{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_6911/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_6911","id":"gutenberg_6911","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6911","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Character","Conduct of life"],"text":"Produced by Curtis A. Weyant, Charles Franks, and the\nDistributed Proofreading Team.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Majesty of Calmness\n\nIndividual Problems\nand Possibilities...\n\nby\n\nWilliam George Jordan\n\nAuthor of \"The Kingship of Self-Control\"\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nI.   THE MAJESTY OF CALMNESS\nII.  HURRY, THE SCOURGE OF AMERICA\nIII. THE POWER OF PERSONAL INFLUENCE\nIV.  THE DIGNITY OF SELF-RELIANCE\nV.   FAILURE AS A SUCCESS\nVI.  DOING OUR BEST AT ALL TIMES\nVII. THE ROYAL ROAD TO HAPPINESS\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nThe Majesty of Calmness\n\n\n\nCalmness is the rarest quality in human life. It is the poise of a\ngreat nature, in harmony with itself and its ideals. It is the moral\natmosphere of a life self-centred, self-reliant, and self-controlled.\nCalmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and conscious\npower,--ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crisis.\n\nThe Sphinx is not a true type of calmness,--petrifaction is not\ncalmness; it is death, the silencing of all the energies; while no one\nlives his life more fully, more intensely and more consciously than the\nman who is calm.\n\nThe Fatalist is not calm. He is the coward slave of his environment,\nhopelessly surrendering to his present condition, recklessly\nindifferent to his future. He accepts his life as a rudderless ship,\ndrifting on the ocean of time. He has no compass, no chart, no known\nport to which he is sailing. His self-confessed inferiority to all\nnature is shown in his existence of constant surrender. It is\nnot,--calmness.\n\nThe man who is calm has his course in life clearly marked on his chart.\nHis hand is ever on the helm. Storm, fog, night, tempest, danger,\nhidden reefs,--he is ever prepared and ready for them. He is made calm\nand serene by the realization that in these crises of his voyage he\nneeds a clear mind and a cool head; that he has naught to do but to do\neach day the best he can by the light he has; that he will never flinch\nnor falter for a moment; that, though he may have to tack and leave his\ncourse for a time, he will never drift, he will get back into the true\nchannel, he will keep ever headed toward his harbor. _When_ he\nwill reach it, _how_ he will reach it, matters not to him. He\nrests in calmness, knowing he has done his best. If his best seem to be\noverthrown or overruled, then he must still bow his head,--in calmness.\nTo no man is permitted to know the future of his life, the finality.\nGod commits to man ever only new beginnings, new wisdom, and new days\nto use the best of his knowledge.\n\nCalmness comes ever from within. It is the peace and restfulness of the\ndepths of our nature. The fury of storm and of wind agitate only the\nsurface of the sea; they can penetrate only two or three hundred\nfeet,--below that is the calm, unruffled deep. To be ready for the great\ncrises of life we must learn serenity in our daily living. Calmness is\nthe crown of self-control.\n\nWhen the worries and cares of the day fret you, and begin to wear upon\nyou, and you chafe under the friction,--be calm. Stop, rest for a\nmoment, and let calmness and peace assert themselves. If you let these\nirritating outside influences get the better of you, you are confessing\nyour inferiority to them, by permitting them to dominate you. Study the\ndisturbing elements, each by itself, bring all the will power of your\nnature to bear upon them, and you will find that they will, one by one,\nmelt into nothingness, like vapors fading before the sun. The glow of\ncalmness that will then pervade your mind, the tingling sensation of an\ninflow of new strength, may be to you the beginning of the revelation\nof the supreme calmness that is possible for you. Then, in some great\nhour of your life, when you stand face to face with some awful trial,\nwhen the structure of your ambition and life-work crumbles in a moment,\nyou will be brave. You can then fold your arms calmly, look out\nundismayed and undaunted upon the ashes of your hope, upon the wreck of\nwhat you have faithfully built, and with brave heart and unfaltering\nvoice you may say: \"So let it be,--I will build again.\"\n\nWhen the tongue of malice and slander, the persecution of inferiority,\ntempts you for just a moment to retaliate, when for an instant you\nforget yourself so far as to hunger for revenge,--be calm. When the\ngrey heron is pursued by its enemy, the eagle, it does not run to\nescape; it remains calm, takes a dignified stand, and waits quietly,\nfacing the enemy unmoved. With the terrific force with which the eagle\nmakes its attack, the boasted king of birds is often impaled and run\nthrough on the quiet, lance-like bill of the heron. The means that man\ntakes to kill another's character becomes suicide of his own.\n\nNo man in the world ever attempted to wrong another without being\ninjured in return,--someway, somehow, sometime. The only weapon of\noffence that Nature seems to recognize is the boomerang. Nature keeps\nher books admirably; she puts down every item, she closes all accounts\nfinally, but she does not always balance them at the end of the month.\nTo the man who is calm, revenge is so far beneath him that he cannot\nreach it,--even by stooping. When injured, he does not retaliate; he\nwraps around him the royal robes of Calmness, and he goes quietly on\nhis way.\n\nWhen the hand of Death touches the one we hold dearest, paralyzes our\nenergy, and eclipses the sun of our life, the calmness that has been\naccumulating in long years becomes in a moment our refuge, our reserve\nstrength.\n\nThe most subtle of all temptations is the _seeming_ success of the\nwicked. It requires moral courage to see, without flinching, material\nprosperity coming to men who are dishonest; to see politicians rise\ninto prominence, power and wealth by trickery and corruption; to see\nvirtue in rags and vice in velvets; to see ignorance at a premium, and\nknowledge at a discount. To the man who is really calm these puzzles of\nlife do not appeal. He is living his life as best he can; he is not\nworrying about the problems of justice, whose solution must be left to\nOmniscience to solve.\n\nWhen man has developed the spirit of Calmness until it becomes so\nabsolutely part of him that his very presence radiates it, he has made\ngreat progress in life. Calmness cannot be acquired of itself and by\nitself; it must come as the culmination of a series of virtues. What\nthe world needs and what individuals need is a higher standard of\nliving, a great realizing sense of the privilege and dignity of life, a\nhigher and nobler conception of individuality.\n\nWith this great sense of calmness permeating an individual, man becomes\nable to retire more into himself, away from the noise, the confusion\nand strife of the world, which come to his ears only as faint, far-off\nrumblings, or as the tumult of the life of a city heard only as a\nbuzzing hum by the man in a balloon.\n\nThe man who is calm does not selfishly isolate himself from the world,\nfor he is intensely interested in all that concerns the welfare of\nhumanity. His calmness is but a Holy of Holies into which he can retire\n_from_ the world to get strength to live _in_ the world. He\nrealizes that the full glory of individuality, the crowning of his\nself-control is,--the majesty of calmness.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nHurry, the Scourge of America\n\n\n\nThe first sermon in the world was preached at the Creation. It was a\nDivine protest against Hurry. It was a Divine object lesson of perfect\nlaw, perfect plan, perfect order, perfect method. Six days of work\ncarefully planned, scheduled and completed were followed by,--rest.\nWhether we accept the story as literal or as figurative, as the account\nof successive days or of ages comprising millions of years, matters\nlittle if we but learn the lesson.\n\nNature is very un-American. Nature never hurries. Every phase of her\nworking shows plan, calmness, reliability, and the absence of hurry.