{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_10417/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_10417","id":"gutenberg_10417","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10417","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Conduct of life","Happiness"],"text":"LOVE LIFE & WORK\n\nBEING A BOOK OF OPINIONS REASONABLY GOOD-NATURED CONCERNING HOW TO\nATTAIN THE HIGHEST HAPPINESS FOR ONE'S SELF WITH THE LEAST POSSIBLE\nHARM TO OTHERS\n\n1906\n\nBy ELBERT HUBBARD\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nCHAPTERS\n\n1. A Prayer\n\n2. Life and Expression\n\n3. Time and Chance\n\n4. Psychology of a Religious Revival\n\n5. One-Man Power\n\n6. Mental Attitude\n\n7. The Outsider\n\n8. Get Out or Get in Line\n\n9. The Week-Day, Keep it Holy\n\n10. Exclusive Friendships\n\n11. The Folly of Living in the Future\n\n12. The Spirit of Man\n\n13. Art and Religion\n\n14. Initiative\n\n15. The Disagreeable Girl\n\n16. The Neutral\n\n17. Reflections on Progress\n\n18. Sympathy, Knowledge and Poise\n\n19. Love and Faith\n\n20. Giving Something for Nothing\n\n21. Work and Waste\n\n22. The Law of Obedience\n\n23. Society's Saviors\n\n24. Preparing for Old Age\n\n25. An Alliance With Nature\n\n26. The Ex. Question\n\n27. The Sergeant\n\n28. The Spirit of the Age\n\n29. The Grammarian\n\n30. The Best Religion\n\n\n\nA Prayer\n\nThe supreme prayer of my heart is not to be learned, rich, famous,\npowerful, or \"good,\" but simply to be radiant. I desire to radiate\nhealth, cheerfulness, calm courage and good will. I wish to live without\nhate, whim, jealousy, envy, fear. I wish to be simple, honest, frank,\nnatural, clean in mind and clean in body, unaffected--ready to say \"I do\nnot know,\" if it be so, and to meet all men on an absolute equality--to\nface any obstacle and meet every difficulty unabashed and unafraid.\n\nI wish others to live their lives, too--up to their highest, fullest and\nbest. To that end I pray that I may never meddle, interfere, dictate,\ngive advice that is not wanted, or assist when my services are not\nneeded. If I can help people, I'll do it by giving them a chance to help\nthemselves; and if I can uplift or inspire, let it be by example,\ninference, and suggestion, rather than by injunction and dictation. That\nis to say, I desire to be radiant--to radiate life.\n\n\n\nLife and Expression\n\nBy exercise of its faculties the spirit grows, just as a muscle grows\nstrong thru continued use. Expression is necessary. Life is expression,\nand repression is stagnation--death.\n\nYet, there can be right and wrong expression. If a man permits his life\nto run riot and only the animal side of his nature is allowed to express\nitself, he is repressing his highest and best, and the qualities not\nused atrophy and die.\n\nMen are punished by their sins, not for them. Sensuality, gluttony, and\nthe life of license repress the life of the spirit, and the soul never\nblossoms; and this is what it is to lose one's soul. All adown the\ncenturies thinking men have noted these truths, and again and again we\nfind individuals forsaking in horror the life of the senses and devoting\nthemselves to the life of the spirit. This question of expression\nthrough the spirit, or through the senses--through soul or body--has\nbeen the pivotal point of all philosophy and the inspiration of\nall religion.\n\nEvery religion is made up of two elements that never mix any more than\noil and water mix. A religion is a mechanical mixture, not a chemical\ncombination, of morality and dogma. Dogma is the science of the unseen:\nthe doctrine of the unknown and unknowable. And in order to give this\nscience plausibility, its promulgators have always fastened upon it\nmorality. Morality can and does exist entirely separate and apart from\ndogma, but dogma is ever a parasite on morality, and the business of the\npriest is to confuse the two.\n\nBut morality and religion never saponify. Morality is simply the\nquestion of expressing your life forces--how to use them? You have so\nmuch energy; and what will you do with it? And from out the multitude\nthere have always been men to step forward and give you advice for a\nconsideration. Without their supposed influence with the unseen we might\nnot accept their interpretation of what is right and wrong. But with the\nassurance that their advice is backed up by Deity, followed with an\noffer of reward if we believe it, and a threat of dire punishment if we\ndo not, the Self-appointed Superior Class has driven men wheresoever it\nwilled. The evolution of formal religions is not a complex process, and\nthe fact that they embody these two unmixable things, dogma and\nmorality, is a very plain and simple truth, easily seen, undisputed by\nall reasonable men. And be it said that the morality of most religions\nis good. Love, truth, charity, justice and gentleness are taught in them\nall. But, like a rule in Greek grammar, there are many exceptions. And\nso in the morality of religions there are exceptional instances that\nconstantly arise where love, truth, charity, gentleness and justice are\nwaived on suggestion of the Superior Class, that good may follow. Were\nit not for these exceptions there would be no wars between\nChristian nations.\n\nThe question of how to express your life will probably never down, for\nthe reason that men vary in temperament and inclination. Some men have\nno capacity for certain sins of the flesh; others there be, who, having\nlost their inclination for sensuality through too much indulgence, turn\nascetics. Yet all sermons have but one theme: how shall life be\nexpressed? Between asceticism and indulgence men and races swing.\n\nAsceticism in our day finds an interesting manifestation in the\nTrappists, who live on a mountain top, nearly inaccessible, and deprive\nthemselves of almost every vestige of bodily comfort, going without food\nfor days, wearing uncomfortable garments, suffering severe cold; and\nshould one of this community look upon the face of a woman he would\nthink he was in instant danger of damnation. So here we find the extreme\ninstance of men repressing the faculties of the body in order that the\nspirit may find ample time and opportunity for exercise.\n\nSomewhere between this extreme repression of the monk and the license of\nthe sensualist lies the truth. But just where is the great question; and\nthe desire of one person, who thinks he has discovered the norm, to\ncompel all other men to stop there, has led to war and strife untold.\nAll law centers around this point--what shall men be allowed to do? And\nso we find statutes to punish \"strolling play actors,\" \"players on\nfiddles,\" \"disturbers of the public conscience,\" \"persons who dance\nwantonly,\" \"blasphemers,\" and in England there were, in the year 1800,\nthirty-seven offenses that were legally punishable by death. What\nexpression is right and what is not, is simply a matter of opinion. One\nreligious denomination that now exists does not allow singing;\ninstrumental music has been to some a rock of offense, exciting the\nspirit through the sense of hearing, to improper thoughts--\"through the\nlascivious pleasing of the lute\"; others think dancing wicked, while a\nfew allow pipe-organ music, but draw the line at the violin; while still\nothers use a whole orchestra in their religious service. Some there be\nwho regard pictures as implements of idolatry; while the Hook-and-Eye\nBaptists look upon buttons as immoral.\n\nStrange evolutions are often witnessed within the life of one\nindividual. For instance, Leo Tolstoy, a great and good man, at one time\na sensualist, has now turned ascetic; a common evolution in the lives of\nthe saints. But excellent as this man is, there is yet a grave\nimperfection in his cosmos which to a degree vitiates the truth he\ndesires to teach: he leaves the element of beauty out of his formula.\nNot caring for harmony as set forth in color, form and sweet sounds, he\nis quite willing to deny all others these things which minister to\ntheir well-being. There is in most souls a hunger for beauty, just as\nthere is physical hunger. Beauty speaks to their spirits through the\nsenses; but Tolstoy would have your house barren to the verge of\nhardship. My veneration for Count Tolstoy is profound, yet I mention him\nhere to show the grave danger that lies in allowing any man, even one of\nthe wisest of men, to dictate to us what is best. We ourselves are the\nbetter judges. Most of the frightful cruelties inflicted on men during\nthe past have arisen simply out of a difference of opinion that arose\nthrough a difference in temperament. The question is as alive to-day as\nit was two thousand years ago--what expression is best? That is, what\nshall we do to be saved? And concrete absurdity consists in saying that\nwe must all do the same thing. Whether the race will ever grow to a\npoint where men will be willing to leave the matter of life-expression\nto the individual is a question; but the millennium will never arrive\nuntil men cease trying to compel all other men to live after\none pattern.\n\nMost people are anxious to do what is best for themselves and least\nharmful for others. The average man now has intelligence enough: Utopia\nis not far off, if the self-appointed folk who rule us, and teach us for\na consideration, would only be willing to do unto others as they would\nbe done by, that is to say, mind their own business and cease coveting\nthings that belong to other people. War among nations and strife among\nindividuals is a result of the covetous spirit to possess.\n\nA little more patience, a little more charity for all, a little more\nlove; with less bowing down to the past, and the silent ignoring of\npretended authority; a brave looking forward to the future, with more\nself-confidence and more faith in our fellow men, and the race will be\nripe for a great burst of life and light.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\nTime and Chance\n\nAs the subject is somewhat complex, I will have to explain it to you.\nThe first point is that there is not so very much difference in the\nintelligence of people after all. The great man is not so great as folks\nthink, and the dull man is not quite so stupid as he seems. The\ndifference in our estimates of men lies in the fact that one individual\nis able to get his goods into the show-window, and the other is not\naware that he has any show-window or any goods.\n\n\"The soul knows all things, and knowledge is only a remembering,\" says\nEmerson.\n\nThis seems a very broad statement; and yet the fact remains that the\nvast majority of men know a thousand times as much as they are aware of.\nFar down in the silent depths of subconsciousness lie myriads of truths,\neach awaiting a time when its owner shall call it forth. To utilize\nthese stored-up thoughts, you must express them to others; and to be\nable to express them well your soul has to soar into this subconscious\nrealm where you have cached these net results of experience. In other\nwords, you must \"come out\"--get out of self--away from\nself-consciousness, into the region of partial oblivion--away from the\nboundaries of time and the limitations of space. The great painter\nforgets all in the presence of his canvas; the writer is oblivious to\nhis surroundings; the singer floats away on the wings of melody (and\ncarries the audience with her); the orator pours out his soul for an\nhour, and it seems to him as if barely five minutes had passed, so rapt\nis he in his exalted theme. When you reach the heights of sublimity and\nare expressing your highest and best, you are in a partial trance\ncondition. And all men who enter this condition surprise themselves by\nthe quantity of knowledge and the extent of insight they possess. And\nsome going a little deeper than others into this trance condition, and\nhaving no knowledge of the miraculous storing up of truth in the\nsubconscious cells, jump to the conclusion that their intelligence is\nguided by a spirit not theirs. When one reaches this conclusion he\nbegins to wither at the top, for he relies on the dead, and ceases to\nfeed the well-springs of his subconscious self.\n\nThe mind is a dual affair--objective and subjective. The objective mind\nsees all, hears all, reasons things out. The subjective mind stores up\nand only gives out when the objective mind sleeps. And as few men ever\ncultivate the absorbed, reflective or semi-trance state, where the\nobjective mind rests, they never really call on their subconscious\ntreasury for its stores. They are always self-conscious.\n\nA man in commerce, where men prey on their kind, must be alive and alert\nto what is going on, or while he dreams, his competitor will seize upon\nhis birthright. And so you see why poets are poor and artists often beg.\n\nAnd the summing up of this sermonette is that all men are equally rich,\nonly some thru fate are able to muster their mental legions on the\nplains of their being and count them, while others are never able to\ndo so.\n\nBut what think you is necessary before a person can come into full\npossession of his subconscious treasures? Well, I'll tell you: It is not\nease, nor prosperity, nor requited love, nor worldly security--not\nthese.\n\n\"You sing well,\" said the master, impatiently, to his best pupil, \"but\nyou will never sing divinely until you have given your all for love,\nand then been neglected and rejected, and scorned and beaten, and left\nfor dead. Then, if you do not exactly die, you will come back, and when\nthe world hears your voice it will mistake you for an angel and fall at\nyour feet.\"\n\nAnd the moral is, that as long as you are satisfied and comfortable, you\nuse only the objective mind and live in the world of sense. But let love\nbe torn from your grasp and flee as a shadow--living only as a memory in\na haunting sense of loss; let death come and the sky shut down over less\nworth in the world; or stupid misunderstanding and crushing defeat grind\nyou into the dust, then you may arise, forgetting time and space and\nself, and take refuge in mansions not made with hands; and find a\ncertain sad, sweet satisfaction in the contemplation of treasures stored\nup where moth and rust do not corrupt, and where thieves do not break\nthrough and steal.\n\nAnd thus looking out into the Eternal, you entirely forget the present\nand go forth into the Land of Subconsciousness--the Land of Spirit,\nwhere yet dwell the gods of ancient and innocent days? Is it worth\nthe cost?\n\n\n\nPsychology of a Religious Revival\n\nTraveling to and fro over the land and up and down in it are men who\nmanage street-fairs.\n\nLet it be known that a street-fair or Mardi Gras is never a spontaneous\nexpression of the carnival spirit on the part of the townspeople. These\nfestivals are a business--carefully planned, well advertised and carried\nout with much astuteness.\n\nThe men who manage street-fairs send advance agents, to make\narrangements with the local merchants of the place--these secure the\nlegal permits that are necessary.\n\nA week is set apart for the carnival, much advertising is done, the\nnewspapers, reflecting the will of the many, devote pages to the\nwonderful things that will happen. The shows arrive--the touters, the\nspielers, the clowns, the tumblers, the girls in tights, the singers!\nThe bands play--the carnival is on! The object of the fair is to boom\nthe business of the town. The object of the professional managers of the\nfair is to make money for themselves, and this they do thru the\nguaranty of the merchants, or a percentage on concessions, or both.\n\nI am told that no town whose business is on an absolutely safe and\nsecure footing ever resorts to a street-fair. The street-fair comes in\nwhen a rival town seems to be getting more than its share of the trade.\nWhen the business of Skaneateles is drifting to Waterloo, then\nSkaneateles succumbs to a street-fair.\n\nSanitation, sewerage, good water supply, and schoolhouses and paved\nstreets are not the result of throwing confetti, tooting tin horns and\nwaiving the curfew law.\n\nWhether commerce is effectually helped by the street-fair, or a town\nassisted to get on a firm financial basis through the ministry of the\ntom-tom, is a problem. I leave the question with students of political\neconomy and pass on to a local condition which is not a theory. The\nreligious revivals that have recently been conducted in various parts of\nthe country were most carefully planned business schemes. One F. Wilbur\nChapman and his corps of well-trained associates may be taken as a type\nof the individuals who work up local religious excitement for a\nconsideration.\n\nReligious revivals are managed very much as are street-fairs. If\nreligion is getting at a low ebb in your town, you can hire Chapman, the\nrevivalist, just as you can secure the services of Farley, the\nstrike-breaker. Chapman and his helpers go from town to town and from\ncity to city and work up this excitation as a business. They are paid\nfor their services a thousand dollars a week, or down to what they can\nget from collections. Sometimes they work on a guaranty, and at other\ntimes on a percentage or contingent fee, or both.\n\nTowns especially in need of Mr. Chapman's assistance will please send\nfor circulars, terms and testimonials. No souls saved--no pay.\n\nThe basic element of the revival is hypnotism. The scheme of bringing\nabout the hypnosis, or the obfuscation of the intellect, has taken\ngenerations to carefully perfect. The plan is first to depress the\nspirit to a point where the subject is incapable of independent thought.\nMournful music, a monotonous voice of woe, tearful appeals to God,\ndreary groans, the whole mingled with pious ejaculations, all tend to\nproduce a terrifying effect upon the auditor. The thought of God's\ndispleasure is constantly dwelt upon--the idea of guilt, death and\neternal torment. If the victims can be made to indulge in hysterical\nlaughter occasionally, the control is better brought about. No chance is\nallowed for repose, poise or sane consideration. When the time seems\nripe a general promise of joy is made and the music takes an adagio\nturn. The speaker's voice now tells of triumph--offers of forgiveness\nare tendered, and then the promise of eternal life.\n\nThe final intent is to get the victim on his feet and make him come\nforward and acknowledge the fetich. This once done the convert finds\nhimself among pleasant companions. His social station is\nimproved--people shake hands with him and solicitously ask after his\nwelfare. His approbativeness is appealed to--his position is now one of\nimportance. And moreover, he is given to understand in many subtile ways\nthat as he will be damned in another world if he does not acquiesce in\nthe fetich, so also will he be damned financially and socially here if\nhe does not join the church. The intent in every Christian community is\nto boycott and make a social outcast of the independent thinker. The\nfetich furnishes excuse for the hypnotic processes. Without assuming a\npersonal God who can be appeased, eternal damnation and the proposition\nthat you can win eternal life by believing a myth, there is no sane\nreason for the absurd hypnotic formulas.\n\nWe are heirs to the past, its good and ill, and we all have a touch of\nsuperstition, like a syphilitic taint. To eradicate this tyranny of fear\nand get the cringe and crawl out of our natures, seems the one desirable\nthing to lofty minds. But the revivalist, knowing human nature, as all\nconfidence men do, banks on our superstitious fears and makes his appeal\nto our acquisitiveness, offering us absolution and life eternal for a\nconsideration--to cover expenses. As long as men are paid honors and\nmoney, can wear good clothes, and be immune from work for preaching\nsuperstition, they will preach it. The hope of the world lies in\nwithholding supplies from the pious mendicants who seek to hold our\nminds in thrall.