IX Negative Fundamentals
At one of the great official receptions at the White House one night some years ago, a group of two or three gentlemen were observing the swirling throng, with its ambitions, its jealousies, its brief flashes of happiness, its numberless and infinitesimal intrigues, its atmosphere of jaded, blasé, and defeated expectations.
One of the group was perhaps the greatest master of that mere political craft and that management of men for the ordinary uses of politics, as we employ the word, that the country has yet produced. He was a sage of human nature. It was this quality, combined with many other qualities, and the existence of certain conditions, that made him the power that he was. From a practical point of view, what he said about men was always worth while.
“No, I don’t consider him effective,” said this great politician when asked his opinion of a certain very prominent man in public life, who had just entered, and who was chatting and occasionally laughing with some boisterousness. “Really, he talks too much. Not that he betrays his confidences; not even that he annoys, for what he says is always bright; but—he talks too much; that is all.”
“It’s a pity,” said one of the group, who was a famous Washington newspaper correspondent, “that that man has never married.”
He was talking of another very strong professional and political man who had reached more than forty years of age and was still a bachelor. “He needs the finer sense and restraining influence of woman in his life.”
The remark of the first speaker instantly recalled an observation made several years ago by another very astute—even great—politician in the minor and narrow sense of that word. He was at that time a candidate for the nomination for President, and, according to all the tricks of the game of politics, should have won it; but he failed, as, it seems, with two exceptions, all mere politicians have failed in securing that most exalted office in the world.
This political candidate actually knew the leading men in each state, and in each part of each state—so careful and thorough had been his purely personal preparation. “How is Mr. ——, of ——, in your state? I hope he is well. He is a keen and persistent man,” was his inquiry of and comment on a certain man. And he asked questions concerning three or four. Among them he said: “And Mr. ——, of your state; how is his health? He is very brilliant, yes, even able, but—he drinks too much.”
Three generalizations may justly be deducted from the above discursive talk. They are practically the ones with which for many years I have been impressed—namely, that that man will be of very little present use, and of no permanent and ultimate value to the world or to himself, who drinks too much, who talks too much, or who thinks he can get along without the ennobling influence of women.
Let us take them one at a time. A young man could hardly do a more fatal thing than to fall into the habit of taking stimulants. This is no temperance lecture. It is merely a summary of suggestions, by observing which the young man may avoid a few of the rocks in his necessarily rugged pathway to success. I emphasized this in two preceding chapters and shall reiterate it again and again; for I am trying to say a helpful word to you; and all your talents will be folly and all your toil the labor of Sisyphus if you companion with the bottle.
The belief sometimes entertained, that it is necessary to drink in order to impress your sociability upon companions who also drink, is utterly erroneous. One day a dinner was given by one of the great lawyers of this country in honor of another lawyer of distinction, and among those present was a young man of promise who at that time was considerably in the public eye.
The dinner began with a cocktail, and the young man was the only one of the brilliant company who did not drink it. He was not ostentatious in his refusal, but merely lifted the glass to his lips and then set it down with the others. Nor did he take any wine throughout the dinner. The incident was noticed by only a few, and those few chanced to meet at a club the next day. The young man was the topic of their conversation.
“Well,” said the great lawyer, “a young man who has enough self-restraint to deny himself as that young man did, and who at the same time is so scintillating in speech, so genuine and original in thought, and so charming in manner, has in him simply tremendous possibilities. I have not been so impressed in a long time as I was by his refraining from drinking.”
This incident is related simply to show that a young man loses nothing in the esteem of those who themselves drink by declining to join them.
I repeat, this is no temperance lecture. I know perfectly well that some of the strongest men in business and politics and literary life in this country take wine occasionally at the dinner-table and elsewhere. Nor are they to be condemned for it. But this paper is meant to contain vital suggestions to young men with life’s possibilities and difficulties before them.
It is so entirely uncertain whether you have the will in you to keep your hands very firmly on the reins of the wild horses of habit. It is so utterly unknown to you whether you may not have inherited from an ancestor, even very remote, an inflammable blood which, once touched by stimulant, is ever after on fire.
