place, and I want to help him all I can." He had
spent but six dollars for personal expenses in seven months, and
was to receive one hundred and thirty-five from Judge J. M. Sterret
of the Erie "Gazette" for substitute work. He retained but fifteen
dollars and gave the rest to his father, with whom he had moved
from Vermont to Western Pennsylvania, and for whom he had camped
out many a night to guard the sheep from wolves. He was nearly
twenty-one; and, although tall and gawky, with tow-colored hair, a
pale face and whining voice, he resolved to seek his fortune in New
York City. Slinging his bundle of clothes on a stick over his
shoulder, he walked sixty miles through the woods to Buffalo, rode
on a canal boat to Albany, descended the Hudson in a barge, and
reached New York, just as the sun was rising, August 18, 1831.
He found board over a saloon at two dollars and a half a week. His
journey of six hundred miles had cost him but five dollars. For
days Horace wandered up and down the streets, going into scores of
buildings and asking if they wanted "a hand"; but "no" was the
invariable reply. His quaint appearance led many to think he was an
escaped apprentice. One Sunday at his boarding-place he heard that
printers were wanted at "West's Printing-office." He was at the
door at five o'clock Monday morning, and asked the foreman for a
job at seven. The latter had no idea that a country greenhorn could
set type for the Polyglot Testament on which help was needed, but
said: "Fix up a case for him and we'll see if he can do
anything." When the proprietor came in, he objected to the
new-comer and told the foreman to let him go when his first day's
work was done. That night Horace showed a proof of the largest and
most correct day's work that had then been done.
In ten years he was a partner in a small printing-office. He
founded the "New Yorker," the best weekly paper in the United
States, but it was not profitable. When Harrison was nominated for
President in 1840, Greeley started "The Log-Cabin," which reached
the then fabulous circulation of ninety thousand. But on this paper
at a penny per copy he made no money. His next venture was "The New
York Tribune," price one cent. To start it he borrowed a thousand
dollars and printed five thousand copies of the first number. It
was difficult to give them all away. He began with six hundred
subscribers, and increased the list to eleven thousand in six
weeks. The demand for the "Tribune" grew faster than new machinery
could be obtained to print it. It was a paper whose editor,
whatever his mistakes, always tried to be right.
James Gordon Bennett had made a failure of his "New York Courier"
in 1825, of the "Globe" in 1832, and of the "Pennsylvanian" a
little later, and was only known as a clever writer for the press,
who had saved a few hundred dollars by hard labor and strict
economy for fourteen years. In 1835 he asked Horace Greeley to join
him in starting a new daily paper, the "New York Herald." Greeley
declined, but recommended two young printers, who formed
partnership with Bennett, and the "Herald" was started on May 6,
1835, with a cash capital to pay expenses for ten days.
Bennet hired a small cellar in Wall Street, furnished it with a
chair and a desk composed of a plank supported by two barrels; and
there, doing all the work except the printing, began the work of
making a really great daily newspaper, a thing then unknown in
America, as all its predecessors were party organs. Steadily the
young man struggled towards his ideal, giving the news, fresh and
crisp, from an ever-widening area, until his paper was famous for
giving the current history of the world as fully and quickly as any
competitor, and often much more thoroughly and far more promptly.
Neither labor nor expense was spared in obtaining prompt and
reliable information on every topic of general interest. It was an
up-hill job, but its completion was finally marked by the opening
at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street of the most complete
newspaper establishment then known.