\n\nThis idea of a divine bankrupt court where you can get forgiveness by\npaying ten cents on the dollar, with the guaranty of becoming a winged\npauper of the skies, is not alluring excepting to a man who has been\nwell scared. Advance agents pave the way for revivalists by arranging\ndetails with the local orthodox clergy. Universalists, Unitarians,\nChristian Scientists and Befaymillites are all studiously avoided. The\nobject is to fill depleted pews of orthodox Protestant churches--these\npay the freight, and to the victor belong the spoils. The plot and plan\nis to stampede into the pen of orthodoxy the intellectual\nunwary--children and neurotic grown-ups. The cap-and-bells element is\nlargely represented in Chapman's select company of German-American\ntalent: the confetti of foolishness is thrown at us--we dodge, laugh,\nlisten and no one has time to think, weigh, sift or analyze. There are\nthe boom of rhetoric, the crack of confession, the interspersed\nrebel-yell of triumph, the groans of despair, the cries of victory. Then\ncome songs by paid singers, the pealing of the organ--rise and sing,\nkneel and pray, entreaty, condemnation, misery, tears, threats, promise,\njoy, happiness, heaven, eternal bliss, decide now--not a moment is to be\nlost, whoop-la you'll be a long time in hell!\n\nAll this whirl is a carefully prepared plan, worked out by expert\nflim-flammers to addle the reason, scramble intellect and make of men\ndrooling derelicts.\n\nWhat for?\n\nI'll tell you--that Doctor Chapman and his professional rooters may roll\nin cheap honors, be immune from all useful labor and wax fat on the pay\nof those who work. Second, that the orthodox churches may not advance\ninto workshops and schoolhouses, but may remain forever the home of a\nsuperstition. One would think that the promise of making a person exempt\nfrom the results of his own misdeeds, would turn the man of brains from\nthese religious shell-men in disgust. But under their hypnotic spell,\nthe minds of many seem to suffer an obsession, and they are caught in\nthe swirl of foolish feeling, like a grocer's clerk in the hands of a\nmesmerist.\n\nAt Northfield, Massachusetts, is a college at which men are taught and\ntrained, just as men are drilled at a Tonsorial College, in every phase\nof this pleasing episcopopography.\n\nThere is a good fellow by the suggestive name of Sunday who works the\nreligious graft. Sunday is the whirling dervish up to date. He and\nChapman and their cappers purposely avoid any trace of the ecclesiastic\nin their attire. They dress like drummers--trousers carefully creased,\ntwo watch-chains and a warm vest. Their manner is free and easy, their\nattitude familiar. The way they address the Almighty reveals that their\nreverence for Him springs out of the supposition that He is very much\nlike themselves.\n\nThe indelicacy of the revivalists who recently called meetings to pray\nfor Fay Mills, was shown in their ardent supplications to God that He\nshould make Mills to be like them. Fay Mills tells of the best way to\nuse this life here and now. He does not prophesy what will become of you\nif you do not accept his belief, neither does he promise everlasting\nlife as a reward for thinking as he does. He realizes that he has not\nthe agency of everlasting life. Fay Mills is more interested in having a\nsoul that is worth saving than in saving a soul that isn't. Chapman\ntalks about lost souls as he might about collar buttons lost under a\nbureau, just as if God ever misplaced anything, or that all souls were\nnot God's souls, and therefore forever in His keeping.\n\nDoctor Chapman wants all men to act alike and believe alike, not\nrealizing that progress is the result of individuality, and so long as a\nman thinks, whether he is right or wrong, he is making head. Neither\ndoes he realize that wrong thinking is better than no thinking at all,\nand that the only damnation consists in ceasing to think, and accepting\nthe conclusions of another. Final truths and final conclusions are\nwholly unthinkable to sensible people in their sane moments, but these\nrevivalists wish to sum up truth for all time and put their leaden\nseal upon it.\n\nIn Los Angeles is a preacher by the name of McIntyre, a type of the\nblatant Bellarmine who exiled Galileo--a man who never doubts his own\ninfallibility, who talks like an oracle and continually tells of\nperdition for all who disagree with him.\n\nNeedless to say that McIntyre lacks humor. Personally, I prefer the\nMcGregors, but in Los Angeles the McIntyres are popular. It was McIntyre\nwho called a meeting to pray for Fay Mills, and in proposing the meeting\nMcIntyre made the unblushing announcement that he had never met Mills\nnor heard him speak, nor had he read one of his books.\n\nChapman and McIntyre represent the modern types of\nPhariseeism--spielers and spouters for churchianity, and such are the\nmen who make superstition of so long life. Superstition is the one\nInfamy--Voltaire was right. To pretend to believe a thing at which your\nreason revolts--to stultify your intellect--this, if it exists at all,\nis the unpardonable sin. These muftis preach \"the blood of Jesus,\" the\ndogma that man without a belief in miracles is eternally lost, that\neverlasting life depends upon acknowledging this, that or the other.\nSelf-reliance, self-control and self-respect are the three things that\nmake a man a man.\n\nBut man has so recently taken on this ability to think, that he has not\nyet gotten used to handling it. The tool is cumbrous in his hands. He is\nafraid of it--this one characteristic that differentiates him from the\nlower animals--so he abdicates and turns his divine birthright over to a\nsyndicate. This combination called a church agrees to take care of his\ndoubts and fears and do his thinking for him, and to help matters along\nhe is assured that he is not fit to think for himself, and to do so\nwould be a sin. Man, in his present crude state, holds somewhat the\nsame attitude toward reason that an Apache Indian holds toward a\ncamera--the Indian thinks that to have his picture taken means that he\nwill shrivel up and blow away in a month. And Stanley relates that a\nwatch with its constant ticking sent the bravest of Congo chiefs into a\ncold sweat of agonizing fear; on discovering which, the explorer had but\nto draw his Waterbury and threaten to turn the whole bunch into\ncrocodiles, and at once they got busy and did his bidding. Stanley\nexhibited the true Northfield-revival quality in banking on the\nsuperstition of his wavering and frightened followers.\n\nThe revival meetin' is an orgie of the soul, a spiritual debauch--a\ndropping from sane and sensible control into eroticism. No person of\nnormal intelligence can afford to throw the reins of reason on the neck\nof emotion and ride a Tam O'Shanter race to Bedlam. This hysteria of the\nuncurbed feelings is the only blasphemy, and if there were a personal\nGod, He surely would be grieved to see that we have so absurd an idea of\nHim, as to imagine He would be pleased with our deporting the divine\ngift of reason into the hell-box.\n\nRevivalism works up the voltage, then makes no use of the current--the\nwire is grounded. Let any one of these revivalists write out his sermons\nand print them in a book, and no sane man could read them without danger\nof paresis. The book would lack synthesis, defy analysis, puzzle the\nbrain and paralyze the will. There would not be enough attic salt in it\nto save it. It would be the supernaculum of the commonplace, and prove\nthe author to be the lobscouse of literature, the loblolly of letters.\nThe churches want to enroll members, and so desperate is the situation\nthat they are willing to get them at the price of self-respect. Hence\ncome Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Chapman, and play Svengali to our\nTrilby. These gentlemen use the methods and the tricks of the\nauctioneer--the blandishments of the bookmaker--the sleek, smooth ways\nof the professional spieler.\n\nWith this troupe of Christian clowns is one Chaeffer, who is a\nspecialist with children. He has meetings for boys and girls only, where\nhe plays tricks, grimaces, tells stories and gets his little hearers\nlaughing, and thus having found an entrance into their hearts, he\nsuddenly reverses the lever, and has them crying. He talks to these\nlittle innocents about sin, the wrath of God, the death of Christ, and\noffers them a choice between everlasting life and eternal death. To the\nperson who knows and loves children--who has studied the gentle ways of\nFroebel--this excitement is vicious, concrete cruelty. Weakened vitality\nfollows close upon overwrought nerves, and every excess has its\npenalty--the pendulum swings as far this way as it does that.\n\nThese reverend gentlemen bray it into the ears of innocent little\nchildren that they were born in iniquity, and in sin did their mothers\nconceive them; that the souls of all children over nine years (why\nnine?) are lost, and the only way they can hope for heaven is through a\nbelief in a barbaric blood bamboozle, that men of intelligence have long\nsince discarded. And all this in the name of the gentle Christ, who took\nlittle children in his arms and said, \"Of such is the Kingdom\nof Heaven.\"\n\nThis pagan proposition of being born in sin is pollution to the mind of\na child, and causes misery, unrest and heartache incomputable. A few\nyears ago we were congratulating ourselves that the devil at last was\ndead, and that the tears of pity had put out the fires of hell, but the\nserpent of superstition was only slightly scotched, not killed.\n\nThe intent of the religious revival is dual: first, the claim is that\nconversion makes men lead better lives; second, it saves their souls\nfrom endless death or everlasting hell.\n\nTo make men lead beautiful lives is excellent, but the Reverend Doctor\nChapman, nor any of his colleagues, nor the denominations that they\nrepresent, will for an instant admit that the fact of a man living a\nbeautiful life will save his soul alive In fact, Doctor Chapman, Doctor\nTorrey and Doctor Sunday, backed by the Reverend Doctor McIntyre,\nrepeatedly warn their hearers of the danger of a morality that is not\naccompanied by a belief in the \"blood of Jesus.\"\n\nSo the beautiful life they talk of is the bait that covers the hook for\ngudgeons. You have to accept the superstition, or your beautiful life to\nthem is a byword and a hissing.\n\nHence, to them, superstition, and not conduct, is the vital thing.\n\nIf such a belief is not fanaticism then have I read Webster's\nUnabridged Dictionary in vain. Belief in superstition makes no man\nkinder, gentler, more useful to himself or society. He can have all the\nvirtues without the fetich, and he may have the fetich and all the vices\nbeside. Morality is really not controlled at all by religion--if\nstatistics of reform schools and prisons are to be believed.\n\nFay Mills, according to Reverend Doctor McIntyre has all the virtues--he\nis forgiving, kind, gentle, modest, helpful. But Fay has abandoned the\nfetich--hence McIntyre and Chapman call upon the public to pray for Fay\nMills. Mills had the virtues when he believed in the fetich--and now\nthat he has disavowed the fetich, he still has the virtues, and in a\ndegree he never before had. Even those who oppose him admit this, but\nstill they declare that he is forever \"lost.\"\n\nReverend Doctor Chaeffer says there are two kinds of habits--good and\nbad.\n\nThere are also two kinds of religion, good and bad. The religion of\nkindness, good cheer, helpfulness and useful effort is good. And on this\npoint there is no dispute--it is admitted everywhere by every grade of\nintellect. But any form of religion that incorporates a belief in\nmiracles and other barbaric superstitions, as a necessity to salvation,\nis not only bad, but very bad. And all men, if left alone long enough to\nthink, know that salvation depends upon redemption from a belief in\nmiracles. But the intent of Doctor Chapman and his theological rough\nriders is to stampede the herd and set it a milling. To rope the\nmavericks and place upon them the McIntyre brand is then quite easy.\n\nAs for the reaction and the cleaning up after the carnival, our\nrevivalists are not concerned. The confetti, collapsed balloons and\npeanut shucks are the net assets of the revival--and these are left for\nthe local managers.\n\nRevivals are for the revivalists, and some fine morning these revival\ntowns will arise, rub their sleepy eyes, and Chapman will be but a bad\ntaste in the mouth, and Sunday, Chaeffer, Torrey, Biederwolf and\nCompany, a troubled dream. To preach hagiology to civilized people is a\nlapse that Nemesis will not overlook. America stands for the Twentieth\nCentury, and if in a moment of weakness she slips back to the exuberant\nfolly of the frenzied piety of the Sixteenth, she must pay the penalty.\nTwo things man will have to do--get free from the bondage of other men;\nand second, liberate himself from the phantoms of his own mind. On\nneither of these points does the revivalist help or aid in any way.\nEffervescence is not character and every debauch must be paid for in\nvitality and self-respect.\n\nAll formal organized religions through which the promoters and managers\nthrive are bad, but some are worse than others. The more superstition a\nreligion has, the worse it is. Usually religions are made up of morality\nand superstition. Pure superstition alone would be revolting--in our day\nit would attract nobody--so the idea is introduced that morality and\nreligion are inseparable. I am against the men who pretend to believe\nthat ethics without a fetich is vain and useless.\n\nThe preachers who preach the beauty of truth, honesty and a useful,\nhelpful life, I am with, head, heart and hand.\n\nThe preachers who declare that there can be no such thing as a beautiful\nlife unless it will accept superstition, I am against, tooth, claw,\nclub, tongue and pen. Down with the Infamy! I prophesy a day when\nbusiness and education will be synonymous--when commerce and college\nwill join hands--when the preparation for life will be to go to work.\n\nAs long as trade was trickery, business barter, commerce finesse,\ngovernment exploitation, slaughter honorable, and murder a fine art;\nwhen religion was ignorant superstition, piety the worship of a fetich\nand education a clutch for honors, there was small hope for the race.\nUnder these conditions everything tended towards division, dissipation,\ndisintegration, separation--darkness, death.\n\nBut with the supremacy gained by science, the introduction of the\none-price system in business, and the gradually growing conviction that\nhonesty is man's most valuable asset, we behold light at the end of\nthe tunnel.\n\nIt only remains now for the laity to drive conviction home upon the\nclergy, and prove to them that pretence has its penalty, and to bring to\nthe mourners' bench that trinity of offenders, somewhat ironically\ndesignated as the Three Learned Professions, and mankind will be well\nout upon the broad highway, the towering domes of the Ideal City\nin sight.\n\n\n\nOne-Man Power\n\nEvery successful concern is the result of a One-Man Power. Co\u00f6peration,\ntechnically, is an iridescent dream--things co\u00f6perate because the man\nmakes them. He cements them by his will.\n\nBut find this Man, and get his confidence, and his weary eyes will look\ninto yours and the cry of his heart shall echo in your ears. \"O, for\nsome one to help me bear this burden!\"\n\nThen he will tell you of his endless search for Ability, and of his\ncontinual disappointments and thwartings in trying to get some one to\nhelp himself by helping him.\n\nAbility is the one crying need of the hour. The banks are bulging with\nmoney, and everywhere are men looking for work. The harvest is ripe. But\nthe Ability to captain the unemployed and utilize the capital, is\nlacking--sadly lacking. In every city there are many five- and\nten-thousand-dollar-a-year positions to be filled, but the only\napplicants are men who want jobs at fifteen dollars a week. Your man of\nAbility has a place already. Yes, Ability is a rare article.\n\nBut there is something that is much scarcer, something finer far,\nsomething rarer than this quality of Ability.\n\nIt is the ability to recognize Ability.\n\nThe sternest comment that ever can be made against employers as a class,\nlies in the fact that men of Ability usually succeed in showing their\nworth in spite of their employer, and not with his assistance and\nencouragement.\n\nIf you know the lives of men of Ability, you know that they discovered\ntheir power, almost without exception, thru chance or accident. Had the\naccident not occurred that made the opportunity, the man would have\nremained unknown and practically lost to the world. The experience of\nTom Potter, telegraph operator at an obscure little way station, is\ntruth painted large. That fearful night, when most of the wires were\ndown and a passenger train went through the bridge, gave Tom Potter the\nopportunity of discovering himself. He took charge of the dead, cared\nfor the wounded, settled fifty claims--drawing drafts on the\ncompany--burned the last vestige of the wreck, sunk the waste iron in\nthe river and repaired the bridge before the arrival of the\nSuperintendent on the spot.\n\n\"Who gave you the authority to do all this?\" demanded the\nSuperintendent.\n\n\"Nobody,\" replied Tom, \"I assumed the authority.\"\n\nThe next month Tom Potter's salary was five thousand dollars a year, and\nin three years he was making ten times this, simply because he could get\nother men to do things.\n\nWhy wait for an accident to discover Tom Potter? Let us set traps for\nTom Potter, and lie in wait for him. Perhaps Tom Potter is just around\nthe corner, across the street, in the next room, or at our elbow.\nMyriads of embryonic Tom Potters await discovery and development if we\nbut look for them.\n\nI know a man who roamed the woods and fields for thirty years and never\nfound an Indian arrow. One day he began to think \"arrow,\" and stepping\nout of his doorway he picked one up. Since then he has collected a\nbushel of them.\n\nSuppose we cease wailing about incompetence, sleepy indifference and\nslipshod \"help\" that watches the clock. These things exist--let us\ndispose of the subject by admitting it, and then emphasize the fact that\nfreckled farmer boys come out of the West and East and often go to the\nfront and do things in a masterly way. There is one name that stands out\nin history like a beacon light after all these twenty-five hundred years\nhave passed, just because the man had the sublime genius of discovering\nAbility. That man is Pericles. Pericles made Athens.\n\nAnd to-day the very dust of the streets of Athens is being sifted and\nsearched for relics and remnants of the things made by people who were\ncaptained by men of Ability who were discovered by Pericles.\n\nThere is very little competition in this line of discovering Ability. We\nsit down and wail because Ability does not come our way. Let us think\n\"Ability,\" and possibly we can jostle Pericles there on his pedestal,\nwhere he has stood for over a score of centuries--the man with a supreme\ngenius for recognizing Ability. Hail to thee, Pericles, and hail to\nthee, Great Unknown, who shall be the first to successfully imitate this\ncaptain of men.