You risk too much, and you risk it needlessly. My earnest advice is not to try it. I will leave to the doctors the description of its effect on nerve and brain, and to common observation the universal testimony to the peculiar blurring of judgment which stimulant of any kind usually produces. Besides, it is a very bad thing for a young man to get a reputation for.
I have concluded, after very careful observation, that there is a mighty change being wrought in this habit, and that a great majority of the young men who are now the masters of affairs are abstainers. In short, drinking will soon be out of style, and very bad form.
Consider these illustrations: I know a young man who is just forty years of age and who is practically the head of one of the greatest business institutions in the world. He has worked his way to that position by ability, character, and untiring industry, from the very humblest position in his company’s service. He is a total abstainer.
I know another, also just forty, who is president of one of the largest banks in America. When I first knew him, very many years ago, he occupied the position of cashier in a comparatively obscure financial house. Merit alone has placed him where he is now. He had no friends when he began, no “influence,” hardly an acquaintance. But he had himself, clear brained and steady pulsed—and that was enough. He, too, does not touch stimulants of any kind.
Or, to get out of that class of occupations—one of the most successful political “bosses” in this country, a man who makes politics his profession, and who, just past forty, is in control of the political machine of one of our great cities, rose to that position, by ability alone, from the occupation of a street-car driver. He also is a total abstainer.
Not only do any of these three young men not drink—also they neither smoke nor swear. And they are types of twentieth century success. The “stein-on-the-table-and-a-good-song-ringing-clear” kind of man is out of date.
You see, so nerve-consuming are all the activities of modern life that only the very highest types of effectiveness succeed. Brain of ice, hand of steel, heart of fire, clear vision, and cold, steady grasp of the lever and masterful, and yet a passionate relentlessness—these are necessary. Stimulants destroy effectiveness; that is the trouble with them. And you need every ounce of your power. Do not let the people who talk “moderation” to you persuade you otherwise. We find many such in what is called “society,” where the taking of wine moderately is universal.
I repeat that you cannot tell what your powers of resistance are. Unfortunately, many of the world’s noblest characters have had nerves so finely wrought and brain so vivid that a single drop of stimulant started a perfect conflagration within them. One of the ablest men this country has ever known, when questioned by a friend as to what had been the greatest pleasure of his life, said: “The greatest ‘pleasure’ of my life is the delirium of intoxication”; and then he went on to say how sure he was that if the fires of desire had never been lighted in his blood he would have done better work.
All of us can recall such examples in our own experience. Don’t risk it, therefore, young man. Why take the chance? for even if you discover no taste for it, you will find that there is nothing in it, after all. Why this hazard of your powers, just to find out whether you can resist? It is a one-sided gamble, is it not? Even fools refuse to play when they know that the dice may be loaded.
Don’t think that you have got to be a great public man, or a big politician, or a celebrated scientist, or distinguished in any line, before these practical truths apply to you. You must build your whole life upon them from the very beginning. For example, I know a man who for several years has been exercising ever-increasing power in his State. He selects his lieutenants with greatest possible care, consulting with trained advisers about the qualifications of each man to whom any political work is to be trusted.
Very well. The first question asked always is, “Does he drink?” If he does, that fact strikes a black line through his name. He is no longer considered, no matter how capable and energetic he may be otherwise. For, ordinarily, another man just as effective can be found who does not have this defect.
This entire chapter could be taken up with these instances; and the increasing number of them, the remarks I have quoted of that master of worldly wisdom at the White House reception, the observation of the great politician about the strong man of his party in another state, fairly justify, I think, a suggestion to young men that as a practical, worldly, and business matter they had better use no stimulants, either alcoholic or others, for others are just as bad, or worse, than the former. Indeed, alcohol and other various forms of wines and other like stimulants have had a disproportionate amount of abuse heaped upon them. Let the young man look out for all kinds of stimulants.
Weariness, exhaustion even, is no excuse. If you are tired, take a rest. If your natural energy is not equal to your task, take a lesser task. There is nothing more melancholy than the spectacle of men, young or old, attempting things out of proportion to themselves. It is hard to gage what is beyond one’s natural powers, it is true. But if you feel the need of stimulants to keep you up to the level of your work, that is at least one unfailing test of your limitations. I must repeat, for the third time, that all of this advice—no, let us say suggestion—is made only as a matter of practical help to young men trying to get on in the world.