\nHurry always implies lack of definite method, confusion, impatience of\nslow growth. The Tower of Babel, the world's first skyscraper, was a\nfailure because of hurry. The workers mistook their arrogant ambition\nfor inspiration. They had too many builders,--and no architect. They\nthought to make up the lack of a head by a superfluity of hands. This\nis a characteristic of Hurry. It seeks ever to make energy a substitute\nfor a clearly defined plan,--the result is ever as hopeless as trying\nto transform a hobby-horse into a real steed by brisk riding.\n\nHurry is a counterfeit of haste. Haste has an ideal, a distinct aim to\nbe realized by the quickest, direct methods. Haste has a single compass\nupon which it relies for direction and in harmony with which its course\nis determined. Hurry says: \"I must move faster. I will get three\ncompasses; I will have them different; I will be guided by all of them.\nOne of them will probably be right.\" Hurry never realizes that slow,\ncareful foundation work is the quickest in the end.\n\nHurry has ruined more Americans than has any other word in the\nvocabulary of life. It is the scourge of America; and is both a cause\nand a result of our high-pressure civilization. Hurry adroitly assumes\nso many masquerades of disguise that its identity is not always\nrecognized.\n\nHurry always pays the highest price for everything, and, usually the\ngoods are not delivered. In the race for wealth men often sacrifice\ntime, energy, health, home, happiness and honor,--everything that money\ncannot buy, the very things that money can never bring back. Hurry is a\nphantom of paradoxes. Business men, in their desire to provide for the\nfuture happiness of their family, often sacrifice the present happiness\nof wife and children on the altar of Hurry. They forget that their\nplace in the home should be something greater than being merely \"the\nman that pays the bills;\" they expect consideration and thoughtfulness\nthat they are not giving.\n\nWe hear too much of a wife's duties to a husband and too little of the\nother side of the question. \"The wife,\" they tell us, \"should meet her\nhusband with a smile and a kiss, should tactfully watch his moods and\nbe ever sweetness and sunshine.\" Why this continual swinging of the\ncenser of devotion to the man of business? Why should a woman have to\nlook up with timid glance at the face of her husband, to \"size up his\nmood\"? Has not her day, too, been one of care, and responsibility, and\nwatchfulness? Has not mother-love been working over perplexing problems\nand worries of home and of the training of the children that wifely\nlove may make her seek to solve in secret? Is man, then, the weaker sex\nthat he must be pampered and treated as tenderly as a boil trying to\nkeep from contact with the world?\n\nIn their hurry to attain some ambition, to gratify the dream of a life,\nmen often throw honor, truth, and generosity to the winds. Politicians\ndare to stand by and see a city poisoned with foul water until they\n\"see where they come in\" on a water-works appropriation. If it be\nnecessary to poison an army,--that, too, is but an incident in the\nhurry for wealth.\n\nThis is the Age of the Hothouse. The element of natural growth is\npushed to one side and the hothouse and the force-pump are substituted.\nNature looks on tolerantly as she says: \"So far you may go, but no\nfarther, my foolish children.\"\n\nThe educational system of to-day is a monumental institution dedicated\nto Hurry. The children are forced to go through a series of studies\nthat sweep the circle of all human wisdom. They are given everything\nthat the ambitious ignorance of the age can force into their minds;\nthey are taught everything but the essentials,--how to use their senses\nand how to think. Their minds become congested by a great mass of\nundigested facts, and still the cruel, barbarous forcing goes on. You\nwatch it until it seems you cannot stand it a moment longer, and you\ninstinctively put out your hand and say: \"Stop! This modern slaughter\nof the Innocents must _not_ go on!\" Education smiles suavely,\nwaves her hand complacently toward her thousands of knowledge-prisons\nover the country, and says: \"Who are you that dares speak a word\nagainst our sacred, school system?\" Education is in a hurry. Because\nshe fails in fifteen years to do what half the time should accomplish\nby better methods, she should not be too boastful. Incompetence is not\nalways a reason for pride. And they hurry the children into a hundred\ntextbooks, then into ill-health, then into the colleges, then into a\ndiploma, then into life,--with a dazed mind, untrained and unfitted for\nthe real duties of living.\n\nHurry is the deathblow to calmness, to dignity, to poise. The old-time\ncourtesy went out when the new-time hurry came in. Hurry is the father\nof dyspepsia. In the rush of our national life, the bolting of food has\nbecome a national vice. The words \"Quick Lunches\" might properly be\nplaced on thousands of headstones in our cemeteries. Man forgets that\nhe is the only animal that dines; the others merely feed. Why does he\nabrogate his right to dine and go to the end of the line with the mere\nfeeders? His self-respecting stomach rebels, and expresses its\nindignation by indigestion. Then man has to go through life with a\nlittle bottle of pepsin tablets in his vest-pocket. He is but another\nvictim to this craze for speed. Hurry means the breakdown of the\nnerves. It is the royal road to nervous prostration.\n\nEverything that is great in life is the product of slow growth; the\nnewer, and greater, and higher, and nobler the work, the slower is its\ngrowth, the surer is its lasting success. Mushrooms attain their full\npower in a night; oaks require decades. A fad lives its life in a few\nweeks; a philosophy lives through generations and centuries. If you are\nsure you are right, do not let the voice of the world, or of friends,\nor of family swerve you for a moment from your purpose. Accept slow\ngrowth if it must be slow, and know the results _must_ come, as\nyou would accept the long, lonely hours of the night,--with absolute\nassurance that the heavy-leaded moments _must_ bring the morning.\n\nLet us as individuals banish the word \"Hurry\" from our lives. Let us\ncare for nothing so much that we would pay honor and self-respect as\nthe price of hurrying it. Let us cultivate calmness, restfulness,\npoise, sweetness,--doing our best, bearing all things as bravely as we\ncan; living our life undisturbed by the prosperity of the wicked or the\nmalice of the envious. Let us not be impatient, chafing at delay,\nfretting over failure, wearying over results, and weakening under\nopposition. Let us ever turn our face toward the future with confidence\nand trust, with the calmness of a life in harmony with itself, true to\nits ideals, and slowly and constantly progressing toward their\nrealization.\n\nLet us see that cowardly word Hurry in all its most degenerating\nphases, let us see that it ever kills truth, loyalty, thoroughness; and\nlet us determine that, day by day, we will seek more and more to\nsubstitute for it the calmness and repose of a true life, nobly lived.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nThe Power of Personal Influence\n\n\n\nThe only responsibility that a man cannot evade in this life is the one\nhe thinks of least,--his personal influence. Man's conscious influence,\nwhen he is on dress-parade, when he is posing to impress those around\nhim,--is woefully small. But his unconscious influence, the silent,\nsubtle radiation of his personality, the effect of his words and acts,\nthe trifles he never considers,--is tremendous. Every moment of life he\nis changing to a degree the life of the whole world. Every man has an\natmosphere which is affecting every other. So silent and unconsciously\nis this influence working, that man may forget that it exists.\n\nAll the forces of Nature,--heat, light, electricity and\ngravitation,--are silent and invisible. We never _see_ them; we only\nknow that they exist by seeing the effects they produce. In all Nature\nthe wonders of the \"seen\" are dwarfed into insignificance when compared\nwith the majesty and glory of the \"unseen.