\n\n\n\nMental Attitude\n\nSuccess is in the blood. There are men whom fate can never keep\ndown--they march forward in a jaunty manner, and take by divine right\nthe best of everything that the earth affords. But their success is not\nattained by means of the Samuel Smiles-Connecticut policy. They do not\nlie in wait, nor scheme, nor fawn, nor seek to adapt their sails to\ncatch the breeze of popular favor. Still, they are ever alert and alive\nto any good that may come their way, and when it comes they simply\nappropriate it, and tarrying not, move steadily on.\n\nGood health! Whenever you go out of doors, draw the chin in, carry the\ncrown of the head high, and fill the lungs to the utmost; drink in the\nsunshine; greet your friends with a smile, and put soul into every\nhand-clasp.\n\nDo not fear being misunderstood; and never waste a moment thinking about\nyour enemies. Try to fix firmly in your own mind what you would like to\ndo, and then without violence of direction you will move straight to\nthe goal.\n\nFear is the rock on which we split, and hate the shoal on which many a\nbarque is stranded. When we become fearful, the judgment is as\nunreliable as the compass of a ship whose hold is full of iron ore; when\nwe hate, we have unshipped the rudder; and if ever we stop to meditate\non what the gossips say, we have allowed a hawser to foul the screw.\n\nKeep your mind on the great and splendid thing you would like to do; and\nthen, as the days go gliding by, you will find yourself unconsciously\nseizing the opportunities that are required for the fulfillment of your\ndesire, just as the coral insect takes from the running tide the\nelements that it needs. Picture in your mind the able, earnest, useful\nperson you desire to be, and the thought that you hold is hourly\ntransforming you into that particular individual you so admire.\n\nThought is supreme, and to think is often better than to do.\n\nPreserve a right mental attitude--the attitude of courage, frankness and\ngood cheer.\n\nDarwin and Spencer have told us that this is the method of Creation.\nEach animal has evolved the parts it needed and desired. The horse is\nfleet because he wishes to be; the bird flies because it desires to; the\nduck has a web foot because it wants to swim. All things come through\ndesire and every sincere prayer is answered. We become like that on\nwhich our hearts are fixed.\n\nMany people know this, but they do not know it thoroughly enough so that\nit shapes their lives. We want friends, so we scheme and chase 'cross\nlots after strong people, and lie in wait for good folks--or alleged\ngood folks--hoping to be able to attach ourselves to them. The only way\nto secure friends is to be one. And before you are fit for friendship\nyou must be able to do without it. That is to say, you must have\nsufficient self-reliance to take care of yourself, and then out of the\nsurplus of your energy you can do for others.\n\nThe individual who craves friendship, and yet desires a self-centered\nspirit more, will never lack for friends.\n\nIf you would have friends, cultivate solitude instead of society. Drink\nin the ozone; bathe in the sunshine; and out in the silent night, under\nthe stars, say to yourself again and yet again, \"I am a part of all my\neyes behold!\" And the feeling then will come to you that you are no\nmere interloper between earth and heaven; but you are a necessary part\nof the whole. No harm can come to you that does not come to all, and if\nyou shall go down it can only be amid a wreck of worlds.\n\nLike old Job, that which we fear will surely come upon us. By a wrong\nmental attitude we have set in motion a train of events that ends in\ndisaster. People who die in middle life from disease, almost without\nexception, are those who have been preparing for death. The acute tragic\ncondition is simply the result of a chronic state of mind--a culmination\nof a series of events.\n\nCharacter is the result of two things, mental attitude, and the way we\nspend our time. It is what we think and what we do that make us what\nwe are.\n\nBy laying hold on the forces of the universe, you are strong with them.\nAnd when you realize this, all else is easy, for in your arteries will\ncourse red corpuscles, and in your heart the determined resolution is\nborn to do and to be. Carry your chin in and the crown of your head\nhigh. We are gods in the chrysalis.\n\n\n\nThe Outsider\n\nWhen I was a farmer lad I noticed that whenever we bought a new cow, and\nturned her into the pasture with the herd, there was a general\ninclination on the part of the rest to make the new cow think she had\nlanded in the orthodox perdition. They would hook her away from the\nsalt, chase her from the water, and the long-horned ones, for several\nweeks, would lose no opportunity to give her vigorous digs, pokes\nand prods.\n\nWith horses it was the same. And I remember one particular little black\nmare that we boys used to transfer from one pasture to another, just to\nsee her back into a herd of horses and hear her hoofs play a resounding\nsolo on their ribs as they gathered round to do her mischief.\n\nMen are animals just as much as are cows, horses and pigs; and they\nmanifest similar proclivities. The introduction of a new man into an\ninstitution always causes a small panic of resentment, especially if he\nbe a person of some power. Even in schools and colleges the new teacher\nhas to fight his way to overcome the opposition he is certain to meet.\n\nIn a lumber camp, the newcomer would do well to take the initiative,\nlike that little black mare, and meet the first black look with a\nshort-arm jab.\n\nBut in a bank, department store or railroad office this cannot be. So\nthe next best thing is to endure, and win out by an attention to\nbusiness to which the place is unaccustomed. In any event, the bigger\nthe man, unless he has the absolute power to overawe everything, the\nmore uncomfortable will be his position until gradually time smooths the\nway and new issues come up for criticism, opposition and resentment, and\nhe is forgotten.\n\nThe idea of Civil Service Reform--promotion for the good men in your\nemploy rather than hiring new ones for the big places--is a rule which\nlooks well on paper but is a fatal policy if carried out to the letter.\n\nThe business that is not progressive is sowing the seeds of its own\ndissolution. Life is a movement forward, and all things in nature that\nare not evolving into something better are preparing to return into\ntheir constituent elements. One general rule for progress in big\nbusiness concerns is the introduction of new blood. You must keep step\nwith the business world. If you lag behind, the outlaws that hang on the\nflanks of commerce will cut you out and take you captive, just as the\nwolves lie in wait for the sick cow of the plains.\n\nTo keep your columns marching you must introduce new methods, new\ninspiration and seize upon the best that others have invented or\ndiscovered.\n\nThe great railroads of America have evolved together. No one of them has\nan appliance or a method that is much beyond the rest. If it were not\nfor this interchange of men and ideas some railroads would still be\nusing the link and pin, and snake-heads would be as common as in the\nyear 1869.\n\nThe railroad manager who knows his business is ever on the lookout for\nexcellence among his men, and he promotes those who give an undivided\nservice. But besides this he hires a strong man occasionally from the\noutside and promotes him over everybody. Then out come the hammers!\n\nBut this makes but little difference to your competent manager--if a\nplace is to be filled and he has no one on his payroll big enough to\nfill it, he hires an outsider.\n\nThat is right and well for every one concerned. The new life of many a\nfirm dates from the day they hired a new man.\n\nCommunities that intermarry raise a fine crop of scrubs, and the result\nis the same in business ventures. Two of America's largest publishing\nhouses failed for a tidy sum of five millions or so each, a few years\nago, just thru a dogged policy, that extended over a period of fifty\nyears, of promoting cousins, uncles and aunts whose only claim of\nefficiency was that they had been on the pension roll for a long time.\nThis way lies dry-rot.\n\nIf you are a business man, and have a position of responsibility to be\nfilled, look carefully among your old helpers for a man to promote. But\nif you haven't a man big enough to fill the place, do not put in a\nlittle one for the sake of peace. Go outside and find a man and hire\nhim--never mind the salary if he can man the position--wages are always\nrelative to earning power. This will be the only way you can really man\nyour ship.\n\nAs for Civil Service Rules--rules are made to be broken. And as for the\nlong-horned ones who will attempt to make life miserable for your new\nemploye, be patient with them. It is the privilege of everybody to do a\nreasonable amount of kicking, especially if the person has been a long\ntime with one concern and has received many benefits.\n\nBut if at the last, worst comes to worst, do not forget that you\nyourself are at the head of the concern. If it fails you get the blame.\nAnd should the anvil chorus become so persistent that there is danger of\ndiscord taking the place of harmony, stand by your new man, even tho it\nis necessary to give the blue envelope to every antediluvian. Precedence\nin business is a matter of power, and years in one position may mean\nthat the man has been there so long that he needs a change. Let the\nzephyrs of natural law play freely thru your whiskers.\n\nSo here is the argument: promote your deserving men, but do not be\nafraid to hire a keen outsider; he helps everybody, even the kickers,\nfor if you disintegrate and go down in defeat, the kickers will have to\nskirmish around for new jobs anyway. Isn't that so?\n\n\n\nGet Out or Get in Line\n\nAbraham Lincoln's letter to Hooker! If all the letters, messages and\nspeeches of Lincoln were destroyed, except that one letter to Hooker, we\nstill would have an excellent index to the heart of the Rail-Splitter.\n\nIn this letter we see that Lincoln ruled his own spirit; and we also\nbehold the fact that he could rule others. The letter shows wise\ndiplomacy, frankness, kindliness, wit, tact and infinite patience.\nHooker had harshly and unjustly criticised Lincoln, his commander in\nchief. But Lincoln waives all this in deference to the virtues he\nbelieves Hooker possesses, and promotes him to succeed Burnside. In\nother words, the man who had been wronged promotes the man who had\nwronged him, over the head of a man whom the promotee had wronged and\nfor whom the promoter had a warm personal friendship.\n\nBut all personal considerations were sunk in view of the end desired.\nYet it was necessary that the man promoted should know the truth, and\nLincoln told it to him in a way that did not humiliate nor fire to\nfoolish anger; but which surely prevented the attack of cerebral\nelephantiasis to which Hooker was liable.\n\nPerhaps we had better give the letter entire, and so here it is:\n\n\nExecutive Mansion,\nWashington, January 26, 1863.\n\nMajor-General Hooker:\n\nGeneral:--I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of\ncourse, I have done this upon what appear to me to be sufficient\nreasons, and yet I think it best for you to know that there are some\nthings in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you.\n\nI believe you to be a brave and skilful soldier, which, of course, I\nlike. I also believe you do not mix politics with your position, in\nwhich you are right.\n\nYou have confidence in yourself, which is a valuable if not an\nindispensable quality.\n\nYou are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather\nthan harm; but I think that during General Burnside's command of the\narmy you have taken counsel of your ambition and thwarted him as much as\nyou could, in which you did a great wrong to the country, and to a most\nmeritorious and honorable brother officer.\n\nI have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying\nthat both the army and the government needed a dictator. Of course, it\nwas not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command.\nOnly those generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What I now\nask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The\ngovernment will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is\nneither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I\nmuch fear that the spirit you have aided to infuse into the army, of\ncriticising their commander and withholding confidence from him, will\nnow turn upon you. I shall assist you as far as I can to put it down.\nNeither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out\nof an army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now beware of\nrashness, but with sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories.\n\nYours very truly, A. LINCOLN.\n\nOne point in this letter is especially worth our consideration, for it\nsuggests a condition that springs up like deadly nightshade from a\npoisonous soil. I refer to the habit of carping, sneering, grumbling and\ncriticising those who are above us. The man who is anybody and who does\nanything is certainly going to be criticised, vilified and\nmisunderstood. This is a part of the penalty for greatness, and every\ngreat man understands it; and understands, too, that it is no proof of\ngreatness. The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure\ncontumely without resentment. Lincoln did not resent criticism; he knew\nthat every life was its own excuse for being, but look how he calls\nHooker's attention to the fact that the dissension Hooker has sown is\ngoing to return and plague him! \"Neither you, nor Napoleon, if he were\nalive, could get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in\nit.\" Hooker's fault falls on Hooker--others suffer, but Hooker suffers\nmost of all.\n\nNot long ago I met a Yale student home on a vacation. I am sure he did\nnot represent the true Yale spirit, for he was full of criticism and\nbitterness toward the institution. President Hadley came in for his\nshare, and I was given items, facts, data, with times and places, for a\n\"peach of a roast.\"\n\nVery soon I saw the trouble was not with Yale, the trouble was with the\nyoung man. He had mentally dwelt on some trivial slights until he had\ngotten so out of harmony with the place that he had lost the power to\nderive any benefit from it. Yale college is not a perfect institution--a\nfact, I suppose, that President Hadley and most Yale men are quite\nwilling to admit; but Yale does supply young men certain advantages, and\nit depends upon the students whether they will avail themselves of\nthese advantages or not. If you are a student in college, seize upon\nthe good that is there. You receive good by giving it. You gain by\ngiving--so give sympathy and cheerful loyalty to the institution. Be\nproud of it. Stand by your teachers--they are doing the best they can.\nIf the place is faulty, make it a better place by an example of\ncheerfully doing your work every day the best you can. Mind your\nown business.\n\nIf the concern where you are employed is all wrong, and the Old Man is a\ncurmudgeon, it may be well for you to go to the Old Man and\nconfidentially, quietly and kindly tell him that his policy is absurd\nand preposterous. Then show him how to reform his ways, and you might\noffer to take charge of the concern and cleanse it of its secret faults.\nDo this, or if for any reason you should prefer not, then take your\nchoice of these: Get Out, or Get in Line. You have got to do one or the\nother--now make your choice. If you work for a man, in heaven's name\nwork for him.\n\nIf he pays you wages that supply you your bread and butter, work for\nhim--speak well of him, think well of him, stand by him and stand by\nthe institution that he represents.\n\nI think if I worked for a man, I would work for him. I would not work\nfor him a part of the time, and the rest of the time work against him. I\nwould give an undivided service or none. If put to the pinch, an ounce\nof loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.\n\nIf you must vilify, condemn and eternally disparage, why, resign your\nposition, and then when you are outside, damn to your heart's content.\nBut I pray you, as long as you are a part of an institution, do not\ncondemn it. Not that you will injure the institution--not that--but when\nyou disparage a concern of which you are a part, you disparage yourself.\n\nMore than that, you are loosening the tendrils that hold you to the\ninstitution, and the first high wind that happens along, you will be\nuprooted and blown away in the blizzard's track--and probably you will\nnever know why. The letter only says, \"Times are dull and we regret\nthere is not enough work,\" et cetera.\n\nEverywhere you will find these out-of-a-job fellows. Talk with them and\nyou will find that they are full of railing, bitterness, scorn and\ncondemnation. That was the trouble--thru a spirit of fault-finding they\ngot themselves swung around so they blocked the channel, and had to be\ndynamited. They were out of harmony with the place, and no longer being\na help they had to be removed. Every employer is constantly looking for\npeople who can help him; naturally he is on the lookout among his\nemployees for those who do not help, and everything and everybody that\nis a hindrance has to go. This is the law of trade--do not find fault\nwith it; it is founded on nature. The reward is only for the man who\nhelps, and in order to help you must have sympathy.\n\nYou cannot help the Old Man so long as you are explaining in an\nundertone and whisper, by gesture and suggestion, by thought and mental\nattitude that he is a curmudgeon and that his system is dead wrong. You\nare not necessarily menacing him by stirring up this cauldron of\ndiscontent and warming envy into strife, but you are doing this: you are\ngetting yourself on a well-greased chute that will give you a quick ride\ndown and out. When you say to other employees that the Old Man is a\ncurmudgeon, you reveal the fact that you are one; and when you tell them\nthat the policy of the institution is \"rotten,\" you certainly show\nthat yours is.\n\nThis bad habit of fault-finding, criticising and complaining is a tool\nthat grows keener by constant use, and there is grave danger that he who\nat first is only a moderate kicker may develop into a chronic knocker,\nand the knife he has sharpened will sever his head.\n\nHooker got his promotion even in spite of his many failings; but the\nchances are that your employer does not have the love that Lincoln\nhad--the love that suffereth long and is kind. But even Lincoln could\nnot protect Hooker forever. Hooker failed to do the work, and Lincoln\nhad to try some one else. So there came a time when Hooker was\nsuperseded by a Silent Man, who criticised no one, railed at nobody--not\neven the enemy.\n\nAnd this Silent Man, who could rule his own spirit, took the cities. He\nminded his own business, and did the work that no man can ever do unless\nhe constantly gives absolute loyalty, perfect confidence, unswerving\nfidelity and untiring devotion. Let us mind our own business, and allow\nothers to mind theirs, thus working for self by working for the good\nof all.\n\n\n\nThe Week-Day, Keep it Holy\n\nDid it ever strike you that it is a most absurd and semi-barbaric thing\nto set one day apart as \"holy?\"\n\nIf you are a writer and a beautiful thought comes to you, you never\nhesitate because it is Sunday, but you write it down.\n\nIf you are a painter, and the picture appears before you, vivid and\nclear, you make haste to materialize it ere the vision fades.