It is the mere business side of the question at which we are looking now, for it is business itself that is working this change. People do not want a lawyer whose brain is not clear, a doctor, dealing with life and death, whose perceptions are not steady and natural. People refuse to ride on trains hauled by engineers who may be drinking, and so on. It is all a matter of cold-blooded business.
The conditions and requirements of modern society are coming to demand greater and greater sobriety from those in responsible places, no matter whether at the head of a party or a railway train. The spiritual phase, the medical view, the moral, social, and economic sides of the question I would not, under any circumstances, assume to deal with. On all these there are various views, none of which would I undertake to weigh or judge.
And excessive talking! Don’t indulge in that either. Politicians are not the only ones who think interminable talk an indication of weakness. I knew a liveryman who was also a great horse-trader. Said he: “I shy clear across the road when a tonguey man tries to deal with me.”
Of course, reserve in speech, particularly in conversation, is so ancient and favorite a subject of the giver of advice that it is now commonplace. Literature is full of it. Shakespeare nearly reaches the crest of it in the advice Polonius gave to his son. But here, as always, the very climax is the Bible.
“Let your communication be Yea, yea; Nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.”
This is not advice to taciturnity. It is not a suggestion that you should be stolid and wooden in manner and speech. The reason of it is to prevent you from making mistakes or betraying yourself by foolish and unnecessary utterance. My suggestion to young men that they practise reserve in speech is merely a practical and almost a commercial matter. Do not be “a man full of talk,” as Zophar cuttingly puts it.
There is a loss of authority that comes from incessant talking. There is a surrender of dignity, which is one of the most influential things in man’s attitude toward and in connection with his fellows. Silence, or rather reserve, gives a kind of emphasis to what you do. To a great many, also, there is an index of your character in the quantity of your speech. It is so refreshing to meet a man from whom you draw the feeling that he is as deep and as full as the seven seas.
This will never be drawn from any man whose talk is continuous, no matter if he is an encyclopedia of information and a battery of brilliancy. A man may be as comprehensive and profound as the oceans; the point is, that other men will not easily be made to believe it. His continued sparkle suggests a champagne bottle with its limitations, rather than the illimitable deep. A good deal of this is unjust, and comes from the universal egotism of mankind. Most men like to feel themselves both brilliant and copious; and they want you to listen to them. Very well—you do it; you listen to them.
There is a suggestion of wisdom in reserve of speech which may be altogether out of proportion to the facts. Are we not all continually quoting with approval Sir Walter Raleigh’s line:
“The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb.”
Many a silent man is as shallow as he is silent—but he may be as deep also; and because he gives no sign as to whether he is deep or shallow, and because his silence offends no one and is not in the way of those who want to talk, he is given credit for profundity.
We all know the story of the worn-out, world-tired club-man who said he was looking for a man who was really wise, really experienced, and really deep. At last he felt that he had found him in another club-man—very handsome, especially full of forehead and broad between the eyes, perfectly groomed, and silent to the point of stillness. The Searcher for a Wise Man tried to engage him in conversation on a hundred different subjects. His attempts met with failure; which made a still deeper impression.
But at a certain dinner one night, where both of these men were guests, the club-man arranged to have the silent one sit next to him. Every attempt was still a failure. Nothing more than “Yes” or “No” could be gotten from the deep one. But when shrimps were brought on, the supposedly great man colored with pleasure, and said: “Hey, shrimps! Them’s the dandies!” The illusion dissolved.
I do not know whose story this is, but it illustrates my point so well that I appropriate it. In other words, your permanent attitude, your continuous impression on the world, is one of your assets, just as your ability is, just as your character is; and discretion in speech is a matter of great moment as affecting this impression. I use the term continuous attitude and impression, because it is a small matter what your temporary and transient impression is. If it becomes necessary, talk to any extent required, no matter what the immediate impression may be. But it is the stream and continuity of your life of which I am now speaking.