\" The great sun itself does\nnot supply enough heat and light to sustain animal and vegetable life\non the earth. We are dependent for nearly half of our light and heat\nupon the stars, and the greater part of this supply of life-giving\nenergy comes from _invisible_ stars, millions of miles from the\nearth. In a thousand ways Nature constantly seeks to lead men to a\nkeener and deeper realization of the power and the wonder of the\ninvisible.\n\nInto the hands of every individual is given a marvellous power for good\nor for evil,--the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life.\nThis is simply the constant radiation of what a man really _is_,\nnot what he pretends to be. Every man, by his mere living, is radiating\nsympathy, or sorrow, or morbidness, or cynicism, or happiness, or hope,\nor any of a hundred other qualities. Life is a state of constant\nradiation and absorption; to exist is to radiate; to exist is to be the\nrecipient of radiations.\n\nThere are men and women whose presence seems to radiate sunshine, cheer\nand optimism. You feel calmed and rested and restored in a moment to a\nnew and stronger faith in humanity. There are others who focus in an\ninstant all your latent distrust, morbidness and rebellion against\nlife. Without knowing why, you chafe and fret in their presence. You\nlose your bearings on life and its problems. Your moral compass is\ndisturbed and unsatisfactory. It is made untrue in an instant, as the\nmagnetic needle of a ship is deflected when it passes near great\nmountains of iron ore.\n\nThere are men who float down the stream of life like icebergs,--cold,\nreserved, unapproachable and self-contained. In their presence you\ninvoluntarily draw your wraps closer around you, as you wonder who left\nthe door open. These refrigerated human beings have a most depressing\ninfluence on all those who fall under the spell of their radiated\nchilliness. But there are other natures, warm, helpful, genial, who are\nlike the Gulf Stream, following their own course, flowing undaunted and\nundismayed in the ocean of colder waters. Their presence brings warmth\nand life and the glow of sunshine, the joyous, stimulating breath of\nspring. There are men who are like malarious swamps,--poisonous,\ndepressing and weakening by their very presence. They make heavy,\noppressive and gloomy the atmosphere of their own homes; the sound of\nthe children's play is stilled, the ripples of laughter are frozen by\ntheir presence. They go through life as if each day were a new big\nfuneral, and they were always chief mourners. There are other men who\nseem like the ocean; they are constantly bracing, stimulating, giving\nnew draughts of tonic life and strength by their very presence.\n\nThere are men who are insincere in heart, and that insincerity is\nradiated by their presence. They have a wondrous interest in your\nwelfare,--when they need you. They put on a \"property\" smile so\nsuddenly, when it serves their purpose, that it seems the smile must be\nconnected with some electric button concealed in their clothes. Their\nvoice has a simulated cordiality that long training may have made\nalmost natural. But they never play their part absolutely true, the\nmask _will_ slip down sometimes; their cleverness cannot teach\ntheir eyes the look of sterling honesty; they may deceive some people,\nbut they cannot deceive all. There is a subtle power of revelation\nwhich makes us say: \"Well, I cannot explain how it is, but I know that\nman is not honest.\"\n\nMan cannot escape for one moment from this radiation of his character,\nthis constantly weakening or strengthening of others. He cannot evade\nthe responsibility by saying it is an unconscious influence. He can\n_select_ the qualities that he will permit to be radiated. He can\ncultivate sweetness, calmness, trust, generosity, truth, justice,\nloyalty, nobility,--make them vitally active in his character,--and by\nthese qualities he will constantly affect the world.\n\nDiscouragement often comes to honest souls trying to live the best they\ncan, in the thought that they are doing so little good in the world.\nTrifles unnoted by us may be links in the chain of some great purpose.\nIn 1797, William Godwin wrote The Inquirer, a collection of\nrevolutionary essays on morals and politics. This book influenced\nThomas Malthus to write his Essay on Population, published in 1798.\nMalthus' book suggested to Charles Darwin a point of view upon which he\ndevoted many years of his life, resulting, in 1859, in the publication\nof The Origin of Species,--the most influential book of the nineteenth\ncentury, a book that has revolutionized all science. These were but\nthree links of influence extending over sixty years. It might be\npossible to trace this genealogy of influence back from Godwin, through\ngeneration and generation, to the word or act of some shepherd in early\nBritain, watching his flock upon the hills, living his quiet life, and\ndying with the thought that he had done nothing to help the world.\n\nMen and women have duties to others,--and duties to themselves. In\njustice to ourselves we should refuse to live in an atmosphere that\nkeeps us from living our best. If the fault be in us, we should master\nit. If it be the personal influence of others that, like a noxious\nvapor, kills our best impulses, we should remove from that influence,--if\nwe can _possibly_ move without forsaking duties. If it be wrong\nto move, then we should take strong doses of moral quinine to counteract\nthe malaria of influence. It is not what those around us _do_ for\nus that counts,--it is what they _are_ to us. We carry our house-plants\nfrom one window to another to give them the proper heat, light,\nair and moisture. Should we not be at least as careful of ourselves?\n\nTo make our influence felt we must live our faith, we must practice\nwhat we believe. A magnet does not attract iron, as iron. It must first\nconvert the iron into another magnet before it can attract it. It is\nuseless for a parent to try to teach gentleness to her children when\nshe herself is cross and irritable. The child who is told to be\ntruthful and who hears a parent lie cleverly to escape some little\nsocial unpleasantness is not going to cling very zealously to truth.\nThe parent's words say \"don't lie,\" the influence of the parent's life\nsays \"do lie.\"\n\nNo man can ever isolate himself to evade this constant power of\ninfluence, as no single corpuscle can rebel and escape from the general\ncourse of the blood. No individual is so insignificant as to be without\ninfluence. The changes in our varying moods are all recorded in the\ndelicate barometers of the lives of others. We should ever let our\ninfluence filter through human love and sympathy. We should not be\nmerely an influence,--we should be an inspiration. By our very presence\nwe should be a tower of strength to the hungering human souls around\nus.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nThe Dignity of Self-Reliance\n\n\n\nSelf-confidence, without self-reliance, is as useless as a cooking\nrecipe,--without food. Self-confidence sees the possibilities of the\nindividual; self-reliance realizes them. Self-confidence sees the angel\nin the unhewn block of marble; self-reliance carves it out for himself.\n\nThe man who is self-reliant says ever: \"No one can realize my\npossibilities for me, but me; no one can make me good or evil but\nmyself.\" He works out his own salvation,--financially, socially,\nmentally, physically, and morally. Life is an individual problem that\nman must solve for himself. Nature accepts no vicarious sacrifice, no\nvicarious service. Nature never recognizes a proxy vote. She has\nnothing to do with middle-men,--she deals only with the individual.\nNature is constantly seeking to show man that he is his own best\nfriend, or his own worst enemy. Nature gives man the option on which he\nwill be to himself.\n\nAll the athletic exercises in the world are of no value to the\nindividual unless he compel those bars and dumb-bells to yield to him,\nin strength and muscle, the power for which he, himself, pays in time\nand effort. He can never develop his muscles by sending his valet to a\ngymnasium.\n\nThe medicine-chests of the world are powerless, in all the united\nefforts, to help the individual until he reach out and take for himself\nwhat is needed for his individual weakness.