\n\nIf you are a musician, you sing a song, or play it on the piano, that it\nmay be etched upon your memory--and for the joy of it.\n\nBut if you are a cabinet-maker, you may make a design, but you will have\nto halt before you make the table, if the day happens to be the \"Lord's\nDay\"; and if you are a blacksmith, you will not dare to lift a hammer,\nfor fear of conscience or the police. All of which is an admission that\nwe regard manual labor as a sort of necessary evil, and must be done\nonly at certain times and places.\n\nThe orthodox reason for abstinence from all manual labor on Sunday is\nthat \"God made the heavens and the earth in six days and on the seventh\nHe rested,\" therefore, man, created in the image of his Maker, should\nhold this day sacred. How it can be possible for a supreme, omnipotent\nand all-powerful being without \"body, parts or passions\" to become\nwearied thru physical exertion is a question that is as yet unanswered.\n\nThe idea of serving God on Sunday and then forgetting Him all the week\nis a fallacy that is fostered by the Reverend Doctor Sayles and his\ncoadjutor, Deacon Buffum, who passes the Panama for the benefit of those\nwho would buy absolution. Or, if you prefer, salvation being free, what\nwe place in the Panama is an honorarium for Deity or his agent, just as\nour noted authors never speak at banquets for pay, but accept the\nhonorarium that in some occult and mysterious manner is left on the\nmantel. Sunday, with its immunity from work, was devised for slaves who\ngot out of all the work they could during the week.\n\nThen, to tickle the approbativeness of the slave, it was declared a\nvirtue not to work on Sunday, a most pleasing bit of Tom Sawyer\ndiplomacy. By following his inclinations and doing nothing, a\nmysterious, skyey benefit accrues, which the lazy man hopes to have and\nto hold for eternity.\n\nThen the slaves who do no work on Sunday, point out those who do as\nbeneath them in virtue, and deserving of contempt. Upon this theory all\nlaws which punish the person who works or plays on Sunday have been\npassed. Does God cease work one day in seven, or is the work that He\ndoes on Sunday especially different from that which He performs on\nTuesday? The Saturday half-holiday is not \"sacred\"--the Sunday holiday\nis, and we have laws to punish those who \"violate\" it. No man can\nviolate the Sabbath; he can, however, violate his own nature, and this\nhe is more apt to do through enforced idleness than either work or play.\nOnly running water is pure, and stagnant nature of any sort is\ndangerous--a breeding-place for disease.\n\nChange of occupation is necessary to mental and physical health. As it\nis, most people get too much of one kind of work. All the week they are\nchained to a task, a repugnant task because the dose is too big. They\nhave to do this particular job or starve. This is slavery, quite as\nmuch as when man was bought and sold as a chattel.\n\nWill there not come a time when all men and women will work because it\nis a blessed gift--a privilege? Then, if all worked, wasteful consuming\nas a business would cease. As it is, there are many people who do not\nwork at all, and these pride themselves upon it and uphold the Sunday\nlaws. If the idlers would work, nobody would be overworked. If this time\never comes shall we not cease to regard it as \"wicked\" to work at\ncertain times, just as much as we would count it absurd to pass a law\nmaking it illegal for us to be happy on Wednesday? Isn't good work an\neffort to produce a useful, necessary or beautiful thing? If so, good\nwork is a prayer, prompted by a loving heart--a prayer to benefit and\nbless. If prayer is not a desire, backed up by a right human effort to\nbring about its efficacy, then what is it?\n\nWork is a service performed for ourselves and others. If I love you I\nwill surely work for you--in this way I reveal my love. And to manifest\nmy love in this manner is a joy and gratification to me. Thus work is\nfor the worker alone and labor is its own reward. These things being\ntrue, if it is wrong to work on Sunday, it is wrong to love on Sunday;\nevery smile is a sin, every caress a curse, and all tenderness a crime.\n\nMust there not come a time, if we grow in mentality and spirit, when we\nshall cease to differentiate and quit calling some work secular and some\nsacred? Isn't it as necessary for me to hoe corn and feed my loved ones\n(and also the priest) as for the priest to preach and pray? Would any\npriest ever preach and pray if somebody didn't hoe? If life is from God,\nthen all useful effort is divine; and to work is the highest form of\nreligion. If God made us, surely He is pleased to see that His work is a\nsuccess. If we are miserable, willing to liberate life with a bare\nbodkin, we certainly do not compliment our Maker in thus proclaiming His\nwork a failure. But if our lives are full of gladness and we are\ngrateful for the feeling that we are one with Deity--helping God to do\nHis work, then, and only then do we truly serve Him.\n\nIsn't it strange that men should have made laws declaring that it is\nwicked for us to work?\n\n\n\nExclusive Friendships\n\nAn excellent and gentle man of my acquaintance has said, \"When fifty-one\nper cent of the voters believe in co\u00f6peration as opposed to competition,\nthe Ideal Commonwealth will cease to be a theory and become a fact.\"\n\nThat men should work together for the good of all is very beautiful, and\nI believe the day will come when these things will be, but the simple\nprocess of fifty-one per cent of the voters casting ballots for\nsocialism will not bring it about.\n\nThe matter of voting is simply the expression of a sentiment, and after\nthe ballots have been counted there still remains the work to be done. A\nman might vote right and act like a fool the rest of the year.\n\nThe socialist who is full of bitterness, fight, faction and jealousy is\ncreating an opposition that will hold him and all others like him in\ncheck. And this opposition is well, for even a very imperfect society is\nforced to protect itself against dissolution and a condition which is\nworse. To take over the monopolies and operate them for the good of\nsociety is not enough, and not desirable either, so long as the idea of\nrivalry is rife.\n\nAs long as self is uppermost in the minds of men, they will fear and\nhate other men, and under socialism there would be precisely the same\nscramble for place and power that we see in politics now.\n\nSociety can never be reconstructed until its individual members are\nreconstructed. Man must be born again. When fifty-one per cent of the\nvoters rule their own spirit and have put fifty-one per cent of their\npresent envy, jealousy, bitterness, hate, fear and foolish pride out of\ntheir hearts, then Christian socialism will be at hand, and not\nuntil then.\n\nThe subject is entirely too big to dispose of in a paragraph, so I am\njust going to content myself here with the mention of one thing, that so\nfar as I know has never been mentioned in print--the danger to society\nof exclusive friendships between man and man, and woman and woman. No\ntwo persons of the same sex can complement each other, neither can they\nlong uplift or benefit each other. Usually they deform the mental and\nspiritual estate. We should have many acquaintances or none. When two\nmen begin to \"tell each other everything,\" they are hiking for senility.\nThere must be a bit of well-defined reserve. We are told that in\nmatter--solid steel for instance--the molecules never touch. They never\nsurrender their individuality. We are all molecules of Divinity, and our\npersonality should not be abandoned. Be yourself, let no man be\nnecessary to you--your friend will think more of you if you keep him at\na little distance. Friendship, like credit, is highest where it is\nnot used.\n\nI can understand how a strong man can have a great and abiding affection\nfor a thousand other men, and call them all by name, but how he can\nregard any one of these men much higher than another and preserve his\nmental balance, I do not know.\n\nLet a man come close enough and he'll clutch you like a drowning person,\nand down you both go. In a close and exclusive friendship men partake of\nothers' weaknesses.\n\nIn shops and factories it happens constantly that men will have their\nchums. These men relate to each other their troubles--they keep nothing\nback--they sympathize with each other, they mutually condole.\n\nThey combine and stand by each other. Their friendship is exclusive and\nothers see that it is. Jealousy creeps in, suspicion awakens, hate\ncrouches around the corner, and these men combine in mutual dislike for\ncertain things and persons. They foment each other, and their sympathy\ndilutes sanity--by recognizing their troubles men make them real. Things\nget out of focus, and the sense of values is lost. By thinking some one\nis an enemy you evolve him into one.\n\nSoon others are involved and we have a clique. A clique is a friendship\ngone to seed.\n\nA clique develops into a faction, and a faction into a feud, and soon we\nhave a mob, which is a blind, stupid, insane, crazy, ramping and roaring\nmass that has lost the rudder. In a mob there are no individuals--all\nare of one mind, and independent thought is gone.\n\nA feud is founded on nothing--it is a mistake--a fool idea fanned into\nflame by a fool friend! And it may become a mob.\n\nEvery man who has had anything to do with communal life has noticed\nthat the clique is the disintegrating bacillus--and the clique has its\nrise always in the exclusive friendship of two persons of the same sex,\nwho tell each other all unkind things that are said of each other--\"so\nbe on your guard.\" Beware of the exclusive friendship! Respect all men\nand try to find the good in all. To associate only with the sociable,\nthe witty, the wise, the brilliant, is a blunder--go among the plain,\nthe stupid, the uneducated, and exercise your own wit and wisdom. You\ngrow by giving--have no favorites--you hold your friend as much by\nkeeping away from him as you do by following after him.\n\nRevere him--yes, but be natural and let space intervene. Be a Divine\nmolecule.\n\nBe yourself and give your friend a chance to be himself. Thus do you\nbenefit him, and in benefiting him you benefit yourself.\n\nThe finest friendships are between those who can do without each other.\n\nOf course there have been cases of exclusive friendship that are pointed\nout to us as grand examples of affection, but they are so rare and\nexceptional that they serve to emphasize the fact that it is\nexceedingly unwise for men of ordinary power and intellect to exclude\ntheir fellow men. A few men, perhaps, who are big enough to have a place\nin history, could play the part of David to another's Jonathan and yet\nretain the good will of all, but the most of us would engender\nbitterness and strife.\n\nAnd this beautiful dream of socialism, where each shall work for the\ngood of all, will never come about until fifty-one per cent of the\nadults shall abandon all exclusive friendships. Until that day arrives\nyou will have cliques, denominations--which are cliques grown\nbig--factions, feuds and occasional mobs.\n\nDo not lean on any one, and let no one lean on you. The ideal society\nwill be made up of ideal individuals. Be a man and be a friend to\neverybody.\n\nWhen the Master admonished his disciples to love their enemies, he had\nin mind the truth that an exclusive love is a mistake--love dies when it\nis monopolized--it grows by giving. Love, lim., is an error. Your enemy\nis one who misunderstands you--why should you not rise above the fog and\nsee his error and respect him for the good qualities you find in him?\n\n\n\nThe Folly of Living in the Future\n\nThe question is often asked, \"What becomes of all the Valedictorians and\nall the Class-Day Poets?\"\n\nI can give information as to two parties for whom this inquiry is\nmade--the Valedictorian of my class is now a most industrious and worthy\nfloor-walker in Siegel, Cooper & Company's store, and I was the\nClass-Day Poet. Both of us had our eyes fixed on the Goal. We stood on\nthe Threshold and looked out upon the World preparatory to going forth,\nseizing it by the tail and snapping its head off for our own\ndelectation.\n\nWe had our eyes fixed on the Goal--it might better have been the gaol.\n\nIt was a very absurd thing for us to fix our eyes on the Goal. It\nstrained our vision and took our attention from our work. We lost our\ngrip on the present.\n\nTo think of the Goal is to travel the distance over and over in your\nmind and dwell on how awfully far off it is. We have so little\nmind--doing business on such a limited capital of intellect--that to\nwear it threadbare looking for a far-off thing is to get hopelessly\nstranded in Siegel, Cooper & Company.\n\nOf course, Siegel, Cooper & Company is all right, too, but the point is\nthis--it wasn't the Goal!\n\nA goodly dash of indifference is a requisite in the formula for doing a\ngreat work.\n\nNo one knows what the Goal is--we are all sailing under sealed orders.\n\nDo your work to-day, doing it the best you can, and live one day at a\ntime. The man that does this is conserving his God-given energy, and not\nspinning it out into tenuous spider threads so fragile and filmy that\nunkind Fate will probably brush it away.\n\nTo do your work well to-day, is the certain preparation for something\nbetter to-morrow. The past has gone from us forever; the future we\ncannot reach; the present alone is ours. Each day's work is a\npreparation for the next day's duties.\n\nLive in the present--the Day is here, the time is Now.\n\nThere is only one thing that is worth praying for--that we may be in the\nline of Evolution.\n\n\n\nThe Spirit of Man\n\nMaybe I am all wrong about it, yet I cannot help believing that the\nspirit of man will live again in a better world than ours. Fenelon says:\n\"Justice demands another life to make good the inequalities of this.\"\nAstronomers prophesy the existence of stars long before they can see\nthem. They know where they ought to be, and training their telescopes in\nthat direction they wait, knowing they shall find them.\n\nMaterially, no one can imagine anything more beautiful than this earth,\nfor the simple reason that we cannot imagine anything we have not seen;\nwe may make new combinations, but the whole is made up of parts of\nthings with which we are familiar. This great green earth out of which\nwe have sprung, of which we are a part, that supports our bodies which\nmust return to it to repay the loan, is very, very beautiful.\n\nBut the spirit of man is not fully at home here; as we grow in soul and\nintellect, we hear, and hear again, a voice which says: \"Arise and get\nthee hence, for this is not thy rest.\" And the greater and nobler and\nmore sublime the spirit, the more constant is the discontent. Discontent\nmay come from various causes, so it will not do to assume that the\ndiscontented ones are always the pure in heart, but it is a fact that\nthe wise and excellent have all known the meaning of world-weariness.\nThe more you study and appreciate this life, the more sure you are that\nthis is not all. You pillow your head upon Mother Earth, listen to her\nheart-throb, and even as your spirit is filled with the love of her,\nyour gladness is half pain and there comes to you a joy that hurts. To\nlook upon the most exalted forms of beauty, such as sunset at sea, the\ncoming of a storm on the prairie, or the sublime majesty of the\nmountains, begets a sense of sadness, an increasing loneliness. It is\nnot enough to say that man encroaches on man so that we are really\ndeprived of our freedom, that civilization is caused by a bacillus, and\nthat from a natural condition we have gotten into a hurly-burly where\nrivalry is rife--all this may be true, but beyond and outside of all\nthis there is no physical environment in way of plenty which earth can\nsupply, that will give the tired soul peace. They are the happiest who\nhave the least; and the fable of the stricken king and the shirtless\nbeggar contains the germ of truth. The wise hold all earthly ties very\nlightly--they are stripping for eternity.\n\nWorld-weariness is only a desire for a better spiritual condition. There\nis more to be written on this subject of world-pain--to exhaust the\ntheme would require a book. And certain it is that I have no wish to say\nthe final word on any topic. The gentle reader has certain rights, and\namong these is the privilege of summing up the case.\n\nBut the fact holds that world-pain is a form of desire. All desires are\njust, proper and right; and their gratification is the means by which\nnature supplies us that which we need.\n\nDesire not only causes us to seek that which we need, but is a form of\nattraction by which the good is brought to us, just as the amoebae\ncreate a swirl in the waters that brings their food within reach.\n\nEvery desire in nature has a fixed and definite purpose in the Divine\nEconomy, and every desire has its proper gratification. If we desire the\nclose friendship of a certain person, it is because that person has\ncertain soul-qualities that we do not possess, and which complement\nour own.\n\nThrough desire do we come into possession of our own; by submitting to\nits beckonings we add cubits to our stature; and we also give out to\nothers our own attributes, without becoming poorer, for soul is not\nlimited. All nature is a symbol of spirit, and so I am forced to believe\nthat somewhere there must be a proper gratification for this mysterious\nnostalgia of the soul.\n\nThe Valhalla of the Norseman, the Nirvana of the Hindu, the Heaven of\nthe Christian are natural hopes of beings whose cares and\ndisappointments here are softened by belief that somewhere, Thor, Brahma\nor God gives compensation.\n\nThe Eternal Unities require a condition where men and women shall be\npermitted to love and not to sorrow; where the tyranny of things hated\nshall not prevail, nor that for which the heart yearns turn to ashes at\nour touch.\n\n\n\nArt and Religion\n\nWhile this seems true in the main, I am not sure it will hold in every\ncase. Please think it out for yourself, and if I happen to be wrong,\nwhy, put me straight.\n\nThe proposition is this: the artist needs no religion beyond his work.\nThat is to say, art is religion to the man who thinks beautiful thoughts\nand expresses them for others the best he can. Religion is an emotional\nexcitement whereby the devotee rises into a state of spiritual\nsublimity, and for the moment is bathed in an atmosphere of rest, and\npeace, and love. All normal men and women crave such periods; and\nBernard Shaw says that we reach them through strong tea, tobacco,\nwhiskey, opium, love, art or religion.\n\nI think Bernard Shaw a cynic, but there is a glimmer of truth in his\nidea that makes it worth repeating. But beyond the natural religion,\nwhich is a passion for oneness with the Whole, all formalized religions\nengraft the element of fear, and teach the necessity of placating a\nSupreme Being. Our idea of a Supreme Being is suggested to us by the\npolitical government under which we live. The situation was summed up by\nCarlyle, when he said that Deity to the average British mind was simply\nan infinite George IV. The thought of God as a terrible Supreme Tyrant\nfirst found form in an unlimited monarchy; but as governments have\nbecome more lenient so have the gods, until you get them down (or up) to\na republic, where God is only a president, and we all approach Him in\nfamiliar prayer, on an absolute equality.