The three distinguished successes cited a moment ago in financial and political life do not drink, smoke, or swear. Mark that latter fact—they do not swear. I repeat again that this is no Sunday-school lecture, but the plainest kind of a talk on practical methods of success. The money you will lay aside in bank, or the property you will accumulate, is one kind of an asset; but the respect of men, the confidence of a community, is an asset also, and a more valuable one. Very well. An oath never yet created respect for any man who used it.
Even men who are habitually profane always feel a contemptuous yet pitying regret when they hear a foul word fall from a mouth they expected to be clean. You want people you live among to believe in you. They are not going to believe in you spontaneously. You are on trial every day of your first few years among them. As you go in and out among them they acquire a confidence in you which finally grows into an unquestioning faith. Beware how you start, in the minds of men whose good-will you must have, a question as to whether their good opinion of you is justified or not. Profanity will create such a question.
I remember having heard the most promising young lawyer in a certain town swear in the presence of a conservative old banker who had begun to “take the young man up” and was giving him some business. The gray-bearded man of money made no comment, but I noted a slight lifting of the eyebrows. That young man had unconsciously started a question of himself in the mind of the man whose business friendship he was seeking. How did that question run?
“What’s this? An oath! I’m surprised. How does this young fellow happen to swear? Perhaps I do not know as much of him as I ought to. I must look into his antecedents more closely. What kind of training has he had? What other bad habits has he had, and has he now? Yes, certainly I must look into this young man a little more before I trust him further.”
That is how the question ran in the old man’s mind. And nobody can tell whether he ever did completely trust the young fellow again or not. A subconscious inquiry was doubtless always present whenever that young man’s work was mentioned. No matter whether the old banker’s caution was justified; no matter whether this sensitiveness to the language which the young man used is reasonable or not—the young man needs all the respect and confidence he can possibly get. It is a good thing for him to have the admiration of those among whom he dwells, but their respect and confidence he must have. He cannot get along without that. Let him be clean of speech, therefore.
This growing prejudice against profanity is not unreasonable. Oaths indicate a poverty of language—of ideas. The thief, the burglar, the low-class criminal everywhere, expresses all his emotions by oaths. Are they angry? They swear. Surprised? They swear. Delighted? They swear. Every conception of the mind, every impulse of the blood, is expressed in the narrow and base vocabulary of profanity. So that the first thing an oath indicates is that he who uses it has limited intellectual resources, otherwise he would not employ so commonplace a method of expressing himself.
Then, too, we quite unconsciously connect the swearing man with the class which habitually employs profanity as the staple of its talk; and so he who uses an oath in our presence automatically sinks to a little lower level in our esteem. We cannot help it. We do not reason out the why and wherefore of it, but we know it is so.
Do not justify yourself by talking about Washington raging at Monmouth, or Paul Jones boarding the Serapis, or Erskine climaxing his greatest effort for justice with an appeal to the Father of the universe. These men all swore, and swore mightily on those occasions, but their oaths were oaths indeed.
Liberty or tyranny, life or death, justice or infamy, hung in the balance, and their oaths were prayers as earnest as ever ascended to the Throne. But that is no example for you, young man. If you will agree never to use an oath until you have the provocation of treason, and your country thereby endangered, as Washington had at Monmouth, there are a million chances to one that the Sacred Name will never pass your lips in vain.
I knew a man in the logging-camps twenty-eight years ago. He there acquired that lurid speech which was the language by which oxen, horses, and men themselves were in those times driven in those rude camps of rugged industry. My friend did not remain a logger. He became a lawyer and achieved some distinction and success, but he could not shake off the habit of swearing. He would find himself “ripping out an oath,” as the saying is, on the most surprising occasions—and they were brilliant oaths, splendid, flashing, coruscating oaths. His talk was a very tropic jungle of profanity.
So great were his abilities, so unceasing and intense his energies, and so upright his life, that he succeeded in spite of this defect. But this strong, fine man told me that this low habit of speech delayed his progress constantly. A few years ago, in a great crisis in his life, he was suddenly able to break the spell, and I think he is now prouder of his clean words and that mastery of himself which their use indicates than he is of any single success he has achieved or of any single honor he has won.