\n\nAll the religions of the world are but speculations in morals, mere\ntheories of salvation, until the individual realize that he must save\nhimself by relying on the law of truth, as he sees it, and living his\nlife in harmony with it, as fully as he can. But religion is not a\nPullman car, with soft-cushioned seats, where he has but to pay for his\nticket,--and some one else does all the rest. In religion, as in all\nother great things, he is ever thrown back on his self-reliance. He\nshould accept all helps, but,--he must live his own life. He should not\nfeel that he is a mere passenger; he is the engineer, and the train is\nhis life. We must rely on ourselves, live our own lives, or we merely\ndrift through existence,--losing all that is best, all that is\ngreatest, all that is divine.\n\nAll that others can do for us is to give us opportunity. We must ever\nbe prepared for the opportunity when it comes, and to go after it and\nfind it when it does not come, or that opportunity is to us,--nothing.\nLife is but a succession of opportunities. They are for good or\nevil,--as we make them.\n\nMany of the alchemists of old felt that they lacked but one element; if\nthey could obtain that one, they believed they could transmute the\nbaser metals into pure gold. It is so in character. There are\nindividuals with rare mental gifts, and delicate spiritual discernment\nwho fail utterly in life because they lack the one\nelement,--self-reliance. This would unite all their energies, and focus\nthem into strength and power.\n\nThe man who is not self-reliant is weak, hesitating and doubting in all\nhe does. He fears to take a decisive step, because he dreads failure,\nbecause he is waiting for some one to advise him or because he dare not\nact in accordance with his own best judgment. In his cowardice and his\nconceit he sees all his non-success due to others. He is \"not\nappreciated,\" \"not recognized,\" he is \"kept down.\" He feels that in\nsome subtle way \"society is conspiring against him.\" He grows almost\nvain as he thinks that no one has had such poverty, such sorrow, such\naffliction, such failure as have come to him.\n\nThe man who is self-reliant seeks ever to discover and conquer the\nweakness within him that keeps him from the attainment of what he holds\ndearest; he seeks within himself the power to battle against all\noutside influences. He realizes that all the greatest men in history,\nin every phase of human effort, have been those who have had to fight\nagainst the odds of sickness, suffering, sorrow. To him, defeat is no\nmore than passing through a tunnel is to a traveller,--he knows he must\nemerge again into the sunlight.\n\nThe nation that is strongest is the one that is most self-reliant, the\none that contains within its boundaries all that its people need. If,\nwith its ports all blockaded it has not within itself the necessities\nof life and the elements of its continual progress then,--it is weak,\nheld by the enemy, and it is but a question of time till it must\nsurrender. Its independence is in proportion to its self-reliance, to\nits power to sustain itself from within. What is true of nations is\ntrue of individuals. The history of nations is but the biography of\nindividuals magnified, intensified, multiplied, and projected on the\nscreen of the past. History is the biography of a nation; biography is\nthe history of an individual. So it must be that the individual who is\nmost strong in any trial, sorrow or need is he who can live from his\ninherent strength, who needs no scaffolding of commonplace sympathy to\nuphold him. He must ever be self-reliant.\n\nThe wealth and prosperity of ancient Rome, relying on her slaves to do\nthe real work of the nation, proved the nation's downfall. The constant\ndependence on the captives of war to do the thousand details of life\nfor them, killed self-reliance in the nation and in the individual.\nThen, through weakened self-reliance and the increased opportunity for\nidle, luxurious ease that came with it, Rome, a nation of fighters,\nbecame,--a nation of men more effeminate than women. As we depend on\nothers to do those things we should do for ourselves, our self-reliance\nweakens and our powers and our control of them becomes continuously\nless.\n\nMan to be great must be self-reliant. Though he may not be so in all\nthings, he must be self-reliant in the one in which he would be great.\nThis self-reliance is not the self-sufficiency of conceit. It is daring\nto stand alone. Be an oak, not a vine. Be ready to give support, but do\nnot crave it; do not be dependent on it. To develop your true\nself-reliance, you must see from the very beginning that life is a battle\nyou must fight for yourself,--you must be your own soldier. You cannot\nbuy a substitute, you cannot win a reprieve, you can never be placed on\nthe retired list. The retired list of life is,--death. The world is\nbusy with its own cares, sorrows and joys, and pays little heed to you.\nThere is but one great password to success,--self-reliance.\n\nIf you would learn to converse, put yourself into positions where you\n_must_ speak. If you would conquer your morbidness, mingle with\nthe bright people around you, no matter how difficult it may be. If you\ndesire the power that some one else possesses, do not envy his\nstrength, and dissipate your energy by weakly wishing his force were\nyours. Emulate the process by which it became his, depend on your\nself-reliance, pay the price for it, and equal power may be yours. The\nindividual must look upon himself as an investment, of untold\npossibilities if rightly developed,--a mine whose resources can never\nbe known but by going down into it and bringing out what is hidden.\n\nMan can develop his self-reliance by seeking constantly to surpass\nhimself. We try too much to surpass others. If we seek ever to surpass\nourselves, we are moving on a uniform line of progress, that gives a\nharmonious unifying to our growth in all its parts. Daniel Morrell, at\none time President of the Cambria Rail Works, that employed 7,000 men\nand made a rail famed throughout the world, was asked the secret of the\ngreat success of the works. \"We have no secret,\" he said, \"but this,--we\nalways try to beat our last batch of rails.\" Competition is good,\nbut it has its danger side. There is a tendency to sacrifice real worth\nto mere appearance, to have seeming rather than reality. But the true\ncompetition is the competition of the individual with himself,--his\npresent seeking to excel his past. This means real growth from within.\nSelf-reliance develops it, and it develops self-reliance. Let the\nindividual feel thus as to his own progress and possibilities, and he\ncan almost create his life as he will. Let him never fall down in\ndespair at dangers and sorrows at a distance; they may be harmless,\nlike Bunyan's stone lions, when he nears them.\n\nThe man who is self-reliant does not live in the shadow of some one\nelse's greatness; he thinks for himself, depends on himself, and acts\nfor himself. In throwing the individual thus back upon himself it is\nnot shutting his eyes to the stimulus and light and new life that come\nwith the warm pressure of the hand, the kindly word and the sincere\nexpressions of true friendship. But true friendship is rare; its great\nvalue is in a crisis,--like a lifeboat. Many a boasted friend has\nproved a leaking, worthless \"lifeboat\" when the storm of adversity\nmight make him useful. In these great crises of life, man is strong\nonly as he is strong from within, and the more he depends on himself\nthe stronger will he become, and the more able will he be to help\nothers in the hour of their need. His very life will be a constant help\nand a strength to others, as he becomes to them a living lesson of the\ndignity of self-reliance.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nFailure as a Success\n\n\n\nIt ofttimes requires heroic courage to face fruitless effort, to take\nup the broken strands of a life-work, to look bravely toward the\nfuture, and proceed undaunted on our way. But what, to our eyes, may\nseem hopeless failure is often but the dawning of a greater success. It\nmay contain in its debris the foundation material of a mighty purpose,\nor the revelation of new and higher possibilities.