\n\nThen soon, for the first time, we find man saying, \"I am God, and you\nare God, and we are all simply particles of Him,\" and this is where the\npresident is done away with, and the referendum comes in. But the\nabsence of a supreme governing head implies simplicity, honesty,\njustice, and sincerity. Wherever plottings, schemings and doubtful\nmethods of life are employed, a ruler is necessary; and there, too,\nreligion, with its idea of placating God has a firm hold. Men whose\nlives are doubtful feel the need of a strong government and a hot\nreligion. Formal religion and sin go hand in hand. Formal religion and\nslavery go hand in hand. Formal religion and tyranny go hand in hand.\nFormal religion and ignorance go hand in hand.\n\nAnd sin, slavery, tyranny and ignorance are one--they are never\nseparated.\n\nFormal religion is a scheme whereby man hopes to make peace with his\nMaker; and a formal religion also tends to satisfy the sense of\nsublimity where the man has failed to find satisfaction in his work.\nVoltaire says, \"When woman no longer finds herself acceptable to man,\nshe turns to God,\" When man is no longer acceptable to himself he goes\nto church. In order to keep this article from extending itself into a\ntome, I purposely omitted saying a single thing about the Protestant\nChurch as a useful Social Club and have just assumed for argument's sake\nthat the church is really a religious institution.\n\nA formal religion is only a cut 'cross lots--an attempt to bring about\nthe emotions and the sensations that come to a man by the practice of\nlove, virtue, excellence and truth. When you do a splendid piece of work\nand express your best, there comes to you, as reward, an exaltation of\nsoul, a sublimity of feeling that puts you for the time being in touch\nwith the Infinite. A formal religion brings this feeling without your\ndoing anything useful, therefore it is unnatural.\n\nFormalized religion is the strongest where sin, slavery, tyranny and\nignorance abound. Where men are free, enlightened and at work, they find\nall the gratification in their work that their souls demand--they cease\nto hunt outside themselves for something to give them rest. They are at\npeace with themselves, at peace with man and with God.\n\nBut any man chained to a hopeless task, whose daily work does not\nexpress himself, who is dogged by a boss, whenever he gets a moment of\nrespite turns to drink or religion.\n\nMen with an eye on Saturday night, who plot to supplant some one else,\nwho can locate an employer any hour of the day, who use their wit to\nevade labor, who think only of their summer vacation when they will no\nlonger be compelled to work, are apt to be sticklers for Sabbath-keeping\nand church-going.\n\nGentlemen in business who give eleven for a dozen, and count thirty-four\ninches a yard, who are quick to foreclose a mortgage, and who say\n\"business is business,\" generally are vestrymen, deacons and church\ntrustees. Look about you! Predaceous real estate dealers who set nets\nfor all the unwary, lawyers who lie in wait for their prey, merchant\nprinces who grind their clerks under the wheel, and oil magnates whose\nhistory was never written, nor could be written, often make peace with\nGod, and find a gratification for their sense of sublimity by building\nchurches, founding colleges, giving libraries, and holding firmly to a\nformalized religion. Look about you!\n\nTo recapitulate: if your life-work is doubtful, questionable or\ndistasteful, you will hold the balance true by going outside your\nvocation for the gratification that is your due, but which your daily\nwork denies, and you find it in religion, I do not say this is always\nso, but it is very often. Great sinners are apt to be very religious;\nand conversely, the best men who have ever lived have been at war with\nestablished religions. And further, the best men are never found\nin churches.\n\nMen deeply immersed in their work, whose lives are consecrated to doing\nthings, who are simple, honest and sincere, desire no formal religion,\nneed no priest nor pastor, and seek no gratification outside their daily\nlives. All they ask is to be let alone--they wish only the privilege\nto work.\n\nWhen Samuel Johnson, on his death bed, made Joshua Reynolds promise he\nwould do no more work on Sunday, he of course had no conception of the\ntruth that Reynolds reached through work the same condition of mind that\nhe, Johnson, had reached by going to church. Johnson despised work and\nReynolds loved it; Johnson considered one day in the week holy; to\nReynolds all days were sacred--sacred to work; that is, to the\nexpression of his best. Why should you cease to express your holiest and\nhighest on Sunday? Ah, I know why you don't work on Sunday! It is\nbecause you think that work is degrading, and because your sale and\nbarter is founded on fraud, and your goods are shoddy. Your week-day\ndealings lie like a pall upon your conscience, and you need a day in\nwhich to throw off the weariness of that slavery under which you live.\nYou are not free yourself, and you insist that others shall not be free.\n\nYou have ceased to make work gladsome, and you toil and make others\ntoil with you, and you all well nigh faint from weariness and disgust.\nYou are slave and slave-owner, for to own slaves is to be one.\n\nBut the artist is free and he works in joy, and to him all things are\ngood and all days are holy. The great inventors, thinkers, poets,\nmusicians and artists have all been men of deep religious natures; but\ntheir religion has never been a formalized, restricted, ossified\nreligion. They did not worship at set times and places. Their religion\nhas been a natural and spontaneous blossoming of the intellect and\nemotions--they have worked in love, not only one day in the week, but\nall days, and to them the groves have always and ever been God's\nfirst temples.\n\nLet us work to make men free! Am I bad because I want to give you\nfreedom, and have you work in gladness instead of fear?\n\nDo not hesitate to work on Sunday, just as you would think good thoughts\nif the spirit prompts you. For work is, at the last, only the expression\nof your thought, and there can be no better religion than good work.\n\n\n\nInitiative\n\nThe world bestows its big prizes, both in money and honors, for but one\nthing. And that is Initiative. What is Initiative? I'll tell you: It is\ndoing the right thing without being told. But next to doing the right\nthing without being told is to do it when you are told once. That is to\nsay, carry the Message to Garcia! There are those who never do a thing\nuntil they are told twice: such get no honors and small pay. Next, there\nare those who do the right thing only when necessity kicks them from\nbehind, and these get indifference instead of honors, and a pittance for\npay. This kind spends most of its time polishing a bench with a\nhard-luck story. Then, still lower down in the scale than this, we find\nthe fellow who will not do the right thing even when some one goes along\nto show him how, and stays to see that he does it; he is always out of a\njob, and receives the contempt he deserves, unless he has a rich Pa, in\nwhich case Destiny awaits near by with a stuffed club. To which class do\nyou belong?\n\n\n\nThe Disagreeable Girl\n\nEngland's most famous dramatist, George Bernard Shaw, has placed in the\npillory of letters what he is pleased to call \"The Disagreeable Girl.\"\n\nAnd he has done it by a dry-plate, quick-shutter process in a manner\nthat surely lays him liable for criminal libel in the assize of\nhigh society.\n\nI say society's assize advisedly, because it is only in society that the\nDisagreeable Girl can play a prominent part, assuming the center of the\nstage. Society, in the society sense, is built upon vacuity; its favors\nbeing for those who reveal a fine capacity to waste and consume. Those\nwho would write their names high on society's honor roll, need not be\neither useful or intelligent--they need only seem.\n\nAnd this gives to the Disagreeable Girl her opportunity. In the paper\nbox factory she would have to make good; Cluett, Coon & Co. ask for\nresults; the stage demands at least a modicum of intellect, in addition\nto shape, but society asks for nothing but pretense, and the palm is\nawarded to palaver. But do not, if you please, imagine that the\nDisagreeable Girl does not wield an influence. That is the very\npoint--her influence is so far-reaching in its effect that George\nBernard Shaw, giving cross-sections of life in the form of dramas,\ncannot write a play and leave her out.\n\nShe is always with us, ubiquitous, omniscient and omnipresent--is the\nDisagreeable Girl. She is a disappointment to her father, a source of\nhumiliation to her mother, a pest to her brothers and sisters, and when\nshe finally marries, she slowly saps the inspiration of her husband and\nvery often converts a proud and ambitious man into a weak and\ncowardly cur.\n\nOnly in society does the Disagreeable Girl shine--everywhere else she is\nan abject failure. The much-vaunted Gibson Girl is a kind of de luxe\nedition of Shaw's Disagreeable Girl. The Gibson Girl lolls, loafs,\npouts, weeps, talks back, lies in wait, dreams, eats, drinks, sleeps and\nyawns. She rides in a coach in a red jacket, plays golf in a secondary\nsexual sweater, dawdles on a hotel veranda, and can tum-tum on a piano,\nbut you never hear of her doing a useful thing or saying a wise one.\nShe plays bridge whist, for \"keeps\" when she wins, and \"owes\" when she\nloses, and her picture in flattering half-tone often adorns a page of\nthe Sunday Yellow.\n\nShe reveals a beautiful capacity for avoiding all useful effort.\n\nGibson gilds the Disagreeable Girl.\n\nShaw paints her as she is.\n\nIn the _Doll's House_ Henrik Ibsen has given us _Nora Hebler_, a\nDisagreeable Girl of mature age, who, beyond a doubt, first set George\nBernard Shaw a-thinking. Then looking about, Shaw saw her at every turn\nin every stage of her moth-and-butterfly existence.\n\nAnd the Disagreeable Girl being everywhere, Shaw, dealer in human\ncharacter, cannot write a play and leave her out, any more than the\nartist Turner could paint a picture and leave man out, or Paul Veronese\nproduce a canvas and omit the dog.\n\nThe Disagreeable Girl is a female of the genus homo persuasion, built\naround a digestive apparatus that possesses marked marshmallow\nproclivities. She is pretty, pug-nosed, pink, pert and poetical; and at\nfirst glance, to the unwary, she shows signs of gentleness and\nintelligence. Her age is anywhere from eighteen to twenty-eight. At\ntwenty-eight she begins to evolve into something else, and her capacity\nfor harm is largely curtailed, because by this time spirit has written\nitself in her form and features, and the grossness and animality which\nbefore were veiled are becoming apparent.\n\nHabit writes itself on the face, and body is an automatic recording\nmachine.\n\nTo have a beautiful old age, you must live a beautiful youth, for we\nourselves are posterity, and every man is his own ancestor. I am to-day\nwhat I am because I was yesterday what I was. The Disagreeable Girl is\nalways pretty, at least we have been told she is pretty, and she fully\naccepts the dictum.\n\nShe has also been told she is clever, and she thinks she is.\n\nThe actual fact is she is only \"sassy.\"\n\nThe fine flaring up of youth has tended to set sex rampant, but she is\nnot \"immoral\" save in her mind.\n\nShe has caution to the verge of cowardice, and so she is sans reproche.\nIn public she pretends to be dainty; but alone, or with those for whose\ngood opinion she does not care, she is gross, coarse and sensual in\nevery feature of her life. She eats too much, does not exercise enough\nand considers it amusing to let other people wait on her and do for her\nthe things she should do for herself. Her room is a jumble of disorder.\nThe one gleam of hope for her lies in the fact that out of shame, she\nallows no visitor to enter her apartments if she can help it. Concrete\nselfishness is her chief mark. She will avoid responsibility, side-step\nevery duty that calls for honest effort; is untruthful, secretive,\nindolent and dishonest.\n\n\"What are you eating?\" asks Nora Hebler's husband as she enters the\nroom, not expecting to see him.\n\n\"Nothing,\" is the answer, and she hides the box of bonbons behind her,\nand soon backs out of the room.\n\nI think Mr. Hebler had no business to ask her what she was eating--no\nman should ask any woman such a question, and really it was no\ndifference anyway. But Nora is always on the defensive and fabricates\nwhen it is necessary, and when it isn't, just through habit. She will\nhide a letter written by her grandmother as quickly and deftly as if it\nwere a missive from a guilty lover. The habit of her life is one of\nsuspicion, for being inwardly guilty herself, she suspects everybody\nalthough it is quite likely that crime with her has never broken through\nthought into deed. Nora will rifle her husband's pockets, read his\nnote-book, examine his letters, and when he goes on a trip she spends\nthe day checking up his desk, for her soul delights in duplicate keys.\n\nAt times she lets drop hints of knowledge concerning little nothings\nthat are none of hers, just to mystify folks.\n\nShe does strange, annoying things simply to see what others will do.\n\nIn degree, Nora's husband fixed the vice of finesse in her nature, for\nwhen even a \"good\" woman is accused she parries by the use of trickery\nand wins her point by the artistry of the bagnio. Women and men are\nnever really far apart anyway, and women are largely what men have\nmade them.\n\nWe are all just getting rid of our shackles; listen closely, anywhere,\neven among honest and intellectual people, if such there be, and you can\ndetect the rattle of chains.\n\nThe Disagreeable Girl's mind and soul have not kept pace with her body.\nYesterday she was a slave, sold in a Circassian mart, and freedom to her\nis so new and strange that she is unfamiliar with her environment, and\nshe does not know what to do with it.\n\nThe tragedy she works, according to George Bernard Shaw, is through the\nfact that very often good men, blinded by the glamour of sex, imagine\nthey love the Disagreeable Girl, when what they love is their own\nideal--an image born in their own minds.\n\nNature is both a trickster and a humorist, and ever sets the will of the\nspecies beyond the discernment of the individual. The picador has to\nblindfold his horse in order to get him into the bull-ring, and\nlikewise, Dan Cupid does the myopic to a purpose.\n\nFor aught we know, the lovely Beatrice of Dante was only a Disagreeable\nGirl, clothed in a poet's fancy, and idealized by a dreamer. Fortunate\nwas Dante that he worshipped her afar, that he never knew her well\nenough to be undeceived, and so walked through life in love with love,\nsensitive, saintly, sweetly sad and most divinely happy in his\nmelancholy.\n\n\n\nThe Neutral\n\nThere is known to me a prominent business house that by the very force\nof its directness and worth has incurred the enmity of many rivals. In\nfact, there is a very general conspiracy on hand to put the institution\ndown and out. In talking with a young man employed by this house, he\nyawned and said, \"Oh, in this quarrel I am neutral.\"\n\n\"But you get your bread and butter from this firm, and in a matter where\nthe very life of the institution is concerned, I do not see how you can\nbe a neutral.\"\n\nAnd he changed the subject.\n\nI think that if I enlisted in the Japanese army I would not be a\nneutral.\n\nBusiness is a fight--a continual struggle--just as life is. Man has\nreached his present degree of development through struggle. Struggle\nthere must be and always will be. The struggle began as purely physical;\nas man evolved it shifted ground to the mental, psychic, and the\nspiritual, with a few dashes of cave-man proclivities still left. But\ndepend upon it, the struggle will always be--life is activity. And when\nit gets to be a struggle in well-doing, it will still be a struggle.\nWhen inertia gets the better of you it is time to telephone to the\nundertaker.\n\nThe only real neutral in this game of life is a dead one.\n\nEternal vigilance is not only the price of liberty, but of every other\ngood thing.\n\nA business that is not safeguarded on every side by active, alert,\nattentive, vigilant men is gone. As oxygen is the disintegrating\nprinciple of life, working night and day to dissolve, separate, pull\napart and dissipate, so there is something in business that continually\ntends to scatter, destroy and shift possession from this man to that. A\nmillion mice nibble eternally at every business venture.\n\nThe mice are not neutrals, and if enough employes in a business house\nare neutrals, the whole concern will eventually come tumbling about\ntheir ears.\n\nI like that order of Field-Marshal Oyama: \"Give every honorable neutral\nthat you find in our lines the honorable jiu-jitsu hikerino.\"\n\n\n\nReflections on Progress\n\nRenan has said that truth is always rejected when it comes to a man for\nthe first time, its evolution being as follows:\n\nFirst, we say the thing is rank heresy, and contrary to the Bible.\n\nSecond, we say the matter really amounts to nothing, anyway.\n\nThird, we declare that we always believed it.\n\nTwo hundred years ago partnerships in business were very rare. A man in\nbusiness simply made things and sold them--and all the manufacturing was\ndone by himself and his immediate family. Soon we find instances of\nbrothers continuing the work the father had begun, as in the case of the\nElzevirs and the Plantins, the great bookmakers of Holland. To meet this\ncompetition, four printers, in 1640, formed a partnership and pooled\ntheir efforts. A local writer by the name of Van Krugen denounced these\nfour men, and made savage attacks on partnerships in general as wicked\nand illegal, and opposed to the best interests of the people. This view\nseems to have been quite general, for there was a law in Amsterdam\nforbidding all partnerships in business that were not licensed by the\nstate. The legislature of the State of Missouri has recently made war on\nthe department store in the same way, using the ancient Van Krugen\nargument as a reason, for there is no copyright on stupidity.\n\nIn London in the seventeenth century men who were found guilty of\npooling their efforts and dividing profits, were convicted by law and\npunished for \"contumacy, contravention and connivance,\" and were given a\ntaste of the stocks in the public square.\n\nWhen corporations were formed for the first time, only a few years ago,\nthere was a fine burst of disapproval. The corporation was declared a\nscheme of oppression, a hungry octopus, a grinder of the individual. And\nto prove the case various instances of hardship were cited; and no doubt\nthere was much suffering, for many people are never able to adjust\nthemselves to new conditions without experiencing pain and regret.\n\nBut we now believe that corporations came because they were required.\nCertain things the times demanded, and no one man, or two or three men\ncould perform these tasks alone--hence the corporation. The rise of\nEngland as a manufacturing nation began with the plan of the\nstock company.\n\nThe aggregation known as the joint-stock company, everybody is willing\nnow to admit, was absolutely necessary in order to secure the machinery,\nthat is to say, the tools, the raw stock, the buildings, and to provide\nfor the permanence of the venture.\n\nThe railroad system of America has built up this country--on this thing\nof joint-stock companies and transportation, our prosperity has hinged.\n\"Commerce, consists in carrying things from where they are plentiful to\nwhere they are needed,\" says Emerson.