But the newspaper correspondent said the truest thing of all when he suggested that the really capable and apparently successful lawyer and politician, observed in the passing throng, had made a mistake in not having had the influence of woman in his life. There is positively nothing of such value to young men—yes, and to old men, too—as the chastening and powerful influence for good which women bring into their lives.
This is the universal opinion, too. All literature voices it. Wilhelm Meister and The Old Cattleman alike declare it. “There is no doubt about it,” exclaims the sage of Wolfville, “woman is a refinin’, an ennoblin’ influence. * * * She subdooes the reckless, subjoogates the rebellious, sobers the friv’lous, burns the ground from onder the indolent moccasins of that male she’s roped up in holy wedlock’s bonds an’ pints the way to a higher and happier life. And that’s whatever!” And The Old Cattleman even includes the raucous “Missis Rucker—as troo a lady as ever baked a biscuit.”
I should be the last man in the world to suggest that a young man should keep himself “tied to his mother’s apron-strings,” as is the saying of the people; and this is not what I mean when I again earnestly suggest that he keep as close to his mother’s opinions, teachings, and influence as the circumstances of life will permit.
The same thing, as already pointed out, may be said with reference to a man’s wife—even more strongly, if possible. But the conversation and opinion of any good woman are, as a practical matter and a measure of worldly wisdom, simply beyond price. She is wise with that sublimated reason called “woman’s instinct.”
There is, too, a human quality kept alive and growing in your character by woman’s association and influence that, as a matter of business power in meeting the world and its problems, is far and away beyond the value of the craft of the trickiest gamester of affairs, business, or politics who ever lived.
It is a saying of the farmer folks among whom I was raised that such and such a person “has principle,” meaning that the person so described is upright, trustworthy, judicious; that such a person’s attitude toward God and man and the world is correct.
Women “have principle” in the sense in which that term is used by the country people. They will keep you true to the order of things—to the constitution of the universe. They will do this not so much by preaching at you, as by the influence of their very personality.
The man who has gotten out of touch with womankind is not to be feared. He is to be pitied rather than feared, for he is out of harmony with the world—he is disarmed. No matter how large his mind and great his courage, he is neutralized for all natural, properly proportioned, and therefore enduring, effort.
I know a physician who, still young, has reached the head of his profession in this country. Sundays and the evenings with his wife and children are not enough for him; he takes Wednesday also. Precisely this same thing is done by the young captain of finance and affairs whom I described first in this paper as being a total abstainer. This is not done for the rest it gives these men; or, if it is done for that, it is not the greatest benefit they get out of it.
They come back to their work with clearer and stronger conceptions of human character and of truth in the abstract and the concrete, with which all men, no matter what their profession or business may be, must deal. They have a new tenderness, a larger tolerance, a broader vision of life and humanity, and therefore of their business, which is merely a phase of life and affairs.
This particular suggestion would appear to me to be unnecessary were it not for the fact that I see the increasing number of men who think that their business or profession or career is the important thing, and that in these the influence of woman is not essential. They are frightfully wrong who think so. I am trying to give practical suggestions to young men. Therefore I emphasize the practical value of the influence of women.
Remember that most great men have been discovered by women, and that nearly all of them have had her for their inspiration.
The value of woman’s society on character and intellect is above that of the conversation of the most learned and experienced men. It is the elemental and natural in her that give a perspective of life and its larger purposes that man alone cannot possibly secure.
The sum of practical wisdom for young men is to keep close to the elemental principles. I think Marcus Aurelius says, in his philosophy, “Let your principles be few and elemental.” And here again the Bible puts it even better than this glorious old Stoic, directing us “to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”
Above all things, do not lose your confidence in your fellow men. You are not a very great man if you are not great enough to stand betrayal. You would better have your confidence broken a dozen times a day than to fall into the attitude of universal suspicion.
Keep your sweet faith in our common humanity, do not excite your nerves and intellect by intoxicants, keep close to the saving and elevating influence of women, and then—go ahead and work as hard as you please, be as keen as you choose, fight as savagely as you like, and there is no power that can stay your conquest of the world; for the very nature of things themselves and the whole order of the universe are your allies and your servants. But do not get the impression that you are to be maudlinly “good.” Oh, no! that is as fatal almost as wickedness.