\n\nSome years ago, it was proposed to send logs from Canada to New York,\nby a new method. The ingenious plan of Mr. Joggins was to bind great\nlogs together by cables and iron girders and to tow the cargo as a\nraft. When the novel craft neared New York and success seemed assured,\na terrible storm arose. In the fury of the tempest, the iron bands\nsnapped like icicles and the angry waters scattered the logs far and\nwide. The chief of the Hydrographic Department at Washington heard of\nthe failure of the experiment, and at once sent word to shipmasters the\nworld over, urging them to watch carefully for these logs which he\ndescribed; and to note the precise location of each in latitude and\nlongitude and the time the observation was made.\n\nHundreds of captains, sailing over the waters of the earth, noted the\nlogs, in the Atlantic Ocean, in the Mediterranean, in the South\nSeas--for into all waters did these venturesome ones travel. Hundreds of\nreports were made, covering a period of weeks and months. These\nobservations were then carefully collated, systematized and tabulated,\nand discoveries were made as to the course of ocean currents that\notherwise would have been impossible. The loss of the Joggins raft was\nnot a real failure, for it led to one of the great discoveries in\nmodern marine geography and navigation.\n\nIn our superior knowledge we are disposed to speak in a patronizing\ntone of the follies of the alchemists of old. But their failure to\ntransmute the baser metals into gold resulted in the birth of\nchemistry. They did not succeed in what they attempted, but they\nbrought into vogue the natural processes of sublimation, filtration,\ndistillation, and crystallization; they invented the alembic, the\nretort, the sand-bath, the water-bath and other valuable instruments.\nTo them is due the discovery of antimony, sulphuric ether and\nphosphorus, the cupellation of gold and silver, the determining of the\nproperties of saltpetre and its use in gunpowder, and the discovery of\nthe distillation of essential oils. This was the success of failure, a\nwondrous process of Nature for the highest growth,--a mighty lesson of\ncomfort, strength, and encouragement if man would only realize and\naccept it.\n\nMany of our failures sweep us to greater heights of success, than we\never hoped for in our wildest dreams. Life is a successive unfolding of\nsuccess from failure. In discovering America Columbus failed\nabsolutely. His ingenious reasoning and experiment led him to believe\nthat by sailing westward he would reach India. Every redman in America\ncarries in his name \"Indian,\" the perpetuation of the memory of the\nfailure of Columbus. The Genoese navigator did not reach India; the\ncargo of \"souvenirs\" he took back to Spain to show to Ferdinand and\nIsabella as proofs of his success, really attested his failure. But the\ndiscovery of America was a greater success than was any finding of a\n\"back-door\" to India.\n\nWhen David Livingstone had supplemented his theological education by a\nmedical course, he was ready to enter the missionary field. For over\nthree years he had studied tirelessly, with all energies concentrated\non one aim,--to spread the gospel in China. The hour came when he was\nready to start out with noble enthusiasm for his chosen work, to\nconsecrate himself and his life to his unselfish ambition. Then word\ncame from China that the \"opium war\" would make it folly to attempt to\nenter the country. Disappointment and failure did not long daunt him;\nhe offered himself as missionary to Africa,--and he was accepted. His\nglorious failure to reach China opened a whole continent to light and\ntruth. His study proved an ideal preparation for his labors as\nphysician, explorer, teacher and evangel in the wilds of Africa.\n\nBusiness reverses and the failure of his partner threw upon the broad\nshoulders and the still broader honor and honesty of Sir Walter Scott a\nburden of responsibility that forced him to write. The failure spurred\nhim to almost super-human effort. The masterpieces of Scotch historic\nfiction that have thrilled, entertained and uplifted millions of his\nfellow-men are a glorious monument on the field of a seeming failure.\n\nWhen Millet, the painter of the \"Angelus\" worked on his almost divine\ncanvas, in which the very air seems pulsing with the regenerating\nessence of spiritual reverence, he was painting against time, he was\nantidoting sorrow, he was racing against death. His brush strokes, put\non in the early morning hours before going to his menial duties as a\nrailway porter, in the dusk like that perpetuated on his canvas,--meant\nstrength, food and medicine for the dying wife he adored. The art\nfailure that cast him into the depths of poverty unified with\nmarvellous intensity all the finer elements of his nature. This rare\nspiritual unity, this purging of all the dross of triviality as he\npassed through the furnace of poverty, trial, and sorrow gave eloquence\nto his brush and enabled him to paint as never before,--as no\nprosperity would have made possible.\n\nFailure is often the turning-point, the pivot of circumstance that\nswings us to higher levels. It may not be financial success, it may not\nbe fame; it may be new draughts of spiritual, moral or mental\ninspiration that will change us for all the later years of our life.\nLife is not really what comes to us, but what we get from it.\n\nWhether man has had wealth or poverty, failure or success, counts for\nlittle when it is past. There is but one question for him to answer, to\nface boldly and honestly as an individual alone with his conscience and\nhis destiny:\n\n\"How will I let that poverty or wealth affect me? If that trial or\ndeprivation has left me better, truer, nobler, then,--poverty has been\nriches, failure has been a success. If wealth has come to me and has\nmade me vain, arrogant, contemptuous, uncharitable, cynical, closing\nfrom me all the tenderness of life, all the channels of higher\ndevelopment, of possible good to my fellow-man, making me the mere\ncustodian of a money-bag, then,--wealth has lied to me, it has been\nfailure, not success; it has not been riches, it has been dark,\ntreacherous poverty that stole from me even Myself.\" All things become\nfor us then what we take from them.\n\nFailure is one of God's educators. It is experience leading man to\nhigher things; it is the revelation of a way, a path hitherto unknown\nto us. The best men in the world, those who have made the greatest real\nsuccesses look back with serene happiness on their failures. The\nturning of the face of Time shows all things in a wondrously\nilluminated and satisfying perspective.\n\nMany a man is thankful to-day that some petty success for which he once\nstruggled, melted into thin air as his hand sought to clutch it.\nFailure is often the rock-bottom foundation of real success. If man, in\na few instances of his life can say, \"Those failures were the best\nthings in the world that could have happened to me,\" should he not face\nnew failures with undaunted courage and trust that the miraculous\nministry of Nature may transform these new stumbling-blocks into new\nstepping-stones?\n\nOur highest hopes, are often destroyed to prepare us for better things.\nThe failure of the caterpillar is the birth of the butterfly; the\npassing of the bud is the becoming of the rose; the death or\ndestruction of the seed is the prelude to its resurrection as wheat. It\nis at night, in the darkest hours, those preceding dawn, that plants\ngrow best, that they most increase in size. May this not be one of\nNature's gentle showings to man of the times when he grows best, of the\ndarkness of failure that is evolving into the sunlight of success. Let\nus fear only the failure of not living the right as we see it, leaving\nthe results to the guardianship of the Infinite.\n\nIf we think of any supreme moment of our lives, any great success, any\none who is dear to us, and then consider how we reached that moment,\nthat success, that friend, we will be surprised and strengthened by the\nrevelation. As we trace each one, back, step by step, through the\ngenealogy of circumstances, we will see how logical has been the course\nof our joy and success, from sorrow and failure, and that what gives us\nmost happiness to-day is inextricably connected with what once caused\nus sorrow. Many of the rivers of our greatest prosperity and growth\nhave had their source and their trickling increase into volume among\nthe dark, gloomy recesses of our failure.