\n\nThere are ten combinations of capital in this country that control over\nsix thousand miles of railroad each. These companies have taken in a\nlarge number of small lines; and many connecting lines of tracks have\nbeen built. Competition over vast sections of country has been\npractically obliterated, and this has been done so quietly that few\npeople are aware of the change. Only one general result of this\nconsolidation of management has been felt, and that it is better\nservice at less expense. No captain of any great industrial enterprise\ndares now to say, \"The public be damned,\" even if he ever said it--which\nI much doubt. The pathway to success lies in serving the public, not in\naffronting it. In no other way is success possible, and this truth is so\nplain and patent that even very simple folk are able to recognize it.\nYou can only help yourself by helping others.\n\nThirty years ago, when P. T. Barnum said, \"The public delights in being\nhumbugged,\" he knew that it was not true, for he never attempted to put\nthe axiom in practice. He amused the public by telling it a lie, but P.\nT. Barnum never tried anything so risky as deception. Even when he lied\nwe were not deceived; truth can be stated by indirection. \"When my love\ntells me she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she\nlies.\" Barnum always gave more than he advertised; and going over and\nover the same territory he continued to amuse and instruct the public\nfor nearly forty years.\n\nThis tendency to co\u00f6perate is seen in such splendid features as the\nSaint Louis Union Station, for instance, where just twenty great\nrailroad companies lay aside envy, prejudice, rivalry and whim, and use\none terminal. If competition were really the life of trade, each\nrailroad that enters Saint Louis would have a station of its own, and\nthe public would be put to the worry, trouble, expense and endless delay\nof finding where it wanted to go and how to get there. As it is now, the\nentire aim and end of the scheme is to reduce friction, worry and\nexpense, and give the public the greatest accommodation--the best\npossible service--to make travel easy and life secure. Servants in\nuniform meet you as you alight, and answer your every question--speeding\nyou courteously and kindly on your way. There are women to take care of\nwomen, and nurses to take care of children, and wheel chairs for such as\nmay be infirm or lame. The intent is to serve--not to pull you this way\nand that, and sell you a ticket over a certain road. You are free to\nchoose your route and you are free to utilize as your own this great\ninstitution that cost a million dollars, and that requires the presence\nof two hundred people to maintain. All is for you. It is for the public\nand was only made possible by a oneness of aim and desire--that is to\nsay co\u00f6peration. Before co\u00f6peration comes in any line, there is always\ncompetition pushed to a point that threatens destruction and promises\nchaos; then to divert ruin, men devise a better way, a plan that\nconserves and economizes, and behold, it is found in co\u00f6peration.\n\nCivilization is an evolution.\n\nCivilization is not a thing separate and apart, any more than art is.\n\nArt is the beautiful way of doing things. Civilization is the\nexpeditious way of doing things. And as haste is often waste--the more\nhurry the less speed--civilization is the best way of doing things.\n\nAs mankind multiplies in number, the problem of supplying people what\nthey need is the important question of Earth. And mankind has ever held\nout offers of reward in fame and money--both being forms of power--to\nthose who would supply it better things.\n\nTeachers are those who educate the people to appreciate the things they\nneed.\n\nThe man who studies mankind, and finds out what men really want, and\nthen supplies them this, whether it be an Idea or a Thing, is the man\nwho is crowned with the laurel wreath of honor and clothed with riches.\n\nWhat people need and what they want may be very different.\n\nTo undertake to supply people a thing you think they need but which they\ndo not want, is to have your head elevated on a pike, and your bones\nburied in Potter's Field.\n\nBut wait, and the world will yet want the thing that it needs, and your\nbones will then become sacred relics.\n\nThis change in desire on the part of mankind is the result of the growth\nof intellect.\n\nIt is Progress, and Progress is Evolution, and Evolution is Progress.\n\nThere are men who are continually trying to push Progress along: we call\nthese individuals \"Reformers.\"\n\nThen there are others who always oppose the Reformer--the mildest name\nwe have for them is \"Conservative.\"\n\nThe Reformer is either a Savior or a Rebel, all depending on whether he\nsucceeds or fails, and your point of view. He is what he is, regardless\nof what other men think of him. The man who is indicted and executed as\na rebel, often afterward has the word \"Savior\" carved on his tomb; and\nsometimes men who are hailed as saviors in their day are afterward found\nto be sham saviors--to wit, charlatans. Conservation is a plan of\nNature. To keep the good is to conserve. A Conservative is a man who\nputs on the brakes when he thinks Progress is going to land Civilization\nin the ditch and wreck the whole concern.\n\nBrakemen are necessary, but in the language of Koheleth, there is a time\nto apply the brake and there is a time to abstain from applying the\nbrake. To clog the wheels continually is to stand still, and to stand\nstill is to retreat. Progress has need of the brakeman, but the brakeman\nshould not occupy all of his time putting on the brakes.\n\nThe Conservative is just as necessary as the Radical. The Conservative\nkeeps the Reformer from going too fast, and plucking the fruit before it\nis ripe. Governments are only good where there is strong Opposition,\njust as the planets are held in place by the opposition of forces. And\nso civilization goes forward by stops and starts--pushed by the\nReformers and held back by the Conservatives. One is necessary to the\nother, and they often shift places. But forward and forward Civilization\nforever goes--ascertaining the best way of doing things.\n\nIn commerce we have had the Individual Worker, the Partnership, the\nCorporation, and now we have the Trust.\n\nThe Trust is simply Corporations forming a partnership. The thing is all\nan Evolution--a moving forward. It is all for man and it is all done by\nman. It is all done with the consent, aye, and approval of man.\n\nThe Trusts were made by the People, and the People can and will unmake\nthem, should they ever prove an engine of oppression. They exist only\nduring good behavior, and like men, they are living under a sentence of\ndeath, with an indefinite reprieve.\n\nThe Trusts are good things because they are economizers of energy. They\ncut off waste, increase the production, and make a panic practically\nimpossible.\n\nThe Trusts are here in spite of the men who think they originated them,\nand in spite of the Reformers who turned Conservatives and\nopposed them.\n\nThe next move of Evolution will be the age of Socialism. Socialism means\nthe operation of all industries by the people, and for the people.\nSocialism is co\u00f6peration instead of competition. Competition has been so\ngeneral that economists mistook it for a law of nature, when it was only\nan incident.\n\nCompetition is no more a law of nature than is hate. Hate was once so\nthoroughly believed in that we gave it personality and called it\nthe Devil.\n\nWe have banished the Devil by educating people to know that he who works\nhas no time to hate and no need to fear, and by this same means,\neducation, will the people be prepared for the age of Socialism.\n\nThe Trusts are now getting things ready for Socialism.\n\nSocialism is a Trust of Trusts.\n\nHumanity is growing in intellect, in patience, in kindness--in love. And\nwhen the time is ripe, the people will step in and take peaceful\npossession of their own, and the Co\u00f6perative Commonwealth will give to\neach one his due.\n\n\n\nSympathy, Knowledge and Poise\n\nSympathy, Knowledge and Poise seem to be the three ingredients that are\nmost needed in forming the Gentle Man. I place these elements according\nto their value. No man is great who does not have Sympathy plus, and the\ngreatness of men can be safely gauged by their sympathies. Sympathy and\nimagination are twin sisters. Your heart must go out to all men, the\nhigh, the low, the rich, the poor, the learned, the unlearned, the good,\nthe bad, the wise and the foolish--it is necessary to be one with them\nall, else you can never comprehend them. Sympathy!--it is the touchstone\nto every secret, the key to all knowledge, the open sesame of all\nhearts. Put yourself in the other man's place and then you will know why\nhe thinks certain things and does certain deeds. Put yourself in his\nplace and your blame will dissolve itself into pity, and your tears will\nwipe out the record of his misdeeds. The saviors of the world have\nsimply been men with wondrous sympathy.\n\nBut Knowledge must go with Sympathy, else the emotions will become\nmaudlin and pity may be wasted on a poodle instead of a child; on a\nfield-mouse instead of a human soul. Knowledge in use is wisdom, and\nwisdom implies a sense of values--you know a big thing from a little\none, a valuable fact from a trivial one. Tragedy and comedy are simply\nquestions of value: a little misfit in life makes us laugh, a great one\nis tragedy and cause for expression of grief.\n\nPoise is the strength of body and strength of mind to control your\nSympathy and your Knowledge. Unless you control your emotions they run\nover and you stand in the mire. Sympathy must not run riot, or it is\nvalueless and tokens weakness instead of strength. In every hospital for\nnervous disorders are to be found many instances of this loss of\ncontrol. The individual has Sympathy but not Poise, and therefore his\nlife is worthless to himself and to the world.\n\nHe symbols inefficiency and not helpfulness. Poise reveals itself more\nin voice than it does in words; more in thought than in action; more in\natmosphere than in conscious life. It is a spiritual quality, and is\nfelt more than it is seen. It is not a matter of bodily size, nor of\nbodily attitude, nor attire, nor of personal comeliness: it is a state\nof inward being, and of knowing your cause is just. And so you see it is\na great and profound subject after all, great in its ramifications,\nlimitless in extent, implying the entire science of right living. I once\nmet a man who was deformed in body and little more than a dwarf, but who\nhad such Spiritual Gravity--such Poise--that to enter a room where he\nwas, was to feel his presence and acknowledge his superiority. To allow\nSympathy to waste itself on unworthy objects is to deplete one's life\nforces. To conserve is the part of wisdom, and reserve is a necessary\nelement in all good literature, as well as in everything else.\n\nPoise being the control of our Sympathy and Knowledge, it implies a\npossession of these attributes, for without having Sympathy and\nKnowledge you have nothing to control but your physical body. To\npractise Poise as a mere gymnastic exercise, or study in etiquette, is\nto be self-conscious, stiff, preposterous and ridiculous. Those who cut\nsuch fantastic tricks before high heaven as make angels weep, are men\nvoid of Sympathy and Knowledge trying to cultivate Poise. Their science\nis a mere matter of what to do with arms and legs. Poise is a question\nof spirit controlling flesh, heart controlling attitude.\n\nGet Knowledge by coming close to Nature. That man is the greatest who\nbest serves his kind. Sympathy and Knowledge are for use--you acquire\nthat you may give out; you accumulate that you may bestow. And as God\nhas given unto you the sublime blessings of Sympathy and Knowledge,\nthere will come to you the wish to reveal your gratitude by giving them\nout again; for the wise man is aware that we retain spiritual qualities\nonly as we give them away. Let your light shine. To him that hath shall\nbe given. The exercise of wisdom brings wisdom; and at the last the\ninfinitesimal quantity of man's knowledge, compared with the Infinite,\nand the smallness of man's Sympathy when compared with the source from\nwhich ours is absorbed, will evolve an abnegation and a humility that\nwill lend a perfect Poise. The Gentleman is a man with perfect Sympathy,\nKnowledge, and Poise.\n\n\n\nLove and Faith\n\nNo woman is worthy to be a wife who on the day of her marriage is not\nlost absolutely and entirely in an atmosphere of love and perfect trust;\nthe supreme sacredness of the relation is the only thing which, at the\ntime, should possess her soul. Is she a bawd that she should bargain?\n\nWomen should not \"obey\" men anymore than men should obey women. There\nare six requisites in every happy marriage; the first is Faith, and the\nremaining five are Confidence. Nothing so compliments a man as for a\nwoman to believe in him--nothing so pleases a woman as for a man to\nplace confidence in her.\n\nObey? God help me! Yes, if I loved a woman, my whole heart's desire\nwould be to obey her slightest wish. And how could I love her unless I\nhad perfect confidence that she would only aspire to what was beautiful,\ntrue and right? And to enable her to realize this ideal, her wish would\nbe to me a sacred command; and her attitude of mind toward me I know\nwould be the same. And the only rivalry between us would be as to who\ncould love the most; and the desire to obey would be the one controlling\nimpulse of our lives.\n\nWe gain freedom by giving it, and he who bestows faith gets it back with\ninterest. To bargain and stipulate in love is to lose.\n\nThe woman who stops the marriage ceremony and requests the minister to\nomit the word \"obey,\" is sowing the first seed of doubt and distrust\nthat later may come to fruition in the divorce court.\n\nThe haggling and bickerings of settlements and dowries that usually\nprecede the marriage of \"blood\" and \"dollars\" are the unheeded warnings\nthat misery, heartache, suffering, and disgrace await the principals.\n\nPerfect faith implies perfect love; and perfect love casteth out fear.\nIt is always the fear of imposition, and a lurking intent to rule, that\ncauses the woman to haggle over a word--it is absence of love, a\nlimitation, an incapacity. The price of a perfect love is an absolute\nand complete surrender.\n\nKeep back part of the price and yours will be the fate of Ananias and\nSapphira. Your doom is swift and sure. To win all we must give all.\n\n\n\nGiving Something for Nothing\n\nTo give a man something for nothing tends to make the individual\ndissatisfied with himself.\n\nYour enemies are the ones you have helped.\n\nAnd when an individual is dissatisfied with himself he is dissatisfied\nwith the whole world--and with you.\n\nA man's quarrel with the world is only a quarrel with himself. But so\nstrong is this inclination to lay blame elsewhere and take credit to\nourselves, that when we are unhappy we say it is the fault of this woman\nor that man. Especially do women attribute their misery to That Man.\n\nAnd often the trouble is he has given her too much for nothing.\n\nThis truth is a reversible, back-action one, well lubricated by use,\nworking both ways--as the case may be.\n\nNobody but a beggar has really definite ideas concerning his rights.\nPeople who give much--who love much--do not haggle.\n\nThat form of affection which drives sharp bargains and makes demands,\ngets a check on the bank in which there is no balance.\n\nThere is nothing so costly as something you get for nothing.\n\nMy friend Tom Lowry, Magnate in Ordinary, of Minneapolis and the east\nside of Wall Street, has recently had a little experience that proves\nmy point.\n\nA sturdy beggar-man, a specimen of decayed gentility, once called on\nTammas with a hard-luck story and a Family Bible, and asked for a small\nloan on the Good Book.\n\nTo be compelled to soak the Family Bible would surely melt the heart of\ngneiss!\n\nTom was melted.\n\nTom made the loan but refused the collateral, stating he had no use for\nit.\n\nWhich was God's truth for once.\n\nIn a few weeks the man came back, and tried to tell Tom his hard-luck\nstory concerning the Cold Ingratitude of a Cruel World.\n\nTom said, \"Spare me the slow music and the recital--I have troubles of\nmy own. I need mirth and good cheer--take this dollar, and peace be\nwith you.\"\n\n\"Peace be multiplied unto thee,\" said the beggar, and departed. The\nnext month the man returned, and began to tell Tom a tale of Cruelty,\nInjustice and Ingratitude.\n\nTom was riled--he had his magnate business to attend to, and he made a\nremark in italics. The beggar said, \"Mr. Lowry, if you had your business\na little better systematized, I would not have to trouble you\npersonally--why don't you just speak to your cashier?\" And the great\nman, who once took a party of friends out for a tally-ho ride, and\nthrough mental habit collected five cents from each guest, was so\npleased at the thought of relief that he pressed the buzzer. The cashier\ncame, and Tom said, \"Put this man Grabheimer on your pay-roll, give him\ntwo dollars now and the same the first of every month.\"\n\nThen turning to the beggar-man, Tom said, \"Now get out of here--hurry,\nvamose, hike--and be damned to you!\"\n\n\"The same to you and many of them,\" said His Effluvia politely, and\nwithdrew.\n\nAll this happened two years ago. The beggar got his money regularly for\na year, and then in auditing accounts Tom found the name on the\npay-roll, and as Tom could not remember how the name got there, he at\nfirst thought the pay-roll was being stuffed. Anyway he ordered the\nbeggar's name stricken off the roster, and the elevator man was\ninstructed to enforce the edict against beggars.\n\nNot being allowed to see his man, the beggar wrote him\nletters--denunciatory, scandalous, abusive, threatening. Finally the\nbeggar laid the matter before an obese limb o' the Law, Jaggers, of the\nfirm of Jaggers & Jaggers, who took the case on a contingent fee.\n\nThe case came to trial, and Jaggers proved his case se\noffendendo--argal: it was shown by the defendant's books that His\nBacteria had been on the pay-roll and his name had been stricken off\nwithout suggestion, request, cause, reason or fault of his own.\n\nHis Crabship proved the contract, and Tom got it in the mazzard.\nJudgment for plaintiff, with costs. The beggar got the money and\nMinneapolis Tom got the experience. Tom said the man would lose the\nmoney, but he himself has gotten the part that will be his for\nninety-nine years. Surely the spirit of justice does not sleep and there\nis a beneficent and wise Providence that watches over magnates.\n\n\n\nWork and Waste\n\nThese truths I hold to be self-evident: That man was made to be happy;\nthat happiness is only attainable through useful effort; that the very\nbest way to help ourselves is to help others, and often the best way to\nhelp others is to mind our own business; that useful effort means the\nproper exercise of all our faculties; that we grow only through\nexercise; that education should continue through life, and the joys of\nmental endeavor should be, especially, the solace of the old; that where\nmen alternate work, play and study in right proportion, the organs of\nthe mind are the last to fail, and death for such has no terrors.\n\nThat the possession of wealth can never make a man exempt from useful\nmanual labor; that if all would work a little, no one would then be\noverworked; that if no one wasted, all would have enough; that if none\nwere overfed, none would be underfed; that the rich and \"educated\" need\neducation quite as much as the poor and illiterate; that the presence of\na serving class is an indictment and a disgrace to our civilization;\nthat the disadvantage of having a serving class falls most upon those\nwho are served, and not upon those who serve--just as the real curse of\nslavery fell upon the slave-owners.