Part 3 (1/2)
Enter into conversation the next time you are at the club, or in a hotel, or restaurant, or wherever you meet men in intellectual hospitality, on almost any subject you may choose, you will be amazed at the information, the original thought, the keen a.n.a.lysis, even the constructive ideas of most of the men there.
One of the most fertile minds I have ever known is nothing but an unsuccessful lawyer in a country town; yet his intellect is as tropical, and as accurate, too, as was Napoleon's, or Gould's.
How is it that all these people do not achieve the successes to which their mere thinking ent.i.tles them? I say, to which their mere _thinking_ ent.i.tles them, because--I say it again--if you will put them beside the great masters of affairs you will find that they have as many ideas as have these captains of business. My young friend, it is simply because they have not courage and constancy. Long ago I catalogued the qualities that make up character, in relative importance, as follows:
First: Sincerity; fidelity, the ability to be true--true to friends, true to ideas, true to ideals, true to your task, true to the truth Who shall deny that the martyrs Nero burned did not experience joys in the consuming flame more delicate and sweet than ever thrilled epicure or lover?
Second (and well-nigh first): Courage--the G.o.dlike quality that dreads not; the una.n.a.lyzable thing in man that makes him execute his conception--no matter how insane or absurd it may appear to others--if it appears rational to him, and then stride ahead to his next great deed, regardless of the gossips.
Third: Reserve--the power to hold one's forces in check, as a general disposes his army in an engagement on which the fate of an empire or of the world may depend. This power of reserve involves silence. Talk all you please, but keep your large conceptions to yourself till the hour to strike arrives, and then strike with all your might.
In politics they call some men ”rubber shoes”; such men continue long, but they never achieve highly. Do not try to cultivate this quality if Nature has been so kind as not to endow you with it. It is not a masterful quality. Have the courage not only of your convictions--that is not so hard--but _have the courage of your conceptions_. But do not simulate courage if you have it not. False courage is worse than cowardice--it is falsehood and cowardice combined.
Reserve also includes the power to wait; and that is almost as crucial a test of greatness as courage itself. Many a battle has been lost by over-eagerness. There was the greatness of Fate itself in the order of the American officer of the Revolution who said, ”Wait, men, until you see the whites of their eyes.”
Time is a young man's greatest ally. That is why youth holds the whip-hand of the world. That is why youth can afford to dare. It is also why age does not dare to dare. With youth, to-morrow is merely an accession of power; but with age--ah, well, with age, as Omar says,
”To-morrow I may be Myself with yesterday's seven thousand years.”
Fourth: The fourth quality in character, the lowest one in the list, is Intellect. Not that it is not so valuable as the others, but it is so abundant, and, without the others, so useless. What is it we hear the strong-handed Philistines say in the market-place? ”Brains are cheap”; that is what we hear them say. And they say truly. Many years ago I became acquainted with a millionaire who had acquired his wealth by building things, raising cattle, erecting factories--not by shuffling the cards of trade.
His grammar is defective, but his elemental vitality will do you as much good as a walk in the fresh air after the poisoned and steaming atmosphere of a crowded room. ”How have I succeeded?” said he, in answer to a question one day. ”Oh, by just having the nerve to decide upon a plan, and then by hiring these brainy fellows to do my work. I can get the services of the ablest lawyer in this city for a crumb of the loaf I realize from his thought and industry. The secret of success? Why, sir, it is will, that is all--will, nerve, 'sand.'”
Let me enlarge on the first great quality of character. Sincerity, truthfulness--write these on the tablets of your heart; get them into your blood. This is something that you can cultivate. One of the keen lawyers of my town whom we elected as judge of our court, and who is full of the fresh and living wisdom of the people, said this one day:
”A man can cultivate honesty--there is no doubt about that; but a man who is born honest has a great advantage.”
So if you have any taint of the blood which you discover inclines you toward guile, insincerity, and untruthfulness fortify yourself by the reflection that _insincerity is a losing game_. Put it on the low ground of self-interest, and be truthful, be ”square.”
The old saying that ”honesty is the best policy” has lost its original force by much repet.i.tion. And it does not go far enough, either. I am speaking of more than mere mercantile honesty; I am speaking of political sincerity, of intellectual sincerity. Never attempt to fool anybody. We live at such a rate of speed, our perceptions have become so abnormally sensitive and acute, that it is next to impossible to deceive any one; and he who attempts it is usually the only one deceived.
If, then, a man can mount upon this humble stepping-stone of low personal interest to sincerity for the sake of his own advantage, he will, after a while, be able to climb higher, to the exalted plane of truthfulness for the sake of truth; and then he will behold the beat.i.tudes of righteous living, and experience the joys which putting oneself in harmony with the order of the universe and the on-going of events never fails to bring. As a great scientist puts it, ”Establish your polarity, young man, and sleep soundly at night.”
And courage: A successful manufacturer said to me one day, in explaining his own success: _”I never let my idea get cold._ That, I think, is why I have succeeded. When a great business deal came to my mind, I did not waste my energy inquiring about whether I could do it.
I did not waste time and strength regretting that I was not stronger.
I did not destroy my force by doubting my own conception. I went at it. I did it. I spent all my energy on execution after I had once conceived it. Did I not make mistakes following such a plan? Why, of course I made mistakes; and G.o.d protect me from the man who never made a mistake!
”But acting by that method alone,” said he, ”is the way I achieved all my triumphs. I do not pursue that course now, because I am getting old, and I am in very poor health. Age and ill health make me doubt; so I have not made any large business success for several years. I should say that the reason why so many men who are really capable intellectually fail, is because they are infidels to their own thought, traitors to their own conception.
”If I could concentrate all the advice of my life into one thing,”
declared this strong wise man, in concluding his comments on failure and success, ”it would be for those young men who expect to do something constructive to have faith in their idea, and act upon it before it gets cold. There is a tremendous force in the enthusiasm of your freshly formed plan. You have contributed largely to the defeat of your scheme when you have permitted yourself to doubt it.”
It was only the other day that the newspapers were full of an extraordinary achievement of one of the American magicians of business; and the papers said that the remarkable thing about it was that the plan flashed upon him in a single evening, as he was leaving for a long vacation. He acted upon it instantly, and devoted his fortune, reputation, almost life, to its consummation. He succeeded.
If he had taken six months to have thought over it, his conception would have been abandoned.
While this man's plan came on him in an evening, a study of his life shows that, unconsciously to himself, it had been growing for a long series of years. It flowered out all at once, like the night-blooming cereus. Caesar decided to cross the Rubicon on the instant? Yes, but we cannot doubt that this imperial resolution had been formed the day when in the Forum, as Macaulay describes it, Caesar said that the future Dictator of Rome might be Pompey, or Cra.s.sus, or still somebody else whom n.o.body was thinking of (that somebody else being himself, of course).
And, indeed, Caesar would at that time have been the last that any Roman would have selected as the master of the world. He was young. He was small. He seemed almost frail. He was an unspeakable egotist. He was fastidious in his dress. I have read that he even used perfumes.
And how could the common eye discern, through all of these externals of frippery, the lion heart, the eagle vision, and the mind of conquest and empire?