\n\nThere is no honest and true work, carried along with constant and\nsincere purpose that ever really fails. If it sometime seem to be\nwasted effort, it will prove to us a new lesson of \"how\" to walk; the\nsecret of our failures will prove to us the inspiration of possible\nsuccesses. Man living with the highest aims, ever as best he can, in\ncontinuous harmony with them, is a success, no matter what statistics\nof failure a near-sighted and half-blind world of critics and\ncommentators may lay at his door.\n\nHigh ideals, noble efforts will make seeming failures but trifles, they\nneed not dishearten us; they should prove sources of new strength. The\nrocky way may prove safer than the slippery path of smoothness. Birds\ncannot fly best with the wind but against it; ships do not progress in\ncalm, when the sails flap idly against the unstrained masts.\n\nThe alchemy of Nature, superior to that of the Paracelsians, constantly\ntransmutes the baser metals of failure into the later pure gold of\nhigher success, if the mind of the worker be kept true, constant and\nuntiring in the service, and he have that sublime courage that defies\nfate to its worst while he does his best.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nDoing Our Best at All Times\n\n\n\nLife is a wondrously complex problem for the individual, until, some\nday, in a moment of illumination, he awakens to the great realization\nthat he can make it simple,--never quite simple, but always simpler.\nThere are a thousand mysteries of right and wrong that have baffled the\nwise men of the ages. There are depths in the great fundamental\nquestions of the human race that no plummet of philosophy has ever\nsounded. There are wild cries of honest hunger for truth that seek to\npierce the silence beyond the grave, but to them ever echo back,--only\na repetition of their unanswered cries.\n\nTo us all, comes, at times, the great note of questioning despair that\ndarkens our horizon and paralyzes our effort: \"If there really be a\nGod, if eternal justice really rule the world,\" we say, \"why should\nlife be as it is? Why do some men starve while others feast; why does\nvirtue often languish in the shadow while vice triumphs in the\nsunshine; why does failure so often dog the footsteps of honest effort,\nwhile the success that comes from trickery and dishonor is greeted with\nthe world's applause? How is it that the loving father of one family is\ntaken by death, while the worthless incumbrance of another is spared?\nWhy is there so much unnecessary pain, sorrowing and suffering in the\nworld--why, indeed, should there be any?\"\n\nNeither philosophy nor religion can give any final satisfactory answer\nthat is capable of logical demonstration, of absolute proof. There is\never, even after the best explanations, a residuum of the unexplained.\nWe must then fall back in the eternal arms of faith, and be wise enough\nto say, \"I will not be disconcerted by these problems of life, I will\nnot permit them to plunge me into doubt, and to cloud my life with\nvagueness and uncertainty. Man arrogates much to himself when he\ndemands from the Infinite the full solution of all His mysteries. I\nwill found my life on the impregnable rock of a simple fundamental\ntruth:--'This glorious creation with its millions of wondrous phenomena\npulsing ever in harmony with eternal law must have a Creator, that\nCreator must be omniscient and omnipotent. But that Creator Himself\ncannot, in justice, demand of any creature more than the best that that\nindividual can give.' I will do each day, in every moment, the best I\ncan by the light I have; I will ever seek more light, more perfect\nillumination of truth, and ever live as best I can in harmony with the\ntruth as I see it. If failure come I will meet it bravely; if my\npathway then lie in the shadow of trial, sorrow and suffering, I shall\nhave the restful peace and the calm strength of one who has done his\nbest, who can look back upon the past with no pang of regret, and who\nhas heroic courage in facing the results, whatever they be, knowing\nthat he could not make them different.\"\n\nUpon this life-plan, this foundation, man may erect any superstructure\nof religion or philosophy that he conscientiously can erect; he should\nadd to his equipment for living every shred of strength and\ninspiration, moral, mental or spiritual that is in his power to secure.\nThis simple working faith is opposed to no creed, is a substitute for\nnone; it is but a primary belief, a citadel, a refuge where the\nindividual can retire for strength when the battle of life grows hard.\n\nA mere theory of life, that remains but a theory, is about as useful to\na man, as a gilt-edged menu is to a starving sailor on a raft in\nmid-ocean. It is irritating but not stimulating. No rule for higher living\nwill help a man in the slightest, until he reach out and appropriate it\nfor himself, until he make it practical in his daily life, until that\nseed of theory in his mind blossom into a thousand flowers of thought\nand word and act.\n\nIf a man honestly seeks to live his best at all times, that\ndetermination is visible in every moment of his living, no trifle in\nhis life can be too insignificant to reflect his principle of living.\nThe sun illuminates and beautifies a fallen leaf by the roadside as\nimpartially as a towering mountain peak in the Alps. Every drop of\nwater in the ocean is an epitome of the chemistry of the whole ocean;\nevery drop is subject to precisely the same laws as dominate the united\ninfinity of billions of drops that make that miracle of Nature, men\ncall the Sea. No matter how humble the calling of the individual, how\nuninteresting and dull the round of his duties, he should do his best.\nHe should dignify what he is doing by the mind he puts into it, he\nshould vitalize what little he has of power or energy or ability or\nopportunity, in order to prepare himself to be equal to higher\nprivileges when they come. This will never lead man to that weak\ncontent that is satisfied with whatever falls to his lot. It will\nrather fill his mind with that divine discontent that cheerfully\naccepts the best,--merely as a temporary substitute for something\nbetter.\n\nThe man who is seeking ever to do his best is the man who is keen,\nactive, wide-awake, and aggressive. He is ever watchful of himself in\ntrifles; his standard is not \"What will the world say?\" but \"Is it\nworthy of me?\"\n\nEdwin Booth, one of the greatest actors on the American stage, would\nnever permit himself to assume an ungraceful attitude, even in his\nhours of privacy. In this simple thing, he ever lived his best. On the\nstage every move was one of unconscious grace. Those of his company who\nwere conscious of their motions were the awkward ones, who were seeking\nin public to undo or to conceal the carelessness of the gestures and\nmotions of their private life. The man who is slipshod and thoughtless\nin his daily speech, whose vocabulary is a collection of anaemic\ncommonplaces, whose repetitions of phrases and extravagance of\ninterjections act but as feeble disguises to his lack of ideas, will\nnever be brilliant on an occasion when he longs to outshine the stars.\nLiving at one's best is constant preparation for instant use. It can\nnever make one over-precise, self-conscious, affected, or priggish.\nEducation, in its highest sense, is _conscious_ training of mind\nor body to act _unconsciously_. It is conscious formation of\nmental habits, not mere acquisition of information.\n\nOne of the many ways in which the individual unwisely eclipses himself,\nis in his worship of the fetich of luck. He feels that all others are\nlucky, and that whatever he attempts, fails. He does not realize the\nuntiring energy, the unremitting concentration, the heroic courage, the\nsublime patience that is the secret of some men's success. Their \"luck\"\nwas that they had prepared themselves to be equal to their opportunity\nwhen it came and were awake to recognize it and receive it. His own\nopportunity came and departed unnoted, it would not waken him from his\ndreams of some untold wealth that would fall into his lap. So he grows\ndiscouraged and envies those whom he should emulate, and he bandages\nhis arm and chloroforms his energies, and performs his duties in a\nperfunctory way, or he passes through life, just ever \"sampling\" lines\nof activity.