\n\nThat people who are waited on by a serving class cannot have a right\nconsideration for the rights of others, and they waste both time and\nsubstance, both of which are lost forever, and can only seemingly be\nmade good by additional human effort.\n\nThat the person who lives on the labor of others, not giving himself in\nreturn to the best of his ability, is really a consumer of human life\nand therefore must be considered no better than a cannibal.\n\nThat each one living naturally will do the thing he can do best, but\nthat in useful service there is no high nor low.\n\nThat to set apart one day in seven as \"holy\" is really absurd and serves\nonly to loosen our grasp on the tangible present.\n\nThat all duties, offices and things which are useful and necessary to\nhumanity are sacred, and that nothing else is or can be sacred.\n\n\n\nThe Law of Obedience\n\nThe very first item in the creed of common sense is _Obedience_.\n\nPerform your work with a whole heart.\n\nRevolt may be sometimes necessary, but the man who tries to mix revolt\nand obedience is doomed to disappoint himself and everybody with whom he\nhas dealings. To flavor work with protest is to fail absolutely.\n\nWhen you revolt, why revolt--climb, hike, get out, defy--tell everybody\nand everything to go to hades! That disposes of the case. You thus\nseparate yourself entirely from those you have served--no one\nmisunderstands you--you have declared yourself.\n\nThe man who quits in disgust when ordered to perform a task which he\nconsiders menial or unjust may be a pretty good fellow, but in the wrong\nenvironment, but the malcontent who takes your order with a smile and\nthen secretly disobeys, is a dangerous proposition. To pretend to obey,\nand yet carry in your heart the spirit of revolt is to do half-hearted,\nslipshod work. If revolt and obedience are equal in power, your engine\nwill then stop on the center and you benefit no one, not even yourself.\n\nThe spirit of obedience is the controlling impulse that dominates the\nreceptive mind and the hospitable heart. There are boats that mind the\nhelm and there are boats that do not. Those that do not, get holes\nknocked in them sooner or later.\n\nTo keep off the rocks, obey the rudder.\n\nObedience is not to slavishly obey this man or that, but it is that\ncheerful mental state which responds to the necessity of the case, and\ndoes the thing without any back talk--unuttered or expressed.\n\nObedience to the institution--loyalty! The man who has not learned to\nobey has trouble ahead of him every step of the way. The world has it in\nfor him continually, because he has it in for the world.\n\nThe man who does not know how to receive orders is not fit to issue them\nto others. But the individual who knows how to execute the orders given\nhim is preparing the way to issue orders, and better still--to have\nthem obeyed.\n\n\n\nSociety's Saviors\n\nAll adown the ages society has made the mistake of nailing its Saviors\nto the cross between thieves.\n\nThat is to say, society has recognized in the Savior a very dangerous\nquality--something about him akin to a thief, and his career has been\nsuddenly cut short.\n\nWe have telephones and trolly cars, yet we have not traveled far into\nthe realm of spirit, and our X-ray has given us no insight into the\nheart of things.\n\nSociety is so dull and dense, so lacking in spiritual vision, so dumb\nand so beast-like that it does not know the difference between a thief\nand the only Begotten Son. In a frantic effort to forget its hollowness\nit takes to ping-pong, parchesi and progressive euchre, and seeks to\nlose itself and find solace and consolation in tiddle-dy-winks.\n\nWe are told in glaring head-lines and accurate photographic\nreproductions of a conference held by leaders in society to settle a\nmatter of grave import. Was it to build technical schools and provide a\nmeans for practical and useful education? Was it a plan of building\nmodern tenement houses along scientific and sanitary lines? Was it\ncalled to provide funds for scientific research of various kinds that\nwould add to human knowledge and prove a benefit to mankind? No, it was\nnone of these. This body met to determine whether the crook in a certain\nbulldog's tail was natural or had been produced artificially.\n\nShould the Savior come to-day and preach the same gospel that He taught\nbefore, society would see that His experience was repeated. Now and then\nit blinks stupidly and cries, \"Away with Him!\" or it stops its game long\nenough to pass gall and vinegar on a spear to One it has thrust\nbeyond the pale.\n\nFor the woman who has loved much society has but one verdict: crucify\nher! The best and the worst are hanged on one tree.\n\nIn the abandon of a great love there exists a godlike quality which\nplaces a woman very close to the holy of holies, yet such a one, not\nhaving complied with the edicts of society, is thrust unceremoniously\nforth, and society, Pilate-like, washes its hands in innocency.\n\n\n\nPreparing for Old Age\n\nSocrates was once asked by a pupil, this question: \"What kind of people\nshall we be when we reach Elysium?\"\n\nAnd the answer was this: \"We shall be the same kind of people that we\nwere here.\"\n\nIf there is a life after this, we are preparing for it now, just as I am\nto-day preparing for my life to-morrow.\n\nWhat kind of a man shall I be to-morrow? Oh, about the same kind of a\nman that I am now. The kind of a man that I shall be next month depends\nupon the kind of a man that I have been this month.\n\nIf I am miserable to-day, it is not within the round of probabilities\nthat I shall be supremely happy to-morrow. Heaven is a habit. And if we\nare going to Heaven we would better be getting used to it.\n\nLife is a preparation for the future; and the best preparation for the\nfuture is to live as if there were none.\n\nWe are preparing all the time for old age. The two things that make old\nage beautiful are resignation and a just consideration for the rights\nof others.\n\nIn the play of _Ivan the Terrible_, the interest centers around one man,\nthe Czar Ivan. If anybody but Richard Mansfield played the part, there\nwould be nothing in it. We simply get a glimpse into the life of a\ntyrant who has run the full gamut of goosedom, grumpiness, selfishness\nand grouch. Incidentally this man had the power to put other men to\ndeath, and this he does and has done as his whim and temper might\ndictate. He has been vindictive, cruel, quarrelsome, tyrannical and\nterrible. Now that he feels the approach of death, he would make his\npeace with God. But he has delayed that matter too long. He didn't\nrealize in youth and middle life that he was then preparing for old age.\n\nMan is the result of cause and effect, and the causes are to a degree in\nour hands. Life is a fluid, and well has it been called the stream of\nlife--we are going, flowing somewhere. Strip _Ivan_ of his robes and\ncrown, and he might be an old farmer and live in Ebenezer. Every town\nand village has its Ivan. To be an Ivan, just turn your temper loose\nand practise cruelty on any person or thing within your reach, and the\nresult will be a sure preparation for a querulous, quarrelsome, pickety,\nsnipity, fussy and foolish old age, accented with many outbursts of\nwrath that are terrible in their futility and ineffectiveness.\n\nBabyhood has no monopoly on the tantrum. The characters of _King Lear_\nand _Ivan the Terrible_ have much in common. One might almost believe\nthat the writer of _Ivan_ had felt the incompleteness of _Lear_, and had\nseen the absurdity of making a melodramatic bid for sympathy in behalf\nof this old man thrust out by his daughters.\n\nLear, the troublesome, Lear to whose limber tongue there was constantly\nleaping words unprintable and names of tar, deserves no soft pity at our\nhands. All his life he had been training his three daughters for exactly\nthe treatment he was to receive. All his life Lear had been lubricating\nthe chute that was to give him a quick ride out into that black\nmidnight storm.\n\n\"Oh, how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless\nchild,\" he cries.\n\nThere is something quite as bad as a thankless child, and that is a\nthankless parent--an irate, irascible parent who possesses an\nunderground vocabulary and a disposition to use it.\n\nThe false note in _Lear_ lies in giving to him a daughter like\n_Cordelia_. Tolstoy and Mansfield ring true, and _Ivan the Terrible_ is\nwhat he is without apology, excuse or explanation. Take it or leave\nit--if you do not like plays of this kind, go to see Vaudeville.\n\nMansfield's _Ivan_ is terrible. The Czar is not old in years--not over\nseventy--but you can see that Death is sniffing close upon his track.\n_Ivan_ has lost the power of repose. He cannot listen, weigh and\ndecide--he has no thought or consideration for any man or thing--this is\nhis habit of life. His bony hands are never still--the fingers open and\nshut, and pick at things eternally. He fumbles the cross on his breast,\nadjusts his jewels, scratches his cosmos, plays the devil's tattoo, gets\nup nervously and looks behind the throne, holds his breath to listen.\nWhen people address him, he damns them savagely if they kneel, and if\nthey stand upright he accuses them of lack of respect. He asks that he\nbe relieved from the cares of state, and then trembles for fear his\npeople will take him at his word. When asked to remain ruler of Russia\nhe proceeds to curse his councilors and accuses them of loading him with\nburdens that they themselves would not endeavor to bear.\n\nHe is a victim of amor senilis, and right here if Mansfield took one\nstep more his realism would be appalling, but he stops in time and\nsuggests what he dares not express. This tottering, doddering,\nslobbering, sniffling old man is in love--he is about to wed a young,\nbeautiful girl. He selects jewels for her--he makes remarks about what\nwould become her beauty, jeers and laughs in cracked falsetto. In the\nanimality of youth there is something pleasing--it is natural--but the\nvices of an old man, when they have become only mental, are most\nrevolting.\n\nThe people about _Ivan_ are in mortal terror of him, for he is still the\nabsolute monarch--he has the power to promote or disgrace, to take their\nlives or let them go free. They laugh when he laughs, cry when he does,\nand watch his fleeting moods with thumping hearts.\n\nHe is intensely religious and affects the robe and cowl of a priest.\nAround his neck hangs the crucifix. His fear is that he will die with no\nopportunity of confession and absolution. He prays to High Heaven every\nmoment, kisses the cross, and his toothless old mouth interjects prayers\nto God and curses on man in the same breath.\n\nIf any one is talking to him he looks the other way, slips down until\nhis shoulders occupy the throne, scratches his leg, and keeps up a\nrunning comment of insult--\"Aye,\" \"Oh,\" \"Of course,\" \"Certainly,\" \"Ugh,\"\n\"Listen to him now!\" There is a comedy side to all this which relieves\nthe tragedy and keeps the play from becoming disgusting.\n\nGlimpses of _Ivan's_ past are given in his jerky confessions--he is the\nmost miserable and unhappy of men, and you behold that he is reaping as\nhe has sown.\n\nAll his life he has been preparing for this. Each day has been a\npreparation for the next. _Ivan_ dies in a fit of wrath, hurling curses\non his family and court--dies in a fit of wrath into which he has been\npurposely taunted by a man who knows that the outburst is certain to\nkill the weakened monarch.\n\nWhere does _Ivan the Terrible_ go when Death closes his eyes?\n\nI know not. But this I believe: No confessional can absolve him--no\npriest benefit him--no God forgive him. He has damned himself, and he\nbegan the work in youth. He was getting ready all his life for this old\nage, and this old age was getting ready for the fifth act.\n\nThe playwright does not say so, Mansfield does not say so, but this is\nthe lesson: Hate is a poison--wrath is a toxin--sensuality leads to\ndeath--clutching selfishness is a lighting of the fires of hell. It is\nall a preparation--cause and effect.\n\nIf you are ever absolved, you must absolve yourself, for no one else\ncan. And the sooner you begin, the better.\n\nWe often hear of the beauties of old age, but the only old age that is\nbeautiful is the one the man has long been preparing for by living a\nbeautiful life. Every one of us are right now preparing for old age.\n\nThere may be a substitute somewhere in the world for Good Nature, but I\ndo not know where it can be found.\n\nThe secret of salvation is this: Keep Sweet.\n\n\n\nAn Alliance with Nature\n\nMy father is a doctor who has practised medicine for sixty-five years,\nand is still practising.\n\nI am a doctor myself.\n\nI am fifty years old; my father is eighty-five. We live in the same\nhouse, and daily we ride horseback together or tramp thru the fields and\nwoods. To-day we did our little jaunt of five miles and back\n'cross country.\n\nI have never been ill a day--never consulted a physician in a\nprofessional way, and in fact, never missed a meal through inability to\neat. As for the author of the author of _A Message to Garcia_, he holds,\nesoterically, to the idea that the hot pedaluvia and small doses of hop\ntea will cure most ailments that are curable, and so far all of his own\nails have been curable--a point he can prove.\n\nThe value of the pedaluvia lies in the fact that it tends to equalize\ncirculation, not to mention the little matter of sanitation; and the\nefficacy of the hops lies largely in the fact that they are bitter and\ndisagreeable to take.\n\nBoth of these prescriptions give the patient the soothing thought that\nsomething is being done for him, and at the very worst can never do him\nserious harm.\n\nMy father and I are not fully agreed on all of life's themes, so\nexistence for us never resolves itself into a dull, neutral gray. He is\na Baptist and I am a Vegetarian. Occasionally he refers to me as\n\"callow,\" and we have daily resorts to logic to prove prejudices, and\nhistory is searched to bolster the preconceived, but on the following\nimportant points we stand together, solid as one man:\n\nFirst. Ninety-nine people out of a hundred who go to a physician have no\norganic disease, but are merely suffering from some symptom of their own\nindiscretion.\n\nSecond. Individuals who have diseases, nine times out of ten, are\nsuffering only from the accumulated evil effects of medication.\n\nThird. Hence we get the proposition: Most diseases are the result of\nmedication which has been prescribed to relieve and take away a\nbeneficent and warning symptom on the part of wise Nature.\n\nMost of the work of doctors in the past has been to prescribe for\nsymptoms; the difference between actual disease and a symptom being\nsomething that the average man does not even yet know.\n\nAnd the curious part is that on these points all physicians, among\nthemselves, are fully agreed. What I say here being merely truism,\ntriteness and commonplace.\n\nLast week, in talking with an eminent surgeon in Buffalo, he said, \"I\nhave performed over a thousand operations of laparotomy, and my records\nshow that in every instance, excepting in cases of accident, the\nindividual was given to what you call the 'Beecham Habit.'\"\n\nThe people you see waiting in the lobbies of doctors' offices are, in a\nvast majority of cases, suffering thru poisoning caused by an excess of\nfood. Coupled with this goes the bad results of imperfect breathing,\nirregular sleep, lack of exercise, and improper use of stimulants, or\nholding the thought of fear, jealousy and hate. All of these things, or\nany one of them, will, in very many persons, cause fever, chills, cold\nfeet, congestion and faulty elimination.\n\nTo administer drugs to a man suffering from malnutrition caused by a\ndesire to \"get even,\" and a lack of fresh air, is simply to compound\nhis troubles, shuffle his maladies, and get him ripe for the ether-cone\nand scalpel.\n\nNature is forever trying to keep people well, and most so-called\n\"disease,\" which word means merely lack of ease, is self-limiting, and\ntends to cure itself. If you have appetite, do not eat too much. If you\nhave no appetite, do not eat at all. Be moderate in the use of all\nthings, save fresh air and sunshine.\n\nThe one theme of _Ecclesiastes_ is moderation. Buddha wrote it down that\nthe greatest word in any language is Equanimity. William Morris said\nthat the finest blessing of life was systematic, useful work. Saint Paul\ndeclared that the greatest thing in the world was love. Moderation,\nEquanimity, Work and Love--you need no other physician.\n\nIn so stating I lay down a proposition agreed to by all physicians;\nwhich was expressed by Hippocrates, the father of medicine, and then\nrepeated in better phrase by Epictetus, the slave, to his pupil, the\ngreat Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, and which has been known to every\nthinking man and woman since: Moderation, Equanimity, Work and Love!\n\n\n\nThe Ex. Question\n\nWords sometimes become tainted and fall into bad repute, and are\ndiscarded. Until the day of Elizabeth Fry, on the official records in\nEngland appeared the word \"mad-house.\" Then it was wiped out and the\nword \"asylum\" substituted. Within twenty years' time in several states\nin America we have discarded the word \"asylum\" and have substituted the\nword \"hospital.\"\n\nIn Jeffersonville, Indiana, there is located a \"Reformatory\" which some\nyears ago was known as a penitentiary. The word \"prison\" had a\ndepressing effect, and \"penitentiary\" throws a theological shadow, and\nso the words will have to go. As our ideas of the criminal change, we\nchange our vocabulary.\n\nA few years ago we talked about asylums for the deaf and dumb--the word\n\"dumb\" has now been stricken from every official document in every state\nin the Union, because we have discovered, with the assistance of Gardner\nG. Hubbard, that deaf people are not dumb, and not being defectives,\nthey certainly do not need an asylum. They need schools, however, and so\neverywhere we have established schools for the deaf.\n\nDeaf people are just as capable, are just as competent, just as well\nable to earn an honest living as is the average man who can hear.\n\nThe \"indeterminate sentence\" is one of the wisest expedients ever\nbrought to bear in penology. And it is to this generation alone that the\nhonor of first using it must be given. The offender is sentenced for,\nsay from one to eight years. This means that if the prisoner behaves\nhimself, obeying the rules, showing a desire to be useful, he will be\nparoled and given his freedom at the end of one year.\n\nIf he misbehaves and does not prove his fitness for freedom he will be\nkept two or three years, and he may possibly have to serve the whole\neight years. \"How long are you in for?\" I asked a convict at\nJeffersonville, who was caring for the flowers in front of the walls.\n\"Me? Oh, I'm in for two years, with the privilege of fourteen,\" was the\nman's answer, given with a grin.\n\nThe old plan of \"short time,\" allowing two or three months off from\nevery year for good behavior was a move in the right direction, but the\nindeterminate sentence will soon be the rule everywhere for first\noffenders.