\n\nThe honest, faithful struggler should always realize that failure is\nbut an episode in a true man's life,--never the whole story. It is\nnever easy to meet, and no philosophy can make it so, but the steadfast\ncourage to master conditions, instead of complaining of them, will help\nhim on his way; it will ever enable him to get the best out of what he\nhas. He never knows the long series of vanquished failures that give\nsolidity to some one else's success; he does not realize the price that\nsome rich man, the innocent football of political malcontents and\ndemagogues, has heroicly paid for wealth and position.\n\nThe man who has a pessimist's doubt of all things; who demands a\ncertified guarantee of his future; who ever fears his work will not be\nrecognized or appreciated; or that after all, it is really not worth\nwhile, will never live his best. He is dulling his capacity for real\nprogress by his hypnotic course of excuses for inactivity, instead of a\nstrong tonic of reasons for action.\n\nOne of the most weakening elements in the individual make-up is the\nsurrender to the oncoming of years. Man's self-confidence dims and dies\nin the fear of age. \"This new thought,\" he says of some suggestion\ntending to higher development, \"is good; it is what we need. I am glad\nto have it for my children; I would have been happy to have had some\nsuch help when I was at school, but it is too late for me. I am a man\nadvanced in years.\"\n\nThis is but blind closing of life to wondrous possibilities. The knell\nof lost opportunity is never tolled in this life. It is never too late\nto recognize truth and to live by it. It requires only greater effort,\ncloser attention, deeper consecration; but the impossible does not\nexist for the man who is self-confident and is willing to pay the price\nin time and struggle for his success or development. Later in life, the\nassessments are heavier in progress, as in life insurance, but that\nmatters not to that mighty self-confidence that _will_ not grow\nold while knowledge can keep it young.\n\nSocrates, when his hair whitened with the snow of age, learned to play\non instruments of music. Cato, at fourscore, began his study of Greek,\nand the same age saw Plutarch beginning, with the enthusiasm of a boy,\nhis first lessons in Latin. The Character of Man, Theophrastus'\ngreatest work, was begun on his ninetieth birthday. Chaucer's\nCanterbury Tales was the work of the poet's declining years. Ronsard,\nthe father of French poetry, whose sonnets even translation cannot\ndestroy, did not develop his poetic faculty until nearly fifty.\nBenjamin Franklin at this age had just taken his really first steps of\nimportance in philosophic pursuits. Arnauld, the theologian and sage,\ntranslated Josephus in his eightieth year. Winckelmann, one of the most\nfamous writers on classic antiquities, was the son of a shoemaker, and\nlived in obscurity and ignorance until the prime of life. Hobbes, the\nEnglish philosopher, published his version of the Odyssey in his\neighty-seventh year, and his Iliad one year later. Chevreul, the great\nFrench scientist, whose untiring labors in the realm of color have so\nenriched the world, was busy, keen and active when Death called him, at\nthe age of 103.\n\nThese men did not fear age; these few names from the great muster-roll\nof the famous ones who defied the years, should be voices of hope and\nheartening to every individual whose courage and confidence is weak.\nThe path of truth, higher living, truer development in every phase of\nlife, is never shut from the individual--until he closes it himself.\nLet man feel this, believe it and make this faith a real and living\nfactor in his life and there are no limits to his progress. He has but\nto live his best at all times, and rest calm and untroubled no matter\nwhat results come to his efforts. The constant looking backward to what\nmight have been, instead of forward to what may be, is a great weakener\nof self-confidence. This worry for the old past, this wasted energy,\nfor that which no power in the world can restore, ever lessens the\nindividual's faith in himself, weakens his efforts to develop himself\nfor the future to the perfection of his possibilities.\n\nNature in her beautiful love and tenderness, says to man, weakened and\nworn and weary with the struggle, \"Do in the best way you can the\ntrifle that is under your hand at this moment; do it in the best spirit\nof preparation for the future your thought suggests; bring all the\nlight of knowledge from all the past to aid you. Do this and you have\ndone your best. The past is forever closed to you. It is closed forever\nto you. No worry, no struggle, no suffering, no agony of despair can\nalter it. It is as much beyond your power as if it were a million years\nof eternity behind you. Turn all that past, with its sad hours,\nweakness and sin, its wasted opportunities as light; in confidence and\nhope, upon the future. Turn it all in fuller truth and light so as to\nmake each trifle of this present a new past it will be joy to look back\nto; each trifle a grander, nobler, and more perfect preparation for the\nfuture. The present and the future you can make from it, is yours; the\npast has gone back, with all its messages, all its history, all its\nrecords to the God who loaned you the golden moments to use in\nobedience to His law.\"\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nThe Royal Road to Happiness\n\n\n\n\"During my whole life I have not had twenty-four hours of happiness.\" So\nsaid Prince Bismarck, one of the greatest statesmen of the nineteenth\ncentury. Eighty-three years of wealth, fame, honors, power, influence,\nprosperity and triumph,--years when he held an empire in his\nfingers,--but not one day of happiness!\n\nHappiness is the greatest paradox in Nature. It can grow in any soil,\nlive under any conditions. It defies environment. It comes from within;\nit is the revelation of the depths of the inner life as light and heat\nproclaim the sun from which they radiate. Happiness consists not of\nhaving, but of being; not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is the\nwarm glow of a heart at peace with itself. A martyr at the stake may\nhave happiness that a king on his throne might envy. Man is the creator\nof his own happiness; it is the aroma of a life lived in harmony with\nhigh ideals. For what a man _has_, he may be dependent on others;\nwhat he _is_, rests with him alone. What he _ob_tains in life\nis but acquisition; what he _at_tains, is growth. Happiness is the\nsoul's joy in the possession of the intangible. Absolute, perfect,\ncontinuous happiness in life, is impossible for the human. It would\nmean the consummation of attainments, the individual consciousness of a\nperfectly fulfilled destiny. Happiness is paradoxic because it may\ncoexist with trial, sorrow and poverty. It is the gladness of the\nheart,--rising superior to all conditions.\n\nHappiness has a number of under-studies,--gratification, satisfaction,\ncontent, and pleasure,--clever imitators that simulate its appearance\nrather than emulate its method. Gratification is a harmony between our\ndesires and our possessions. It is ever incomplete, it is the thankful\nacceptance of part. It is a mental pleasure in the quality of what one\nreceives, an unsatisfiedness as to the quantity. It may be an element\nin happiness, but, in itself,--it is not happiness.\n\nSatisfaction is perfect identity of our desires and our possessions. It\nexists only so long as this perfect union and unity can be preserved.\nBut every realized ideal gives birth to new ideals, every step in\nadvance reveals large domains of the unattained; every feeding\nstimulates new appetites,--then the desires and possessions are no\nlonger identical, no longer equal; new cravings call forth new\nactivities, the equipoise is destroyed, and dissatisfaction reenters.\nMan might possess everything tangible in the world and yet not be\nhappy, for happiness is the satisfying of the soul, not of the mind or\nthe body. Dissatisfaction, in its highest sense, is the keynote of all\nadvance, the evidence of new aspirations, the guarantee of the\nprogressive revelation of new possibilities.\n\nContent is a greatly overrated virtue. It is a kind of diluted despair;\nit is the feeling with which we continue to accept substitutes, without\nstriving for the realities. Content makes the trained individual\nswallow vinegar and try to smack his lips as if it were wine. Content\nenables one to warm his hands at the fire of a past joy that exists\nonly in memory. Content is a mental and moral chloroform that deadens\nthe activities of the individual to rise to higher planes of life and\ngrowth. Man should never be contented with anything less than the best\nefforts of his nature can possibly secure for him. Content makes the\nworld more comfortable for the individual, but it is the death-knell of\nprogress. Man should be content with each step of progress merely as a\nstation, discontented with it as a destination; contented with it as a\nstep; discontented with it as a finality. There are times when a man\nshould be content with what he _has_, but never with what he\n_is_.\n\nBut content is not happiness; neither is pleasure. Pleasure is\ntemporary, happiness is continuous; pleasure is a note, happiness is a\nsymphony; pleasure may exist when conscience utters protests;\nhappiness,--never. Pleasure may have its dregs and its lees; but none\ncan be found in the cup of happiness.\n\nMan is the only animal that can be really happy. To the rest of the\ncreation belong only weak imitations of the understudies. Happiness\nrepresents a peaceful attunement of a life with a standard of living.\nIt can never be made by the individual, by himself, for himself. It is\none of the incidental by-products of an unselfish life. No man can make\nhis own happiness the one object of his life and attain it, any more\nthan he can jump on the far end of his shadow. If you would hit the\nbull's-eye of happiness on the target of life, aim above it. Place\nother things higher than your own happiness and it will surely come to\nyou. You can buy pleasure, you can acquire content, you can become\nsatisfied,--but Nature never put real happiness on the bargain-counter.\nIt is the undetachable accompaniment of true living. It is calm and\npeaceful; it never lives in an atmosphere of worry or of hopeless\nstruggle.\n\nThe basis of happiness is the love of something outside self. Search\nevery instance of happiness in the world, and you will find, when all\nthe incidental features are eliminated, there is always the constant,\nunchangeable element of love,--love of parent for child; love of man\nand woman for each other; love of humanity in some form, or a great\nlife work into which the individual throws all his energies.\n\nHappiness is the voice of optimism, of faith, of simple, steadfast\nlove. No cynic or pessimist can be really happy. A cynic is a man who\nis morally near-sighted,--and brags about it. He sees the evil in his\nown heart, and thinks he sees the world. He lets a mote in his eye\neclipse the sun. An incurable cynic is an individual who should long\nfor death,--for life cannot bring him happiness, death might. The\nkeynote of Bismarck's lack of happiness was his profound distrust of\nhuman nature.\n\nThere is a royal road to happiness; it lies in Consecration,\nConcentration, Conquest and Conscience.\n\nConsecration is dedicating the individual life to the service of\nothers, to some noble mission, to realizing some unselfish ideal. Life\nis not something to be lived _through_; it is something to be\nlived _up to_. It is a privilege, not a penal servitude of so many\ndecades on earth. Consecration places the object of life above the mere\nacquisition of money, as a finality. The man who is unselfish, kind,\nloving, tender, helpful, ready to lighten the burden of those around\nhim, to hearten the struggling ones, to forget himself sometimes in\nremembering others,--is on the right road to happiness. Consecration is\never active, bold and aggressive, fearing naught but possible\ndisloyalty to high ideals.\n\nConcentration makes the individual life simpler and deeper. It cuts\naway the shams and pretences of modern living and limits life to its\ntruest essentials. Worry, fear, useless regret,--all the great wastes\nthat sap mental, moral or physical energy must be sacrificed, or the\nindividual needlessly destroys half the possibilities of living. A\ngreat purpose in life, something that unifies the strands and threads\nof each day's thinking, something that takes the sting from the petty\ntrials, sorrows, sufferings and blunders of life, is a great aid to\nConcentration. Soldiers in battle may forget their wounds, or even be\nunconscious of them, in the inspiration of battling for what they\nbelieve is right. Concentration dignifies an humble life; it makes a\ngreat life,--sublime. In morals it is a short-cut to simplicity. It\nleads to right for right's sake, without thought of policy or of\nreward. It brings calm and rest to the individual,--a serenity that is\nbut the sunlight of happiness.\n\nConquest is the overcoming of an evil habit, the rising superior to\nopposition and attack, the spiritual exaltation that comes from\nresisting the invasion of the grovelling material side of life.\nSometimes when you are worn and weak with the struggle; when it seems\nthat justice is a dream, that honesty and loyalty and truth count for\nnothing, that the devil is the only good paymaster; when hope grows dim\nand flickers, then is the time when you must tower in the great sublime\nfaith that Right must prevail, then must you throttle these imps of\ndoubt and despair, you must master yourself to master the world around\nyou. This is Conquest; this is what counts. Even a log can float with\nthe current, it takes a man to fight sturdily against an opposing tide\nthat would sweep his craft out of its course. When the jealousies, the\npetty intrigues and the meannesses and the misunderstandings in life\nassail you,--rise above them. Be like a lighthouse that illumines and\nbeautifies the snarling, swashing waves of the storm that threaten it,\nthat seek to undermine it and seek to wash over it. This is Conquest.\nWhen the chance to win fame, wealth, success or the attainment of your\nheart's desire, by sacrifice of honor or principle, comes to you and it\ndoes not affect you long enough even to seem a temptation, you have\nbeen the victor. That too is Conquest. And Conquest is part of the\nroyal road to Happiness.\n\nConscience, as the mentor, the guide and compass of every act, leads\never to Happiness. When the individual can stay alone with his\nconscience and get its approval, without using force or specious logic,\nthen he begins to know what real Happiness is. But the individual must\nbe careful that he is not appealing to a conscience perverted or\ndeadened by the wrongdoing and subsequent deafness of its owner. The\nman who is honestly seeking to live his life in Consecration,\nConcentration and Conquest, living from day to day as best he can, by\nthe light he has, may rely explicitly on his Conscience. He can shut\nhis ears to \"what the world says\" and find in the approval of his own\nconscience the highest earthly tribune,--the voice of the Infinite\ncommuning with the Individual.\n\nUnhappiness is the hunger to get; Happiness is the hunger to give. True\nhappiness must ever have the tinge of sorrow outlived, the sense of\npain softened by the mellowing years, the chastening of loss that in\nthe wondrous mystery of time transmutes our suffering into love and\nsympathy with others.\n\nIf the individual should set out for a single day to give Happiness, to\nmake life happier, brighter and sweeter, not for himself, but for\nothers, he would find a wondrous revelation of what Happiness really\nis. The greatest of the world's heroes could not by any series of acts\nof heroism do as much real good as any individual living his whole life\nin seeking, from day to day, to make others happy.\n\nEach day there should be fresh resolution, new strength, and renewed\nenthusiasm. \"Just for Today\" might be the daily motto of thousands of\nsocieties throughout the country, composed of members bound together to\nmake the world better through constant simple acts of kindness,\nconstant deeds of sweetness and love. And Happiness would come to them,\nin its highest and best form, not because they would seek to\n_absorb_ it, but,--because they seek to _radiate_ it.","title":"The Majesty of Calmness; individual problems and posibilities","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":11394}