\n\nThe indeterminate sentence throws upon the man himself the\nresponsibility for the length of his confinement and tends to relieve\nprison life of its horror, by holding out hope. The man has the short\ntime constantly in mind, and usually is very careful not to do anything\nto imperil it. Insurrection and an attempt to escape may mean that every\nday of the whole long sentence will have to be served.\n\nSo even the dullest of minds and the most calloused realize that it pays\nto do what is right--the lesson being pressed home upon them in a way it\nhas never been before.\n\nThe old-time prejudice of business men against the man who had \"done\ntime\" was chiefly on account of his incompetence, and not his record.\nThe prison methods that turned out a hateful, depressed and frightened\nman who had been suppressed by the silent system and deformed by the\nlock-step, calloused by brutal treatment and the constant thought held\nover him that he was a criminal, was a bad thing for the prisoner, for\nthe keeper and for society. Even an upright man would be undone by such\ntreatment, and in a year be transformed into a sly, secretive and\nmorally sick man. The men just out of prison were unable to do\nanything--they needed constant supervision and attention, and so of\ncourse we did not care to hire them.\n\nThe Ex. now is a totally different man from the Ex. just out of his\nstriped suit in the seventies, thanks to that much defamed man,\nBrockway, and a few others.\n\nWe may have to restrain men for the good of themselves and the good of\nsociety, but we do not punish. The restraint is punishment enough; we\nbelieve men are punished by their sins, not for them.\n\nWhen men are sent to reform schools now, the endeavor and the hope is to\ngive back to society a better man than we took.\n\nJudge Lindsey sends boys to the reform school without officer or guard.\nThe boys go of their own accord, carrying their own commitment papers.\nThey pound on the gate demanding admittance in the name of the law. The\nboy believes that Judge Lindsey is his friend, and that the reason he\nis sent to the reform school is that he may reap a betterment which his\nfull freedom cannot possibly offer. When he takes his commitment papers\nhe is no longer at war with society and the keepers of the law. He\nbelieves that what is being done for him is done for the best, and so he\ngoes to prison, which is really not a prison at the last, for it is a\nschool where the lad is taught to economize both time and money and to\nmake himself useful.\n\nOther people work for us, and we must work for them. This is the supreme\nlesson that the boy learns. You can only help yourself by\nhelping others.\n\nNow here is a proposition: If a boy or a man takes his commitment\npapers, goes to prison alone and unattended, is it necessary that he\nshould be there locked up, enclosed in a corral and be looked after by\nguards armed with death-dealing implements?\n\nSuperintendent Whittaker, of the institution at Jeffersonville, Indiana,\nsays, \"No.\" He believes that within ten years' time we will do away with\nthe high wall, and will keep our loaded guns out of sight; to a great\ndegree also we will take the bars from the windows of the prisons, just\nas we have taken them away from the windows of the hospitals for\nthe insane.\n\nAt the reform school it may be necessary to have a guard-house for some\nyears to come, but the high wall must go, just as we have sent the\nlock-step and the silent system and the striped suit of disgrace into\nthe ragbag of time--lost in the memory of things that were.\n\nFour men out of five in the reformatory at Jeffersonville need no\ncoercion, they would not run away if the walls were razed and the doors\nleft unlocked. One young man I saw there refused the offered parole--he\nwanted to stay until he learned his trade. He was not the only one with\na like mental attitude.\n\nThe quality of men in the average prison is about the same as that of\nthe men who are in the United States Army. The man who enlists is a\nprisoner; for him to run away is a very serious offense, and yet he is\nnot locked up at night, nor is he surrounded by a high wall.\n\nThe George Junior Republic is simply a farm, unfenced and unpatroled,\nexcepting by the boys who are in the Republic, and yet it is a penal\ninstitution. The prison of the future will not be unlike a young ladies'\nboarding school, where even yet the practice prevails of taking the\ninmates out all together, with a guard, and allowing no one to leave\nwithout a written permit.\n\nAs society changes, so changes the so-called criminal. In any event, I\nknow this--that Max Nordau did not make out his case.\n\nThere is no criminal class.\n\nOr for that matter we are all criminals. \"I have in me the capacity for\nevery crime,\" said Emerson.\n\nThe man or woman who goes wrong is a victim of unkind environment.\nBooker Washington says that when the negro has something that we want,\nor can perform a task that we want done, we waive the color line, and\nthe race problem then ceases to be a problem. So it is with the Ex.\nQuestion. When the ex-convict is able to show that he is useful to the\nworld, the world will cease to shun him. When Superintendent Whittaker\ngraduates a man it is pretty good evidence that the man is able and\nwilling to render a service to society.\n\nThe only places where the ex-convicts get the icy mitt are pink teas\nand prayer meetings. An ex-convict should work all day and then spend\nhis evenings at the library, feeding his mind--then he is safe.\n\nIf I were an ex-convict I would fight shy of all \"Refuges,\" \"Sheltering\nArms,\" \"Saint Andrew's Societies\" and the philanthropic \"College\nSettlements.\" I would never go to those good professional people, or\nprofessional good people, who patronize the poor and spit upon the\nalleged wrongdoer, and who draw sharp lines of demarcation in\ndistinguishing between the \"good\" and the \"bad.\" If you can work and are\nwilling to work, business men will not draw the line on you. Get a job,\nand then hold it down hard by making yourself necessary. Employers of\nlabor and the ex-convicts themselves are fast settling this Ex.\nQuestion, with the help of the advanced type of the Reform School where\nthe inmates are being taught to be useful and are not punished nor\npatronized, but are simply given a chance. My heart goes out in sympathy\nto the man who gives a poor devil a chance. I myself am a poor devil!\n\n\n\nThe Sergeant\n\nA colonel in the United States Army told me the other day something like\nthis: The most valuable officer, the one who has the greatest\nresponsibility, is the sergeant. The true sergeant is born, not made--he\nis the priceless gift of the gods. He is so highly prized that when\nfound he is never promoted, nor is he allowed to resign. If he is\ndissatisfied with his pay, Captain, Lieutenant and Colonel chip in--they\ncannot afford to lose him. He is a rara avis--the apple of their eye.\n\nHis first requirement is that he must be able to lick any man in the\ncompany. A drunken private may damn a captain upside down and wrong-side\nout, and the captain is not allowed to reply. He can neither strike with\nhis fist, nor engage in a cussing match, but your able sergeant is an\nadept in both of these polite accomplishments. Even if a private strike\nan officer, the officer is not allowed to strike back. Perhaps the man\nwho abuses him could easily beat him in a rough-and-tumble fight, and\nthen it is quite a sufficient reason to keep one's clothes clean. We\nsay the revolver equalizes all men, but it doesn't. It is disagreeable\nto shoot a man. It scatters brains and blood all over the sidewalk,\nattracts a crowd, requires a deal of explanation afterward, and may cost\nan officer his stripes. No good officer ever hears anything said about\nhim by a private.\n\nThe sergeant hears everything, and his reply to backslack is a\nstraight-arm jab in the jaw. The sergeant is responsible only to his\ncaptain, and no good captain will ever know anything about what a\nsergeant does, and he will not believe it when told. If a fight occurs\nbetween two privates, the sergeant jumps in, bumps their heads together\nand licks them both. If a man feigns sick, or is drunk, the sergeant\nchucks him under the pump. The regulations do not call for any such\ntreatment, but the sergeant does not know anything about the\nregulations--he gets the thing done. The sergeant may be twenty years\nold or sixty--age does not count. The sergeant is a father to his\nmen--he regards them all as children--bad boys--and his business is to\nmake them brave, honorable and dutiful soldiers.\n\nThe sergeant is always the first man up in the morning, the last man to\ngo to bed at night. He knows where his men are every minute of the day\nor night. If they are actually sick, he is both nurse and physician, and\ndictates gently to the surgeon what should be done. He is also the\nundertaker, and the digging of ditches and laying out of latrines all\nfall to his lot. Unlike the higher officers, he does not have to dress\n\"smart,\" and he is very apt to discard his uniform and go clothed like a\ncivilian teamster, excepting on special occasions when necessity demands\nbraid and buttons.\n\nHe knows everything, and nothing. No wild escapade of a higher officer\npasses by him, yet he never tells.\n\nNow one might suppose that he is an absolute tyrant, but a good sergeant\nis a beneficent tyrant at the right time. To break the spirit of his men\nwill not do--it would unfit them for service--so what he seeks to do is\nmerely to bend their minds so as to match his own. Gradually they grow\nto both love and fear him. In time of actual fight he transforms cowards\ninto heroes. He holds his men up to the scratch. In battle there are\noften certain officers marked for death--they are to be shot by their\nown men. It is a time of getting even--and in the hurly-burly and\nexcitement there are no witnesses. The sergeant is ever on the lookout\nfor such mutinies, and his revolver often sends to the dust the head\nrevolutionary before the dastardly plot can be carried out. In war-time\nall executions are not judicial.\n\nIn actual truth, the sergeant is the only real, sure-enough fighting man\nin the army. He is as rare as birds' teeth, and every officer anxiously\nscans his recruits in search of good sergeant timber.\n\nIn business life, the man with the sergeant instincts is even more\nvaluable than in the army. The business sergeant is the man not in\nevidence--who asks for no compliments or bouquets--who knows where\nthings are--who has no outside ambitions, and no desire save to do his\nwork. If he is too smart he will lay plots and plans for his own\npromotion, and thereby he is pretty sure to defeat himself.\n\nAs an individual the average soldier is a sneak, a shirk, a failure, a\ncoward. He is only valuable as he is licked into shape. It is pretty\nmuch the same in business. It seems hard to say it, but the average\nemploye in factory, shop or store, puts the face of the clock to shame\nlooking at it; he is thinking of his pay envelope and his intent is to\nkeep the boss located and to do as little work as possible. In many\ncases the tyranny of the employer is to blame for the condition, but\nmore often it is the native outcrop of suspicion that prompts the seller\nto give no more than he can help.\n\nAnd here the sergeant comes in, and with watchful eye and tireless\nnerves, holds the recreants to their tasks. If he is too severe, he will\nfix in the shirks more firmly the shirk microbe; but if he is of better\nfibre, he may supply a little more will to those who lack it, and\ngradually create an atmosphere of right intent, so that the only\ndisgrace will consist in their wearing the face off the regulator and\nkeeping one ear cocked to catch the coming footsteps of the boss.\n\nThere is not the slightest danger that there will ever be an overplus of\nsergeants. Let the sergeant keep out of strikes, plots, feuds, hold his\ntemper and show what's what, and he can name his own salary and keep his\nplace for ninety-nine years without having a contract.\n\n\n\nThe Spirit of the Age\n\nFour hundred and twenty-five years before the birth of the Nazarene,\nSocrates said, \"The gods are on high Olympus, but you and I are here.\"\nAnd for this--and a few other similar observations--be was compelled to\ndrink a substitute for coffee--he was an infidel! Within the last thirty\nyears the churches of Christendom have, in the main, adopted the\nSocratic proposition that you and I are here. That is, we have made\nprogress by getting away from narrow theology and recognizing humanity.\nWe do not know anything about either Olympus or Elysium, but we do know\nsomething about Athens.\n\nAthens is here.\n\nAthens needs us--the Greeks are at the door. Let the gods run Elysium,\nand we'll devote ourselves to Athens.\n\nThis is the prevailing spirit in the churches of America to-day. Our\nreligion is humanitarian, not theological.\n\nA like evolution has come about in medicine. The materia medica of\ntwenty-five years ago is now obsolete. No good doctor now treats\nsymptoms--he neither gives you something to relieve your headache nor to\nsettle your stomach. These are but timely ting-a-lings--Nature's\nwarnings--look out! And the doctor tells you so, and charges you a fee\nsufficient to impress you with the fact that he is no fool, but that\nyou are.\n\nThe lawyer who now gets the largest fees is never seen in a court-room.\nLitigation is now largely given over to damage suits--carried on by\nclients who want something for nothing, and little lawyers, shark-like\nand hungry, who work on contingent fees. Three-fourths of the time of\nall superior and supreme courts is taken up by His Effluvia, who brings\nsuit thru His Bacteria, with His Crabship as chief witness, for damages\nnot due, either in justice or fact.\n\nHow to get rid of this burden, brought upon us by men who have nothing\nto lose, is a question too big for the average legislator. It can only\nbe solved by heroic measures, carried out by lawyers who are out of\npolitics and have a complete indifference for cheap popularity. Here is\nopportunity for men of courage and ability. But the point is this, wise\nbusiness men keep out of court. They arbitrate their differences\n--compromise--they cannot afford to quit their work for the\nsake of getting even. As for making money, they know a better way.\n\nIn theology we are waiving distinctions and devoting ourselves to the\ndivine spirit only as it manifests itself in humanity--we are talking\nless and less about another world and taking more notice of the one we\ninhabit. Of course we occasionally have heresy trials, and pictures of\nthe offender and the Fat Bishop adorn the first page, but heresy trials\nnot accompanied by the scaffold or the faggots are innocuous and\nexceedingly tame.\n\nIn medicine we have more faith in ourselves and less in prescriptions.\n\nIn pedagogy we are teaching more and more by the natural\nmethod--learning by doing--and less and less by means of injunction\nand precept.\n\nIn penology we seek to educate and reform, not to suppress, repress and\npunish.\n\nThat is to say, the gods are on high Olympus--let them stay there.\nAthens is here.\n\n\n\nThe Grammarian\n\nThe best way to learn to write is to write.\n\nHerbert Spencer never studied grammar until he had learned to write. He\ntook his grammar at sixty, which is a good age for one to begin this\nmost interesting study, as by the time you have reached that age you\nhave largely lost your capacity to sin.\n\nMen who can swim exceedingly well are not those who have taken courses\nin the theory of swimming at natatoriums, from professors of the\namphibian art--they were just boys who jumped into the ol' swimmin'\nhole, and came home with shirts on wrong-side out and a tell-tale\ndampness in their hair.\n\nCorrespondence schools for the taming of bronchos are as naught; and\ntreatises on the gentle art of wooing are of no avail--follow\nnature's lead.\n\nGrammar is the appendenda vermiformis of the science of pedagogics: it\nis as useless as the letter q in the alphabet, or the proverbial two\ntails to a cat, which no cat ever had, and the finest cat in the world,\nthe Manx cat, has no tail at all.\n\n\"The literary style of most university men is commonplace, when not\npositively bad,\" wrote Herbert Spencer in his old age.\n\n\"Educated Englishmen all write alike,\" said Taine. That is to say,\neducated men who have been drilled to write by certain fixed and\nunchangeable rules of rhetoric and grammar will produce similar\ncompositions. They have no literary style, for style is individuality\nand character--the style is the man, and grammar tends to obliterate\nindividuality. No study is so irksome to everybody, except the sciolists\nwho teach it, as grammar. It remains forever a bad taste in the mouth of\nthe man of ideas, and has weaned bright minds innumerable from a desire\nto express themselves through the written word.\n\nGrammar is the etiquette of words, and the man who does not know how to\nproperly salute his grandmother on the street until he has consulted a\nbook, is always so troubled about the tenses that his fancies break thru\nlanguage and escape.\n\nThe grammarian is one whose whole thought is to string words according\nto a set formula. The substance itself that he wishes to convey is of\nsecondary importance. Orators who keep their thoughts upon the proper\nway to gesticulate in curves, impress nobody.\n\nIf it were a sin against decency, or an attempt to poison the minds of\nthe people, for a person to be ungrammatical, it might be wise enough\nto hire men to protect the well of English from defilement. But a\nstationary language is a dead one--moving water only is pure--and the\nwell that is not fed by springs is sure to be a breeding-place\nfor disease.\n\nLet men express themselves in their own way, and if they express\nthemselves poorly, look you, their punishment will be that no one will\nread their literary effusions. Oblivion with her smother-blanket lies in\nwait for the writer who has nothing to say and says it faultlessly.\n\nIn the making of hare soup, I am informed by most excellent culinary\nauthority, the first requisite is to catch your hare. The literary\nscullion who has anything to offer a hungry world, will doubtless find a\nway to fricassee it.\n\n\n\nThe Best Religion\n\nA religion of just being kind would be a pretty good religion, don't you\nthink so?\n\nBut a religion of kindness and useful effort is nearly a perfect\nreligion.\n\nWe used to think it was a man's belief concerning a dogma that would fix\nhis place in eternity. This was because we believed that God was a\ngrumpy, grouchy old gentleman, stupid, touchy and dictatorial. A really\ngood man would not damn you even if you didn't like him, but a bad\nman would.\n\nAs our ideas of God changed, we ourselves changed for the better. Or, as\nwe thought better of ourselves we thought better of God. It will be\ncharacter that locates our place in another world, if there is one, just\nas it is our character that fixes our place here.\n\nWe are weaving character every day, and the way to weave the best\ncharacter is to be kind and to be useful.\n\nTHINK RIGHT, ACT RIGHT; IT IS WHAT WE THINK AND DO THAT MAKE US WHAT WE\nARE.\n\nSo here ends LOVE, LIFE AND WORK, being\na book of Essays selected from the writings\nof ELBERT HUBBARD, and done into print by\n_The Roycrofters_ at their Shop at East Aurora,\nwhich is in Erie County, New York, U.S.A.\nCompleted in the month of July, MCMVI\n\n[Illustration: The Roycroft Shop]","title":"Love, Life & Work: Being a Book of Opinions Reasonably Good-Natured Concerning How to Attain the Highest Happiness for One's Self with the Least Possible Harm to Others","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":27751}